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

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. whatsoever 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 think the Lord before Thursday? Some people will wait until Thursday and they’ll think the Lord that day. Or should you live every day thankful to the Lord? I think so, I think that’d be a good thing to do. Take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians in the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians, and look in chapter five, 1 Thessalonians chapter five. Now you talk about 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 gonna treat people differently than a person who is happy. Your attitude that you have is gonna be reflected. And so if you feel with love, love, express. when you’re filled with envy, envy will express itself. And so if you sow that, you’re gonna 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 1st Thessalonians chapter five, look in verse 11 and notice what he says here. Wherefore it comforts yourselves together and edify one another. Edified doesn’t mean edified, it means edified. 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 this. If your husband doesn’t do your right, cut him down. wife don’t do you write cut her down, smack her around a couple times, just with words of course. Or the children. You’d be surprised how much praise, how far it can go. You can get, they say you can’t get anywhere with, you know, 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 to a rattlesnade. 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, well, our 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 times the best thing can happen is somebody who loves you enough to rebuke you. But sometimes also who can admonish you, when you do something that you shouldn’t be doing, if they can give you really good constructive criticism, can you take it that away?

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 worksake and be at peace among yourselves00000000 Now we exhort you brethren,adeon 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 if you just love everybody, it takes care of itself. What makes certain on Lord hard is when you don’t love the Lord, you don’t love people. See, I can say, well, I don’t have any problem with serving the Lord, it’s these people that bothers me. You know most of my problems in the last 57 years of serving the Lord, hasn’t been God.

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

So say 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? Have you ever set up a diet? Boy, Jan, you were having one 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 ever more. Now, you can’t take us, okay, that means rejoice every more. 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’ve got to pray all the time. And while I’m preaching, you’re supposed to be praying. No. This 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 want to 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, well, can I be thankful for it? Well, you’re alive right now, aren’t you? You got a pulse? No, okay, you got a purpose. And so you can learn to be thankful to the Lord.

You got, ah, I heard a 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, 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 learned 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 going to show you what great things you’re going to suffer for me. Isn’t it wonderful to know that this is what this is God’s purpose for my life? I’m gonna suffer and buddy has 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, the whole of those little saints with the little halo on them. Here we are, we all said here, cause 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 while 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 nine, look down in verse six. 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 six, this I say, he that soeth sparingly shall reap also sparingly.

And he that soeth bountifully shall reap bountifully. 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 gonna grow. Somebody’s gonna say, I believe that, I believe that, I believe that.

So you’re giving them some truth to believe. He said, if you’re so sparingly, you’ll reap sparingly. Now, if you want to 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. Well, there’s 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 throw that little worm out there, they’ve already done spread to word. Don’t bite. That’s Yankee up there. And I guess 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 fishing. I don’t get the fish. something about my bait on my word, 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 people, because you know there’s other kind of fish. I just don’t do too well. Every once in a while now I’ll catch a fish.

But I always want the biggest and I want the most. Maybe something’s wrong with my attitude. Maybe I don’t need to change my attitude. Lord, anything. All I do is I look at it as I am a servant of God. I’m feeding the fish. Okay, that one’s got that one. Then I just keep throwing them out and they just keep eating them all up. But he says, you’re so sparingly, you reap sparingly. That’s the same way it is in life.

If you learn the law of sowing and reaping, you see the law of the harvest states that you reap what you sow. You reap later than you sow and you reap more than you sow. That’s why some people when they’re young And they want to go sow their wild oats Well later on down the road when they get to be adults They’re suffering the consequences of those wild oats. They sow 20 and 30 and 40 years ago And it’s same later more of it So if you want to have good things down the road so good things today don’t say, well it ain’t gonna matter.

I don’t care. And then you sow wild notes. They’re gonna reap it down the road. See some people they sow the wild notes and then pray for a crop failure. But notice what he says in verse 7, every man accorded as he purposes in his heart. So let him give. So the Lord is talking about his unspeakable gift. In other words, this unspeakable gift that see this mentioned in verse 15, looking in verse 15. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

So whenever we give to the Lord, we are given a gift. You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to give anything. You don’t have to give a nickel. The offering plate when we pass it this morning, you don’t have to put anything in. But if you love the Lord and you want to, yes. Give generously, I don’t care. I never look at the money, I don’t see who gives what. But it’s where you demonstrate your confidence and your trust in the Lord.

And so if you believe that, you know, God loved me so much and He gave me the free gift of eternal life. It didn’t cost me anything, it was free. And I remember when I first heard this, I kind of argue with my father-in-law because I couldn’t believe it. It can’t be that easy. That’s just too easy. It’s too easy. You mean all I have to do is just believe it and they’ll give me eternal life. That’s it. I don’t have to do anything.

I wasn’t wanting, I was under the impression, you know, if I live good, I go to heaven, and if I live bad, I go to hell. So my destiny depended upon how I lived. And I didn’t know that that has nothing to do with it. Because I was told, you know, if you’re good, you go to heaven, bad, you go to hell. Okay, well, I didn’t know anybody good enough to go to heaven. Well, I could be the only one, that’d be all right.

But I didn’t want to go down there. But nobody told me how bad I had to be. No one told me how to have good, I had to be to go up there. So I had mixed emotions. I really didn’t know. And then when Betty’s dad sat down with me that night and explained the gospel to me, one man in 75 years, one man witnessed to me. And he told me the best news I’ve ever heard. But when he was telling me that, I didn’t know that was the best news I ever heard.

It wasn’t until the end of it, and I finally figured out what he was saying. If what he was saying was true, I’m going to hell. And I didn’t want to go to hell. Because he said, you have to trust Christ to say, well, I’ve never done that. I didn’t know I had to do that. But he explained it to me. I trusted Christ as my Savior. God gave me the free gift of everlasting life. So for 57 years, I’ve been certain, the Lord, because that’s my way of saying thanks to the Lord for his unspeakable gift.

The value of that, I would rather have this free gift of eternal life than all the wealth and all the world, because I know I’m going to have a no a heavy turn of life. and that love and that joy makes it wonderful because I don’t have to go to church to go to heaven. I don’t have to give money to go to heaven. I don’t have to do anything to go to heaven. Why? I’m already going. This is good as done.

He that believeth on me, hath, present tense, hath right now, hath, what? Everlasting life. If I believe, I got something. What have I had? I got everlasting life. You say, how do I know I don’t really believe it when you can say you got everlasting life? If you can’t say you got everlasting life, because you don’t believe it, because you believe it. You got it. Got it? Doesn’t make sense? Sure, it makes sense. You ever heard that verse go something like this, for God so loved the world that He charges everybody a high price for the free gift of everlasting life.

‘,” No. Iposted ][NSA because he’s saying, you ought to be thankful for this free gift. Now, after you trustimportant to say because you know you have this free gift, he says you can serve however you want. You can be very thankful or not so thankful. You can sow sparingly or abundantly. I decided I want to serve the Lord with everything that I have all the days of my life. So I serve the Lord because I want to. I give because I want to.

You say, do you have to tithe? You don’t have to tithe. I do, but that’s just the minimum. That’s what I do because I want to have a good measure by how to determine. So I do that more. I have for 57 years, but I don’t have to do it. It’s so wonderful to do things for the Lord Downloadha when you want to do it. When I go to church because I want to do it, I can hardly wait for this morning to come.

I’m ready to preach. I’m ready. I got another sermon I got to go yet. And I’m ready. You know how come? I worked and studied all day yesterday. And I think it’s worth it. And then Betty, she’s cooking these turkeys and all this dressing and then I got a week on it. We gonna eat. But you look for it, you prepare, you prepare. And look what he says in verse seven. Every man according to his purposes in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or in the sense of it before God, levth what?

A cheerful giver means you determine it and you determine how much. You determine how much you would give to the Lord’s work. You determine how much you dedicate your life. You determine how godly you want to live. That’s your choice. It’s your way of saying thank you to the Lord for what he’s done for you. And everybody can be thankful to the Lord because God’s done some things for all of us. And says the goodness of God leadeth into a change of mind to a repentance.

I used to think that nothing mattered except me. Now I know there’s a few things that matters more important than me and that I’m just temporary here. and I’m just going through life, I’m gonna pass on off the scene. But notice what he says, if you do it, you gotta believe something. In the book of Hebrews, in chapter 11, he says concerning Enoch, he had this testimony that he pleased God, and so he was, and he was not, for God took him.

But he says, you must believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek to please him. So I serve the Lord because I know he is, and I believe that he is going to reward me, that he will keep his word, that he’ll bless my life here and reward me when I get there. But I do this only because of what he already has done. And if I never got one more blessing or one reward, I should serve him because he made a payment on the cross from my son gave me the unspeakable gift.

No man could make this happen because it’s not by your works, it’s the gift of God. So he says, God is able to make, get this all grace abound toward you that you always having all sufficiency and all things may abound to every good work. And whatever it is that you need to do what’s right, God says He will bless your life. God is able to make make things work to your advantage. When he says this in the book of Matthew in chapter six, he says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you.

But because people don’t trust the Lord, they’ve been all their life trying to get things and in that the while their life has been shot. They’ve lived and laid up no treasure in heaven. And if they haven’t trusted Christ’s Savior, they’re going to spend an eternity separated from God in a literal fire burning hell. And they didn’t have to be that way. But he says, seek ye first, the King Maggot in his righteousness. So you don’t go to heaven on your righteousness, you go to heaven on his righteousness.

He will give you his righteousness. Now if God came in his room right now and gave me his righteousness, that would make me as righteous as God. I go to heaven on his, not mine. So I don’t have any righteousness. He said, all your righteousness are his filthy rags. So whenever you trust Christ to save you, He gives you his righteousness. Now you’re good to go. And if you’ll serve the Lord and put Him first, He said, all these other things will be added to you.

But we don’t believe that God will add all those things to it because we live by sight, not by faith. So we don’t trust Him, and because we don’t trust Him, we worry and fret and fall apart. And so this is what many Christians are. So He says down here, in verse 9, as it is written, He has dispersed abroad, He hath given to the poor, and see the statement, His righteousness remaineth forever. His righteousness, when he gives it to you, you have his righteousness for how long, forever.

But then the very next verse, in verse 10, says, now he that ministered seed to the sword, both men is bred for your food and multiply your seed’s sown and increase the fruits of, now see those two words, your righteousness. You see, there’s his righteousness and yours. You see, I’m going to heaven on his righteousness, But I serve the Lord according to my righteousness. Does God want me to do right? Yes, does He want me to do right so I can go to heaven?

No. I’m doing right because God has made me righteous. Now I should live the way, see I trusted Christ the Savior, I became a child of God. Now as a child of God, that means He’s my father. I should obey my father not to be his child. I’m already his child. I should do it because I am. And so if you understand that and you put the Lord first and God will bless your life and you can serve the Lord with joyfulness of heart because you know, I can cast all my cares upon the Lord for causing cares for me, all these things are good.

They’re wonderful. We’ll close with this verse. Look over there in the book of Philippians. The book of Philippians, just turn to your left just a couple of pages. Philippians and chapter four. Philippians chapter four, and this is what it says there. This is on page 12, 16, a church Bible, but notice what it says in verse six. Be careful for nothing. Why? Because the verse right before it says, the Lord is at hand. The Lord is always with me.

The Lord is right there. And he says, he dwells within you, and he’ll never leave you and never forsake you. So where can you go where he isn’t? He’s right there. Be careful or anxious for nothing. But in everything by prayer and supplication, get these two words. With thanksgiving. Always when you asking God for something, make sure He knows you are thankful for what He has done. And don’t just keep asking more and more and more and more. When’s the last time you thanked the Lord for being good to you?

For giving you eternal life or letting you be His child, for giving you a chance to live, to have a good testimony before others. And just for the air that you breathe, thankful for your husband, thankful for your wife, thankful for your kids, grandkids. What can you be thankful for? This man is a gobble things. Is gobble a good word? Well, it’s turkey gobble.

And then he says here in verse six, he says, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passes all human understanding shall keep or guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So you have these words that are designed to comfort us. To know that we ought to be very thankful to the Lord for what all He’s done for us. Let’s pray. Father, we are thankful so much for your loving us, for giving us that free gift, that unspeakable gift of eternal life.

And we’re thankful for the opportunity we have to meet together, study these things, and we ask your blessings upon the service to following Christ’s name. Amen. Men, reserve the last Saturday of the month for the Iron Sharpen’s Iron Men’s Bible Study and Breakfast at Calvary Community Church. Join us at 730 for a home-cooked breakfast. Then, at 8am, the featured speaker of the month will present a one-hour classroom style Men’s Bible Study in a relaxed atmosphere where questions and dialogue are welcomed.

The scripture tells us that Iron Sharpen’s Iron and this Men’s Bible Study is open to those of all levels, whether new believers or mature Christians. The Iron sharpens iron men’s Bible study and breakfast. Don’t miss this monthly opportunity for fellowship and the study of God’s Word. 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 believe in that the lord is coming soon just keep looking up