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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Well, the Bible tells us that God loves us all. But God wants those that are humbled to be especially blessed. He will exalt those that are humbled and humbled those that exalt themselves. It’s good to learn how God works. There are many people today who have not yet figured it out, even after going to church, reading their Bibles, cover to cover, and still don’t understand that the only way you you can get to heaven is by grace alone. That means you submit yourself, humble yourself unto God.

You don’t try to save yourself. You let God save you. It’s just like trying to save somebody that’s drowned. You might have to knock them out. So they stop fighting. So they can pull you down and drown you too. I’ve almost had that happen several times. I didn’t get to the place where I don’t even like to take baths because I’m afraid of water. So you’ll notice I get a drink of water, it’s that little cup. I don’t think I can drown in that, at least I hope not.

But anyway, I want to talk to you a little bit about humility brings grace. Also wondered how it kind of takes place in the Old Testament. Did they know anything about living by grace? Well, you’d be surprised how much scriptures in the Old Testament about they found grace in the eyes of the Lord, grace in the eyes of the Lord. We often wasted people were sometimes gracious to us. You know, be so grace upon us, be nice to us, just be kind to us, without having me having to earn it or deserving it.

And so God has shown His grace to everybody in the whole world. other words, His loving kindness. He has shown that and He did it not because we deserved it, but He did it to His Son Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth. And so the scripture I want us to look at at the beginning here and it’s got it right there in your notes so we can just look at this but later we’re going to go to the scriptures themselves.

But if you’re in your notes there, the first Peter chapter 5. This is what he says, likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with, and you ought to? that word in your notes there, be clothed with humility. Humility is a very, it’s a hard thing to find in a lot of people because everybody has that old sinful nature and it’s natural for us to be filled with pride.

Pride is the thing that God doesn’t like. But we all have a little bit of pride because pride means we want to go our own way. We want to do our own thing. We want to be in charge of whatever I want to choose to do or be in my life. And we don’t like somebody always telling us what we can and cannot do. And so he says, clothed with humility. Now get this because this is important know how God works.

He says, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. So those who go through life and there are problems and trials and testings and all kinds of things that you’re going to run into, there’s going to be a problem. And just people are problems, trying to make a living is a problem. You know, a lack of funds is a problem. Your health can be a problem. Everything can be problems. The world is full of problems. But there’s some people who are filled with pride and they can handle it all by themselves.

They don’t need God, they don’t need anybody else. They’re a self-made man. And then there’s those who… No, they need a little extra grace. So if they humble themselves to the Word of God and say, what does God’s Word say? What does God want me to do? How does He want me to think? How does He want me to live? And so we try to judge everything and discern things according to what the Word of God teaches. And there’s some people who will not do that, and that’s pride.

So God says a person filled with pride is kind of like trying to go through that door over there, and there’s no door. But you see that wall will resist you, that wall will resist, there’s no door there. And so trying to go your own way is kind of like going against God, and God says I’m not going to move. And therefore you like, why would you want to do that? And most people are spending their life trying to accomplish something they can’t accomplish.

Like I’ve said before, they climb in a ladder for 20 years, find out it’s from the leaning on the wrong wall. And you didn’t waste it so much of your life. Look at the next statement, humble yourselves. It’s better for you to humble you than for God to humble you. Can God humble you? Yes, and sometime when God humbles us, we become humiliated. God will allow things and pressures and problems and so forth to be so big, you can’t handle them and they can humiliate you.

Because you don’t like that being revealed that you don’t have the power to control everything. And some things you’ll find out is you live life, you can always manipulate, you can always control it. The next verse says, casting all your care upon him, for he cared for you. Now, this is simply talking about if you’re a humble person, you cast your cares upon the Lord because that’s what God says, cast it upon him. And he will take care of you and so forth.

But a person who’s filled with pride wants to do it himself. In other words, there’s a certain way in which God wants us to live, why he wants us to do certain things. Well, there’s other people who say, well, that’s not what I want. So there’s a clash between the will of God and the will of man. Well, a humble person submits to the will of God because he knows the will of God is better. And therefore, he submits to the will of God.

Now, this is what makes it hard sometimes for a man, a woman, who want to get married and they just love each other. That’s the answer to everything, right? No. And they find out that they could spend most of their life trying to find out who’s in charge. And we know the Bible says that the man is supposed to be the head of the home. And the wife is to submit to the man’s judgment. I’ve had people who say, well, I don’t trust this judgment.

I said, well, then why are you marrying him? Now the reason I admire my wife is because I admire the man she married. It’s just so understandable, you know. So I never knockher judgment, look who she married. Anyway, we’ll move right along. The next verse says, be sober, be vigilant, because you’re adversary, the devil. God is not against us. He wants us to submit to his will, but there’s the devil, and he’s always trying to get us lifted up with pride so that we healed to God and have God’s will done for our life.

Now for example, God’s word says for by grace are you saved through faith. Well the devil doesn’t want you to be saved. He wants to keep you blinded. So he says, no you’re saved by your works. Now believe it or not, there are some people in this world who actually believe you have to be good to go to heaven. Can you believe that? That there’s some people who think you have to go to church and give money and live a good life in order to go to heaven, there’s people that believe that.

Why? Because the devil told them that. But that’s not what the Bible teaches. God says you’re saved by grace. Grace means it’s unmerited, means it’s free. You’re saved by grace means it’s free. It doesn’t cost you anything. Jesus paid the way, gives you eternal life as a free gift and you get to go to heaven. Now look at the next verse. Talking about the devil whom resist, steadfast in the faith. So if you’re not steadfast in the faith, you cannot resist the devil.

You cannot see him and you don’t know the tricks of the devil and you don’t see and discern how he traps you. But he does. Satan has been in the business longer than we have, and he knows what he’s doing. He says, you’re adversary of the devil as a roaring lion. Now you don’t see no roaring lion running around. He said, walk at the bout seeking whom he may devour. It means he gets you to do what he wants you to do with your life.

And he devours you by taking all of your time. It’s just draining the life, the spiritual life right out of you. He’s taken in destroying your character, ruining your testimony, and lo lo lo lo, and you don’t even know what’s going on. He is deceptive, be wise. But notice the next verse, but the God of all grace who had called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that you have suffered a while. I trust in Christ as my Savior, 57 years ago, God gave to me eternal life.

So I am set for eternal glory. That’s going to happen. That is money in the bank. That’s not going to be stopped. But in the meantime, God says here in this verse, you have suffered a while. Now this little bit of time that God gives us to live, for me has been 57 years. But one of these days I know that I’m going to leave this world. And because of what I did years ago trusting Christ, I humbled myself.

And that’s what got me eternal life. If I had not submitted to the will of God concerning the gospel, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ thou shalt be saved. Well, I did believe it. So I am saved and I do have eternal life. Look what believing got me eternal life. Now that was done and that can’t be undone. God can’t alter it. He can’t change his mind. He stuck with me for all eternity. But that doesn’t mean the rest of my life I have submitted my will to the Lord because that’s a day by day experience.

So you may be dedicated to the Lord today and you’ve given the Lord all you have today, but that doesn’t mean you’ll do it tomorrow because you see it’s one day at a time, one day at a time, and you can either submit or not submit. And that fluctuates. This is why people can get married. And at first, you know, I love you. Oh, I love you. And I love you. And I love you. And I love you. And I love you.

And then fights go on. And next thing you know, it’s not what they do for each other, it’s what they do to each other. But anyway, things change because the man doesn’t want to submit to the Lord because he’s smarter than God. Well, why should the wife submit to her husband? She’s smarter than he is. And so everybody’s smarter than everybody else. So why should the kids listen to the parents? They feel like they’re smarter than both parents. So you’ve got to battle on your hands.

Now look at the next verse do you think that the scripture sayeth in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lust of two envy? In other words, when you trusted Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit indwells you, and the Holy Spirit is very jealous of our love from other things beside Him. So He wants us to yield to Him, and if we don’t yield to Him because we want His will for our life, the Lord is envious of our dedication to something else or any God that we want to put out there.

God doesn’t want second place. He wants first place so the Bible says and you’ll see that in a little bit. God is a jealous God. Then the next verse James chapter 4 and verse 6 but he giveth more grace giveth more grace. Now you had grace to get saved now after you’re saved God wants to continue give you some more grace because you’re going to have more problems of different kinds. So there is a throne set up, it’s like an escrow account where you can go and get more grace, more power in your life, more strength, more guidance, more whatever it is you need that may help you in time of need.

So if God has designed life where we are a constant in need of something. And so he says, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. He’ll flee from you. Now, I have a few verses here that I’ve gone back into the Old Testament and got a few of these verses that talks about it’s like something they found. Not everybody has it, but when God was going to destroy the earth, It says that Noah found grace and then it always has in whose eyes and whose eyes Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

It’s like going and looking to the Lord and says, Lord, I need some great, I need you to be gracious to me. Now I don’t deserve it, but I want you to be gracious to me. And if you humble yourself, you’d be surprised what God can do in your life. And so can an Old Testament saint live by grace? Well, I believe it can. Look in Genesis chapter six, go back there to the book of Genesis and chapter six.

And look there in verse 5, Genesis chapter 6 and verse 5. We have here in verse 5, and God saw that the wickedness of angels was great in the ear? No, He says, that’s all the wickedness of man. And in no time under women, it’s all man. But anyway, he says, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now in people’s eyes they don’t perceive it as evil. You see whenever we want to go our own way, I don’t see nothing wrong with that.

It’s what I want to do. I don’t mean harm to anybody else, so it shouldn’t be nobody else’s concern. But in God’s eyes, how does God see things? That’s what’s so important. That every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and it repented the Lord, grieved the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord says, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping things and the files of the year for it repented me that I have made them.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now isn’t it wonderful that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord or all of humankind would have been destroyed and you and I would have never been here. What have God had just destroyed? That’s it. Every person, nobody left alive. Well, I’m glad he didn’t do that. And so he says here, now these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation and Noah walked with God.

See a man who walks with God has to be a man who has humbled himself with the Lord and decided to go with the Lord. He walked with God. See, that’s important. It’s not just that God walked with me, but I walked with Him. Like God’s going someplace and I want to go with Him. What we want to do is we want God to do whatever we want to do. And Lord, I need some help right now. Lord, and God said, no, no, you don’t get it.

I want you to go with I want you to walk with me. Now there’s a thing that he has here in verse 12, and God looked upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. In other words, they weren’t going God’s way. And so people think that’s not a big deal. No, everybody just does it. Just what’s the majority? God doesn’t worry about that. He said a few people and destroyed how many?

So was the majority always right? You should find the direction that the majority’s going in before you join the majority. Maybe God wants us to be the individual that’s just doing what’s right because that’s what He wants us to do and the majority of people may not do that. Now think about him turn to Genesis in chapter 19. Genesis 19, and I want you to see this. In verse 19, down to verse 22, in your Bible says, in verse 19 of chapter 19, Behold, now thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shown unto me in saving my life, and I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil take me and I die.

In other words, he says, I need to get you out of Sodom and Gomorrah. God’s going to destroy this place. So he was to get his wife and two daughters and get out of Sodom and Gomorrah. And God says that he cannot destroy the place until he gets them out of there. Now Lot was not a righteous man in the sense of how he lived, but he was a just man because of whom he had trusted. So he was called a just man.

But there’s a difference in the Old Testament and you’ll find it in the New Testament between the righteous and the carnal. Just like in the New Testament we can have people who know the Lord. And so they’re God’s children and so they’re either spiritually minded means they mind the Spirit and walk with God or they’re carnal Christians and they walk into flesh. And some people can’t discern the difference because it looks like it’s not that big of a deal.

But God discerns those who walk with Him and obedience and those who do not walk with Him as they should in obedient. So the Lord says there are certain things that happens to different groups of people. So if you are an obedient child of God, God can bless you. Now notice that there’s always this difference between Abraham and his nephew Lot. Both saved men, both just men. But Lot Look the wrong way and he went to the wrong place and he got involved in the wrong, well, wrong things.

And he says, and he vexed his righteous soul from day unto day by what he saw and what he heard. This is why pornography is wicked, it is wrong, it’s not good, it’s not godly, and doesn’t help you spiritually. But that’s where he was and that’s what he saw. And he looked upon whatever he wanted And he thought, this is the best. And Abraham says, you just make the choice. And he said, I’ll go here, whatever. But you see, there’s righteous Abraham, and there’s carnal lot.

And so the Bible tells us that he was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And he says, I need to get you out of here. He says, you’re going to flee into the mountain. He said, oh, don’t let me go to the mountain. He said, let me go to the city of Zor. So he went to the city of Zor, and what happened to his wife? She looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. Kind of reminds me of this couple that went into the bank.

And they had a guy in there working whose name was Jesse, is what was that name? Jeffy. Jeffy, Jeffy, Jeffy. And a guy came in here to rob the bank, and he told Jeffy, stick him up. And when he did, his mask came down off of his face. And so when that happened, well, it was Lenin and Sandy that was in there. And he ran out the bat, he says, did you see my face? He said, no, no, I did not see your face.

And he pointed the gun, he said, no, I did not see your face. But my wife did. But anyway, his wife turned into a pillar of salt. And so he’s thanking the Lord for being so good to him, but he says, I can’t do anything in verse 22. Haysthal, escaped there for I cannot do anything until thou become there. Therefore the name of the city was called Zor. And this is what had happened. a lot of bad things happened in this city.

It was gone up in smoke. But it says that he had found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God was gracious to him. And that’s why he says in verse 19, Behold, now thy servant hath found grace in thy sight. And this is what God can do for you. And I wouldn’t it be a shame if we had to suffer for every wrong decision that we do make? I don’t think we’d ever wind up serving on Lord. But God is the God of second chance, third chance, fourth chance, fifth chance.

Did God give Jonah and he was down in the mouth, but he came out all right? So just remember when you get down, maybe he’ll come out all right, but he had to humble himself. He had to admit himself and to do what God wanted him to do. Now look at page two, top of the page. in turning your Bible to Genesis chapter 32. Genesis chapter 32, I was kind of amazed at how many times these verses were found in the Old Testament about they found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

And so if they needed it and the Bible tells them the New Testament, we need more grace. Well, maybe we do, because there’s times when God can give grace to the humble. And that is a principle that God has laid down in his word. If you’ll live in dependence upon the Lord, He can give you the grace you need every day to face whatever you have to face. So in Genesis 32 and verse five, I want you to look at this verse.

In verse five He says, “‘And I have oxen and asses and flocks and men serving “‘and women serving that I have sent to tell my Lord “‘that I may find grace in thy sight.” Now he’s not talking here about God, he’s talking about Esau. You see, there was a time when Jacob and Esau, they were at each other. That Jacob had stolen his birthright, but Jacob, before that, he had sold it for a mess of pottage. Well, he didn’t think he was going to live and wouldn’t need it, but later on, see, wish she hadn’t done it and then he wept with bitterness and so forth.

Anyway, you know, Mama Lou got involved into this thing and next thing you know, he deceived Isaac and well, things weren’t looking too good and all he saw wanted to do to Jacob was just kill him. It was his brother. So his brother left went a long way. Went to see his uncle, Laban. And there he worked for 14 years at least. and came away with two women and a whole bunch of cattle and a little bit of everything.

God had really blessed him in everything that he did he just multiplied. Well he wanted to come back home because the Lord told him says you need to go on back now and I will be with you and everything will work out right. Well and when he got back he he was scared. He was scared because he just knew that his brother was waiting on him and was gonna kill him. So he’s lived with this fear all these years.

He’s still doing things and he’s having success but he’s living with fear that his brother is going to kill him. So he sent a messenger on up there to tell him he says look you’re going to take him and go and tell him that I am. Then I’m coming and he told him and next thing you know here he comes the messenger back. He says, oh, yeah, he heard you were coming and he’s coming to meet you with 400 of his men.

So what he had done is he would take some of these cattle and they would drive them. Then behind them he would have some camels. Then behind them would have something else. And behind them they’d have something else. And so they had all these gifts come bearing gifts. He didn’t want to all be there at the same time. He’s bringing this. Oh, look what he got me. Oh, there’s some more. And here comes some more. Now, what is Jacob trying to do?

He saw. If he had any bitterness and any hatred, he’s hoping that all this goodness that he’s doing will melt him. And he won’t be mad at him. And here comes another flock of this and a little of that. So he did all of these things. And so it says there in verse 7, and Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. Now in our Christian life sometimes our distress and our grief is because of things we’ve done to cause it.

But not always. Sometimes there’s people who do things to us. They cause us a lot of grief and a lot of stress as we go through life. And so you want a little grace. Did you know that even though he did some of those things and finally when he met, he saw he was so glad because he was going to split up the party and so forth and send one group and say in case they got this one, they wouldn’t got all of them.

He says he could kill everybody. And he has this talk with the Lord. He has to have a talk with God. And said, Lord, you told me to come over here. And you told me that everything would be well. And Lord, this doesn’t look good. He’s coming with 400 men. So he’s afraid. Now, and he’s stressed out. Don’t you think this is about time for him to maybe go to the Lord and say, Lord, I need a little extra grace.

I’m worried. I’m afraid. I’m scared to death. death. And so he did just that. 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 are working 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 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, 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. Car 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.