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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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. Now I have a little thing here right before number four is don’t make your confession worse than it is, but you ought to make it as bad as it is. And then you ask for something. Don’t just talk, talk unto the Lord, ask Him for all the things that you want.

He’d like to hear a few comments first like compliments. The Lord loves praise. He loves you to brag on Him. Now I didn’t know this all at once. One of the prayers that I prayed that I would not do it today. God knows I was ignorant. I was in Shreveport, Louisiana, and I’m behind the house. And I prayed and I said, God, tell me what you want me to do. And I said things that I shouldn’t have said. It was just, you know, I was mad at God.

I just, I’m mad. But God overlooked some things. And I’m so glad, you know, God is such a patient God. And He loves us. And we’re His children and He wants us to come to Him. He wants us to talk to Him. But look Look at the next thing I have here. Number four, you ask. Things we want for ourselves have a good attitude toward people as you meet people. And things that we want for others. These are not bad things.

God says, make your supplications known. Talk to the Lord. And then also in His name, it means for His honor and it means for His glory. Because you see, whatever you ask God for, if it’s not for His honor and for His glory, maybe you don’t need it. But whatever it is, because you want to serve Him and you want to honor Him. And so you need to examine your life and see whether or not. Is there any reason why God would not answer my prayer?

Because if prayer works and it does work, but it works better when you have a clean heart, when your motors are pure, and you want to do right because you want God to be pleased with you. You see, I have three children. I got one in heaven and two down here. But I want in my children to do right, but not because, well, you know, my image. I’m the preacher and you’re supposed to do right. You’re the preacher’s kids.

And I want them to do right because they’re God’s child, not because of my image. I want them to do right because I want God to bless them. I want them to, when they get to heaven, to be rewarded by the Lord. You see, that’s what I want. That’s what I desire. So if you understand a few things, it kind of helps you a little bit. Look at a few things here. I want you to see that. Number one, Jonathan Edwards preached.

And this is what I read about him is, because I read about, you know, books on these guys. And I want to know what makes them tick. And he preached men cried and clung to columns of the church for fear that they would slide into eternity. Now, buddy, you must be doing some kind of preaching. I don’t know anything about his message that much, except that he scared people to death. Some of these guys used to paint a picture of hell that the people would literally cry and scream that they didn’t want to go there.

I remember hearing a guy one time, he preached a sermon and it scared people so bad that they They, they, they wept. They, they fell on their faces right where they were and just cried. Because they didn’t want to go to hell. They didn’t want their loved ones to go to hell. Because today, you know, all we hear is this love Jesus. Neverbody best be kind one to another. Pay your debts, do it right. But you know, people don’t need to get saved if there’s no hell.

And a lot of people don’t want to talk about hell. I have no problem with anybody and they don’t have any problem with me. If I just say, you know, God hates sin. But if I name a sin, now you’ve gone too far. You just can’t tell people what it is. Name a sin. Because somebody sitting there is guilty. And most times you can’t talk or name a sin that somebody’s not guilty of. But they don’t mind if you talk about sin, just don’t name any sins, because then I don’t have to make any corrections or changes and all that, you know.

And then if you preach a does, then they get mad and quit the church. You say they would never do that. All right. As we’re moving right along here, number two, Edward Payson prayed until grooves were worn in the floor by his knees. Martin Luther rose before his four o’clock every morning to pray. Dr. Curtis Hudson heard about that, and he says, if he can do it, I can do it. So he’d get up at 4 o’clock. Then he heard about the milkman that got up at 3.30 in the morning.

He said, if he can start his job, my job is more important than a milkman. So he got up at 3.30. Of course, in the afternoon, he was wiped out. And then he found out these guys didn’t go to bed until about 7 o’clock at night. And he was going to bed about midnight. So it’s best not to try to find out and do exactly what somebody else does because you don’t know the whole story. Find out what works for you.

Don’t say, well, Peter Amato prays three hours every morning. Well, that’s what he does. That’s what I got to know you don’t. Find out what makes it work for you. You spend time between you and the Lord and get it settled. Another man by the name of David Brainerd. Now he died when he was about 27 years old. He wasn’t a no fella. He went to the Indian, laid many times in the snow and prayed until the snow melted beneath him.

He went to the Indians. John Welch was a son-in-law of John Knox. He says, give me Scotland, or I die. He counted that day he’ll spend that he did not spend seven or eight hours in prayer. I think, what in the world did you do with the rest of the time? Did you sleep and eat? Meet people? Some people can do certain things that you cannot do. And God has laid his hand upon certain people to do certain things.

You find out what it is God wants you to do. But whatever it is, do it. Fulfill the ministry that God’s given to you. I have a little statement here about a man named Mr. Massey. When I came from Louisiana with Betty and two kids and everything we owned, packed in a big old Buick trunkless pack. We had mattresses and tricycles on the top of the car. I run a big old wire after the thing on top of it.

It was a house at 18 Wheeler. And I didn’t have a spare tire and I had a little slit in the back in the tire. And I just knew that thing was not going to make it, but it made it. I got back to Georgia from Louisiana. I had $15 in my pocket. went to her mom and dad’s and says, here’s your daughter and the kids, I’m going to Bible school. I’ll be back and get them when I find a job and so forth.

And so they were just still in death to get the kid, you know, and Betty back. And they didn’t care if I left, but that meant they were just got with them. I said, I’m on my way to Bible college. He says, Jan, before you go, he says, I want you to go see a man named Mr. Massey. All right. I said, why don’t you want me to go say, he said, I just want him to have prayer for you.

I said, okay, right. So we went out into the the boonies. I mean, it was out on a farm. No hard nobody run, but went up to this little farmhouse. And we walked inside. And he introduced me to this giant of a man. His hand was huge. And he worked on a farm. And I guess that makes Everything grow. You know, you milk all day long. You throw that in a thing of a big and, you know, he was a man, man.

So he, uh, took my hand and swallowed it up, you know, introduced me to this guy, Mr. Massey. And, um, he says, uh, my father, he said, Yankee’s going to Bible college, and he needs prayer. They said, well, then let’s stop John and get her done. So I’m still standing there, and now that sudden he dropped to his knees in front of the couch and Mr. Jackson got on his knees and well I don’t do that. No, I didn’t.

They got on their knees and it wasn’t long. Mr. Massey, he just, oh God, blast this man. I mean, this is way praying, like I just did it. That’s what he did. I mean, it’s like nobody’s here just to him and God. And so scared me to be able to jump down and close my eyes. And he prayed for me. He prayed for me like I’ve never heard anybody ever pray in my life. This whole farmer. He wasn’t a preacher.

He was an amisionaire. He was just a farmer. But he knew how to get ahold of God. And it was like he reached up there and got ahold of God and brought him down into that living room. And he prayed and talked to him like he was right there. And it scared me. I’d never been in a situation like this. If he was there, I wanted to see him. I literally opened my eyes and I paid to see. He’s got to be in here.

I’ve never heard this before in my life. Remember, I never saw my mom and dad enter church. I never saw anybody have prayer like this. This was new to me. This is our first time. And I closed my eyes again and that guy prayed for me. God put a hedge of bottom, Lord, make sure that the devil doesn’t do this and I never hurt stuff. But buddy, when he got through. And he says, and, hey man, but when I got up, I felt like Superman.

There’s nothing that can happen to me. I am totally protected. I had a man go to the throne of grace and pray a hedge of protection about me. Man I felt great. I felt confident. I felt bold. It lasted about two weeks. then everything fell apart. I was down in the pits. Seemed like nothing was going right. All the problems. And then next thing you know, I go to Florida Bible College. At that time I was going to Tennessee Temple.

Went down to Florida Bible College and my kids got sick. I lost my job. I got in my car. I got to Perry, Georgia. And the car blew up on me. And I had to get on up there with Betty and the kids. Everything was going wrong. It was right when the exams were supposed to be taken. Nothing happened right. Everything seemed to go wrong in my life. I thought, it wasn’t this bad until I decided to assert the Lord.

And then it’s like, oh hell broke loose. The devil and everything that could possibly go wrong seemed like it was happening. And so I got back up there, Georgia, not told that he’s dead. I says, can we go back and see this guy named Mr. Massey? So let’s go. We went back to Mr. Masson and he said, well how things going? I didn’t want to tell him how everything was going. I said, I just need prayer. He said, let’s get her done.

This time I didn’t have to wait. I was, I, I write her with him and he prayed for me. And then after it was all over, I thought nothing matters. All the heartaches, all the problems, the breakdowns, the kids getting sick, no hospital insurance, no money, no nothing. But I knew that I have a God that answers prayer. And I don’t know how God you’re going to do this, but I believe he will. And you’d be surprised what that can do for you, the confidence that it builds inside of you.

So I decided I’m going to learn to pray. And I got back down and everything wasn’t saw all of a sudden. And another time then, one night I went out behind the house. And we had some clothes lines out there. The kids were in the hospital with Barnacle pneumonia, both of them sick and I had no money. I don’t know how in the world am I ever going to pay the bill? I almost didn’t want the kids to get out of the hospital because I got to figure out how I’m going to pay and I didn’t know what to do.

they’ll keep them. I don’t know. But I went out there that night and I put my hands on one line and the other line and I didn’t close my eyes. I just looked up into the dark sky and I cried. Big old crocodile tears. I have a little pride I tried not to do things like that around my wife and I just cried. I cried. I sobbed and I told the Lord that says Lord it’s amazing how confident I am and bowl I feel.

What am I in the presence of somebody like Mr. Massey? When I hear him talk to you, I said, I’ve got two kids in the hospital and I don’t know how in the world you’re gonna get me out of this jam. I said, but I’m trusting you and Lord I’ve told people I’m trusting you and you can ruin your testimony if you don’t come through. Because if you don’t come through I’m gonna tell I thought a little threatening of God would help.

So the kids got well and they had to come home. I had to go and pick them up. But when I went down to the hospital, I thought, I hope I don’t have to go and see that guy that I got to deal with the money. I hope they just let me take my kids walk on the hospital.

It didn’t happen that way. They informed me that I had to go to the financial administrator and take care of my bill. So I thought, Lord, don’t let him know that I am in Bible college. I mean, I’m going to Bible college. So that I can learn how to walk with God. So I can learn the word and learn how to trust. And I said, I’m ashamed. I am his child and he has failed me. But I didn’t want to tell nobody that.

He had let me down. Now I’m in a situation that I have no way of getting myself out of. So I said, Lord, I don’t want them to know that I’m in a Bible college. So I walked into his office and he says, are you Ralph Harlow? Yes, sir. He said, well, we’re looking over the bill here. Yes, sir. He says, you’re a student down at that Florida Bible college, aren’t you? To this day I have no clue how he knew.

I never told him how he knew. I don’t know. God had looked down and said, you little twerp. I’m telling on you. And so that guy knew. He says, I know that when people go to Bible college, they have a hard time, especially with a wife and two kids. And I know you must be struggling. Yeah, a little bit. And you probably don’t have much money, I says, oh, I know. He says, the hospital, we need blood. I said, oh, I’ve heard that before you.

He wants my blood. I hope he lets me keep enough that I can live on, but he wanted blood. My mommy said, you can’t get blood out of a turnip. This guy was going to. He says, could you have the students at his Bible college come down and donate blood? If they would donate some blood, it will knock off so much for every kind of blood. I says, can I use your phone? I said, yes. So I said, I don’t know the number, but for somehow, I called the college.

And I got Ray. And Ray says, Yankee, I can’t talk right now, but I’m on my way to chapel. I said, just a quick question. I says, Ray, I’m down here at the hospital. I can get my two kids. They said, I can have them. But I got to pay this bill. And they say I can pay it off in blood. If kids will come down and donate a pint of blood, they’ll tie it to the bill. He says, I’m going to chapel right now.

I mentioned it to him. He won in the chapel and he mentioned it. He called back and says, the whole student body’s coming. And they came down there and they donated blood. And they knocked my whole bill off. Whole bill was paid. And I remember just the night before how I was blessing God out for not coming through. And I thought, Lord, why couldn’t I just wait it a little longer before I shot off my big mouth. But I didn’t tell nobody else what I was thinking, I was just talking to God, how upset I was.

And while I was doing all of that, God was still working behind the scenes. And that’s why I made that statement. So sometimes you wanna see God do something that you can’t make happen. You don’t know how it’s going to work. All you know is it, it’s going to. What does God have to do in your life to get your attention. You know, they say some people, he has to put a two before over their head just to get your attention.

And so here you are. And so God sometimes he will let the bottom fall out on you. I mean, he might close the doors where you have no finances at all when you’re totally destitute and have no way of making it work. What would you do when you’re in that spot? When you have nothing. How do you talk to God then? Or about him? Do you get mad at him? I’m not going to serve you anymore. Just for that.

You have your reasons why you’re not as strong as you ought to be or dedicated as you are. Or you somebody hurt your feelings and you’d be surprised how you turn on God and not be right not be faithful because somebody hurt your feelings At sick After all that he’s done for us and what he’s done for us. Yeah, I did some things that I shouldn’t have done and I was weak But I have to admit it And you’re not gonna go very far in the Christian life Pity in yourself Why I’m in complaining about everything that goes wrong.

It’s time though Wake up and smell the coffee No city of smell the flowers try to smell a flower when I’m in a beast on the nose And you think sometimes there’s nobody but just me and God Everything seems to go wrong But did you know in all those things? They just made me a little bit stronger a little bit stronger a little bit stronger. I told you this story but let me just tell you the story. I love the story.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be 72 years old and all that time I’ve never seen a live bear in on the wild. I’ve seen tracks, but I’ve never seen a live bear. Until I was up in Northern Minnesota and we’re sitting around talking about bear hunting. And Rod Gobo was the number one bear hunter in all of Northern Minnesota. That’s just what he said. And he had killed about 150 bear. And so my little son, he was about seven or eight years old, and he’s listening to this.

He looks at me and says, Daddy, God wants me to see a bear. I said, well, good, good. We get back, we’ll go to the zoo. He said, God wants me to see a bear tonight. Now how many of you could go in there and you’ll feel free to write them, pull out a bear or go in your closet, pull out a bear? Well, where’s a bear? I said, I don’t have a bear hunt. I can’t produce this bear.

He said, God wants me to see a bear tonight. So Jim and Padgett were sitting there and his wife and said, well, there’s a dump right down the road if we get on to there. There might be a bear getting in the trash. So we got in the car and we went down there. This is the lady, Wednesday night. I’m tired. I am so tired. I’ve had a hard day. I just wanna go and get in the bed. So we got in the car and we went down there and going to a real quiet light draw off.

Just enough to see. And then he gets where those containers are He pulled the headlight out and there’s no bear. He says, well, there’s no bear. I said, Eddie, there’s no bear. We can’t see a bear tonight. He says, God wants me to see a bear tonight. I said, you know any other place. I said, yes, about 20 miles down the road. I said, let’s go. So we went to another place, bigger dump, greater possibilities, drove in there the same way, pull on the headlights, no bear.

And so we turned and came out, got on the main road. And I said, there’s no bear. We’re not going to see a bear tonight. We’re going to go back to the house now. And I thank the people for taking all their time. Now we have about a half an hour to get back. It’s late. And so it looked at me. And he’s sitting in my lap. He says, God want me to see a bear tonight. So he sat in my lap and he went to sleep.

All of a sudden, Jim was driving the car. He slams on the brake, he says, my God, there’s a bear right in front of the car. And a bear had come out of the woods and got into the main road and was going right down the road in front of us. And we looked and we saw the bear and Eddie wakes up and he looks and he saw the bear and the bear was going just in front of us so everybody could see, that’s not a dog, not a raccoon, it’s a bear.

And then the bear turned to the right. Went down into the ditch, he went up into the woods. And Eddie, he looks up at me and he says, told you God want me to see a bear tonight. And he went sound asleep. That’s never happened before, never happened since. Just a coincidence. The prayer of a little child, the faith of a child. Did you realize how much more we could have if we only asked God, are you hurting? Do you need something?

When’s the last time you really poured out your heart to God about it? Try it. Don’t do it for show, because God will show you up. But you’d be humble before God. And that it resists the devil because he’ll flee from you. But cast your cares upon him. And you’d be surprised what God can do. in your life. But he has to teach you lessons, he has to teach you that you can’t depend upon your help, you can’t depend upon your wealth, you can’t depend upon all your friends.

Sooner or later, everything falls apart. People will leave you, they’ll get mad at you, your kids won’t say anything, your grandkids might, all this happens, people you work with and Sometimes all you have is just you and the Lord. Just me and my God walking together. Just me and my Lord walking alone. Learn to talk to him. He ought to be more precious to you than the clothes you have on your back. I can get sidetracking all this stuff.

I got so many storage. Well, after 54 years, I ought to have a few, and I do. But they have just convinced me that I don’t have to worry about the future. I’ve seen God’s track record. Not my track record. God’s track record because I’ve seen things that have happened that only God could have done. Look up here. This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin on us. God says that He loves us. He hates our sin, but He loves us.

And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in hell. Now He loves us. Doesn’t want us to go to hell. He wants us to go to heaven. heaven. So to go to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous as God. And none of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection, God’s glory. So God says, you cannot save yourself. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh.

Came into the world because he loves us, hates our hand, he separates us from him. So Jesus Christ took the sin, paid for it, on the cross, came back from the dead. He said that if we would believe that He did it for us, He would put this payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s a gift. All God wants you to do is believe it. Believe that, yes, you are a sinner.

You know it anyway. If you don’t believe you are, ask your wife. Ask your husband. Ask your kids. Ask your mother. We’re all sinners. We’ve all sinned and come short of perfection. Christ paid the sin. So, and I believe He did it for me. He puts this payment to my count. I go to heaven on what He did for me. Best news in all the world. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around.

If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him today? And if you will trust Him, God said, He would save you and give you eternal life as a free gift. And you can know that when you get up to leave, you know you have eternal life. So we head about nice clothes and everyone looking around. Is there anyone at all? So yes, that makes sense to me. And I want to be certain of going to heaven when I die and preach out life for you to pray for me.

Would you slip in it very quickly, better rub back down with anyone at all? Anyone at all? You that have trusted Christ of Savior, What are you facing right now? While I was talking, was there anything that I said that related to an experience that you’ve had or one perhaps that you’re going through? When’s the last time you shed a tear talking to God? When does it seem so real to you that after you talked to the Lord and you cast it upon the Lord, it was such a relief.

You know that you had the peace of God. You have joy in your soul because the joy of the Lord is my strength. Are you down? The story is depressed. Don’t let Satan get an advantage of you. Cast all your cares upon him for he cared for you. Father, we thank you so much for this time together. Bless our church. Bless each person here. We thank you for all that you’ve done for us and what you’ve taught us, for the experiences that we go through in life.

to make us more usable for you in Christ and we pray. Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. 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 tool 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 6 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.