This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 Click 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…

and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. 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 sometime when people leave church, they’re gonna have, 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.

Somebody wants to gossip to you about the preacher, say, Oh, 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. blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All those excuses. But the only thing is, oh, did they do it?

Did you do it? You should make an attempt. Or you get somebody else to go with you. That’s always good. Didn’t 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 see 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. Whatever you got a job you should never become in five minutes late or ten minutes late. You ought to be there 10, 15 minutes early.

I don’t care what. You should well I have to get up early then get up early. Get up. Beyond time. You see, when a person is 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 that you should always try to be on time. Now, when you can’t, there’s one thing. You know, if you’re sick or die, you may not be on time.

I told Lee Pat, I mean, letting followed on there, I says, 80 years old now, I I said, 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 mean 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*=- It’s not because he wants to us because that’sGoldMagikarp defense. So always be nice and sweet and kind. That means you’re gonna 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. If you want me to do that with you, right, you want me to come to you in a mean bed.

I mean, when I’m preaching from the pulpit, it’s okay. But in 101, it’s not. Because you just faked it, 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. Brain children to the pastor and teach them to love him. Do you notice that 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. Irient I induBUG. I want them to love coming to Sunday school in unwanted. I want them to love those things. So always be nice to these little kids. Whenever we had a couple of them and they would a hide behind my me and this look at me know and I would I got to where I outsmarted them started putting some candy in my pocket. and they come out the door and I had a, like a piece of bubble gum in my hand and I just wave it in front of the kids, you know, and the kids looked down there and see that thing.

And they look up at me and they’d hide behind money. And it wasn’t long before 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. 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 learn 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 in your way around here. That’s 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 counseling, 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 going to help you. designed to help. I don’t give where 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 hate 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 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 gonna 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 like that when you came tonight.

Because you know what’s on TV. I know it’s on TV. So we’re almost done. Number 11, be faithful to services and special meetings. Be faithful to come. 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 in Barrison? Invite people that come in the 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 going to be here and then people won’t come to him. It’s just like for example we got this Phil Springer’s going to come on a Friday. 27th this and he’s going to come and if you can come if you can come he’s not doing anything wouldn’t it be good to come if nothing more than to have him speak to somebody instead of us four 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 our you? Because if one person comes and brand new, never been here before and they say 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 there, 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 get to church, we’re going to be able to get to church. of the gospel. Wouldn’t it be needed? We had 10, 15, 20, trust 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 pushing, 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 going to hear the gospel. You’re going to 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.

Well I’m sleeping because just it’s then got on the YouTube where you know 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 trust the Lord in a lot of different places. And I told them one of these days we’re going to have 10, 15 trusts of the Lord in a month or a week. And I want to report saying they trust the Lord in the Philippines or Ontario or you know 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 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 missionary. 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 got to be over and above what we’re doing. But if you take it from the church and put it into missions you didn’t help us at all. You just took it from this one and gave it to this one.

Now that all the extra miniatures should be over and above our 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 drop seeds on purpose you know handfolds on purpose just leave tracks everywhere you go.

The little tracks that we have I think Jesse said we’ve 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, but ordered 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 gonna put the gas cap up there and I saw a little thin thing laying up there and a little brine can’t I pick 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 a credit card. He says, was it on pump 17? I said, yes. He says, was it laying on the 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 was out there. He says evidently he didn’t see it. And he left. I said, well who what?

I don’t know. So I got his name. I said, I’m going to call the police. I said, 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 we, it took about 45 minutes. And by the time I got through in talking to the police, I gave him a heaven track 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 happens by accident. That 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. But always have tracks. Always. Another point. Have a forgiving spirit. People are going to wrong each other. When you live and work together in various ministries, you are naturally going to offend somebody. You’re going to rub against somebody.

We have that little title. Iron sharpness, iron. Yeah, but you don’t like it, do you? When you get right down to it, you don’t like people rubbing you the wrong way, do you? But did you know that you’re rubbing somebody else the wrong way? I always told people, I said, if I seem to be rubbing you the wrong way, turn around. But anyway, but learn to have a forgiving spirit. forgive people. Nobody’s perfect. Lighten up a little bit. Don’t be too hard on people.

They’re already having a hard time. It’s a rough time. And most people are looking for a reason to become unfaithful, so I can stop coming to church. Thus don’t give them a reason. Let’s just be bubbly and be nice. Now, if once in a while I have to do the Bible says rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. But as much as possible, let me do thatfrom the pulpit so that they’ll hate me and not you.

But you just always brag on me and tell me what a good job I’m doing and that I’ll be fine. Next point, learn to move beyond problems. Learn to move beyond problems. You ever have any problems in your life? Problems in your marriage? Problem with your kids? Keep moving. You You can’t solve everything. You never will. On the way back we noticed there was people standing everywhere and they were fishing. But it said, wouldn’t it be fun when that guy goes back like that and hooks on a car and pulls a rod, and out of the hand?

No, I hadn’t thought of that. But if you have a $5 roar and you get caught on the first cash, you put it and it gets hung on the bottom. I’ve done this. you try and there’s nothing. Let it float and it don’t float. It’s hung. It’scli. You can sit there now for the rest of your life or count your loss and let it go. You can’t solve everything. You can’t win everything. Some things, people wrong, a big deal.

Go on. Don’t live in the past. Keep trusting the Lord. There’s so much it needs to be accomplished for the the Lord. And so learn to move beyond your problems because you’re going to have them. Don’t let problems stop you. Next point. Choose the right time to talk to the pastor about difficult things because sometimes you know you want to talk to me and it’s doing the church service. Somebody raised their hand. I got to talk to you right now.

This is not the right time. And you may find out that I can’t talk to you as soon as I get through because I’ve got two or three other people I got to talk to or something like that. But if you’ll call me, I’ll do my dead level best to try to talk and try to find the time where we can sit down and talk. Now, if it’s a woman, I like to have my wife close by, but I’ll have the door jar and I don’t like to talk and I don’t go to homes when the husband’s not there in person That’s not wise.

It’s not good. So to protect that person and yourself There’s things that you just be better off not doing and to realize you can’t help everybody I’ve had so many people who come up to me and they want me to give them money for this money for that And and and some people there’s no end to it And so you got to learn how to say the most hardest Christian thing in the world. No, I’m sorry I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.

You can’t help everybody. Now if you can’t help and do something, be wise. But remember, you can’t solve everybody’s problems. It would drive you nuts trying to do so. Next point, remember special occasions in the pastor’s personal life. You know, when I first came here, I thought we ought to have a special celebration for every year that I’ve been here. Well, that hasn’t worked too good, but we do celebrate all the other things. And every once in a while, we’ll have a birthday party or something like that.

That’s fine. But there’s certain things just to remember, just a little card or a note. It’s just, now I may not remember yours, but I don’t mind it if you remember mine. Well look, you only got one to remember. I got to remember everybody else’s. You know, that’s what makes it so interesting. We go around and we do it meet and greet. I’ve been shaking some of these people’s hands and I still don’t know who half the deacons are.

Well, I do. I finally feed out who they are. Paul back here, I still can’t say his last name. I don’t even think he can say his last name. It’s a sense you can’t spell his last name. This got Z’s and Y’s and X’s and Q’s and all that kind of stuff in it. But Paul is no problem. It’s that other part of his name. But we sometimes never learned, you won’t believe it. We had somebody finally come on a Sunday night and they met some of the people that were here.

And they introduced themselves. Well, it’s just your first time. No, I’ve been coming for 10 years. They just never come on Sunday morning. Well, they never come on a Sunday night. And lo and behold, they came the same time. A new visitor. Now they want new visitors. They just come to different services. We did this this morning. 21, I have it already done. She already had this list before I did that this morning. Tell the pastor you love him.

I needed that this morning. And so we filmed that too, and we got how it turned the camera down. We got everybody on camera that said they love me. No, he really didn’t do that now. But it’s okay. Sorry. Do not give ear to criticism number 22. Do not give ear to criticism. Try and don’t give a tongue to it either. Don’t just criticize things. You can always be critical. This is a wicked little instrument right there, and it’s very difficult to tame it.

The only thing you do is control it with the mind that’s committed to the Lord. And so whatever is on the mind, generally the tongue is going to say, so you’ve got to be careful how you think, and it’ll help control what you say. And the next thing is never go to the pastor in anger, and here’s why, Why? Because you’ll say and do something you probably shouldn’t do. You shouldn’t even go to your husband or your wife that way.

Cool down. Cool down period. They even say people that work out should have a cooling down period. So you don’t drop too fast. But you’re cooled down. You know, if you’ve been running and just slow down and start jogging and slowing and walking a little bit and then cool down. And some people call me up on the phone and says, pastor, I’ve got to talk to you right Now, my wife and I were having a problem, and I got to talk to you right now.

And I said, look, I’ve got an opening tomorrow afternoon, 3 o’clock. And generally, by 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon, they didn’t solve it themselves. But I would go crazy if I just jumped in my car in random, everything that people want me to do. I’d never get anything else done. But most people can solve their own problems. It’s just that at the moment when they’re hothead and, no, they’re not thinking clearly. Let them cool down. Give them a couple of days to think things through.

I always try to plan a couple of days down the road. And somebody wants me to talk to their teenager or talk to this college kid or whatever. I try not to just rush into something because when they’re not right, and you’re talking like clash, better let things cool just for a little bit. Anyway, this is just a few things to help you to remember. The pastor is human. I’ve got a wife. We’re getting older. We can’t do everything like we used to do.

So be patient with us. We love you, we love the ministry here, and we enjoy doing what God has called us to do. And I’ll try to help you as much as I possibly can, but I’m not a miracle worker. I can’t do everything. I don’t know everything. I enjoy doing what I do. But I want you to know, I do know and sense and appreciate all the little nice things that people do say and do in the compliments that I get.

So thank you and God bless you. Now, if you’re watching by internet tonight, you say we didn’t teach you the same thing about the Bible. Oh, I think there’s some biblical principles involved there. Look up here. This hand represents you and me and the wallet represents sin. Now we all have sin on us. God loves us. Now I hate our sin, but He loves us. And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from the Lord. And the Bible says it’s a literal fire burning hell to be eternally separated from God.

But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven we have to be as righteous as God and none of us are righteous. We’ve all sinned. And because of sin we can’t get in. And because the sin you cannot earn eternal life. We’re already condemned. So all the good things we may try to do can never take away this condemnation. We’re guilty and we cannot save ourselves by good works. This sin represents Jesus Christ.

He’s the Lord God in the flesh, came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from Him. So Christ who had no sin took all the sin, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. And God said, if we would believe He did it for us, He would put this payment to our account. We get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. That is free. It is the gift of God.

He loves us that much. Let’s pray, shall we? With heads bowed nice, close, and no one looking around. If you’re here tonight and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him? Just talk to the Lord and say something simple Lord. I know I’m a sinner. I believe Christ died that he paid for my sins Tonight I will trust him as my only hope of going to heaven If you will make that decision, I’d like to know and I’d like to have prayer for you So is there anyone also?

Yes, I will trust Christ tonight and I want you to pray for me I’ll slip you in it very quickly, but right back down is anyone at all if you’re watching my internet Remember all you have to do is just trust the Lord. But you can let us know just by clicking on that little link that says, yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior. We’d like to know. Our Father, we ask your blessings upon each one here. We thank you so much for our church and for the good people and for all that they’ve done.

And we just know that each one has problems that they have to deal with and we all need encouragement, we all need each one to pray for the other and be a great encourager. We just want to commit ourselves to you and ask you to help us to be more sensitive and to be wise and help us follow not to say things that discourage people, just to put people down or try to exalt ourselves or just maybe gossip and about somebody else.

Those are not things that’s honoring to you. So we ask your blessings upon us. We also pray Lord for the wisdom, Lord, and for each person we pray that everything would be done according to your will. Christ and we pray, Amen. 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 Paulus at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of the gospel-driven mane. The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address. And 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 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. Believing that the Lord is coming soon? Just keep looking up.