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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 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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turn in your Bible to the Book of Romans, the Book of Romans, And chapter 5, Romans chapter 5, I want to speak this morning on the subject, my expression of my love for God. Everyone knows that we are commanded really to love the Lord. It’s one of the first commandments, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy hard mind, body, soul and strength, and very few people do. But if you did love the Lord, what would be your expressions of your love for Him?

There’s some things that I want to explain to you this morning. I hope it will be a blessing. But the Bible tells us that God expressed his love toward us. In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That was God’s way of showing you and I how much he loved us. When we say we love him, there should be a way of expressing that love. So here in Romans in chapter 5, I want you to look there in verse 5.

Verse 5 says, and hope makeeth not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us, for when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for righteous men will one die, but perventure for a good man, some would even dare to die. But God commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. That is an awesome portion of scripture showing you how much God loves us.

As I was explaining in Sunday school this morning, the teaching of eternal security, the belief that whenever you trust Christ is your Savior and He gives you eternal life and it lasts forever. That’s a demonstration of how much God loves us. And yes, it would demonstrate some love for us if He had saved us only for a day and it would demonstrate more of God’s love if He had saved us for a year. But it demonstrates His perfect love when it says He loves us forever and saves us forever.

When people add works to the gospel, they’re diminishing the appearance of God’s love. They’re taken away from what God wants people to know. And no man has a right to tamper with the love of God. So these are important scriptures. every life has a purpose. And the purpose of every man is defined it. A man may live for money, power or fame, but whatever he lives for constitutes his purpose for life. The question to ask is what does God say should be my purpose for living?

We already covered several reasons on why should I be a soul winner? Because we know that being a soul winner is the greatest expressions of Revealing God’s love you can never have. You can sing in the choir, but it doesn’t do it all. Because singing in the choir is not going to leave people with Christ unless the message is good enough and that’s what it does. But I’m talking about even coming to church and sitting with our Bibles in our hands.

That’s good. I don’t diminish that. But there is nothing that can compare with the actual winning of people with the Christ, talking to individuals. Now I was talking to James earlier and James was telling me that he had a couple trusts of the Lord and are you the other night? Now I thought, isn’t that wonderful? He’s not the pastor, but he don’t have to be the pastor, be a soul winner. I got a phone call the other night and I think it was Jesse or it might have been Peter, but I can’t remember which one.

They go so winning and they’ll call me up and say, we had 20 something trusts of the Lord, of 30-something trust the Lord on so winning. Not the pastor of the church. But you see, you don’t have to be a pastor of a church to express your love for the Lord. See, the best way you can ever express it is by telling somebody who’s never heard it. Sometimes you ever heard a preacher that they take about what he’s just preaching to the choir.

He’s just preaching to the in the words, you’re just talking to the people that already knows it and already heard it a thousand times. They don’t need that. But we are thankful that we know Christ. We can keep talking about it. But see little by little, we’re going to all pass away and we’re going to be with the Lord. We’re all of those people that we’re supposed to reach in the meantime. And that’s why it’s so important. But Christ told His disciples to go.

That is a command. Preaching the gospel is a command of God not a leading. Some people say, well, I don’t feel like witnessing it’s not what I want to do. And if I don’t feel like it, I shouldn’t do it because I will be doing it with the wrong motive. And you know you don’t want to do something with the wrong motive. You know, like the husband comes home and says, honey, you didn’t do the dishes. Well, of course I didn’t do the dishes.

Why didn’t you do the dishes? Because I have a wrong motive. I didn’t want to do it. And if I did it with the wrong motive, that would be the flesh. And I don’t want to do anything in the flesh. I just want to do it in the spirit. So I’m going to wait until the Holy Spirit leads me to wash those dishes. Well, if I came home and told my daughter to train, to train and wash the dishes, yes, most righteous Father.

He just father in all the world, most perfect dad. I can’t wash the dishes, and I can’t make the bed because my motives are not right. I’m going to give her an attitude adjustment. It won’t be long before she’ll be in the dishwashing business. You see, I want her to do it for the right motive, for the right reason, but if she doesn’t do it with the right motive. She better do it with the wrong motive. The right motive is for her enjoyment.

I want the job done. When you go to work tomorrow and your boss says, I want you to do this, this and this and all, I appreciate that. But I don’t have the right motive. And you know, I don’t want to do this thing in the energy of the flesh. I don’t want to go ahead of the Lord. I want the Lord to lead me to do this and guide me. In other words, you don’t want to do it.

Well, they would have inquire practice yesterday. Next thing I know, they said some guy was knocking at the door. So they didn’t know who it was, so they went and opened the door. Who is? Angel? Where? Angel, that’s the guy. They come and knocked at this door. And so Peter led him in and he said, I want to see Yankee Arnold. No, I’ve never met Angel. I met this angel. We got two angels in here this morning. An angel came in the door.

He says, I want to see Yankee Arnold. He says, somebody told him to come here and see Yankee Arnold. Oh, he said, this is what he wanted to do. So anyway, Peter brought him in there to see me and, you know, I’m busy, I’m working, I’ve got things to do. I’ve got time to talk to some 15-year-old kid about the Lord and how to go to heaven when he dies. I mean, what I was doing was so much more important.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, isn’t that what you do when you don’t have time to win souls, time to pass out a track? Because you’re always standing that everything else you do is more important That hurt, didn’t it? Well anyway, they brought a man, of course, I’m glad to talk to him. He came on in, sat down in the chair, acts like he owned a place. No, anyway, he got a chance to talk to him a little bit, and I asked him a question about, do you know for certain you’re the one in heaven when you die?

Well, he wasn’t too sure about that. So I went ahead and explained the gospel. He understood he trusted Christ to save you. Didn’t you trust the Lord? Yes. Anyway, he listened a little bit and I invited him to come today. I didn’t know he was here. But you see, that’s just because, now what Peter said is the door. I’m sorry, you came to the wrong door. Slam! Or the preacher is too busy to talk to you today. No. I chatted the bits for that.

You bring them to me all day long. I don’t care. But what I want you to do and get to understand is that you can always win souls. Betty. Have you ever let somebody do your Lord? Did you go, you think, oh, this Friday night, did you? Oh, you did go to the Friday night? Did you have anybody trust the Lord? You got escorted out of them all. What did you do? Did you witness to the security guard or something?

Not that night. Listen, this is a lady. Can I tell them how old you are? How old are you? 85? 68. 68. She’s 68 and she goes out on this lady of the street. No, she’s out on the street talking to individuals about how to have eternal life. You say, you can’t do that. Yes, you can. Is Jesse, are you in here? Jesse, I mean, you all have Friday night, 27 or 28 that they led to the Lord Friday night.

You see, all this means is this is an expression of their love of the Lord. You can say how much you love the Lord, but in what ways are you expressing your love? You see even when we take up the offering the money that you give the amount God knows you should give and the amount You did give is an expression of your love for the Lord And also is an expression of your love for this ministry and the people we have working here and what they’re doing so whenever you Hold back you rob yourself.

You’re stealing from yourself Not talking about what you’re doing to God or the cause The cause is so important But you’d be surprised how many times you can steal things from God by not Expressing how much you love him your attendance to church is An expression and should be an expression of your love for the Lord. Why because you’re doing right because I love the Lord And this is what God wants me to do. But remember, it always boils down to what does God want me to do?

It doesn’t matter what the preacher wants. I’m just to tell you what God said, but it’s not between you and me. Everything in our life is between us and God. It doesn’t matter when you please me or not. It’s what do you please God? What does God want you to do with your life? And so your involvement is an expression of your love. For example, we have the choir. People come and they, doesn’t think so much of their time they come.

Yes, they was here for a couple hours practicing. They practice every Sunday morning, the day 30. So they are singing in the choir. Well, getting out of the region. Why are they doing that? It’s for the money. Peter pays them so much money. Sandy says, I haven’t got mine yet. I knew you was going to say that. It’s not because of the money. It’s because it’s an expression of their love for the Lord. It’s because they want the choir to sound good, and it does, doesn’t it?

Think about this for a moment. You have Mrs. Paulson and you have Jan over here and they’ve been playing the piano in the organ. Mrs. Paulson has been on the weather right now. She’s got to carry this whole thing, And she’s doing an excellent job. I’m serious. When she started, she was scared to death. But her faithfulness is an expression of how much she loves the Lord. She’s willing to go through all of that, the misnotes, whatever it is, and the time and all that.

But because of her love for the Lord, she will endure the hardness, as the scripture says, as a good soldier. I was up there in Jacksonville on Thursday. Got a phone call and somebody had a granddad that they wanted somebody to go by and see. And I wasn’t able to do it. So we told them, says, call the church, talk to James. Anybody can get him James can. So they got it, hold James and James went to the hospital.

The guy was James, 94, 94 years old. And James talked to the guy for a little while and asked him a few little questions. and by the time you get through and all the nice of these, you know where he’s headed. And do you know where you’re going when you die? So James explained the gospel to him. And as best, when we say somebody trusts the Lord, all we’re telling you is that they said they would trust the Lord.

I can’t say who saved and who’s not. If I say 25 people trusted Christ as a Savior, it doesn’t mean it. All I’m saying is that they said that. I didn’t say that. I’m just telling how many people told me that they would trust Christ as Savior. So when I went and just preached at that school down there in Miami, in about 30 or 40, trust the Lord. That’s about how many? Probably more than that, but I wanted to be conservative.

And I’m going to another school and maybe five or six, trust the Lord there. But you see, that doesn’t mean that’s the total picture. If there’s a hundred people, there’s a hundred people who made a hundred decisions. Everybody’s decides. Every one of you in this room are going to make a decision this morning. You’re going to figure out, are there ways that I can improve the expressions of my love of the Lord? You see, singing in the choir is an expression of people’s love.

People who work in the R.U. program is an expression of their love. But what I want you to see is it’s the individuals in the church that are being so winners. They’re talking to people about the Lord, to carry in tracks on them. We went through over about 24, 25,000 tracks in the last six months. That’s a lot of tracks. We just had to order another 20,000 tracks. But isn’t that wonderful? And every week I get somebody that stayed or someplace that’s either ordering something or calling up and saying, you trust the Lord or they would bless because of the broadcast or something.

That’s why we’re here. That’s our purpose. It’s our motive. My desire is to try to teach you to be a soul winner, to talk to people about the Lord, because I believe it’s so important. Look at the next scripture down here. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, 17, if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward. If against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is still committed unto me. Sometimes you preach the gospel because you want to and sometimes you do because it’s a duty to do.

I feel like I’m responsible and I should. But I wrote down two things here, and I want you to look in 1 Thessalonians chapter two. 1 Thessalonians in chapter two. The reason these verses are so important is because it is an expression of somebody’s love and concern. So 1 Thessalonians chapter two, I want you to notice there in verse four, 1 Thessalonians chapter two verse four. And look, this is some of the scriptures that Tanya gives you what he did with the right motive.

See in verse four, but as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God which tryeth our heart, you see, presenting the gospel, winning people is not to please men. It’s done to please God. It’s not done to please yourself. You don’t do it because well I want to today, well I don’t want to today. It’s a responsibility. You are entrusted. It means God is trusting you.

Have you betrayed his trust and that you say, well I never get any opportunities if you don’t get any, make some. But again what else he says? He says in verse 5, neither at any time usually flattering words. As you know, nor a cloak of covetousness, God is witness, nor of men sought we glory, neither of you nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among you, even as a nurse, shares with her children, and so being affectionately desires of you we have willing, we’re willing to have imparted into you not only the gospel of God only, but also our own soul, because you were dear unto us.

Look what he did and this is his motive. We didn’t have false motive. We did because you were dear unto us. And the way that we were with you. See, winning people of the crisis, yeah, it can be a scary thing. But every one of you in this room who knows Christ is Savior didn’t all trust the Lord in church. That’d be interesting. How many of you in here trust the Lord but not in church? That’s probably over half, over half the church.

So you didn’t trust the Lord in the church. So it means you trust the Lord outside of this church or some church. Everyone should take seriously the command that God has given to us. It’s what gives purpose to your life. It’s why you’re faithful. It’s why you come and give. Now take your Bible real quick and look in the book of Philippians, Philippians and chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1 and look in verse 12, here is the results of some who do it for the wrong reason, wrong motive.

In verse 12, but I would you should understand brethren that the things which happen to me have fallen out rather than to the furtherance of the gospel. So all the things that seems to be the bad things that happens to you in life happen unto the furtherance of the gospel. Do you understand that. That all those things you consider to be bad things are opportunities. It puts you in a different situation, different place with different people for a reason.

God can do that. You’re supposed to believe that. Paul believed that so that everything that happens in your life, GodClosure doesn’t care about meintestinal always always about you or a little you. And you have your pity party because nothing works out right for you. Did you realize God may be blessing you abundantly and you don’t even see it? Blessings is not just, oh he gave me a lot of money, gave me a nice house, gave me a nice car.

They can become a curse to you. The key is do you understand that God moves in strange and mysterious ways? Hey he does. And so he makes a statement. He said, I get opportunities in verse 13 to preach in the palace. In verse 14, and many of the brethren waxed confident by my bonds are more bold. So there’s others who are becoming bold because I’m bold. They’re doing it without fear because I do it that way. When they see what I go through for the cause of Christ, it encourages.

You see, everything we say and do is either encouraging people or discouraging people. When you think about those that work with ranch, did you know that when kids come in, if a whole bunch of kids comes in, I bet you that would really encourage Jesse. But if only a few kids come, probably gets down and discouraged. If everybody showed up for choir practice, Peter’s probably greatly encouraged. But not everybody does everything they’re supposed to do. But remember, we have responsibilities on the Lord and our commitment and our faithfulness is all because it is an expression of our love of the Lord and we take it seriously.

So whether it’s camp we got coming up. Do you realize the problems you can have with trying to put together a camp just by having the kids come. Every kid is a problem. Every kid. Some kids are more than just one problem. Some of them bring a lot of problems and you got to have the right counselors who love those kids and help them solve those problems. So you got to have counselors that know the Lord and love the Lord and are willing to give up their time and their effort to make something happen.

It’s always safe, you have to do nothing, to play little games where it doesn’t involve me. I don’t have to be involved. Involvement is an expression of your love for the Lord. How involved are you in the ministries of the Lord? I’m not talking about coming to church. You come the church. That’s where we come to listen and to learn and to grow and defeat and so forth. But that’s not our ministry. That’s not what you do. That’s where we come to learn what to do and how to do it.

But now if you take away the church in the attendance and the money that you give, what is the ministry that you have said? This is what I do for the cause of Christ. Over and above my attendance. The Bible says, for sake not the assembling of yourselves together. Even such more as you see the day approach them. So that’s something that we ought to do and I’m not diminishing that. I’m just saying now, outside of that, what are you involved in?

Do you see why the preacher is always trying to get people involved in things? Several reasons. Let me tell you that. Do you realize that not long ago Peter. He had never done a choir. He didn’t know how to play the guitar. He couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Well, I mean, but by accepting a responsibility, he learned how to do some things he couldn’t do before. Did you know that Jesse, who’s been in this ministry most of his life?

Now he’s doing our youth ministry in head deacon. Did you know that his involvement not only helps him to reach kids and to train the kids, it’s what it does to him. You see, you use the ministry to build the people, not use the people to build a ministry. We want reformers unanimous because it helps build James Taylor and the ones that help it does something to them and for them it builds them. When you don’t get involved, you don’t grow.

You do not grow because you go to church. You learn the word, but it’s not the end of the game. It’s to prepare you to do the work of the ministry. Every child of God is to be involved. Did you know that we need more labors? What do you think Christ says? the law of the harvest. He says, pray ye that the Lord of the harvest will sin for the labors because the labors are few. The labors are few.

The work is great. The labors, few because it takes commitment. But you see those commitments that you make between you and the Lord is because it is a reflection, an expression of your love of the Lord. Not to be involved, never do anything. It tells some things about you. Are you spiritually minded? Spiritually minded means you mind the spirit. Fleshely minded means you mind the flesh. And I’ve had people say, well, I’ve seen an acquire, but since I don’t want to, I don’t want to do this in the flesh.

Well, I don’t either, but I’d rather see a body up there than an unseen spirit. Everybody, you can see a special. You could work with ranch. Maybe pick up kids to bring them to ranch. Maybe you can help in the wana. Maybe you can help in teaching in Sunday school. See, that’s one of the things I try to do, I’m not saying I do it perfectly. I try to create jobs.

Creating jobs means I’m creating opportunities for people to grow. Because you don’t grow just by coming to church and sitting and listening. You don’t know what you think you know until you start trying to teach somebody else what you know. That’ll rack your brain. Then to be faithful, consistent, keep doing something consistently, and you’ll find out what you’re made out of. Because when it gets hard and it gets difficult, first thing people wanna do is, I quit, I quit, I quit, I quit, because it’s so easy to quit.

I’ve had to keep going for 52 years. And I don’t plan on quitting yet. If I was going to quit, I should have done it a long time ago. You know what my age is too late to start another trade. Preaching is all I know. But my reason is that I want to help people to grow strong in the glory. 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, driven man by Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold to be given to anyone who donates any amount as a 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 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 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. Cut up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.