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. 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.

I have covered this song before, but it’s a wonderful song, 126 songs. So look in your “/Bible to this song.” Now, just about everybody in here has gone fishing at one time or another. This last time on our Father’s Day, that was a special week, we were able to go fishing. So I wanted to take my son and his wife and two grandkids. So we went fishing. And you know, this is where they have the bait and they put it on their rod and reel, and sometimes they even cast that out for you and you just hold onto it.

And then you hope you catch a big one. Well, I am not a good fisherman. For some reason or other, my signal goes out through the line and goes down to the bait and the worm says, don’t eat me, it’s that Yankee fella. And fish won’t bite mine. Now, would you believe that everybody caught a fish, me. You weren’t supposed to believe that, but it was the truth. I can’t do anything. I think I caught a coal, but I didn’t catch a fish.

And so it was all over where we had stand there, made my grandson by, all the fish that was caught. And I didn’t have one fish on that. Even a little fish would have been better than no fish. I didn’t catch a fish. Well, anyway, look at the little statement here. This verse presents a wonderful outline on how to have God’s power and how to experience results in so and in. Here is the promise that one who goes after sinners, one who has concern in a broken heart, and one who has used the precious seed of the gospel shall lead some people to salvation.

Now, there’s other things that are in these verses that are according to the context, but it’s verses that we teach, but we can apply them in other areas. Now the next question is, did you ever go fishing and someone asks you, where’s your fish? Anybody ever come up and say, where’s your fish? If you’re fishing somebody expects you to catch a fish, right? But have you ever caught fish and there’s time when you don’t catch fish. There’s been time when I have caught a fish, but it’s never been anything to brag about.

Nothing to write home to mama about. So where’s your fish? Are they biting? See these are questions that, yeah, man, Betty was over there one day and we walked out on this little pier and there’s a couple people out there fishing. And so we always ask them, are the fish biting? Are they taking, you know, nibbling? Are they just, no, well, I don’t go fishing. I feed the fish. I feed fish. No, like some people feed birds. And so I just feed the fish.

Keep giving them a little of this. But they love me. I don’t want to put that old hook in their mouth and hurt them. So I just wanted to eat off the hook, and then I’ll bring it in, and I’ll put some more in there, and they’ll eat some more. I do that all the time. I hate to pay what I pay just to feed them that little bit. So are they biting? Shallow water or deep water? Now you know when it goes with some people.

They always want to know sometime, you know, that preacher, yeah, he’s okay but you know he’s too shallow. And then you can go to a church and the preacher, well he’s too deep. And you think, well just how do you get just right? Well yes it depends on where you are. Not all the fish right there in the deep water. Sometimes they’re in the shallow water. My uncle, he loved the fish. And he had a fantastic trolling motor. It was me.

He would have me sit in the boat and I had to paddle the boat while he sits in the front, and he would cast, fishing for bass. Promised me a quarter for everyone he caught that was over three pounds. I starved. He’d always be two pounds or two and a half pounds. Very seldom was there a three pound bass. Now I just found this out. And I wrote it even in the notes here. Train them. I talked to her today.

She caught 29 fish yesterday and she caught them before Tindall woke up. He was sleeping. She got up early in the morning. She went and feet caught 29 in three hours. She slept the whole time. But she threw them back. But she always threw them back in another spot so that she don’t catch the same fish again. Today, I talked to her on the phone, she caught 35. Now a lot of my little crappies, you know see a lot of them go to school.

So you can catch one, but there’s another one there, because they’re a whole class of them. You get a whole school of fish, and you can just catch them and catch them and catch them. I’d been with me at Knuckle and they would catch a hundred or something like that there, but they didn’t have limits back in those days. And some of those, you know, things that’d be as big as your hand. And they’d be a half pound, you know, you’d call it a brim sunfish, but it was awesome catching all those fish.

And they would just zip, zip zip zip through the water. You think you’ve got yourself a whale. There’s a lot of things like this. But it’s a lot of fun. But my daughter says she threw them all back, except she kept the two and a half pound bass. And I She might have kept a few others, but she loved to go fishing. So when she goes fishing, her purpose is to catch fish. Now when it comes to you and I, we always want to know, well, what size are they?

Is it called a fish? Was it a big fish or was it a little fish? Ain’t it neat when you go so winning? What size did you catch? It doesn’t matter if that was a big person or a little person. It doesn’t matter if that was an old person or a young person. We just say, you want somebody to the Lord. But when you go, this guy’s a kind of fish. Well, was it a big fish or a little fish?

And don’t we glory more over a big fish than a little fish? I mean, you want to stand up there and have your picture taken? I caught a fish. or you’d rather have like a whale there. Look what I caught. Did you know when you go, so when, and you never know how big that fish is, you just win a soul and you don’t know what they’re gonna do with their life. But I always try to keep in mind, no.

We catch them, but God cleans them. You can’t clean this fish sometimes. These are the kind that God has to clean them. And so we kinda put our regulations and all on them. Now the next thing I wrote down here, I thought it was good, keepers or throwbacks. Ain’t it nice that when you win somebody to the Lord you don’t have to throw them back? They’re all keepers. Every fishy catch. This is one thing I like about someone in his, they can never be lost on the road.

What was done can never be undone. They can’t change it. I can’t change it and even God can’t change it. Once they’re caught, they’re caught. Once you get them in the boat, they’re in the boat. And it’s so important. The incident last Sunday. When I was asked to speak at this memorial service, well I’ll have to be honest with you, at the great conference, you know you’re going and going and so you’re kind of tired by the end of the the week.

Then you get on the plane and you fly back and I think about all the things I got to think about and get done. And then somebody asked me, would you do this memorial on Sunday afternoon? I said I got this and I got another one I got this. I got to talk to it. I got to do it. I really didn’t want to do it. Can you believe that? I really, I was just plain tired. So after I get through teaching Sunday School and church, Sunday I feel like I’m give out almost.

I’m getting a little bit older, you know. So I don’t have that youth activity like I used to have. But when I went and I was gonna do this thing, I went into the chapel, and so a few people showed up. And then when they got in there, there’s about 25, I guess, something like that. So we want to do it in the guy’s room. Now, I’ve never had a funeral for a guy who’s still alive, but I’m doing his funeral service.

And then while he’s there, I’m doing his service while he’s laying there in the bed. A little unusual. But when I gave the gospel and I says, If you will trust Christ as your Savior right now, just let me know by raising your hand. And one after the other just all over the room, a couple of little kids, one about 10 years old, she raised her hand. And another one another. And as I know of, I don’t know anybody who didn’t raise your hand.

And I thought, this was fantastic. You know what? When I got through, I felt totally refreshed. I felt good. I felt clean all over. I thought I would have missed this. I would have missed this. And sometimes, you know, you go ahead and you do something even when sometimes you don’t want to do it. Now, it was two days ago. Me and Betty was down here just, Nick, he’s getting us a little breakfast. And I’m sitting there, minding my own business like I always do.

I don’t bother anybody. I just sit there and I eat and I read. And Betty looks over at me and there’s a woman sitting over there with a baby. Now her sister had already trusted the Lord and so this was the waitress was her daughter and Betty looks at me and she says, Yankee, you ought to go witness to her. Well, I got my food. All I wanted to do was just eat my food, read my paper. It says, you ought to go talk to him.

So I said, why don’t you tell her or ask her, says, would you let him talk to you about what he talked to your sister about? And she said, yes. So I got up and I went over there and I sat down at her table and I went through the gospel with her and I said, you can do this, can’t you? She said, yes, I can. I said right now would you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior? She said, yes, I will.

So she trusted the Lord. I talked to you just a little bit and I went over there and I finished what I was doing. I don’t remember exactly what I was doing, but I finished whatever I was doing. Sometimes You need to be prodded along. Somebody can encourage you a little bit to do something. Do you ever go to church on a Sunday night when you’re tired and really don’t wanna go? But you do it because you know you should do it.

Because you know you wanted to encourage the pastor. Because you knew he would be disappointed and discouraged if you didn’t come. Did you know that? Have you ever done that? You should have. And sometimes you just don’t wanna go you don’t want to do something but you do it anyway. But look at the next thing, I put it in bold. Can you catch the wrong kind of fish or the wrong size when it comes to sowing? Can you catch the wrong fish?

Can’t catch the wrong one. And it doesn’t matter how big they are or how old they are. So the next question, how many did you catch? Don’t we always know you You walk up on somebody’s been fishing, not only do we want to know did you catch anything, how big are they, how many did you catch? And I hate it when somebody asked me, how many did you catch? None. You must have done something wrong. You didn’t hold your mouth right.

You didn’t do something right. Now, don’t you hate it when somebody is inexperienced, fishing along somebody that’s really experienced. You know that’s been fishing for 40, 50 years. And some little kid comes up there and starts catching the fish and you still haven’t caught anything. That’s how I felt when my grandkids. So Lord, why do you do this to me? Oh, what did I do wrong? Do I deserve this? Why can’t me, grandpa, catch the biggest fish and the mostest fish?

Just seemed like it never works that way. I think the Lord has designed my life to keep me humble. You think it’s possible? Don’t you shake your head, yes? The next thing I have done here, what are they biting on? . . . . . . . . . You ever wonder what somebody, some verse somebody else used? You ever watch somebody, how they face and want to learn how to face so you copy what they’re doing? Now I was up there at the Grace Conference, and so he asked me to come up and give the gospel.

And it just blew my mind because I had no clue how to do that. No, I feel experienced because, hey, I’ve done this before. I’ve had some successful past experiences, and I’m not afraid. I’m afraid, so I don’t have to be afraid. So I can go up there and give the gospel just like I have done a thousand times, ten thousand times I imagine over all these years Rosenstein. Now, did you go to the fish or did the fish come to you?

How many of you said at home on your couch, where’d your fish and rod in your hand? the hook out there laying on the floor waiting for the fish to come by. So you’re waiting for the fish or do you usually go and get in the car and go where the fish are? You ever do it anyway? Now the fish we have, they’re just walking around everywhere and some people say, I can’t find none. Probably the same reason that a thief can’t find a policeman.

He’s not looking for the policeman. Now, which comes first? That’s in the mold. Which comes first? Doctrine The doctrine of salvation gives greater motivation to learn more doctrine. One of the things I’ve always peed on is after I trusted Christ as my Savior, the motivation for me was I bet my mom has never heard this. My sisters, they’ve never heard this. I wasn’t even told that I had to do it, but I became very concerned. I want to tell somebody, see the first thing I learned was the doctrine of salvation.

How a man is saved. And I knew I was saved. And I didn’t know anything about all those other doctrines, but I knew the doctrine of salvation. So if you know the doctrine of salvation, how you know you have eternal life, do you have something that you can share right away? Or do you have to wait till you learn about all those other doctrines in the Bible? No, you start with what you can, with what you already know. I want you to look very quickly at this verse.

Look there in the book of John chapter 1, the Gospel of John, and chapter 1. And look what it says here. John chapter 1 and verse 40, page 1100 and 16. go for a reference Bible. But in verse 40 says one of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first studied all the doctrines in the Bible, get it down real good and then you went to find his brother. That I added more into it than there.

He first findeth his own brother, Simon, and said unto him, we have found the Messiah which has has been interpreted, we found the Christ. 42, and he brought him to Jesus. Seemed like that’s something that you can do without knowing everything else. See, some people think that, you know, I gotta go to Bible college and I gotta learn all this stuff before I can win people to learn. One of the things that challenges and motivates most people is start telling them what you already know.

I assure you, if you already start with the doctrine of salvation on how you know you’re saved and why somebody else needs it, and you’re concerned right there. Did you know that will help you to learn all those other things you need to know? Why? So that you can keep doing this one thing that’s most important. If that was the most important thing if the most important thing is for somebody to hear it then it must be the most important thing for somebody else to tell it.

Because if you can’t be saying without hearing it Well, then the most important thing anybody can ever do is to tell it. Makes so much sense to me. Look at John chapter four. John chapter four and verse 28. Now he’s talked to the woman at the well and she, uh, been married a few times living with somebody that wasn’t her husband. And so in verse 28, the woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city and said to the men, come see a man which told me all things that I ever did is not this the Christ.

So how long did she wait? Jesus was still there. How long did she take before she started talking to somebody about what Christ had done for her? She knew who Who he was. And she believed him. She says, come and see the Christ. So it didn’t take long. In other words, if you have a lit candle, another candle that isn’t lit, and you want to light that candle, how long should it take before this candle starts shining? Six months?

Right away. When it’s lit, it should start shining. Right? Heaven’s all been here when we had the candle lighting, and everybody around the room. and their vital passage on the light. I think it’s a beautiful thing. I love it. But it’s a media, it’s right away. Look in Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16 very quickly. Acts chapter 16, there’s the story of Paul and Silas. They were in jail one night. About midnight they started singing amazing grace. It could have been that song I wrote.

Could have been that one. You know. But anyway, things weren’t going too good. Earthquake came. And so the jailer thought that, well, everybody’s unescaped. So he’s going to take a sword and kill himself. But Paul and Silas says, do thyself no harm? We’re all here. And then in verse 29, he called for a light in spring and then came trembling and fell down before Paul and silence and brought them out, said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?

Well, how did he know that they could answer that question? He must have heard something while they were in jail or why they were there. See, had to be sewn somewhere and brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house if your house believes your house can be saved. They spake with him the word of the Lord and to all that were467 in the house.

So it wasn’t just the jailer that heard. Now it’s the whole family that heard. Why would he take him to his house? Well, maybe they needed to hear it. And maybe he needed to wash their wounds as he says here and wash their stripes and we’re baptizing and all his immediately right away. So how long do you have to wait before you start telling anybody about the Lord? Now some people will wait almost all their lives. Never I wouldn’t see anybody.

But remember this, keep sowing seeds. You never know what’s gonna grow. I told somebody up there at the Grace Conference, I’m gonna preach a sermon with these, on pre-evangelism ministry. In other words, before you win somebody, Lord somebody has to go around, maybe they’ve sown some seed, just be a seed sower. Sew the seeds. As he talks about Ruth in the Old Testament, handfuls on purpose, handfuls on purpose. purposely sow the seed. And you don’t know what’s gonna grow, but sow the seed.

And best thing to do. Look there in the Scriptures here. Let’s go back there to the 126 Psalm. The 126 Psalm. And look in verse one, verse one. The word when is important. Very first word. when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion. We were like them that dream. In other words, here’s people that are in captivity dreaming for the day when they could go home, dreaming of the day when they were free. They’d asked them to sing the song and the strange land and they said, how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

And then all of a sudden, hey, you get to go home. you get to go home. And what excitement that they were gonna go, not just one person, not just two people, but all of them could be free to go back. The land of Zion. My mother called me up one day and she says, Yengi, I don’t know what I’m gonna do with Liz. Liz was my older sister. Lizzie had fell off a horse, been kicked in the head by the horse, almost dead.

And she had a lot of things that happened to her She just wasn’t able to think straight sometimes. And she would drink. And one time she was a very, very beautiful girl. And she knew it. But she made a lot of wrong choices in life. And now she was left for dead, been beaten so badly. Somebody got a hold of her. And I was in Colorado. My mom was in Georgia. They got her to the hospital there in Athens.

Mama called me on the phone and asked me if I’d come down. She said, I don’t know what we’re going to do. We don’t know what to do with Liz. So I came down there and I remember going up on the sixth floor. And that was the floor that they had people that had a mental issue. And I walked in there and I saw my sister. At one time she was a cheerleader. She was major ed. She could do.

I mean, she was one sharp girl that could do just about anything. Everybody wanted, all the guys wanted a date. She was just a beautiful girl. And I looked at her and she was skin and bone. Skin and bone. Her hair was all chopped up. And she looked terrible. And she, when I walked into room, it’s like she didn’t even know who I was. And she wastnc jumped from the couch to the chair acting like an animal. like a literal animal.

And she tried to light a cigarette that she didn’t have. And she kept striking the match, trying to light her finger, because she wanted the smoke so bad. And I looked and it was heart-breaking. My mom was in tears. She said, I don’t know what we can do with her, with her sister. I said, well, mama, I really don’t know what to do. She said, And would you take her to Colorado? I’d say, yeah, I guess I could. So I got Liz and she didn’t want me to talk to her, say nothing wild, fight.

And I got her on the plane. And we were doing so far so good, then all of a sudden. Here comes the stewardess. want to drink.” And they had those little gifts of hard drink. And my sister, she heard it. And I told him, I says, man, that was the last thing you should have ever done. I wish you had never done that. Lizzie went berserk. She had to have it, and I would not let her have it. So she’s, she drank all her life.

So anyway, I finally got her calm back down again. We got to Colorado and I checked with a facility that said they would be able to take her and they had to put in a lockup facility. When I got Lizzie there, Lizzie didn’t know that she was going to this place. And when I took her there and they got a hold of her, And they started walking her into her room. She looked at me and she cussed me out, calling me everything.

And all I wanted to do was help my sister. And it was the only thing I knew to help her. And she just blasted me. I mean loud, holler and yellin’, cursing me, despise me. Anyway, they took her. And I got where I would go down every Sunday morning. And I would drive down early and I’d get ahold of my sister and I’d bring her to church. And she’d sit there, but they gave her enough medicine to kind of keep her some dude for a while.

So Lizzie was sat there and she’d listen. Now I don’t know if Bob, you were there when I was doing this or not. I don’t remember if you don’t remember that at all. But I brought Lizzie and I’d sit her down and I’d take her back home. Take her up. Take her back home. after church every Sunday over here. 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 Main.

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. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.