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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, 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.

I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew, the book of Matthew, and chapter 11. MatthewScientists’ chapter 11. Now we’ll be looking at quite a few verses, but there’s a theme inENDED or not. We know!– we,.–. And it’s that salvation is free and thatatform is God offering to us a free gift. So we simply receive that gift. We take it. We have it. We have eternal life. Then the Bible says there’s a thing that God wants to do called service where we serve him.

But we do not serve himlege we have to. We don’t have to serve him to go to heaven. But it is something that Godpired to do. to be is what you don’t get to do and don’t get to be. You know anything that you can do outside of that is not going to be good for you. What God has is the best. So here in the book of Matthew in chapter 11, look in verse 28, And I will give you rest.

Now, let’s just pretend he’s talking to those that are lost. You can come to Him. And you know, there’s a lot of love. have yet learned how to rest in the Lord in what He did, His work. But that’s another story. I want to talk to you about verse 29, where it says, Take My yoke upon you and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. We We live in a very troublesome world during troublesome times.

But as we live our Christian life, getting rest to your soul, believing that what you’re doing is what God wants you to do. See we struggle in a lot of areas. We have an old sinful nature. The devil is always bothering us. And we got the problem to just plain grow and old. And then when everything is fine with the kids, then it’s the grandkids. drink with the grandkids, then it’s the kids. Sometimes the husband, sometimes the wife. Everybody got problems.

It doesn’t end. If we wait till we get all of our problems solved before we start serving the Lord, how long would we have to wait forever and ever and ever? So you serve the Lord while you’re struggling. And when you’re down and discouraged and all the rest of it, you just keep on going because you know, sooner or later, God always opened up the door. and you just be found faithful. But it says, for you shall find rest unto your souls.

I have learned over the years just to commit things to the Lord and don’t worry about it. I was talking about this done at the Bible study today where he says in the book of Philippians in chapter four that we should, you know, but everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known under God. And talk about in the God of peace. Shall be withFINEST you the piece that passes understand means the piece that passes human565. Humanly you can’t understand it and explain it.

But God promised that if we would think differently, we would have the peace of God. And then in that same portion of scripture says, and those things which you have heard and seen in me do. and the God of peace will be with you. So we have the peace with God when we trust the Christ as our Savior and then we can have the peace of God, the peace that comes to your soul where you can just relax and trust the Lord.

And you don’t try to make everything happen. You don’t try to make people do anything. You don’t have to solve all the problems. Sometimes I have tried to make things happen and and make everybody obey, it doesn’t work. You don’t try to be the Holy Spirit in anybody’s life. I don’t try to make anybody serve God. I said, this is it. And I hope that it makes sense to you. You’ll let the Word change your life. So there is a rest that comes to those who learn just to trust the Lord.

And not not worry about it. Because it’s so easy. If there’s anything that’s going to destroy God’s people that we don’t have rest in our soul. We stay in a state of turmoil, always worried about things. And so I told people, I said, there’s two things you don’t worry about. Things you can do something about, things you can’t. If you can do something about it, what should you do? Do it. And if you can’t do anything about it, what should you do?

Don’t worry about it. You can’t do anything about it. And to not to think for a moment that your problems are so big, and God is so busy, that he don’t have time and he can’t handle that big problem. That is, well, that’s a shame. That’s embarrassing. For God not to think, you mean your problem is so big that I can’t do anything about it? Or to think that your problem is so small that God doesn’t want to be bothered with it.

I’m pretty sure that there’s something in the word of God about bring all your cares up on him. Cast all of your cares upon him because he what? He cares for you. Do you really believe he cares for me? Otherwise you’ll find yourself nobody cares about me. I stopped having pity parties long ago because nobody would come. Nobody comes to my pity parties. Have you ever wanted just somebody just, you know, have you ever fished, you know, you get through with preaching a sermon on a Sunday morning, you walk out to the door and the people say, man, did you enjoy the sermon today?

Yeah, it was alright. You know what? You want more than that. You wanted them to say, you know, that was really awesome. That was really great. Did you know how much a little comment can mean to a preacher and have, I used to tell the college kids that’s because I know it was going to come. You had a hundred people in church and when everybody left, if three people told you that that was the greatest sermon I’ve ever heard in my life, remember 97 people never said a word.

And the three people walk out that door and says, that was the worst sermon I have ever heard. That might be true, but 97 people never said a word. Sometimes we hear something within. Everybody feels that way. Nobody cares about me. And sometimes you forget that God does. Change all the preacher does. Your wife probably cares. The husband, he probably cares. You might have a relative, it may be dead, they care. But you’d be surprised that there are people that do care about you and what you’re going through.

Have you ever called anybody up and said, look, I’ve got a big, heavy decision to make. Would you pray for me? Would you pray for me? I talked from told people, pray for me. I need to pray and you need to practice. It’s a pray for one another. He says, my yoga is easy, my burden is light. It’s a lot easier when you learn how to just trust the Lord and not worry about it. That’s how you get the rest to your soul because sometimes you’ll find out you’re limited in knowledge, you don’t know everything.

You’re limited in abilities. You can’t do everything. You don’t have all the strength. That’s why Paul made the statement in the book of Corinthians. He says, I am a perfect in weakness. It means the weaker I am, the more I have to trust the Lord. The less wisdom I have, I have to depend on God’s. And the less strength I have to depend on God’s. So you learn to trust the Lord. And so that’s one of the greatest things that you and I are supposed to learn as we live our lives now.

Take your Bible looking Matthew chapter 16. That’s where I hear Matthew. Matthew chapter 16 and look in verse 24. Matthew 16 and verse 24, as he’s talking to his disciples and he’s talking about take up your cross daily. It means it’s each person’s responsibility to figure out what is it that God wants them to do with their life. Sometimes you can’t figure out the whole life at one time. Just take up your cross today. You may not have a cross to bear tomorrow.

You may not be around, so you don’t have to worry about it. As one person says, you know, yesterday is a canceled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is the only cash you have. So you can’t cash a check. The cash of check has been passed yesterday as come and gone. Let it go. Tomorrow, well, that’s a promissory note. I may have it. I may not. I’m not promised that. But all I have is this moment. And so I have to spend my cash today, spending my time wisely.

And so he says here in Matthew chapter 16 verse 24, then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man, any person will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Now we don’t believe this is talking about salvation. Believe this is talking to those who know the Lord and are willing to follow him and to serve him. And if you want to serve him and follow him, it means that you can’t go your own way.

You have to go his way. If I’m going to follow him, I have to give up my way. I’ve got to go his way. And I’ve got to deny myself certain things because he wants me to do what he wants. So that means I don’t get to do what I want. So you have to put him first and you have to make up your mind. And so I determined years ago that I was going to dedicate my life to the Lord.

But I realized that my life, I don’t have. All I have is today. So that’s why he also says, take up the cross in other places, take it up daily. And in verse 25, he says, for whosoever. Now we know in John chapter three, verse 16, when he says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever. What’s whosoever? That’s a choice for people to make concerning salvation. Here he’s talking about service and whosoever.

See, nobody can make you trust the Lord and no one can make you serve the Lord. by God says that whosoever will serve me, him will my Father honor. And so he says, if you will, in verse 25, whosoever will save his life shall lose him. And whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find him. Now my life is this period of time that God’s given me to live. But my life, I don’t know how long it is.

So the best thing to do is just give him this one little period of time that I do have today. It’s so easy to give God that what you do not have. And it’s hard to dedicate to the Lord the day you do have. This is the day that the Lord have made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. Give God this day. And you just, and then when tomorrow comes, you give the Lord that day. And then the next day you give the Lord that day and next thing you know, you have given the Lord your life.

And by giving the Lord your life, you have saved your life. But if you spend your life for yourself, you just wasted your whole life. You lost it. So God says, don’t live your life for yourself. Live it for him because if you live it for him, he is going to, turn to a little investment of your time into something really, really good. Down here we often think about, boy, if I154 could have just invest a little of my money in the stocks, boy, what I could have had.

Well, I decided I’m going to invest my time and my money in the Lord’s work because I believe that I’ll get better returns on my money and better returns on my time and lay up treasures in heaven because I believe that will last for eternity and here it won’t last very long. And when you leave, you lost it all. You came into this world naked and naked, you shall leave this world. taken nothing with you. So that’s why it’s so important to keep that in mind.

Now look in verse 26, But what is a man profited? So we’re talking about the prophet in a person’s life. See, when you serve the Lord, you’re going to profit. If you don’t serve the Lord, you’re going to lose. That’s why the apostle Paul in the book of Philippians made the statement for me to live is Christ and to die is gaining. Now, you’re either gaining or you’re losing. Even in the book of James in chapter two verse 14 when he says, what does that profit my brother?

So we’re going to do that. He’s talking about the prophet in a Christian’s life. Are you gaining? Are you losing? When he gave out the talents in theour book of Matthew 25, the first two did pretty good. The one would tend to one with five, but the other one he didn’t do too good. He just buried his because he said, I’m afraid of losing it. And the Lord got all over him and says, you could at least put it into the bank and I that God interests off of it.

In other words, God expects something from our lives. He’s given us the privilege to live in this world and we’re supposed to be laying up treasure in heaven and he wants to bless us. If that’s what God wants, then we shouldn’t argue with God. Just do it. Just do it. Now take your Bible looking Ephesians in chapter 6. Ephesians chapter. But while we’re right here, look there in the book of Luke in chapter 9. Luke chapter 9 in verse 24, because it kind of says a little bit of the same thing, but just a couple things a little bit different.

And you’ll notice here in Luke chapter 9 in verse 24, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whoso will lose his life, for my sake thus same shall save it. And you’ll notice in another place you’re talking about for my sake and the gospels. Here he’s talking about for my sake. And in verse 23 you’ll notice that there’s something else that’s added here that’s not necessarily in the other who places it’s mentioned and that is the word daily.

Take up his cross daily and follow me. No one’s take up his cross and follow him. So God wants you to do this every day of your life. And as you do it, you also find that he makes the statement in Matthew in chapter 6, when you pray, you pray, Lord, give me this day my daily bread. That means that every day you live in dependence upon God. Some people get to where they don’t think they need the Lord.

They don’t need to stay close to Him. Stay dependent upon the Lord and God will bless you for doing so. And then look in verse 26 because he says, he wants us to do this. And if we will, he will bless us. But it’s full rewards. In verse 26, for whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed. When he shall come in his own glory and in his fathers and of the Holy Angel, this is not talking about the rapture.

This is talking about at the end of the tribulation period when the Lord comes back and power in great glory in every eye shall see him. Many of these things we’re reading about is what God said to the people that were there at that time. But we can learn from these things that He says, just like He makes a statement in Romans in chapter 15, that there were things written in the Old Testament for our learning, that we may learn to have the patience that we need, that we may learn to put our hope and our confidence, our trust in God.

So we study the Old Testament because there’s lessons for us to learn. There’s also things for us to learn in the book of Matthew, Mark and Luke and John. Though we may not be Jewish and we’re not out of the nation of Israel, but there’s many things that we can gain from the teaching that God puts right here in His Word. Now take your Bible and turn there to the book of Ephesians in chapter 6. The book of Ephesians in chapter 6.

In verse 10 he makes a statement. Finally, finally my brethren. You know it’s interesting whenever you read the Apostle Paul’s letters, sometime you’ll say, and finally brethren, and then you’ll talk for another two chapters. I mean he’ll go on and on. Finally, and then he’s closing remarks along with the Massermons. But he says in verse 10, finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his mind, where you have learned how to be strong in the Lord.

This is the fulfillment of a verse that I was shown years ago by Betty’s dad. And it talks about in Chronicles in chapter 16 about the eyes of the Lord run to and froth throughout the whole earth seeking for a man on which God can show himself strong on his behalf. So here in the book of Ephesians, God says he wants us to be strong in the Lord. God is looking for somebody that he can make strong. But you see, the only way you can be strong in the Lord is you have to be weak in yourself.

It means that you don’t put confidence in you. God is supposed to be teaching us all kinds of lessons that you ought not trust you. And believe it or not, you ought not trust anybody else. When it comes to spiritual things, or the will of God, you should learn what God says and learn to trust Him and put your confidence in Him. And so He says that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. It means that you can stand.

But if you don’t put on the whole arm of God, you won’t stand. And so he mentioned several times here in these few verses that you may be able to stand. And having done all the stand, God does not want his children to fall. And so resting in the Lord is trusting God’s way. It’s trusting him to work, trusting the Holy Spirit that lives within us. Also a little statement that I had given, I think it was Sunday morning, that the Holy Spirit that lives within us is to lead and guide and direct.

Often you hear people pray that. But without studying the Word of God, the Holy Spirit can’t lead guide and direct. It sounds spiritual, it sounds great, but without the Word, the Holy Spirit doesn’t work. See, The Bible says the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. In other words, what is it that the Holy Spirit uses to give us this power? It’s the Word. So as you read the Word of God, the Holy Spirit takes the Word that becomes the tool, the sword by which he’s going to use to quicken your mind, to help bring things to your mind at which you have studied.

But if you don’t put the Word of God into your mind, there’s nothing for him to work with. That’s why a lot of people, they trust Christ as Savior, and try to serve the Lord with the mind of the old man. Because that’s all they have. So they try to do what they can with a mind that is corrupted, with a mind that is carnal. So God says in order to transform your life, then we have to renew our mind.

So that’s why it says be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and you do that by the Word of God, that you may prove or discover what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So you learn the Word so that you can transform your life. Your life was not transformed because you trusted Christ. You received eternal life. You became this child. You’re going to heaven you die. That didn’t transform your life.

You’re still the same person, do the same thing until you begin to study the Word of God and the Holy Spirit that lives within you applies the Word of God and teaches you the Word of God and you walk in obedience to the Word of God. So walking in the Spirit is simply walking in obedience to what the Word of God says. So if you don’t study the word of God. You have very little on which to grow. All you’ll know and learn is what you see what somebody else does and you mimic them.

And this is why we call some people their joy moochers. It means they don’t have any joy of their own. They just try to get up close enough to somebody else and moots their joy off of somebody else. Because see they don’t have anything to go on. They just, they’re moochers. You ever seen somebody’s always bumming a cigarette off somebody. They don’t have any cigarettes on their own. They don’t have any money on their own. They can’t buy their own so they just go around bumming cigarettes.

They’re always looking on the ground to find somebody that they’ve thrown away and, huh, there’s a butt down there and they fight somebody to get it. You get two more puzzles. Then they look at another. That’s the way Christians are. Because see, they don’t have any real They don’t have real peace. They think if they just hang around somebody else, theirs will become real. But what happens when you don’t have anybody else around you? There’s nobody else. It’s just you.

A song that the treble airers used to, you might remember the treble air, they used to sing years ago and they sung this song just me and my lord walking together. Me and my lord walking along. I used to listen to that song, turn it up as high as I can. I could, I think that’s why I’m deaf today. Because I’d lay in front of that thing and I’d turn it up sky high and I mean the walls would move and the rafters would go, but I was listened to that.

back then they didn’t have earphones and so it just blared. But I would just, I’d sit there and I’d cry and I’d listen to these songs by the triple errors. Just me and my Lord walking together. Just me and my Lord walking alone. And I would listen to that and play them over and over and over again. And then I’d go to Job and I’d start working on the whole, you know, the bread wrapping machine or the folding machine You know, because they got to where they make a rhythm.

And when they make a rhythm, I kind of get in a rhythm. When they get in a rhythm, I start a humming. When I start a humming, I start a singing. When I start a singing, I sing loud. And so there’s about 15, 20 people in this big old room and they’re working on different things, but this thing makes a lot of racket. And it’s just making so much racket, I can really feel free to sing and nobody can hear me.

And then a piece of paper will jam in that thing and it stops and I’m thing into the top of my lungs. And everybody turns around and looks at me because I’ll be in my own little world, sing to the top of my lungs. So now you know how I develop my singing voice. And some people said I should have practiced more. But anyway, as you read down through here, looking verse 13, where he says, we’re for taken to you most of the armor of God.

What does it say? Take all of it. Evidently you must need all of it. If there’s any piece of it that you don’t take, it could cost you because there might be a fiery dart that’s going to strike you. And you’re going to have this thought. God doesn’t love me. I’m not being used, poor, poor me, and you have your pity parties, and you’re not going to be strong in the Lord, and it’s all because you didn’t put on all the armor of God like you should have.

So you see there in verse 17, and take the helmet of salvation or the deliverance from the evil darts of the wicked one, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. So you know the word, you read the word, you study, you believe it and it will make, definitely make a difference. Now look here in the Mark chapter 4, the book of Mark and chapter 4, just turn back to your left there, the book of Mark and chapter 4.

Mark chapter 4 is kind of letting you know that But you need to watch the way that you hear, but over and over again, he says, He that had ears to hear, let him hear. Now this is not talking to the church. Later on when he talks about in the book of Revelation, chapter 2 and 3, and every one of them, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit said to the churches. So when you study the Word of God, you’re listening to what the Spirit has to teach you.

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 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 Bible Eye, 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.