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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.

I want to talk to you about a very interesting subject. You’d be surprised how many times The word fear is used in the Scriptures. I mean, it will blow your mind. And also the word love. Take your Bible and turn with me to the book of 1 John and chapter 4. Fear is something that every one of us have because we’re human. So many things that we’re afraid of. And so we have this element of fear that follows us all through life.

He says here in verse 17, here in is our love made perfect. That we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. We’re in this world supposed to be like the Lord. And the one main, I guess, characteristic we should have is the one called love. But how do we get rid of this fear that we have? Well the next verse says, there is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth out fear.

And here’s the reason, because fear hath torment. This is why God gave us his word so we could read, study it and know what he says. And if we can believe him, we would have no reason to fear. But because we have this human element that always enters into everything because we have an old sinful nature. We’re afraid. Afraid in many ways, many areas. I heard a statement years ago called courage is fear. That says it’s prayers and goes ahead.

You see without any element of fear, there’s no reason for courage. is when you have the fear and you go ahead and you do what you should do anyway. Now that can be good and bad, but courage is fear that says its prayers and goes ahead. There’s a lot of things in life that we’re afraid of. So I want you to take your Bible also in terms of the book of Isaiah, the book of Isaiah, chapter 26. Believe it or not, I learned these verses when I was at F.B.C.

in 1964, just a few years back, I had to memorize these two verses. And I will be honest with you, they have helped me tremendously over the years. I have not been able to remember them all the time. Sometimes I would forget these verses were in the Bible. But lo and behold, I looked at it yesterday and they’re still there.

Looking Isaiah chapter 26 verse 3, Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusted in thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. And Dr. A. Ray Stanford had us memorize those verses. I’m glad it did. Now we’ll keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon thee, trust you in the Lord Jehovah forever, wherein the Lord Jehovah’s everlasting strength. Great verses, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could always think that way and remember all those things.

So what is your greatest fear? Now let me just mention this to you. There has been a lot of times in my Christian life that I have been so very, very afraid. I have wondered where I would go when I died. I had a natural fear. Where would I spend eternity? I had several close calls that I almost died. Yet. I was allowed to be spared when I was 18. I heard the news that took away that fear. You see, I’m not afraid of where I’m going when I die because I already know.

I know where I’m going when I die. It’s a means in how that truth can remove that fear. The promise of God of what he said has removed the fear and I never have to worry ever again for the rest of my life where I’m going to go and I die. already know that I’m going to heaven because of a promise that God made in His Word that if I trusted Him as my Savior who would give me eternal life it never cast me out and never lose me.

All my sins are paid and all forgiven and I’m going to heaven when I die. I have been declared righteous. That’s a done deal. So I never have to worry about that. Knowing this love that He had for me this This perfect love has cast out that fear. But as a Christian in my life, I’ll have to admit that it has not cast out all of my fear. Because I guess in my Christian life, I wondered whether or not at times God still loved me.

Now I know he loved me enough to give me eternal life, but now I’ve got to live my life. And there were many times when I had this fear. You see, I was not raising a Christian home. I didn’t know how to be a good husband. I wasn’t raised knowing how to raise my kids. I never saw that. Our home was a hell on earth. My dad was a drunk. My mother always spent her time working in bars. I never saw them in her church in my life.

Never saw a Bible in our home. We never had prayer. So I wasn’t blessed in the sense having a good Christian foundation that could have removed a lot of fears that I had about a lot of things. But after I trusted Christ as my Savior, I wanted something more, but I didn’t know how to get it. I had fear that I was going to be a failure as a husband, a fear as a failure as a father, because I just didn’t know what to do.

And then whenever I came to the conclusion one day that I needed to go to Bible College, I was afraid to go to Bible College. I was living in three Port, Louisiana. We didn’t have any money. I didn’t have a job. We didn’t have anything. And I was afraid of going off to Bible College. I left my wife and kids with her dad there in Georgia. I had $15 in my pocket when I went to Tennessee Temple. And when I got up there, I had a little bit of fear about where am I going to stay.

So I was allowed to stay at the rescue mission with all these winos and coming off the streets. I didn’t have anything to go back to because what I had wasn’t any better than what I was at that time. Didn’t have a job, didn’t have any money. And I’m going to Bible College. I was scared to death, but a fear of not doing it was greater than the fear of doing it. I was afraid not to go to Bible college.

I was afraid that I was going to live my whole life and it be a total loss. Because down deep inside I wanted to know what does God want me to do with my life. And there’s a fear of missing the will of God for your life. That fear was great. And so that caused me to want to do something about it. But doing something about it also caused me the fear of being a failure, that you wouldn’t be able to finish.

And people tell me that, Yankee, you’ll never finish. And I almost believed them. Well, I did. But for some reason or other, I was afraid not to try, not to go. I was afraid to go to Bible College down in Florida because when I went down, I had just enough money to get me to Orlando, Florida and I run out of gas. No money, no gas. I got a wife and two kids sitting in my car and I don’t know how God’s gonna get me out of this.

There is this fear of the unknown and yet at the same time I was afraid if I don’t do this I’m gonna miss out on something. I don’t know what it was. I had no desire to be a preacher. I just wanted to know God more. And now I wanted to tell people about the Lord. I just wanted to explain the gospel clear. I just didn’t want people to go to hell. I was afraid not to do it. So fear can have a great control upon your life.

Fear produces torment. And I was tortured. I was tortured in that I was afraid to do it. And I was afraid not to do it. You talking about mixed emotions? Now I know that what I’m saying y’all have never been there But I have. When I finished Florida Bible College and was going to go to Colorado, we left with nothing more than what we had in a car. My wife and two kids. And I knew that we’d be taking care of for the summer months, which lasted about two to three months, two and a half months.

And then we’re going to end up in Colorado. And then when we ended up in Colorado, I didn’t have a place to live. I had no means of income. I got a wife and kids and all my money’s gone. My uncle sent me $250 and that’s what we made it until we got to Colorado. And then I had this desire to start a ranch meeting. I’d never done one before. I had just been in one, but I never did it myself.

So there’s a fear. My first meeting was only two kids. One of them trusts the Lord. It’s only meeting I ever had where 50% of my congregation got saved. But there’s a fear of failure that you can’t do it. But I was afraid not to do it. I didn’t know down the road that we would be averaging about 450 kids in ranch. I didn’t see down the road that there would be over 200 that went to Bible college from our youth ministry.

I couldn’t see that. But I was afraid not to trust the Lord for it, even though I was afraid to do it. And I saw what was going on in the public schools and my two oldest kids were in the public schools and what they were teaching. I went to the public school where my daughter, Trina, was going. And they was trying to teach her to do some of these wild dances and stuff that they were all doing in classes.

And I went down here and I told that little short principal. He was on the other side of the counter and said, good thing, there was a counter in between. I had not matured all in the Lord. I said, sir, my kids don’t do that, and they’re not going to do that. He said, well, everybody else said, I said, the things of my kids, and they’re not going to do it. And I mentioned something about dirty languages and things like that that they were using.

Some of the teachers said things they ought not to say. And I said, I don’t want my kids hearing that stuff, and listening to that stuff. He says, there’s worst things written on the bathroom walls. I said, well, that becomes required reading. I’ll be back. I was about ready to come over that counter and get him because I was going to punch out his lights. I had to get my kids out of the school and I was going to start a Christian school.

I didn’t want my little youngest son to go into the public school. I had never had a Christian school. I didn’t know what all you had to do. I was scared to death to start a Christian school. I had no money, had no teachers, but I was afraid not to. See, there’s always the fear of doing it, and there’s a fear not to do it. If I don’t do this, they gotta have something better. And then I thought, there would have been no Greg Steer.

There would have been all these kids that went to Bible College. Fear, yes, there was fear. Afraid. Afraid to get some land, and afraid to go out on the limb and try to design buildings and start all the things that you’ve done, you realize that I knew that I was limited and I couldn’t get all that I wanted out of these kids that came to ranch. And I wanted these kids to go down to Florida camp and see what was going on so that they would be motivated to go to Bible college, to hear Dr.

Stanford tell the Jim Tengen’s So there’s this fear because it’s 2,150 miles. And I had no way of getting them there, so I went out on a limb to get a bus. A bus that I don’t even know if it had a spare tire. I don’t know if I even got insurance on the bus back then those days. There were no need for CDLs. If you could drive, you could drive a bus. And to put all these kids on buses, buses, no air condition in the middle of summer, in the month of August, and take them to a camp all the way down here in Hollywood, Florida, or a bulk return at that time.

There’s the fear of falling asleep at the wheel. There’s the fear that you could have a wreck. There’s the fear of all things that could happen, but I was afraid not to because if I don’t do it, some of these kids are gonna go to hell. Some of them will never be challenged to serve the Lord. So there’s this fear of all the things that can go wrong. And you don’t think that it takes a certain amount of courage?

Courageous fear that says its prayers and goes ahead because you’re afraid not to do it. I’ve had some people tell me, he said, I don’t fear God. I have no fear of God. You ought to read the Bible. Bible talks all the way through about the fear of God, the fear of God, the fear of God. I fear God. I’m more afraid of not doing what he says than if I don’t do it because of something else and people, whatever they say or whatever they do.

fear of being a failure. There’s the fear of not doing what God says to do and to stand where I believe God wants me to stand. You may be scared to death to witness to somebody just like I am. Sometimes I’m afraid to witness but I’m afraid not to do it too. Which fear overrides the other one. Love will always conquer the fear. Love can conquer fear. And that’s where if you honestly believe God loves you more than all the fears you can have.

You can accomplish something with your life. But fear is a success crusher. It’ll destroy your will to do anything for God. Do you realize that a few years ago I was in a motorhome traveling around the country? God don’t remember that, do you? I remember that. Did you realize I was afraid to come to this ministry? Because I was afraid to quit what I was doing. Because I spent so many years just traveling, meeting people and doing all that.

Because I know that sometimes people, you know, it’s kind of like a wedding. You know, your boy meets girl. I love you. I love you. Let’s get married. And they don’t really know each other. But when I would come down here and different ones would mention, we want you to come. We want you to be the pastor. I always had them back in my mind. That’s today. You want me today. But what about a couple years from now? When you get to know me and I get to know you.

Are you going to love me as much then? There’s always that fear of rejection, but since I’m not leaving, you might. You realize there are people that have left this ministry because I’ve been here? Don’t you know that there’s a natural fear that I have? And maybe come, I said this, or I could preach 100 sermons. If 99 were excellent, but one of them rubbed you the wrong way, you can take your little pocketbook and go home. And nobody leaves alone, they take somebody with them.

There’s always this fear, but I’m afraid not to come. I have a natural fear of starting the Bible college that we started. the fear of failure, the fear of no students, the fear of no teachers, the fear of no money. But I’m also afraid, what if I don’t do it? If we don’t do it, because of fear, what about those that we will reach? What about those that we could train? What about the results that could come down the road?

So you see, there’s always this fear. And some will talk about the fears that are coming upon our nation. In other words, in denial, there is no such thing. And you’re looking for somebody that can calm our fears. But let me tell you something. Did you know that God’s Word is the greatest calming of your fears you can ever have? And regardless, you may be here today and you are afraid to get married, but you’re afraid not to. You were afraid somebody else would get her if you didn’t get her.

You were afraid to have kids, but you had them. And then you’d be surprised all the things that you have in life. What if I lose my job? Now you’re afraid of growing old, but you’re afraid to die early. There’s always frozen cons. You’d be surprised that we don’t have an idea what’s going to happen tomorrow the next day, but there’s always this element of fear. We decided to have our camp up there in Georgia. We didn’t have the first kid.

We didn’t even have a bussic. We thought we didn’t even make it. There is this element of fear of putting not money on a bus. But we’re afraid if we don’t do it, the kids won’t be able to get there. So you go out on that limb and you trust the Lord. Now there’s been times when I have trusted the Lord for things and they didn’t always work out the way I wanted, the way I thought or planned, but God seems always find a way to bless my little peeping heart.

See, in this element of fear that you have, and you’d be surprised how many of you sitting here right now, there was something you were afraid of last week. There might be something you’re afraid of as you sit here today. And there may be some things that you’re afraid of facing tomorrow. Some may be facing cancer, surgery, all kinds of things, of losing a loved one. And maybe it’s the kids, maybe it’s your grandkids. Fear that can overwhelm you.

But let me just show you a simple statement that I wrote down at the end of the day. of the thing because I mean never get to these verses. But look on the back page, down at the bottom, in the bold, I want to read this to you. My overwhelming emotion of fear that seems to bring me down to destruction is overcome by my overwhelming emotion of love for the Lord due to his overwhelming love for me. You’re going to be overwhelmed at times by the fears of this world when you realize your own limitation, your lack of wisdom.

And you’re going to be overwhelmed sometime because you know God loves you. And you don’t know how, but you’re going to trust Him. God is going to teach you to trust Him more and more and more. So you may have nothing today of which you are afraid of, but I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Deuteronomy 28, the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 28. Those were just my introductory remarks. As we go, I will try to pick and choose which verse we will cover and which ones we will not.

But just to let you know in the first verse that we have mentioned there, we won’t turn to it. Genesis chapter 20 verse 11 says, then Abraham said, because I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place and they will slay me for my wife’s sake. Abraham, the friend of God, a a man that followed God and then he lied. And somebody was going to take his wife. Because that’s just my sister. Lire, lire, pants on fire.

And God had to intervene. He said, I was afraid because they don’t have the fear of God. And when you don’t fear God, you don’t fear sin. See, the more we fear God, the more we hate evil. In the reason the people in America don’t fear evil is because they don’t fear God. So he says here in Deuteronomy in chapter 28, look in verse 65, 28 verse 65, and among these nations, shout thou find no ease. Neither shall the soul of thy foot have rest.

But the Lord shall give thee their a trembling heart and failing of eyes and sorrow of mine. This is because he says, now let me take you in advance. He tells him in advance, if you don’t trust me. If you don’t listen to me, if you don’t heed what I’m telling you, I want to pass you out of the land. But if you listen to me, I’ll put you in the land and I’ll not put any of the diseases upon you.

are worried now about this Zika virus, these diseases. Did you realize if God’s people, if our nation, if we did write, God would protect us, but because of sin, all these things come. And now after a while,aiden all we do is work to pay the insurance premium on our health policy. Didn’t we? Look at this. In verse 60, he says, Moreover, he will bring upon the all the diseases of Egypt which Stal was afraid of. You see, even in the book of Job, he was afraid that his children may have disobeyed God.

So he made sacrifices and intervened for them because he knew that maybe his kids were not doing right. And then later on it says, which I feared has come upon me. Afraid. We used to play golf and make sure you know there’s a ditch out there about 200 yards. And so we’d look at each other and say, you’re gonna go for it, you’re gonna lay up. So I think I’ll lay up. I said, well, if you’re a feared, say you’re a feared.

You’re a feared? Say you’re a feared. He said, where are you going to? I said, I’m a feared. So sometimes we are afraid of the things that are coming. And then notice what he says in verse 66, and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shall have none assurance of thy life. You see, this is God said, this is what I’m going to let you think. Did you know that God can allow you to let the fears of this world so dominate your mind?

it can destroy your life when God wants you to serve them with all your heart. You’d be surprised how much you have limited the Holy One and greed the heart of God by not trusting Him because we allow the fears, the things of this world, the fear of failure that God won’t come through. I would rather die trusting Him. He failed me then let Him fail me. Now look at this. He said in verse 67, In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were evening?

And at evening thou shalt say, Would God it were morning? For the fear of thine heart, wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes, which thou shalt see. So God warned. They did warn. Look at the next statement, I want you to look down here and see this. Some of these other ones you can read. The one in Exodus 14, 13, we’ll just take a look at it right there in your notes. And Moses said unto the people, fear you not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you this day for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever.

Question, who was the one that led them to this point of desperation? You see God told Moses, tell O’Feyro let my people go. See, I knew that’s the way it was because, see, I watched the movie Ten Commandments with Charles and Heston. And he went in there and he told O’Feyro, you old breeder, let my people go. New old Ben and Brener says, I, well, not. So there was a knockdown drag out. After about ten of these things they went through, Moses got the people of Israel, let them out, and let them right into a dead end.

right into a river in front of them, the sea and army behind them, mountains on each side, and they’re all boxed in. Who led them there? It was the Lord. Did the Lord know in advance what was at stake? Yes. Did he know they were going to be afraid? Yes, they knew they were going to be afraid. And so some of them said, you brought us I here to destroy us, kill us in the wilderness. And so Moses, Charles from Heston stood up and he says, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

And that’s exactly how he said it because I remembered. So you have this fear that God knows you’re going to have. There’s things that can cause you to be afraid of a lot of things in the world. But always put God first. Put God first and trust the Lord. 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.