Bibleline Radio Show – 2016-08-18 – Could Accidents Be The Will Of God? Pt.2
Transcription:
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Bibleline Bibleline. This is a Bibleline. Here got’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Dr. Ralph Yankee. Pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the unnecess………………………….. Syri ancestlisher. 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.
God is always testing everybody on everything. There’s not a person in this room that’s not being tested. tested even now, even now. Good time, bad time, it don’t matter. You’re always, your faith is on trial. Your faith has always been tried. I want you to take your time. Look at this. Look in Psalms 105, Psalms 105. And yet you’re reading here something that could have been over a thousand years later. God revealed something. It sure didn’t help the people back then at the time, but did you know that the Bible says that God caused the famine?
And God had a plan been worked. Look what he says here in the book of Psalm 105, looking verse 16, moreover, he called for a famine upon the land. He break the whole staff of bread. He did that. He had also had Pharaoh have a dream. In the dream that he had seven fat cows, seven skinny cows. take the fat cows of those fat ears and store up all of your produce and put it into barns. And then whenever those seven skinny ears comes, he says, you’ll have food.
God planted all in advance. He had to get Joseph done into Egypt. He had to put in jail, all the things that happened to him. And then he has the dream and Joseph was able to interpret the dream at the right time. And a guy, oh, I remember there’s somebody in jail that can tell you what dreams are. Just a coincidence. He just happened to hear, just happened to remember at the right time. And it was Joseph that was able to interpret the dream.
And next thing you know, he’s put second to Pharaoh. God did that. God did that. And look what he says here. In verse 17, he sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant. Look at what he says. God sent Joseph down there to Egypt. But look how he sent him. He had his brothers who hated him because it revealed their own sinful nature. God can use the wickedness and the sinfulness of individuals against you to accomplish something good that God has in mind.
Your problem is that you don’t believe God. And that’s why when something goes wrong, you get mean and mad and bitter at God. You wanted Him to use you. You wanted Him to bless you. Let Him. But let Him do it His way. Not your way, not my way. See God has a plan and He’s working things in your life. Little coincidence here, and a lot of the one over there, but God knows what He’s doing and He brings things together.
One of these days we’re going to get into heaven and we’re going to see just what God did in our life and the lives that we touched, people’s lives that were changed, influenced because God allowed you to pass. Through their life or somebody said just the right thing at just the right moment That changed the course of your own life Now we’re supposed to believe all of this. This is when it’s easy preaching and hard living But look what he says there in verse seven and again.
He sent a man in verse 18 whose feet they hurt with fetters He was laid in irons women Did you know God knew all of that? God knew that that young man hadn’t done a thing wrong. That man did not deserve all those bad things that happened to him. And he was put in prison, that no fault of his own own, because he refused to sleep with that woman. And he grabbed his coat and he ran. Because he knew who he was.
He knew he was God’s child. And he still would do right. It didn’t matter what happened. He was going to do right. He didn’t know how it was going to work out. He didn’t have to know how it was going to work out. You don’t have to know how it’s going to work out. All you’re supposed to do is keep trusting him. Keep looking to him. He will not fail. He will not forsake. But God is working in your life.
All these things that seem like accident, coincidence, and like that? No, they’re not. Sometimes God is trying to get your attention. once in a while he may use a two before over your head because everybody is hard headed and stiff necked. Not everybody stays teachable and pliable. Yay Lord, whatever your will as I will do. Most of us say, what do you do this to me for? I don’t like that. And you got a griping and never when you complain to people, it’s only because you can’t see God and you’ll unleash leash on somebody and somebody will be the blame for all of your bidders and your anger.
It’s not people that’s your problem. You are your problem because your confidence is not in the work. You don’t believe the Bible or you say you believe the Bible. You can even read the Bible and have your devotions in the morning. But as soon as something goes wrong, you’re up in arms. Now, what else he says, looking verse 19, until the time, you ought to underline in your body, until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him, the word of the Lord, until the time.
See, God has a timetable. He allowed you to be born at a certain time in this world. It was not your choice. And it is God that can work things in your life. bring people into your life and all these wonderful things. There’s a lot of stories that we can get into, but let me just mention this one to you. I’ll turn it to you in your Bible to the book of Luke chapter 4, the Gospel of Luke in chapter 4.
And there’s a little story here that I think is important. See in verse 23, Luke chapter 4 and verse 23, and he said unto them, you will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum do also here in thy country? And he said, in the barely I see unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. Because he did miracles there, but they didn’t believe him. They wanted him to jump on their little string.
He was only looking for one thing, somebody to believe him. And he says in one place, he did not many miracles there because of their unbelief. Did you know that God may do more for you and use you in a greater way if you’d only believe? But chances are those accidents and those problems and those stumbling, you stumble over. And God wasn’t able to use you like He wanted to because you didn’t believe that God loves you, that God was working in your life.
And so you question God, you doubt Him. What look what he says in verse 25, he said, but I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah. When the heavens were shut up three years in six months, when great famine was throughout all the land for women, all God had to do is say, rain and it would rain. He’s the one who brought it. He had already done totally. Elijah said, look, when you get ready, he says, and you pray, there’s going to be some rain.
there a rain, and was a flood. Even he had lived by the brook and the birds would come in the raven, they would bring some food for him and he’d get some water from the brook and then the brook ride up. God had something else he wanted to do, another place for him to be. See, God can dry up things in your life, and he can overload you with so many blessings. You can’t believe it. You don’t say, I don’t know what, how good I’ve been to deserve all of this.
And you might be just as faithful and just as loyal to the Lord, and it seemed like everything dries up. Like Job says, naked I came out of the womb and naked shall I return. And while you hear God may give you something, pray. He’s the Lord. And God may take it away. Praise the Lord. The Lord giveth the Lord, take it away. Bless it be the name of the Lord. And he maintained his integrity. Maintain your integrity. Keep your faith strong in the Lord.
Keep walking with the Lord. Don’t start questioning doubt at him now. And notice what he says. In verse 26, But unto none of them was Elijah’s sin. Save unto seraphtha. He said, a city of sight unto a woman that was a widow. There was a lot of him, he says, but he only went to one. And he had told her and said, look, I need something to eat. She says, so do I. I got a kid. I only had one meal left and where’s he gonna eat that and die?
He says, give it to me. She did. He was a man of God. And because of that, her oil never ran out. Her son dies and comes back to life. Look what she got is because of her faith, she believed it. Even when it didn’t make any sense. When she gave her last morsel, it didn’t matter. Her faith was been tried. When all hope is gone. When it don’t seem like there’s any way out. There’s going to be in your lifetimes when your swerve down God has led you into a dead end or dry holes or detours.
You just keep trust in the Lord because you know as he told Moses when he stood at the sea, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord because it was impossible for him to depart the waters but not for God. And he had no clue how God was going to do it only that God had promised. And let them there to a boxed in situation. And there’s times in your life when you’ll swear them down, there’s no way out of this.
I’m in too deep. I don’t know what God’s going to do. But God has a way. That’s what’s so wonderful about the Lord. And all God is looking for is somebody to believe Him, to trust Him. And then you believe that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord to those that are called according to His purpose. not yours. Do you want God’s will for your life? It’s easy to say, yes, and then when everything seems to be going wrong.
Do you think God never heard you say yes? When you dedicate your life to the Lord expect God to interrupt your schedule because he’s going to. He’s going to. And verse 27, and many lepers were in Israel in the times of Elijah, he said, the prophet, none of them were cleansed, except Naaman, the Syrian. And you know why? Isn’t it amazing? Let’s all over the place, only when I’m got healed. They had taken captive, one little Jewish girl, and she just happened to overhear the problem, and she just accidentally made a statement.
There’s a man of God in Israel, and he can healing. You see, he wasn’t known that if it hadn’t happened for this little girl who just happened to know the Lord. Hey, there’s a man in Israel that can take care of this problem. She didn’t ask to be taken captive, but did you know that God worked all those things? What do you think about Daniel? You ever hear about Daniel in the lion’s den? All those stories? He was taken captive as a little kid.
And to a country almost a thousand miles away, I would you like to go to Iraq? That’s where it was. Then the Babylon over there. And so can God work in your life? Do you believe that He is? Let me read you something that I like. David made this statement in Psalm 119 and verse 71. He says, good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” You see, the Bible even talks about, he says, coming to me all ye that labored are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Learn of me. You shall find rest unto yourself. Learn. You see, you’re going through lessons because God wants you to learn, and if you don’t learn you have to take it over. You see, you can’t graduate until you pass the test. And some of you probably haven’t got out of first grade yet, still in kindergarten planning the sand. And you never understand, you’re never mature in the Lord. Be children all your life.
Or you can learn and keep graduating. So how do you know when you keep graduating? You get bigger problems. problems that challenges your faith so that your faith will grow. God wants you to be strong in the Lord. And Job says, he knoweth the way I take. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. Now, good statement. Paul says, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. Or I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Romans 8 and verse 17 and 18. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. There isn’t anything you’re going to go through here that what you get when you get to heaven, it’s no comparison. It’s going to be so awesome. This is so trivial. This is just a light affliction. And yet you will let it destroy you. You’ll let little bitty nothings destroy you life. You heard life in.
Oh, bless your little pea-pig in the heart. Peter says, but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ’s Suppern, that when his glory shall be revealed. You may be glad also with exceeding joy. When His glory is revealed, when that time comes, that moment comes, you’re going to be so glad. You just kept walking with the Lord. You don’t understand it. You couldn’t see because you see, you look by faith. You don’t see the circumstances. And you can’t understand why.
Oh, I love the Lord and I know He loves me. That’s all I need to know. Do you believe God loves you? And if you love Him and He loves you, what’s the problem? There isn’t one. There’s no problem. So big that you and God can’t handle. I will like Paul. Forget those things which are behind and press forward. I, like David, will lift up mine eyes unto the heels from which cometh my help. I like Abraham will trust implicitly in my God.
I like Enoch will walk in daily fellowship with my Heavenly Father. I like Jehoshaphat. Prepare my heart to seek God. I like Moses choosing to suffer afflictions in this whole world, but to enjoy the pleasures of God for all eternity. Like Daniel, commune with God at all times, like Job, to be patient under all circumstances, like Kayla and Joshua, refused to be discouraged because of superior numbers, like Joseph, turned my back to all destructive advances, or to be like Gideon, advanced even though my friends be few, or like Aaron and her uphold the hands of spiritual leaders, or like Isaiah, concentrate myself to do God’s work.
Like John, lean upon the bosom of the Master, or like Stephen, manifest a forgiving spirit toward all who seek my hurt, or like Timothy, Study the Word of God. For like the heavenly host, proclaim the message of peace on earth and good will toward all men, and like my Lord Himself, overcome all earthly allurements by refusing to succumb to their enticement, realizing that I cannot hope to achieve these objectives by my own strength. So in Philippians 4, 13, I will rely upon Christ, For I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
What are you facing? What accidents have happened? Circumstances, people. You’d be surprised at the things that the devil can do even to a child of God to get them to turn their eyes away from the Lord and focus upon the problem instead of the solution. You see, Christ is the answer to everything for all of us. Once you trust Him as your Savior, He is your Savior. He is your heavenly Father. Your heavenly Father loves His children, and He will not let anything happen to you that doesn’t past His death.
He may permit an awful, look what He permitted to happen to His Son. Did He win in the long run? He hath given Him a name which is above every name and highly exalted Him, and that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. So until then, until then, we’re supposed to walk without trusting the Lord. Believing that what God says it is true and that all things can work together for good to those who love the Lord, the question is, is do you love him?
See, God does not make us love him. We don’t go to heaven because we love God. I’m going to heaven because he loves me. Rewards are earned and blessings are secured because of my love for him. So after you trusted Christ as your Savior and you know you’re going to heaven when you die, don’t you think that we as God’s children ought to love our heavenly Father for what he’s done for us? But you see life looks like because we see with the eye, physical eyes, instead of the eye of faith.
If we could only see God working, It might help, but it would eliminate the test. It would eliminate the test, because then you would see, and God doesn’t want you to. He wants you to trust Him. Trust Him. Trust Him the Lord with all your heart. Lean not until I know an understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy past. Look, apparent. This hand represents you and me. And the wallet represents all the bad things that we do.
God calls them sin. we have all sinned. And the payment for sin, for what we’ve done, is death. Eternal separation from God, inhale. Now God says that He loves us, and He wants us to go to heaven. But to go to heaven, you have to be perfect, as righteous as God. And none of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. You see, because of sin, we can’t get in. We’ve all come short of His perfection. We all think we’re pretty good, but we’re not perfect.
You have to be as righteous as God. There’s nobody that qualifies. There has never been any person on earth who has lived good enough to go to heaven. Not one. Jesus came, but he wasn’t just a man. He was the God man. He was perfect. He came perfect, stayed perfect, and left perfect. We came sinful. We’re still are. We got no sinful nature. But God says, you cannot earn eternal life. You cannot work your way to heaven. You can’t save yourself.
This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. God in the flesh, He came into this world. Why? Because He loves us. That means He loves you. He loves me. He hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So what Christ did for one person, He did for everybody. He took all the sin of all the world and paid for it on the cross. So when He died 2,000 years ago, He paid for all the sins not up to now, but into the future, every sin.
And all the sins all the way back to the first sin. From the first sin to the last sin of every man he paid. And God says, if I’ll believe he did it for me, then I don’t have to pay for none of my sins. I’ve been a bad boy. Don’t look at me funny. So have you. I used to say, bad boys go to hell and good girls go to heaven. I come from there, we’re no good boys and no good girls.
They’re all bad. God says that we have all come short of His perfection. Christ, who had no sin, did not have to die. He took ours, paid for it, came back from the dead and said, if you and I, if we would believe He did for us, He put this payment to our account, I get to go to heaven, oh, what He did for me. The Bible says that He saves everyone who believes, and I believe it, I’m saved.
That means to be saved means I’m not going to hell. I’ve been saved from it. Means that I’m going to heaven whenever I die, and that’s not because I deserve to go. Nobody ever has done anything to deserve it. Let’s pray, shall we? Whatever you had bound, every act closed, and no one looking around. If you’re here this morning, maybe you’ve never understood before, but see, God has been working in your life. God has been getting used to where you can hear the message.
He will not force you to believe it. But you see, it’s a sign of good judgment. Only a fool would turn down a free gift. You see, God has been working on you because God loves you. And He wanted you to be here this morning because He wants you to understand. He wants you to trust Him as your Savior. Wouldn’t it be a shame for you to leave and not do that? But friend, I’m going to ask you in just a moment to raise your hand.
Raising your hand does not save you. It just lets me know that what I’ve said made sense to you. I’m not going to have you stand up or come forward, not going to embarrass you in any way. I do this with head bowed nice close so that you can do it in the comfort of knowing that Not all the people that are sitting here looking at you So in the quietness of this moment if what I said made sense to you and you will trust Christ as your Savior If you’ve never done it before and you’ll do it right now I’d like to know and I’d like to have prayer for you So would you just slip your hand very quickly and put it right back down?
They want it all. It’s God bless you, man. God bless you and you. God bless you, sir. Yes, you can put your hands down. Anyone else, just slip it up real quick and put it right back down. Yes, God bless you. Another one. Remember, if you trust Christ right now as your Savior, God saves you right now. He gives you as a free gift eternal life and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you. Anyone else before we close?
You that have already trusted Christ as your Savior, I’ve had a difficult last couple weeks. I needed this sermon. I had to refresh my mind. Maybe you’ve gone through some things too recently. Maybe it’s health, finances, loss of a loved one, whatever it might be. And sometimes it seems like God is so far away. Sometimes it seems like the ceiling is brass. Sometimes you just kind of lose your direction. You trust that Christ is saving. You have eternal life.
You know you’re going to heaven. But sometimes you just kind of can’t seem to understand. I pray that sermon has been, I helped you. I want you to trust Him. Trust Him with your life. You trusted Him with your soul. Believe in God is working in your life and He hasn’t forsaken you. It may look like it at times, but He hasn’t forsaken you. He loves you. Our Father, we thank You so much for each person here. And Father, whatever anyone’s going through, you know it.
You love them. You have compassion. And I pray, Lord, that each person here would pray for one another, to encourage one another. We thank you, Lord, especially for those that indicated by an uplift at hand, that they would trust Jesus Christ as their Savior this morning. We thank you, Lord, for Christ’s never prayed. Amen. Have you heard about Bibleline Institute, the online Bible College of Bibleline Ministries? There are 11 different Bible College courses to choose from. And for this month, we’d like to give you a free enrollment to the class personal evangelism taught by Dr.
Arnold. For your gift to Bibleline ministries in any amount, you’ll have full use of the 10-hour course, which you can access whenever you like, as often as you’d like, it’s online. The classes include video instruction, lecture notes, quizzes, and if you’d like to send a quiz, you can submit it. Again, it’s all online. When you send in your gift, please include your email address and will enroll you in the class personal evangelism. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634.
Again, don’t forget to include your email address or contact information. God bless you and thank you again for supporting Bible Eye. Thanks for joining us on Bible Eye. 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. Tada can meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.
