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 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 message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I want you to look there in your Bible to the book of John in chapter 15. John chapter 15. I wrote a little statement down in the office down in office just wanna go, why we despise that which is good, why we despise that which is good. But a lot of times I’ve heard people say, you know, how come a man can be like two people? You know, you’re one way this way and you’re another way. And you wonder why sometimes it seems like God uses certain people and doesn’t use other people.

And you know there’s some people, I mean, man, they got everything right. I mean, they do right. They pay all their bills, they live right, they go to church, they study the Bible, they pray, and it seems like they’re just sitting on the shelf and not used. And then there’s other ones, it seems like, man, they do everything in the book and they get to do all kinds of things. And yet they’re Christians, but they don’t always do right.

And it seems like sometimes God uses them more than they use of the others. And say, well, why? Well, I’ve kind of struggled with that for a long time myself. But I want you to notice something here in the book of John chapter 15, where it says, In verse 1, I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he takeeth away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now you’re clean through the word which I’ve spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except in the the vine. No more can ye accept ye, bide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that are bideth in me, and I in him the same bring the forth much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, his cast forth as a branch and his withered, men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what you will, and shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciple. Now in the book of Luke, talks about a little illustration where Jesus walks by and he looks upon this tree and he didn’t see any fruit so he says cut it down, cut it down. And why let it come off the ground?

And we’ll let me fertilize it and work with it some more and maybe we’ll have some fruit next year. But one thing the Lord’s look for is the fruit. Now we’re not talking about fruit to prove your saved. This is just a God wants fruit on a tree. It doesn’t mean it’s not a tree, it’s still a tree, it just doesn’t have any fruit. So can there be Christians that doesn’t have any fruit? I mean, bury another Christians. And he says, if you abide in me and the sap runs up and goes out the branches and comes out to the little limbs and they say, no, there’s a fruit.

And God wants fruit on the tree. And some people spend their whole life cultivating a beautiful shaped tree. You know, they got all the limbs in the right spot, they got all the leaves in the right spot, and but they really look pretty. But the only problem is they don’t have any fruit. They’re pretty tree, beautiful foliage, but no fruit on the tree. Now we often say that whenever, you know, the gospel is like a hand grenade, it really doesn’t matter who pulls the pen, would it?

It’s going to explode. So if you’ll give the gospel, you can still have people trust Christ as Savior. And there can be some people who are good at pulling the pen. And they just pull it everywhere. And there’s others who seem like they have trouble finding the pen. They just can’t seem to give the gospel. They’re good at everything else, but they’re just not good at that. And there’s some people that are good at pulling the pen, but they fail to work in other areas of the life.

So here you are. Is it possible that you could be faithful and go into the church, but you never read the Bible? But then you could be faithful in reading your Bible, but you never go to church. And you could spend a lot of time praying and talking to the Lord. Mm. Never read his word. And you can do all of those things and never witness. And then you can witness and never grow spiritually, mature in the Lord. Have you ever seen somebody that goes so winning?

And yet they talk to people and they trust the Lord, but their life’s a mess? You ever seen anybody like that? Of course. Wouldn’t be neat if you could put it all together. If you could be a total package. Now which one you think God wants you to be? A total package. He wants you to put it all together. Now God will use you. And he says go into all the room, preach the gospel. He didn’t think going all the way on study the Bible.

Now you do need to study the Bible to do the things that God wants you to do. And you do need to pray. And so there’s things that God yes wants us to do, but don’t forget the purpose of what God wants us to do. I was talking to an individual and they were talking about their dad. And how their dad was maybe he was a great soul winner, but you know as a father, he really wasn’t the greatest of fathers.

And he says, but when I think about it, I wasn’t the greatest of sons. He says, when I was a teenager, I was very rebellious, very rebellious. And I despised my dad because I thought my dad was just too faced, a hypocrite. Oh, he’d go to church and he prayed and read the Bible and quoted it and all that, you know, but they didn’t get to see him the way I saw him. I saw him at home. And at home, it was holy terror.

He was a murderer. He’d beat me to death. But in front of everybody else, oh, he was the most wonderful man in all of the world. but they didn’t know him like I did. And so they can be rebellious and they hate every rule and every regulation there is. And so they despise their father because they saw hypocrisy in their life. But when you are seeing someone through rebellious eyes, you won’t see the good, you’ll focus upon the bad.

And when you cause of rebellious eyes and how you see something, you’ll spot every piece of dirt, every fault. Why? That’s what you’re looking for. When you’re rebellious, you are trying to find justification for your own rebellion. So, if I can find it against authority, it makes me look better because I’m justified. I’m like this because you are like that. And so you can see things through rebellious eyes, and when you do, you despise that which they do that’s wrong.

And you focus on it, and then you despise even the good that a person does, because now you’re looking their motive isn’t really pure. Because this tells me their motive is wrong, and therefore they are hypocrite. So it doesn’t matter when you’re a teenager and you’re rebellious, you’ll find all the fault in your family and you’ll also despise sometimes even the good that they do because you know their motive isn’t right. They don’t really love the Lord because if they really love the Lord, they wouldn’t do all this other bad.

Are y’all following me? Am I making any sense? I know you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t look through rebellious eyes. Now remember this, when you are rebellious to the Lord, a Christian, you’re rebellious to the Lord. You despise a lot of the things that will happen in your life because from your perspective and rebellious eyes, you don’t love them and you’re not gonna walk with them. You’re not gonna obey them. So you have a rebellious spirit. So therefore, you despise the one who gives you the rules and regulations.

Tells you how to live. When you think that they’re not making such wise decisions themselves, you’d be surprised how people set in judgment upon God. And they judge God by the things He allows to happen in your life. Because you know God could stop that. God could have changed that, true? And so, you then don’t see any good the land of the living. And so you begin to be just a bitter critical individual, your hard, cold, bitter, and brittle.

And that’s why God sometimes has to break us. I remember after I trusted Christ as my Savior, the man who led me to Christ because he trusted the Lord so late in life. He was in his 40s I guess. But when he trusted Christ as his Savior. He shared with me things about chastening and rewards. And the reason he was so good at that is because he had lived some of that. And he was so aware of the chastening hand of God that it became a blessing to me.

You see, I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. I didn’t have to jump in that hole because somebody just got out of that and told me what it was like. So I didn’t have to go through that experience. So I thank the Lord for the people that God has brought into my life who have messed up somewhere along the line, learned valuable lessons and shared them with me. Do you believe that it’s possible that over the last 53 years I could have learned some lessons that you have not yet learned?

And I could have. I’m not saying I did. I could have messed up a couple of times. And because of that, I could have learned something that I might share with you. And because you are so wise, you will let that word of wisdom challenge and motivate you to correct whatever’s in your life lest you fall into that same pit. And you wouldn’t do that, would you? You are gonna listen, learn, you know, some people listen and learn and some people listen and never learn.

And they just go on their merry way and never learn anything. But after going to Florida Bible College, the teaching of the clarity of the gospel was to me one of the greatest assets I’ve ever had in my 53 years of knowing the Lord. I was so thankful that I learned how to present the gospel because for the last 50 years it’s been a blessing to know I can go anywhere, any place. and that if I need to give the gospel clearly and know that I know how to give it clearly and people can understand it, that has been a blessing.

Something so simple. Well, everybody knows that. They may know that they’re saved, but they may not know how to make it simple and clear. And that is very important. The second greatest thing that I have ever learned, I learned it from a man named Ray Stanford. You see Ray Stanford, he also trusted Christ later in life. He wasn’t a Christian when he was a teenager, a college age. He was old enough to go into the war. But he had trusted Christ as a savior.

And he didn’t have all of his ducks in a row. You see, you wonder why does God use some people and somebody else is not the same. But I remember that Ray Stanford was kind of different from a lot of people. He didn’t have all the beautiful foliage on the tree. Been great if he had. That beautiful foliage means all the character complete, a total picture. You see, there were some areas in his life that he didn’t have his discipline as somebody else.

But there was something else that he did do. Have you ever went into an orchard and you see beautiful trees and hardly no fruit? And then you look over there and I’ve seen this. And there’s an old scrawny tree, limbs all over the place and hardly no leaves and there’s fruit all over that tree. And so I’ve gotten some of my best fruit not from the tree that had all the character that looked good. But it had the fruit, and I could pick the fruit.

There are some Christians that are faithful and given the gospel. When Christ is looking, don’t get caught up in thinking that as long as I have good character, God’s going to use me. He wants fruit. You and I have been trusted with the gospel. And a lot of people will do the right thing. They pay their bills. They go to church. They live a good clean life. They don’t beat the cat and all these good things. But they don’t win souls.

They never give the gospel. Don’t pass out tracks. Why did God leave us here so we can live a nice, clean, wonderful life? Or was it to pull the pen? To pull the pen. And some people won’t pull the pen. And a lot of times there’s people that’s got a lot of talent, nobility, character, all that kind of stuff, but they’re not faithful. The Gospel. The Gospel is that message that we take through the world. It’s the message that we’re supposed to witness with.

That’s pulling the pen and watching it explode. Watching people trust Christ’s Savior. At least pull the pen. Trust the Gospel. But somebody’s going to say, like they trust the God. They’re ashamed of it. That thing will work. gospel is the power of God unto salvation to do everyone that will believe it. Trust it. And you’d be surprised what the reason that James keeps giving it out to the gospel is all these people coming in because it works. Don’t it, James?

It works. And we just keep pulling the pen and keep giving the gospel. When you get to heaven, it’s not going to be, well, did, how much money did you have in the bank? How many cars did you have? Or how many of this did you have? How well dressed were you? No, when you get to heaven, you see the faces of those people that trust the Christ of Savior. You see, I like that. I got a letter from a guy who says, I may not be the brightest star in this guy.

I got it this week from a guy I reached years ago, and I had been a preacher for the last probably 35, 40 years. And I thought it was just so wonderful. And he says, I’ve given the gospel thousands of times. And even in foreign countries, he says, and I am so thankful that I learned that from you. And so, yes, there’s an explosion that takes place when you trust the gospel. One thing that Ray did, he may not have had all the foliage.

And people who look at something with critical eyes, well, they will see the gaps in your life. They’re gonna pick up all the faults and the flaws. And because of that, they may reject the message that you have. So should you have a good testimony? Yeah. Because you don’t want a bad testimony to keep people from hearing the message. But don’t think just because you do this, this is automatic. Pull the pin. Pull the pin, trust it. The greatest thing that helped me was, I believe one of the greatest things that Ray Stanford ever had to experience.

You see, a lot of people think that, I’m just this, this is me. So when I get saved, I have to convert this guy. I gotta change this guy, make him into a Christian now. So, and this is all there is. I got saved. Now, because I got saved, this guy right here has to change. This change is gonna be the only proof that I got saved. So if there’s no change in my life, that means I really didn’t get saved.

I didn’t mean business. So you got to really mean business. And so this is all they have. And when they have faults and flaws in their life, and they do, and there’s always somebody on a spot them, then they call you a hypocrite. You’re not real. You’re not genuine. And therefore will deny anything that comes from your life, good or bad. And they’ll despise even the good because they know that your motive isn’t clean and pure. You don’t really mean that.

You’re not really sincere. Oh, you go to church but you’re just a hypocrite. You read your Bible but it’s just for show. You talk to people but it’s just for show. You’ve got to be nice and you put on that fake Christian smile but that’s all it is. It’s not genuine. But see, one of the greatest teachings that I have ever heard that helped me more in my Christian life than any other was the teaching that Ray Stanford taught on the two natures.

That this is when I was born into the world, but when I trusted Christ as my Savior, had nothing to do with this one, gave me a new birth. This one over here is my new birth. This is born of God. And because it’s born of God, I’m his child and he’s my father. I am in dwelt by the Holy Spirit and this one doesn’t have a sinful nature. If it doesn’t sin it, it can’t die. That’s why I’m his child forever.

This one is not this one. This one is not this one. But a man to clear this up had to pay a great price because he experienced in life the misery the failure, the hypocrisy, how he felt inside, and know that if the Bible is true, this total can’t be true. There has to be something more. And he knew that if I trust he Christ is my Savior and knew that he had, he knew he was born again. He knew he was saved.

So many people, do these things that are wrong. You no longer are saved or it’s approved and you never really saved. Therefore cast doubts and questions because I really have assurance of something. But the Bible true when he says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten whosoever beiled not, pears can’t go to hell to turn alive. Do you really have eternal life just by believing? And then you look at your life and think, based upon what everybody says, I’m posed to change.

And this change doesn’t take place. And you don’t look any different than a lost man. You don’t act any different than a lost man. Therefore you feel so guilty and you feel like I’m a hypocrite. But when you understand, when I trusted Christ, God gave me a new birth. This one is born of God, and God will never cast me out, never lose me. This new birth has eternal life. This one over here, my first birth, my old sinful body, may never change, may never change.

But this one is born of God. It can’t do anything wrong. This one can’t do anything, right? And so a man fought and struggled and sometimes lost bitter battles. But coming out of all of that chaos, he came out with the clearest teaching of any man I have ever heard on the gospel and of the two natures. So I am not looking at a person see through rebellious eyes. I see him through obedient eyes. And when I look at a man, I’ve learned things from his obedience, and I’ve learned things from his disobedience.

Can I learn from those who fail, who mess up? I am the product of someone who led me to Christ. and my spiritual growth in the Lord from people who didn’t have it all together in every area of their life. God can use you because he can’t use perfect people because why? There aren’t any. God uses sinners and some people who will be faithful to the gospel, God will still bless him, but he may have to chasten them. He’ll bless them for the good that they do and have to beat the tar out of them, for the wrong they do.

See if you’ll go ahead and serve a little bit, wouldn’t it be neat if you had a total package that you were right in your testimony and right with the anger and aid with the gospel. Now look there again in chapters 15. Now when you and I go back to the Old Testament and we read. You remember a guy by the name of Solomon? God made him something that was different from all the people of the year. What was that?

What did God give to him? Gave him wisdom. And because he had all this wisdom, he never made another wrong decision. Oh, that wasn’t true. Well, he meant wasn’t he the wisest man that ever lived? That’s what God says. Well, because of his wisdom, he wouldn’t mess up. I mean, wives did he have? 700 and 300 porcupines. Conquipines. That’s a whole heap. Now, a man cannot be in his right mind. The Bible says we only have one wife because he says no man can serve two masters.

You hand on one. But you have a man that was so blessed by God with so much wisdom and all that wisdom. Did you know he wrote the book of Proverbs which is a collection of wisdom. But when you read the book of Ecclesiastes you can see the folly of a man, how foolish a man can be in his thinking. When he thinks and looks at life as a man under the sun without the knowledge of God as though…

Hey, I am the epitome. He said, I’ve tried everything. And everything is just vanity and vexation of spirit. It leaves you empty. Nothing satisfies. He said, I’ve tried it all, done it all. Whatever experiences are out there. And God used Him for the good Proverbs, for the lessons that He learned. So he says by the end of the book, he says, studying is a weariness of the flesh. Our Bible college kids would agree with that. But he says, the whole duty of man is to serve the Lord.

The whole duty of man served the Lord because he found out that living for the world, living for himself did not satisfy him. So can we learn from the book of Ecclesiastes? Yeah. Can you learn anything from the book of Proverbs? Yeah. Well, what about a person who rebels against God? Can you learn something from that? Have you ever watched God whoop somebody? There are some of y’all that are going to pay a great price. You’re going to learn what it’s like to walk into flesh and have your heavenly Father beat the daylights out of you.

And some of y’all are going to be wise enough to say, that’s not for me and you’re going to learn from somebody else’s disobedience. God can get glory out of your life or out of your death. You can be obedient or disobedient, but God can use your obedience and your disobedience to teach you valuable things and also other people. So I believe that even though a man paid a great price, learning what God would do for rebellion. But in the midst of this turmoil, I remember one day when he told me, he said, Yankee, when I used to stand in church and I would teach on the two natures, I felt so ugly.

I felt nauseated at my stomach because I was teaching the greatest truth, but living the greatest lie. I loved the man because of what I learned. So I did not despise the good that he did, which I thank the Lord for, I don’t despise all those bad decisions in me because I’ve learned so much from him. It scared me to death It scared me to death It caused me to want to get closer to the Lord Now some people allow the heirs of somebody else to become like a wedge and pry you away from the Lord Precious of life are good if you let them push you closer to the Lord But you cannot use other people’s failures as justification for your own disobedience.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you so much. Bless each one here. Help us to be wise, to listen to them like Christ’s name. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Each Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll free, 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline 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 and just keep looking up