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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the Internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

God is God and God is perfect. God can make no mistakes. God does nothing wrong. You just may not see it. And sometimes the timing just seemed like it’s way off. And that’s why there’s a verse in Psalms, the Lord helped me speedily. Speedily. It means like right now Lord I need help. If you haven’t been there you will. Just wait you will. The Lord will see to it that sooner or later he He pulls all the rugs after Monday.

Even he turned off all the lights and he locks all the doors and all four walls sorts moving in on you. And it seemed like the ceiling is like brass and you can’t get through. And then lo and behold, there’s a ray of light. And you look down that long, dark, continental, and there’s a ray of light and you get closer and it’s a gorilla with a flashlight. And you think just when it’s going to be deliverance, you’re all excited.

And then it turns ugly again. And you say, well, I thought, I don’t know if I can go on. Yes, you can. God, grace is sufficient. That’s what he said. But you know, you can’t believe anything. He says, can you? Or can you? You can believe what the Lord says. Now, take your Bible and turn to Psalms in chapter 38. Psalms 38. The 38th Psalm. Psalms 38. they’re in verse one, in verse one. Remember guilt, the opposite of forgiveness.

Let me just give you this little point here so that you understand. Remember all of us are sinners and there is a God in heaven who is the judge. So whenever Christ died on the cross, He paid for all the sins of all the world and when you accept that payment, the God of the world, the judge declared you innocent, declared you righteous. No sin against you forgiven. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? Now sometimes we wonder why do I have to use 1 John 1-9?

That if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin. Well, you may not thought I’ve already been forgiven. He is faithful and just to forgive of us have all sins and cleansed from all unrighteousness. So why have I got to confess again if I’ve already been forgiven? Well, we’re talking about somebody different now. For example, if I sinned against Peter Amato, I can go to Peter Amato and Peter Amato can forgive me.

Isn’t that wonderful? Or why didn’t I go to you? Cause I didn’t sin to get you, I sinned against him. Now, if I was to sin against Steve, should I go to Peter, or should I go to Steve? Go to Steve. And I asked him, I wronged you, and Steve, will you forgive me? And Steve can forgive me. Well, see, he forgave me. Then he forgave me. And as I lived long enough, I probably would be dull eventually. So would you forgive me?

Will you forgive me? Will you forgive me? Have you ever asked different people to forgive you? Yeah. See, whenever you were lost and you needed to be saved, it was the God of the universe, the judge, that said in the court of law, that says you were guilty, and Christ made the payment for your sins, and so you accepted God, the judge for goodness. Now see, he’s my father. I don’t face the judge. I have to deal with my father.

And so as I live my Christian life, I sin, sometimes against my father. So I need to go to my father. Now if I sin against my wife, I should go to my wife. Doesn’t the Bible teach somewhere? Forgiving one another? Well, I’ve already been forgiven, so I don’t have to ask anybody else. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If I sin against somebody else, I should ask that person if I sin against you. I should ask you. But see, first John 1 9, that’s between me and my father.

My father. See, it’s not the judge, it’s my father. And then I might send against James. James, if I send against James, then I should ask James to forgive me because I send against him. So see, first John 1-9 is not for salvation. First John 1-9 is not so that I can get to heaven eventually and keep the, no, it’s because I send against my father. And he says that your joy may be full, talking about the fellowship with our father.

So that’s why you’ll see in different places, it talks about God, the judge, or God. And then he said, and our Father, it’s like there’s different ones. So now as a child of God, I may wrong my Father. So there is a guilt that in your life, because you’ve wronged your Father and the joy of your salvation is not the way it ought to be. And the guilt weighs upon your shoulder. Now we know that David was a man after God’s own heart.

And so he had gone for about a year, you know, since his little shenanigans, you know. Nobody knows. There was a God in heaven and knew. And look in verse one, oh Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. And you ought to underline these three words for thine arrows. Thine arrows stick fast in me. You see, there is a convicting of the Holy Spirit, just like little arrows, and they will not let you rest.

They will not let you sleep. They will not let you enjoy. And they will be like something just jabbing you and keeping you. That’s why I used to talk about, you know, when somebody is doing something wrong and they refuse to get it correct and to pray a hedge of thorns around them so that they quickly are hurt or pricked and get back to the Lord. It’s not because you want them to suffer. You want them to get back to the Lord because you want them to have the joy of the Lord.

Look what he’s saying in verse three, there is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger. Neither is there any rest in my bones because of my what? And you are underlined this. See whenever you walk away from the Lord and you don’t serve the Lord, there’s a price to pay It’s gonna produce a guilt upon you and when the Lord talks about I’ll put a yoke of iron upon your neck until it destroys you This is what he’s talking about If there’s not a literal yoke of iron that he’s how many people have you seen with a yoke of iron on their shoulders?

You haven’t seen nobody with it yet But there is the weight of the guilt of the sin that produces that depression and they destroy themselves. And so he says here in verse 4, For mine iniquities are gone over my head. As a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my what? My foolishness. You see these are results consequences because of the guilt that can take place because of the sin And so between you and your heavenly Father the Holy Spirit is at work You see he is a great comforter when you’re obedient and a great discomfort when you’re disobedient Understand the difference now go back down here and just look at this verse verse 17 For I am ready to halt, stop, and my sorrow is continually before me.

For I will declare my iniquity,” and you are on the line these words. There’s nothing wrong with the Christian being sorry for his sin. You ought to be sorry for the things you do against your heavenly Father and the things that you may do against God’s children. You’re not free to do whatever you want like it doesn’t really matter. It does matter all of it’s important So let me read that verse to you again for I will declare my iniquity.

I will be sorry for my sin so Whenever a Christian sins against the Lord. What should you do? first John 1 9 And 1 John 1, 9 says what? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleansse from all in righteousness. That’s because can you and I still sin against our Father? See, He hasn’t always been my Father. He’s only been my Father since I trust Christ as my Savior and I was born in the God’s family.

Now I sin against my Father. And my Father gets upset. And my father is going to chase and discipline me. Look there in the 32nd Psalm, the 32nd Psalms. Just turn back to you left a couple of pages there. Psalms 32. And you’ll notice there in verse one, where he said, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Now we know where this is talking about in Romans chapter four. You’ll find that verse mentioned. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputed not iniquity, in whose spirit there is no God.

In other words, where God does not take a man’s sins and put it to his account. This is taught in the Old Testament. This is wonderful. I preached this sermon not long ago on that, but now looking verse three. Now we know that David had sinned with Bathsheba and he had also had Uriah killed. And God knew he told Nathan. Nathan the prophet came to see him and he says, ah, thou art the man. And he says, when I kept silent, my bones wacked all through my roaring all the day long.

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned unto the drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin, that’s the act. Onto thee and mine iniquity, my sinful motive. Have I not hid? I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. You can confess the deed and yet not take blame for it.” You ever confessed to something? Well, I might have said that and I said that, yeah, but it wasn’t my fault.

That’s a good confession, isn’t it? Oh, yeah, I hit her alright, but she made me. Okay, maybe I killed him, but it’s wrong because I loved him. You see, when you always find a reason why you did the wrong and try to justify the wrong, you might have just shut up. Confess, you ain’t confess nothing. Confessing is when you take responsibility for your action. I did it. It was wrong. End of story. And don’t use other the peoples as a blame for it or an excuse.

Let them be responsible for them and you be responsible for you. I think you’ll come out a little bit better that way. Now, while we’re right here, let’s just close it with this over here. Looking Psalms 51, Psalms 51, and look down there in verse 5. This is where David in confessing to the Lord more about what did say, Behold, I was shaping in iniquity, and in sin did my mother concede me, no means I was born with a sinful nature.

Behold, thou desire’s truth inward part, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to no wisdom. Purge me with hissap, that I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hath broken may rejoice. Wash me and I shall be whiter than.” See, this is to the believer. This is really to the believer. I’d die face from my sin and brought out all my iniquities, creating me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. See, this isn’t the Old Testament. Holy Spirit would come on to do a job and then leave. But in the New Testament, see, the Holy Spirit would come and indwell you and never leave. So you never had to worry about it. I’d never have to pray, Lord, don’t take your Holy Spirit away from me. I don’t have to worry about that. That’s the difference between in dispensation.

He says here in verse 12, restore unto me, and you ought to underline this, joy of thy salvation. So you hadn’t lost salvation, but you sure lost joy. And when you lose joy, that’s what causes the depression. Are there a lot of people depressed in this whole world? Can it happen to Christians? Can Christians get depressed? Did you know that God had to do what he did to Joshua and promising him right up front? He said, as I was with Moses, so shall I be with you.

Be there for very strong and very courageous. Because, see, when you’re not filled with courage, you have all the fears that take over and cause you to be depressed, to be down. And it takes away your joy of having faith in the Lord. You’re afraid to step out, afraid to try something. Listen, I have no clue how the new venture of the Bibleline is to… I don’t know how it’s going to go. But I’m willing to see. I know it will not go if we don’t do something.

But I know that might, if we do. So my hope is in the Lord. It’s not in people, it’s not anything else. I don’t know. All I know is it, man, it’s a wonderful walk with the Lord. To live by faith, trusting Him. To see what God’s going to do. Sometimes you want the fruit, but you don’t want to get out on the limb. There’s still a little fire in the gut. I’m getting older, but I’m not that old, not yet.

Let me go down one of these days, but I’m not down yet. I enjoy serving the Lord. And he says here in verse 13, then, then, then. Because when you have the joy, then, well, I teach transgressors, highways, and sinners shall be converted into the, because I believe God will use me. If you feel like things have dried up and something’s not right in your life, It could be because there is sin in your life and the guilt is destroying your will.

It causes great depression. He says deliver me from blood guiltiness. Oh, God, thou God of my salvation and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. Because see, whenever things are not right, it takes away the joy, the singing, the peace of mine. And he says in verse 15, oh Lord, open thou mine lips, and my mouth shall praise, shall forth thy praise, for thou desire not sacrifice, else what I would have given. Thou delight if not in burnt offerings, God didn’t want to sacrifice.

God wants you. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. Oh God, thou will not despise. See that’s what God’s after. And And so God has designed life in such a way that if you get so burdened down that you become so depressed that could so easily be cured. Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you. And if you don’t do it, the weight of the problems and the burdens and the cares and the guilt of not doing it will destroy you.

And you will blame everybody but yourself. You will not look in the mirror and you say, it’s my fault. Because God was sufficient. God was enough. I just didn’t do it like God says I should have done. Remember, we have an advantage over the world. We have a perfect God. Isn’t that wonderful to know? We have a perfect God. So none of us in any time in our life can find any fault with God. So all the fault must be with everybody else, because they can’t be with Him, because He doesn’t make mistakes.

He doesn’t do anything wrong. What can you blame Him for that went wrong in your life? There’s all kinds of things you can blame, but God isn’t one of them. Now, we have a perfect book. a perfect God and a perfect book. And the Bible says the testimonies of the Lord are true, making wise the simple. And Godoultry is perfect. It’s holy. It’s sweeter than honey. All these wonderful things about the Word of God. And you and I are supposed to believe that this perfect God that gave us a perfect book has a perfect plan for our life.

I’m supposed to believe that. Not just a good one, not just an accept, but a perfect will for my life. That you may know what is a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That’s what it says. I used to take those three words, good and acceptable and perfect will of God, take the G from good and the acceptable and the A and the P and G, P and gap. And I believe that in this world, the perfect will of God is for us to fill the gap between God and man, so that God can use us to reach others.

And so all of the problems that we have, as I mentioned, was to prepare you for greater things, so that God can use you in more areas. Isn’t that wonderful to know? Well, we’re going to talk a little bit more about this subject of… What causes depression? Now some of the stories you’ve heard before, but we’re gonna look at it from the point of view of the emotions that are found in the lives of these individuals. Because we are emotional people.

We have feelings. We react. We respond. Because of what we see and what we hear, what we’re going through, what we feel. And a lot of God’s children do not have the patience that they need. Ooh, I hate sometimes things not working out the way I want it to. And I really despise getting behind a slow driver on the highway. Especially when they ought to know I’ve got things to do and places to go. And it seemed like they’re in no hurry at all.

And one of these days I just felt like just laying on the horn as I passed by asked by and looking at them, and as soon as I did, I know it’s going to be, there’s called Mr. Paulson. You know, or there goes Steve, there goes Steve, you know, because I’m going to be in a hurry and I’m going to see somebody else and I think, you know what, why are they going so slow? Some people have patience in this world and I’m not one of them.

I want things now. So I get very frustrated, angry quick. And Betty would just sit there and she’d just, nothing just get mad once in a while. She hardly ever gets mad at anything or anybody. Nothing. Yeah. Makes me bite my tongue. But anyway, as we’re moving right along, last week we spoke on the guilt, greed and anger, hatred, and being perfect in how it can really cause you a lot of problems and emotion and depression because we get down so easily, so quickly.

But a lot of it has to do with our perspective on life, what we expect and what doesn’t happen. And we don’t know how to handle this emptiness, the void, the shortness of getting what we want. I used to always talk to the people, you know, have a dream! You heard that guy, have a dream! I had a dream. And my dream, turn it to a nightmare. And God says in His Word, be careful of those dreamers who say, God have said, and God said, I didn’t say that.

And God’s going to have to deal with those dreamers. It’s good to dream if it’s good dreams. It’s about the right thing, about what the will of God is and the right that you want to do. But a lot of times we don’t. We don’t do that. But anyway, there’s several other emotions that we have and that’s worry and jealousy. Worry and jealousy. Just those two little words I want to just deal with tonight. Because I want you to see in the lives of individuals what it does to them.

See if you could study the Bible and you studied the characters in the Bible, you’ll find they were real people who really had responsibilities and what their decisions was and what they did and the results. So as you study the Old Testament in Sunday’s school, it was always the positive things. And David Kivolaya, dang them in the lion’s den, the three Hebrew children. You know, good stories that always is positive and on the up and the up. But there’s seldom that we look at the same men later and study how they were thinking.

What caused them to be so down and discouraged and so depressed. So we’re looking at a little bit of that here tonight. So take your Bible and turn to 1 Samuel chapter 16. First Samuel and chapter chapter 16. First Samuel chapter 16 and I want you to look there in verse 14. First Samuel chapter 16 and verse 14. Everyone’s heard the story of David and how he, you know, took care of Goliath. Well, that’s a good story and I like that story and I’m going to preach on it one of these days.

Well, I have many times but I want you to notice here in verse 14, but the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. Now many times it’s just if the Lord takes his hand off of you, you’d be surprised at the devastation they can take place. What can happen to you and what God permits to happen to you when God takes his hand off of you? You have no idea how protected you are, how protected I am because the hand of the Lord is upon us.

But you realize if God took his hand off of us, how quickly we would sink, stumble, fall, if God removed that little fence of protection around us, we are not as strong as we think. Remember, last week we talked about Moses. And Moses says, Lord, I do not want to see my wickedness. No, Lord, I don’t want to see how bad I really am because Moses was a perfectionist. He won everything right. And he couldn’t do everything right. And because he couldn’t, he just lose his his temper and get mad and say things he shouldn’t have said, did things that he shouldn’t have done.

Did he cost him? Oh, it cost him. Cost him dearly. But anyway, he makes a statement here, that Saul was beginning to drift away from the Lord. God told Saul, I have reached down and got ahold of you, and I made you the king. I chose you. And he says, when thou was little and thine own eyes I exalted you. But now he’s gotten to the place where he no longer wants to listen to God. He’s becoming too big for his britches.

So his heart begins to stray from the love of the Lord. And God knows this. You see, they were able to do certain things because the Spirit of God would come upon them. And then the Bible says that the Holy Spirit would leave them. Now that doesn’t mean they lost salvation, but they did lose the joy of their salvation and that they were like put on a shelf and not used by God the way God wanted to. So anyway, because of his problem, the Bible says here in verse 15, Saul’s servant said unto him, Behold, now an evil spirit from God, troubleth thee, it troubleth thee.

Remember this, Satan likes to fish in troubled waters. Satan likes to fish in troubled waters. When he can find a troubled soul, an emotional wreck, somebody’s ready for their little breakdown. They can’t take anymore. When you’re all troubled, that’s when the devil really likes to go fishing because he’s going to catch you. It’s so easy for him to catch. And then he can lead you and guide you because you She works off of emotions. See what stabilizes a Christian is whenever he is moved and guided by facts that don’t move.

Things that don’t change. The rock of the Word of God. The Lord that doesn’t move. The Word that is solid. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll-free 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friends, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.