This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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. 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.

I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of James, And I, once you look in chapter one, I know most of us as parents have often told our children, now this is for your own good. Anybody here ever say that to your kids? Anybody ever have your parents say that to you? This is for your own good. Of course, at the time you didn’t see that it was for your own good. Well, I even had times when they were spanking you that this hurts me more than it hurts you.

Did they ever say that? This hurts me more than it hurts you. If my daddy let me in and more he’d kill me. So we’re going to talk today about trials or for divine training. If you understand it, it will help you to enjoy life but if you don’t get it, you’re going to have one miserable life. Now this can help you help you greatly but I want to give you a simple foundation talk first because if don’t get this right, then everything else I say, you’re not going to follow.

You won’t get it. Now, this arm right here, this is when we’re born into the world. This is our flesh birth. The flesh birth is a sinful birth because it was born because it had a sinful nature and a sinful nature is why we do sinful things. So we have a sinful birth and because of the flesh, God says, they that are the children of the flesh, these are not the children. children of God. So everyone born into the world, you’re not a child of God.

Now you’re his creation, but you’re not his child and he’s not your father to your born in his family. So God says because of sin, we have to die and pay for that, and that’s eternal separation from God and hell. So God wants us to go to heaven, but he says you have to be born again. Salvation is not reforming this guy. It’s not getting this guy better. It’s not getting this guy to stop being bad and start being good.

Salvation has nothing to do with this first birth. What God wanted to do is when you trust Christ as your Savior, He gives you a new birth. So when I trusted Christ as my Savior, He gave me a new birth. This is born of the Spirit. This one I got when I was born into the world, flesh. When I trusted Christ as my Savior, I got the second birth. This one is not this one made over. So I don’t have to try to convert this life here so I can be good enough to go to heaven.

No, God never changed this one. Never did anything with the first birth. He gave you a new birth when you trusted Christ the Savior. This new birth is born of the Spirit. This new birth has no sinful nature. Has no sinful nature? Does not sin. It cannot die. That’s why once you’re a child of God you’re his child forever. But these two natures, these two births, they have desires of the flesh, desires of God. And and they both live inside of this one body.

Now, that means that while you still have this whole sinful nature, that’s what the devil uses to get you into trouble. You see, he can’t bother this one. He’s going after this one, your old flesh birth. That’s why after you trusted Christ to save it, yeah, you could be saved. But because of the flesh that you still have, the devil can lure you, get you to go astray. But not everything can be blamed on the devil because you have a sinful nature and you’re rebious as it is.

Now whenever you die physically, this is in our physical body that’s going to be dead and buried, but to be absent from the body present with the Lord. So I have been born twice, flesh, spirit. What we’re talking about today is about the trials that God uses for divine training. In other words, we know that whenever a parent has a child, there’s certain things that you have to do for the child. And there’s certain things you have to teach the child.

You have to teach them how to talk and how to walk and then the rest of the life, shut down and shut up. But you had to teach them. They got to learn. In the Lord’s family, God has to teach them. divine instructions for us. Now he’ll tell us what to do with the word of God that we have to be, you know, we’re hungry, so we got to feed upon the word of God. And whenever there’s decisions to be made in this life that we’re in, well, this flesh always gets in the way.

So wisdom is not the accumulation of knowledge. It’s the application of knowledge to experiences. And that’s where wisdom is either revealed or doesn’t possess it at all. So look there in your notes. Number one, George Allen, who was a coach in the NFL, said to a bunch of his football players, I don’t think we were put here to enjoy life, but to be tested. And practically, this is true. That most people think I’m just here to enjoy life, but you’re gonna findFeb, you’re not gonna always enjoy life, because there’s a lot of things in life they’re not enjoyable that you’ve got to go through.

Now, if you understand, why does God allow us to stay in this world as bad as it is? And all the things that happens to us, that causes us a lot of grief. God has to have a reason. Now, God does have a reason. He got a plan and his plan will work, but he’s trying to accomplish something in your life and in my life. Look at the next statement. How do we handle the troubles of life? Now, there will be a few little reprieves here and there, but we do believe that solution to almost all of our problems is money.

If I only had enough money, I could solve all my problems. I got news for you. It will not work. Money is not the solution to everything. Or all these millionaires would be thrilled to death and happy all of us. Money is not the solution to everything. Or all these millionaires would be thrilled with that and happy all the time. You just take helli wood. Are they that happy? You take some of these guys that was really going to the top and they died of overdone drugs and so forth, all kinds of things that happens in their life and they get married five and six, seven times, you know?

That’s because they’re not doing it because they’re happy, they’re doing because they can’t make itortment. They don’t have the answers. There’s so much that’s missing in their life, and they’re not, oh, I gotta be like that. No, you don’t want to be like that. God has a system, and we want to look at that. Look at the next statement. A trial is being subjected to an affliction, and we are going to have affliction. Mainly, these are the things that happen to us outwardly.

Now, there’s a few times we can have illnesses in our bodies, and so we’re afflicted and so forth. But mainly, we kind of come because of the circumstances of life. the troubles and so forth that come to us because of people and things that happens and all of these, the spirits that you and I have to go through. And we don’t like them. And they don’t make us happy. They don’t fill us with joy, causes us a lot of grief.

And here we are, we’re losing loved ones and marriages breaking up, kids are going wild and I’ll give you. And it seemed like this is one hellish world. Well, it is. And at the same time You find in the Bible, rejoice always. And aboutLair the Lord is my strength. You say, you just don’t know how miserable I really am. And you think, well, if I could just marry this girl, it would be happy from there on out. You know, as the cowboy and cowgirl, they ride off into the sunset forevermore.

Well, that’s only in the movies. You know in reality that when you love down the road, It’s amazing how it can hate you with the same love they used to love you. And when you couldn’t live without them now, you can’t live with them. A temptation is mainly something that’s on the inside of you. It serves that desire to do something that’s wrong and there’s things in the world that lure you and tempt you to do something that’s wrong.

It’s that God does not tempt any man to sin sin. did something wrong. You see, you still have an old sinful nature within you. It desires things that are wrong. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempted he any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and entice. That means you must still have a sinful nature. You must still have those lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

You still got them. So God didn’t change this Oh, fella, He gave you a new birth with new desires. And if you’ll satisfy these desires and they become stronger than these desires, you can have victory in your Christian life. But the desires of the flesh are stronger than the desires of God. Well, then you’re going to lose and not going to be victorious in your Christian life. Oh, still saved, you go to heaven. But we’re talking about your life that you live here on planet Earth.

Look at the next statement. I want you to take your Bible and look here in the book of James and chapters. one and look in verse one. James, a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greetings. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall in the diverse temptations, knowing this that the trying of your faith work with patience, but let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upright if not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that waverth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. But in verse 7, for let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich, and that he is made low because is the flower of the grass, he shall pass away.

For the sun is no center risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the flat fashion of it perishes. So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man that endured temptation for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. It’s so easy to just read those verses and not think about what it really says.

It ends well in verse 12 and it starts good but it’s those things that are in between those verses that can give us a lot of problems. So look there in your notes. James chapter 2, the verse divers. It’s simply it’s different kinds of trials and testings. You are not going to be tested in just one area, one way you’re going to go through a multitude of testings in your life. And it’s just like I tell the college kids.

When we give you a test, if you miss that test and fill that test, you just might have to take it over again. God will let you have test in life and if you don’t learn how to pass those tests, he’s gonna have to give it to you again and again and again and again. Why? Because you didn’t learn. Some people listen and learn and some people listen, never learn. So if you’re not paying attention to what kind of a problem you’re having and really finding the solution or the wisdom that God wants you to learn from it, then you got to take it over again.

But if you can pass this test and pass this test, all of your tests on the road get harder and harder and harder. Why? Because it makes and insists that your faith grows stronger and stronger in the Lord. You don’t want to take and have less problems if you understood the value of problems. All of your problems are valuable because God uses those things. That’s why He’s going to reward you when you get to heaven because of what you did in the midst of the problem.

It would be wonderful if we could just live our life in just total peace and tranquility with nothing going wrong. Everything going right. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. All right, now what God’s going to reward you for? You’re not having battles. You can’t wear the medals unless you fight the battles and you win. God’s going to reward you at the end of life. And that’s what he says here in verse 12. Blessed are happy is the man that endures temptations. You’re going to be tempted, so just go ahead and mark it out.

You’re going to be. You have a owe-sinfo nature. It means you’re going to have desires that are contrary to the will of God. You’re not going to always want to do what God wants you to do. You don’t want to go to church. You don’t want to read the Bible. You don’t want to pray. You don’t want to witness. Oh, welcome to the club. Everybody got that. But some people are going to endure and go ahead and do what God wants them to do in spite of the I don’t want to Because there’s something that says I’ve got to it’s right and do it anyway Now look at this scripture that we have right here I put down various testings by trial or temptations are from light gray to dark black means some Some problems are easy to solve piece of cake Some of them get very difficult.

Some will really cause you to have to weep and wail and gnash your teeth, trying to figure out what to do. And some things in life are easy to deal with and there’s some things that’s going to cause you to have tears. Some things will really get you in, get you all flustered and so, and some things you can take it with the grain and salt and it doesn’t bother you. So like Rachel, dark black, I mean, it’s going to be everything in between.

But understand, God knows what every one of His children need. And that’s why this verse is very important. Look at the next verse. There have no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. In other words, most people face the same problems everybody else faces. But have you ever said, nobody knows what I’m going through if you only knew yet you have a problem nobody’s ever faced before nobody’s ever been where you have been nobody’s ever hurt like you hurt nobody’s ever been rejected by a friend like you have just everybody else on planet earth because you’re going to go through the things that are common demand we live in a common world we all have to eat oh I love that part we all have have to have clothes or we should.

But anyway, this verse, very important, but God is faithful who will not get this. I put it in bowl so you’d really get it. Get that. Who will not suffer you or permit you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. Whatever the problem, whatever the temptation may be, God says, He’s not going to allow you to be tempted above what you can take.

You say, well, is all my failures? God’s fault? No. It wasn’t God gave you a problem or temptation allowed you to have it. That was so great. Do you couldn’t handle it? No, no, no, no. You choose not to. You chose not to pass the test. You chose not to prepare yourself so that you would have the ammunition you need to deal with a particular problem. God will always make a way of escape if you want it. But a lot of times people don’t want to escape the problem.

You know the Bible says there’s pleasure in sin for what? For a season and you want it. You don’t think about all the problems are going to come because of it, but in fact it just have a little pleasure for this little moment. It’ll be all worth it all until that pleasure is gone and now you’ve got to reap the consequences and then There’s bitterness. God’s fault. God could have stopped that. There’s a lot of things God could have stopped.

He could have just took you on home after you trusted Lord. But He left you here. Look at the next statement. Notice the commands in every trial or temptation you are commanded on how to respond. But how you respond now, that is your choice. Look what it says in James chapter one and verse two. My brethren counted all joy, that’s a choice. You can choose it kind of all joy or just let it just totally break you down because you’re the melt under the weight or the load of everything that happens to you.

Or you can deal with it. God can give you the strength and the grace that you need to bear every problem you have to face. Every temptation that comes against you to lure you, you can resist. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. You don’t have a good excuse. not to be found faithful to God because God says He is faithful. And you can depend upon the Lord. It’s because you didn’t walk with God. You didn’t stay close to the Lord.

You didn’t listen to what He had to say. You didn’t heed His warning. And you can put yourself in a place where you can totally fall apart. I have problems just like you got problems. But we may handle them differently. There’s a God in heaven that’s keeping the books. And he’s going to reward you for how you did on your test. So I could agree a little bit with Georgia. Life is a life of test, one test after the other.

And he doesn’t always tell us when we’re going to have an exam or when you’re going to have a midterm. He doesn’t tell you when that, if that’s going to be a daily quiz, you just get it. And sometimes they’re without one. But if you would go ahead and take the time, when you have the time, prepare yourself for the experiences of life, And then when this problem comes up, well, this verse says this, I can handle it. That problem comes up, well, here’s the verse that I can handle at.

And you’ve got verses you can stand on because I know what God says, and there’s a reason, and I can go ahead and just trust the Lord. But it’s because you don’t believe that God can do what He says do. And so your faith is not strong in the Lord, and there’s a price to pay for that. So James chapter one and verse two, the command is counted all joy. Can you handle that part right there? I bet you’ll have a problem with that one right there.

You will not count it all joy. All your problems that you have, because there’s things that God will do because they are… Divine instructions to make you into the person that God wants you to be. You’re not in heaven yet, you’re here. But God wants you to develop Christ-like qualities in your life. And he knows what every person needs. To what degree it needs. And God will not allow you to be tempted above that, which you’re able. You fell because you chose to fall.

You can’t blame God. Look at the next statement. James chapter one and verse four looking verse four, but let patient have her perfect word. Let, that’s a permission on your part. Do let patient have her perfect word. In other words, there’s something God wants to accomplish. Let it happen. The next statement, verse five, let him ask of God. In other words, you have a problem too big. I don’t know what to do. God says ask him. Do you talk to the Lord when you have a need?

Or do you just share it with other people? Or do you talk to the Lord? Did you know if you went to the Lord on everything, the problem that you have, you spend quite a bit of time just talking to the Lord. But you don’t have to wait till you have a problem to spend precious time with the Lord. Do it in advance, study in advance. If you don’t know the Word of God, you’re gonna do the best you can and pray to the Lord, some people just doing the best they can.

But still don’t know if it’s right. And they won’t have the peace of mind. mind. They won’t have the joy of the Lord. These things are very important. But let him ask of God. So all your problems is to push you closer to the Lord. But if you don’t believe that, you’ll believe there are wedge to push between you and the Lord and push you away from the Lord. And some people become hardened. They become bitter toward God. In verse 6, look what he says, but let him ask in faith.

You ask the Lord, but ask in faith, believing that God has a way out of a particular thing or things that you’re going to have to learn because of this trial or testing that you’re going to go through. Look at the next statement in your notes there. Beside these commands, James is also telling us why we have trials and how to handle the trials. James in verse 3 means that if this trial, if if this This trial works the way the Lord intended for it to work.

Patience will be the result. Did you know that a lot of people don’t have patience? You see, based upon how these things hit you, whether you’re going to explode, or if you’re long fused, you can deal with it before you explode and come up with the answers. And you can have peace and tranquility and joy, or you just fly off the handle in total anger and being upset and mad and attacking, being vengeful. And that’s why later on in these same verses that J.

Red just a while ago, they are the wickedness and the wrath does not worth the righteousness of God. And that’s what he’s talking about there in verse 19 and 20, these verses in your scriptures. So you need to know why we have trials because God uses trials. You see, look there in verse three. Knowing this, the trying of your faith, that phrase, the trying of your faith is on trial. Your faith is on trial. Do you love the Lord?

Do you’re going to be tested to see if you really do? Do you want the will of God for your life? Well, these tests are going to reveal whether you really do or not. Can you trust Him in all errors of your life? Well, these tests is going to reveal whether you do or not. These tests are very revealing. And that’s why God allows you to be put under pressure. And if you are under pressure, you’re either going to bend or harden your neck, going to be stiff.

And God says that they’re suddenly cut off. Because you see, God can work with you as long as you’re workable and you’re pliable in the hands of the potter. And so the clay has to be sensitive to the hands of the Lord, and God will work on you. But load this way, says there in verse three, knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patient, but let patients have her perfect work that you may be perfect or complete, lacking nothing.

And if there’s anything in your life that’s lacking, that’s not Christ-like, then God wants to have a test to reveal that to you. So God uses problems so that it’ll reveal to you where you’re lacking and what you need so that you go to the Lord, you talk to the Lord and God can meet that need. It’s just like in the altitudes, God used the law to show man that he wasn’t righteous. It wasn’t to save him. It was like a mirror that he looked into.

Well, now you and I that we trust the Christ, I say the problem with life is our mirror that we look into and they can either destroy you or drive you closer to the Lord. So don’t curse the darkness, let a candle. See that God has a reason for it because God knows where you’re weak in your life and God can allow a test to reveal that to you, because you don’t have the answers. And when you don’t have the answers, then you need to go to the Lord.

So let him ask of God who give up to all men, all. It’s the same. All of us have problems. All of us have grief. All of us can have joy. And all of us can have peace. And all of us can trust the Lord in every area of our life. We can, but not everybody will. Now look down to the bottom of the page. James 4 means that if this trial works, the way the Lord intended for it to work, the net result will be your maturity.

You see, God’s got to take you from being a child to be an adult, a mature adult. The only difference between a child of God and a man of God is the word of God that lies in between. And the word of God is to be applied in your life and that’s where you gain your wisdom from. Now you can do away with all of that and just try to use your own mind. Most people think they’re smart enough, I don’t need to study them, I don’t need to I don’t need to church.

I don’t, yeah, pry, pry, pry. The middle letter of pry does I, and that’s your problem. If God says you need it, do you need it? I believe God’s word will be true. Anyway, down to the bottom of the page, trials are the teaching tools that are necessary for our training, for our development. Wisdom is not the accumulation of knowledge, but the application of biblical knowledge to our experiences. So you learn the Bible and you don’t know the Bible until you live the Bible, until you apply the Bible.

You’re going through trials and tribulations. Well, wonderful. I’m glad to hear that. You know, I have people call me up all the time and they got problems and so forth. And I said, well, what’s the problem with having a problem? If you understand the purpose of the problems, get you closer to the Lord, just go ahead and get closer to the Lord. I can’t do that for you. I can tell you this. God can use it or you can become hardened and critical and bitter and hate God.

Because if God is God and He’s sovereign, well then why did He let me go through all of this? Well don’t you understand, and you read the book of James? He said He wants to mature you. He don’t want you being a little whiny baby all your life. Grow up! Be a spiritual, mature adult in the Lord, where you know what the word of God says, and you can apply to every area of your life. Now, top of the page, never let a good trial go to waste.

I heard somebody say, never let a good crisis go to waste. I thought that’s a good statement. Never let a good trial go to waste. That means that I got a big problem. Man, I can learn a big lesson from this. But this is an opportunity for me to shine the way God wants me to, because the darker it gets, the brighter the light should shine. And don’t you want God to use you? No, you’re that little light he puts here and there, because people are living in darkness, and you’re the light that He may put so that people can see how you handle a problem, and you’re gonna look, the Lord is more real to me than the clothes I’ve got on my back.

Look at the top of the page. Problems are not to impair you, but to improve you. Problems are to help you to see where the flesh has control in your life, and you need to correct that problem. He said, be not deceived, God is not mop. Oh, what’s whoever man soeth that shall he also read? How do you mock God, mocking sin? You mock sin by thinking, I can sin and get away with it, no price to pay. Surprise, there’s a great price to pay.

You just don’t know what it costs to you yet. You haven’t yet suffered the consequences of your bad decisions, but it’s coming. 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, 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 mane. The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address, and God bless you and thank you for listening to Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us.

The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. And we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.