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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.

I wanted to read something to you. Somebody sent this to me. I thought it was pretty good. Because sometimes we make the mistake, looking at people and deciding whether or not they’re worthy of our time. We sometimes try to put a value up on people. Sometimes we do the kids. And we don’t sometimes see any value in them whatsoever. Let’s get them out of my sight. But you know, the only thing God has to make an adult out of is a child.

So if we didn’t have children, we couldn’t have adults. So don’t be too hard on the kids. They didn’t ask to be born. A dreamer. Let me tell you, Jesse hated this job. You would too. I imagine if you had it, Jesse was a chicken plucker. Now, I was a turkey killer. I have killed thousands and thousands and thousands of turkeys, but he did it with chicken. He stood on the line in a chicken factoring his spin his days, pulling the feathers off dead chicken so the rest of us wouldn’t have to.

He didn’t, like much of his job, but at the time Jesse didn’t think he was much of a person. His father was a brute of a man. His dad was actually thought to be mentally ill and treated Jesse rough all his life. Jesse’s older brother wasn’t much better. He was always picking on Jesse and beating him up. Yes, Jesse grew up in a very rough home in West Virginia. Life was anything but easy. And he thought life didn’t hold much hope for him.

That’s why he was standing in this chicken line doing a job that a few people wanted. In addition to all the rough treatment at home, it seems that Jesse was always sick. Sometimes it was real physical illness, but way too often it was all in his mind. He was a small child, skinny, meek. That sure didn’t help the situation any. When he started to school he was the object of every bully on the playground. He was a hypochondriac of the first order.

For Jesse, tomorrow was not always something to be looked forward to. But he had dreams. He wanted to be a ventriloquist. He found books on ventriloism and he practiced with sock puppets and saved his hard-earned money until he could get him a real of ventriloquist dummy. When he got old enough, he joined the military. And even though many of his hypochondriac symptoms persisted, the military did recognize his talents and put him in the entertainment court. That was when his world changed, he gained confidence.

He found that he had a talent for making people laugh and laughed so hard they often had tears in their eyes. Yes, little Jesse had found himself. You know folks, the history books are full of people who overcame a handicap to go on and make a success of themselves. But Jesse is one of the few I know of who didn’t overcome it. Instead, he used his paranoia to make a million dollars and become one of the best loved characters of all time in doing That little paranoid hypochondriac who transferred his nervousness into a successful career still holds the record for the most Emmys given in a single category.

The wonderful gifted, talented, and nervous comedian who brought us Barney Fife. You ever heard of Barney Fife? Jesse Don Knox. Evidently, he didn’t have much when he was growing up, and people didn’t see much value in the guy, and he didn’t think much of himself. It determined how people treated him because he didn’t see much value in him. It determined what he wanted to do and standing in the line, plucking feathers off of a chicken. But whenever I read that little story, I thought to myself, a lot of times we see people just that.

way, we put a value upon them. Well, they’re not, they’re worthy of our time. You know, somebody that doesn’t act like they’re all there. Somebody’s got all kinds of problems we don’t want to burden ourselves with. But it’s one thing to do it in the physical realm. But I think it’s a greater shame to do it in the spiritual realm. When we look at people and we don’t think God has much hope of every doing anything with them. So we want to tie to pick and choose who deserves all of our attention.

And I think sometimes we may overlook a lot of people. You see, God doesn’t see as man sees. Man looks upon the outward appearance, but the Lord looked up upon the heart. And as you study, even in the little old book of Colossians, there’s these big cities all over the place. And Paul had gone to these big cities. But there was one little potan town and somebody had started a church there and somebody had gotten to be the pastor, the paphras, and you probably never heard of him, but he had done a little work for the Lord.

And now he was over there as a companion trying to help and encourage even the great Apostle Paul. But as he sat around talking to the Apostle Paul about the problems that he had in his church and and they were many. That’s when Paul told him, says, look, you ought to see what I’m going through. And Paul began to whine and complain about his sorry lot in life and how that he’s serving the Lord and everything’s going wrong. Is that what he did?

No, he didn’t do that. There’s a lot of Christian whiners today, just whine about everything. You know, there’s these kids at one of the have some fun. So they got them some water guns and put some water in them. Drove a run on a hot July day and just looking for somebody, they could squirt. And they’d roll the windows down and when they’d come across some workers, they would just squirt them with the water guns and they’d look up and see where the rain was coming from.

They’d laugh and have a lot of fun at somebody else’s expense. Well, one day they did it. Instead of this one guy looking up, they’d look straight at the car and he saw the teenagers. But the light changed and the car had to stop. So the guy took off after them and they rolled up the windows scared for their life because this big burly guy was coming after them all because they squirted him with a water gun. They rolled up the windows and another car had pulled up behind him and the man’s hollering at the kids and the kids are in the car scared to death And this man just got out of his car, walked up to this great big, big, burly man, and he says, you sissy.

They squirted you with a water gun on a hot, July day. And you’re whining about that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. And he bowed his head and he walked back to where he was. Over a little drop of water. Why? You’d be surprised what Christians do today. Wine, wine, wine, and here’s the great apostle Paul that God had used to, you know, shake the known world at that time. And then you have people that, wine over nothing, complain over nothing because you didn’t get your own way on something or over some little bitty thing.

I want you to take your Bible, look and just hold your place here, Colossians were coming right to it really early are but look there in the book of Acts chapter 17 Acts and chapter 17 and you’ll notice in Acts chapter 17 look at verse 6 in verse 6 and when they found them not they grew Jason and certain brethren until the rulers of the city crying these that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. These that have turned the world upside down.

Well, I guess you can say they finally got the culprit. They nailed this guy. I guess the devil was as happy as happy can get. Look there in Acts chapter 28. And look at another verse with me. Acts chapter 28. Look there in verse 30 where it says, And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house and received all that came in unto him. I bet the devil thought, Buddy, I got him now. What can he do in, he turned the world upside down because he had his freedom.

He could go here, he could go there, but I got him now. So he had him in prison. You know one thing that Paul could do while he was in prison, he could pray and he could write. He could pray and he could write. You see, Paul just did what he could do. A lot of people, if they don’t get to be what they want to be and do what they want to do, I’m not going to do anything at all.

I mean, it’s all about me. It’s whatever I want. So to serve the Lord faithfully with what you have, where you have of whatever God gives to you, don’t be filled with envy and jealousy of how God uses somebody else. There’s a God in heaven that notices whiners. And if you read the book of Corinthians where it talks about they murmured, they murmured and many of them fell in the wilderness because of complaining. You know sometimes it’s so easy for a man to complain, the wife to complain.

Nothing’s ever right. Always complaining. And then you see what God has done in the lives of somebody else. You know what Paul did, and we’ll just kind of jump the gun just a tad. Go back to the book of Colossians. Back here in Colossians, it says in verse 3, we give thanks. We give thanks. And it didn’t matter that Paul was in prison, and it didn’t matter about all the problems that this church was having, and they were having some.

But he was also giving thanks for something. He was given thanks to God, and as it says in verse 4, since we heard of your faith. You see, when you focus upon the Lord and you focus upon others, you don’t see all of your personal problems so easy. It keeps you from being a whiner. When you see what somebody else is going through, or how God is blessing somebody else, and begin to pray for them. A lot of people are having a rough time.

Pray for one another. Now I want you to kind of follow with me just a little bit there. You see there in verse 1, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timotheus, our brother. And he says, Paul, I believe that you need to understand that he says, Paul an apostle. Paul an apostle. You see, being an apostle was his authority given to him by God to deal with this situation and that his advice that he was going to give, you need to listen up.

Because this isn’t just anybody. This is Paul, the apostle, one called by God and given to him a word from God to give to you and you better listen to what he has to say. So Paul had the authority to address the situation. You see, everybody needs to have what we call a canon, canonicity of the scriptures. Means a straight edge, something to judge by. What’s right? What’s wrong? ever play softball, baseball. I loved the game. I don’t like to get hurt.

I was up in Minnesota one time and we had a whole bunch of kids that we took to camp in northern Minnesota from Colorado at the place in Dora Lake. I was the pitcher and I pitched the ball and those guys were doing everything in their power to take me out of the game. I thought they’re trying to hit me with the ball When they hit that ball, it was like line drives right at me. This is softball. Friendly hit again.

So sometimes, you know, I was getting a little bit older. I couldn’t move quite as fast. They hit me in the leg. They hit me in the side. They liked it got me in the head. But then I got to get up to bat. And then when I got up to bat, I was running around first. around first. I’m moving on. Between second, first base and second base, I’m halfway there. They didn’t throw the ball at first base. They didn’t throw the ball at second base.

They threw the ball at me and hit me right upside the head and knocked me down on the ground. And, oh, we’re so sorry, we’re so sorry. Do I have a glove? Am I on your team? It didn’t matter. They took me out of the game, but we still won the game. The devil is going to try to take you out of the game. Doesn’t want you to play, but remember this. When you play a game of softball, do you think it’s better if you call your own balls and strikes on yourself?

Or is it better to have somebody that’s got a keen eye, knows the game well, and will be honest and fair? Do you think if I had to call the balls and strikes on myself that I would be fair and balanced. Or may I be maybe a little prejudiced. So you need somebody in your life that called the shots to say whether it’s in or out, whether it’s right or wrong. You see, everybody needs an umpire in their life to say whether or not, did you go over the boundary or are you standing inside of the line?

You see, there’s always people who like to live close to the edge and sometimes they lose their discernment and they play a dangerous game. So between you and I, the Apostle Paul was like an umpire. He had great spiritual discernment. You and I now have the Holy Spirit living within us. And if you look down there in verse 80 says, who hath also declared unto us your love in the Spirit? So there’s some things that were being done by these people in Colossos that the Holy Spirit was doing, not only bringing to their understanding about sin, righteousness and judgment, but also about the Christian life.

Somebody that says, this is right and this is wrong. Another thing, let me just kind of mention this to you. because you see the devil thinks he has finally got Paul in checkmate. Now I love, oh I used to, love to play chess and you know the goal of playing chess is to get the other person in checkmate. What does that mean to be in checkmate? You can’t move, you can’t move. In our life you’d be surprised that there is a real-life devil that wants to put you and I in checkmate.

And when we fear that we’re in checkmate and we can’t move, we panic. It really loads us down with a lot of stress burdened upon our shoulders and we don’t know how we’re going to get out of something. But let me just show you this one verse I think is important for you to see. Look there in the book of 1 Corinthians and chapter 10. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and look there in verse 13. It’s good for you to know this.

If you will walk with the Lord and serve the Lord, there’s a promise that God has made. In verse 13, there have no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. It’s common. Nobody knows what I’m going through. No, just everybody else in the whole world. But God God is what? God is faithful. Now get this. Who will not allow you, permit you, suffered you to be tempted above that you’re able, but will with the temptation also make a way and you ought to underline that little word, escape.

In other words, the devil cannot put me in checkmate. Unless God wants it, that’s fine. As long as I do what I’m supposed to do, I believe I can accomplish the will of God for my life. And I don’t have to worry about there’s a problem coming down the road that I can’t handle. I’ll be in checkmate. There’s something that I can’t do. I always believe between men God. I can do anything. And as long as I believe that, I’m not afraid to step forward, to try something, to do something.

You see, I believe these verses in the Bible is true. You need to believe that they’re true. But there will be times in your life when you’re, you’re swear up and down. I’m in checkmate. Put your way out. And you’re gonna have a pity party for yourself. And whan, whan, whan. No, because you got your confidence in the Lord. And learn to trust the Lord. Now go back to the book of Colossians. And notice, And I know that many of you have done this.

We drive down the highway. We daydream a lot. Play the radio. The music’s fast. You drive fast. Just moving along. And you’d be surprised. You’d be going 10, 15, 20 miles over the speed limit and not even know it. And lo and behold, you look down there and there’s a cop car. And without even thinking you slam on the bracelet. And hope you didn’t see anything. Did you know that you can… lose control because you see you’re not paying attention to everything that’s going on and you forget about how fast you’re going and that caught down there is a reminder that you may be going over the limit and so you don’t have the the peace of mind the confidence to enjoy the ride because you’re always afraid that you know what you could do, they even make cars now with a thing called cruise control.

Did you know if you put it on 60, chances are you won’t go 65. And then you can just relax and just let it ride and you ain’t got to worry about it. You can listen to the radio, you still can go the same speed. You can think about a thousand things, but you still couldn’t same speed. But a lot of people say they don’t realize your peace of mind and joy is not going to be because I’m trusting the weight of my foot upon the pedal.

I’m trusting that cruise control to regulate. You and I would have greater peace and joy in our life when we trust in the Lord to regulate our life. You see that’s what he’s talking about when he says about peace and grace unto you. But peace and grace unto you is because of something. Look there what he says in verse 2, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossians. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus You see the word saints and to the saints and Faithful brethren so you can be a saint and Not be a faithful brethren, but if you are a faithful brethren you are a saint So it’s to those that are saints because you’ve been made pure and holy by the blood of Christ because you trusted the Lord But just because you are a saint of the

Lord doesn’t mean you are a faithful brethren. So it’s a letter written to both, to the saints, to those that are faithful saints. Every time I preach, I know that I’m talking to different classes of people in the Lord. Those that not only have trusted Christ as Savior, but there’s some of God’s people, believe it or not, that are totally rebellious in their heart. They’re They’re not right with the Lord. You can be setting in the church with your Bible open and not be right.

Then you have those that are kind of like riding a fence. Then you have those that are on fire for the Lord. Is that’s why God says in the book of Revelation, He says, some of you are hot and some of you are cold, but He says those that are lukewarm, He says, you make me sick. Either be hot or be cold, But lukewarm makes God sick. Now, every time I preach, I’m preaching to those three classes of people.

I would like to believe that everybody who knowsapterlord is not only sane, but they’re faithful. But then sometimes you have lost people. And they come in all classes. There’s those that want to hear. There’s those that don’t. There’s people that are searching for the things of God, and there’s those that don’t. Some people want answers and some don’t. So it makes the Lord’s work very interesting. Been a pastor’s a lot of fun. It is not boring that for sure.

But there’s a few things that I want to just mention to you real quick. And that is there’s these three main things that I had mentioned to you earlier. You see, in this book, you’re talking about people who love ceremonies. You know the ones that love to celebrate certain days and certain months and certain years, and they almost worship things like that. That’s all they think about. Well, that could be all right. I’ll remember the day that I graduated from Florida Bible College.

My aunt and uncle that I lived with in Franklin, Virginia, they couldn’t believe that I was going to graduate. They thought I’d be dead by then. I lived with them when I also ran away and was going to run off the Africa. They’re the ones that left me++++ the side of the road one day and anyway times have changed. I’ve gotten a little older and a little bit more mature. They wanted to come down and see this miracle. I’m graduating from Florida Bible.

My mom came down. My sister, they had to come down because this was a great moment. This has never happened to Yankee before. I’m twin. M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M

M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M finished.

I started, but I didn’t know how long I was going to school. Nobody ever told me how long you’re supposed to go. I didn’t know how many credits I was supposed to have, hours, I didn’t understand none of this stuff. I know here I am, educate me, and then when I am through, let me go. And I didn’t know I had to have a high school diploma. Nobody told me that. All kinds of things happened, but loving the ceremony, that was a wonderful But there are some people who love that.

They thrive for that. Because it’s really all about them and what they get. They love the accolades of people thinking that, look, look what I have done. And I’ll have to admit, I was a little proud at that time. But I found out that little piece of paper didn’t get the job done. I had to go to work now. It wasn’t the ending of something, it was the beginning of something. Anybody that I have a beginning, at one year I was blackballed in two denominations.

What a wonderful heritage. You see, there’s the ceremony, and that’s what the Judaizers were all about, and they were kind of mixing in some of this stuff. And then you have those that are steeped into the deep, dark mysteries. And they wanna go through these things. But just look here right quick in the book of Colossians. And look in chapter two. You see what he says in verse 16. Verse 16 says, Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of a holy day or of a new moon or the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.

In other words, there’s people who do certain things and they think they’re more spiritual than everybody else because I have insight. I’m more godly and I’m more holier than you are because, see, I observe all these things. Well, that’s all about them. They become bitter and critical of other people who don’t do exactly like they do and you have to be careful. 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 two 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 by the line 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 Bibleline 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 six o’clock on Sunday evening. Live 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. Friend, 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.