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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. and 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.

Sometimes you can do right and suffer because you’re doing what’s right and it can cause a breakdown. It’s just like in a family, and Lord behold, somebody witnesses and the man trusts Christ as a savior, and the wife does not. You have a believer and an unbeliever. Can that cause trouble? Now here he is, here’s kids, they come to ranch, they trust the Lord, they go home and mommy and daddy hasn’t trusted the Lord. Can there cause a division and it can happen anywhere, at any time, with anybody?

You can seem to do what’s right, take a stand and suffer for it. Now you ought to know that. You ought to understand that in advance. And when you know that and understand that in advance, you’re going to be a person who is forgiving. You’re not going to retaliate. You’re not going to get even. get even because you’re going to remember there was somebody else that was here and people lied about him. They said all kinds of things against him.

They even crucified him. And if they will do that to him who was perfect, why you get upset because you’re a sinner. There may be some things that happens to you because you had it coming. Maybe you deserve it. But this is talking about because you did something that was right and you suffer the consequences. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

God doesn’t want anyone putting anybody between you and him. You see God’s a very jealous God. You don’t put your wife in front of God. Well I love my wife more than I loved you shouldn’t. So see you can lose your wife but you can’t lose God. If you love God the way you should you’ll love your wife the way you should but you can love your wife with whatever limited love you have and not love God. Loving God is learning how to love your wife and your children.

You always put God first and and He’ll teach you all the other things you know. And you put God first and He says, if you don’t love me more, you won’t serve me. You’ll serve them because you don’t wanna hurt them, but if you serve God, you may hurt them because they may not see and understand or agree. And you may have to take a strong stand and suffer consequences for it. Just understand that. Just because you decide I’m going to serve the Lord doesn’t mean now everything’s going to be wonderful.

With most people, their lives were better before they ever met the Lord. After you trust Christ to save and you have eternal life and then you dedicate your life to serving God. Buddy, problems are coming. The devil is on his way. And it can be nothing but headaches from the rest of your life. Struggles in areas that didn’t bother you before. Now it seems like everything will bother you. Because you see how many things are not right, and your discernment becomes very keen.

And he says, and he that takes not up his cross and follows me is not worthy. I mean, in other words, you don’t deserve what God has. You don’t deserve the best, because you don’t want the best. If you want the best in this life, then you’re going to have to make him number one. If you don’t, you can’t have the best. You can crave it, desire it, but you won’t have it, it will flee from you. He says, he that will lose his life for my sake in the gospel, the same shall find it.

That you live for something else and you won’t have it. Yay? All that will live God in Christ, you just don’t suffer persecution. For as much than his Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself likewise with the same man, for he that has suffered in the flesh has seized from sin. It means that the more you dedicate your life to serve God, you’ll stop doing the things that are wrong. You’ll start doing the things that are right.

It’ll help you. And if you’re suffering because you’re doing what’s right, It means it kept you from doing the thing that you shouldn’t have been doing. Get so busy doing what God wants you to do and you won’t have time to get in trouble. That you no longer should set the rest of your time in the lust of the flesh, but to the will of God. There’s a division there. Not everybody is always going to have the same desire.

and so therefore your decision to serve God may not be the same as your children and it hurts. You suffer but you have to make decision. Do you407 love God more than anything else in this world even though it may cost you and cost you dearly? These areDisney things to think about pledges. For the past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. When you were lost, you lived a certain way. Maybe nobody cared.

Now that you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you need to understand. Where they think it’s strange that you run not with them to the same excess of right speaking evil of you. So just because you dedicate your life to the Lord. And you don’t do the same things you used to do or go with the same people you used to do. it can bring you persecution and they can speak evil of you. And maybe you can put a holy joke, preacher, better than us.

You’d be surprised what people are saying, just to hurt, to hurt. And you’re going to have to go through that. So we have all these things, but sometimes it’s not always because you took a strong stand. Sometimes it’s because of your own sin, such as pride and selflessness and unbelief a lack of agape love and a lack of forgiveness on your own part. Sometimes these divisions and these relations to break downs is not because you’re standing for the truth, but because you’re wrong.

Have you ever considered the possibility? Have you ever looked in the mirror and says, those thou art the person. You’re the blame and correct the problem because see a lot of people become deceived. They don’t want to own up to it and admit and say those words are so hard to say. I was wrong. Will you forgive me? Aren’t those hard words to say? pride keeps you from doing it. And you’d rather just ruin a home, ruin kids, ruin a marriage, ruin a job, split a church before you’ll admit I was wrong.

Now I’m glad we don’t have anybody like that here today. In connection with so many personal problems and relational breakdowns and is the sin of bitterness, because it is nothing but poison. It gets inside of you. The Bible says in Hebrews in chapter 12 verse 15, says, looking diligently less, any man fail of the grace of God. And this bitterness, spring it up.

Trouble you and defile other individuals. And says, many become defiled because of this. So number one, bitterness troubles you. And bitterness bothers others because you contaminate others like getting a virus and everybody you get around will become part of your bitterness. And you’ll get people to be bitter towards somebody that’s never bothered you. Never said anything to you. They weren’t a part of the problem. They’re not a part of the solution, but there’ll be people that will hate you because somebody else got bitter toward you and they spread that bitterness.

That is a shame and a disgrace, but people will do this. It’s like poison on the inside. That last statement down there, bitterness involves an inward resentment due to real or perceived injustices or wrong doings that causes grudges or an unforgiving spirit. That’s a good definition of bitterness. Whether it’s real or not real, it can be perceived. Have you ever thought your wife said or did something? Or your husband? I know he’s guilty. I know he’s guilty. He didn’t come home when he said he’s going to be home.

I bet he’s out with somebody. And when he comes in, where have you been? I was at the church praying with the preacher. That’s a likely story. And next thing you know, they’re getting a divorce. It doesn’t have to be real. But if you think it’s real, you’ll take actions as though it’s real. Have you ever thought something about somebody and it’s wrong? Have you heard somebody say something and you believed it? But you don’t know if it was right or wrong, but you perceived it to be true.

The damage that can be done. we’re destroying ourselves. We’re destroying our homes because when love waxes cold, sin abounds and becomes very destructive. These are the words that come from this whole sinful nature that we have. The Bible says this is a root of bitterness that comes up. The clamor, we could have used a lot of these word, but I wanted you to make sure you understood this one word of what it means. It’s found in the book of Ephesians in chapter 4, and it says, extreme hatred of the heart.

Ill will that is unprovoked. Sometimes you are going to have people that will be so ill towards you and you never give them a cause. You don’t know why? You’ll never understand it. And They’ll hate, can carry grudges for years and years, and have an unforgiving spirit. They’ll never apologize, and so you can be bitter toward that person who hurt you, or you can just forgive them because God has forgiven you and gone with life, and not hold it against them.

Now, this is a very important thing. Bittleness is like drinking poison and hope the other person dies. You understand what I’m saying? You’re drinking the poison and you hope that other person, you hope they die from you drinking the poison. Bitterness is like cancer that eats on the inside of you. All of us because we won’t forgive them. We won’t forgive. And what’s the whole lesson about going to all the world and priests? The forgiveness of God. We are forgiven people.

We’re sinners but forgiven and that’s why we’re going to heaven and think of how much peace would be in a home between mommy and daddy, between the kids and the parents, in the church, where you work if people would just forgive each other, cut them a little slack. Everybody’s a sinner, nobody’s perfect. But sometimes we just get our magnifying glass out and we watch for any amount of dirt we can find on anybody and then magnify it. So did you see that dirt?

Did you see that dirt? You make a mountain out of a molehill. What’s the difference between a mountain and a molehill? More dirt. That’s pretty cool I would say. We’re just made out of dirt. But he referred that just to the guys. For I perceive that thou art in the gall or the poison of bitterness and in the bonds of Iniquity, you know what it does to you? It puts handcuffs on you.

It puts handcuffs on you, and you can’t enjoy peace and joy and happiness because you’re in the gall of bitterness. You’ve got poison, and it’s affecting your physical body. That’s why I put in this little statement. Is it bad for the health? Is bitterness bad for your health? There’s thing the Bible talks about, So, the You want to be happy? Learn to forgive. Because if you don’t, you’ll be a bitter person. And you’ll make other people bitter around you.

Or you can spread peace and joy and love and happiness and everything. But you’ve got to demonstrate what you understand between you and God. See, the characteristics of God’s forgiveness is what helps us in all of these areas. Unforgiveness is choosing to stay trapped in a jail cell, a bitterness, serving time for someone else’s crime. Do you want people to have the power to put you in jail? Think about it. He put me in jail and I got to stay here until he lets me out.

You are going to allow somebody else to determine whether you have peace or joy or happiness. You see, it’s a thought process. It’s how you’re thinking. If I told you right now, I got some good news for you. You just inherited a million dollars. Whoo-hoo! But if I told you, your love wouldn’t just die and make it sad. Happiness, sad, what you’re thinking about. And so because of what you think about can destroy you. And there are some people who become so depressed.

So depressed. I had somebody ask me someone. If I wanted to, could I come to you for counseling? I said, if you just come to church, you’ll get counseling. Am I counseling y’all right now? And it doesn’t cost you anything. We already got your offering. No, no. But if you listen to what I’m I’m telling you, it’ll help save the teenager, it’ll help save marriages, it helps save a lot of things. If you just listen, the word of God is the counseling book.

It’s God telling us what works and telling us what doesn’t work. Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity, who wit their tongue like a sword and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words, good verses. But now notice, your words can be smooth like butter, like butter, but the words can be bitter. And you’ll find out that people can say wonderful, sweet things, but you know their hearts not right.

I love you. I love you too. You just said that because I said it. Okay, I love you. You really mean it? Yeah. You haven’t told me in years when it changes, I’ll tell you. I told you the day we got married. You wouldn’t believe it was one day I had bought Betty a bunch of flowers from roses. And she took one of them and she put it in a book. And she had it in there. And I don’t know about 35 years later.

She showed it to me. I said why don’t you throw that thing away? He said, it was precious to me, because you gave it to me for one of our anniversaries. I said, why don’t you get rid of that thing? I’ll go eat you some more. So I got our 42 roses from our 42nd anniversary. I’m going to how long these are going to last. So when you get 75, I think, well, I’ll get up some more roses. I’m just joking about that.

But I’m talking about learning to love. Not just say the right word, but it should be from the heart. And it’s important. Now look at this statement. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. In your home, are you drawing the sword? Are you using butter? I told him this and I’ll mention this. When we have bored me and I said, we never bring a hammer to board meetings, only feathers.

We’re not coming to be hard on each other. We’re coming to talk, discuss, and I think it’s the way it ought to be. Now, these are some simple things that I believe are very important. Nobody can make you do right. Nobody can make you forgive anyone. But I would venture to say that everybody in here, sometime along the way, probably in the last couple weeks even, you could have hurt and offended somebody. You could have had a sharp word, a sharp tongue.

Did you know that you can kill somebody with that little tongue right there? Because it has got poison on it, making it a lot of damage. And you can hurt your wife very easily, you can hurt your husband, just a few words, sharp words, cutting, bitter. Now I’m glad nobody hears guilty of anything like this. But if you have a problem, did you know that not only the person you said it to hurts them, But did you know that God saw that?

And you also offended Him. Because God wants you to demonstrate to that person that you live with your children, children to the parents. Forgive them, strike not back, not to avenge, but always remember. I was forgiven by God. Therefore, I want to be like the Lord. Serving the Lord is trying to be to other people like God. So God is in heaven saying, I want you to forgive them for me. Would you love that person for me? You know God may send you somebody very unlovable, and God says, I want you to show them what real love is about.

I’m going to let somebody that’s really suffering, really hurting. They’re going to hurt you, and I want you to show them how to forgive. I want you to show them how to walk with me. I want you to demonstrate to them my characteristics. Now, when you dedicate your life to the Lord, that’s what you’re doing. Whenever you got married, see, I remember when you got married for better or for, what’s that other word? Worse. Richard or poor, and he said, he got poor on.

And you’d be surprised how many things are supposed to be, and you forget. But you realize that whenever you get married before God, before God, and these witnesses, before God and these witnesses, that means that God says, this is to be a Christian wedding. That’s the only kind of weddings I know how to give. It’s a Christian wedding. And I ask God, I want you to bless them. Help the man to be the kind of man he ought to be.

Help the woman to be kind of the woman she’s supposed to be. And what I pray that you’ll bless both of them, that they’ll love you. Because the more they love you, and the closer they get to you, the closer they get to each other. And when things begin to separate you, it’s because somebody’s getting further away from the Lord. Get close to the Lord. Don’t try to always prove you’re right. Now in your mind you’re going to do, I know I’m right, but honey, you’re right.

But if you can’t convince her of that and be persuaded that she believes that, your phony didn’t work. Be honest. When you’re wrong, honey, I’m wrong. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me? And then it’s on her. And enjoy life. Have a happy marriage. Don’t expect perfection from your husband or your wife or your children to have sinful natures. Look up here. This hand represents you and me. This walla represents sin. Now we all have sin on us. God loves us.

Now he hates our sin but he loves us. You’re supposed to love your wife, your husband, your kids. You don’t have to love what they do wrong, but you love them, don’t you? Do keep it separate. You love them. I love you. You may not like the things that they do, but you still love them because God loves us, and He hates our sin. And for us, the payment for sin was death, eternal separation from God. But God loves us.

Once it’s to go to heaven, to go to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous as God, and none of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. We’re all sinners. as you can’t save yourself were condemned. This hand representing Jesus Christ, he’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loves us. Now he hates our sin, but he loves us. So he took the sin and paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead.

He had paid the penalty for our sin and he says, whosoever would believe it, you’ll be forgiven. You’ll be forgiven as though you never committed a sin and you will get to go to heaven because there’s no sin against you. I’ve forgiven you of all sin. Little sins, big sins, secret sins, all sin. They’re all forgiven. I put them behind my back, moved as far as the east is from the west and therefore never to be brought up again.

God can do that. But He wants us to learn how to demonstrate that a little bit in our lives. And sometimes it’s not the easiest thing to do. It’s not the easiest thing to do. So there are some people that will hurt you deeply. And remember this, it’s a walk with the Lord, not just one step. In your walk with the Lord, healing takes time. Even though you forgive somebody, healing takes time. Give it time. Forgive, but don’t keep picking at the sore.

You keep picking at it, it’ll never heal. And some people will always pick it, always pick it, never heal. Let’s pray, show him. With every head bound, every eye closed, and no one looking around. If you hear this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I pray that you would. I want you to accept God’s forgiveness because we’ve all sinned against Him. If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, your God’s child, you’re going to heaven. But if you’re here today and you’ve never trusted the Lord, would you right now say, I’m a sinner?

I believe when Christ died, He died for me, and I’m going to trust Him as my only hope of going to heaven. And friend, if you’ll do that, God said He would save and give you eternal life. Would you believe it? Would you trust Him? So with His bow knife clothes, anyone at all say, pray for me, I will trust Christ as my Savior this morning and pray to your life to pray for me. We’re just sleeping very quickly, but right back down.

I’m not going to have you forward, not going to embarrass you. I’m not going to point you out. Anyone at all? Anyone at all? With heads still bowed nice and closed, maybe I’ve hit some of you right between the eyes. I have no desire to hurt anybody. But sometimes while I’m speaking, I believe God uses that. Maybe He said a few things to you. He had a few little pictures to show you. Maybe you saw somebody’s face. Maybe you recall somebody’s actions towards you or yours toward them.

If you need to talk to the Lord about it, why don’t you take just a moment? And we’re going to just give you a moment. Talk to the Lord and say, Lord, I was wrong. I’ve wronged my husband or I wrong my wife or I wrong my kids. I wrong my parents. I admit it. Lord, I’ve been carrying bitterness in my heart. Maybe you’ve been having some grudges and you won’t let it go. Why don’t you take this moment right now and solve that problem?

Our Father, we thank You so much for being so good to us and teaching us how to love each other and how to forgive. Lord, I pray Your blessings upon each one here, helping to get closer to You and Lord to accept Your forgiveness. not only to forgive others, but to forgive themselves, because you forgive us. We ask the blessings upon each family, the children, and a lot of people are struggling, a lot of hard times we’re having. We just pray that you’ll give each one of them the strength and the grace that they need to do what’s right.

So bless each one. In Christ’s name we pray, amen. Part three will be next Sunday. I’ve had two parts of this, but next Sunday, Number three, it’ll be good for you. I guarantee you. Well, it’s a new month, and we’d like to thank those who faithfully support this program. We’re going to enroll you in part two of the course Cult 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 like, again, it’s all online.

The classes include video instruction, lecture notes, and quizzes if you’d like to submit them. And again, it’s all online. When you send in your gift, please include your email address and we’ll enroll you in the second part of Cult of Angelism, Cult of Angelism 2. We hope you’ve enjoyed these free classes and that they’ve been helpful to you. 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 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. He’s holding it today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.