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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 air. and 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 take your Bible and turn to the gospel of John in chapter 21. You know this story very well, but there’s just a couple of points I wanted to bring out to you. In John chapter 21, this is after the resurrection of Christ. This is after the disciples had already foresewed him and they said, we’re going to go fishing. So they went fishing and went back to the old habits of what they used to do before they met the Lord.

In other words, their whole world was turned upside down. The one they were going to follow, they just crucified. and they were scared to death and it was then on an upper room and locked the doors, wore their courage. And so Peter says, I’m going fishing, the other one says, I’m going with you. It wasn’t long before Jesus come along, fishing from fish dinners. And so in verse 15, I want you to look at verse 15. So when they had done, Jesus said to Simon, Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, love a style me.

Don’t worry about the rest of it, just three of the words. Love a style me, do you love me? Do you know one of the things that God wants more than anything else in the world? It’s for you to love him because he wants you to know he loves you. God loves you. And it’s the storm sometimes of life that causes the question and doubt. Does God really love me? God loves you. I also thought about something else. It was a good question.

It kind of reveals some of the heart of the Lord. The Lord desires love. Now you can see that. He said, do you love me? He didn’t ask them if he loved the sheep. He said, do you love me? And if you love him, then he said, now feed my sheep. I want you to do this. But there’s another portion of scripture in John chapter six where he’s talking to multitudes. And they said, this is a hard saying, who can understand what you’re talking about?

He says, does this offend you? And so multitudes left him. So then he turned to his disciples and he asked this question. Just think about this question. Will you also go away? If Jesus walked in here right now and it says, will you follow me? And he said, yes, I will. And then a bunch of things happen that you can’t explain and he doesn’t explain everything to you. He just wants you to trust him. He says, will you also go away?

I wondered how the hurt must have been in when he saw so many people who deserted him and then he looks at his own disciples and says, will you also go away? Now Peter said a good thing. He says, to whom shall we go? Now has the word to return life. Now he wasn’t maybe always the smartest guy, but he put his foot in his mouth a lot of times. But he said in mouthful sometime when he did say something.

Will you also go away? It’s the storms of life, the problems that you have that kind of turns your mind and gets you off of the Lord and onto things and what’s going on. And your peace, your love, your joy, your happiness, all about you instead of thinking about what does God want for me? So that’s why it’s important. Now, write this little statement down. Not only does loneliness cause you discouragement, that cause you to lose heart, but also the word failure.

You see, as you try to learn how to serve the Lord, you don’t start off as a total success at the very beginning. You have to learn how to walk with the Lord. If every person who ever failed and learning how to walk quit, Nobody would be walking around today. Everybody would be crawling, right? Somewhere along the line, you’ve got back up and learn how to walk. And so… Failure may cause you to lose heart because you fail. Somewhere in your Christian life, you can look back and I failed here, I failed there.

And something, we’re all fail. And we have to learn how to walk with the Lord. But it’s the most important thing that we can ever do. Write this little statement down. The lack of finances. The lack of finances. Boy, if you have not had this storm in your life, you will. It comes, I believe, to everybody. Sooner or later, because you don’t always have all the money that you want. Maybe everybody in here has, but most people don’t. And you’re finding yourself struggling, or you’re finding yourself in debt, and you were just trying to do right, but it seemed like the harder you work, the more you try to save, the less you have have, and everything seems to go wrong.

As soon as you got yourself, I finally got my bills paid, then the car blows up. Then the kid gets sick and has to go to the hospital. Then you have an attack of appendicitis. Then you lose your job. And it seemed like it’s just one storm after the other. And God could stop every bit of that. But after a while, you get to where, I just don’t think I can handle anymore. And that’s the straw that wrote the camel’s back.

No, it’s not that one straw. It’s accumulation of all those straws that breaks the camel’s back. It’s when you build up all of these pressures, instead of casting your cares upon the Lord. When you try to bear everything you can’t carry the weight, it’s pressure upon you. And that pressure becomes like a yoke of iron. And it’ll rob you. That’s why the Lord says, unless you serve the Lord with joyfulness of heart, I will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until it just weighs you down and destroys you.

So you have to realize, yes, you’re going to have those things, but you got to learn how to trust the Lord, cast your cares upon the Lord, and just keep getting up. And you don’t stop. God will walk you through it. Most people quit generally right before victory and then they go through life and they have all these failures. You’ve got to get a few successful past experiences and God will bless you because of it. Take your Bible and turn to the book of James in chapter 2, the book of James and chapter to.

Remember this, it is not a shame or a disgrace to be poor. A little inconvenient, but it’s not a disgrace. There’s a lot of poor people in this world. And nothing to keep in mind. You have poor people, you got rich people. And I’ve watched over the years, it’s just like this. Those who have it are losing it and those who don’t have it work hard to get something and they start building up and that’s a while. Here to go again.

It comes in cycles, just like the weather, their seasons, their cycles. And because we’re people, we wound up sometimes reacting the same way. And if you didn’t handle the problem right the last time, God may let you take the test over again. Isn’t that wonderful? Or you can learn as much as you can from every trial that you have, every testing, every problem, and you’d be surprised what God do for you. Now here in James in chapter 2 I want you to look there in verse 5, one little bit of verse.

Harken my beloved brethren talking to Christians, talking to believers. Have not God chosen the poor of this world. What’s the next three words? Rich in faith. You may be poor as far as this world goes but you can be rich in faith. In other words because you’ve got confidence in a God that can provide is going to be better than having all the money that you can lose. Your confidence in the Lord has great value. For example, here’s a rich man who’s got two million dollars, but he doesn’t know how to go to heaven.

You don’t have a two dollars on you, but you do know. When you boil it all down, who’s really the richest? The man with two dollars that knows how he’s going to heaven. Then a man who’s got two million dollars and he don’t know where he’s going. There is power and knowledge and knowledge according to the Bible is a very powerful thing. Let the Word of God influence your life. That’s what gives you the stability of your mind. Remember this, worrying and despair and all those things are dead giveaways to an undisciplined mind.

It means that you’re not really trusting the Lord because that’s why you worry yourself sick. Do you know that’s what really affects a lot of people’s health. Your health can be greatly affected because of worrying. So be careful, be wary of that. But look again what he says in verse 5, God have chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he had promised to them that love him. Do you realize your love to the Lord?

It’s going to get you greater value than all the work and labor you can do in this world and all the wealth you can ever attain. Because you are a child of the King. You have inherited all that the Father has. You’re heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Do you realize how rich you are? In the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 6 he says, we have this ministry. He says, though we’re poor, making many rich. You remember when they were going into the gate of the temple and man’s land air, the whole crippled up?

Arms for the poor, arms for the poor. And here’s Peter, and it says, silver and gold have I. Well, I got St. Peter’s Cathedral, and I got all this wealth, and I got, you know, silver and gold have I. None. These are the apostles. These are the greatest men that’s ever lived in this world. Silver and gold have I none but such as I have. Give I.D. in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rise up and walk. Which would you rather have?

Children gold? Be able to do that. Did you know that what we’re able to do and winning people to Christ is greater than making a lame man walk? Something that’s greater than making a blind man see. What we have is better than making a deaf man here. You see, I often thought about what if we could go into the hospitals and just raise them from the hospital beds and go to the cemeteries and raise them from the dead? We are.

The gospel is the greatest power on earth. And when you win a person that cries, you have raised them from the dead. They have gotten a new birth. They’re going to heaven when they die. Then they’re going to have eternal vision. They got better than 2020. and they can hear what the Word of God has to say, we’re so rich. And we only understood the value of the knowledge of what God’s Word has to say to us. Let me give you one more thing that would be good to write down.

Sin, S-I-N. Sin in your life. Sin can do you great harm because it can really discourage you because you sin against the Lord Lord and nobody else has to know but you know and sin will work on you it becomes because it makes you guilty. You say why don’t I have a guilty complaint because you’re guilty and in for you already come play well I’m because you’re inferior you have guilt and guilt is kind of like that heavy yoke of iron it’ll weigh you down.

So God I wonder why He gave us provision when His children’s sin. Doesn’t God know that we’re going to mess up? Then shouldn’t He have given us a verse that would really help us to cope with that? Anybody ever heard of a place called 1 John 1 9? You ever heard of that verse? Anybody coped that verse? If we confess our sins He is faithful in Jesus. If we confess our sins He is faithful in just to forgive us of our sin and the cleansse from all unrighteousness.

That verse is to the Christian. That verse is so that you will learn that if I can accept God’s forgiveness, why can’t I forgive myself? One of the biggest things that hurts a person and carries them down because once you fall into the mud and you get it like a mud all over me. I know but you can first John 1 9 and get clean. Well no like I dirty I might as well just stay here in the mud and roll all over the place and act like a hog.

Well, you can. And one thing that Christians should not do, if you see a sheep that falls into the butt, you don’t walk up there, put your head on that person and push them down and said, no, this is what you need. Just stay down. We’re supposed to help each other up, right? And encourage one another. So there’s people who will be discouraged, so we have to encourage. And that’s going to be a full time job. Everybody needs help.

Today you might be the one that’s given the help. Tomorrow you might be the one receiving to help and learn that when you mess up, aren’t you glad that Christ went to the cross? He said, going to all the one priestly forgiveness of sins. That’s great for the lost man. It’s also good for the Christian too. Learn to own up to it whatever it might be to the Lord and then forgive yourself. Because if you don’t forgive yourself, you’ll still care the way.

I use this relation one time. Here’s a person who comes in the back door and they got this great big old bag with all their sins, that weight just burden them down and they stagger and they come on down to the front. I’m casting all of my carriers upon the Lord. Lord, you can have them all. In Jesus’ name, amen. They stand up and they walk back out. Did they do anything wrong? They forgot to leave them there. Cast your burdens to the Lord and…

It’s not just a good song. It’s a scripture song. Leave it there. Leave it there. And God will bless you for doing so. Now, one of the things that also can cause you some problems is is is this thing called fear. F-E-A-R. Fear can destroy your Christian life. Because you can be afraid of failure. You don’t want to fail. You come to college. You don’t want to fail. You don’t want to waste your time. You don’t want to waste your money Adults don’t want to fail.

They get married They want it to succeed. They have children. They want always want their children to turn out little angels and lo and behold They don’t always work that away And so you find that you don’t know everything you can’t handle everything Some things will lie beyond your power to control and that’s a very frustrating thing And sometimes you can be afraid of how you’re going to handle a problem. So you’re scared to death that some problem may come against you and you don’t know if you can handle it or not.

And you don’t want somebody to see your failure, your wickedness. This is what Moses prayed about. Lord, I don’t want to see how bad I am because you can be afraid of not being able to make it, not succeeding. Did you know that when we started the college, there was always that possibility. Nobody will come. But I heard about a movie one time they said, you just build it and they’ll come. You ever heard that? Something about playing baseball.

You just build this field and they’ll come. Just do it. They’ll come. Well, I have trusted the Lord on times that I just knew this is what I should do and then people didn’t respond and they didn’t support it. Now, I’ve been on radio before and had to go off. I’ve been on TV before and I had to go off. Why? Because people didn’t support us. I said, God, why didn’t you tell them? God says I did. They wouldn’t give it.

Because God will not make people respond to His will. He won’t make you. He won’t force you. You may suffer consequences of other people’s disobedience. Is that possible? Can somebody else drive on a car being negligent and hit you? And it wasn’t your fault? Well, could God have stopped that? God could have. but he may allow you to go get your wings. I don’t really mean wings, you know that. So there’s things that can happen. There was a man by the name of Elijah.

If he could speak today, this is a few things happening in this man’s life. He had moments of great victory. And then he heard that Jezebel was coming to get him. And he was afraid. I don’t forget the guy’s name up in Athens that we played golf with. Not Milton, Leon. We’ll come to a hole, and lo and behold, there’s a creek down there. He says, you’re gonna lay up? I might, I’m gonna see what he does first. He says, well, if you’re a feared, say you’re a feared.

I didn’t say I was a feared. He says, are you gonna lay up? He says, if you’re a feared, say you’re a feared. We would irritate each other like that all the time trying to get the other when they go for it Like I saw this one time this guy was playing with this young guy and he’s got a great big old tree down here So the guy was just gonna lay up. He says When I was your age, I went over that tree Okay, well now the guy’s got to try it so he tries it goes right into the tree It didn’t he says of course when I was your age that tree was only this high Don’t let people just talk you into something you be very careful be wise But Elijah, what he says was, even when wicked Jezebel gets after you, don’t quit.

Because he got so down and so discouraged he wanted to die. Daniel, he would tell you this. He says, even if you get thrown in the lion’s den, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Just keep on going. Keep trusting the Lord. And everything, doesn’t matter how dark it might look. Just because you don’t have the don’t mean there aren’t any doesn’t mean God isn’t working God can move things and do things he has a miracle working God and if God can work America he can work a big one just as well as he can a little one I’ve also won a work you can work America and it is of you do a big miracle said these little ones oh well big miracle and over the years I’ve seen God work write this little statement down Don’t ignore the storms.

Don’t ignore the storm because the storm can come to provide you with a lesson. There’s things for you to learn from the storms. Remember we just talked about Jonah? Jonah had a storm come. But did you know that storm and that fish and all that? It woke Jonah up. He went back to sleep, but he woke him up temporarily. Then he finally did what God told him to do, but he had a bad attitude, but he had to wake up.

Abraham had storms. Read your Bible and he found out Abraham didn’t have a piece of cake. It was not all wonderful. You read about Moses. Did Moses have any problems? How would you like to have two million people in the desert? He had problem after problem. Did people turn it against him? and God just had to keep talking to me because He got so down, He got so discouraged. If that happens to Moses and he had storms, did David have any storms?

Remember Saul was always trying to kill him. It’s just ruined a person of his life. He was always on the run. There’s other things he wanted to do, please he wanted to go. He wanted to come to America and see, you know, he was running for his life, but he had storms. He had problems. Isn’t he the guy that was, had to face a big old guy named Julyath? everybody had the same opportunity, but he was prepared to take advantage of that opportunity.

The reason you read and study the Word of God so you can take advantage of opportunities and opportunities comes disguised as work. I even wrote down a little statement, I’m gonna write it down. A storm is just a problem you have to face. It’s just a giant that’s standing in your way. Now That’s why you need to be close to the Lord and God will walk you through every storm you’re going to have and you’re going to have them.

You’re going to be discouraged but be the Bible talks about be encouraged, be strong and of good courage. Jeremiah had storms, storms everywhere. You read the Bible and everybody has storms in their life but there’s lessons that you need to learn. Another point to write down is the storms can be warnings. Storms can be warnings. Sometimes you can learn some things by watching how other people handle storms because see everybody’s got some. They’re either going into a storm and coming out of a storm or they’re in the midst of a storm and you watch and see how other people handle the storms.

Now let me ask you this. I’m 75 years old. I’m the pastor So therefore, I’ve already done paid my dues. I don’t have any more storms. Right? Do you think I still have storms? But because of my age and some of my experiences and my maturity, I’m supposed to be, and you’re supposed to expect of me, I’m supposed to handle it a little bit better, right?

Woo! You have no idea how close I’m on the edge of a nervous breakdown. But the Lord can walk you through everything. You’ve got to trust Him. Believe that. But the storms can be a win way of God’s end. Danger ahead, slow down. In spite of all those things, all those people were doing down in Texas and Louisiana, you realize it didn’t matter where the job was and where they lived and all the build had to be. God just slowed them all down.

Someone lost everything they had. But if they still got the Lord, they haven’t lost Him. And He may have to walk on them. This life is temporary, isn’t it? We don’t expect everything to be wonderful. There’s going to be problems in life. But the thing is, is not what happens to you. That’s as important as how you respond to those problems, those pressures. storms may come as an impossible solution. Write it down like this. Your storms may come disguised as impossible solution.

There’s no way to solve it. That’s what frustrates you. When you don’t see a way for you to solve the problem. And if you don’t see a way to solve the problem, well, God took a vacation. He’s out of town. And every time I call him, you know, his mailboxes for, I just found out he text us. He text me. So all I got to do is just read the text. And he promised that he was going to walk me through it.

And nothing would surprise him. He’s not shocked by anything. So what problem can you have God cannot solve? Anything in particular? He can do it all. Now, your confidence that we start along with in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 35, cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward. Don’t cast away that confidence. Regardless of the storms that you may have, and God will walk you through it. He will not leave you, he will not desert you, he loves you, but he wants the best for you.

And those are the things that God uses to strengthen your faith in Him. Aren’t you glad it’s not just one storm right after the other? And sometimes he gives you your reprieve, not for long, but be strengthened in yourself. Keep studying the Word of God and God will bless youxxxx for it. Look up here. This hand represents you and me and all it represents sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us. Loves the whole world. But he hates our sin and he wants us to be with him forever.

But he cannot love sin. in heaven because he only wanted in his presence, not even one little sin, but he loves us. But the wages of sin to pay for what we do wrong is eternal separation from him. So that means what God wants is us to be eternally joined to him and sin does just the opposite. And because of all this sin, we’re condemned. This hand represents Jesus Christ, he’s the Lord God in the flesh. Now God says that you can’t earn eternal, you can’t work your way to heaven.

Jesus Christ, who is God’s son, he came into this world because he loves us. He hates our sin because our sin separates us from him. He took the sin, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. Now, if he has already taken care of this one great big gigantic problem that the whole world has, we had a problem we could not solve. There was no way out and Christ comes and made away. It says it’s free.

I did it for you. We don’t have to do anything just except what He did for us and He gives us a free gift everlasting life. We go to heaven on what He did. Now if God who is now your Father can give you eternal life and solve this great big go problem that all of us had was insurmountable. Can he supply you with a hamburger from day to day? Poor God. Poor poor God. I’m just his poor little old child.

Don’t badmout yourself. Don’t badmouthed God. You’re rich in the Lord. You’re a child of the King. Let’s pray show him. Every head bound, every act closed. No one looking around if you’re watching by internet. I hope that what I’ve said will help you and be a blessing to you. But if you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, you’re in debt to the Lord. But He paid your debt. But He wants you to believe He did it for you.

Will you trust Him? Will you believe that when He died, He died for you. And if you will believe it, God said He would give you as a free gift everlasting life. He’d never cast you out and never lose you. And if you have never trusted Christ if you do it right now. Right on the screen says, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. If you’ll just click that, I’d appreciate it. I’d love to know. If you’re here in the auditorium, if you never trusted Christ as your Savior, why not right now?

Just in the kindness of this moment. Say, preach, I don’t understand it all. Why don’t I know the Christ out on that cross? Pay for my sin that I’m going to trust him right now as my Savior. Print God’s that if you’d trust him, he’d save you. Would you believe him? He loves you that much. Our Father, we thank you you so much for all that you’ve done for us. Think of it as time together. Blessed you want to hear and Father, we know that there may be a lot of storms coming in next semester, but Father, we’re trusting you to walk with us all the way, all the way through it.

And Father, some things we may be delivered from and some things we may not be, but it doesn’t matter. If we lose all these things in this world, we can’t lose you. We’re so thankful that we know you and we’re thankful that we know that you love us and that you’ll never leave us and never forsake us. Thank you for this time together. Thank you for your word. Christ name we pray. Amen. Are you ready to learn how to live your life as a strong Christian?

Lead others to Christ? Or excel as a church worker or ministry leader? Then look no further. Then Florida Bible College of Tampa. With traditional and online classes taught by instructors, with years of experience, Florida Bible College of Tampa can help you grow in your Christian life. Whether taking individual classes or working toward a one-year toward a one-year degree, Florida Bible College of Tampa is here for you. To learn more, visit online at floridabiblecollege.us or call the Register of Bob Gilbert at 8502275325.

That’s 8502275325. 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, of 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.