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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. and 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.

I would rather go to heaven and not live long, than to live long and go to hell. But every man, when he lives, he’s going to die. And are you prepared to meet God? Are you prepared? Was it because he had a son that did something to him? I think family sometimes, my husband and wife, and they just always had each other. Then God will bless him with a little precious little child. And that precious little child can cause a dad to wake up and says, you know, I need to be the right kind of a father.

That mom said, you know, I need to be a good mother for my baby. And something bringing together, something wakes them up. Maybe they see a dream for that child. And they want God to help them. And so they dedicate their lives to raising their children and the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Did you remember you did that? You remember you did that? And then after a few, you became a bad testimony to your kids. When you didn’t walk with God and you wanna stray, you’d be surprised how many do that.

What would it take for God to bring you back to him? Did you know that God can take your wife? God can take your contemp, God can take your husband. God can take anything. See, God is free to do whatever God wants to do. But everything God does is for a reason, for a purpose. Don’t ever think that regardless of what happened in life that God doesn’t love you. He does love you. He loved Israel and he says, I did this and that didn’t help.

I did this and that didn’t help. And it seemed like it just no end to it. All these things happen. Take your Bible, look in 2 Chronicles, chapter 26. 2 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles and chapter 26. In chapter 26, there was a king that wasn’t doing too well. He had messed up. His name was Usaya and he was about 16 years old and he was made a king. And he’d done a pretty good job, but in verse 7 says, and God helped him against the Philistines.

So he did a few things, right? And he was a little on the zealous side. He did some things he shouldn’t have done. Look at verse 16. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction. He got too big for his britches. He got to the place where I’m the king, and I’m not a priest, but I’m gonna do the work of the priest. I’m gonna go in there and grab ahold of the horns of the altar, and I’m gonna do this.

And they told them to say, you got no business in here. You’re overstepping the boundary bud. This belongs to the priest, this is their office. This is what they do. That is not your job. And he defined them. Gonna do it anyway. So he says for he transgressed against the Lord his God went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense Zechariah, the priest went in after him and with him four score priests of the Lord at 80 of them that were valiant men And they would stood, Yuziah, the king, and said unto him, It pertaineth not unto thee, Yuziah, to burn incense unto the Lord.

But to the priest, the sons of Aaron, that the priest, the son of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn into it, go out of the sanctuary. Well, thou hast trespassed. Neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God. You are in the wrong place, during the wrong thing. It’s not your responsibility. Get outta here. You ever heard of been hard-headed, setting your ways, and that God can’t get through to you, and he’s gonna have to take a two before or two yet.

Did you know women listen to men? If you’ve got a hard-headed husband, turn him over to the Lord. He’ll do a better job than you ever will. Don’t you try to straighten him out, just let God, Lord, he’s all yours. Have fun. And I can guarantee you, God will. God can deal. Look what else you says here. Down here in verse 19, then you Ziah was wrought. That means his countenance was changed. He was angry, mad, upset. And he had a censoring his hand to burn incense.

And while he was wrought with the priest, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priest and the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar. And And as a riot, the chief priests and all the priests looked upon him and behold, he was leopress in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence, yay himself, hasted also to go out because the Lord had smitten him. The Lord smitten him. Now, did that have to happen?

All he had to do was do right. But he brought this upon himself. You ever heard the story about, You know Jonah and the whale, he brought that on himself. You see, God told him to go to Nineveh. He says, I will not. He ran. And when he ran from God, did he get away from God? God sent a storm, God sent a big old fish, took him to the depths of the earth and all kinds of things that God did.

But it didn’t have to be that way. You’d be surprised how many things probably that you have had to go through and face in your life. It didn’t have to be that way because you made some bad decisions. You see, when you sow wild oats when you’re young, guess what you’re going to eat when you get older? Wild oats. Except the law of the harvest is you eat more than you sow, lots more. And you’ll eat later. And the same thing.

So when you sow wildos, when you’re young, you’re going to eat wildos when you get older. And a lot of older folks are shy from the consequences of decisions they made when they were not in the will of God. And then they pray for a crop failure. And it don’t work that way. God says in the book of Galatians in chapter 6 verse 7, be not deceived. God is not mocked whatsoever. A man soweth that shall he also, you see, you’re reaping what you sow.

You want peace, sow peace. You want love, sow love. enjoy so dry. But you sow to the flesh and you’re gonna have the flesh reap. Corrupt is going to destroy your life. They can destroy your family. They can destroy the church and also a nation. But it says there in verse 21, and Uzziah the King was a leper unto the day of his death. Now it makes the statement verse 22 that some of this is talked about by the Prophet Isaiah.

So go to the book of Isaiah in chapter 1. Isaiah in chapter 1. It’s amazing that now Isaiah is looking at the nation of Israel and he sees the same thing as the nation that he saw of of Usayah. Lepacy was incurable. Now he looked at Israel and their problem is incurable. He says from the soul of your foot to the top of your head. See there verse 5, why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more.

The whole head is sick, the whole heart is spain from the soul of the foot even unto the head, there’s no soundness in it. And spite of all of that, spite of how bad it is, he says there in verse 18, come now, look at verse 18, very good verse, come now and let us reason together, sayeth the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be rid like crimson, they shall be as warm.

And then he says in the very next verse, if you’ll be willing and obedient, God says, look what I’ll do for you. But you’re bringing these things upon yourself. It’s not what God wants. God doesn’t enjoy beating his kids, spanking his kids. He wants us to be, have an enjoyable life. He says, even pray for those that are over us that we may lead a quiet and a peaceful life. But sometimes the things that we do, we create the very turmoil we despise because we don’t trust God.

So here in the book of Isaiah, until look at in chapter 6, Isaiah chapter 6. And you’ll notice there on page 718, this is what something had to get a hold of. Isaiah. What caused him to be different than he was before. And maybe because he learned the lesson, no, I just watched the king, Eusiah, rebel against God, be fine God, and look what happened to him. Sure, whatever you want, Lord, here am I.

Did you know you ought to be smart enough not to have to try to reinvent the wheel. I mean, if there’s a big old hole and you just watch your friend fall in it and then you watch another friend fall in it, Now you tell me, why would you fall in it? If you see somebody else getting whooped by God because of what they did, oh, why would you do that? You see, you reveal your wisdom by the decisions you make, the choices you make.

Wisdom is justified of our children, meaning that wisdom is revealed by the choices you make in life. Now, you may accumulate a lot of knowledge, but wisdom is the application of that knowledge to experiences. So you can go to Bible college and get all that knowledge. I got a little in there. That doesn’t make you wise. It means you have paid some money. They gave you some knowledge. I got it. All of a sudden I’m brilliant now. Now I’m spiritual.

I went to Bible college. No, Bible college can only teach you how to study. They can’t make you spiritual can’t make you godly. They can only give you the tools by which you can do something if you heal yourself to that knowledge. So in chapter six verse one in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord. I saw something when King Uzziah died, I saw something. I saw the Lord. And you know what? He said, when I saw God, that did something to me.

That did something to me. See, sometimes we get so caught up, we see everything else that goes on in life. We see all the problems, the monument of task, the impostibilities. But look beyond that to a God who sits on the throne who is not limited. And he makes his statement. When I look there and I saw holy, holy, holy, I get one for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Holy Spirit. Then on in verse five, then said I, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips.

I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.” Now, it didn’t happen until he saw King Uzziah died. That year brings out in his mind. And I’ve often had problems with this one verse up here in verse eight where he says, And also I heard the voice of the Lord say him, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then said I hear my sin man.

And I know that in his context, we can pitch your Isaiah sin. I saw the Lord and the Lord says, I need somebody. And who am I gonna send? And Isaiah, they got a wake up call. He said, I saw what you did to Isaiah. I’ll go. Or whether or not he says, who shall go for us? As though the scene is taking place in heaven, the father of the Son, the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says, here in my eye will go.

I can apply that that away. It’s just an application. Because you later on, you find out all the places that Tarts starts talking about the Son, I will go. I will go. I will go. And when you get to Isaiah 53, as he writes in advance, 700 years, Lord, who hath the lead I reported to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed, and that he shall grow before him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground.

And he carries our sorrows and our griefs. And all we like sheep have gone astray, and yet he laid upon him the knickety of us all. And all we had to do is just believe that he did that for us. It’s a wonderful thing. But you see, what would it take for God to work into your life? I know that there’s a brief little story. You don’t mind looking at it. Look there in chapter 16 of the book of Acts.

Acts chapter 16. There’s a story about a jailer, a man that had a wife and had kids. I don’t know what was going on in their life. He was just doing his job. Just going to work and garden prisoners, minding his own business. But something happened that night. You see, there’s these two fellows that were causing a stir. named Paul and Silas and they were placed in jail and he had to be the one to watch them and they were put in stocks and that midnight Paul and Silas begin to sing amazing grace.

Now you know that’s what they saw. It had to be something good I imagine. I was preaching last week and all of a sudden it’s dawned, whitening. They concerned about my lapel, I can all less. I didn’t know I was going to preach up a storm, but here they were singing up a storm and it’s a sun, an earthquake and lo and behold, their things fell off and they could have escaped and the jailer was scared because he knew that it it would be his life if he lost a prisoner.

And so Paul was watching all of that. In verse 28, Paul cried with a loud voice saying, do thyself no harm, we’re all here. Then he called for a light, it sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silah. Now why were he scared? Paul and Silas wasn’t scared. It seemed like he should have been the other way around. But he was scared. You know, he might have heard him say, he had to hear them say something because he says in that verse, sirs in verse 30, what must I do to be saved?

How did he know he needed to be? Because somebody had to tell him, you need to be saved. What must I do to be saved? What did it take to bring this man to his knees? An earthquake? What happened in your life to get you to finally listen? And if you have trusted Christ as your Savior and you’re not as dedicated to the Lord as you should be, are you playing games with God? Or are you serious about it?

What would God have to do to get you to wake up and be serious? You see, God is a patient God, but you know sooner or later he gonna slam the door. And that ought to put fear in your heart. I don’t serve God because I’m afraid of God, but I do have an awe of God. I do believe that whenever my daddy got his belt off, I had a little bit more holy reverent respect. I would love to believe that my dad loved me, but if he loved me anymore, he’d kill me.

He was not a fisherman, but we did go on a few way to the next editions. He wasn’t even patriotic, but I remember seeing stars and stripes. But here you have a man that that night he trusts the Lord, but not just him. It says there in verse 32, and they spake unto him the word of the Lord into all that were in the house, telling him how to be saved. And he took them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes, was baptized in all his straight way.

And when he had brought them into his house, he sat down before them and he got all his house, because his whole family. You’d be surprised. This was a dark moment in his life because I could be killed because prisoners escaped. And yet it was the beginning of something, not the end of something. Sometimes that dark day, that darkest night, is just one step before victory. never seemed like, you know, you can’t see you. What’s going to happen next?

And all the lights are off and all the windows are locked and the doors are locked and the walls are moving in on you. You can’t see, you just know that God has to get me out of this. What is God got in mind? Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Let God get you out of things. Trust Him. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, not until I own understanding and all my ways acknowledge God.

Thank God. And He shall direct I pass. But do you believe that? Does God have to chase in you to get your attention? Or can you do it willingly and voluntarily? Would you say in your Christian life right now, are you a Christian on fire for the Lord? Cold or lukewarm? Believe it or not, the one that’s lukewarm is the one that makes God sick. What God has done for me has not gotten cold to me. saving me and giving me eternal life hasn’t got old to me.

It’s still fresh, it’s still new, it’s still vibrant, I still have a zeal and I want to do as much as I can for the rest of my life. I don’t know how much time God is going to give to me but eventually sooner or later I’m still, if I live to be 970 years old I’m still gonna die. I’m still gonna die. But I would like to be like Enoch. I only I only want to live 365 years.

And then I want the Lord to take Him. And I’m looking for the rapture. The rapture could take place at any time. You see, what’s the rapture? Rapture is a snatching away. Christ is going to come back in the air because He came the first time like He said. He’s going to come the second time like He said. And He says He’s going to come in the air and everyone who’s trusted Christ is Savior. We’ll be changing a moment, the twinkle of an eye, caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Now you talk about, and I’ve done this many times, is to have open-air meetings. This is gonna be an open-air meeting you won’t believe. And guess who’s gonna be the star of the show? It says, we shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Not heaven yet, but meet him in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord. He will be the center point. Well, when he came the first time, he was rejected and crucified.

But when he comes back, there’s going to be a meeting in the air in the sweet sweet by and by. We’re going to meet him in the sky. What an open air meeting that’s going to be. And if the Lord should tear, if I don’t die, I’m going to meet him. Prepare to meet thy God. Are you prepared? Look up here. Let this end represent you and me. The wall of a present sin. We all have sin on us.

God loves us, but he hates our sin. And the paper sin is eternal separation from God. So since everybody sins, everybody’s condemned. So God says that heaven is a perfect place. And to go to heaven, you have to be perfect as righteous as God. No sin. But none of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. But we’re going to meet God one day. See, He’s holy. Like Isaiah said, I’m a man of unclean lips. I am undone. So God says you can’t save yourself by your good works.

How you live is not going to change the fact you’re condemned. This end represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us. hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So He took all the sin of all the world, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. And God said that if you and I, if we would believe that He did it for us, He would put this payment to our account, we go to heaven on what He did.

You don’t earn it, you don’t work for it. If I offered you this microphone and you accepted you would have a microphone. I offered you my Bible and you accept you have a Bible. I offered you my wallet and you accept it. You would have an empty wallet. If Christ walked in here right now and offered you eternal life and you accepted it, what would you have? Eternal life and if it’s eternal life, it lasts forever. And if it lasts forever and all your sins are paid, where would you go and you die?

So can you know that you’re going to have it before you die? That’s what’s so wonderful about this. There’s no tricks to it, there’s no getting to it. eternal life is the gift of God. Now I don’t know what’s going on in your life, but you can bet your bottom dollar on this. God does. And God brings people to the strangest places to hear his message. And I believe every person here is here because of the will of God, that God wants you to hear what I’ve had to say.

It may be a warning to some of you because if you don’t stop and clean up your life like you should as a Christian, God may have to deal with you. And I want you to know that. God doesn’t play games. He is a wonderful father, a loving father. He is a patient father. And he will give you time after time after, but you just don’t know how much. You may be one step from being annihilated, one step from being chastened by God, one step between now and being taken home.

But if you take and do right, you’d be surprised God may just extend that life of yours for another 900 years. I doubt it. Let’s pray, shall we? Every headbound, every act closed, no one looking around. if you’re here this morning or if you’re watching by internet, understand when it comes to going to heaven, there’s nothing you have to do, nothing that you need to stop, nothing you need to change except your mind. Change your mind, repent, change your mind and see God as someone who loves you and see that you can’t save yourself by your works and that you’ll trust Jesus Christ in Him alone as your only hope of going to heaven.

And friend, God said if you’ll do that, He would give you the free gift of everlasting life. Prepare to meet God. The best preparation is to know that you’re saved, know that you’re going to heaven. And you can know that this morning. So in the quietness of this moment, I’m going to ask you if you’ll trust Christ as your Savior. I’m not going to have you forward, not going to embarrass you, but I’m going to ask you in just a moment to raise your hand.

Raising your hand just lets me know that what I said made sense to you. And say, preacher, that made sense to me and I will trust Christ as my Savior and I’d like for you to pray for me. Would you just slip in a very quickly and put it right back down? Get on before we close. Get on. Get on. Just God bless you. Get on else. Get on else. That’s God bless you. Other others. Just right where you are.

I’m not going to embarrass you. I’m not going to point you out. I just want to know what I’ve said made sense to you. You say yes that made sense. I will trust Christ as my Savior. Get on the public vote. Yes God bless you. You can put your hand down. Thank you, buddy. That’s just a sign of good judgment. You know, only a full would turn down a free gift. If you’re here and you have already trusted Christ as your Savior, you already know you’re going to heaven.

But are you walking with the Lord down to the 11 or things right in your life? Are there things that you know you’re tolerating that God may be dealing with you on? Or do you have that little sense of fear inside of you that God may chase in me. Don’t you think you need to take care of that and say, Lord, you said, if I would confess it, you would forgive me. And friend, if you will judge that for yourself, God won’t have to.

Doesn’t it make sense to stay strong and stay right between you and your father? Why don’t you do that right now? Just talk to the Lord and say, Lord, I’m your child. I know I’m going to heaven when I die, but I have not been walking as I should. I haven’t been living for you like I should. And Lord, I don’t want you to have to learn the boom on me. I’ve learned my lesson. I see it. I follow.

We thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. And for these indicated this one is they would trust your Savior. We ask Father your blessings upon each person here to draw us closer to you. Use us for your own glory. We thank you for all you’ve done 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 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 1030 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.