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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.

Alrighty, good to see you all tonight. Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4. There’s one little verse there that I want to share with you because tonight I was, I got two things running around in my mind on faith is alive, faith is alive. Faith is alive because Christ is alive. Christ is alive and my faith is in him so my faith must be alive. The word is alive and if my faith is in the Word then my faith should be alive.

So therefore Christ is alive, the Word is alive and believe it or not I am alive. The Bible tells us in the book of 1 Peter in chapter 1 that ye are alive. You’re living stones, you and I are considered we are alive because Christ is alive and tells the word is alive, our faith should be alive. And if your faith is alive it should be active and if it’s active it should produce something. I do believe that God wants his children to live with our faith in him.

So there’s things that God wants us to know, things God wants us to do. And here in verse 12 of chapter 4, he says, for the word of God is quick means it’s alive, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Pearson even to the divide in the sun, or a soul in spirit, and of the joints in the marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and the intent of the heart. You talk about something that knows you through and through, it is the Word of God.

That’s why when you read the Word of God, it’s kind of like a mirror. It shows you all about yourself. And it’s very convicting. That’s why a lot of people don’t like to read the Bible. It gets too personal. It’s one thing if it would just point out all the errors of everybody else and not up our own. But the Lord has a neat way of kind of working into your heart, you know. Another thing I wanted to mention, look there in the book of Hebrews while you’re right here.

In Hebrews chapter 13, Hebrews chapter 13. And I want you to look there in verse 17. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 17 says, Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief or that is unprofitable for you. And you know I want everything profitable for you. So when he says here, Obey them that have the rule over you, that means those that guide you.

So really the pastors are supposed to help guide the sheep, you know, guide you into the truth and how to live your lives and tell you from what God’s worth. Kind of like what I was doing this morning, you’re learning what’s right and what’s wrong. When you talk about the homosexual, knowing what’s right and what’s wrong, we talked about abortion, you know what’s right and what’s wrong. All those are issues that affect our lives. You can’t say it don’t.

It does. It hits home. And so the Bible says, it try to guide you in that, listen to what they’re saying, not that you’re trying to obey some man on, but just listen to what he has to say. And if he teaches you what the word of God says, yield to it and you’ll be surprised. I got a list of some things that I have wrote down. And I don’t think I’ll be able to cover them all tonight, but there are simple little things for for you to think about.

Now it may apply to me, but it may apply to some other pastor down the road. I’m not gonna live forever, and some of y’all look fairly young. So there’s a chance that you’re gonna have some other preachers in your life. I’m not gonna be the only one. I’m gonna come along, and then I’m gonna move on out. Just like that part of that song that I wrote you know. You know when this. Son was high in the new day sky.

The kids came along and didn’t say goodbye. Well, that’s the way things are in your own life. People come and people go. Just like I met some people years ago because of whom I worked with Jack Weaver. I saw his teenagers and then I didn’t see him for almost 40 years. And yet when I saw them, it was such a refreshing joy. And the one girl I hadn’t seen her in so long, her name was Robin. And she was just thrilled at that.

And so I got a picture. I’m going to put it in my newsletter next I send out with her and her two brothers. And their brothers are tall. I mean, I had to look up at them like this. Jack Weaver was a tall man, but these kids, they never stopped growing. They were huge. But you’re meeting people and they come and go. Nobody stays forever here. And some people that are in this room right now, a year from now, there may be three, four, five of us be dead.

And I just hate to say, when I became pastor at Northside Baptist Church, I bet I buried 35 people in about five, six, seven years. But at least they got the assurance. They knew for a short, they were going to heaven when they die. You see, that’s a bad sign. I read somebody’s mind. But what I wanted to give you was how to encourage, now you may not know how to do this. Does the Bible tell us to encourage one another, to exhort one another, be a blessing to one another, provoke one another, and all the kind of things?

Well I don’t know how. So we’re always telling you to do that. So I’m going to give you a few reasons or suggestions on how to encourage your pastor. How to encourage your pastor. Now you’ve got a pencil paper, you need to write these down. These are good. You say, well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m telling you what to do. So this will help you write the pastor a note of encouragement. How long has it been since you wrote the preacher a note of encouragement?

Now, you automatically think he’s never discouraged. He’s always on top. He’s always up there on top of that mountain. He’s never in the valley. He doesn’t go through what we go through. He doesn’t understand problems like we do. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and everything goes his way and he doesn’t have problems like we do so you never have to encourage the pastor. So you’re gonna write it down, write the pastor a note of encouragement.

When’s the last time you’ve done that? Can’t lie because I’m the one that’s the pastor. And so number two, love and encourage the pastor’s children. Now we don’t have any here so you don’t have to worry about that. But you may get a pastor and he’s young and he has you know a young wife, he may have young children. You may become a preacher and you always want to know what should you do? How can you help the preacher?

Well if he has some children, encourage those children. In Colorado I had a man that He got to where he was jealous of my position. When somebody says, you know, I think the pastor has too much power. What they mean is, I want some of it. And when they want some of it, they become envious and jealous. And so my kid came to me one day and says, Daddy, I just got a problem, but I just don’t sometimes want to talk to you about it.

I said, honey, there’s some good men in this church, good women in the church. You just find you some Godly individuals and you go talk to them and they’ll, they’ll counsel you right. Well, they went to the wrong one. They went to the one that was filled with envy and bitterness and a little jealousy. And they turned my kid against me. It’s temporary, but they did it. Later on, years later, they came to me and they apologize and said, pastor, I just want know, I owe you an apology.

I am so sorry. I said things about you that was not true. And your own kid believed it. And I was wrong. And they told me this with tears in their eyes. And so after I hit him, no, I didn’t. But you want people to encourage the preacher’s kids. Did you realize how difficult it is for preachers, kids to be raised in a church? You see other kids can do things and get away with it because well they’re teenagers but most preachers kids You know you’re a preacher’s kid or you’re the deacons kid.

You’re not supposed to act like that. In other words, you’re not supposed to act like other kids. And so somebody’s always got to magnify glass and they want to pick them apart. And so, and they do. And they do a lot of damage and don’t even know it. And so sometimes they need as much encouragement and help and praying for as anybody else. That’s always important. Number three, pray for the pastor in the family daily. Because you’d be surprised if the devil can’t get you, did you know the devil might try to get me?

And if the devil can’t get me, you know he might try to go through my wife. You know if the devil can’t get my wife, you know he might try to go through my kids. You know the devil never stops. So a lot of preachers that quit the ministry every year, lots of them, thousands of preachers are quitting because they can’t take the pressure of the ministry. You say why? Because they’re having to deal with people. You know the hardest people in the world to please are church people.

Because everybody has got their own opinion about what the Bible really says and how they’re really going to live. And all you got to do, all I have to do is say one thing. It won’t matter how clear I am on the gospel, it won’t matter how good I can say the Bible and quote and all that stuff. If I say something that offends you, you’ll leave. Maybe not you, but I haven’t hit you yet. But some people, they were chips on their shoulders and just double dog dare because they’re already looking for a reason to leave, looking for a reason to quit, looking for a reason not to give, looking for a reason.

And if you look for one, you’ll find one. The preacher is not perfect. Number four, tell the pastor when you’re blessed by his message. Don’t overflour it. Don’t overdo it. Don’t drip with honeydew. You know, a nice little calming pastor. I really enjoyed that this morning. Thank you. When it’s the last time you gave the pastor a compliment on his message, he said, well, he ought to know if it was good or not. The pastor shouldn’t have to, you know, pull out from you a comment.

How’d you like that sermon this morning? Well personally I didn’t like it. Oh, but if you don’t have to like every one of them or comment on everyone, but every once in a while it doesn’t hurt to give the pastor a little compliment. That helped me. I was struggling with this or blah blah blah. But surely, how long have I been here now? How long have I been here? Some of you don’t even know that. Five and a half years.

And has everyone in this room, don’t raise your hand. Compliment of the pastor on any particular sermon. Not a lot of you do. Look, I’m not fishing for anything. I’m telling you these are things that help the pastor, whether it’s me or another one down the road, or if you become a preacher. Also understand this, most people do not live up to your expectations. You’re going to be greatly disappointed in people because people don’t always take the heart, the things that you teach.

So there’s a price to pay. And some people don’t always love everything you say. And sometimes when people leave the church they’re going to have, you know, you know, Rose Reverend or Potted Pastor and they go home and they chew on the preacher in front of the kids. One of the worst things you’ll ever do is in front of your kids, say something bad about the preacher. Down the road, that preacher might be the only one that could help those kids or when they hit married.

And you may say something and do something that caused him to think ill of the preacher and he could have been maybe the only one that could have really helped him. So be careful what you say. Don’t go around gossiping about the pastor. wants to gossip to you about the preacher? Say, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho. You go talk to him. Why would they tell you? Go talk to the preacher. They say, well, you can’t talk to him. That’s a lie.

Anybody can talk to me. It’s just whether or not you want to do it. If you don’t want to do it, oh, he’s too hard headed. He’ll never change. You can’t get anywhere with him. All of these excuses. But the only thing is, oh, did they do it? Did you do it? You should making at least, making attempt. Or you get somebody else to go with you. That’s always good and you feel comfortable with it. The next thing I wanted to mention to you, be on time for services.

Ooh, that hurt didn’t it. What time does the services start? You know what time the services are. Should you ever be late? If it’s possible, you should never be late for the service. I told the kids in college, I am never late for my class because they don’t start till I show up. But always seek to be on time. Always seek to be early because you’re developing habits in your life. Some of these college kids are learning that down the road they may be the pastor and they should be on time.

When do you learn how to be on time? Now always be on time. be on time. Whatever you got a job, you should never come in five minutes late or ten minutes late. You ought to be there ten, fifteen minutes early. I don’t care what. You should well, I have to get up early. Then get up early. Get up. Be on time. See, when a person’s not on time, it means you have little respect for other people’s time. If you’re always late for meetings, it means you disrespect those people who were there waiting on you for anything and for you.

You should always try to be on time. Now when you can’t, it’s one thing. You know if you’re sick or die, you may not be on time. I told Lee Patton, I mean, Linton followed down there, I says, he’s 80 years old now, I says, look, because I don’t hardly ever see him anymore, and I said, look, if you die, make sure you call me and let me know because otherwise I won’t have a clue. I said, if I die, I’ll call you.

Next statement, I wanted to to you. Number six, speak kindly to the pastor. Speak kindly to the pastor because otherwise if you speak harsh and mean he’ll put up a defense like you’re challenging him and you’re fixing to attack and he will attack back. It’s not because he wants to speak all that stuff defense. So always be nice and sweet and kind. That means you’re going to have to really harness, restrain yourself, refrain yourself from saying something off the cuff or in a mean spirit because God doesn’t honor you doing that and so the preacher wouldn’t like that either.

You wouldn’t want me to do that with you, right? You want me to come to you in a mean bad? I mean from what I’m preaching from the pulpit it’s okay but in 101 it’s not because you just think that I’m talking about you and it could have been the person right behind you or beside you or it could have been you. Next point, bring children to the pastor and teach them to love him. Do you notice I try to take and win the little children or if it’s in a one I always try to be nice and sweet to those little kids because I want those little kids to love the Lord I want them to love the preacher I want them to love coming to church I want them to love coming to love coming to Sunday School in Nowana, I want them to love those things.

So always be nice to these little kids. Whenever we had a couple of them, they would hide behind mommy and just look at me now. And I got to where I outsmarted them, started putting some candy in my pocket. And they’d come out the door and I had a, like a piece of bubble gum in my hand and just wave it in front of the kids, you know, and the kids look down there and see that thing. They look up at me and they’d hide behind money.

And it was belonging for they expected. Now they come down the hallway and if I’m not in there, they tear the door down and go in and get it anyway. We got a pot of gold in there. Now I have to watch it because there’s adults that sneak in there and get my candy. And they’re already my friends. So anyway, but learned to treat kids nice, be kind of little kids. You know, just think about it. They’ve got their whole lives to live.

And wouldn’t it be bad for them to get a bad start? And for people at church to be mean and ugly to them? They may get in your way around here. That’s all. Let them get in your way. But be nice and sweet to the kid. Don’t be ugly and unkind. I just think that is so important to be kind to the kids. Number eight, heed the pastor’s counsel. When I give you some good counsel and take it, see I don’t know what all of you need.

I just know that generally people need this because it’s in the Word of God. And if I teach enough of the Word of God, it’s gonna help you. It’s designed to help. I don’t give what you teach in the Bible. God’s Word can help bring comfort and peace and joy. It can tell you some things to do. It can warn you of things. And so it’s so important to do that and heed that. If you sense, you know, I need to correct that in my life.

You may not tell anybody, but be sensitive to the teaching of the Word and you to it. Another thing, serving the church with enthusiasm. Oh boy, I got to go to ranch. Oh man, they got a men’s Bible study and I don’t want to go. I mean, Dan Hall is going to speak and I don’t want to go. Yeah, but you might encourage Dan Hall. So you do what you do, but do it enthusiastically. You know, an unlit candle can’t light another candle.

You’ve got to be on fire yourself in order to light somebody else’s candle. So let God use you. Be excited about serving the Lord. Don’t drag it. We’re going to go to church today. Some of you all think it like that when you came tonight. Because you know what’s on TV. I know it’s on TV. So we’re almost done. No, no. Number 11, be faithful to services and special meetings. Be faithful to come. When you can come, that really makes the preacher feel excited.

When he has a special speaker that comes in and then people come out to hear him. You know what’s embarrassing is to invite people to come and to speak and they’re on that Sunday night or so and then everybody’s staying home watching television. That really makes you feel great. It’s a little humiliating too and you feel ashamed that you now somebody’s gonna be here and then people won’t come to him. It’s just like for example we got this Phil Springer’s gonna come on a Friday.

27th this and he’s gonna come and if you can come if you can come he not do anything wouldn’t be good to come if nothing more than than to have him speak to somebody instead of us for no more. You realize whatever you do you’re trying to help and to build it to encourage them. Do you know why they want to have helpers that come on a Friday night for argue because if one person comes and brand new never been here before and they see 10 or 15 they don’t know that you really don’t have an addiction problem?

Well, maybe you do. And they come, that makes them more comfortable. They’re not the only one. Look at all these other people that’s got problems too. And you are helping. And then when they get enough, then it helps. But let God use you so I can’t do anything important. All of those things are important. special services. Number 12, bring others to church. Bring others church. Have you noticed that whenever we give the gospel, wouldn’t it be needed if we had 10, 15, 20 trusts the Lord every service?

Every service? Wouldn’t that be great? But we can’t do that, can we? We can’t do that. Because see, you can’t catch fish out of a bathtub because there’s no fish in the bathtub. Now if you put some fish in the bathtub, you can probably catch fish in the bathtub. But we can’t catch lost fish in here if there’s no lost fish here. So we always have to keep inviting people. Love your pastor, love your church, love the gospel that we have and promote it.

Talk to people about it. Always be excited about it. Always push and always doing it. Now if everybody did it, it’s amazing. They may not come this week. They may not come for a month. But if everybody just starts doing it and pushing and promoting like you’re proud of your church. And you know, if you come to Calvary, you’re gonna hear the gospel. You’re gonna learn how to have eternal life and how to go to heaven when you die.

Now the more we say we love the gospel and the clarity of the gospel, the more we ought to do to get people under the sounds of it. Right now we’re having people trust Christ as Savior while I’m in sleep, while I’m sleeping. Because just as it’s done on the YouTube, where you can say you trust Christ as Savior on the messages that are on YouTube. not just because of the internet that we’re doing right now, but there’s people that have trusted the Lord in a lot of different places.

And I told them one of these days, we’re gonna have 10, 15 trusts the Lord in a month or a week. And I wanna report saying they trust the Lord in the Philippines or Ontario or London and wouldn’t it be neat when we have people trusting Christ of Savior all over the world every day? Well, this is what we work for. We’re working for stuff like this. So important. Another rather little thing, be faithful and be a sacrificial giver.

Love your ministry, love your church and what you’re doing. Love the ministries of the church and support it. Give the way God wants you to. All I want people to do is do what you know and believe God wants you to do, but do it. Whatever it is, do it. Just do it. Be found faithful. Number 14, support missionaries. I believe the Lord will bless us more in the long run when we’re willing to give to missionaries. But see, we have a budget that has to meet our needs of the ministry.

We want to give to missions, but we have to, that’s gonna be over and above what we’re doing. But if you take it from the church and put it in the missions, you didn’t help us at all. You just took it from this one and gave it to this one. No, that, all the extra miniatures should be over and above are regular given to the church. Because if you just take it out of the church, then next thing you know, we’re gonna have to lay off people that work here.

Because that’s the only way you can do it, you have a budget. So that’s important. Keep that in mind. Another thing, wind soles, pass out tracks, carried tracks with you all the time, and just dropped seeds on purpose, you know, handfuls on purpose, just leave tracks everywhere you go. The little tracks that we have, I think Jesse said, we got, we sell about how many of those every six months or something like that. So isn’t that a lot of tracks?

We just had somebody just last week, ordered 300 from somewhere, I don’t know where, were, but over 300 of them. And so there’s people that love the little tracks that we have. And so it’d be shame for us to have everybody outside doing and then our own people don’t carry tracks and don’t pass out tracks. You should always have tracks. And you never know how important it is. Yesterday, on the way back from Miami, we stopped at a place and get some gas.

and I looked up there on top of the pump, and I was going to put the gas cap up there, and I saw a little thin thing laying up there. And a little brine came, I picked that thing up, and somebody had left their credit card. So I looked it up, and it’s a visa. And it was good for a couple more years. So I finished getting my gas, and I walked in there, and I told the man, I said, I found the credit card.

He says, was it on pump 17? I says, yes. He says, was it laying on top of it? I said, yes it was. He said, a man was just in here about 10 minutes ago looking for it. I said, well, I’m not out there. He says, evidently he didn’t see it. And he left. I said, well, who what? Don’t know. So I got his name. I said, I’m going to call. I need to call the police. That’s because I didn’t want to leave it with them.

Because I don’t trust them. I don’t know them. So anyway, the police came. And I had that, it took about 45 minutes. And by the time I got through talking to the police, I gave him a heaven-trike. And then I said, in this little case he has right here, I took out one of my heaven-tracks and folded it up twice, slid it in here. I said, see that he gets that in there also. Because I always believed that nothing happened by accident.

This man just might get the gospel, and who knows, down the road. But if I hadn’t had tracks, I can’t do that. I always have tracks, always. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones.

This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics. And we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation. No donation necessary. Simply call us at 1-800-576-3771, or write to us, and request your free copy of the gospel-driven man. The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address. God bless you and thank you for listening to 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 40-8-11 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. Leaving that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.