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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. 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.

Well anyway God’s been good to us. Got a lot of things to be thankful for. So I want us to today, we look at a few verses that have some things to do with thanksgiving, thanks. Learning to be thankful for what we have. I mentioned on my radio broadcast on Friday that if we only had today, what we were thankful for yesterday, would we have much today? And sometimes people are always complaining what they don’t have and fail to remember you You better be thankful for what you do have, because you’re always wanting more.

You know, if I got a hundred dollars, I want two. You got one how I want a better one. Got a car, yeah, I want a better car. We always want more. We’re discreet to you and get right down to it. We want more and more and more. So anyway, I want you to take your Bible and turn to the hundred Psalm back there in the Old Testament. The Old Testament, there’s a hundred Psalm. I was up there in Athens, Georgia.

I was just a young type then. And I was about 18 years old, 1960. And we went to the Northside Baptist Church. And it was on a Sunday night or a Wednesday night, I can’t remember, but we were sitting there and the preacher got up there and he said something about being thankful to the Lord. And he says, there’s a wonderful psalm, the 100 psalm. And I didn’t know there were psalms in the Bible. I didn’t know there was Old Testament and New Testament.

I didn’t even know there were books in the Bible. Or verses, I didn’t know anything. My wife married me, she boy, she took a gamble. I didn’t know anything. And but anyway, he says, anybody know that Psalm? And my wife’s sitting there beside me, she raised her hand. He says, can you quote it? So she stood up and quoted the whole thing. Now we had just gotten married. She was only 17, I was 18. And then a little smart alec got up there and she quoted the whole hundred song.

And not even know there was a hundred song. And I had no idea that I had done married a Bible student, somebody that knew the Lord, loved the Lord, knew the Bible. And I didn’t know anything. And I hated it when I, when she would, the preacher would tell you, he’d turn in your Bible to and he’d name some book. And I couldn’t find, I was all over the place and she’s already done, she’s sitting there waiting and I didn’t, I just want to go to the table of contents and try to figure out, now where’s it at?

No testament, New Testament. I saw the names in there and I got to figure out where that. And by the time I even figured that I don’t have some of the table of contents, he’s on another verse. I got so many, I just closed the bottom just sit there. But my wife had just gone all over the place. I was humiliated. And I said, I can’t have a wife smarter than me. And so I had to start learning the Bible.

And I am little my little, I learned it. But look at the hundredth song. This This is what it says. This is why it’s such a great verse, I guess a number of verses, that we should be thankful to the Lord for. Look in verse one, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. All ye land. See, that’s what we were doing up here a while ago, making a joyful noise. I’ve wondered if the Lord could get up there and sing in heaven and everybody on the earth and everybody in work could hear him sing.

I wonder what his voice would sound like. Now, I like listening to Peter Amato sing. He got a great voice. You can just listen to him sing. What would God’s voice sound like to hear him sing? Or even the talk, you know, people talk about the angelic choir, all those people up there in choir. Well, I didn’t know people would Peter who was back there. See, he came out here just because I said that. But just think about up there in heaven, the angelic choir, I wonder what that’s gonna sound like.

Or maybe it’ll be the Lord of the said, okay, now we have the Calvary Community Church Choir gonna sing for us today. Wouldn’t it be awesome? I mean, you gotta be happy. He said, be joyful. A lot of people just don’t learn how to smile, be happy. Because things could get a lot worse. Generally, they do. So he says, like whenever you get people to get married, no, I promise for better or for worse, they always think it’s going to get better.

And as a preacher, I know it’s going to get worse. But I never tell him that. Otherwise, they’re never getting married. So anyway, in verse two, he says, serve the Lord with gladness. Serve the Lord. Well, that’s why you should be so happy and so joyful. You see, after you trust Christ is saved and He gives you eternal life, now you’re His child. as a child of God, you’re a child of the king. Well now you can sing and praise the Lord, serve the Lord, because you see, before you get saved, you can’t serve Him.

You’re not His child. Now God may use you in different ways, but I’m talking about where you can really serve the Lord in joyfulness ofORK, because you know you in the heaven when you die. So a lot of people, they don’t know where they’re going to go when they die. They’re religious and they mean well, and they know well, there’s a God, and I hope that He’s watching them, being pretty good today, when you’re not doing so good. I hope he’s not watching today, but we have so much to be thankful for when it comes to the Lord.

He says, serve the Lord with gladness. Now another thing that you can put down beside this verse is this. See there in the book of Deuteronomy, it makes a statement. God was talking about his children of Israel and he was taking them out of the land of Egypt and leading them in the wilderness and of course they had days when they didn’t have water and they had days when they didn’t have have the meat to eat, but He provided for them in a miraculous way.

And so He says, unless you serve the Lord with joyfulness of heart, I will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until it destroys you. So a lot of God’s children are destroyed. It means they are totally falling apart because they will not serve the Lord with joyfulness of heart. They go to church, but oh, well, I got to go to church today. It’s such a drudgery. Well, I could just sleep another 10 minutes. Well, I could just wait and sleep in church.

Like it’s one person, you know, you sometimes you think you’re talking too long. He got up and he got really leave and I says, sorry, oh, where are you going? He says, I’m going home to shave. I says, going home to shave. I says, why didn’t you shave before you come? He says, I did. But you know, sometimes people just want to, you know, anyway. You should serve the Lord with joyfulness of heart. Otherwise, He’ll put a yoke of iron.

In other words, doing what you’re supposed to do becomes such a drudgery and that when you lose the joy, you lose the strength and it weighs you down. Now see, he also makes a statement, the joy of the Lord is my strength. So when you don’t have the strength, it’s because you don’t have the joy. Joy, it’s just like this. morning I want you to get up at three o’clock in the morning. We’re going to have a Bible study at the church and I want you to come.

I said, well what? I can’t get up at three o’clock in the morning. I just don’t do that. I can’t do no three o’clock in the morning. But if I told him it says, we’re going to take and go deep sea fishing and we got to be down at the boat by four. All of a sudden he jumped up out of the bed and he’s got his stuff and he’s ready to go. Why? Because of the joy of going fishing.

Now do you think he would enjoy fishing better than coming to the church at three o’clock in in the morning and study the Bible. Mm. Yeah, he probably would. He probably would. But you see, it’s the joy of the Lord. That’s why we should be so thankful. Look what he says there in verse two. And I come before his presence with singing. Does God want you to sing? I said, I only sing when I’m in his shower. And my wife says, you need more showers.

So you get in the shower and you take and you practice. That’s where you practice. Because you know, generally you think nobody can hear you. You know what I do sometimes? I take them when nobody’s in the church, nobody’s in the church. All the doors are locked. And I used to do this on Saturdays, because nobody’s here. I don’t answer the phone. I don’t do anything like that. So I just said, and then I’ll come in here, and I’ll take a little bit on the Ivers, and I’ll get my microphone, and it’s not even turned on.

But I pretend like I’m singing. And I let it rip and sing just as loud as I want to sing. And there’s nobody to say you sound terrible. And nobody says, you know, that was flat. And I tell them, I used to draw a line three blocks long. And then somebody took away my chalk. But I told them one Sunday, I said, I’m going to, I had a request about my singing this morning, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Now get this, serve the Lord with gladness come before His presence with singing. And verse three, know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. Aren’t you glad you’re not a self-made man? He made us, He created us and He created us for a reason. We are His people and the sheep of His pastor, and from the sheep of His pastor, and He’s the shepherd. Isn’t there a Psalm somewhere that says, the Lord is my shepherd?

I shall not want to, but what if he’s my shepherd? My shepherd’s going to take care of everything. And he provides, defends, protects, and all that kind of stuff. So we’re just supposed to enjoy life and walk through life knowing that the Lord’s walking with me. When you know that and you understand that, whatever the problems are, me and God, yet we can handle anything. I don’t care what the problem is, me and him can handle it. As far as knowing anything, me and him, between me and the Lord, we know everything.

Between me and the Lord we can do anything. Me and the Lord we make a majority. See that’s a positive way of thinking. Or if you go in through life without the Lord, he says without me you can do nothing. You can’t do anything with it. But with the Lord you can do whatever God wants you to do. And always remember the Lord will walk you through it. Sometimes whenever you got money and you don’t know what to do with it, come see me.

Now, and if we don’t have money, the Lord will walk you through those desperate times. And when you get sick and you got to go to the hospital and they give you some bad news, the member of the Lord will still walk you with you. He’ll walk you through it. Always believe it wherever you go, whatever you’re doing. He’ll walk with you. He said, I’ll never leave you and never forsake you. Cast all your cares upon him for he cares for you.

Now that’s something good to know and to be thankful to the Lord for it. says in verse 4, enter into his gates. And see that word, thanksgiving? Well, what’s coming up this week? Well, thanksgiving. And some people never learn to be thankful to the Lord. Be thankful for what you do have. Don’t complain about what you don’t have. Nothing ever works out for me. Oh, come on. If you ever heard somebody say this, parents talking to the kids, you never do anything right.

Really, never? I mean, surely there’s one thing they did right. Or you say that to your husband. You never tell me you love me. I did 35 years ago when we got married. If it ever changes, I’ll let you know. But today you want to hear it often. You know more and more. I know, I understand that. I got Betty some flowers one time. A whole bunch of them. And I think it was about 38 roses. It was our 38th anniversary.

She had those things and she kept them in a book and she had all, they were smashed, but she had them. And she’d gone through some sun and she says, Here’s those roses. I said, well whenever you get rid of those I get you some more. You know 12 years has passed but anyway if you need some more you’ll get rid of those I’ll get you some more. But if you keep them out you don’t need none. But anyway we’ll move right along that wasn’t right.

Now Luke what he says here be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good. Y’all don’t lie in that phrase in your Bible. The Lord is good. He is good. It’s not good for you when you get up in the morning and you think God got up on the wrong side of the bed and he was angry and he looked over the banner of heaven and said, well I’m going to get you today. God’s not out to get anybody.

God’s not trying to make life miserable for you. By your own decisions you can bring either the blessings of God or the chasing of God. Sometimes we have to be taking that behind the divine woodshed. You know what the divine woodshed is. Have you ever been taking me hand to woodshed? Sometimes my daddy never made it to the woodshed. He killed me on the way. And he’d get a piece of wood and picked a tar out of me. I thought somebody said, you believe in the resurrection?

Yes. Right after my dad whoops me, I come back to life because he’d have beat me to death. And I told him I said, look, my dad, he wasn’t a fisherman but we did go on a few wailing expeditions. And buddy, I’ll tell you, he did. But now notice in verse five when he says, for the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting and his truth endured to all generation. Now right here, while you’re here, look there in Psalms in chapter 95.

Look at Psalms chapter 95, just the first two verses. And look what he says, Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord. You know the Lord must like people singing because he says, and even in the book of Ephesians in chapter five, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. singing, making melody in your hearts to the Lord. So our music, if you want to figure it all out, it’s just should be to the Lord, for the Lord about the Lord.

And that’s where you can always know the right kind of songs to sing and to the Lord, for the Lord about the Lord, they should be honoring to the Lord. What’s whoever thy hands findeth and do it all thy might, but whatever you do, it should bring honor and glory to the Lord. So look what he says there in verse one, Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. He is the rock, Jesus Christ. And then he says in verse two, let us come before his presence and see those two words with thanksgiving.

So even today we’re not having thanksgiving yet. It’s on Thursday, but can you thank the Lord before Thursday? Some people wait until Thursday and they’ll thank the Lord that day. Or should you live every day thankful to the Lord? I think so. I think that would be a good thing to do. Take your Bible and turn to the book of First Thessalonians. First Thessalonians in the New Testament. First Thessalonians.

And look in chapter 5. First thessalonians chapter 5. Now you talk about, you know, those who know Christ is Savior, you have eternal life, you’re going to heaven when you die. And the way God wants us to be toward one another. Do you know a thankful person can generally be a kinder person? Because when you’re thankful and you’re happy inside and you’re pleased, you know a person who’s bitter is generally going to treat people differently than a person who is happy.

your attitude that you have is going to be reflected. And so if you’re filled with love, love, express. When you’re filled with envy, envy will express itself. And so if you sow that, you’re going to reap that. So if you sow a smile to someone, you might reap a smile. Give them a frown and you might reap a frown.

Well, anyway, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, look in verse 11, and notice what he says here. Wherefore it comforts yourselves together and edify one another. Edify doesn’t mean edify. It means edify. It means to beautify what’s there and add to it. Try to help people to be edified, encourage them where they are and what they’re doing, but encourage them to do more. You’re always trying to build people up and encourage people. So your attitude toward doing that will help you not to tear people down.

because it’s so easy to cut somebody down. If your husband doesn’t do your right, cut him down. Wife don’t do your right, cut her down. Smack her around a couple of times. Just with words, of course. Or the children. You’d be surprised how much praise, how far it can go. You can get, you say you can’t get anywhere with, praise and compliments and things like that. Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can. If you treat a woman like she’s a rattlesnake, and you treat them wrong, they coil up.

There’s poison in their fangs. So you gotta be careful. If you treat them differently, they’re just like a little kitten. But if not, they can turn into a rattlesnake. But depends on how sometimes they’re treated and how they respond. See, people respond to love. And if you give them love, they can respond to love. If you give them hatred, they can respond to that. And so you’d be surprised how sometimes our homes and whether kids are mates and so on.

Even on jobs. A lot depends upon the attitude that you have. What do you bring to it? Notice what he says here. And verse 12, and we beseech you brethren. So we’re talking to people who know the Lord. And this is not talking about how to get to heaven. It’s talking about how to live on your way to heaven. See, I’m already going to heaven. I’m going to heaven whenever I die, I’m going to heaven. Why? Because I’m so good.

Yeah. No, no. It’s because Christ died on the cross, paid for my sins and gave me eternal life as a free gift. So I’m going to heaven when I die. But I’m not there yet. I have been on the way, but I’ve been on the way for 57 years. And I’m still not there. So I still may have a little bit more time to go. But eventually, I know when life is over, I’m going to be with the Lord.

But until then, He told me this is how I want you to be. So he says there in verse 12, and we beseech your brother to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. Now see, some of the time the best thing can happen is somebody who loves you enough to rebuke you. But some parties also who can admonish you and you do something that you shouldn’t be doing. If they can give you really good constructive criticism, can you take it that way?

Or do you look at it as destructive criticism? You see, God will correct you sometime, but He does it through people that know you and love you. And so the ones that can hurt you the most are the people that you love the most. But look what He says. He says in verse 13, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake, and be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble minded, support the weak and be patient toward all men.

Well, that’s not awful a lot. That’s asking a lot, ain’t it? But the only key thing that you have to do is if you just love everybody, it takes care of itself. What makes serving the Lord hard is when you don’t love the Lord, you don’t love people. As I can say, I don’t have any problem with serving the Lord as to these people that bothers me. Do you know most of my problems in the last 57 years of serving the Lord?

Hasn’t been God. God hasn’t been a problem to me. It’s people. Because you can win them to the Lord, teach them how to serve the Lord, and then they’ll find it. They pat you on the back, but they’re just looking for a nice place to put the knife. Or they gossip and destroy, become lifted to wicked life. And yet the Christians who are not obeying the Lord. Christians that are not walking with the Lord. Christians that are not thankful to the Lord.

Because you can’t always change the way other people are. You can’t make somebody. do something. Sometimes you can make them suffer the consequences but you can’t make people do things. And so the only thing you can really control is you. You control you. How are you doing with you? When you look in the mirror, can you say, I want you to do this and then make yourself behave? You want everybody else to behave, behave, everybody behave, but you can’t discipline yourself.

Can you tell yourself what to do and then make yourself do it? Do you obey yourself? You ever set up a diet? Boy, January, I’m going on the diet. Okay, next January. Start next January. It never starts today. It’s always in the future. How many of those have I done anyway? But look what he says. He says in verse 15, see that none render evil for evil under any man. But ever follow that which is good both among yourselves and to all men.

And then he says rejoice evermore. Now you can’t take us, okay that means that rejoice evermore that means I gotta always rejoice. Well once in a while you may have a you know a frowny face you can always have a smiley face. Sometimes you’re in grief, sometimes you’re sorrow, sometimes there’s crying, there’s a time for all of that, time for weeping, sizzling, clisiesties and so on. But the general principle is learning how to rejoice, even in times when things are not going good.

But notice what he says also in verse 17, pray without season, it means you can’t go to bed, you can’t eat and you can’t sleep unless you’re praying. You gotta pray all the time. And while I’m preaching, you’re supposed to be praying. No, it just means you should always be in an attitude of prayer, even though you don’t have to pray all the time because you can’t just pray all the time, otherwise when do you sleep? But you understand what he’s talking about is learning to take everything to the Lord.

Talk to God about everything that you have to talk to God about. Sometimes we just wanna complain and gossip to everybody else, but we never talk to the Lord. God’s the one that can do something about it. Sometimes we share our problems with people who have no ability to solve the problem. They’re not a part of the problem, they can’t be a part of the solution. You talk to people about things that can be part of the solution and learn to remember that.

Now look in verse 18, very important verse. If you don’t have it underline, you ought to unline this verse. And everything gives thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you, everything gives thanks. So I think we ought to learn to be thankful. Well, you said, what can I be thankful for? Well, you’re alive right now, aren’t you? You got a pulse? Okay, you got a purpose. And so you can learn to be thankful to the Lord.

You got to breathe. You got lungs that can breathe. You know, there’s a lot of people that are in nursing home and in hospice and they can’t come to church today. There’s a lot of people can’t get up and walk or do anything. And there’s some people that are, they’re slowly, they’re losing their mind. They can’t think right. Well, maybe you. You say, I can’t either. But learn to be thankful for what you can. Isn’t it great that you have lived so far this long?

A lot of people never got a chance to really live life. But now take your Bible and turn to the book of 2 Corinthians in chapter nine. 2 Corinthians chapter nine. And learning to be thankful. And learning to be thankful. This is a great portion of scripture because the apostle Paul, well, Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and gave him the gospel, and told him, said, I want to show you what great things you are going to suffer for my namesake.

Isn’t that a wonderful thing? God said, I’m gonna show you what great things you’re gonna suffer for me. Isn’t it wonderful to know that this is what, that’s God’s purpose for my life. I’m gonna suffer, and buddy, as he suffered, did he ever? He would beat all the time. He said, I even bear in my body the marks of the Lord. He said, I’ve been whooped. And you ought to see the things that happened to him. And if you think things are bad in your life, you ought to see what happened to Paul.

But anyway, in spite of all of that, he’s always trying to encourage somebody. And he had led these people to the Lord here in Corinth, but they had 14 major problems in the church. See a lot of people think, well, the church is only for the perfect people. You know, all those little saints with a little halo on them. Here we are. We all sit here because we’re the little saints. Now, the church is a hospital. We want anybody sick.

You can come. But we like to have some well people on the staff. And sometimes I wonder about us. You go to the hospital, you know, a lot of germs and so forth are spread by the doctors and the nurses and the interns to the patients. And they come into the hospital with a cough and they die with some else. That happened to Betty’s mom. Betty’s mother. She went into the hospital. She had a tumor on the brain about the size of an orange.

And they had surgery and she got fine, successful surgery. And she caught something else right, she was in the hospital and died of it. Never got a lot of the hospital. So it do happen, it do happen. But here in the book of 2 Corinthians in chapter 9, look down in verse 6. The Lord is telling you something that how you can learn to be thankful. Do you really believe God, can you trust the Lord? He says in verse 6, this I say, he that soeth sparingly shall reap also sparingly.

hear that so bountifully shall reap bountably. In other words here you are you got life and God is given to us seeds. So I look at all the truths in the Bible these are seeds and so for the last 57 years I decided to go throughout the world spreading and sowing seeds. These seeds the good seed because I believe that God’s seeds will fall upon good minds good soil and something’s going It’s not gonna grow. Somebody’s gonna say, I believe that, I believe that, I believe that.

So you’re giving him some truth to believe. He said, if you’re so sparingly, you’ll reap sparingly. Now, if you wanna catch a lot of fish, you usually go to a place that’s got more than one. I mean, would you try to go fishing in your bathtub? Why not? There’s no fish there. At least not the last time you checked. But you go to a lake where there’s a bunch of fish or to the bay or to the river. You want to catch, have you always wanted to catch the smallest fish?

I always have two goals. I go fishing. I want the biggest and the most. I’m not asking for a lot, but you know, I go fishing with somebody. I never win. I just can’t catch a fish. See, my name has gotten out there. When I thought of that little worm out there, they’ve already didn’t spread the word. Don’t bite. That’s Yankee up there. And I just can’t catch no fish. And I’ll have people catch fish right beside me and I can throw right where they are and they’ll still catch fish and I don’t get the fish.

There’s something about my bait on my where something goes up the line and gets on there and says, okay, this is no good. This is no good. Don’t bite this one. I can catch, you know, people. We’re catching those other kind of fish. I just don’t need to grow. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man.

Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of the Gospel-Driven Main. The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634.

Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address, and God bless you and thank you for listening to Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. And we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day.

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