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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

1959, there was a 17-year-old boy. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing, but he was sick and tired of people telling him what he couldn’t do. So he ran away from home and joined the Navy. Yours truly. I have a big picture in my office that’s when I got ready to leave boot camp, you know, they take a big group picture, 1959. And very few people can recognize me. They all say they all look the same to them.

But that’s okay. I had people that knew me 10 years ago and still don’t know who I am today. But we change. Things are moving on. I want to just share a few thoughts with you. Now you know when you just teach the Bible, there’s always people that don’t agree with what you say about the Bible. When it comes to politics, everybody believes the same way, not really. So there’s difference of opinion on a lot of things. But I believe if you believe right biblically, you’ll know where to stand politically.

But if you don’t get the foundation right, you’re not going to understand politics right. And you don’t know where to come down on. That’s why it’s so important for a person to know the Bible. So you know how we’re supposed to be governed. And so therefore every individual should have self-government, self-discipline, because that’s what we would want for everybody else. And so then we would give certain people the right or the power to secure the freedom, the liberties that we all can enjoy.

But it should be the same for everybody. There cannot be, not in America. There’s not to be any special rights for any special groups. There are to be no groups, no special rights. It doesn’t make any difference in what race you are, what color you are. Nothing matters. You only make laws as it applies to everybody. And it should be the same. Equal under the law. Now we have people that they want to divide and destroy our country and they’re doing a good job of it.

And I’ve told you this before a couple of weeks ago. If you’re white, please thank me, you’re white. You didn’t do it. If you’re black, be thankful you’re black. You didn’t do it. We didn’t choose. We didn’t choose what nation would be born in. We didn’t choose what family we would have. And we didn’t choose what color we would be. But under God, that doesn’t really matter. And so we’re thankful that we live in a wonderful country. God has really blessed us.

Now, yes, it is a shame for people to go to war and defend our rights to have life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and then we mess it all up. And we don’t take the time to honor God as we should. And so I wanted to go through and assure a few of these things. Now, you’re not going to agree on everything that I’m going to say, but I’m the pastor and I get to say what I want.

That’s just the way it is. And you may not believe everything that I believe, but that’s okay. A lot of people have been wrong before. So today’s church service is really the honor, all the on-forces, the living and the dead. I wanna say some things about this. Sometimes I do this only a Memorial Day, sometimes on the 4th of July. And I wanna say some things that I believe that every one of us need to remember. Now. The Bible has an awful lot to say about government.

I’ve had people tell me, say, Yank, I came to hear the Bible. I didn’t come to hear politics. Well, then just take your Bible and throw it in the trash. The Bible is all about politics. The Bible is about government. It’s about Pharaoh down in Egypt, and it’s about the Assyrians, and it’s about the Philistines and about Israel, and all these different nations all over. And you’ll find that David was a king, and Saul was a king, Herod, who was in government, and what was done to little babies when Jesus was born, and all the problems that they had from Rome, the Bibles of all about government.

The disciples had to worry about government. So these things are so important to remember. So I’m not talking about something that’s not in the Bible. You see, we’re supposed to remember we’re citizens of two countries. One, I’m a citizen of America and I’m a citizen of heaven. And I render unto Caesar what Caesar and I render unto God, what’s God? But see, we don’t have a Caesar in America. We don’t have a king. We are all kings. We’re free men.

We have elected some people to represent us in government. But we put chains upon them so that they can’t do just anything they want, though they try. But anyway, let every soul be subject under the higher powers, and the highest power of all is the Lord. So everyone is under the authority of God Almighty. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be ordained of God. So if the power or the authority is ordained of God, then the men that are in authority, it is what God says we’re supposed to obey the authority that is over us.

But those that are over us are not to make any laws of any kind that conflicts with the responsibility each one of us have because of our responsibility to God. So civil government is to be in agreement with God’s government. Whosoever, therefore it resisted the power of the authority that’s over there resisted the ordinance of God because it is the will of God that we obey and have government. That’s mentioned for the first time in the book of Genesis in chapter nine.

Who’s who are they for resistive? The power resistive is the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation or there’s judgment because God sets up governments in order to punish those that disobey and try to take away the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness from somebody else without just cause and without due process of law. And so God says, if you do right, then the government should leave you alone. But if you do wrong, then you should fear government because government is power.

Government is revenge so that you and I don’t take revenge on each other. We have somebody else who has got level heads that supposed to know the truth and therefore we surrender our judgment upon an evil deed done unto us to a hands of a jury and a judge and prosecutors and defenders. So therefore that we don’t take matters into our own hand and say or do something that we should not do. For rulers are not a terror to good work, but to evil.

We’ll then not be afraid of this power that’s over us, that has this authority. that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God, did they for good? Believe this, this is why we’re so adamant about loving our police force. Why? Because those are ministers of God. God says they’re ministers. Therefore, they should know the Lord. And it’s good that they serve the Lord because we’re asking them to do some things that would protect our rights that we have because governments are instituted among men to secure our rights.

They didn’t give us our rights, but they were to secure this right that each one of us have. And we’re supposed to respect each and every other person because they got the same right that we have. The next statement, wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake so that you know in your mind that you are at peace because you’ve done the right thing. You haven’t tried to execute judgment upon somebody. This is why it’s mentioned in the 12th chapter of the book of Romans, live peaceably with all men, if possible, and take not vengeance upon somebody.

Because you see, that’s why you turn it over to government. So government is supposed to take vengeance and not upon us as individuals. For this cause, in verse 13, verse 6, Romans, for this cause we pay taxes because you see they can’t do their job. Unless we pay them. So we’re going to surrender certain areas of our rights so they can secure the rest of them. And so we want government to do certain parts that I have as an individual.

Remember, we can’t give the government the right to do anything that we do not have as an individual. Because we can only give what we have received from God. to all their dues, tribute to whom, tribute is due custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear and honor to whom honor. And therefore I think it’s good to honor those who have honored the Lord and our country in preserving our rights that God has given to us. I don’t care if it’s not politically correct with everybody, but I do want to be biblically correct.

I want know what the book says, what my responsibilities are, and then I want the freedom so I can fulfill my God-given responsibilities. I want to be able to take care of my family and raise them right, educate them right, teach them what this book has to say. And the freedom that we can live peaceably with all men and that we can accomplish with our life that which honors the Lord. So the Bible is the rock on which this republic rest.

Because, see, we were not given a democracy. We were given a republic. And then one of the statements made by Benjamin Fring was, well, if you can keep it. Because you can only keep a republic if you as an individual can govern yourself. Because when you cannot govern yourself, you have to have other people make more laws until they absolutely take away all of your freedoms because you can’t be trusted. You won’t do right by yourself. Look what America is doing with the so-called freedom that so many people died to give to us, to secure us freedom.

So the Bible is the rock on which this Republic rest. And that’s why it took people who believed the Bible and drew from the Bible the principles to build a country that no one has ever seen upon this earth. No one’s ever had a country quite like ours. They guaranteed the freedoms like ours, but it was because we had a foundation. And so now they’re chipping away at this foundation, chipping away at this book. So that you and I after a while kids will not know the Bible, say they won’t know the freedoms that we have.

They will not know our responsibilities. And because of that, they cannot preserve what they do not know. They’re trying to rewrite history. It’s not good what I see coming down the road. Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote, except the American people themselves. And the only way they can do this is by not voting. See most people today don’t vote. And just what if all of God’s people voted, we’d have a different country. We wouldn’t have all the problems that were happened.

You say, what’s wrong with all these people having all these problems because God’s people don’t vote. If they did, they’d solve it. In one election or two elections, they can solve it, but they will not do it because well it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m only one person it doesn’t matter. Yeah, we do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate. Did everybody in America that could vote this last election did they vote? The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who didn’t vote. It wasn’t the bad people that put the bad people in. It was the good people that put them in office because they didn’t vote. Are you following me? You understand what I’m saying? You’ve heard these statements before, the preamble of the Constitution. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. And under the law we’re supposed to all be equal. And under the responsibilities of concerning God, each man is responsible to God for what he thinks, says, and he does.

And so each man gets to choose where he will spend eternity. Each man after he trusts Christ’s Savior will determine whether or not how he serves the Lord dedicates his life to the Lord. And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. But not everybody will labor, not everybody will get rewards. That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That means rights that you’re not supposed to be separated from. You can’t separate me from my rights unless I have done something to jeopardize my rights.

That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights that God gave to us, government didn’t give them. man didn’t give them, God gave them. And so people ought to fight for their responsibilities, not for their rights, their responsibilities. In other words, God made us, and he made the world and he put us in it. And he says, now this is what I want you to do. This is what I want you to believe.

This is how I want you to live. So I want freedom to do just that. And always remember, there’s some people who do not want to do what God says do, and they want to take away your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. They want to take from you that which you have, and a right to. Not everybody wants everybody to have what they work for, they want to take some of it. When it says, thou shalt not covet, well, there’s some people who do.

And there’s always somebody that’s willing to destroy your life and your country. That whenever any form, excuse me, I want to read this for that to secure these rights. Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed. We gave government its power that whenever any form of government become destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government land its foundation on such principles and recognize in its power in such form as to them, is shall seem most light to affect their safety and happiness.

We have a right to fulfill our God-given responsibility and no man has a right to take it away. They’re only here for purpose of our government to secure that right to fulfill those responsibilities that God’s given to us. The Constitution of the United States. You’ve probably have heard of that haven’t you? We’ve got people running for Congress and they’ve never heard of it before. They don’t know there is such a thing. But says this, we the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense.

Now I put this in here. The word is promote not provide provide for the common defense. That’s the major job of our government our national government to defend the borders of our country. External, internal, domestic and abroad to protect our freedom, our rights. Promote is not the same word as provide. Many people believe that the purpose of government is to provide general welfare for everybody. The reason we have some people coming to our country illegally is because they want us to provide general welfare.

That’s not the purpose of our federal government. It’s one thing when you pay into something, whether it’s in Social Security, and certain other things that you may pay, you have a right to get it out. But if you didn’t, you don’t. And not doing so, people think they become, they’re entitled. They call it entitlement. Now the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our prosperity and do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

You see that first line, we, the people, formed this government and we did not set up a king over us or a dictator over us. We are free. We have servants in federal government. Those are our servants. Those are not our bosses. They cannot make laws contrary to the Constitution that they swore to uphold. Is it possible that today we have people that will not uphold that Constitution and will try to take away our freedom, our liberty, our life?

When you understand it, it’s simple, but when you don’t, in most of this stuff that used to be taught in schools, not taught there anymore. By the way, it’s not taught in college and universities either. Our whole country’s lack of knowledge in civil government. In Article 4, section for the United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government, not a democracy, a Republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion.

Now that’s what our government is to do. do to protect every state and the executive office, that’s the president. He has an awesome responsibility. I may not agree with all the things about Donald Trump’s character and all that. He would not qualify to be a Sunday school teacher, let alone the pastor of this Church. But his governmental principles, most of them I would say are constitutional. I believe that he is doing a good job for the securing these freedoms in America.

And this is why you’ll have a lot of preachers across this country in agreement with the man is doing that which we would want somebody who is very solid on the Constitution and will defend the Constitution and believe this is what he’s doing. Now in the Bill of Rights a well-regulated militia the second Bill of Rights being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. So when we have people and the first thing they want to do is take away our guns.

That is a statement and a declaration of war against the people in this country. Because that’s the only way to secure our freedom in the state and in the federal government. and they promised that when they go to Washington, they will not infringe upon that right whatsoever. Leave it alone, keep your hands off, thou shalt not touch. Because that’s declaring war, because when they take all of your arms away, then you cannot defend your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

You have no way of securing your liberties. In every country where they’ve done so, they have turned it into a dictatorship. And if you want to be a dictator and have a communist country, surrender all of your weapons because that’s where you’re headed. There is a process in how it must be done. So when they take away your freedom to protect yourself, because our government, while you’re living even in this state, in this county. Our police force are not guaranteed to take and protect your home or your life, liberty and property.

Because if they didn’t, and something happened to you, then we ought to be able to sue them. But you can’t. Why? Because that’s not their job. They usually show up after a crime has been committed. Now, when you don’t have a way of protecting yourself, it’s kind of like this. Here’s that three wolves and a sheep and they’re discussing on what are they going to have for supper. You see anything wrong with this? Would you like to be the sheep?

We see we live in a country where God has given us the right to defend ourselves and we have states and we have governments over us a government and the thing is is whatever is not given to the federal government is retained to the states or to the people. And they have no more rights than what they were given 200 years ago. They got no more right than what they were given back then. So there’s a few other amendments that have been made in there.

And why any good, godly individual, would not want to surrender their guns. Because It is your last stronghold of defense when somebody chards a break into your home. You should, well, I just don’t believe Christians ought to do that. Well, there’s a lot of communist countries that already believe that, but America was founded up belief, you have that right to do so. Maybe some of these Christians ought to go some of these other communist countries. Nobody has to worry about defending themselves.

I think you get a problem. Sad will be the day when the American people forget tradition and their history. And no longer remember that the country they loved, the institutions they cherish, and the freedom they hope to preserve, were born from the throes of armed resistance to tyranny and nursed in the rugged arms of fearless men. When we don’t teach our kids history, they have no way of remembering where we came from. And that’s why it’s so important. We better not let them rewrite history.

Because you and I are standing today and we can go out here and have a picnic and we can travel across our country and we don’t have to worry about people taking away our rights and living. Because look at the people that make it possible. The people that have died in war. The people that are even veterans today and many of them are living but many have been maimed in some way and some have all kind of mental problems.

And they’ve suffered for the rest of their life because of going to defend them so we can have life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness so that we can enjoy our life. We can maybe have a home and buy a car and maybe invest a little bit so that one day you’ll retire. But there’s a generation coming after us, another generation. Wouldn’t it be a shame for all of these men to have died in vain? If we waste our lives, if we throw away this freedom God’s given to us, the opportunity to know God and to serve God with all our hearts, and we throw all of that away.

What did we do to their sacrifice? And to say we honor them, we dishonor them. Some people’s life only consists of what they’re chasing in this world. And they’re not talking about that generation of kids that’s coming after them. And teaching them they shall not covet. And to chase the things of this world. And most kids today, they go off to some college, university, whatever, and they learn how to make a living. But the Bible teaches you how to live.

It’s more important to get the biblical education, more important, not Bible education, than any other form of education. Because if you don’t learn this, you learn nothing. You don’t learn the Bible. You don’t know how to be a good disciple of Jesus Christ. You don’t really understand why you were created, what God wants you to do with your life. You’re not really looking down the road far enough at the consequences. life is going to end and you’re going to agree.

What then? Y’all heard of somebody else that wouldn’t stand and look at the trouble that caused. And I appreciate Donald Trump for taking a stand on this issue. And I think if they can’t stand when the national answer, then you, they ought not be honored. They should be dishonored. And why somebody would want them on their team blows my mind because if it wasn’t for those people that died, they gave them that freedom and then they won’t honor those people, it’s like slapping them in the face.

This is why we stand. Because when you see how many grave markers, and I’ve been to Ireland and just watch and just looking at all the thousands and thousands of white markers and people that died so that we could have some freedom. And think about all the people that have been heartbroken because of their husbands went to war and never came back home, or they came back home when they were wounded. Don’t miss out on all the fun. Join Pastor Jesse and Kyla Martinez on Thursday nights from 7-9 p.m.

for Tampa Youth Ranch at Calvary Community Church. Tampa Youth Ranch is a great mix of Live music games, Bible study, food and fun, where teens 13 to 18 get to know God and the Bible with their friends. Check it out online at tampayouth ranch.org and see the cool pictures from past activities and all the fun you’ve been missing. No ride, no problem. Call 813-334-4655 today for information on getting a ride to Tampa Youth Ranch. Thanks for joining us on Bible Eye.

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.