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

One of the greatest hindrances to true happiness and joy and peace of mind is the purpose for why you do what you do. And if you do for the sake of your life here that you’re going to lose, it’s all in vain. But what you do for the Lord is not in vain. So a Christian can be happy, better, longer, with more reality, more sincerity than the world can even come close to knowing and understanding. Because we know that regardless of what happens to us, because of my mindset, what I’ve gotten out of the Word of God, I can see better.

I can understand better. And I can get more good out of things than most people. And I can put into this world something that the world can’t put into it. I hope y’all are following me or my in a dream world of my own. In the book of James, you’ll notice here in chapter 1, it makes a statement in verse 8, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And that’s why because he doesn’t know how to control his thoughts.

He’s more affected by the things that happens, or the things that don’t happen. And so that makes a difference in his thinking. Look what he says here in verse 12. Blessed is the man that endures temptation for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life. But see, everybody is tempted, but the Christian knows that if he endures temptation, there’s something eternal waiting for him. The man here doesn’t have that waiting on him. So why not take advantage of the temptation because that’s happiness now.

That’s pleasure now. That’s joy now, but it never lasts. The things of this world never do. And so happy is the man who has grace to endure. So whenever you and I come from getting out of the Word of God, those things that we need for our life to help us to make better decisions. We’re able to have the grace that we need to endure the trials and tribulations and we can learn more from every trial that we go through.

Some of us laugh in just a moment ago about a little accident that happened with a vehicle. Do you know I was so thankful not for the accident but what I can learn from it. It could have been a lot worse. When it smashed my door and the fender and pushed me up against the curb and destroyed my Mercedes, and I liked my car. I really did. But it’s only a car. And now I’ve realized, Betty’s still got a car.

Do I steal her car? She says, no. But I realize when you have a contest with a dump truck and you can walk away, you’re a winner. He dropped my car, but I walk away. I can be thankful. Wobble my head a little bit, bounce me around and say, that’s okay. But I got a head that can wobble. I got a neck that can hurt. I still got some time to live. It’s not over. I can get more things out of it.

And you’ll be surprised. It doesn’t matter about the trials and the temptation. We all have them. But the trial of your faith been much more precious than gold and silver, though it be tried with fire, maybe found in the praise, honor and glory at the appearance of God. Down the road, you will get more blessings because you’re endured more testings. So remember that. Now look there in James chapter one and verse 22. verse 22, but be doers of the word and remember that verse that we started off with, happy are ye if you if you do, if you do them.

Philippians chapter 4 talks about Paul says those things which you have seen and heard and so forth in me do and the God of peace shall be with you. The God of peace will be with you because you’re not only saw and you heard, but you did what you’re supposed to do because you do it. Peace comes because you’re doing what God says do. Peace does not mean set around and do nothing. And so he says verse 23, 4, if, see that word, if, if any be a hear of the word and not a doer, he is likened to a man beholden his natural face in the glass and he beholdeth himself, go with his way in a straight way, forget what manner of man he was, but who so look at them to the perfect love of liberty?

The Word of God. And continue with it. If you look into the Word of God, you’re supposed to see something in the Word of God and you’re supposed to take something from the Word of God. So, exegesis is getting out. What does it say? What difference is supposed to make in my life? and so he says be a doer of the work. This man shall be miserable in his deeds. He shall be blessed. He shall be happy. And what he’s doing.

And so you see there’s a lot of ways of looking at life and everything that happens to you. The last thing you want to be as I mentioned this before is you don’t want to grow up to be a mean old man. You ever see anybody that’s a mean old man or a mean old woman? Who do I look at? Don’t look at everybody. Just look at the clock. There are no such things. They don’t exist. You know women don’t exist.

Say, where did you learn that from? Wisdom. Wisdom. Say, how do you get wisdom? What makes the right decision? How do you get to learn to make the right decision? What makes you make the wrong decision? That’s the way it Look there in Romans chapter 4. Romans in chapter 4. Romans chapter 4. This ought to make everybody happy. Everybody ought to be happy. So I don’t have anything to be happy about. One day, and I’ll mention this year, I don’t think so mine, my daughter trained to me.

She was about 17 years old and she sat down at the table and she looked at me and she just started crying. Just started crying. And I says, what’s wrong, huh? She says, I’m miserable. I am not happy. I’m miserable. And she acted like she was miserable and very unhappy. And I thought, if you would only fall in love with the Lord, He could make you a lot more happier. If you’ll fall in love with the Lord, now I don’t like to use that word fall in love.

Use you grow in love. Love fell in love. Like it wasn’t my fault. I fell. It was an accident. And we blame a lot of things on love. But now look at this verse in Romans in chapter four. He makes a statement in verse seven saying, blessed are they whose sins or iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. You mean I sin and God doesn’t impute it to me?

No, he puts it to Christ. I should be happy about that. If you don’t have anything else to be happy about, isn’t that something to be happy about? My sins have been paid, my sins are forgiven. I’m not going to hell. I’m happy, I’m going to heaven when I die. Think of all the problems you could have in the world. Be the worst problem in all the world is that you go to hell. Not that you die, but did you go to hell?

That’s the worst thing can ever happen to anybody. and it can’t happen to me. The worst thing in the world can’t happen to me. I can’t go to hell. Should I be happy about that? So I, it’s right, everything else that happens real. I’m going to heaven. I’m in the Florida Bible College and people would give up testimonies in church. And they said, I don’t have anybody to pay my bill. Praise the Lord anyhow. Bell Parish was one in charge of the finances.

Oh, praise the Lord. I can’t pay my bill. Praise the Lord anyway. She was running for charge. She says, I want you to get those money and pay this bill. And then she’d say, you can’t take your test, your finals, unless you’ve got your bill paid. Okay, here I go again. I’m going to see it. I fell parish and she said, Yankee, I’m sorry, but this is a policy you have to have your bills paid before you can take your test.

I said, but I can’t. I said, I don’t have the money to do it. And I didn’t know something that’s true. I was broke or an attend commandment. I couldn’t pay attention. And anyway, and I’m saying to her, and she says, let me go see Ray. She’d get up and walk down and Ray’s office and here come Ray. Let him take his test. Yay! It was I happy. I was happy. And it came down to the last semester, right before I’m de-graduated.

And I’ve got to pay my school bill. And here I am again. One more time. This happened eight times each semester for four years. And now here I am. And I’ve got to pay my school bill and I have not the money to pay it all off. And not only that, I had to have a high school education, a diploma. I did not have a high school diploma. I thought, they’d pull me in the office. And you know you can’t graduate with the class.

I says, Why? I was getting straight A’s. I mean, I got one B. Straight A’s, one B. She says, you can’t graduate. That’s just why not. You don’t have a high school diploma. I said, y’all never told me that before. I didn’t know you had to have a high school diploma. They said, yeah, generally you always get a diploma from school before you get one from college. I said, but nobody ever told me that. Oh, I was, I was not a happy camper.

I was not a joyous student. And here I am two weeks before graduation. This is not a, this is not my moment. This supposed to be my finest moment of grace and stability. And I was ready to strangle somebody. But anyway, I had to go down to the, I think it was John and they had something they had out of school. And they said, how do you go down there? So I went down there and they said, what do you want to do?

I said, I need to take a test so I can get my high school diploma. So I said, OK. And so these are the books they brought them all out. And they had to be that high. All these books is the classes where this will be starting pretty soon. And so you can take these classes. I said, ma’am, I said, you don’t understand. I said, I came down here to take a test because I got to get my high school diploma because I graduated from college in two weeks.

She said, she says, you can’t take the test. You have to study all this material and the exam’s gonna be over all this material. I said, well, forget these books, I ain’t got time for that. I says, when’s the next test? She said, we’re having a couple nights away. I says, in a couple nights, yeah, that’s what the people who’ve already had this. I said, man, I gotta take that test. Then let me take the test. And we’re like, they forgot it.

I’ve been in maybe. I’ve already had to fill out those old things that’s a little black mark, a little black mark here. And sometimes we get four choices. I was good at multiple choice. It’s not that one, it’s not that one. It’s got to be between this one and this one. I went through a whole test on this subject, that subject, that subject, that subject. I don’t know how many different subjects. And I went through that whole thing and then waited for the consequences.

I passed with flying colors. I have no clue what I did. I went and got my diploma. They called it a GED. I don’t know even what GED stands for. The honestly, I actually would diploma. That’s what it’s supposed to be. Anyway, I graduated from college. They weren’t going to let me graduate without that piece of paper. And I didn’t find out about it until it was almost too late. Now, I wasn’t happy and I was happy. I was miserable, down discouraged, and the very thing that I was down about, I was happy about.

I love telling that story now. Did I like going through it that time? No, but it’s a story that I love telling because I saw God had to do that. And God ought to know the right answers, don’t you think? Lord, He meaning my opinion. And so God was good to me. God blessed my little pea-picking heart and I graduated. And I have been happy ever since. Well, except for a few little down times. I mean, I’ve had a few months.

I’ve been a few bumps in the road. If you hadn’t bumps in the road, I had a friend named my Milton Hale. And everything he did, he was so slow. They could have used him as a speedboat. bump. He was slow, slow. He wasn’t. He was, I told you this, yeah. And you think I’m joking, but it wasn’t, it was the truth. I was driving my car down the road and I saw Milton Hill, he was getting out of this ditch.

He was all run over, I mean beat up. I mean, he was just rags and bruises and cuts and all over his body. He was pitiful. And I stopped the car and guy says, Milton, what happened to you? He says, I was beat up by two turtles. I says, You would be about two turtles. He said, yeah. I said, well, tell me what happened. He said, I can’t. It happened so fast. Ha ha ha ha. Some people are slow.

They just never get good stuff. So I like it when a girl laughs. That’s why they say, no, women are more emotional. The guys that control themselves, but women, they can’t control themselves. So that’s a. Have you ever said something you wished you hadn’t said? You thought I went too far on that. You know, words like arrows, runs are in flight. You can’t bring them back. And sometimes that’s just the way it is. But anyway, look in your notes here, look at number two.

Happy is the man who delights in God’s Word. As you delight in what God’s Word says, because of what is teaching you, it feeds your soul. It helps you to understand. It’s a light unto your path. It’s a lamp. It’s everything that you need. And that’s why it’s such a wonderful thing. Look at number three. Happy is the man who keeps God’s commandments. Now, this is 1 John chapter three, verse 22. And you wouldn’t think that would be a verse like that in the New Testament, but it is in the New Testament.

But in the book of John chapter 15, he talks about what this new commandment is, it’s your loved one another. As I have loved you, loved one another. And so he’s telling him to do this. And look at the last part of that verse where he says, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. It doesn’t mean just do anything you wanna do. Do those things that are pleasing in his sight. Well, how do you know what pleases the Lord?

Well, then that’s why you studied the Bible, because God tells you what he approves of and what he doesn’t. What is acceptable in his eyes and what is not acceptable. And if you will do those things that is pleasing to the Lord, because you delight in the Lord, you’re going to be a happier person. You really will. Because there’s joy and a pure conscience. When your conscience is cleaning and it’s right between you and the Lord, you’re a lot happier than you are when you feel guilty.

Have you ever done something you’re big guilty about? No, well, I like that here. But aren’t you glad that God forgives us and you’re supposed to forgive yourself, forgive others and keep getting up? Look at the next statement. Number four, happy is the man that dwells in the house of the Lord. Blessed are all they that dwell in thy house, they shall be still praising thee. In other words, it’s not just something you can start, which a lot of people can start things, but it’s the maintaining.

That’s why even in the book of Taishol, the maintaining good works for these are good and profitable on demand. just to start something, can you maintain? Can you keep doing what you know you’re supposed to be doing? And I put it this way, are you self-discipline? Yes I am. Can you tell yourself what to do and then make yourself behave? How are you good at you with that? Tell yourself what to do and then make yourself behave. Because if you can’t discipline yourself, then why should God use you to help discipline somebody else?

See, to discipline you have to be disciplined. Parents that don’t discipline their children’s because the parents are not disciplined. You’ll get it after a while. But when you get kids, you’ll really get it. Look at number five. Happy is the man who waits on the Lord. Now this is a tremendous verse from the book of Isaiah. Look at this verse here. For they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. You ever feel tired, we? You see, you can get weary in the work.

But we’re not to get weary of the work. The work we do is an important work. We’re in the work because we’re in physical bodies that gets tired and we’re in worn out and just always got problems. And sometimes we put more up on ourselves and we should. Sometimes we’re carrying baggage that we suppose have cast on the Lord. And so you have to watch. And I mentioned this before. Here’s my podium up here. Now if I start pouring some sand on this podium up here, how high can I go before it can’t go any higher?

See, when I start pouring it, it can fill out all over this. But sooner or later, if I get any higher, it’s just gonna start going over the edges, right? So I don’t care how much more I put on this. It ain’t gonna get any higher. So the only way I can get higher is to enlarge my borders and then I can get higher. And the Bible talks about it and the prayer of J. V. As, you know, I want to enlarge my borders because I want to do more.

I want to do more. And sometimes when you don’t do that and you don’t spread, I see a lot of Christians lives are like asphalt on this road out here, this parking lot. You see, you can put asphalt out here on this, but if you only put a half an inch asphalt, it’s not going to last too long. You’ll see that’s the way a lot of Christians are. They do a lot of things get involved in everything, but they’re only about an inch deep or a half an inch.

You see, they’re not gonna last. And so what you want is to do deep and wide. So the why do you wanna go the deeper you wanna go? So as a Christian, we’re supposed to go deep and wide. So we want to take and get out of the Word of God what we’re supposed to and we want to do what the Word of God says were to do. So you get balanced in your Christian life so that you can keep steady and keep going and your balance is so very important.

But look at this verse. I love this verse. I learned it years and years ago. I’ll show the weight on the Lord. Does it mean like, Oh, I’m waiting on the Lord. What do you need? I need a bus driver. I’m waiting on God to drive it. And his son’s good class. I’m going to let God teach this Sunday. Well, I’m waiting on God. Well, what do you need? Well, I need a job. I’m waiting on God. I’m going to let God go get the job and just give me the money.

Isn’t that a better way to do it? Now, wait on the Lord. It’s like you go to a restaurant and you want to get something to eat. and you go on to get something to eat, and they’re serving, they’re waitresses, they’re waiting, they’re waiting on the Lord is serving the Lord, doing what you can with what you have. It doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means you keep serving because you keep trusting. And if you keep trusting, he’ll give you strength and grace that you didn’t know you could find.

God is looking for somebody to make themselves strong on his behalf. I get to, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Because you’re giving up your strength, doing what he wants you to do. You see, you can wear yourself out in this whole world. And you can load your life down with a lot of baggage that God never gave to you. But it says, they shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint. The Lord says, they won’t quit. Yes, this is like this one kid. He went to this place to get him a job. And they looked over his little resume that he had given to them. And he said, well, according to this, five years ago, you had this job and then you quit. No, you were fired. And then you had this job for six months and you were fired. And here’s another, you had another job and you were a tear-fry year and a half and you got fired.

And then you had this job and you got fired. He says, what does that say about you? He says that I’m not a quitter. Ladies, I’m no quitter. You got fired from the last five jobs. Yeah, but I’m not a quitter. Perspective and optimism, positive. I’m not saying you should be that blind, but you should be able to put your trust in the Lord. See, number six, trust. A man will be happy because he’s trusting God. You don’t see how God’s gonna get you out of something.

Don’t worry about it. Enjoy the ride. It’s gonna be wonderful. It’s gonna be fun. You say, what if I die? You’re in heaven. Can’t get any better than that. I’ve said to someone, how many times I’ve had people say, ooh, when you say that. The best thing that could happen to me is to drop dead. Think about it. Well, it is. I get a brand new body. I mean heaven and I don’t have to worry about, you know, bills and getting real old.

I don’t have to worry about that anyway. I don’t think you’re old until you’re at least 120. I used to think differently. I thought if you was 70s, you’re old, not anymore. So reason how life can change your mind about things like this. But happy is the man who trusts in the Lord. Now let me ask you this, since you’ve been here, isn’t it true that some of you laughed about at least one thing that I said tonight? Now when you laughed at one time and smiled, you could not have been mad at exactly the same time, I don’t believe.

So you might have been mad for 99% of the time you were here, but there was one time you forgot about it and smiled. just do more of it. And you can handle that. Look up here. Let it present you and me. The wall of represents sin. We all have sin on us. Now God loves us and I hate our sin, but He loves us. You know, that’s something to be happy about. What? He loves me. He hates my sin.

Well, I’m glad He hates sin. But I can still look at this. I’m happy because God loves me. And to pay for sin is eternal separation from God and hell. Well, I’m not happy about that. But I am happy that heaven is perfect because if I ever get to go there, it wouldn’t be nice to go to a perfect place. Well, God wants me to go there. And God says, you cannot earn eternal life. You can’t work your way to heaven.

We need a Savior. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the face came into this world because He loves us. He hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. But he took all the sin of all the world, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead and said, all I had to do was believe that he did it for me and had put the payment to my account.

And I get to go to heaven on what Christ did for me. And I trust that Christ is my Savior. And happy or blessed is the man to whom his sins are forgiven. And he also says that happy is the man to whom God does not impute sin. See, he took coming in my sins now. All of them. He doesn’t impute one sin to my account. I go to heaven on what he did for him. And that’s good news.

Let’s pray, Shavim. His bow lies closed, no one looking around. If you’re watching by internet, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior. I urge you to do so. It’s a very important, most important decision you’ll ever make in your life. So right where you are at this moment where you trust Jesus Christ as the one who got on the cross and paid for your sins. And if you’ll trust Him, God said He would save you, give eternal life.

I pray that you will. And on the screen it says, yes, I will trust Christ. Let us know. Father, I thank you so much for all your goodness to us. You have blessed us. We have much to be thankful for. And Lord, we do pray for good ranch-making tomorrow night and for all the workers and that they put into it and that they’ll get something out of it. And Father, on Friday night, when they go so wanting that they’ll put something into it, but they’ll get something out of it.

And we pray that all things will be done to honor and to please you. And Lord, we know that some of these kids have put a lot into this. And Father, they may spend the rest of their lives given something out. Bless all that has to be done. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen. 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. and believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.