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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.

Now take your Bible and go to the book of John chapter 12, the Gospel of John in chapter 12. A lot of times we think, well, if God knows that I’m gonna really mess up my life, I’m just gonna trust the Lord that He’ll take me home so I don’t put those scars among myself. God can let you live and mess up your life really bad. It’s just the way it is. So you don’t give orders to God. He gives orders to us.

He says, walk in the spirit, you’ll not fulfill the lust of the flesh, right? That’s our choice. We’re responsible for our own actions. But I want you to look there in chapter 12 of the Gospel of John. And look in verse 26. If you don’t have this verse underlined, it’s a good verse to underline. He says, if any man, I guess you could throw a woman in there too, I probably refers to them too. any man serve me, let him follow me.

And where I am, there shall also my servant be him. If any man served me, him will my father honor.” Now there’s enough reasons right there in that one verse to follow the Lord. Now this is not talking about salvation. This is talking about service. This is something that you don’t have to do because you see remember salvation is free, but serving the Lord, been a disciple, it can cost you everything. Look down here in verse 35, verse 35, then Jesus said unto them, yet a little while is the light with you walk while you have the light.

Let’s darkness come upon you for he that walketh in darkness, knowest not whether he goeth. The man who walks into flesh is going to stumble and he’s going to and he’s going to fall because you can’t see correctly. And the Bible says your blind cannot see you far off. You can’t judge the distance. He’s talking about having a vision to see the things of God that lies beyond this life. All you can see is this life in here and now, and you can multiply your problems and magnify them.

But when you can see past this life, these things don’t mean nothing to you because you see into eternity, you see the value of everything. And some people, their problem is too big. And just show your problem how big your God is. It’s a little different. In verse 36, while you have light, why you have light? While we have this period of time, and we have the Word of God, and Jesus is the light, he says, believe in the light that you may be the children of light.

When we trusted Christ as our Savior, we became the children of light. That means we’re supposed to light the way for others to follow so they can see our life. we’re supposed to be like the salt of the earth, the salt of the earth. Now go down here to another verse. I want you to see this verse in verse 42. Verse 42, he says, nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him.

So I believe there’s believers, but they did not confess Christ before others. So I beg your deadly, they must not have been saved. No, there’s people who say that you’ve got to confess Christ before men in order to be saved. No, you do not. What if you’re on an island and all you’ve done? You got the Bible and you want to get saved and there’s nobody but you. I’m sorry you can’t get saved. There’s nobody to confess to. No, that’s not what he’s talking about.

But there are people who trust Christ as Savior and never confess that to anybody else. They’re what we call a Secret Service Christian, my badge. I’m a Secret Service Christian. We ought to make up little badges and everybody can put them on and take them in here. That way if they don’t witness something like that, Secret Service, Secret Service. Are you in the Secret Service? 007. Anyway. He says, they did not confess less they should be put out of the synagogue.

In other words, in verse 40, they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. Now, can believers love this world more than they can love the next world they’re going to? Can a person love the things of this life, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of the life, can that overtake a person and where it becomes a more of more meaningful to you and that’s what you seek instead of the things of God?

and it can happen and there’s people that let it happen. But sometime it can happen so subtle that you can’t see it coming. But I want you to see down here in verse 46 also. Verse 46, he says, I am coming light into the world. The hosts who ever believe in me should not abide in darkness. In other words, once you trust Christ as Savior, you don’t have to abide in the flesh. You can walk in the Spirit. and you can learn to live for the Lord and have something more than what you had.

But some people will never have that benefit. And so there’s a choice that you and I will have between loving the things of the world. And that’s why John, who God used to write John, also writes first John, and many of those things that you’ll find over there, you’ll find him right here. And I think it’s important to know. I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Luke chapter 14. Now, Book of Luke in chapter 14, now I’ve referred to these verses many, many times because it’s so important.

It kind of gives you a little bit of the idea of the cost that’s involved in serving the Lord. Because if we don’t realize what it’s going to take, you may not be willing to pay that price. And many people aren’t. They just kind of inch toward it a little by little to see whether or not is serving the Lord gonna be worth it or not. You know, I’ll try it, I’ll try it. So they will try going to church, or I’ll try reading the Bible.

I’ll try prayer a little bit, I’ll try. And like it’s like a little experiment with them. And so if they try it and they don’t like it, then they give it up and do whatever they wanna do. But I tried. I believe you have to come to the place in your Christian life where you gotta make a decision, commit yourself. I don’t want to have to just try serving God. I wanna serve God. I don’t want it to be like a little experiment that I can see if I like it or not.

There’s been many things in the Christian life that I really enjoyed. But when I read about the Apostle Paul and what the Christian life was really about and all the things he suffered for the Lord, you know, maybe there’s something else out there that’s better than this. But when you think about in the long run, there’s nothing better than serving the Lord, regardless of what it costs. So there’s the three things that I want to just mention to you.

And that is we should worship God at any cost. Worship God at any cost. I don’t care what it cost me. I wanna learn the word of God. The other day it was showing somebody my Bible that I had years ago and how that the pages are disintegrating and it really are. But I use that Bible and I marked it and men I studied it and I’ve marked all the pages and so forth, and it’s a very well used Bible.

I absorbed that book. I studied that book. I would spend hours and hours studying the Bible. Reading, I mean book after book after book, just reading it. Not trying to find a sermon just to read the Bible because I had an inquiring mind and I wanted to know. But you’re going to worship God at any cost. Look what he says here in verse 25. And there went great multitudes with him. And he turned and said to them, if any man come to me and hate not his father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, yay, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

A disciple is somebody who is disciplined in his life. life. He’s letting God disciple him, discipline him. Now I have very seldom ever used the word disciples. I’m not against the word, it’s just always just get people to serve the Lord. Just go ahead and do what you’re supposed to be doing in their learning discipleship. But it’s like here, worshiping God at any cause. It may cost you the love of your mother and father and brother and sisters and anybody because you love the Lord so much more than anything else, nothing is going to take the place of what God wants me to do with my life.

I’m going to serve Him if it costs me everything. And there were times when my mama told me to get out of the house if I couldn’t stop preaching to her. My father-law would get up and walk out of the room. My sisters made fun of me and mocked me. That was okay because eventually I and warn them the Lord. Every one of them, and they trust Christ’s Savior. But I love the Lord more, and I love the gospel where I didn’t want anybody to go to hell.

But I love them, but my love for the Lord, God says He loves them. He loves them more than I would ever love them. So I let the Lord love them through me. Even when I didn’t want to do some things in the Lord’s work. I wanted to study the Word, because I know that that was be pleasing to the Lord. I wanted to worship God at any price, and I would pray all the time. I would live in a state of prayer just all the time like praying without ceasing.

You’re always thinking about God. I don’t get what you’re doing where you’re going even when you’re driving a car and I’d wake up in the middle of the night preaching because it’s all my mind and I’ve learned I quoted scriptures in my mind. I prepared sermons while I’m asleep Then I wake up and I try to remember what in the world are I doing and I get into a piece of paper and I write it down. Now that may not be for everybody.

I’m talking about the Lord has to mean more to you than anything else in the world. You have to worship Him, not the world, not the things in the world, because He says the love of the world. If that’s what you got, then the love of the Father is not in Him. So that’s why I believe you have to worship Him at any cost. Now look up here in verse 27. And whosoever doth not bear His cross and come after me, cannot be my decision.

cannot be my disciple. I believe more Christians are trying to find their crowns instead of their cross. Finding a cross, a burden, a mission, a direction, the doing what God wants me to do. And so we want to be, and I would write this little statement down, workers at any cost. We want to worship at any cost, but we want to be workers at any cost. I don’t care what it cost us. Being able to do a work of the ministry.

It’s one thing to say, man, I wish I could do something. Yeah, you ought to do something. Everybody ought to do something. But there’s the work of the Lord. And we ought to be about it in the work of the Lord for as much as you know, your labor is not in vain in the Lord. So you worship God at any cost. And then you work at any cost. Because it’s so easy to do everything else in the world than do something for the Lord.

And that means a sacrifice. And I relate back a lot of times whenever we were built in the ministry, even in Colorado. And here’s me and Betty. We go all day on Sunday and we go all the week long. And I was involved in, I had about 22 to 23 hours a week that I was teaching. To think about how many hours that is. How many meetings that I had every week. I went from Sunday to Sunday. I had no days off for eight years, no day off.

I was always involved in doing and going, but God gave me tremendous stamina. I don’t know why, but He did. And I didn’t have to have a lot of hours of sleep every night. If I can get four or five hours of sleep, I’m fine. I’m in good shape. But most of it, they got to have more than that, so that’s fine. But whatever you can do it, but do it. And so we would be busy to all these things.

And Betty would volunteer and she would work in the office and she would help when the bus route and she had a bus route and she brought in over a hundred on her bus route, her loan. And a lot of people talked about, you know, Greg’s chair, he came out to the ranch and came out to church, but it was my daughter, Trina, that was the bus captain that picked him up on the bus. She says, Daddy, do I get anything for that?

I say, yes. Because it’s always about, You know, the minister, but there’s people that drove us. I drove the bus for her. And she would bring in a whole bunch of people on her bus. And we started about six o’clock, or I’d say 5.36 o’clock, picking up kids for ranch on Thursday night. We wouldn’t get home until almost midnight. And then the next morning, I’m back up seven o’clock. I’m teaching the class. You didn’t have much time. You were going, going, going, going, going.

But I’m glad that I went while I was young. Because now I got to have at least 10 hours sleep a night. Well, maybe not quite that much, but it is getting more interesting. Here the old alarm goes off and on, no. But that comes with, at least you’ve earned the right to take a little snooze, a little extra 10 minutes here and there. But look what he says in verse 28. For which of you intending to build a tower set if not down first and count off the cause, you ought to underline that phrase, counting the cost.

He’s talking about being a disciples. salvation doesn’t cost you anything. Christ paid for that. But discipleship serve the Lord. But if you go in to say, I want to serve the Lord, but you’ve already put limitations that God, if this doesn’t work and that doesn’t work and if I’m not happy and this doesn’t please me, I quit. I’m going to give you a chance. You don’t give God a chance. Either you’re going to do it or you don’t do it.

You know, put strings on God and try to pull him like he’s your puppet? It’s just the other way around. And so he says, he said it’s not down for it, and counts the cause whether he has sufficient to finish it. See, it’s one thing to start something, it’s another thing to finish something. Finish what you start when it comes to the things of God. He says, a man that puts his hand to the plow should turn around and look that away.

He’s not fit for the kingdom of God. Means you can’t plow a straight furl, looking backwards. What’s going to happen? I used to watch my dad. He had a horse named Carrie. He had blinders on. My dad would get behind him and he would plow. And you’d mark a place on this where you’d go straight. With Christ and see, we’re looking all over the place. We don’t have a straight path. We waste too much of our time on side roads.

doing things that doesn’t have to be done. But look what he says here in verse 29, let’s happily after he had laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that behold it began to mock him. When I decided I was going to Florida Bible College, I had some people tell me says, Yankee, you’ll never finish, you’ll never finish. Why? Because they already knew I quit everything I started. I went in five states in a year and a half after we got married.

And if somebody said anything that this teed me off, I’d just soon hit him, and I was contentous. I was egotistical, a little smart allerkey, sarcastic, rude. Now I’m polished. But the way I was was I didn’t feel like I had to answer to anybody. It didn’t matter. And little by little it began to bother me that I was so gypsy-like. I wasn’t settled and I didn’t really have anything. And my wife and my kids, they just followed me everywhere I went.

Well, they had to. She was going to go home one time and her dad said, uh-huh, you’re going back here. He’s your husband. Boy, he gave her some good advice. I wouldn’t be able to do anything in the minute she had in the bed for that good woman I got. Now as I look back over the other day, God, you, that’s grace. I’d never deserve such a good, wonderful woman that God blessed me with. And I’ve been a lot of place, but I’ve never seen a woman like my wife.

And everybody ought to feel that way about their wife. Don’t you think? I bet even Jesse thinks his wife is number one. You’re supposed to, so where’s it supposed to be? But in verse 30, he began to build, but he couldn’t finish. You see, not completely dedicating yourself to the Lord means you’re gonna quit when things get hard, things get too tight for you. I can’t go on, I can’t handle it, I can’t take the pressure. If you and the Lord can, but without the Lord, no you can’t.

God is gonna use things in life as pressure, is to push you closer to the Lord. But if you don’t stay close to the Lord, all these pressures are gonna come between you and the Lord and push you away from the Lord. things making you stronger or cause you to be weaker, more diligent, more effective or less than what else he has here. And verse 31, 32, write this little phrase down, warriors at any cost, warriors at any cost, because you’re fighting a battle.

You’re fighting a spiritual battle. You’re to be a soldier of Jesus Christ. And he talks about enduring hardness as a good soldier. It’s like you’re in the military, you signed up, and you just report for duty. You don’t give orders, you just take them, and be found faithful to what God wants you to do, where you are. Now look what he says in verse 31. Or what king going to make war against another king said if not down first, and consulted whether he be able able with 10,000 to meet him that come up against him with 20,000.

In other words, learning how to fight your battles, learning what battle to fight. There’s a lot of causes in the world. I can get caught up in a lot of things, but I determined years ago I’m only going to fight one battle and that’s the battle for souls. And that’s why the gospel has been such a driving force in my life. And I really want to be a gospel driven man. That there’s a lot of things I could get side-tracked on, but I have no intentions of doing that.

If I was going to get side-tracked and compromised, I should have started a long time ago. I’m running out of time. Now, not the time to do it. But I want to go home in the daylight. I want to go home in the light, walking in the light, not walking in the darkness because I compromised everything that I believed and stood for for all these years. Do you believe God can watch over you and bless your life and deliver you from whatever might come down the road?

And if He lets you lose everything you’ve had in this world. So what? You can’t lose him and he’ll never lose you. So he says here in verse 33, so likewise, so likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsake if not all that he hath cannot be by a disciple. See, you’re not talking about going to heaven. We’re talking about being a disciple of Christ, learning to follow the Lord. Because you see, if you’ve got some things that you haven’t dedicated over to the Lord, those things don’t come between you and the Lord.

You got to love the Lord more than anything else in the world, more than money, more than fame, more than popularity, more than anything, more than boyfriend, girlfriend, mom, dad, anybody. When you know what God wants you to do, that’s what you do. Do it. And God will bless you for doing so. Now, as a person one time made a statement, you know, if you were ever put on trial as being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

I’m not sure. Are we really dedicated to the Lord? Do we really love him that much? We could worship him at any cost and that we could work at any cost, that we would do this warfare at any cost. I wrote a little statement down here. I wrote this down. I wrote this down because it in the book of Matthew in chapter 5 talks about we are the light of the world we’re the salt of the earth so I put down salt has effect when it worships at any cost salt has effect when it works at any cost salt has an effect when it wars at any cost but if it loses its salt now in one verse it It talks about the love in verse 25 and 26, your love.

And then he talks about the salt. Salt, if it loses, as he says here, it’s flavor that where will it shall be seasoned? What if a Christian loses his love for the Lord? Then none of this year can come into play because you won’t worship because you don’t love him. And if you don’t love them, you’re not going to pay any price. And you’re not going to war like you should. It’s not going to work the way you should.

You see, for the love to be it and have effect, this is what gives you that inner motivation to do what you do. And if you lose the love for the Lord, nothing else matters. That’s when you begin to drag in the Christian life. You lose purpose and it’s not worth it. As I look back over what was interesting yesterday, Jesse and I, we had an invitation and we could go play in the pastors, masters, and it rained us out.

But they were sitting there in the room and they was asking how many have been in the ministry for 20 years and some people raised their hand. 30 years and some raised their hand. 40 years and raised their hand. 50 years. And I was the only one with my hand up. They got me for old age because I’ve been serving the Lord full-time word for 50 years. I graduated in 1968, 50 years ago. I thought it was interesting. I got me a $50 gift card or something.

You have to draw some shop, get some golf balls, I guess. I probably need some more. It’s amazing those things don’t come back to you. They ought to have a way to get it in the wrong spot as they’ll come back. a boomerang golf ball. That’s an idea. That would be good. But I thought I am so glad that I made up my mind years ago when I was young to go to Bible school. I had no idea this last 50 years what was going to be done by the Lord through my life.

And it has been one wild ride. one wild ride. What an exciting life. Don’t be bored, serve the Lord. If you want something interesting and exciting in your life. And then one day you’ll be able to look back over your life and says, I’m so glad I gave it all that I had. I’ve done what God wanted me to do with my life. And then you don’t have to be afraid, don’t have to be ashamed because I think a lot of people are going to be ashamed before when they stand before the Lord.

But anyway, this hand represents you and me. The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us. Now he hates our sin, but he does love us. So you that are watching by internet, God loves you, but he doesn’t love your sin. But God says the wages of sin is death. So because we sinned, we got to pay for it. And that is eternal separation from God, in hell. So I don’t want to go to hell.

God doesn’t want me to go to hell, but how can I keep from going to hell? We see, to go to heaven, I got to be perfect as righteous as God, and none of us are perfect, none of us are righteous. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection. We’ve all missed the mark. The God says you cannot save yourself, so you need a Savior. This hand right here represents you and me. I mean, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him.

So Jesus Christ who had no sin did not have to die. So he took all the sins of the world, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead and said, if we would believe he did it for us, he’d put this payment to our account. And we can know that we have eternal life, know that we’re going to heaven when we die. The reason for believing this and trusting what Christ did on the cross force is so that I know I don’t have to go to hell because all my sins are paid.

And that I can be glad that I’m going to heaven because, you see, I can’t go go to hell. I have eternal life. And I’m so glad that to me, that is the good news of the gospel. No one where I’m going when I die and it’s heaven. So I know that I have eternal life. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around. If you’re here tonight or if you’re watching by internet, not going to ask you to come forward, that’d be a long trip for some of y’all.

But right where you’re sitting right there watching. If you’ll trust Christ as your Savior, God said He would save you, save you from hell, give you eternal life. And eternal life means it lasts forever. He paid for your sins means you won’t have any sins to pay for it. He already paid for them. And if you don’t have any sins to pay for it, then you don’t have to go to hell. So that’s why He says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to whosoever believe it than Him, Who’s so ever anybody believe it that he did it for him?

Will not perish means you will not go to hell. But have everlasting life, that means right now. Do you believe it right now? You get it right now and you can know right now that you’re going to heaven whenever you die. I pray that your trust crisis, your savior. For you there in the auditorium dedicate your life to the Lord. Don’t have anything you hold back from him. Don’t tell God what you will and will not do. Just Lord, whatever it is.

I love you and I want you a will for my life and I’ll do whatever it takes. Father, we thank you so much for this time together. Bless each one. We just thank you for this time together. We’re thankful that Dr. Paulson is feeling better and also for Steve Yant, been a little bit better. Not everybody’s at 100 percent well, but Father, we see some improvements in some and others are still facing possibilities, financial problems and social problems and family problems.

We commit these things to you. bless us in Christ’s name and glory. 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. book The Gospel Driven Man covers all those topics and we want all new listeners of Bible line 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, believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.