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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.

I have preached a sermon a long time ago about the subject of it, Making God look good. You probably don’t remember, but it was a sermon on making God look good. Everything we do, I try to make God look good. And our service to the Lord is our way of trying to make God look good to the world. Don’t you want God to look good to the world? I think it’s important. Take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 1.

1 Corinthians chapter 1. Now you’ve heard these verses before, so there’s nothing new, but I just want to kind of hit it from a little bit different angle. In verse 26, you know, when people are puffed up about things and thinking that they’re so, so good and thinking, God has to use me, I’m talented. God has to use me, look who I am. Look what talents I’ve got. God has to use me. Well, you know, God can use an ant.

He can use a jackass. He can use a storm. He can use a gourd. He can use a worm in the gourd. God can use anything. When he was here, he talked about the lilies. He talked about the birds of the air and talks about the weather. He talked about the fig tree. He talked about all kinds of things. He talked about all kinds of things. God can use anything. It even caused one tree to wither. And so many things that God was able to do is even able to use just a couple fish and make a lot of loads of bread.

So can God use us? Yeah, God can use that. But one thing God doesn’t want, he doesn’t want to start to take credit for it. Yeah, we’re to yield to him and just be thankful do that, but if anything gets accomplished, we ought to praise the Lord for what He does and give Him the credit. And so He says in verse 29, He says that no flesh should glory in His presence. God doesn’t want it in heaven and God doesn’t want it here.

Because see, there is only one that’s really perfect and does everything right. Well, He’s the one that deserves all the honor and glory and credit. We don’t match up to Him. We’re just sinners saved by grace. And we ought to be very thankful that God uses us at all just for the privilege on this side of eternity to be able to see a few things and try to make God look good. And sometime whenever we don’t live right, we maybe people will think God must be a bad God.

I want people to be impressed with our Heavenly Father. So he says here in verse 26, for you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble or call. What because they want the credit? They want the glory. And then he says, but God have chosen the foolish things of the world who can found the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world who can found the things which are mighty and based things of the world.

which are despised have God chosen? Yay and things which are not to bring to not things that are, that no flesh and glory in His presence. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification, redemption, that according as it is written, he that gloryeth led him glory in the Lord. And learn to be thankful to the Lord. I look here in chapter 4 and chapter 4.

What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, where did you get it from? So we kind of let’s us see a few things here because it’s something that God says that’s required under a store to be found faithful. And sometimes we’re not even good judges of our own faithfulness. That’s why God keeps the books. That’s why He’s going to reward. That’s why there’s going to be this haywood stubble and gold silver and precious stone.

And God’s gonna burn up the things that are no good. And a lot of that haywood is double that we probably think, man, that is nothing but gold, silver, and precious stones. And God’s gonna say surprise, surprise. And we’re gonna see that things are gonna be looked at through the fire eyes of judgment of Jesus Christ himself. How does he see it? And so he says here in verse five, therefore it judged nothing before the time. He said, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart, then shall every man have praise of God if he’s deserved another because he’s going to be based upon what God sees.

And then he says this, and these things brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollo’s for your sake, that you may learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be popped up for one against another, for who make it thee to differ from another, and what hast thou that thou does not receive? Now if thou disreceive it, why does thou glory is this thou hast not received it?

So there’s things that, yeah, you might be able to accomplish with the Lord, but remember, whatever you do have, somebody gave it to you. The air you breathed, somebody gave that to you. The body you brag about God, God gave that to you. Just the privilege of life, God gave that to us. So that whatever we are able to accomplish, we have to thank the one who gave us the opportunity. Isn’t it wonderful to know that God has given us opportunities.

I was talking to the college because the other day and I was telling them about opportunities or on wheels and you need to be prepared to take advantage of them. And talking a little bit about Solomon in the Old Testament, how that David, his dad had, well, he was a man of war, killed a lot of people. And he wanted to build a house for the Lord, but God says, you got blood on your hands. But I’m going to bless you and you can get together.

All the things that’s needed for the temple. And so he did. So David told his son Solomon, said Solomon, God has given you rest from the enemies. And God has given you a job to do. He’s even given you people to help. So whatever you need, God has provided. But what he wants from you is he wants you to seek the Lord with all your heart. See God wants us more than our service. So if he gets me, if he gets you, he’ll get your life.

But you are more important than whatever it is God wants you to do. So you are important to the God and God knows if I can get this person to love me, I can get him to do anything I asked him to do. True? If I can just get that person to love me, he’ll do anything for me. But I’ve got to get him to love me more than anything else in the world. So I believe that there’s another verse that I wanted to share with you.

So take your Bible look in 2nd Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles back there in the Old Testament, Chronicles in chapter 16. Second Chronicles 16, and you’ll notice, there’s a wonderful verse here. Look in verse 9. 16 and verse 9. Where you and I should have as our desire, we want to make God look good. We want Him to be honored in glory. We want people to brag on what God has done. And the last thing we want is to try to steal any honor or glory that belongs to God.

So he says to you in verse 9, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. In other words, believe it or not, there’s a God in heaven that created the heavens and the earth that wants to make you look good. We should want to make God look good, but there’s a God in heaven that wants to make you look good.

Did you know that what God did with Abraham? And the trial of his faith, offering up his own son and all that, you know. But when it was all over it, it made Abraham look good. Living by faith, when you read the whole book of Hebrews and the 11th chapter, we stand in awe of some of these men because look what they did. And even Moses, look how God used Moses, choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

The flesh makes you look bad, But when you walk by faith, it makes you look good. Do you want God to say, well done, thou good and faithful servant? Enter thou into the joys of the Lord. Do you want to please the Lord? God says right here in this verse, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them who’s hard as right toward him. You see, God wants to make you look strong.

He wants to do something mighty through you, knowing that people might just think of you as a great man of God, a great man of faith. But see, you do it because you know the Lord and you love him. That’s why he says, whose heart is right toward God and God will exalt you. God wants to lift you up. Do you believe that? You have to believe this stuff. This can’t just be verses that you’ve heard over and over again.

This has to be something that reaches into the depths of your soul. I want God to exalt me. Therefore I know in order for Him to exalt me, I must humble myself before Him. And if I do that, then I’m going to trust the Lord to do whatever God wants to do in my life. And God may raise you up and put you on a hill. Or He may put you wherever He wants you, but you’ll be content because you know God knows that I love Him.

And therefore He knows He’s free to do with you anything He wants. But I love this verse. I love this verse. My father-in-law showed this verse to me. What actor he led me to the Lord. And I was sit there and I’d read that verse and read that verse and read that verse, and I would picture like God’s eyes of like radars, and he’s searching, and he’s trying to find an individual that has faith. There’s a bleep on the machine up here.

Look at that. Look at that. There’s a bleep. There’s somebody over there that’s got faith and loom loom in on it. Why that? That’s a chunky Arnold. And God is looking for faith. Somebody that believe God. And God says, I can use that person. See, God’s not looking for the high and the mighty. The person that gotlehem the ability, God just looking for a dedicated nobody. A dedicated nobody. Because you don’t think you’re worthy. You don’t think you deserve to be used.

And so God reaches down and says, no, I can use that person. I can use him. And you’ll be Hundreds of the book of Judges. The book of Judges. butnegie alleging UNCLASSIFIED Brachions of the book of Judges. I want653pointers\-,,,,,,,, !!Frameworks269akery)”, PriebusUGEDownloadhaanyl675388 Urug APPLIC chapter 6. We’ve covered this before, but I’m not going to cover it all tonight, just a couple of points that I want to make. And one is the condition of Israel in chapter 6 from verse 1 down to verse 10.

And then I want to talk about the call of Gideon. And that’s from verse 11 to verse 16. So here we have the unveiling story of once again the similar problems, this vicious cycle that Israel goes through, and which is nothing more than this vicious cycle of, you know, Israel forsakes God. Israel chooses false gods. Israel worships false gods. Israel is taken into captivity. Israel cries to God. And God sends a deliver. Well, once again, you’re seeing it all over again.

But this time is kind of like there’s a union of wicked people coming together, even Amalek, the Amalekites, they’re joining forces together and see what they would do was very smart. They would wait until about harvest time. Then they would kind of swoop in, but they would bring in their own cattle, their tents, and they would sweep through the land and live off all of the product that they have raised. And they would just kind of like deplete the land and devastate the nation of Israel.

You see, they would go out there and they would work so hard, work so hard trying to provide for themselves. And then here comes these wicked enemies in here and they take everything they work for. So there’s some of these people that would try to stay in caves and they did hide so they couldn’t be found. And so lo and behold, there’s this one day a Lord came to see this man named Gideon. And he says, Gideon, the Almighty Man of Valor.

Gideon turned around about ten times and says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And God said, I’m talking to you, bud. And God shows him how that he looks down the road and he talks to him like it’s a done deal. we could only see the way God sees. See, God came down the road and knows exactly what’s going to take place. God was looking for a nobody that would give Him the credit for delivering the people. So in verse one, He says, and the children of Israel did evil, and you ought say again in the sight of the Lord.

And because they did evil, the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Midians seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. And because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains and caves and strongholds so they had to go into hiding. This is their land, this is their land. But because of the sins of the people, they turn against God. Did you know that all these things that we have read about and studied so far in the book of Judges didn’t have to happen?

Well why didn’t it happen? Because the people rebelled against God. Did you know I actually believe that God’s children many times in the Christian life rebelled against the Lord and they go in a vicious cycle. They think it really doesn’t matter. If I don’t go to church, if I don’t read my Bible and if I don’t pray and if I don’t witness and I don’t give and I don’t, it’s not going to matter. And all those things, they walk right into this vicious cycle of a trap.

And God allows all these decisions that they make to hurt them. And He places around them a hedge of thorns so that their decisions that they make that they thought was going to bring them such peace and joy and happiness becomes nothing but sharp nil pricks |– that hurt them and then they get to where they despise life and things fall apart and every decision they make that they think is the wise decision only enhances their pain and they have forfeited the joy the peace the love that they could have had, but they don’t know all of this could be because they didn’t serve the Lord with all their heart.

It doesn’t really matter. It’s not going to make a difference, but it does make a difference. And so then they’ll cry out to the Lord, repent. I won’t do it anymore and these chains are lifestyle and maybe get back to church doing a few things right and things seem to be doing better because they’re making better decisions. And then lo and behold, they do it again and they do it again and their whole life is nothing but one vicious cycle.

Now, this is why you read the Old Testament stories. You learn from what they did so that you don’t have to do that. So you’ll be wiser, isn’t it nice that God put these stories of these people in the Word so we can find out that if God says this and you do this, this is what you can expect. Because we’re smart, right? We can learn from that. Or do we have to experience it for ourselves? Some people live and learn and some people live never learn.

And so he says here in verse 3. And so it was when Israel had sown that the meeting-night came up and the Amalekites and the children of the East, even they came up against them and they encamped against them and destroyed the increase of the earth. Till thou come unto Gaza and left no substance for Israel neither sheep nor ox nor ask for they came up with their Cattle and their tents and they came as grasshoppers for Multitudes for both they and their camels were without number and they entered into the land to destroy it ‘,” See Let somebody else do the work and then they come in here and they devour In the book of Haggie, it talks about having your money bags.

Where you put your money into the bag, it’s got holes in it. And people that will work, slave, and have nothing. It just kind of like water going through your fingers. And they wonder, well, how come, how come? Well, because you’ve got holes in your money bag. And there’s people who got holes in their umbrella. In other words, they don’t have the wisdom to make right decisions. They lose that edge of discernment of doing right and wrong. Well, it really doesn’t matter and yet everything matters.

When the Bible says, you shall reap what you sow. Most people think that just means if you’re going to sow corn or if you’re going to sow cotton, if you’re going to sow apples, if you’re going to sow this, what if you’re going to sow, you’re going to raise that? That’s one thing. God’s talking about what you sow in your life. If you sow that, you’re going to reap that. So hatred, you reap hatred. So jealousy, you reap it.

You sow peace, you can reap it. So bitterness, you reap it. You reap what you sow. And so that’s why people, they never get it until it’s almost too late. They’ve lived their whole life. So unhappiness, you reap that. So a bad attitude. That’s what you reap. You see, people will sometimes treat you the way you appear you want to be treated. How do they know how you want to be treated? Because they watch how you treat others. And this is why it’s so important.

Do right. You reap what you sow. Now here, it makes a statement in verse 6. And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites. And the children of Israel, well, what do you know? What did they do? Cried unto the Lord. Well, now that’s at least a smart decision. In other words, act. after so long, it seemed like people finally get it. They finally realized, hey, you know, maybe it stopped. It might be because we’re not right with God.

Did he ever occur to you all? We might not be right with God. And then you need to go back and see what God’s word has to say and study it. Verse 7, and it came to pass when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the many nights. Verse 7, a prophet, well, we will do it. He wasn’t a prophet before, he didn’t know he was a prophet, he didn’t plan on being a prophet, he hadn’t prepared to be a prophet, he was just a guy out there trying to make a living, but he was in his own mind.

He just considered himself a nobody. You see, we’ll just kind of jump over there, but I want you to see this. See there in verse 12, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, the Lord is with thee, Thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said unto him, oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? I mean, if you’re on our side Lord, why is all this happening to us?

It’s just like, don’t you get it? Don’t you know why yet? Are you talking to me? He hasn’t even figured this out yet? And God’s going to use this guy who cannot even discern this and he asked not only why he wanted to know where. See what he says, where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of? Hey, we’ve heard about things. Just think about this. These fellows now in this next generation after Joshua had died, you see, all they know is the stories.

heard these stories, how they were down there in Egypt and what God did and opening up the waters. Hey, Joshua’s generation saw that. Their generation didn’t. They were automatically fed for 40 years miraculously in the wilderness. They hadn’t seen none of that. So you see, it leads to apathy after a while. When you haven’t seen anything happen, you know what used to really burn me? I’d sit down and I even read books like Oratori’s books. I read Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secrets.

I read stories about Billy Sunday, Dwight L. Modi, a bunch of other evangelists. I was sitting at the rhythm. And I thought, Lord, look at the way some of these revivals and phoenix and all these guys and what feels. I mean, it’s just amazing. I said, Lord, I want something like that. I want that. that. I’ve never seen it. I’ve never seen a great revival. I’ve read about them, heard about them, but Lord I’ve never seen it. And Lord, before I die, I would love to see a great sweeping revival of God doing something wonderful, awesome, that generated by a man and in manufacturing it, but God did it.

Now, be honest, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you love to see a great sweeping revival hit America? Something happening, but because we haven’t, we sometimes lose ourself in our little ministry here and their little ministry over there, their little ministry over there. And we see the world getting bigger and bigger, and everybody’s joined together in the world the world’s coming. And we’re not affecting the world, we’re trying to find a way to hide from the world so that the world can’t get us.

And we need to cry out to God and say, God, why can’t I see a revival in my day? I’ve heard about it. I’ve read about it. But I want to be part of one. It may take my whole life of sowing seed for 50, 16, maybe 70 years. Maybe I’ll not see it in my lifetime, but I’d like to believe I planted enough seeds that somewhere some young kid is going to hear what I’ve said from the Bible and he’s going to pick up a track or hear one of the YouTubes or a radio broadcast.

He’s going to sit there and think. think. That makes sense to me. I’m going to trust Christ as my Savior. And then He’s going to thank to Himself. Lord, I want to do something. I want to do something big. I want to tempt something great. I expect you to do this. And some guy is going to read the Bible and believe it. And God’s going to raise up some young man somewhere and maybe he’ll put one foot on America and one foot on Europe and he’ll stand out of the ocean and claim both continents for God.

We may not do it ourselves but we might influence somebody that would do it. start a fire to light somebody, to encourage somebody, to want to make a difference. I live for that. That’s why I love these scriptures. You’ve been listening to another great message from Dr. Arnold, and we hope that Bibleline is a blessing to you. In appreciation for your support of this ministry, we’d like to send to you a gift. During this month, for a gift in any amount, we’re going to send Dr.

Arnold’s teaching on the subject of marriage. This nine-lesson CD series includes titles such as God’s view of divorce, eight pressures of raising children, how to love your wife, and the humorous but insightful teaching, and then the war began. Whether you are married, single, or dating, you will certainly benefit from this teaching series on God’s design for marriage and divorce. And this CD series is yours for a donation in any amount. Your 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 for 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.