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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. 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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

Now, I have two things down here. One, there are prayers that involve the purpose of life. In other words, you ask the Lord, Lord, what is the purpose of my life? And then as you live your life, knowing what your purpose is, now you can ask the Lord concerning the details of your life. Because there’s points in time that you need a little extra. And you’re talking to the Lord, and so God will use things to drive you to Him.

When you start going in the wrong direction, God may bring something alongside in order to nudge you back to the path. Sometimes you use people, sometimes you’ll use a problem. Sometimes he may have to use a two before. Has God ever had to use a two before on you? Have you ever felt like you’ve been taken to the woodshed? Just hang in there and wait a while you will. Now in the little box I wrote just because years and years ago, I taught this probably 40 years ago and I love it.

So I want you to take your Bible and turn with me to the book of Exodus, the book of Exodus. We’re going to look at a couple verses real quick. Exodus in chapter 13, Exodus 13. Remember I said, when God leads you, when He’s guiding you, sometimes there’s going to be detours and sometimes there’s going to be dead ends and Sometimes there’s gonna be dry holes. All within the will of God. The will of God doesn’t always lead you to a utopia, the mountain peak.

Sometimes you have to go down into the valley. And sometimes you go through a desert. It can be very dry and very lonely. And you’d be surprised at the things that you’re gonna have to go through. So here in the book of Exodus in chapter 13, once you look here in verse 17, Verse 17 says, now this is when the Lord is going to lead his children out of Egypt. He’s got a man named Moses and he’s leading these people out.

And so in verse 17, and it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines. Although that was near. For God says, let’s per adventure the people repent, change their mind when they see war and they return to Egypt. God led them the long way for a reason. Lest they would become discouraged and wanna head back to Egypt. Because God knows, hey, there’s some hard times coming down the road.

And you remember when they didn’t get any water and so forth, they begin to complain to God and says, we remember the onions and the leeks and the garlic. And if that excites you, it doesn’t excite me one Iota. But they said, what did he do? Bring us out here in the wilderness to die. And Moses says, Lord, they’re ready to stone me. Now Moses didn’t ask for the job. He didn’t ask for it. He declined. But God wouldn’t let him off the hook.

God says, you’re the man, you’re the man. Moses, I don’t want to be the man. Get Aaron. No, God says, you’re the man. And sometimes you’re gonna be called upon to do some things. Maybe you don’t wanna do. And sometimes you’re gonna be called upon to do some things. Maybe you don’t wanna do. You don’t wanna do. You don’t wanna do. But serving the Lord is not always doing what we wanna do. It’s doing what has to be done.

And God says this has to be done. And you’re the man for the job. And so the Lord is leading Moses. And Moses is guiding the people. And he’s leading them up. and they come up harnessed out of Egypt. But you’ll notice now, look in chapter. 14. Chapter 14. And the Lord spake in the Moses and said, speak unto the children of Israel. And he says, this is what I want you to do. Now look in verse three, for Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, they are entangled in the land.

The wilderness had shut them in. It means they are shut it. They are trapped because they’ve got a big river in front of them. And they’ve got mountains on the side and Pharaoh’s army behind them. The Lord, the Lord led them right into a trap, right into a boxed in canyon like they can’t get out because how are they gonna get out of this jam? And here comes the army behind them. Now Moses did not know how God was gonna meet the need until it was time.

Sometimes God will lead you and you’ll be right dead in the middle of the center of the will of God, trusting God and walking with God, and you’ll have some things that are going to be a dead end. And you don’t know how to go forward. \(\ Do you know what in the world you’re going to do? You’re going to be boxed in. And then what did the Lord have to tell them to do? And so they complained, wind and panned.

And it says there in verse 12, is not this the word that we did tell the saying, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptian. That’s not what they said when they was crying out to God because of the past masters. And God says, I heard their groanings down in Egypt, but how quickly people forget. He says that we may serve the Egyptian, for it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.

It’s almost like, look what God has done to us. We left Egypt just like he said. Now look what he’s done to us. Have you ever dedicated your life to the Lord? And it seemed like nothing but one problem, one heartache after the other. And you think, well, when is it ever gonna let up? When is the sky gonna break through that blackness and see some sunshine? And you’d be surprised how God can lead and guide you in the extreme so dark.

Remember, the devil is gonna do everything possible to disappoint you because you’re gonna have expectations and God won’t meet your expectations on your timetable. But he’s gonna teach you some things that you need to learn. So he says down here in verse 13, Moses said unto the people, fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you this day for the Egyptians whom ye seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever.

The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. And the Lord said unto Moses, wherefore cryest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, there’s water there Lord. And it’s like, would y’all just shut up complaining? Would you look at this? They’re totally boxed in. And what does the Lord tell them to do? I want you to go straight ahead. I want you to go forward.

Sometimes we wanna go up over our problems, around our problems, sometimes you gotta go right through the middle of it. So he says you’re in verse 15, and the Lord cried unto him, say, you go forward, verse 16, but lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thy hand over the sea, indeed, vied it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground. It’s not mud, they’re tranqting through, dry ground through the mist of the sea.” So he says, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

You know, if they had not got into that situation, that day at end, they would have never seen the miracle of the Red Sea. If God is not permitted in your life to bring you to the point of detours and dead ends and dry holes, you’ll never see how great God is for you. This is how God teaches you. This is why He trains you. He wants you to learn how to live by faith, walk by faith when you can’t see how He’s going to do it.

And He hadn’t told Moses in advance how he was going to do it. Jesus just had to follow the Lord. And sometimes those things are very difficult. Look in chapter 15. Chapter 15, very quick, look in verse 22. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of sure and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Now this was really an accident because God didn’t know where the water was.

God didn’t know what the water was because everybody was looking for it and they couldn’t find it. Do you think God knew where the water was? Do you think God knew they were thirsty? Couldn’t they be honest and say, Lord, hey, if you don’t give us water, we’re going to die. But in verse 24, and the people murmured against Moses and what shall we drink? And Moses says, anybody want Gatorade? You want ice with that? You want fries with that?

So God did something and it was for a reason. See the last three or four words of verse 25, there he what? He proved them. Your faith is on trial. Every day of your life. You are on trial. is being tested. God allows a lot of things to come into your life and you may not know how he’s going to do it, but we know that in verse 27 lo and behold they found some water. God did what he said he would do.

He didn’t tell him where it was at first. Let him go three days and there’s a lot of things that happened over those 40 years where God miraculously did things. But you can’t see them sometime at the moment because of all the wine and then time and then we go through the same thing in our own Christian life. Now look back in your notes very quickly. Number one I have down here is the purpose of life. To be used by God is the satisfaction received because you wanted to do something for God.

Isn’t it your desire? You want to do something for the Lord. I want to do something for the Lord. But I’d like to do something, you know, not just him using me, but I want to do something for him that he doesn’t ask me to do. This is where you get the opportunity in life to maybe go beyond the call of duty, to give them a little bit more. And when the Bible says in the book of Luke, when you’ve done all that you’re supposed to do, you’ve only done that which was your duty to do.

But don’t you feel like you just don’t want to just do what God wants, you want to do more. I don’t I don’t want to hold back. I don’t want to get to heaven and find out, well I could have given some more. So give them all you got while you can. So letter A, I’ve told you about the missionary stores in Athens, Georgia, and how reading some of those missionary stores, and I was set there and I would cry.

I mean I’m a 22 year old kid, 21 year old, and I’m sitting there on the floor reading missionary books. Here when you come to college, you have to read them for classes. Nobody told me to read them. Nobody made me read them. I wanted to read them. But I also knew God would never be able to use me because I had no education. I couldn’t do anything. And I was a total zero. But I would always sit there and I would hope and I would dream.

And I was sitting in the corner and I closed my eyes and I would see me preaching to thousands and thousands of preachers and people all over the world. But I knew that it’ll never be a real thing. I didn’t know the future. I didn’t know that I believe God was giving me desires that would help and challenge and motivate me. Land on the ground in St. Port, Louisiana, the Indian camps, going to Egypt and Israel, Alaska and Mexico.

And I think the Lord for the places God has allowed me to go and yet I just can only say his grace has been sufficient. I have seen God bless my life. If I don’t live another day, my life has been full. I thank the Lord for so much because it’s so easy to become complacent, to not care. But have you ever felt that sometimes you just know too much to quit? You can’t afford to quit. You can’t stop.

And number two, they’re trained people to the church, the school, college, ranch, and all the ones that we’ve had to go to Bible College over the years and the travel across America preaching. I mean that’s the, that’s a dream and it’s a wonderful thing. Number two, you see I had to have my purpose in life had to be nailed down. I’m going to serve the Lord. Now there’s points in my life that I had to solve this problem and that one and then the the next one.

See, God already told Moses, He’s taking him from Egypt to the promised land. That’s where you’re going, but you’re not there yet. There’s a lot of stops along the way and there’s going to be in your life. There’s going to be detours and there’s going to be dead ends and there’s going to be dry holes. So you’re going to have to go through that doing your life and you can wind, you can complain, but God doesn’t fail. Trust Him, trust Him.

Look at number two, requesting immediate answers to immediate needs. So you are going to have things that will drive you to the Lord. You’re going to have problems and you don’t have the solutions. You don’t know what to do. And that’s why life is designed for those who want to serve God. That God will drive you to him, because he wants to teach you something. And sometimes God will bring people along your way and they will help you and give you some great words of wisdom.

So if they can help you, look at letter A. F.B.C., both kids got sick and in the hospital at the same time. And I had no hospitalization, no money. And I told you how that miraculously I had to pay my bill off in blood. And I call Ray Stanford on the phone and he’s getting ready to go into chapel both my kids They got well and now I have to pay the bill and it was over a thousand dollars and back then a thousand dollars Buddy 50 years ago was a lot of money And I didn’t have anything and I walked in there to see the man and the man looks at me and he says you go to that Bible college don’t you I Didn’t want him to know I went to Bible college because I already had it out with the Lord the night before

before. And I had already done blessed God out because He failed me. He didn’t meet my needs because I had to go and get my kids the next day and I didn’t have any money and I knew there’s no way I can pay the bill. There is no way. And I walked in there to see that man and I didn’t want him to know I went to Baba College because I didn’t want him to know my God could not meet my needs because I already done got mad at God and I had a set of few words I probably shouldn’t have done.

And he looked at me and says, you know, we would rather have some blood instead of money. He says, could you get the students out of the college to come down here and donate some blood? Because we can get money, but we can get blood. We need blood. And he says, well, knock it off your bill. I says, can I use your phone? I call Ray. Ray says, I’m on my way to chapel. I told him what the problem was.

He says, consider it done. I think a whole student body can be down there and donate blood, paid my whole bill off. See, God was already working, but I’d have never seen God get me out of something if God never got me into something. Sometimes I think I got into him because of my own stupid reason. Do you ever think like that sometimes? This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t have decided that. But you see, you have to live your life based upon the decisions you make at the time.

You can’t always know for sure whether that’s the right one. You just trust the Lord and make the best decision you can. And if it’s the wrong decision, God can nudge your back a little bit. And if it’s the wrong that God can correct you, God can reveal it, but you canUGE the past. You have to just keep getting up. And so I have a few things down here. You look down here at Latter-day, needed $70,000 for a church.

Now who in the world gonna give you $70,000? I had him in, give me $70,000 cash. And bought a church with it. Later we sold the church and you took the money and bought a radio station with it and our own radio station. And then the one time I had to have $10,000, I was showing the college kids some of the kids from back in Colorado this morning, one of the classes. And there was one girl in there, her name was Nika Staphanoff.

And I said, that’s the girl that, believe it or not, do you remember Nika Staphanoff? She gave me $10,000. I’m the president of the college. I didn’t have $10. And here’s a student that sat there and writes me out of check for $10,000. And I was trying to tell her not to do anything and go back to class, and I didn’t have time to talk to her. And she followed me all the way into the office. She said, well, how much do you need?

I said, it’s $10,000. Like, big deal. What’s the use of telling you? So she puts her purse down and she starts right now. I said, what are you doing? She says, I’m gonna give you $10,000. I said, I can’t pay that back. She said, I didn’t want it back. I just thought I could give it to you. Can I give it to you? Oh, yeah. And I walked out of there and I thought, I couldn’t have seen this happen if God hadn’t got me into a place where I couldn’t make it happen.

Some things are gonna be beyond your power to control where you are not sufficient in yourself, but you’re sufficient. see if it’s the Lord’s work, let God do it. And you’d be surprised how God can work. And I’ve told you before about how I got the ticket to come down to Florida. And then next thing, no, Dave Cannon stays for college. And he was gonna fly the plane, not fly the plane, he was gonna get on the plane and fly down the, and I told him, I said, I ain’t got time to talk to him.

And Rick Prashol kept trying to get me to talk to Dave Cannon. I didn’t have time to talk to Dave Cannon. I’ve got to get on the phone. I’ve got to find out, I’ve got to get me a ticket. And so I went ahead and said, all right. So Dave came into office and I talked to him. By five minutes, all I talked to him. He said, okay, I guess I’ll come to college. Just one guy. He says, then he said, well, I got this ticket for Miami.

I think it was Miami. So I don’t guess I need it. I said, I don’t know what I’m gonna do with it. I’m on my way trying to find a ticket, and he’s standing there with the ticket, and I didn’t want to talk to him. And so he gave me his ticket. I didn’t have to pay for it. So I got his ticket and I got on the plane. I think I was either coming down here to speak for Hank or Miami, I can’t remember.

But you’ll never see God work if you don’t get into something, so he can get you out of something. And every time it happens, your faith gets a little bit stronger and a little bit stronger. Look down to the bottom of the page. Grace to help in time of need. See in Hebrews 4, 16 says, come like a coward. Come boldly. Come boldly to the throne of grace. Like you should expect God. If you’re doing what God wants you to do, isn’t the work you’re doing, doesn’t it belong to the Lord?

It’s the Lord’s. So just do what you can. Did you know I had a lot of doubts, doubts, about trying to start a missions conference, trying to have some people support missionaries? But you know, I thought, I need to do it anyway because it’s right, it’s just right. And isn’t it wonderful to see how God is blessed and the money that’s come in from missionaries? Denial, in just a few years, we got, I don’t know, seven or eight, maybe nine, I don’t know how many we got.

I wouldn’t mind if we had a hundred, but I think God will bless us because of it. I don’t sometimes know how God’s going to do it. You’re sitting on a miracle. You’re sitting on a miracle right in front of you. We checked and find out these things would cost us twenty, twenty-five thousand dollars, and that’s not the charge for bringing them in. But isn’t it wonderful God had somebody else pay for them and then give them to us?

I like that. What we need in God helps us. So that’s what we do. Peace in the home, that’s where it starts. The last thing, love and word indeed, 1 John, is God’s grace sufficient. Whatever you’re facing, it could be finances, it could be health. I don’t know what it is. But I believe that God’s grace is sufficient. Look at this one verse in closing. there in the book of Matthew chapter six, Matthew chapter six, and look in verse 33, verse 33, and it says in verse 33, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be, what?

Add it unto you, put the Lord first, get your priority straight, then look He says in verse 34, take therefore no thought for the moral, for the moral shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. In other words, what God is able to do for you today to give you the grace you need for today, and it is sufficient for today, then don’t bring up the problems on the past and don’t bring the problems in the future and bring them into this day.

God will give you the strength, the grace you need to walk with the Lord day at a time. There’s a song my sister used to sing, okay, one day at a time, one day at a time. So each day you just know that God says, this is the day that the Lord hath made. I will rejoice and be glad in it because God is going to give me the grace that I need, the strength that I need for whatever this day is going to throw at me.

Now do you know what’s going to be thrown at you tomorrow? No. You may have a few suspects and ideas, but you really don’t know. But can you trust the Lord for tomorrow? Can you trust the Lord? That’s why your peace and joy comes from because you learn how to walk with the Lord and trust the Lord. And nobody else can do it for you. When he says in the the seven and seventh Psalm when he talks about his footsteps are in the sea.

If his footsteps are in the sea, it means you can’t see anybody else’s footsteps. It means it’s trackless. It means it’s traceless. You can’t follow somebody else’s trail. Now, people can be great examples and things like that for them, but you may have to walk the path God has for you. His path is in the sea. It means that you’re going to have to trust the Lord or you sink. You’re not sufficient of yourself, but your sufficiency is of the Lord.

His grace is sufficient. So whatever you have today, whatever you have tomorrow, his grace is sufficient. Look up here. This hand represents you and me. Noala represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God loves us. He hates our sin. And because we committed the sin we have to pay for it and the wages of sin is death. Eternal separation from God. God says, you can’t earn it. You can’t work for heaven. You’ve got a debt that needs to be paid.

Heaven is a perfect place and you cannot save yourself. You cannot take yourself to heaven. That’s why we needed to save you. This hand representing Jesus Christ. He’s God in the flesh. And He loves us. Came into the world. Had no sin. He loves us, but He hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ took all the sin of all the world and paid for it. Now, this payment He made for us, we didn’t have to pay for.

We didn’t have to do anything. His grace is greater than our sins. His grace is much more than our sins. More abundant. It’s all that we need. His grace is sufficient. So He made a payment for us and came back from the dead and said, if we would believe that he did it for us, he’d put the payment on account and we go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. Let’s pray, shall we? Wherever he had bowed and every eye closed, no one looking around.

If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I pray that you would. If you’re watching by internet tonight and we know that many people do, if you have never accepted Christ as your Savior, believe this that God loves you and He made a payment for He wants you to believe that He did it because He loved you and He doesn’t charge you for it. And He’ll give you as a free gift, eternal life, if you simply trust Him. You’re saved by grace, means that you don’t earn it, you don’t work for it, you don’t deserve it.

And He will save you and give you eternal life and you can know that you’re going to heaven whenever you die. With you that are here tonight, you’ve listened to what I’ve said, But do you believe that God’s grace is sufficient for you? Have you been worried a lot, bought a pressure, all kinds of things that can happen in the pressures that you have on your mind? The devil works so hard and he knows every trick in the book.

God loves you. It’s an everlasting love. He will not fail you. His grace is sufficient for you. I can’t stop you from being boxed in. I can’t stop the detours. I can’t stop those dry holes. He knows exactly what you need. Father, thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. Thank you for this night. We ask you to learn your blessings upon each one here and those that are watching by internet. In Christ and we pray, amen.

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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 Name. 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. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.