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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.

How would you take your Bible and look with me in the book of Revelation? The book of Revelation, and you and I know we’re supposed to please the Lord. And there’s a reason why in Revelation chapter 4, look in verse 11, Revelation chapter 4 verse 11. Tremendous verse, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hath created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. So if you want to know why God created you, for his honor, for his glory, for his power, and as he says here, for his pleasure.

So if we were created to please the Lord, well one of the things that we ought to have in our life is the desire to find out what it is that pleases God. And so as we read the Scriptures we’re always trying to call out the things that would help us to see now how do I please God? And I’ll be honest with you, he’s a little picky. It really is. He is very specific on a lot of things.

And there’s some things he doesn’t like. And there’s some things he really does like. And at the same time, he says, he knows that we are but flesh, that we’re weak, that we have an old sinful nature, and we don’t always please the Lord. And we don’t always please each other. We don’t always please ourselves. But it’s a good verse, but I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Psalms. You’ve heard me use this verse many many times all the way over there in the book of Psalms the 37th Psalm.

I preached a whole sermon one day on the 37th Psalm and mainly this one verse verse four and You’ll notice in this verse it says here and Psalms 37 verse four delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Delight thyself also in the Lord.” Now what in the world does that word mean delight? Well the word means to be well pleased. If we will be well pleased with what God has for us and delight ourselves and be pleased with what God has for us, he will give to us the desires of our heart.

If you will be pleased to be a blessing to God. If you will in your Christian life realize the reason God created us to give him praise and honor and glory. If you want to give it to him, it means you don’t try to steal any from him. And this is where sometime we get into trouble because of a P-R-I-D-E. You know the middle letter of that whole word. When you say pride, do you hear the word I in there?

Anywhere at all, pride, you hear the I in there. And so many times we wanna rob that from God. But that verse is so important. The light thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. And I said that 50 years ago when I read that verse, and I heard it at Bible college, I underlined it, and I thought, that’s what I wanna do. Well, 50 years later, I should be able to say, well, did God keep His word?

And so I have seen that if I was pleased with whatever God’s doing in my life, and not argue with God, not fight with God, not try to get God to surrender to my will, I think we’re supposed to surrender to His. Then we ought to be able to see that God has blessed our lives and given us the desires of our heart. And I have been so blessed. and all these years. I love this verse. Now I want you to look there because there’s another verse in here that’s very similar and it’s very good but look in verse 23.

In verse 23 he says, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. See God wants to order our step. Tell us how to walk. Tell us where to walk. And he says and he delighted in his way. The Lord wants to be well pleased that you are walking in the way that he has for you. So as you and I live our Christian life we’re always trying to see I wonder if God’s pleased with me. Sometimes we can’t please everybody but we want to try to see can I please God?

Is God pleased with the thing that I think and the things that I do and seek to give him praise, honor and glory? And if you’ll do that you’d be surprised how God will really bless your life. Now turning your Bible to the book of Psalms 37, well I’ve just looked at that one, there’s another one here I want you to look at, Psalms 112, Psalms 112. Now we’ll be going back and forward with some of these scriptures but because of the order that I want to bring them out in.

But here in the book of Psalms 112 look their inverse 1, verse 1. And we’re going to read down to verse 7. It says in verse 1, praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. It means to be well pleased with what God’s word has to say. Do you have a hunger for the Word of God because you want to do what the Word of God says? And if you will be pleased with the Word of God, it’s easier to obey.

Did you know that if you love the Lord, it’s easy to do what He wants you to do? The hard part is doing something for somebody and you’re not sure if they love you and you’re not sure if you love them. But you and I all not have any question, any doubt in our mind that the Lord loves us. You ought to be able to say in your mind the Lord loves me. And regardless of what people do or don’t do, the Lord loves me.

Why should you ever get mad or upset with God? Because God doesn’t make mistakes. God doesn’t do anything wrong. Or do we find ourselves, and you’ll find that we’re delighted. Also mentioned Proverbs chapter 3 and verse 5 and 6 where he talks about he delighted. You see God says that the chastening of the Lord, he wants to honor us and to bless us, but sometimes he has to chasin’ us. So whenever the Lord has to chasin’ you or to chasin’ me, do you still love him?

How do you respond? How do you react to that? Do you argue with God? Want to debate with God? Use some philosophy on God? Or are you the kind that can just, as that song we sung Sunday morning, I surrender all. That was really choice. I’ll never get over then. But now notice what he says here in verse 2. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth. The generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth enriches shall be in His house and His righteousness endured forever.

On to the upright there arises light in the darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion and righteous. Verse 5, A good man showeth favor and lendeth, and he will guide his affairs with discretion. Surely he shall not be moved forever. The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. Now look in verse 7, He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting the Lord. You know, that’s an important verse because whenever you’re satisfied and you are delighting yourself in the Word of God, you’re going to trust the Lord because there’s always evil tidings.

A phone rings. Oh, I know it’s bad news. I don’t even want to answer the phone. I just got a phone call and I’m sitting there and I thought, well, nobody’s here to answer the phone. Oh well, hello. And this lady came on and says, who is this? I says, you win the grand prize. It’s the preacher. She said, well, let me give you my address so you can send it to me. And so she laughed. I said, where are you calling from?

She says, California. I says, California. She said, yeah. She says, I found your website. And so I thought I would call because I’ve got questions. I’m not sure about my salvation. And she wanted to know if I could explain it to her. Well, doggy. I says, no, ma’am, I haven’t got a clue. No, it was a joy to be able to sit there and talk to somebody in California. I says, ma’am, I’m not sure. I said, I hope that makes some sense.

She says, it sure does. I said, send me on an email your address, and I’ll have some DVD sent to you. And I said, I already sent it to Jesse. And I said, send her a couple, and also including her Hank Lindstroms on how permanent your salvation. And so anyway, I just love it. I do. You delight in opportunities. Sometimes we cringe when the phone rings or you get a letter in the mail and you know what I want to say IRS I mean, I mean I want all these are bills and You be surprised how you can emotionally Get all set up for bad news And I have somebody call me up sometime.

I can’t care you’re sitting down do I need to and they’re gonna it’s gonna be bad news and You know just fun, but I mean they still do it people do it to you But look what he says here. In verse 7, he shall not be afraid of evil, that his heart is fixed. That’s where you and I will be permanently in concrete. We’re trusting the Lord, and you don’t let every wind of doctrine, it comes along, mess you all up.

So you learn to do that. Now look there in Proverbs in chapter three, look in Proverbs chapter three, because it’s just a couple pages to your right. Proverbs chapter three, what I was referring to just a moment ago. You see there in Proverbs chapter three, look in verse five, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not unto thine own understanding, and all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths, and be not wise than thine own eyes.

Fear the Lord and depart from evil. Now look what he says down here in verse 11, my son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord. Neither be weary of his correction. Do you ever get tired of God? It seems like every time you do something. Somebody’s always trying to straighten you out. Did you know that sometimes God’s and send people along your way to, to try to help you to see something? We sometimes we bell against the people, but God might have sentrelation.

There’s a different between constructive criticism and destructive criticism. But chances are we can all learn from criticism. And as he makes the statement here, look in verse 12, for whom the Lord loveth, he corrective even as a father, the son in whom he delighted. You see, God loves us so much. God delights. It’s well pleasing to the Lord when His children yield to correction. You see, sometimes we don’t want to yield to correction. We have PRIDE and we won’t listen.

And so there’s a price to pay when we won’t do what God says to do. And so He says in verse 13, happy is the man that finds wisdom. Wisdom is a person who yields to correction. You and I have a problem with yielding to correction. don’t want people telling us what we can and cannot do and so all these things. Look in Isaiah chapter 42, Isaiah chapter 42. Now this is a scripture that is talking about Jesus Christ and so as it talks about Jesus Christ, written all these years in advance and yet it says something that’s wonderful because in the New Testament you’ll find this statement mentioned several times, this is my beloved Son in whom I am what?

Well pleased. It means God delighted in His Son. He was well pleased. And so as you read the Scriptures and you’ll see this, well pleased, delighted. God is delighted. Now I don’t know if God gets on an emotional high because we obey Him sometimes, but And that’s one of the things that God says, why He created us, so that we would please God. And it pleases God when you give Him praise. Praise the Lord every once in a while.

Or is there a verse in the Bible that says praise the Lord all the time, always? Rejoice always. you can find something like that, suddenly in the book of Philippians in chapter four. But, This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And as you read it, you see that? Now look in chapter 42, look in verse 1. Verse 1, let’s us know that he’s talking about his says, mine elect. My son is coming. This is my beloved son in verse 1.

Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect, the one I’ve chosen in whom my soul delighted you ought to underline that phrase. Because you see, if you go all the way up there to verse 20, you’re going to be able to do that. 27 in the previous chapter where he says, the first shall say to Zion, behold, behold them. And I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings. Jesus Christ is coming. He’s bringing good tidings. He’s bringing the gospel, the good news.

As you find in the Old Testament, God preached before the gospel and to Abraham. Now in the New Testament, you’ll find the The Son is preaching the gospel and He preached it to mankind. And in doing the tribulation period you’ll find an angel doing it. But isn’t it wonderful that during this period of time upon the year God has given us the blessed privilege to do what God the Father is doing and what God the Son is doing and what the Holy Spirit is doing to preach the blessed, glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do you think that God is pleased and honored when we do that? I think so. So that’s why he says down here in verse two, he shall not cry nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised regel, he not break in the smoking flax, shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. Then in verse five, thus say of God the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it, he that giveth breath unto the people upon him and spirit to them that walk therein.

I, the Lord, have called the inrighteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles.” This is about Christ. This is about Christ. And you see, he says, “‘This is my beloved Son and who I am well pleased.” Why? Because the Son says, “‘I do all things to please the Father.'” That was his purpose in life. And that’s why that one verse that I use that I refer to an awful lot.

And I even put it on the front of a Bible that I did for Betty 50 years ago. Yes, it’s been 50 years ago. And it says in John chapter 14 in verse 31 where it says that the world may know that I love the Father even so I do. Let us go hands. In other words, Christ wanted the world to know how much He loved His Father. How much did He love His Father? That He was willing to die for the sins of the world because God sent His Son into the world to be the Savior of the world, to be the propitiation, the satisfaction, the payment for our sins.

And it pleased the Father to smitten His own Son to have it done. So that’s a good verse and I love that verse. Now I want you to take your Bible and look in Psalms chapter 1. Psalms chapter 1, we were in the Bible study, for the men’s Bible study, on Saturday somebody asked if anybody could quote the first psalm and Steve Pastor Knack stood up and did it. I bet he can’t do it now though. He probably can’t do it now.

He probably can’t do it now. There’s a microphone right here. Hello, turn this thing on. Steve, come on down here. I want you to close the first song. Both of you? Both Steve’s can’t come down here and hold the microphone between the two of you and quote the first song. I wanna see this. You got a microphone down there? Yeah, they got one right there. All right. Here they come. All right, here they go. They go and quote the first song.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of the sinners, nor siteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bring forth his fruit in his season. As leaf shows, not weather. And what’s celebrity do with it? The shell prosper.

The young godly are not so. But I like the chaff was the wind driveth away. Therefore the young godly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sit in the congregation with the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Give them a big hand. That’s super. See there, you didn’t know that, but you know, they can quote the whole Bible like that. What did you say, Betty? Yeah, right. But did you realize that it does help to put the Word of God into your mind?

But as that verse says, and it’s so important, look at in verse two. Look in verse two, chapter one, verse two. his delight is in the law of the Lord. That word delight, what does it mean to be well pleased? To be well pleased with the Word of God. You have to have a high holy reverential respect for the Word of God because when you realize this isn’t man’s word, this is God’s word and it’s supposed to be precious to us.

So we read it, we learn it, we memorize it and we apply it and that’s where wisdom comes from. Now take your Bible and turn to the 40th Psalm. The 40th Psalm, it’s loaded with some jewels in there because once again it’s talking about Christ and you can see it in there. But in the 40th Psalm it talks about, I waited patiently for the Lord and I inclined my ear and so forth and it was like a man that was in a bottom of a pit and he says, and God brought me up out of the pit, set my feet upon the solid rock, put a song in my heart, and blah, blah, blah.

All that’s in verse two. In case you didn’t see that. And then he goes on down here and he makes some wonderful statements. But look what he says there in verse seven, because some of this is quoted even in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews in chapter 10, it’s written there, where he makes a statement. In verse seven, then said, I lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written at me. I, and you are online, this I delight to do thy will.

In other words, I get pleasure out of pleasing God. He taught I get pleasure out of pleasing my heavenly Father. You see, if you seek to have people be pleasing to you, it won’t always happen. And you’re not always going to, you know, people aren’t not going to make you the center of their life. But we are to make Christ the center of our life and our life should revolve around the Lord, not around people, around the Lord. Wrap yourself around the Lord.

People come and go. We live and we die. Today Betty asked me to go by and see Betty. I don’t, what’s her last name? I can’t even think of her last name. But Betty and she used to come and she’d sit back there in a wheelchair and she’s She’s up in age now and she’s at home and the hospice care. So anyway, we went by the seer after the downtown Bible study. She was just so thrilled that somebody come by the door seer.

But she knows the Lord, she loves the Lord. Is it possible for a person to be laying in bed still to delight themselves in the Lord and to still be pleasing to God? You see it doesn’t matter where you are. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through. You can still in every situation regardless whether it’s good or bad or indifferent, nothing else matters. You can always brag on God. Be a blessing to God. Please God. And you’d be surprised.

That’s why the Lord talks about rejoice always. Praise the Lord in all things. Be thankful in all things. Because it’s so hard not. I mean, it’s just so many things that goes on in your life And it pulls us down. And sometimes we don’t always think the right way. I was talking downtown Bible said it today, and I was talking about the book of 2 Peter and chapter 3, where he says, I stir up your mind, stir up your remembrance.

And sometimes it’s not that we have to learn something new, it’s that we have to be reminded of the things we’ve already known. So you can’t always come to church and learn something new, but sometimes you kind of, you know, I’ve already known that, but I forgot that. I forgot. And to refresh your mind, refresh. But look what he says here in Psalms when he says in verse 8, I delight to do thy will. Oh my God, yea, thy law is within my heart.

I have preached righteousness in the great congregation, lo, I have not refrained my left so Lord, thou knoweth. And this is why It is so important. And you’ll look over there in verse 9 of chapter 41 and you’ll see another verse because not everything always goes away. But it says, Yea, my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, have lifted up his heel against me. Now in Psalm 6 to 9, 25, we know this is talking about Judas, is it?

But see, in spite of all the things that goes long you still have. Opportunities to thank the Lord and praise the Lord. Somebody mentioned this and I’m not sure who it was but I’ve heard it even recently. If we only had, have tomorrow, what we were thankful to the Lord today, what would we have tomorrow? And as you go through life, did you realize that you can make a list of all the negative things? It’s a positive thing that goes wrong in your life and everybody else’s too.

But have you sat down and made a list of all the good and think about these things. You know the Lord says, the God of peace will be with you if you think on these things, things that are of a good report, things that are good and kind and virtuous. If you think on those things that are right, then you’ll have peace. You think about things that mess up your mind and you won’t have peace, you won’t have joy.

And so it makes a different can you commit your thoughts unto the Lord? Look at 119th Psalm just going over to your right 119th Psalm and you’ll notice there in verse 24 verse 24 everyone needs counselors I was talking to somebody today and I was talking about you know you need to have a multitude of counselors where you you really think things through and you discuss and talk. And there’s safety, there’s wisdom in listening to other people’s viewpoints on things so that you can try to make a wise decision.

But you’ll read the Scriptures and it says that David, he encouraged himself in the Lord. He encouraged himself. It means he had to figure out what’s going on, what do I need to do, and he talked to the Lord. and that helped him because, see, people are not always around you to help you. They’re not always there to give you that word of wisdom and you sometimes wish they were. And there’s times when you give people some of your wisdom and they don’t want it.

Don’t you admire the wisdom of individuals who come to you for counseling because they just deem you so intelligent and so smart. You say nobody ever asked me anything. Okay, I don’t have to answer that. There might be a reason. But now notice what he says here in 119, so I’m looking verse 24, thy testimonies also are, and you are on the mighty light, and my what? My counselors. You see the Bible talks about, By of me go try it in the fire.

Let God counsel you. Let God talk to you. One of the greatest counselors in all the world is the Lord. And sometimes we need counseling. What another great message from Dr. Arnold. Friends, we hope more than anything else that you know you’re saved by believing Jesus died for your sin, and that Bibleline is helping you grow stronger and stronger in the Lord. Would you know how to witness to an atheist? What do you start with if a person doesn’t even believe there is a God?

For this month, all who send in a financial donation in any amount, we will mail to you Dr. Arnold’s DVD teaching lesson on how to witness to an atheist. You’ll gain some great insight on reaching people who may just need someone to explain the truth to them. This DVD series is yours for this month only with your financial donation in any amount. Again, we’re so grateful to those of you who support this ministry. 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 4081 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. 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.