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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

See winning people that Christ is, 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. is why you come and give. Now take your Bible real quick and look in the book of Philippians, Philippians and chapter one, Philippians chapter one and look in verse 12. Here is a result 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 the gospel.

So all the things that seems to be the bad things that happens to you in life happen until 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. I can’t believe that. So that everything that happens in your life, God doesn’t care about me. Always, all 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, I 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 strange and mysterious ways. He does. And so he makes the statement, he said, I get opportunities in verse 13 to preach in the palace.

And verse 14, and many of the brethren wax 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 for 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’ve got to have the right counselors who love those kids and help them solve those problems. you got to have. Counselor that know the Lord and love the Lord and are willing to give of 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 to church. That’s where we come to listen and to learn and to grow and to feed 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 and 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 not the assembling of yourselves together. Even so, more as you see the day approach. And 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, had never done a choir? That he didn’t know how to play the guitar. He couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Well, I’m in the end. 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 and 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 United 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? Concerning the law of the harvest, he says, pray ye that the Lord of the harvest will send forth labors because the labors are few. The labors are a few. The work is great. The labors, few, because it takes commitment. But you see, those commitments that you’ve made between you and the Lord is because it is a reflection and 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’d sing in the choir, 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 a 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 So what you think you know until you start kind of 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 gets difficult, first thing people want to do is I quit, I quit, I quit, I quit. Why? 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 Lord. Think about this for a second. Let’s say for example, Peter’s up here and he got the choir going in. And they sound so good and they work hard and they present the specials for us. they had twice that many up there. Then when somebody gets sick, nobody misses them too bad. But now you can miss out on certain people and all of a sudden you can tell where’s the base?

You mean Sandy’s not here today? She’s got a voice that it’s good for 10 women. She’s God has blessed that lady with a voice. Ain’t that right Sandy? God that girl, you don’t have to even mic her. We have to try to find out a way not to mic her. But not everybody has that same talent ability. See, we want somebody who can sing, not just because you like to sing, but can you sing? And the key thing is let God search your heart.

And if He reveals something to you that can help you to be effective, don’t you want to be an encouragement? Let me ask you this. Let’s say, for example, people don’t come to the choir. Okay. Peter gets discouraged and he quits the ministry. Because he comes up to the conclusion is, I must not be any good. I can’t get anybody to help me. So I quit. You say that can’t happen. Oh no. What if James says, you know, nobody helps me and how are you?

And I need help. But nobody wants to help me. So he gets discouraged. Did you know that when somebody does come, it encourages? And when somebody doesn’t come, it discourages. The same thing with every ministry we have, you either encourage or discourage by your presence. You are important. You do effect. And people say, you know, we’re so and so. It’s so encouraging this to see her there, for her to be here, or him to be here. Because you encourage one another.

The Bible teaches that in the book of Hebrews Exorting one another encouraging one another praying for one another exalt in one another all these things Well, then you have to be involved This is the third church. I have not people to I just I just don’t want to get involved All right You can’t make people get involved. You can’t make people love God. You can’t make people love serve But see, it is an expression of your love. It’s what you go through.

And even though you may not want to do all those things for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the ministry, you do it. You see, that’s what makes the difference. If you always sit back, well, I’ll do it if I want to and if I don’t want to, I’m not gonna do it. That is a pitiful way for me to live my life. There’s many times when I don’t want to study the Bible, but I do because I know I got to study this book.

There’s times when I witness, when I don’t even want to witness. You see, I mean, the time you don’t know, sometimes I get tired, I’m weary and I’m worn, and I just want to be left alone. You say, no, yes. Like this one guy told us, why, if you say, honey, I’m not going to church today. She says, and why not? Because I don’t love those people, and they don’t love me. And I’m not going. She says, you’ve got to go.

I do not have to go. She says, yes, you do. Why do I have to go? You’re the pastor. Sometimes you need to find out what does God want. Forget about what you want. Has God blessed you with certain talents and abilities? Is God getting the full benefit of those? You see, it’s like, you know, I don’t mind serving God. It’s just people I can’t stand. I haven’t found the way to serve God without serving people. Well, you know that church over there, that cow, they got a bunch of hypocrites over there.

Yeah, we got room for one more. They got hypocrites at the grocery store. Do you still go buy groceries? They got hypocrites at the gas station. Do you still go get gas? There’s hypocrites everywhere, and there’s no perfect pastor. There’s no perfect preacher. There’s no perfect people in the pew. is a problem everybody needs help. Everybody has assets and liabilities. That’s why it’s so important for you to understand. You are important and God wants to use you. And because God wants to use you, I want to make a way for you to be used.

I want to see people to love the Lord and express it through the various ways in which they can serve because it’ll help you to grow stronger. Because when you start working with God’s people, you’ll find out, hey, they’re just like you are. They make mistakes, they do a lot of things wrong, they misunderstand, and they get critical and they get bitter, just like you. Just like you do. And you learn how to forgive one another, to pray for one another, to help one another.

But it’s safer if you don’t get involved because you don’t get to know them and they don’t get to know you and you can come and go and miss if you want to. And nobody knows and nobody cares. I’m going to try that next Sunday. Well, it really will. I won’t be here next Sunday. You forgot that’s that quick.

Look down at the bottom of that page as you know we’ll never finish the notes. That’s okay. Where he says, soldiers do not quit fighting just because they do not feel like fighting. I mean, here you are and here comes the enemy and you got your sword. He got his sword. He comes Yeah, I don’t feel like fighting right now, okay? Or you just, you know, I don’t have confidence in this thing. I’m gonna throw my sword away. I need to chop you up.

The word of God is a sharp two-edged sword. And just because the enemy doesn’t have any confidence in the sword, keep using the sword and cut him up. He said, I don’t believe that Bible. You may not believe the Bible, but it says, or by grace, or you save through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Well, I don’t believe that Bible. You don’t have to believe the Bible.

But it does say, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The whosoever believe it, then Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. You just keep using the sword. You’re a soldier, and you don’t quit, and you don’t throw down your weapon. you use it and let God use His Word. God can cut people’s heart better than you ever could. But look at the last statement. I put it in bold. Your joy should come from fulfilling your responsibility.

You see, if I tell my daughter to wash the dishes and I tell my wife, I don’t have to tell her to wash the dishes, does anyway, But let’s just for the sake of illustration. I tell them both to wash the dishes. My wife does it with a good attitude. My daughter does it with a sickening sour bitter nasty attitude. As long as the dishes gets washed, you get the job done. And even if you serve the Lord with the wrong attitude, did you know that if you still present the gospel, people can still get saved, even though you didn’t want to do it, and even though you didn’t want to talk to them at all, people could still hear the gospel and still get saved.

In spite of your bad attitude, did you know that you might come to church some Sunday, sing in the choir, take up the offering with a bad attitude? Is it possible? But because you still sang and you did the best you could, even though you didn’t have a good attitude, it could still be a blessing to somebody. And I can guarantee you this, when you come to church and you have a bad attitude and you still gave your money, I have a good attitude.

We can still pay the bills. We can still do right. But you see, you don’t enjoy it. You’re attitude between you and the Lord. If you understand, I do what I do because of my love for the Lord. And let the love of God motivate you to do the things that you ought to do. Otherwise the Lord’s work becomes a drudgery. It pulls you down. You know you should be doing things and you’re not and then you feel guilty and the guilt becomes like a piece of lead across your shoulders and the Bible says, because thou serveth not the Lord thy God with joyfulness of heart.

I will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until it destroys you.” That’s in the book of Deuteronomy by the way. So it’s all important. Look in the back page. Only two more hours to go. What I want you to see is a couple of the scriptures that we have at the top of the page where it has, if you only win people to the Lord, your complete responsibility has not been fulfilled. The Bible says, teaching them, teaching them.

That’s why you always need people to teach the Word of God. You see, the reason that I want to have a Bible college is just because I didn’t have anything else to do. Because at my age, I’m too young to retire, too old to retire, I just need to be retreaded. There are people that don’t know what we know, and they need to be taught. They need to be trained. If I had not gone to Bible school, I would not be able to observe the Lord like I have all those years.

It was one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made. College is coming up and I have no clue how we’re going to do everything. I’m going to need workers in so many areas. I want to have people I can depend on. Because if not, it falls back on me. I have to do so much work. I don’t know what I’d do if I hadn’t had some of the people already who have volunteered, helped to do this and helped her do that.

Fliers that we’ve had to get done, calls that we’ve had to make, going to the schools and trying to get in so we can reach some kids and have some student body. I don’t know how many kids are going to come. I don’t know how much money we’re going to have. I don’t know how many teachers we’re going to need. Somebody said, well, then you shouldn’t have done it. Now, there’s a thing called faith. You believe because of the Lord.

It’s what God wants. God wants us to win and God wants us to train. And we are not set up here as a church to train people in full-time Christian work. Because you can’t train people one day a week or a Wednesday night. I went to Bible school four to five hours every day for four years straight. And that was just to learn how to study. It takes a while. So it’s a lot of labor, it’s a lot of work.

But why do I wanna do it? Because you see, the college is an expression of the men that we have of our love for the Lord. It’s an expression of our commitment to Christ. Every ministry you have is an expression of that. I want you to involve and just by your involvement, maybe you need to go to the school. Maybe you need to take night classes. Maybe you need to take it on the Bible and Institute. Maybe you need to help in ranch.

See, over the years I have done youth ministry. I’ve had a lot of camps. It’s so much easier if I just now don’t worry about those things. You know, my time has passed. I don’t need to be doing this stuff. But I want to train somebody else on how to do it. I think it if I was to die right now, we got several good people in here and knows how to run a camp. And I believe they can do a good job.

But we need counselors for camp, always needing people. Sometimes we have enough, sometimes we don’t. But do you ever think, am I doing what God wants me to do with my life? Am I committed? Am I afraid to get involved? I don’t know what people’s reasons are. I don’t know their motives. But I want you to, as David says, search me, oh Lord, and try my heart. See if there’d be any wicked way in me. Is there some sin in your life that’s keeping you from being used?

And you know it. And you don’t want to correct the problem. Yes, you’ve got to discipline your life. Yes, we want people with a clean testimony. somebody that’s doing right. You don’t try to set up people with bad testimonies in place of leadership. It’s not what we should do. The church is like a hospital. You want all the sick people in the world to come. But we want well people on the staff. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?

Those that are helping the others ought to be well. And so, yes, we require more, because we want to do more. I’m just trying to help you to see where I’m coming from, what we’re planning on doing. And we don’t have all the answers, but I believe God does. And I want you to pray for us, the guys on the board to try to make wise decisions. So much it needs to be done yet. And I haven’t got it all figured out.

I wanna pray that I even live long enough to see it. Down to the bottom of your page. Will you live for the sake of the lost man? or will you live for yourself. Just as you had to decide to trust Christ as your Savior, now you must decide whether or not to live your life for the salvation of lost souls. Remember the reward for eternity, the need of the lost, the love of Christ, the commandment from above. As you consider this most important decision in your Christian life.

It is my prayer that these studies will give you knowledge that will help you become an effective servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, winning lost souls and then training them to reach others. Win them and train them. There is no better purpose in life. It’s the reason we do everything that we do. If not, they’re not worth doing. Just spinning wheels, playing games. Look up here. This hand represents you and me, the wall of represents sin. We all have sin on us.

God loves us. See what I want to do is I want to teach 100 young individuals how to do this and make the gospel clear. I love to have Calvary community church. Wouldn’t be great if we could send out 100 preachers from out of this ministry if God should carry. People that can work with kids and get them to camp. Wouldn’t be neat if we had 100 preachers out there, all clear on the gospel bringing kids to our camp and we could have, like I used to at Fort DeBabble called it, 1500 kids at camp.

See, I know it can be done because I’ve seen it. I was there. I was part of it. I helped make it possible. I was one of hundreds who helped. It can be done again. this hand, you and me sin. To go to heaven we have to be perfect and we’re not. We committed it, we have to pay for it. And that’s death in hell. God says you cannot earn eternal life, you cannot work your way to heaven by your good deeds.

This hand represents Jesus Christ, he’s the Lord, God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loved us. He has no sin, he didn’t have to die. But he took our sins, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead and said if we believe he did it for us, he would put this payment to our account We get to go to heaven on what Christ did for us. So when you trust Christ as your Savior, you’re born into God’s family.

You’re becoming,. Child of God, God becomes your Father. He gives you the free gift of eternal life and you’re going to heaven whenever you die. Best news in all the world. Let’s pray, shall we? The head bowed nice and close and no one looking around. If you have already trusted Christ as your Savior, you don’t have to do it again. But if you’re hearing, you’ve never trusted the Lord. Why not right now in the quietness of this moment? Say, Lord, I don’t understand at all, but I believe Christ died and paid for my sins.

And I’m going to trust him as my only hope of going to heaven. And if you’ll do that, I’d like to have prayer for you. So would you just slip in it very quickly, better up, back down, not getting in bearish and not going to have you for it? So yes, that made sense to me. You know what’s wrong? You that are maybe struggling with this idea of getting involved in the Lord’s work. I mean, where God uses you in a particular ministry.

If you have a question, if you want to see James or see Peter, myself, or Jesse, let us help you. We would love to see more accomplished. I want you to have a ministry that helps build with you, something that can help you to grow stronger in the Lord. Father, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us, for every person here. We thank you for the work and the dedication that gives that people give, their faithfulness, all these things are an expression of their love.

But Father, we pray that if there’s something that’s lacking in each person’s life or any person’s life, you’d reveal that to me. In Christ’s name we pray. 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. 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 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 mail-in 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. A 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 everyday. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.