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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 year. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleignmenistries.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.

ago I had a graduation in May of 1986 at our Christian school. We had these young kids there and they’re graduating and so I had Rick give a testimony ahead of time and he gave a little message and he’s now passed from the church out there but I wanted to say something to the young kids because you’re looking down the road and you want to give them something to look forward to. Try to have some guidelines for their life.

And even though that was 27 years ago, I want to share with you a little bit about what I gave to them. And you tell me if it was just good for them back then, or if there’s anything that might be good for us now. You know, things that were good for us years ago to kind of set the pace for us and give us a vision. You know, the thing about growing old is, Yeah, we might lose vision up here, but what destroys a man is when he has lost vision between him and God.

When he doesn’t have anything worth living for, and he’s just wandering and floundering, you have to have a purpose, some guidelines for yourself. So, once you take your Bible and turn to the book of Ecclesiastes in chapter 11, Ecclesiastes chapter 11. and notice here in chapter 11 and verse 4. Now I know that in life we need to be careful and we need to consider the you know the climate you know the wind the clouds it does talk about cast thy bread upon the waters for thou shalt find it after many days in verse 1 and somebody says who wants soggy bread what means something that cost you something right now cast your bread upon the water because it’ll come back to you.

In other words, the idea of sowing and reaping, learning that you have to give before you receive. And so as a Christian, we need to understand that principle is taught also in the book of Galatians in chapter 6. And therefore you shall reap what you sow. But some people are afraid to sow, and therefore they don’t reap. So if you look there in verse 4, he said, he that observe if the wind shall not sow. Well, the wind is going to blow the seeds out of my hand or it’s going to blow it up on some stony ground and it might blow some of them into the briars and there’s always a reason.

If you’ve ever noticed that a lazy person always has a good reason not to do what he should do, he always got a good reason. But it’s not because he’s lazy though, but they’ll always find a reason not to get anything done. Well, as he says right here, he that regarded the cloud shall not reap. You don’t sow, they don’t reap. But everybody wants to reap something good, but they don’t want to sow that which will bring it. And so you want good things to happen to you, so you don’t do anything.

You wait until those good things come to you. Well, God said, that’s not the way it is. If you want love, so love. You want peace, so peace. And you want patience, so patience. Whatever you want to come back, sow it. Give that to other people. You want people to be nice and friendly towards you, be nice and friendly toward them. You must show yourself to be friendly. And so, it’s a principle in God’s word. Look there in verse five.

As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit. How the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who make a thaw. In other words, you may not be able to understand how God forms that little baby in the womb, but you know he does. And you may not know and understand exactly how if I do this that God says it’s going to work. just to believe that it will work.

And so you trust the Lord and it’s like a reckless abandonment to faith. You believe God so strong. It looks in the eyes of other people. You’re like a reckless individual. So he says, in the morning so thy seed, in the evening with holding out thy hand, believing that God’s going to bless, that God’s going to prosper. I used the illustration years ago and that was this. You know, you asked the Lord for something He gives it to you and you share.

Lord and Lord gives and you share. And Lord, and you’re a channel, but after a while, you know, and next thing you know, Lord, nothing. And then you go after that, what you thought you saved and it’s gone too, because it’s like putting money in bags. This guy holds in him. Someplace in the haggy eyes. Yeah. And it’s, it ruined your life. So you’ve got to understand, you’re only to be a tool, a vessel, for the Lord to use.

Let God use you. And so he says this, look down there in verse nine, Rejoice, O young man, and thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes, in the words, why are you young? Yeah, just go ahead, go ahead, do whatever you want to do, however you want to live. But did you know, the last part of it, in the sight of thine eyes, but know thou that for all these things God will bring the end to judgment.

Okay, go ahead. But God is going to hold your accountable. And then he says this, therefore, remove sorrow from thine heart, put away evil from thy flesh, childhood and youth are empty, they’re vanity. When you don’t serve a Lord and you don’t plant the way God wants you to plant. Don’t sow why you’re young the right things. And then when you get older and you wonder why you can’t reap those good things you want because you never sowed any good thing.

You ever heard of people who sow wild oats and then later on they reap wild oats. And many people that are older are simply suffering the consequences of decisions they made 20 30, 40 years ago. Yeah, they saw it and then they pray for a crop failure. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, look there in verse 1, remember now thy Creator when you get old. No. And the days of thy youth, why ye young? Be smarter than the average bear. Think it through.

Consider the end of life. Consider down the road, think things through, be wise. So as I talk to these kids in school, trying to help them think of their future, what they’re going to do, what they’re going to be, you know, what’s your dream, what’s your vision, what do you want to accomplish? And I let them see these words here. See they’re in verse 12, and further by these, my son be admonished of making many books. There is no end.

And much study is a weariness of the flesh. Boy, I can relate to that. Let’s hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, keep His commandments, His Word, for this is the whole duty of man, knowing that God is going to judge what you do. And if you want to reap good things, you need to sow good things, and you’ll find the good things to sow in the Word of God. So let me read a couple things to you that I share with them at that time.

There’s a verse in the book of Psalms in chapter 90 and verse 4, it’s usually one that I use at a funeral, but we haven’t died yet so I thought it’d be good to know before you die how you should think. For a thousand years in thy sight or but as yesterday when it is passed and as they watch in the night. In other words, a thousand years is just like that. And with us, see, time is so precious because there’s not much of it.

But God, see, He lives in eternity. And I have on my chart, time is an island in the sea of God’s eternity. It deals with man, is beginning his life. And the end. Someone wrote this. We have to live about one day at a time, but we are living for eternity in that one dayraq. Did you know that eternity is going to be affected by every day I live? And your future is being Frie UGE determined by your obedience to God today.

If I waste this day, it’s costing me something that I could have had in eternity. Now, going to heaven, just that’s free. That’s the gift of God. You don’t earn it. You don’t work for that. It cannot affect my eternal destination. Once I’ve trussed the Lord, I’m going to heaven. But as a child of God here, every day I live is affecting eternity. It’s interesting, but it’s true. and wrote, time is the only possession we have all equally. If God gives you 24 hours and He gives me 24 hours, we all got the same amount of time in one day.

But let me read this to you. The days of the years of our pilgrimage are three score years and ten. The generations crowd each other off the stage of time in swift secession. In other words, there was time 70 years. You know I didn’t like that. But 70 years ago I was born and then I have come along and I’m pushing other ones over the cliff. Now I’m pushing grandma over the cliff. They’re going off into eternity. And then there’s other ones being born and we just keep moving on down the road and they’re gone.

One day I’ll be gone and there’ll be other ones coming up. More people being born and it’s just snow into this. Oh they’ll be an end to it one of these days. But it says the sand runs out in the hourglass. Time is only the take of the second hand and the clock of the ages. Some mourn the senses will fail to resume business. Every door will be locked, every shut or drawn. I, ear and hand, will fail to respond.

There will be no longer be any medium by which to enter the Temporum. An invisible hand has written finished across another human career, and people say the man is dead. He has not ceased to be, he has merely finished with time. When Christ was here, he lived about 33 and a half years. And when he died on the cross, the last thing that he wanted to say is, it is finished. And into thy hands I come in my spirit.

It is finished. And one of these days he’s going to say, it is finished. Your time is up. We don’t even know how much time God’s going to give us. At any given moment he He could say, times up, I used to hate that whenever I was in school, and they’d teach you would only give you so much time to answer all of these questions, and you had a certain amount of time, and sometimes I haven’t finished, and I’ll hear those words, times up passing your paper, and then you’re trying to look at the Russell and you’re panicking the wheel.

One of these days God’s going to say, times up, time to go, you can say, but yeah, I’m not finished. If God was to come back right now, would it disappoint you just a little bit because there’s so much you want to do? I’ll have to be honest. There’s so much I want to do. I would love and I can’t wait to go to heaven and I want Christ to come back. But I got so many things that I would enjoy doing yet.

So I’m hoping and praying God, give me a little bit more time to get her done. But I would hate to misuse the time that God gives to meartney. You know, there was a man in the Old Testament maybe you’ve heard of, oh, Hezekiah? He was gonna die. He played with God, God, give me some more time. God gave him how many more years? 15 more years. He would have been better off if he hadn’t have gotten those 15 more years because he misused him.

But it did happen that he had a son during that period of time that became the next and it was down to him. So God got what He wanted out of it, but the man He had to show those people from Babylon, everything that He had. So they went back, got their arm together, came back and took it all. Some people are notimprove very bright. Saint Augustine made disdain. He says, what then is time? If no one asks me, I know.

If I have to explain it to whoever I ask, I don’t know how. is a funny thing, it’s a strange thing. I remember one time I preached a whole sermon on time, just on the word on time, in about a minute, in every second that’s in it, 60 precious minutes. Another statement, J. Siglil Baxter, I have a lot of his books and some things he’s clear on, something he’s not. But he said this, spend your time in nothing you know must be repented of, and nothing on which you might not pray the blessing of God.

In nothing which you could not review with a quiet conscience on your dying bed. In nothing which you might not safely and properly be found doing if death should surprise you in the act. That’s scary. In other words, don’t be saying anything or doing anything or being anywhere you wouldn’t want to be if the Lord was to come at that moment. Or if you were to die at that moment. That ought to help us guard ourselves, wouldn’t it? if you lived in pure conscience of that.

Another guy says, to think immortal, time can do no wrong, and that which never is to die forever must be young. Because if it cannot die, it cannot get old. If it cannot die, it cannot get old. That’s why when we get to heaven, because we cannot sin, we cannot die, we cannot get old. Don’t you like that? As somebody I recently heard named Freddy Coleses, isn’t that good? Isn’t that good? Isn’t that good? Another one made this statement, believe me when I tell you that thrift of time will repay you in after life with a usury a prophet beyond your dreams, and that waste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral statue beyond your darkest reckoning.

In other words, the time spent doing what God says to do is gonna be so enlightening and so wonderful, so glorious that not to use our time wisely brings a man into the darkest of reality, where he loses his sense of value, of being. He loses so much when he is disobedient to reveal truth. But most people never figure this thing out.

In Proverbs 29, you read the verse a number of times, where it says in verse 18, where there is no vision, the people what? The people perish. Well, it’s not just the people out there that are perish if I don’t have a vision to reach them, but also the individual. I need a vision or I wasted my life. Nobody knows who wrote this, but I liked it. So let me share it with you. Before I caught the vision, I spoke as one without a vision.

I prayed as one without a vision. But when I caught the vision, I put away half-hearted things. For now, at least, I have caught a faint glimpse of the need which Jesus alone can satisfy. But someday, I shall realize it fully. Now I know some things of the price salvation cost, but then I shall see it clearly, even as also it has been purchased for me. Now to be a missionary Christian are necessary a prayerful, hard, a surrendered life, a vision, these three with others.

But one of the greatest of these is a vision because it’s hard to be a Christian missionary without a vision. been out seeing the command of God to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Every man has to have this burden. I remember preachers that used to preach a wonderful sermon and they’d present it to the people and say, we’re going to sing and as we’re singing, you need to ask God to give you a burden. You don’t have a burden to ask God to give you a burden.

And so people get up and come down there and pray that God will give them a burden. Newsletter, give them a burden. I came to the conclusion. You don’t have to ask God to give you a Notwithstanding. All you have to do is accept the responsibility that He’s already told you and gave to you the commandment to go in the world and preach the gospel. And when you accept that responsibility, you will have a burden. But people don’t have a burden because they haven’t accepted their responsibility.

If I was to say, Angel, I need somebody to clean up that whole room back there after the thing is all over with, and it’s going to be filthy, it’s going to be trash over it, and I wish that I want you to do that job for me. You see, preach, I appreciate that. And so he gets on his hands and knees and he begins to cry, oh God, give meysis. Clean up that messy fellowship hall. Angel, get up and stop playing, the fool.

I already told you what Iletes wanted you to do, just acceptWOOD’s responsibility and HE’LL HAVE A BARDEN! Now he thinks I’m joking. I haven’t heard him say, yes, I will accept that response. Did you all hear him say I will accept that response? Did anybody hear him say that? He says amen. I guess I’ll just move right along then. A vision without a task is a dream. And a task without a vision is a drudgery. A vision and a task is the hope of the world.

Because I’ve said it this way before. In the book of Romans in chapter nine when he says, they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. It’s one thing to have so much knowledge and no zeal, No zeal, leads to frustration. Or if a man has zeal, but no knowledge. Because you have the desire to perform, but not the wisdom toittee. Some people have the knowledge on how to do something, but not the desire to do it.

Both leads to frustration. That’s why some people can set in church for all their life and they get all this knowledge, but they have no zeal, no passion, just as miserable. And then there’s others who come along and then, I want to do a thousand things for God, and they don’t have any knowledge on how to do it. But what happens with the man that gets the zeal and the knowledge puts them together? Look out world. That’s what the world needs.

A person said this, a blind man’s world is bounded by the limits of his touch. An ignorant man’s world by the limits of his knowledge. A great man’s world by the limits of his vision. is of God. A vision comes in advance of any task well done. Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for because unless we stand for something we shall fall for anything.” Peter Marshall said that. He was a great man.

He really was. I have a few things in turning a word that most people don’t like. It’s the word called work. You ever heard that word? The only place that you will ever find success before work is in the dictionary. Generally, you have to work before you have success. John chapter nine verse four says this, I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man can work. In other words, we need to do, for the Lord, what we can, or why we can, but what we have because now it’s daytime.

But there will come a time when it will be night and we won’t be able to work. You only got so much time to live. And what are we trying to accomplish with our life? An unexamined life is not worth living. We We should always be examining who am I, or am I doing here. What does God want? Another statement, free men freely work. Whoever fears God fears to set at ease. Let me read to you again. Free men freely work.

Whoever fears God fears to set at ease. You know, even though I know what the Bible says, I’ve got a fairly good grasp of it. There’s a lot of that I don’t know, but I’ve got an idea. And even though I’ve been serving the Lord for over over 50 years, I feel sometimes guilty when I’m not doing something, when I’m not busy. Because of my respect that I have for God, I feel like I’m almost wasting time and wasting opportunity if I stopped too long to enjoy too much of the world.

I can enjoy some but not too much because it wouldn’t take much for it to really get a hold of me. I love to play a little golf but I can leave it alone if I have to. I love to take a cruise. I did three years ago but if I get a chance to go again I probably will but when I go you know what I wound up doing, study, witness, and so, but that’s what to do because you’re, there’s a little fear that you’re going to waste too many opportunities.

So you’re always on guard. James will go out on the cruise and it’s just nothing more than a missionary trip for him. But sometimes the Bible says that we need to come apart. It doesn’t mean go, I’ll come apart, that you we should come apart unless we come apart. There’s times when you need to back up a little bit and enjoy a little bit of life. And the Bible says God has given us all things freely to enjoy. But the thing is is to learn discernment.

Don’t fall in love with the world. Don’t be just totally caught up at entertainment. There’s a battle that’s on and our time is very important, so we need to be careful. Another good statement. Now all this is what I shared with those kids on graduation. Do you feel like it was just the stuff for them 30 years ago? Or do you think anything that I’m saying could help any of us today, just a tad? Get your happiness out of your work, or you will never know what real happiness is.

Every man has to work. So you need to learn how to be happy in your work. But the ultimate purpose and goal of life is not to be happy. It’s just to do the will of him that sent us, and to please him. If I have to wait until I get to heaven to be happy, so be it. But I have to admit, I have enjoyed life as I’ve gone. You should enjoy doing what you do, believing that what you do.

And when the woman has to do the dishes, she can wash those dishes for the glory of the Lord. Because God says, whatsoever thy hands find it to do, do it with all thy mind. That was strictly to the women. So I’m glad there’s, you know, you have to know that there’s some words in there that are masculine, some are feminine, and that comes from a feminine word. Okay, I’m joking.

Henry Ward Beecher made this statement. He says, the purest pleasure lie within the circle of useful occupation. Mere pleasure sought outside of usefulness is fraught with poison. No think I wrote, though my head and my hand be at labor, yet doth my heart dwell with God. Even though you’ve got your mind on the things you gotta do and you’ve got your hands busy doing what you have to do, did you know that you could still rejoice in your heart to the Lord?

I remember when I was at a regular printing company, they’re in Athens, before I ever knew there was a Bible college. I’d get that folding machine and it was in a printing shop and I’d get that thing going. And it would make just a beautiful music. it was a beat, it had a beat to it. And if we’d get to run a sheet after sheet, and I’d get that thing going, well, it wasn’t long before I had a beat to a song.

And I’d be a hummin’ this song, and this thing was a beatin’ along there. The next thing you know, I would be singin’ the song. And because it was so loud, nobody could hear me. So it wasn’t long before I’m singin’ out. And I’m just singin’ along, And this thing is going to beat, I got my own music, I’m in hog heaven, and getting paid for it. And then the thing with jam, and there I’m going. And there’s 30 people working in this plant.

And I realize it stopped. It’s got a jam. Everybody in the whole plant would look over there at me that I was in another world. And sometimes it’s good to be in another world. Because you know you’re in this world, But you’re thinking about the things of the Lord. And it can be good for you. Due to the generous offer of an anonymous Colorado supporter of Bibleline, we want to make you an offer you cannot refuse. He has purchased 68 copies of the book, The Gospel Driven Man by Dr.

Ralph Yankee Arnold to be given to anyone who donates any amount as they thank you for helping to keep Bibleline on this station. He writes, What would be the most important item one could receive it would be appreciated, which would answer many questions, which would be easy to read, understandable, and uses God’s Word as the source. What came to mind was your book, The Gospel Driven Man. This book has helped me and my wife considerably. We have given the book out as gifts before and continue to do so.

All the basic doctrines you hear me teach on the radio is found in this book. One book per donor. So remember, mail your gift up any amount today and we will send you your copy of The Gospel-driven man. Be sure to include your mailing address. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. 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. 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, just keep looking up.