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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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

Look at number five, the printable of the sword. 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, being that little flame, that flame in the wind, that God’s gonna use to start a fire.

See, we’re 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 wanna see something burned, we wanna 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 her. 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. number six. Number six, the principle of the salt. Hey Tyler, how did you do this morning? Did 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. Teenagers reach teenagers, college kids reach college kids. Oh folks, 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. again. Lose yourself in what God wants you 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 could do something be something that God never said or promised in his word.

But anyway, when he talks about the principle of the sore, 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 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 4. Believing that being a soul 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 in the lost to be saved, and a thirst in 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 help 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 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 they look like a girl smell like a John. They were they had these long-haired hippies. And what did I just say? Well, but he 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 farms, 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 So the seed among the thorns, he just says, so 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 split 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 that’s not a lie, I mean, that’s the truth. We lived way back in the woods. 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 just like, we’re endifing the Denk 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 ten 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 Wembley rocks. We might have to be a rock bed. That’s when I started selling rocks. I should have settled rocks.

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. It took because there’s 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 that determines 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, 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 from what is the 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 some place, you know, that it will generally happen. But not necessarily it’s always, you know, exciting, but you know, you may have somebody who have trust the Lord, but just so to see. Just keep so in in 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. Look at number eight, the principle of the center. I always understand about the center. Sinners because they are sinners are problem-making. Every person that is a sinner is a problem. How many of you in here are a sinner? Let me see him. You are a problem. Not only to your husband, not only to your wife, not only to your mother and father, but also to the preacher. Do you know if you didn’t have a problem, I wouldn’t have a job.

If there weren’t problems, nobody would have a job. Everybody’s job is solving somebody’s problem. Think about it. So don’t curse the problems that you have. Try to see how many can I solve. That’s problem. Solving are nothing more than opportunities, but they come disguised as work. And the reason so many people missed on the opportunities is because they don’t like work. Put it to the Lord and you’d be surprised. A person who has covered himself in tattoos may not look like a potential Sunday school teacher, but he is one whom Jesus came to save.

Someone who’s on his fifth marriage may seem like a lot of trouble to work with, but they’re the ones who Jesus can use the most. The truth is those who are forgiven the most will usually work the hardest. Luke in Luke 7, 47, I want you to see this because it is good. It is a great verse. Luke chapter 7, Luke chapter 7 and look in verse 47. This woman who had a maybe not the best reputation, but she came how Jesus was eating and I like that part, but you know, Jesus is always eating and so that’s why I third Sunday dinners are really scriptural.

But look what he says in verse 47, Jesus speaking, says, wherefore I say unto you, under the, her sins which are many are forgiven. For she loved it much, but the whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her thy sins are forgiven. And he’s talking about somebody who has really been forgiven of a lot of things, who’s really messed up pretty bad. But whenever they realize, look how good God had been to me. He forgave me of all my sins and they trust Christ as their Savior.

They know they have eternal life and they’re going to heaven. Sometimes it’s people like that who love the Lord more than even a little child that trusts the Lord in the four, five or six. He can’t stand and says, you know, I was a drug addict and I was in prison. We mean, you’re only five years old. And sometimes even kids coming out of good Christian homes or they’re a home school or went to Christian school. Sometimes those kids are harder to challenge to serve a Lord because they haven’t had a real taste of what it’s like on the other side and they want to find out.

Other ones have already been battling all those things. So you say, you shouldn’t teach them. No, no, no. You still have a responsibility to always do right, always teach right. But you got to prepare, kid, because you’re going to have a natural break-in-away process. They’re going to break away from mom and dad. And so sometimes there’s that curiosity, what have I been missing? What’s on the other side? And they just want to find out what, you know, you’ve been keeping me from, you know, kind of like the devil whispering into Eve, the Lord trying to keep you from something that’s really good for you.

You know your parents are trying to keep you from something that’s really good for you. You ought to see what, look at all the other people who look at a great time there, heaven. Just think about what you’re missing out on in the little old devil’s just a whisper in your ear. Yet his goal is to ruin you as best he possibly can. We are sinners, but remember, some people, not all of them, but some people will serve a alone with all their heart because they’re so thankful that God not just gave me eternal life, but gave my new life.

And they’ve already been messed up sometimes in their life and got scars on themselves, but they realize, hey, I can give to the Lord the rest of my life and they will take it with fervor and they’ll do something. And some people, they never do anything and they don’t take any risk. See, faith causes a man to take a risk. I’m going to take that chance with the Lord. I want to see what God can do. And they’ll step out and do something.

And God will bless them because of it. And there’ll be others that will just sit on the sideline. Nothing ever happens in their life. And they wonder why. Maybe it’s part of the reason. Look at number nine. The gospel is our flag. I will stay into the kids in college that we have a flagpole. And the purpose of a flagpole is for a flag. Well, our flag is the gospel of Jesus Christ long made wave. But you see some time a flagpole.

That’s us. Where to give out the gospel? But either that flagpole has to be deep within the Word of God and even for more stability. Some guide wires. And these guide wires help stabilize you. That’s the character in your life. So as you learn the Word of God, you learn to build some character in your life. of being faithful, of being honest. Just to learn to do right. Knowing how to love, learning how to forgive, learning some grace, learning a good discernment and right and wrong.

To stabilize you so you can stand strong enough to keep getting that gospel out. But let’s take away the flag. If there is no flag and there is no gospel, then there’s no need for the guide wires. And so a lot of people say, well, that’s not the purpose of my life. And so therefore they don’t need those guy words. They don’t need that good Christian testimony and character in the light because serving God is not their purpose or not their goal.

But when it is your purpose, it is your goal. It will challenge and motivate you in every area of your life because you don’t want the devil to get at you. And these guy wires is like a fence that keeps the devil on the outside. But see if you had a herd of cattle and you had a great big old fence And you had three gates or four gates or five gates. And you closed them all but one, you run the risk of losing the whole herd.

And a lot of people have lost all of their character, all that ruined their testimony by the, they left a door open so the devil could get in and strip them. And as the Lord says to Peter that he may sift you as wheat, that he might sift you. everything good away from you and ruin your life and that’s what the devil wants to do. You have to have a standard. Number 10, the principle of satisfaction. Be content with where God has placed you.

Enjoy his provisions. Count your blessings and it will surprise you what the Lord have done. Somebody made a statement long ago and I don’t think I who did it. But what if you only have today what you were thankful to the Lord for yesterday? somebody said that. I don’t remember who said it. What if you only had today what you told the Lord you were thankful for yesterday? How much would you have today? Or if you only have tomorrow what you were thankful to the Lord for today, what would you have tomorrow?

You see that might cause us to want to be more thankful to the Lord today to what we have, right? And it caused you to think more about the things that you do have instead of the things that you don’t have. Be thankful for what you do have. And surely if you dwell on it a little bit, God just might reveal some things that you ought to be thankful for. The last thing down here, turn your page. I don’t know.

Did he give you two pages? Oh, it’s on the back. Okay. The principle of study. The principle of study, the Bible says that we should study to show ourselves approved unto God. That means because God has a work He wants us to do, and that’s why we studied the Bible so that we know what it is. Number one, a person who refuses to study will soon become repetitious with reruns, but nothing new. You’ll have no fresh water to come up out of the well.

You’ll have no new sermons to give, no new illustrations. Now I love giving illustrations and telling stories, But not all of my stories are stories when I was born. Oh, I got some. I got some stories when I was a teenager. You don’t want to hear those. I got stories for the last 50 years. But isn’t it still good to have new stories? New things happen in your life? Like somebody I think was Ray Stanford. He introduced me one time.

He says, Yankee has been a bus director. Yankee has been a ranch director because I was his right director. He says, Yankee has been a college student and Yankee has been a husband. Yankee has been a father. He says, he’s the greatest has been, I know. I was thinking he’s building me really big. Well, it didn’t take long for me to go, whoosh, the greatest has been. So you have done, you have, you have, you have. But what are you working on now?

We’re not dead yet. There’s something else that God wants us to do. And He’s not through with us. So keep that in mind. Look at the next statement. Water flowing out must have a spring feeding it because, look up here, just a second. If your intake is not greater than your outflow, then your outflow will be your downfall. Because you ever hear about people getting burned out? Burn out. Well, if you had a little water, you could have put out the fire.

So you got to keep the spring flowing. And the word of God is like a well of water, springing up and everlasting life. And this is talking about the Holy Spirit when He says, on that great day of the feast, Jesus stood in Christ and if any man thirst led in the coming of me and drink and as the Scripture have said, out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this big key of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive.

Where as yet Christ had not yet been glorified. So we have with Him, we have with Him, we have to be in us the Holy Spirit to teach us the Word of God to put it in so that we can give it out. But you see, you may not have anything to give. You don’t have anything to talk about because you’re not letting God put anything in. There is no shortcuts. You have to spend personal time with the Lord and nobody else can do that for you.

You have to spend time in God’s Word. you have to spend time talking to the Lord. That is so important. The next statement. First Chronicles 12, 32, we looked at this earlier, speaks of men who had an understanding of the times. These were men who knew what to do. And then I think you got to underline that last little line there. Such are the kind who should be in the ministry. If you can know what to do, why do you go to Bible college?

Learn what to do and learn how to do it so that you can do something with your life. And God wants us. Now look at the last one, the principle of supply. Our God has promised to supply our need. Supply without God doing it, and we labor in vain. It is God’s responsibility to take care of his children. And sometimes we worry more about how God’s gonna supply than just do the work he says to do and he will supply.

I said it before, going through life can be like pushing a rope. Try pushing a rope and what happens to the rope? Get all balded. But if you just get one into that rope and start walking, what happens to the rope? Straighten down. Some people say, well, I’ll serve the Lord when I get my life straightened out. No, no, no, no, no. The only way to straighten out your life is to start serving the Lord and start walking with Him.

And you’d be surprised how God will straighten out everything else behind you. You put this first, do God’s, believe it. But if you let him go and you focus upon all of your problems, trying to solve all your problems, that will never happen in this life. As soon as you finish one problem, you’ve got another one on the way. So all that one and you’ve got another one. There is no solving all of our problems as long as you’re alive in this whole body and this whole world.

So number one, without his supply we labor in vain. Sometimes supply comes from the friends of Mammon, money. Sometimes it comes from King Cyrus. You never know where it’s going to come. Die or lo! And don’t be too proud to accept food from a raven. Devahva talked about somebody and did that. But there’s a good scripture and a couple of them that I’d like to have the time to talk about. We’re in Matthew chapter six, and the only Ecclesiastes chapter 11, but we won’t.

I told you, you can write them down and look at them later. And they will richly bless you. See, the one in Matthew chapter six, I just gotta tell you, where he talks about laying up for yourselves treasure in heaven, and he says, well, you can’t lose it. Or if you lay it up on the earth, And then he talks about having a single eye. Then it talks about you cannot serve two masters. That’s why men are not supposed to have two wives.

No. You cannot have God and money. They don’t fit together. God wants you to just look to him. So if you have an eye, and this is talking to the believer, it’s the two natures. the flesh versus the Spirit. Because the only way you lay up treasure in heaven is walking after the new birth. And if you don’t, you’ll chase money in the things of the world. That means you’re walking in the flesh. So there’s a difference there. And one lays up treasure in heaven and the other one lays up treasure on the earth.

And this one you’re going to lose it all and this one you get to save it all. But Anyway, look up here. This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us, but He hates our sin. And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God and Him. God loves us once to go to heaven and to go to heaven. We have to be perfect. It’s righteous as God and none of us are perfect.

We have all come short of God perfection. Nobody can save themselves. You’ll never be good enough to go to heaven. So you’re good deeds. Oh, they’re nice. That’s good, but it won’t get you to heaven. So God says, you cannot save yourself. I can’t save you. Even you can’t save you. All of us together can’t save anybody. The church can’t save. Good works. Ten commandments can’t save. They can’t take command. They only condemn. Where does it find the ten commandments can save?

I find it where the ten commandments can put you under curse. But where does it say? It’ll be a blessing. No, no. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God and the flesh came into the world because he loves us. Hates our sin because our sin separates us from the Lord. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. He took our sin, paid for them on the cross. back from the dead and said, if we would believe that He did it for us, He would put that payment out account.

I get to go to heaven on what He did for me. If He paid for all my sins, I don’t have any to pay for it. That’s why I can’t go to hell today. I can’t go to Marwah, because I don’t have any sins to pay for it. He paid for mine. Did He pay for yours? Did He pay for all of them? So that means you don’t have any to pay for it. So that’s why you can you can go to heaven, right?

Not because you’re good, but because God is so good. And that’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to know. So he came back from the dead and said, who so ever believe it than him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Well, that’s good news. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around. If you’re here tonight, or watching by internet, and you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, would you right now? the quietness of this moment to say, Lord, I don’t understand at all, but I believe Christ died and paid for my sin.

Then I’m going to trust him right now as my Savior. For in God said, if you’d trust him, he’d save you. Give eternal life. Never cast you out, never lose you. That’s the only way you can know that you’re going to heaven because it’s free. And so you say, yes, that made sense to me and preach it. I will right now trust Christ as my Savior. I want to know that I’m going to heaven when I’m dying. Would you just slip your head up very quickly and put a right back down?

Not going to embarrass you, right where you are. So that made sense to me and I will trust the Lord right now. Anyone before we close, anyone at all. If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, realize it’s so important for you, to serve the Lord. You’re the sower. You’re the servant. We have the seed. There’s so much that God wants us to do. He explains to us about the soil and there’s so much that God has so much He wants us to do.

Father, we thank you so much for this time together. Bless each one for being here and for those that watch, internet and just pray your blessings upon them. Use this for your honor, glory and Christ and we pray. Amen. 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 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. Though 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. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.