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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 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.

I wanted to tell you a little story, just a little story. When I was at Florida Bible College, we had a teacher named Dr. Mark Cambron. Dr. Mark Cambron, what a teacher. And he was a jolly fellow. He loved the Lord and she cut his suspenders. He went straight to heaven. He was just ready to go. Just ready to go. And he loved Coca-Cola. I think he drank one every class. But he was a great man. And in the middle of his class, you know, he always tells his story.

He did every year. I had him for four years as a teacher. What a great guy. But this is the story that he tells, and kind of reminds me of the college boys that we have here. So you know what’s not gonna be serious. Dr. Cameron told the story of a man that wanted to be ordained. He went to the board of elders of his church, and as they questioned him, why he wanted to be ordained, he says, because I wanna preach the Bible.

They say, also, you love the Bible. I love the Bible. I love the stories in the Bible. They say, well, what do you like the best? He says, I love the gospel of the Samaritan. They say, well, tell it to us. He said, well, one time, there was a good Samaritan. And he was on his way to the city of Jericho. And he fell among the thorns, and the briars did choke him. Then he got on the back of a mule that nobody had ever ridden before.

And he ran through the forest. And his long hair got caught on the branches of the trees, and there he remained for 40 days and 40 nights. And the ravens did feed him. Then Delilah, she came around and cut his hair, and he fell upon stony ground. Then he got up and went down to the city of Jericho, and on his way he saw a big giant, and he walked on the other side. Then he got down to the city of Jericho, and he saw the wicked Jezebel upon the wall.

He said, Chuck her down, boys. They chucked her down. He said, Chuck her down again. And they chucked her down again. He said, Chuck her down again. And they chucked her down 70 times seven. And when they picked up the fragments, there were 12 baskets full of leftover. Now, brethren, I asked you in the last resurrection, whose wife will she be? And they said, you got the job. Well, I hope that we teach it a little bit better than that.

So when kids get through, they will have a little bit better education. But believe not, that’s about the way some people put the Bible together. All those things ring the Bible. It’s just that’s not the truth story. So I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Colossians in chapter 2. Colossians and chapter 2. The Bible tells us that you and I are to be built up in the Word of God. So once you trust that Christ is your Savior, yes, you’re His child.

Now you’re going to heaven when you die, but we’re not there yet. So there must be something God has for us to do. So like I’ve said before, if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. And most of you, most of you all look like you have a pulse. There’s a few of you, I’m not really sure. You just might be already dead and just refuse to lie down. You know, there are some people like that. You know what a rut is?

A rut is nothing but a grave. It’s open on both ends and you walk in slowly and don’t even know you’re dead. And all somebody has to do is just kick in a little dirt on you. And there you are. So it’s important to know what the word of God says and to believe it. So he makes a statement here in verse six, as you have therefore received Christ, Jesus the Lord. Now, how did you receive him by faith alone?

So when you trusted Christ as your Savior. Remember, that’s the important thing you can never do, most important thing you’ll ever do in your whole life. Because you’re gonna die one day. So the important thing is where are you going when you die? So you trust Christ as your Savior. You believe that He died on the cross paid for your sins. And like I’ve said before, if He paid for all of them, there’s none left for you to pay for.

And so all that you have to do, the only thing that we can do is believe that. So then he says, so walk in him. And now notice the next part of the verse. When he says walk in him, he says, not according to the wisdom of the world, not according to the vain philosophies of the world. He says, beware, lest any man spoil you. That means to rob you of all of your character, to rob you of the truth of the word of God, to implant something else into your mind or another purpose or another goal.

not what God wants you to do. So you always find out what does God want and then you have like a laser. That’s what I’m going to do and it’s made up and your mind is setting concrete and nothing stops you. And so you have to determine in your mind, well what are you going to live for? What’s the purpose of the gold of your life? So he says, be we’re less any means for you through philosophy and fantasy after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.

So the purpose of the Christian life is to live after Christ. When he says walk in him, walk after Christ. That’s who you follow. That’s what you’re after. So you have to understand that. It’s not about making money. It’s not just kind of live a good, happy, cheerful life. You’ll have more fun, more joy, more excitement in your life if you serve the Lord. But the hardest part is convincing young people of this truth. Most old people, either they’re too old and they don’t care anymore.

But those who have served the Lord are glad they did. The closer we get to heaven, we’re so glad that we went ahead and dedicated our lives to the Lord. You see, I’ve never had anybody tell me I regret giving the Lord my life. I’ve always heard the other, but I’ve never heard anybody say I’m so sorry I served the Lord. So it’s important to keep this in mind. Now look there in your notes, and you’ll notice under number one, the principle of the Savior, of the Savior.

Every thing you do in ministry is by Him and for Him and about Him. And this is so true. He is the Lord of the harvest. But not only is He the Lord of the harvest, He is the Lord of the seed and He is the Lord of the sower. And in other words, everything is about the Lord and what He wants us to do. And the Bible says in Psalm 127 verse 1, except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

The Lord talks about you and I, the wise men build his house upon the rock and the foolish men build his house upon the sand. Well the sand is the flesh and the rock is the Word of God. It’s the new birth. It’s doing what God says to do. So you have a difference of opinion. You have the human philosophy versus God’s philosophy. Philosophy means love of life and yes everybody has a philosophy of life. What do you think life is about?

What do you love about life? If that’s what I’m saying, I don’t love anything about life. I want God to stop the earth and let me off. Well, He will one day. So look at number two. The second thing when He had the principle of the servant, always understand that you are the servant. You’re not God. You’re not to tell you what to do. God is to tell you and I what to do. And I want you to look at this verse there in the book of Matthew chapter 23.

Matthew 23. We will not be able to, time-wise, look at all of the verses, but we will look at some choice verses that will kind of give us a good balance here and some of these things. So look at Matthew chapter 23. in Matthew chapter 23 I want you to look there in verse 10. Verse 10, neither be ye call masters, for one is your master and that’s Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

You want to be great? Serve the Lord. The greater you want to be, serve it more. Serving the Lord is serving people. Remember Christ says He did not come to be ministered unto, but to minister and give His life a ransom for many. The reason you read and study the Bible is so that you can learn how to minister to other people. So there’s lost people that need to hear the gospel so you can take care of that. And you learn the Word of God because there’s a lot of God’s children that are not walking with the Lord, and you can take care of that.

That’s why you study the Word of God so that God can use you. And of course the servant should be somebody that says, hey, I can do that. I can do that. And if you can do that, then you should be in the ministry. If you can do that, you should be in the ministry. So we’re all in the ministry, there’s some that are not very well at it, because they do not study and prepare themselves, and so they’re not as articulate as they ought to be.

They’re not as faithful as they ought to be. And they may not be in the place where God wants them to be. So these things are important. But look what he says here again in verse 11, but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.” Now if you want to be exalted, look what he says there in verse 12, whosoever shall exalt himself shall be a base. That means God’s gonna have to humble you. And then he says, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

You see, the way up is down. If you will humble yourself to the will of God, God will exalt you. But if you exalt yourself by your will and what you want, and it’s my life, God says, oh really? Hello? You ever seen how easy it is to smash a little o’ ant? And yet those are strong little buggers, but we’re so much bigger. Do you realize how big God is? Would you defy the living God and think you can get away with it?

Go against God. Do you really think for any moment of your time you are smarter than God at any time in your life? smarter than God. You’re wiser than God. I don’t think so. Look at number three, the principle of the soldier, not everything we do is fun and games. Sometimes our job is difficult and requires endurance. So take your Bible looking Hebrews in chapter 11, the book of Hebrews in chapter 11. And there’s a wonderful portion of scripture.

I always like the 10th chapter especially. Because it talks about the rewards that you can have when you get to heaven. See in verse 35 when it says, cast not away therefore your confidence which has great recompense of reward. So God doesn’t want us to do that. Confidence is your faith. If you have faith in God because of the Word of God and you know the Word of God, you can have confidence in the confidence. It gives you boldness.

And that’s why some people are bold and other people are scared to death. but look what he says here and I want you to see this because he said it in verse 32 but call to remembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated when you saw the truth and you believed it new trusted Christ is your Savior this goes all the way back to Hebrews in chapter 6 and you were illuminated you saw it after you were illuminate you in your He endured a great fight of affliction.

Now you were afflicted, but you fought. You didn’t quit, you didn’t give up, because you see, there’s a lot of people, least little thing that comes along that hurts their feelings, you made me mad. And then they stopped serving God. Boy, you didn’t amount to a hell of beans. Would you want soldiers like that fighting in our military? He shot at me, I quit. Well don’t you have a gun? Oh yeah, we shoot back, okay. Bzzzzzz, take it, even get him.

I remember years ago we saw this through a film and it must’ve been 50 years ago. Might be more than that. It was Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. And Jerry Lewis says, they’re staring at me. He said, well, stare back at them. They’re mocking you, get them back. but you don’t run and you don’t have to hide. Be bold in the Lord. Don’t be a coward, don’t be a wimp. Won’t it be a shame when you get to heaven and find out how much of a wimp you were?

You let little things bother you. Worry you, scare you. As though God in heaven is not in charge. Is he in charge or not? The name of my radio broadcast that I had up in Georgia, I had it on every morning on the Bulldog station, eight o’clock to nine o’clock before I had to come to Sunday school and then I did church, but I had a one-hour calling program. And the name of it was called Get a Life. And I would tell the people, how are you doing today?

And then somebody called and I said, well, you need to get a life. Stop whining about everything. Get a life. You say, you have no heart. I know, that was my biggest problem. I just don’t have that sensitivity. My wife has that. When you want sympathy, call my wife. She has a heart that is made out of gold, and me, I’m hard like stone, but she is so sweet and so wonderful, and she is so flexible, and people, even when the kids had problem with us.

They always came back to Betty. They called Daddy, they always called Betty. Because mom would sit here by the hour and yes dear. Mm-hmm. They called me here and what do you want? What’s the point? But that’s the way guys are sometimes. Not all guys are like that. I understand. That’s why opposites attract and then attack. But you got to have, you know, a bring together. I need her. She needs media. So it works out good that way. So praise the Lord.

But you have to understand. Some things are not going to enjoy, but it says you endured. You did. And one thing you did, well, don’t stop now. We’re too close to home. Haven’t you been listening to the news lately? Don’t you realize Russia is supposed to come down against Israel? You know that in the Bible, don’t you? Don’t you know that they have got to get bold somewhere along the line? They have got to believe they can do it or they won’t do it.

I think they think they can do it. Isn’t it exciting? And then some people said, I’m scared of that. I’m scared of that. Well, what? Dying? Look where we get to go. Did you realize in another second we could all be in heaven? And what was you worried about? This is why I’d never done it before. That’s my problem. I’m not afraid of dying. This is not never done it before. Have you ever done it before? Have you ever done it before?

No, nobody’s ever done it before. It sounds so final. You know what I mean? It’s just so fling-well. Because when you’re dead, yes what? You’re dead, but whenever you die, you and I, we suppose I know that, hey, when I die, I’m with the Lord for all eternity. We talk about it, we read about it, we pray about it, all these things. We share it as though everybody we talk, did you know where you’re going today? You know where you’re going today?

Wouldn’t you like to know where you’re going today? And then we don’t wanna die. We don’t wanna leave there. But one of those days we’re going to look at the next point. Number four, the principle of the seed. The gospel is the most powerful seed on earth. Now you can plant a lot of seeds, all kinds of seed. But the gospel is a seed. And the seed is the gospel is the incorruptible seed of the word of God. And so that’s why God says, go into all the world and preach the gospel.

That means sow the seed of the gospel. for the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first, and also to the grief. So that means that the most powerful message in the world, the most powerful seed in the world, is the incorruptible seed, and that’s ours. You see, Christians are supposed to be the most powerful people in the world. Do you feel like we have to take a back seat to the world?

It’s so they’re in charge, They’re just beating us down and poor, poor us. I look at a little bit different. We got them surrounded. We can take them. We can do this. God has given to us the Holy Spirit, allowed us to live, give us a message that can do it. You’d be surprised just how many people that either watch the video or they’re here in the YouTube. And we are starting to make an effect. It’s a powerful effect in a lot of people’s lives.

And it’s not just here inside of these four walls. But I believe that God could be on the verge of unleashing, wouldn’t it be wonderful, the gospel in some most powerful way in these last days. I don’t know how God’s going to do it. But I have lived for 50 something years believing that I’m going to get to see a great revival. I don’t know if it’ll happen, but I believe that it will, and I’ll work toward that, and I’ll keep sowing seeds, because I don’t know what’s going to grow, but I know something somewhere along the line, it’s going to grow, because I have confidence in the sowing of the seed.

Therefore, I keep sowing the seed, keep sowing the word, and let the Lord do His work. Look at number five, the principle of the sword, Let that’s you, that’s me. We sell the word. Don’t focus so much on the harvest that you forget to do the planning. Do you know you would love to win the world, win the world? Yeah, but do you even pass out a track? What if the whole thing depended upon just you, if you were the only Christian in the world?

Would anybody know it? What if it all depended on you, been that little flame, that flame in the wind, that God’s going to use to start a fire. See where arsonists, we start fires. Don’t tell the fire department that. Don’t come and get me. But I’m talking about we set fires with the Word of God, because we want to see something burned. We want to see people catch on fire for the Lord. Isn’t that what you want? Wouldn’t you like to see all of that?

Wouldn’t you love? I’ve read about the revivals and years past, and I used to think, Man, I wish I could see something like that. I may not be the one that does, but I still like to see somebody do it. I’d love to see it happen. So I, yes, I still got a little faith in there. Keep believing and keep sowing the seed. I felt like I’m just beginning to hit my prime. You know, people say, when you’re seven years old, that’s time to hang it up.

Not this boy. I just felt like I need to kick it in the high gear now. Like I’m ready to do something. But all of us should be that way. But anyway, look at number six. Number six, the principle of the salt. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Hey, Tyler, how did you do this morning? And it was starting to get to you. It’s a little bit, God bless you. I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice your life like that.

But see, people might have gotten the point just because of that illustration, you see. But you and I are supposed to create a thirst in people. This is why even these fellows, they can create a thirst in other kids to want to come to Bible college. They can do it better than what we can do it. reach teenagers, college kids reach college kids, all folks reach, I don’t know none of them, but people need to realize that God uses people to reach people and we ought to do what we can.

Lose yourself in what God wants to do. Find yourself. Are you comfortable, as they used to say it on TV, are you comfortable in your skin? Well, I don’t have anybody else’s. Are you comfortable being you? Or do you live your whole life wishing you were somebody else? Somewhere else? Doing something else? Why can’t you be satisfied in your own skin? I’m God’s child and I’ll believe that I’m where God wants me to be and I’m going to do whatever God wants me to do and you ought to be content with that.

And don’t live in a dream world wishing you———— you could do something, be something that God never said or promised in his word. But anyway, He talks about the principle of the sower. Look at this. I wrote about three things down here. Don’t focus so much on the harvest as you do on the planning. The Lord of the harvest is also the Lord of the sowing. He’s not only the one that determines what comes up from the seed that sown.

He’s also in charge of the one that sows the seed. True? That’s you and I. We’re the sowers. And then he’s Lord of the reaping. So he says, reap in the harvest. So we sow the seed and we reap. And God says, you’ll pay your wages, John chapter four. Believing that being a sow winner is the most important thing you’ll ever do in your life. Telling people the wonderful message of what Christ has done for us. And then in number six, the principle of the salt.

Salt does not always stop decay, it only slows it down. As salt, we are to help create a thirst the lost to be saved and if thirst and the saved to serve the Lord. Think about the influence of your own personal life. Are you influencing people to trust the Lord or do you get them under the sounds of the gospel? Do you use your life in having influence in the lives of other people for the Lord? That’s when you start finding your identity, who you are.

And until they say you You lose yourself. You’re just trying to be somebody else. You’ll never just be yourself. It’s like kind of like this long-haired hippie. Years ago, you know they had to have these hippies. You know, they look like a girl smell like a John. They had these long-haired hippies. And what did I just say?

Well, but he was kind of lost, couldn’t find himself. So finally one day he got a haircut and there he was. Some things are so simple to solve. Number seven, look at this, the principle of the soil. Now this is so important, the principle of the soil. And you know that when Matthew chapter 13, when he talks about the sore who goes forth to sow and some of it falls upon the stony ground and some upon the briars and the forns and some upon some acceptable ground and other good ground, he didn’t say don’t sow the seed on stony ground.

He didn’t say that. and he didn’t say don’t sow the seed among the thorns. He just says sow the seed. I want you to look at these four things here. The hard ground can be made productive if you plow it and put the seed under the ground. The parable of the soil. Look at this. The stony ground can produce if you remove the rocks, so my daddy would have me go out in the field. And I mean, I’m a little kid, but I threw rocks all day.

I threw rocks until my arms hurt. When I had broke my arm, and it went out like this. up, over, down, and then out. That’s how I broke my arm. I mean, it really broke it good. So they put a splint on both sides of it and wrapped it up and so forth, and then they put a little cast on it. But my daddy couldn’t stand because there’s work it had to be done, and so he took that thing off early.

And it was sore, but he had me out there throwing rocks. He didn’t know anything about child labor law. He had no clue about none of that stuff. And I threw rocks all day of little bitty kid. And me and my two sisters, we were old enough to go pick cotton. I was the only white boy out there with all the blacks picking cotton. And it started lying, and that’s the truth. We lived way back in the wood. We were so far back in you had to pipe in the sunlight.

I mean, and we were poor. We couldn’t even pay attention. We were so sorry, we were just saying, we’re broken into 10 commandments. But I had to throw these things out. And if you’ve got enough rocks out of there, I thought we must be raising rocks. Because it didn’t matter if you threw one out, there were 10 more that take its place. And every time you had that old mule and you would go through there and there’s more rocks, more rocks.

Never got rid of the rocks. We might have had to be a rock bed. That’s when I started selling rocks. I should have sold rocks. You know, these pet rocks that people had by all of them. I could have got rich. But you know, if you do enough, you can plant and, sure enough, my daddy had stuff raised. So it wasn’t necessarily that bad to be called as rocks here. You see, the rocks and the stony ground and all that hard stuff, and it’s like, That’s people’s mind.

That’s people. That’s people. You’ll talk to some people and they are hard. They don’t want to hear it but you sow it anyway. And then there’s some good ground. So you just sow the seed. It doesn’t matter where it falls because you’re not the one to determine what’s going to grow. Just sow the seed. Some people you have to take a little more time with. And some people don’t take as much time. But it’s all important. Look at it.

The weedy ground can produce if you’re willing to remove the weeds. The good soil is the easiest to work and usually produces the fastest result. But results can be gotten from the other kinds of ground as well if you’re willing to work harder. See a lot of people, they don’t want to work hard. They want everything given them. I had somebody when they left this morning and said, boy, I really love your stories. I thought to myself when we had a car.

Why don’t they get their own? I bet those that go Friday night so in it, I bet they get stories to tell. Don’t you? Don’t you get some stories to tell? And so it’s not that that’s unusual because every time I go someplace, it will generally happen. But not necessarily it’s always exciting, but you may have somebody who have trust the Lord, but just sow the seed. Just keep sowin’ the seed. Don’t worry about what grows. Don’t worry about the harvest.

Just sow the seed. You’re the sower. It’s God who’s in charge of the harvest. We can’t determine who believes. We just keep sowing the seeds. You’ve been listening to another great lesson from Pastor Arnold, and we hope that you’re growing in the knowledge of the Lord through this ministry. To help you continue your growth and maturing, we are going to give those who make a financial donation in any amount, the DVD teaching series, How to Witness to a Jewish Person.

You know, most Christians think Jews really know the Old Testament, but in reality, most know very little. So most are familiar with some terms of the Bible, very few know any details about how Abraham, their patriarch, was saved. Most have never read Isaiah 53 and have no idea it’s all about Jesus. So for this month only, for a donation in any amount, we’ll send you this DVD teaching series on how to witness to the Jew. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634.

And don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. God bless you and thank you again for supporting Bibleline. 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. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.