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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 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 was in Chattanooga, Tennessee and I decided I’m going to work on the bus route. So as As I work on the bus rock, you have all kinds of experiences going to people’s homes and going inside and talking to people. Some you lead to the Lord and you want to get their kids. But for some reason, rather, Dr. Lee Robertson, who was the president of the Tennessee Temple at that time, he says, Yankee, here’s somebody for you to go by and see.

And I don’t know what the problem is, but they just want you to go by and see them. I said, yes, I will. So anyway, I got that and there’s like a little business card. So I was on my route and so I was going to go by and see them. And when I got there, this guy opened the door and he was plastered. But you don’t know, he was drunk. And he said, come on in. So I, and Ferren Trimly went in.

And I went on in there and he sat down at the table and so I sat down at the table. And he looked over at me and he says, what do you want? I thought you’re the one that wanted me to come. Oh. And he had a revolver sitting there on the table and he picked it up and he had his shells and he started putting his shells to the chamber. I said, what are you going to do? He says, well, when I get these in, I’m going to shoot you.

So if you got something to say, say it. Well, I started talking. I started talking and talking and talking and he finally put the last one in. And I said something that kind of got his attention about something. So he opened it back up and started taking them out. So I was taking them out and just talking. So when he got through, he said to you through, he said, no, no, no. I got some other things. I want to say, OK, I’ll start putting it back down.

He did that about two or three times. And I thought, I need to get out of here. Because you don’t ever know what the guy’s going to do. So I didn’t even try to lead him to the Lord, as I can recall. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just left. Because I wanted to get out of there. So when I got out, it was only a few days later. Dr. Lee Robertson called me in the office and says, you know that guy you went to see the other night, I said, yeah, I remember him.

He says, in the hospital, I want you to come see him. I thought he can’t have a gun there. So I went to the hospital and when I walked in here, he says, you remember me. And I said, yeah, I remember you. I said, you don’t have a gun do you? He says, no, he smiled. He was sober now. And I let him do the Lord. But I thought to myself, that could have been an ugly situation. One day I’m running a ranch meeting, and we have several hundred kids sitting there, and kids are asking questions, and as they ask these questions, I’d answer them as best I could from the Bible, and all of a sudden, this one kid asked, and he had real long hair.

He says, what do you think about people that have long hair? And I’m looking right at him, and everybody can see him, he’s sitting there, right in the middle, long hair. I don’t want to offend the kid. I don’t want to hurt the kid. I mean, long-haired girl make a difference whether you go to heaven or hell has nothing to do with it. But he asked me a question. I said, well, and I said, take your Bible internally here in Corinthians.

And I said, see the Bible says it’s a shame for a man to have long hair. And then he said, well, how long is too long? I said, it ought not be the same as a woman’s. God says it’s good for a woman to have long hair. It’s her glory and so on. So anyway, we kind of got off of that in on something else. I went home that night, went to bed, unlandered bed in the phone rings. And this guy on the other end says, are you Yankee Arnold?

I proved mean and ugly. I said, yes sir, who is this? He says, you’re Yankee Arnold. He said, you run a youth group? I said, yes sir? He says, My son was there tonight. He says, you mock him and made fun of his long hair. I says, no sir, I didn’t. He says, all I know is this, when I see you, I’m gonna kill you. He said, I’m gonna kill you. Do you understand me? And he was mad. I said, yeah, I understand.

So anyway, hung up. So the next morning I got a hold of Joe Potter. He’s a missionary down in Guyana, down in South America. I said, Joe. Yes. I said, I got a… go visit somebody you want to go with me just here he says where are we going that’s so we’re going to see that a guy that called me up last night oh okay I thought up maybe I need to tell him because I don’t I don’t want you know him not to know what’s to prepare for let me be I shouldn’t have told him after I told my shit and I told him but I told him so I told him what happened he says you’re gonna what that’s it we’re going there says we’re not he’s I said we are I said if a guy’s gonna kill me I’d rather just get it over with

I mean I’m get it over with. I don’t like living with that suspense. So we got in the car and we drove up to his house and there was no front. You had to drive around to the downstairs. So I drove around downstairs and got out of my car and here comes his wife out the front, out the door. And she says, oh, preacher, preacher, get out of here. She says, my husband is looking for you now. She says, he has a gun and he’s going to kill you.

Well I never died before. I thought another experience. I says, oh can we come in and wait for him? No! She didn’t want nothing to do with it. She warned me to leave. I says, man do you have any coffee? I just love a coffee. Hot coffee and I did. I don’t know why. I just never dawned on me that this could be my last day on earth. So anyway we went and sat down she he fixes some coffee.

It wasn’t long before this car come flying down, and I’m talking about he’s sliding sideways. I mean, he’s speeding into his own backyard there, and he’s sliding sideways, and all of a sudden, the car’s still rocking, the door’s opened up, and he’s slammed it, cut it, and he’s running to the door. And Joe Pott, he’s standing, and he says, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? I’m still worried about it, don’t worry about it.

We was worried about it. I was too, but I have to give the appearance, you know, that I’m calm. I’m not afraid. Some people, sometimes you just numb. You don’t know what to do. Anyway, he busted the door and his wife jumped in front of him and tried to hold him back and says, and he’s looking at me with fire in his eyes. I’ve never met this man before. I never done anything to this guy. And his kid asked the question.

And I just answered the question. WhenSourceFile the kid goes home, who knows what they say? But it wasn’t long before he finally calmed down a little bit. And I said, can I tell you what happened? And I had the Bible and I showed him, I said, look at this verse. It says it’s in the Bible. This is what it says. I said, but it has nothing to do with going to heaven or hell. Anyway, it kept on, they both trusted the Lord and they wanted to start driving their flatbed for our a-right.

And so it worked out for the good. But you can’t have anything happen to you if you don’t do something and take a stand for something. Now, I want you to take a Bible and look at this. Look there in the book of 2 Corinthians in chapter 12. 2 Corinthians in chapter 12. Those are the introductory remarks to my message today. 2 Corinthians in chapter 12, I want you to see what he says in verse 16. He makes a statement.

In verse 16, I say again, let no man think me a fool, if otherwise yet, as a full receiving, that I may boast myself a little. Now, I wanna say something, but it’ll seem like I’m bragging. But I don’t wanna brag, but I just wanna say something. Because there’s some of the people, they’re in Corinth, that were, you know, because they were doing so much good. They were so holy, they were so right, but they were just carnally, that’s all it was.

They didn’t see the truth. They were now putting Paul down, and said he’s the one that led him to the Lord. but now see they’re Carly minded. And he says, now let me tell you something. So he says they’re in verse 17. That which I speak, this is in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 17. That which, what’s that? And you know what I said? Oh, that was a topographical error. 2 Corinthians chapter 11, but if you can find it in chapter 12, go ahead.

But in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, in verse 16, he said, I say again, let no man think of me full if otherwise yet as he full received me that I may boast myself a little. That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly in this confidence of boasting. Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. In other words, you want to brag about what you’re doing? Let me, let me brag a little bit.

If you want to complain about all your suffering for Jesus’ sake, I mean you’re just working so hard for the Lord. And you don’t have, nobody has an idea what you go through. He says, you want to whine and pine a little bit. You want to moan and groan. You want to learn a little bit. Let me tell you what suffering for Jesus is love. And then he, buddy, he lowers the boom. And look in chapter 12 real quick.

You’ll notice what he says there in verse, oh, let me see there, in verse 11, he says, I am become a fool in glorying. You have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended of you for in nothing am I behind, the very chief is apostle, though I be nothing. So he says, I didn’t wanna say all these things, But you compel me, now let me tell you something. And if you wanna consider me bragging, okay, so be it.

Did you know sometime I’ve had people say, Yank, do you ought not say you led somebody to the Lord? You all say, the Lord did it. Well, the Lord doesn’t teach the Sunday school class and the Lord didn’t drive the bus and the Lord didn’t correct this and the Lord didn’t do that. The Lord uses people. So Paul says, I did this and I did this. And the reason some Christians can’t say I did it because they didn’t. In 2 Corinthians in chapter 11, he makes his statement in verse 18, seeing that many glory after the flesh.

I will also glory. For ye suffer, fold gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise. For ye suffer if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalts himself, if a man smites you on the somebody walk up and smacked you on the face, oh, you suffered so bad. He says, okay, let me tell you something of what happened to me. So, he says in verse 24, he says, of the Jews five times, you see, .40 stripes saved one.

You want to compare your little smack on the face with what I went through? He thought, no, I don’t want to have to do this, but you’ve compelled me to do it. So, he says, thrice, I was beaten with rods. Once I was stone, thrice I suffered shipwreck a night and a day I have been in the deep in journeyings often in perils of water and in perils of robbers and perils of my own countrymen and perils of the heat and in perils of the city and this wilderness and in perils in the sea and perils among false brethren.

In weariness and painfulness in watching’s often in hunger and thirst and fastings often in a cold and nakedness beside those things that are without that which come up upon me daily the care of all the churches. In other words, you want to compare? Well, say you want to talk about how bad you’ve had it? Let me tell you something. Now, that is not a one of us in this room. In spite of all that we’ve gone through in our whole life, we’ll never compare to what Paul went through.

And in spite of everything, he would not quit serving God. He says because in the same chapter, in chapter four of 2 Corinthians, he says, having therefore this ministry, we faint not means we don’t quit. We can’t quit because it is so important. And so the devil and all the people that were against him, and he says, and then the burden of all the churches. In other words, there was no let up. It was always constant, the pressure that was upon him.

So he says here in verse 29, who is weak? Am I not weak? Who is offended? And I burn not you. You get offended? Don’t you think I ever get offended? You think I get burned bad? You think I don’t want to strike back? Get even? But he never wronged anybody. He wouldn’t wrong them. He would just allow people to defraud him, save what they wanted, do what they wanted. But you see, Paul refers to all these experiences. This goes back over his life, his whole life.

It’s not saying your life is not made up of, one little moment today. When God says, I want you, he wants me to yield my life to him. He’s not talking about just from this moment forward, he’s talking about my whole life. God wants to use everything in my life that’s usable. And you’d be surprised what God has taught you and the lessons that you’ve learned, how valuable you would be to the Lord if you’d let God use you.

But you’re the one that decides that. God does not force any of us to serve him. He will not make anybody, trust him as Savior. And he will not force any of us to serve him. But I’ve been around long enough that I have enjoyed my life. And I want to use whatever part of my life. Did you know that when I go to a rescue mission, and I have preached at the Pacific Garden missions up there in Chicago, I’ve been there.

They’re unshackled. unshackled. Anybody ever heard of unshackled on radio? It’s on all over the world. And I’ve been there and I pray, but you know what really softens it when I get a chance to talk to them? It’s my own personal testimony of where I came from. And that my daddy, yes, he was a boatlegger. And that the way I was raised, I won’t thought at one time, God can’t use none of that. But yes, he can. When I went to Bible college, we’d go down to the Miami Rescue Mission, and I’d get a chance to share what God’s done for me.

This is where I was. This is what God’s brought me through. And I am so glad, so thankful for all those experiences. I wouldn’t want to repeat some of them. But I’m thankful for every one of them. You will begin to enjoy your life when you can begin to be thankful for your life. Not all your bad decisions, but did you know that God is able to use your failures? Because there’s people that are now existing with pressures and problems and they feel like a failure and they God can’t use them because I’ve messed up here and there.

And you’d be surprised what God has taught you that you could say, look, I know God can use you because God can use me. And you may be facing this, but this is what God did to me. And I’m not talking about promoting and glamorizing sins and wickedness and things like that I’m talking about, there are experiences in your life where you’ve had close calls or you’ve lost a loved one or you’ve had bad health or financial difficulty. Who knows what God has put you in situations that God can be able to use you greater than you would have ever dreamed?

That’s what makes you more valuable because you can relate to more people because of all the things that God’s done for you and what He’s brought you through. He goes down here and he says this. In verse 30 he says, If I must need glory, I will glory of the thing which concern mine in permatees, my weaknesses, my failures. And he says, The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed forevermore, knoweth that I lie not.

In Damascus, now he goes all the way back to the day, he trusted Christ’s Savior, and he was going to serve the Lord, and he went and lo and behold they had to let him down over the wall in a basket so he could escape because there was people that wanted to kill him. So see, it wasn’t just Paul at this moment, it was Paul’s life that he wanted to use for the Lord. You see, you may have already messed up a thousand times.

Did you know that God has taught you some things that other people need to learn from? If God had to wait until He found the perfect person, how long will He have to wait? Because there is nobody like that. All of us are sinners, sinners. And after you trust Christ as Savior, you still sin. But can God use those sinners? saved by grace. That’s all we are. And you study some of the Old Testament saints and you’ll find out but God had in some cases some mighty poor people to use but he used them.

And he says here in verse 32, in Damascus the governor under Eretis the king kept the city of the Domaskings with a garrison desirous to apprehend me with a garrison desirous to apprehend me and through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall and escaped his hands and that’s in the book of Acts in chapter 9. So you see, when he’s trying to bring out one point, he goes all the way back to the time when he was born and look who he was and what tribe and all that.

But then when he talks in the book of Galatians when he wants to talk about the law, he refers to what he did under the law. And then when he wants talk to these Corinthians about facing problems and what they’ve gone through and how they’ve suffered, then he got all these here that he can talk about. So you can do this in every book and every one of them, but there’s parts of your life that are so important. It’s what God brought you through.

That’s why in 1 Timothy and chapter 1 he says that I am an example of someone that would believe because if God can save him then God can save anybody and if God can use him then God can use anybody. So can God use you? Take by that for a moment. If you understand what I’m talking about can God use you? Do you have a story to tell? What has God done for you? Well so far nothing. I told people this I said if you put your life in the hands of God, it won’t be long before you see God’s hand in your life.

And you’ll be able to see how God has worked in all areas of your life. And you’ll become richer for it. And then you don’t have to walk around feeling like, man, I’ve already lived so many years, and I never did anything for the Lord. And you begin to realize, boy, I’ve got a lot of things that God can use. God has taught me a lot because I’ve suffered a lot. And some of these things I’ve gone through is because of my own bad decisions.

decisions. I made bad decisions. Did you know that God can use those bad decisions as lessons for somebody else so that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel, to follow them to the same mud hole that you fell into? Wouldn’t you like God to use you to keep somebody else from making the same decisions that you did that ruined your life, that could ruin their life? See if I had a big old diamond up here and it fell off.

If I picked it up, it may not be as big as it used to be, but it’s still diamond. Now there’s a gross that you’ve but it’s still diamond. And maybe there’s a lot of things you’re like growing your life, but God can still use you. You and I are supposed to believe that. And they God will use us. Let me give you this before I close it. Look there in 1 Corinthians in chapter four, 1 Corinthians in chapter four.

1 Corinthians chapter four, and look at verse nine, verse nine. He says in verse nine, for I think that God have set forth us the apostles last. as it were appointed to death, for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels and to men, a spectacle. Verse 10, we are fools, we are fools. But don’t end right there. We’re fools for Christ’s sake. I would rather be a fool for Christ’s sake. Who’s fool to you? They’re going to be a fool.

Whose fool will you rather be? I’ll be a fool for Christ. Because in the eyes of the world, I may look like I’m a fool. For what I’ve done and the way I’ve lived and the things that I don’t do, places that I don’t go and the language that I don’t use and all those things. Ah, Yankee, just a fool. Yeah. But when I get to heaven, I don’t think I’m going to be a fool. I think I’m going to be a fool.

Only in the eyes may be of the world. Look what he says. He says in verse 10, We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you’re wise in Christ. We are we, oh, you’re so strong. You’re honorable and we’re so despised. Even in this present hour, we go hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place. How many of you would like to be like the Apostle Paul? Look what he went through. So we don’t even have a certain plumbing place.

He didn’t have a place he could call home. He was on the move. So where do you live at? Oh, I live in prison, cell number nine. It was in this prison, in that prison, that prison. And yet one of the greatest men that ever lived. Never has any of the conveniences that you and I enjoy today, even in our rebellion. His greatest mama’s was not as like ours. So he says in verse 12, and labor, working with our own hands, being revolved, we bless, being persecuted, we suffer it.

Being defamed, we entreat, we are made as the filth of the world and are the offspring of all things unto this day, unto this day, unto this day. Sorry, I’m not trying to shame you, I’m just trying to tell you so that you understand. You ought to be some vents in your mind. God can use me, God can use me. and he wants to use my life. Don’t concentrate just upon the few years you may have left, but God can use all of it, and you’ll be surprised how much God can do in a short period of time.

Because of what you’ve learned, if you’ve learned it, you realize how much more you can accomplish in a short period of time. The older we get, the wiser we’re supposed to become. Hopefully that’s true. Look up here. This hand representing you and me, the wall of represent sin. We all have sin on us. God, He loves us. Now what I’m talking about right now has nothing to do with committing your life, how you’re going to live and say and all those things being used.

First of all, you have to be born into God’s family. But see, this is you and me. This is sin. We are sinners. And we’re to be separated from God for all eternity. But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven. To go to heaven we have to be perfect as righteous has got. None of us are perfect, none of us are righteous. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection and we cannot save ourselves. This hen represents Jesus Christ.

He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates what we do wrong because our sin separates us from Him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. He said, if we would believe, we would believe He did it for us. He would put the payment He made to our account. We get to go to heaven on what Christ did for us. You don’t earn it, you don’t work for it, you can’t buy it.

It is a gift totally free. Say, God sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world because He loves us. And Christ paid for our sins, came back from the dead, and says, will you believe that He did it for you? Isn’t that so simple? When you believe this, this payment is put to your account. You don’t have any sense to pay for it. You ought to, I ought to, but I don’t have to. He died for my sins. So many people have heard this for years, all their life, but they never get it.

He paid for my sins, and I don’t have to pay for them. You say, well, you don’t deserve that. I know that’s why it’s called grace. Grace is unmerited. You don’t merit. You don’t deserve it. It’s because of how much God loves us. It’s not how much we love him. Let’s pray, shall we? But his bow nice clothes, no one looking around. if what I said made some sense to you. Maybe you don’t understand all of it, but you know enough.

You know that you’re a sinner. You know you’re not perfect. You’ve heard a Christ out on the cross. Well, friend, he did. And he died for you. He paid for your sins. Now, to go to heaven, you must believe he did it for you. You see, if you believe he died and paid for your sins, then you’re not going to try to earn your way to happen. Because you see, you can’t earn it and there’s nothing to earn. You’re already going because it was free.

So if you’ve never done so, would you do it right now? Would you say preach of that made sense to me and I want to be certain of the one to heaven when I die and I will trust Jesus Christ right now as my… was my Savior. And praying if you’ll do that, God said He would save and give eternal life. If you’re making that decision, I’d like to know it and I’d like to have prayer for you. I’m not going to have you forward, not getting embarrassed, but right where you are.

I say, preacher, I will trust Christ. I pray, would you just slip in a very quick thing, but right back down say, you want it all? You know what I want? Just slip it up very quickly and say, yes, that made sense to me and I won’t trust Christ right now as my Savior. It won’t all be full of clothes. I pray that all of you have trusted Christ as Savior. Did you know that when you decide as a child of God, I want to serve the Lord God can use everything in your life.

He can use it. You have to pick and choose the right time, the purpose, the person that God can use you. Father, we thank you so much for this time together. Bless each one. We ask your blessings upon the service tonight. So, Christ name and pray. Amen. Due to the generous offer of an anonymous Colorado supporter of Bibleline, we want to make you and offer you cannot refuse. He has purchased 68 copies of the book, The Gospel Driven Man, by Dr.

Ralph Yankee Arnhem, 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 that would be appreciated? Which would answer many questions which would be easy to read, understandable, and uses God’s word as a 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. They’re leaving that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.