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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.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of Romans, the book of Romans. Now, it’s been a while since I showed you these verses, but I have covered these two verses before. Romans chapter 15, Romans chapter 15, and he tells us that there’s things that we’re supposed to learn from the Scriptures. But in the book of Romans in chapter 15, it makes this statement. verse four for whatsoever things were written, a four time were written, for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Those words is so that we will learn, so that we will have the patience and the comfort so that we can give that patience and comfort to someone else. Now notice what we have here, down in verse 13. Now the God of hope feel you with all joy. See, you need to learn from the scripture so that you have the confidence, the patience, the joyful anticipation of what God can do, and then the joy and the peace and believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So this is the will of God for his children so that you can do something with it. So then you’re looking verse 14. Now years and years ago I got a book about this thick and this book was about something very simple. It was called competent to counsel competent to counsel. In other words, all of God’s children are to study the word of God so that you’re a competent to counsel. So whenever we talk about the little children, the teachers should be competent to teach.

When it comes to those in a wana, the director and those kids all to be competent to teach. Do you want somebody doing it that’s not competent? or someone who knows the word and can teach the word to those little darlings. And then it comes to the teenagers, then they need to have somebody that’s competent to teach, competent to counsel. When you deal with adults, being skillful in the word of God is so that you can be competent to counsel.

In other words, can you take the scriptures and help people and to teach them the patience of God and give them the comfort and the peace and the joy God’s talking about here. So in verse 14 he says this, and I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness filled with all knowledge and this part of the verse you need to underline it. Remember Wembley the other night we talked about being able, able, able.

Get this, you are filled with all goodness. And remember one of the statements made about Jesus in the book of Acts is that Jesus went about doing good. Now going about doing good. It didn’t matter who he came across, there was always somebody who needed help. Somebody that needed healing. You said, well I can’t restore an eye and I can’t make him rise from the dead and forget all of that. Do what you can do with the Word of God.

And so he makes the statement here, feel with all goodness, feel with all knowledge, able, also to admonish one another. Being able to admonish. The Bible tells us to admonish one another, exhort one another, rebuke one another, all these things. But now are you capable of doing that? So that’s why we study the Word of God so that we are competent to counsel. because when you give somebody comfort, it’s because you’re competent. You know what to say to a person.

If they’re lost, you know what to say. If they’re struggling in a Christian life, with temptations or whatever it might be, you’re competent. You can take the scriptures and you have a working knowledge of the scriptures so that you are not ashamed that you’re not competent to do it. Are you qualified to teach little children, the teenagers, adults, study in the Word of God and letting God teach you so that you can become competent to counsel? And so when you see that word there, able also to admonish, that word admonish one another means you’re competent to help another person.

We’re to raise apart children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. We’re to be able to admonish somebody if they’re not doing things that are right, or if they need comfort and help. These are things that God wants us to do. Now look there in your notes and we’ll make a few comments on some of these things. Who needs counseling? When you find out who needs it, you’ll find out who you can help. And so sometimes we We just see people, but you realize all those people will fit into one of these categories.

You are one of these categories. There’s a lovable people. You ever meet some just lovable, they’re so easy to love. There’s so nice to be around. And there’s lonely people. There’s suffering people. There’s unlovable people. There’s some people. Well, you know who they are. hard difficult to love, to be kind to, when it says, render not evil for evil. That’s easy preaching and hard living. When it’s where you want to take revenge on somebody and the Bible says, don’t render evil for evil when you want to and you want to take revenge upon them.

So, lovable people, now let’s take for example, if you’ve ever worked with little kids in Sunday school. Sometimes those little kids, they are just so lovable. We’ve had some little kids that are running around the church here and sometimes they’ll run into my office and they know where the candy dish is. So the Steve Yandt and they go into my office and they they’ll even open it up. If I’m not, they’ll open up the thing where I’ve got them hit but they know where they are and they just get in there and if I don’t get in there first they’ll have their puff full but they are so lovable.

They are so lovable. Now they’re more lovable when I don’t have to spend a lot of time with them. Did you know you can spend some time with the kids and they’re just so sweet and kind and after a while they get on your nerves. They’ll drive you up a wall and that’s why you sometimes you say you know grandkids are so wonderful. Love to see them come, love to see them go. But you know, God made little children so wonderful.

And so they’re so easy to love. And so you look on this thing here, whether it’s a precious baby, a playful boy, a handsome young man, or a beautiful young lady. And you know, there’s some people, we had a guy at Florida Bible College years ago, and he believed that God called him to do missionary dating. He never got serious about anybody, But he was a ladies man, as he looked upon himself. You ever seen those that thought they were God’s gift to the women?

You ever seen somebody like that? But anyway, they think that God’s gift to the women. And so they wanted to use their influence and that go to ranch, find the prettiest girl there. And that flirt and get him to come into the youth meeting, get him to come into churchearance. And then once he got him in the groaning, then he had dropped them and he’d go get another one. And he got that one and he’d drop and go get another one.

And he broke hearts over and over and over again. But it didn’t bother him because he wasn’t really involved, but he would strike a match and set the flame on fire and then he could move on to somebody else. Now you don’t know anybody like that, But you do have to be careful. There are some people that are just plain lovable. You don’t mind being around them and they’re easy to talk to. But there are people that are just so easy to give the truth.

They accept it and there’s no persecution back. And there’s just some people that’s just, they’re just ripe fruit. They just fall right off the tree. Look at the next one. Lonely people. There are some people and I don’t get who it is. Every person at some time in their life, there’ll be times in your life when you, you. You are so lovable. And then there’s times when you’re the last one down there, unlovable. Isn’t it possible that you can be so lovable at times and so unlovable at other times?

And isn’t it true that even though you’re serving the Lord and doing all the right things, you can be so lonely. You can sit in an auditorium of a thousand people and be lonely. You can be on your job and work in and doing your thing and still be lonely. But you realize when you are dealing with lonely people, there’s things that God is going to teach you that you’ll have to encourage yourself and the Lord. What do you use to keep you going?

What do you use to encourage yourself? Use that and helping somebody else. So you can’t really have a compassion for the lonely unless you’ve been lonely because you don’t know how they feel. You don’t know what they go through. So there’s times when God is going to allow you to go through some very hard, difficult things. And there will be times when it seems like everybody has deserted you and you’re all alone and you’re going to go out in the garden and eat worms.

You know, your pet rock died. Everything’s going wrong. So God is going to allow you to go through that because there’s a lot of lonely people in this world. Now is it possible that the little kids in Sunday school that are so lovable, they can still be there with 10-15 kids in the class and they also can be very lonely? You know some kids probably don’t know what real love is. They don’t have a mom and dad that really loves them or cares about them, they live or they die.

And sometimes I either go home and all their mom and parents do, it’s just hollering yell and scream at them. You never do anything right. I can’t stand you. And you’d be surprised. All the cutting little words that can happen. And they don’t have anything to live for. And they’re just so lonely. And they can come to Sunday school and just because somebody puts their arm around them and say, you know, I love you. I even said sometimes on the radio, I said, you know, God loves you and so do I.

God loves you and so do I. You’ve heard me say that. God loves you and so do I. In this last video I did, I said that God loves you and so do I. Because I want them to know God loves you, but I also want them to, I love you too. I care about you. But whenever you think about this, can the little kids be suffering, hurting, because of some rejection? You’d be surprised that sometimes how brothers and sisters can fight, and they hurt.

They’re suffering people. Then sometimes those little darlings can become so unlovable, so mean and so ugly and so hateful. And you’d be surprised how they can let out a string of profanity, you know, kids that are four and five and six years old. You say they won’t do that. Yeah, they will. I was out there in Colorado in Pueblo. My brother and I, we had a radio station out there. So I came out of the house and across the street with the church.

We had a good new Bible church, and we had our radio station downstairs. And Trina brought Melanie and Michael down in there out there playing. Well, I looked out, and there was over there in the parking lot at the church. And they had her bicycles. And Melanie was out there. She was only about four or five years old. And she was trying to get on the bike, and her foot was keeping slipping off the thing. And it slipped off again.

And she tried to get on there and it slipped off. and it hurt her leg and it threw that thing down there and she let out a string of cuss words. And I’m sitting over there in the porch and I says, Melanie, what did you say? And Michael was there and he said, she said, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, and he said everything. I really didn’t want to hear it again. So the motto of the story is you don’t make Melanie mad.

And so can they become so mean and ugly and say something that’s, yeah they can. But every one of these kids you need to know how do I cancel them. Now when it comes to teenagers, are there teenagers that are very lovable at times? They’re wonderful. And you think boy I got these teenagers in the palm of my, they’re eating out of the palm of my hand. They’ll do anything I want them to do. you Until next week or something come up and they can turn on you so fast and they could be shaking your hand and patting you on the back and they should put the knife in it.

And yet at the same time can those same teenagers be lonely teenagers? They’re lonely teenagers. They don’t have a dad sometime their mother and so forth may have two or three times have been married and they just don’t have it. If you come from a good Christian home, where you have mom and dad and they do right and they love you, you’re so fortunate. Now you’ve heard me give my testimony over and over again. My daddy was a bootlegger.

I’ve been most of life in the chain game. I was never raised in a warm, loving Christian home. When I said, I never saw my mom and dad in a church, I never did. And I never saw a Bible in our home. We never had prayer in our home. We never thanked the Lord for any food in our home. Never. So I wasn’t raised around like a Christian. I didn’t know anything about it. So I know what it’s like to be hurt, to be lonely, and I left my mom and them for two years and lived with my aunt and uncle in another country, another state in order that they wouldn’t have to put all of us kids in foster homes.

And that was the only thing we could do. So some of us had to leave. And two sisters did it two years before that. But you’ll have a lot of heartache that you’ll go through. And I grew up, I was kind of a bitter person. I heard inside. And I didn’t like some of the things that will happen. And I didn’t like it. My dad beat the Torah to me. I was scared to death. I lived in total fear of my father.

And so there’s a lot of lonely people, the hurting people. So when you’re talking about serving the Lord, but you’re trying to learn how to be competent to counsel, counseling those people that are so sweet and kind and loving, why they’re sensitive, why they’re teachable, and giving them what they need because you know there are rough times coming and all that wonderful, easy teaching that you can give them right now, it’s not gonna last forever. Those sweet little teenagers that when they’re 12, 13, 14 years old can be one way and when they can hit 15, 16, 17 years old, you’d be surprised how they can flip and cause you so much and pain and heartache and sorrow, but the teenagers can do it and teenagers, do they suffer?

They hurt because sometimes they don’t feel like nobody loves them or cares about them. And this is why those who work with young people, we got some of these teenagers, a college age, that’s gonna be going to camp. Now what do we call them? Are they going down there to fly an airplane? No. Are they going down there to be a farmer? No. What are they going down there to be? Counselors. Ain’t that right? Counselors. That’s what we call it.

So you’re going to counsel these kids and you’re going to find some of those teenagers are so lovable and you may have, I pray that you do, have some that are so unlovable. I don’t want you to have a smooth sale in the whole time. I want something that’s really going to try you so that you can teach them patience and show them love because they’re not going to all do what you want them to do, when you want them to do it.

Why do you think I’ve always told teenagers at 11 o’clock at night the Holy Spirit goes to bed? There’s no fellowship after 11 o’clock. So that there’s no all night fellowship. And I’ve had some guys, they’ll come to me and say, oh Yankee, we stayed up to two o’clock in the morning but I think it was very profitable and I can’t of this kid on a, yeah, but he’s sleeping all day the next day in the classes. The Holy Spirit told me that he was going to bed at 11.

Now, you just trust the preacher. And so they don’t ever listen. Anyway, they do it step all night long. And by the end of the week, they’re dead, dead. But there’s a lot of lonely people, lonely teenagers. And you’re going to find teenagers at camp that’s going to be so easy to love, work with. And then you’re going to have some that’s some lonely, some come from broken homes and they don’t know what to live for. There’ll be some teenagers that are probably thinking about suicide.

And see competent to counsel means you’ve studied the word of God. God has taught you some things. Now with that knowledge, you want to be able to sit down with them and pray for those that are be speaking and then those counsel meetings are one on one afterwards whenever you can find time and find out where they come from. What’s going on in their life? Are they suffering? hurting from something and there’ll be some of those kids it will be just drive you up along those ones and you’d help too.

Everybody needs help. And so let God use you as this verses says here also to admonish one another, but he’s talking about the Holy Spirit and the verse before that. Now the God of hope filled you with all joy and peace and believe it. See, you’ve learned the Scriptures and you know what to believe and through the joy and the comfort and patience of the Scriptures. Not God wants to use you. He wants you to be able to count.

And that’s what we do. When I teach in church, that’s what I’m giving. I am competent to counsel. If a person listens to what I say, it can help them in their Christian life. But if you only come one time, you’ll get about a third of what you need. Come twice, you’ll get a little bit more. Three times you’ll get a little bit more. Come for it. You’ll get a little bit more. Did you know the power of the early church was they met how many times a week?

They met every day, every day. Now I didn’t make that up. That’s in the book of Acts. You read the chapter 2. Every day they met. And so it helped them and encouraged them. So anyway, look down at the bottom of the page. These are some scriptures, but they’re scriptures on what is talking about one another, one another. In other words, you helping them, they helping you. Did you know that every person you counsel is helping you because you’re trying to figure out how can I solve this person’s problems?

You see, if people didn’t have problems, you wouldn’t be needed. But everybody has them. So when you meet their need, did you know by meeting their need, meet your need? Because you want to be used. Don’t you want to be used? But then you find those that need help and you help them. You are supposed to take the initiative and seek them out. Don’t just wait for people to seek you out. You take the initiative and you go to them.

You go into a cafeteria and everybody’s laughing and having fun and see one little kid over there all by himself. Wouldn’t that just draw you over there? You want to go over and find out, hey, how you doing? You enjoin Cam. Do you mind if I sit here with you? And you open up a little conversation, and you’d be surprised how that lonely little kid can all of a sudden feel somebody cares about me, somebody loves me. Or you say the right thing before they go to bed at night in some little devotion.

This is what serving the Lord’s all about. It’s you being used by the Lord. Look down to Scripture. John chapter 13 verse 34 says, a new command that I give unto you, that you see that one another. I love you and you won’t teach them to love somebody else. I love you, you love me.” And then he says, “‘As I have loved you, how are you supposed to love somebody as Christ loved you? Does the Lord really love you?”

I think so. In Romans chapter 2 verse 15, he said, “‘Which show the work of them all written in their hearts? Their conscience also bearing witness.” And their thoughts, the meaning while accusing or excusing one another. Did you know when you can accuse or excuse, it’s a sign you have judgment. It means you have a conscience of knowing something’s right or wrong. And so using that knowledge that you have and the wisdom that you learn from the scriptures and then talking to people, you want to use that to try to help a person to see right from wrong.

that you can be able to help the person. But see, you can’t teach discernment if you have no discernment. You have to have it in order to teach it. You can’t lead somebody where you’ve never been. And so that’s why it’s so important. Look at the back of your page. Romans chapter 12 verse 10 says, Be kindly affectioned one to another, one to another. affection. Now see this is all telling us how to be a good counselor where we are showing something that they need.

Evidently somebody needs timely affection. They need it. You supply it. This is helping you to be competent to counsel. So you don’t just waste your time. You’re always trying to figure out a way to how can I get through to this person to let him know that God loves him. God has a a reason for Him and a purpose for His life. God wants Him to have the joy and the peace and how He can have that. You’ve got to give people a reason for living.

Romans 14, 13 says this, let us not, therefore judge one another anymore but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. This is counseling. This is the example. This means that you, because you want to help somebody, you know you’ve got to be the right example in front of that person. It means that you don’t try to do anything that would cause that person to stumble over your testimony.

So you have to always watch what you say, and the tone in which you say it, and the things that you do, the places you go, because you might cause somebody else to stumble. So you are competent to counsel, that means you have to guard. Are you a stumbling block? Because you see, it says something. When you don’t serve the Lord like you should, you’re telling somebody something, that God’s word and purpose in life doesn’t mean as much to you.

And so, if you’re gonna tell somebody what they need to do, what do you need to be doing? You pose a practice what you preach. Let it be in your life. Be the example of a believer in word, indeed, and attitude, love, all those things, so important. Lincoln Romans 15, five here in your notes. Now this verse I read to just a moment ago, but now look at it one more time. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be, and here’s a word like minded.

God wants you to be like Him because God is the God of patience and consolation. You’re trying to learn how can I can soul people, people that are lonely, people that are hurting. How can God use me to help them by God helping you? You read the book of 2 Corinthians in chapter one, and the Bible talks an awful lot about the God of all mercy, the God of all comfort, so that you can teach others, the lessons God has taught you.

And every one of us needs to learn. That’s why do not begrudge God, the time that he needs to teach you these attributes that you’re supposed to have in your life. Because God wants to use you to be competent to counsel. Somebody has a broke leg. You might be able to help them if you’ve had a broke leg. You know I’ve had a broke leg. I broke my little pinky one time. No, it’s not the size of a leg, but you’re trying to find a sympathize.

And sometimes it works. And sometimes I had a hang nail one time. But let God teach you. Don’t be grudged God the time that He needs to put all these things into your life. So that’s why He allows a lot of things to happen to you. So as a Christian dedicated to the Lord, God will allow there to be times in your life when you will be lonely and you’re going to be hurting, you’re going to be suffering. And you can let those things make you lovable or you can let those things make you become unlovable.

But God is talking here about the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one toward another. God wants you to be toward others the way God is toward you. 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, 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.