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

See, as time goes, God wants maybe a little bit more confidence from you. You should believe in because look how great God has been for me. What should make it so hard and difficult to live by faith, to walk with the Lord. And look at this, I love it. So we said in verse 14, and it came to pass when the people removed from the tents, their tents to pass over Jordan and the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant before the people.

And as they that bear the Ark were come unto Jordan and the feet of the priest that bear the ark were dipped into the brim of the water. For Jordan overflowed all his banks all the time of harvest. You want to go first, right? And as soon as, and he got to step down over the bank, How deep was that water? Three feet high and rising. The flood stage, faith. God told him what to do. Now in the times in which we live, sometimes it seems a little difficult for us to trust the Lord that much.

I remember when I was trying to make up my mind about going to Bible college. Just going to Tennessee Temple was enough. But when I decided to go to Florida, the Bible College in 1964, where the wife and two kids said, I only had enough money to get to Orlando, Florida. Now here’s a man with his wife and kids and everything we owned in this big old car. And we’re booying down the expressway because a hurricane is on its way.

And it was a killer storm and we’re on our way. And I’m going as fast as that little car would ride and I was trying to beat that hurricane coming in and I got to Orlando, Florida and I didn’t have any money. I run out of gas. My brother loaned me $40 to make it the rest of the way. He says, I never paid him back but I did. I know that. You just jumped off. Now, faith is believing that that’s what God wants and you step out and you don’t see how God’s going to meet your needs.

If you try to figure out everything in advance and see clearly then where’s the faith? Faith is believing that what God wants, you believe it and you step out. Now how strong is your faith? You see if you can see it then it doesn’t require faith because you can see and if you can see it we walk by faith not by what sight. Sight means I can see, but sometimes you can’t see. I’ve made a lot of decisions over my life and I can say that not all of them had been…

Sometimes there’s a thin line between faith and foolishness and sometimes I get a little mixed up here and there. But you know even when you make the wrong decision that if you really want to walk with God God can let you see that hey that wasn’t the smartest decision you ever made in your life and you can corrected. Isn’t it wonderful to be able to correct a problem? You can correct problems. Now there’s some things that you can do and you can’t correct it, you know, like marrying a wrong woman.

You know, once you’ve done it, it might be for the rest of your natural born life. And I’ve had people, you know, the kind of thing to have. I said, well, all you got to do is pray that God take her home. Then you’ll be free. If I can’t do that, I I know you’re to be a blessing and to love and to see each other through and all these things. That’s another show. We’ll get them out of the time.

But here in the book of Joshua, isn’t that a good verse on faith? It’s always that first step. It’s like going soul winning. Afterwards, it’s pretty easy. It’s just that first person you got to talk to. The opening up of that conversation, that’s sometimes a little bit difficult. Look at chapter 6. Chapter 6. Chapter 6 and look at verse 5. Now, you know he had a plan. God had a plan. Now, Joshua did not have a plan on how he was going to conquer Jericho.

but God had a plan and he says this is what you’re going to do. You see they’re in verse 2 and he says and the Lord said unto Joshua see I have given thee into thy hand Jericho and the King thereof and the mighty men of valor I have given that’s past tense but they haven’t even marched around it yet because see God sees things as sometimes this is already done because God knows what he’s going to do. God is faithful.

The Bible says, God will keep His word. So he tells Joshua, here’s what I want you to do. Now this really sounds off the charts. I mean it sounds like you got to be kidding me. Sometimes in the Christian life there’s some things that just you know with some people that you got to be kidding me. You’re gonna do what? I’ve had people decide to go to Bible college that you throw away your life? Where you gonna go to Bible college?

Where you gonna be a Bible? What you want to learn the Word of God so you’ll know how to live? That’s more important than making a living. A lot of people know how to make money but they don’t know how to live. But he says here in verse 3, and you shall compass the city all ye men of war and go round about the city once, thou shalt do that six times in verse 4 and 7 priests shall bear before the art seven trumpets of ramshorn and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven pines and then they gonna blow the trumpet.

And look in verse 5 and it shall come to pass that when they make a long blast with the ramshorn and when you hear the sound of the trumpet all the people shall shout with a great shout and the wall of the city shall fall down flat and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him and Joshua said, right. Well, he did. He did what God says to do even though it sounds so ridiculous. I mean, these walls are just going to fall down.

Okay. So you find out that, well, what happened? Look there in verse 10. And as He’s telling them the story, and Joshua had commanded the people, say, now ye shall not shout, nor may any noise with your voice. So there’s things to do, there’s some things not to do. Now the purpose of it, no noise, and on the last day, I don’t know. I don’t even want to speculate, try to figure it out. All I know is that God says, this is what you do, and it worked.

So they were told some things not to do. Now in the Christian life there’s things that God may tell you not to do but everything He tells you not to do is because it has no purpose or part in the plan of God for you. You see you have a new birth and an over. Some things will affect you the flesh and And some things, the Spirit. So you try to decide and discern to make the right decision based upon Does it cause my old man to get stronger or my new man to get stronger?

Which one do I want to be the strongest? So then I can discern that will not help me spiritually That will. So it helps you to make a wiser decision. So he makes a statement. You shall not shout nor make any noise with your voice. Neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I bid you shall then shall you shall. There’s a time to shout and there’s a time to shut up and you do not apply that to your wife.

Don’t do that. Don’t just apply this verse. Now look down there in verse 16. Verse 16, and it came to pass at the seventh time when the priest blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, shout for the Lord and hear that word, hat given. It ain’t done yet. Half given. That’s faith. We’re going to do this. It’s going to work. We believe, and we’re going to do what God says do, and God going to do this. Believing that.

But isn’t that confidence? Now, how is your faith today? How is your faith doing? Where do you get faith anyway? Walmart? public, can you go in and buy some? I need a little bit more faith. So where do you get faith? From the Word of God. Oh yeah, that’s easy to say, but where does it say that? Is that anywhere in the Bible? Faith cometh by what? Hearing and hearing by the… So if you want your faith to be strong, you have to be strong in the Word.

If you’re not strong in the Word, you’re not going to have strong faith. That’s why the more you read the Word of God and study the Word of God, the stronger you’re going to be because of this. Remember when he says that you are to be conformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or discover what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So you study the Word of God because the Word of God is the mind of God.

When he says, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts and my ways, well, there it is. In the Word of God, you find the thoughts of God and you find the ways of God. That’s why you studied the Word of God because the Word reveals the thoughts of God. So in the book of Isaiah, 55, if they leave it, talk about how his is so superior. So the Christian that trusts his own judgment is going to be inferior to a man that trusts the wisdom of God.

You are wiser if you do that. Now remember this, accumulating knowledge is one thing. Wisdom is being able to use that knowledge. Do you have a knowledge of the Bible or do you have a working knowledge of the Bible and do you apply that knowledge to life’s experience? Then you become wise. So it’s all here and it’s all pretty good but now look in the book of Luke chapter 5 the book of Luke and chapter 5. Luke chapter 5 we discussed before, but just one more time.

Now I’m not sure how far out these fishermen had gone into the lake and fished, but whatever it was, they fished all night. And even though they fished all night, how much did they catch? They didn’t catch anything. Now you remember there was one time when they were going to be on. Well, The Lord told him, says, I want you to do something. I want you to take and cast your nets out again. See there in verse 4. Now when he had left speaking, he said in the Simon, now you know this is they fished all night.

This had to be doing that morning time because there’s people there and he got into a little ship and he was preaching to the people. Now that’s not in the middle of the night. So it’s evidently sometime that morning they were cleaning up the nets, we’re finished, we’re done, we didn’t catch anything, another wasted night, and then Jesus says in verse 4, and when He had left speaking He said unto Simon, launch out into the deep end, let down your nets for a drop, and Simon’s answered instead of an amastor, we have toiled all night.

Cut us a little slack, huh? I mean you realize we We didn’t gave it our best shot. We didn’t done all that we can do. Faith is when you come to the end of yourself. We put it like this sometimes. Faith is born in despair. You don’t really trust the Lord as long as you think you can handle it. You use the words, but you still are trusting your ability, your finances, your health, or whatever, as a means and not totally trust the Lord.

Because there’s, well, I can still trust me, my wisdom, and I’m smart, and I’m, and sometimes God lets you come to the end of yourself, where you don’t have all the answers. You can’t make it work. You come to a dead end. I mean, when the doors are locked and the lights are off and the walls are moving in, closing in on you, and you have no clue what to do. Faith is born in despair. And it’s hard to trace somebody else’s tracks when they have learned how to walk on the water.

Because walking on the water doesn’t leave a trail. It doesn’t leave the footprints. It’s hard to follow somebody else because sometimes you’re walking in a direction on a trail that only God knows. And God is weaving you back and forth through life and over circumstances, into circumstances, into problems and out of problems and all over the place. And you’re just following the Lord. There’s no trail to follow, except you’re confidence in God. And if you’ll do that, God said He would bless you.

But he said, we’ve taken nothing but now notice these three little words during verse five at thy word at thy word When it doesn’t make any sense we’ve already given it everything we have it doesn’t make any sense, but at thy word at thy word See that’s why you study the word of God because it makes a difference Yeah, they caught a lot of fish and so They caught so many fish that was beginning to sink and they couldn’t believe it Remember there’s an illustration where this kind of happened one night when they looked out there and lo and behold they saw Jesus and he was walking on the water.

What would that do for you? You know there’s disciples in the boat, but they saw Jesus walking on the water. And you know what one of them said, Peter says, bid me come unto thee. I want to walk on the water. That’s faith, isn’t it? I mean you could do it. I can do that. I want to do that. I want to walk on the water. Jesus says, come on. He got out of the boat and walked on the water.

Now the other disciples in the boat, you know what they said? I was just going to do that. You know what they said? I could have done if I wanted to. I mean, I’m not afraid. Anybody could have done that. Yeah, but he did. And isn’t it a shame that some of God’s people, well, one of these days when it’s all over, you know, I could have done that. I could have done that. Yes, you could have. I could have walked on water.

Yes, you could have. But you didn’t. When you find out what you could have done and you didn’t do, I told Jesse the other night, I said, I made a list years ago of some things that I will never do again. I told this to him right before he headed out on his Friday night all nighter. Now he’s lived through this experience. He emailed me that morning and told me everything went fine. I emailed him back, and asked him if he wanted to go play Game of Golf.

I knew he must have been out of it. He turned it down. He never even replied. It had to be that I sent it to him within a minute after he told me he’s going to go to sleep. He must have been gone. He must have typed it to me while he was out. I don’t know. But Jesse, did you have a good time? Yes. And you survived. Everybody survived. Everybody survived. All night. And so on Saturday, I bet everybody went to sleep.

And you’ll be surprised. It will take you more than one day to get over this. Are you feeling it this morning? That’s why old folks don’t do that. Old folks don’t do that. Who was the oldest person you had? Does anybody see Betty Dowdy here this morning? Who was next? Is she here this morning? Who was next? Louie? Uh-huh. And she here this morning. Now the young kids, bum, bum, bum, see they’re here. So does age make a difference?

Who? Tracy, you did it? You did not. Oh Tracy. Well she’s in between, see. She’s a young lady. Steve, you did it too? Steve If next time they do something like that, check with me first. You know, there’s a thin line between faith and foolishness. And I can help out. But anyway… Everybody has to learn how to walk with God for themselves. You can’t do it for anybody else. You can’t, you ever heard of a joy-moucher? You know, you just stand up besides somebody who’s really happy, and if you just rub a big in some, you moots their joy off, and they say you’re happy too.

Well, it’s like bumming a cigarette off somebody. You don’t have your own, you just always bumming a cigarette. people who want to bomb somebody’s joy and get somebody’s peace and somebody’s happiness, get your own. Get your own faith. Own your own faith. Own it. It’s yours. And nobody can take that away from you. But when you don’t have any faith, your only is strong as the people you hang around. And if they fall, you’re gone. Learn to be able to stand between you and God.

And God will bless you for it. Look up here. You’ve heard it. You’ve seen it now. Follow it one more time through. This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin on us. God, He loves us. He hates our sin, but He loves us. He loves you. But to pay for this sin, the wages of sin is… Yeah. So we’re all condemned. All of us. We’re all in the same boat. But God doesn’t want us to pay for our sins because see the wages of sin is death and if I die I don’t have the power to come back from the dead.

You don’t sleep in the grave. That’s where the body goes. The one get it and then they die. You and I are absent from the body. We’re We’re either in presence with God or we’re in a place called hell. Old Testament, Chio, New Testament, Hades, we’re in a place of torment. Until the Lord brings us out and we stand at the Great White Throne Judgment, the Great White Throne Judgment, where every lost man is going to be judged according to his works.

prove to every individual that no one had a right to eternal life. No one had a right to the holy city. No one had a right because you did not deserve it. And you rejected the payment he made for you. And then it’ll determine the amount of punishment you receive in a literal fire burning final Kahana. That’s where they will be. So God loves us. He hates our sin. We’re all guilty. We’re all going to die. To go to heaven, we have to be perfect.

No sin. But because of sin, we can’t get in. That’s impossible. We can’t change this. There’s nothing we can do to alter this. God says, your good works will never be good enough. You cannot earn your way to heaven by your good deeds. God says you’re already under the sentence of death. You must die and you can’t stop it. You may extend your life a little bit and not die at 70. You may die at 75. You might even make it to 80 or 90, But you got to die.

Now this hand, we’re getting ready to take a load right now after church. This hand represents Jesus Christ. This is the good news. This is good news. Christ came into the world. He had no sin. He didn’t have to die. But He loved us. He hated our sin. Because our sins keeps us apart. I can’t get to Him, and He can’t get to Me. So what Christ did was, put My sins, and He died in My place. Came back from the dead.

And He said, He did this for everybody in the world. So He opened it up, whosoever, believe it, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. So you see, when he came back from the dead, all he wants us to do is to accept what he did for us. He died in my place. Christ died for my sins. Why? So that I don’t have to pay for my sins. I don’t have to pay for my sins. Listen to me. I don’t have to pay for my sins.

I’m not going to hell today or tomorrow or any time in the future. I cannot ever go to hell and ever pay for my sins. My sins have been paid in full. You say, well, that means you can just go out here and live like you please. I know. You want me to clarify that, but I’m not going to. It doesn’t need any clarifying. It’s either by grace or it’s not by grace, but I will say this. Let’s just pretend that Yankee Arnold has done everything in the book.

And I trust that Christ is my savior. God gives me eternal life and I’m now his child and I’m going to heaven when I die and I keep on living doing everything in the book. If I die and go to heaven, it’d be grace, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? The truth of the gospel, the salvation is by grace. Did you know that knowing this and understanding this has challenged and motivated me to want to serve the Lord with all my heart?

I’m not under a bondage. I’m free. Free to serve God with all my heart. I hope that makes sense to you. So you mean you can live like you please? That’s what I’ve been doing for 55 years. I go to church because that pleases me and I read my Bible because that pleases me. I serve God because that pleases me. I witness because that pleases me and all the things that I do is because that pleases me. What’s wrong with that?

I’m going to get like that. So, have you trusted Christ as your Savior? Are you trying to earn your way to heaven by how good you are? Well, I’m not one of those bad sentences. Yes, you are. And God’s eyes, there’s no difference. He died for you. Would you believe it? Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bound, every eye closed, and no one looking around? The quietness of this moment, just between you and Lord, God knows your thoughts.

Would you talk to him right now and say something simple like this, Lord, I know I’m a sinner. And I believe that when Christ died, I believe He died for me. And today, I understand I cannot save myself. And I’m going to trust Jesus Christ right now, and Him alone as my only hope of going to heaven. I believe that He loved me. I believe He died to to pay for my sins and that he’ll give me eternal life if I trust him right now.

And friend, if you trust him right now, he saves you right now, gives you eternal life right now, and you can know that when you get up, I’m going to heaven whenever I die. And it’s not because I’m good, not because I promised anything, but because he loved me. He loved me that much. If you will make that decision, I like to know and I like to have prayer for you. I’m not going to have you forward. I’m not going to embarrass you.

But right where you’re I’m going to ask you in just a moment to raise your hand, raising your hand doesn’t save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you. And I like to know. Is there anyone at all say yes, preach to that made sense to me this morning? And I will trust Christ as my Savior and I like you to pray for me. Would you just slip in and very quickly put it right back down?

Anyone at all? If you’re watching by internet, right there on the screen, it says yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior. We’d appreciate if you just click it. Let’s just know that someone trusts the Lord. Our Father, we thank You again for Your blessings. Help us always be true to the truth of the gospel. And bless those that watch by internet and those that come my way this morning. In Christ and we pray, Amen. Hello, this is Peter Amato with Bibleline, and we hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s program.

We’re so thankful, your support of Bibleline, and we would like to offer you a free gift. During this month, for a gift in any amount, We’re going to send you Dr. Arnold’s teaching series on the book of Colossians. Paul writes to a concerned pastor about false teachings that are entering his church. Some were teaching that one could find additional and greater knowledge outside of Jesus Christ, which is not true. Paul teaches that Christ is the head and we are complete in him.

This teaching series is certain to help you in your spiritual growth. So email, call or write to us today to receive your CD series on the book of Colossians. 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 Bible on. 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.

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 it that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.