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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 air. 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.

Look at the next statement. While it is said today and on the line, if you will hear his voice, If you don’t listen to what God’s word has to say, you harden in yourself, you become dull of hearing, you don’t understand, you’re not sensitive, you don’t feel the way God wants you to. This same thing can happen in a marriage, it can happen between you and your kids. You can become so callous and so co-hearted, so mean and so ugly.

Listen, we don’t live here very long. But I’ve said this before, the last thing you wanna do grow up to be a mean old man or a mean old woman. Wouldn’t that be terrible? Live in 60, 70, 80 years and you’ll be coming mean and mean and mean. That when she was a little girl, somebody would comment, oh, isn’t she pretty? And she was. And her mother would always say, pretty is as pretty does. In other words, if you don’t do pretty, you ain’t pretty.

You’re not pretty because you look pretty. You look pretty when you are, Purdy, when you are doing what God says to do, when you are a blessing. Look at the last thing down here. But with many, he agreed 40 years. Was it not with them that it’s sinned? Do you think you can sin against God and be in rebellion and then ask God to bless you? He doesn’t bless disobedience. There’s people who will not believe. Look on the back page as Paul Harvey would say, page two.

And look at this scripture that we have here. What causes a heart to become hard? Well remember, there are things that you need to be aware of and how to guard yourself. Number one, closing one’s eyes and ears to God, closing your ears. I don’t want to hear it. What’s one of the ways to keep from hearing the Word of God. Don’t go to church. Don’t read the Bible. This is the word of God. And there’s one thing that we do here at Calvary as we believe the Bible and we try to teach the Bible.

That’s why in front of your peers there’s a Bible for anybody who doesn’t have one that can get one and read it. Now if you try to steal it, we’re going to shoot you. No, just joking. Have you ever said something then you wish you hadn’t said it? If I ever do I’m going to wish I hadn’t said it. But closing one’s eyes and ears to God. Look what he says in Mark chapters 8 here in Frigerna, you know, perceive you not yet, neither understand.

This is Jesus talking to him. He said, have you your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, you see not? Having ears? You don’t hear? Did you know you can come to church and sit and listen to everything. twelve about, wouldadada-dee-dee-doo-doo, do-do-do. And never hear anything. And walk out the door like you never heard a thing. I had one person tell me, He says, boy, I really enjoyed my nap here this morning. One guy got up and started walking on, and I said, where are you going?

He said, I’m going home to Shave. I said, why didn’t you shave before it? You came, he says, I did. You know, sometimes, you know, you think you’re doing a good job and everybody’s doing… If you ever noticehibit some people look at their watch in a very spiritual way. And they think the preacher can’t see. Have you ever noticed they’re trying to look around and see if there’s somebody in the church in there and they’re looking at they clock up there?

I’m gonna burn that clock. You’re not getting hard-hearted, are you? That’s why you need to be sensitive. To what God has. Look at, uh, let her be there. A refusal to listen if ye will hear his voice. Did you know this is why we try to get teenagers to go to camp? And we take away the cell phones, take away their iPad, or take away, you know, their computer. We take away the radio. Uh, I don’t think he bring TVs anymore.

But anyway, you take away all those things and try to get them under the sounds of the gospel and we keep talking about the Lord. Oh, the Lord. All the time. in the morning and night. In the morning about three hours, sports in the afternoon, the Word of God again at night, they go to bed with a devotion, they get up with a devotion and trying to get them to learn the Bible, trying to get them done. Listen, listen to what God has to say, and some people will not listen because you get kids to go to camp.

Now here’s the Word of God, they dedicate their life to the Lord. I’m gonna serve the Lord to the day. I can’t wait to get back to school and tell all my friends. Well, they get back from camp and they got two weeks before they go back and they have already done this. There’s a lot of why because they’re not keep doing what got them to think that way. That’s why we got to get them back to camp again.

We need to have camp every week. You ever seen a my mama used to hang clothes out on the line? They didn’t have dryers in her day. And so she’d have a pole and a pole and she’d put all these things on her. And by the time he got to the middle, the thing were sagging down and almost slide on the ground. So guess what she did to solve the problem? She put a pole in the middle and left it up.

Now this is Sunday and this is Sunday and in the middle of the week your life begins to drag. And so that’s why we have Wednesday night to pick you up. Because if we don’t, you’re gonna drag. I expect to see every one of you Wednesday night. And if you don’t show up, is it because you’re hard-hearted? Why is I want you to do me a favor? When your husband’s sitting there watching TV when he could be in church, very nice and very kindly, very sweetly, compassionately, you hard-hearted man.

Don’t do it. Then he’ll come and say, man, shoot me. I don’t know. Look at the next statement. outstanding, 2 Kings 17, 14, they would not hear, but hardened their necks. Like to the neck of their fathers, they did not believe in the Lord their God. They hardened their neck. You see, you do it to yourself, but understanding there’s consequences to those who harden their heart against God. You should stay sensitive. If God walked in here right now and He says, I’m going down here to V.I.

and I want you to follow me. What should you do? Get up and go to the V.I. That’s where I’m going tonight. No, no. But learn to follow the Lord. If He says I’m going to go over here, you know, there’s a 7-11 sort of hand. I’m going to 7-11 and I want you to follow me. Follow me. You just get up and follow. Whatever God wants you to do, just do it. Don’t argue and fight against God and then justify why you don’t do what you should do.

God knows the deceitfulness of sin, that sin of rebellion that’s in us, they cause you to be calloused and you don’t care anymore. Well if you don’t care, why should your wife care? And the mom and daddy don’t care, why should the kids care? Are you sensitive? Look at the next statement. A false reasoning in one’s heart, they do air in their heart. The root cause do not believe God. An evil heart of unbelief. It’s evil. It’s a sin for God’s people not to believe what their heavenly Father says.

This is why even when he comes to salvation he makes the statement in the book of 1 John in chapter 5 but when he says he that believe if not God have made him a call God a liar because he believe if not the record that God gave of his son. If Christ walked in here right now and he said, I’m gonna offer you the free gift of everlasting life. If you’ll just simply believe that my son died on that cross and paid for your sins.

And if you’ll trust him, he’ll save you and give you eternal life. And you say, I believe that. I’ve had people say, well, that’s too easy. You mean it guided you more than that? Just believe it. One time I can believe in heavy eternal life. Did you know that if If you signed your name on an insurance policy and made one payment and if you die, it’s good. Well, you don’t deserve that. It doesn’t matter, but I signed it.

They took my money. I’m good to go. Now the thing about the Lord’s eternal security and eternal life is that Jesus made the payments. You don’t have any payments to make. Wouldn’t you like to go out and get a good old state dinner after church this morning? And Rick Reber down here says, I’ll pick up the tab. And if you’ll pick up the tab, you don’t have to pay why he paid for it. Jesus paid for my sins. He paid for my sins.

That’s why I’m not going to hell. I’m going to heaven when I die. Best news I ever heard. Now get the next statement. Especially in the book of Daniel in chapter 5. You see, the number a teenager had a terrible dream. It was a nightmare. He dreamed of this great big old tree. And all the animals and everybody came and was underneath the shade of his tree, the protection of his great big old tree. He didn’t understand what it meant.

He called him one of the wise guys. Anyway, he got Daniel coming. Well, what’s going on here? So Daniel told him and says, this is you. This is your kingdom. He says, and this big, he said, but He had a dream. The tree was cut down. Nothing left but a stump. He didn’t know what it meant. So Daniel told him, says, thou art this much. He says, God has given you this. But because of your pride, you keep thinking about how great you are.

And look at this kingdom I built. And God says, I raised you up. He says, and God’s going to cut it down. He says, and then you become like an animal and you’re going to lose your mind for seven years and you’re going to live like a wild man, an animal. He says, but straighten up and fly right, have a good attitude. And it may be for the tranquility of peace that you can prolong it a little longer. A year passed by, and Nebuchadnezzar walked out there in the palace and he looked over his kingdom, he says, look at this great kingdom that I have built.

And immediately he lost his mind. He lost his mind. And he lived like an animal. And he was cut off. And after seven years, he got his mind back. And he realized God lifts up and God puts down. And he humbled himself You see, he was hard-hearted and he lost his mind as a result. He lost the kingdom, as a result. Now he realized he just needed to humble himself and serve the Lord. So it’s a great lesson in humility, of being tender-hearted toward the things of God.

Did you know that you hardened your heart and you think you’ll get away with it? Well, there’ll be problems down the road that’ll drive you nuts. And it’s going to cause you a lot of worry and a lot of fear. That doesn’t have to be there, but you did it to yourself. And God is not fooled. And doesn’t matter if you come to church and you put on that fake Christian smile, how are you doing? Fine. And God says you have an evil heart.

And I’m not taking cut down. You can’t play games with God, and God can let you live and be miserable, and God can just take you on home. He can put you on a shelf and never use you. And you’re just wasting your life away. Hard hearts. Look down at the next statement. Number two, how does God feel about a hardened heart? In anger and it grieves him. And when he had looked around about on them with anger being You want God to bless your life and you want to be happy.

Don’t have a hard heart. It won’t happen. And you’re going to be a miserable individual. So if you go through life and you’re just totally miserable. Good. You expect the preacher to have a little compassion, wouldn’t you? Why? If you’re grieving God and harden your heart to the Lord and you won’t believe him and you have air in your heart. heart to the Lord and you won’t believe Him and you have air in your heart and you won’t trust the Lord.

What do you expect? God warns us in His Word. How do you feel when you are rebuked of the Lord? So He says in chapter 12 of the book of Hebrews, faint not when thou art rebuked of Him, when God has to rebuke you because of a hard heart. How do you feel at that moment. You see, you may take your vengeance out on the preacher, out on the church. Well, I’ll never go back to that place again. I came this morning.

I wanted to be fed. You’re being fed. This is meat to eat that maybe you know not of. If you want some little pabble them, a little more milk, yeah, you can go down the road. But I’ll try to teach what I believe the word of God says. And if you wantirtual meet with the preacher and said it was straight, that’s fine. My officer is a second door down here on the right. And nobody has ever died yet. Well, you just can’t talk to him.

I’ve had people. You can get it. No, no, you’re hard-hearted. Not the preacher. I’ll talk with anybody. But I want to be honest with you and I want to be fair with you. And I want to tell you what I believe what God’s word says. And I don’t play games and I don’t try to come around the back door. I tell you straight up, straightforward. Yes or no. Right around the back door. wrong. Now if you can’t handle that, you can’t handle it either.

I don’t know no other way of doing it. I am what I am. I’m the way that I am. And I believe God has blessed me so far with the way that I am. And if I became a little milk toast kind of a preacher and wearing lace on my underwear, yeah, I can see that. But I don’t. What did I say? Number three, we’re moving around alone. Will the results of a hardened heart get this. Now this is important for you to know, because there’s consequences, loss of peace and constant guilt.

They shall not enter into my rest. Now he was talking about getting into the Promised Land. There’s another rest talking about the thousand year reign upon the earth, which is a type of rest. But there’s also rest for the child of God when you learn how to trust the Lord. When you grow in maturity, when you can just, Lord, I’ll just trust you for that. And I know the Lord will walk me through it. And I know that he’ll never cast him out and never lose me.

And I know that as I child of God, and if I love the Lord, I know God’s gonna bless my life. And I don’t know how he’s gonna do whatever he wants to do, but it doesn’t matter. I want God’s will for me. And you can learn how to rest in the Lord. It’s rest for your soul. Remember Jesus says, coming to me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take upon you and learn of me, For I am meek and lowly, you shall find rest for your soul.”

Now get this. Let her be, shall fall into calamity or misery. Proverbs 28, 14, happy is the man that fearth always. We read that verse just a while ago. Lose the ability to understand scripture. Of whom we have many things to say and hard to be utter or explain, seeing you are dull of hearing. In the words, when you don’t wanna really know the truth, Does God know you when you really don’t want to know? Have you ever rebuked the child?

And you know he’s not paying attention. And you can write to him, did you hear me? Did you hear me? Because if he heard you, he would think, well, he’s going to obey. And they don’t always obey. And they defy you. And you can even paddle them sometime. And they can be just defiant. Don’t you like it when you just look at him and they get a tear in their eye because they’re sensitive and they don’t want to hurt your feelings?

They want to honor mama. They don’t do that to dad. just do it to mamas. Number four, area in life where people harden their hearts. There’s areas. These three main areas are revealed, the hardened heart, toward poor people. If there be among you a poor man, thou shall not harden thy heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother. When I left for the Bible college, first thing we did is we went to see all the people, most people would never want to go.

It wasn’t the highfalutin people, it was we went to see the Indians in Oklahoma on the Roman those state part in 1968. Then we went to the Chantau Arizona, which is to the east of Flagstaff, Arizona, and we worked with the Navajo Indians and there’s also Hopis. And then later on we went down into the Grand Canyon to have a supine Indian tribe and minister to them. And then And then we went all the way up into Ames, Iowa and then up in the Black Duck, Minnesota.

And then we went into the Pine Ridge, South Dakota with the Sioux Indians. We went to all these Indian places because we didn’t care if they were Indian. And then we started to bust ministry. We went to see, try to get as many blacks as we possibly could to trust Christ as Savior. And then I’ve gone to a lot of other places where I didn’t care if they were brown or black or green or red or chartreuse or purple stripes.

I don’t care. A soul is a soul and God loves them all. But when they came to ask Christ, are you heed the Messiah or do we look for another? And he says, understand this, the poor had the gospel preached to them. Reaching the poor, why? Because they can’t give you anything. There’s nothing you can get back from. Sometimes we wanna influence people that can, you know, give me a little back. No, just reach people and trust the Lord for how God blesses.

I don’t care whether you have. A million dollars and you don’t have anything. You’re just as welcome in this church. And I don’t get high address. I just don’t like to see too much of you. But there’s people who have hard hearts and understand the reach people that we need to reach. When it comes to ranch, we’re not just out for the rich kids because their parents got money. We just want to reach anybody we possibly can. But there are people who don’t have much.

And we try to do everything we can for them. Let her be there in time of sorrow. That song that Bob Brooks just sung just a minute ago, it is well with my soul, wrote a beautiful song because of the sorrow. Now sorrow can make your heart tender. And sorrow that you go through, the loss of a loved one, or maybe you got cancer and you can see devastating things coming down the road and you have no guarantee of what’s going to be the outcome.

And there’s a fear there, the fear of the unknown. And then with some people it can make you hardened against God. Why? Why? Why? And question everything because you don’t have the answers. I guess God doesn’t love me. And you can turn bitterness. And the Bible talks about the root of bitterness bringing it up and thereby by many becoming defiled. Be tenderhearted. Even in the time of sorrow. When you can’t put your finger on why is this happening to me.

Always remember God loves you and He is your heavenly Father. And this is not forever. You can endure anything for a short period of time. I don’t care how bad you can do anything for a short period of time. And this life is a short period of time. Just go through it, but you’re not going through anything. In any sorrow alone, there’s things going to happen in your life and you can’t change them. And time does do a lot of healing.

So regardless of what you’ve gone through, God is a good God. And it ain’t over yet. And God sees everything and God’s gonna reward you again. Don’t harden your heart against the Lord. Don’t turn against God. Don’t become bitter toward God. God doesn’t do wrong. God can’t sin. You just don’t understand, but don’t become hardened. The next thing here I got is in a bad marriage. He said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart. Because he says, Jesus says, in the beginning it was not so because everybody wanted to know how can you get divorced for anything.

Well, you can today. Couldn’t in Jesus’ day, I divorced the, I divorced the, I’m divorced. And they go get another one. I divorced, I didn’t give me another one. It used to be when God, his original plan, his ideal, man and woman get married for how long? For life. Till one of them dies and then you can get another one. But you’re not supposed to have two or three of them floating around out there someplace. You can do it, but it’s the hardness of your heart.

It’s sin. It’s deceitful. And so there’s a lot of things I could say about that, but I’ll save that for Mother’s Day. No, I won’t either. Number five, number five, how can I keep my heart soft toward God? Always saying yes to God. Don’t let there be a time when you say no to Him. Just keep saying yes, because when you say no, it’s easier to say no the next time and know the next time. Always say yes to the Lord.

But exhorted one another daily while it’s called it a lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is deceitful. And so instead of admitting that you were wrong, it’s easier to just harden yourself and justify it and you keep on going and the next sin is easier to justify and the next one until you’re so hard-hearted You’re no longer sensitive and the Holy Spirit that lives within you who is supposed to be the great comforter will become the great discomforter.

It’s your choice. But look up here. This end represents you and me. The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us. Now he hates our sin, but he loves us. So everybody sins, but God loves everybody. But the wages of sin is death and so since we have all sinned, we’re all condemned to a literal fire burning hell and we need to be saved from hell. If there’s no hell, you don’t need to be saved from it.

But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven. To go to heaven you have to be perfect as righteous as God and none of us are perfect. We’ve all sinned and come short of God’s perfection. So you can’t save yourself. All religions are trying to get a man good enough to go to heaven and it won’t work. God said, it’s not by your works. This then represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh came into the world because he loves us.

He hates our sin because it separates us from him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So he took all the sin of all the world, paid for the cross, came back from the dead, said that if we would believe he did it for us, he would put this payment to our account and we’d get to go to heaven on what he did for us. He says the gift is totally free. See when I understand that my going to heaven is based upon what Christ did for me, understanding my foundation, for my belief.

What am I believing? What am I trusting? When I believe that, He paid for all of my sins. If I can remember this, I never have to doubt my salvation. Because I know why I believe. I know why I believe I’m going to heaven. Because Christ died for my sins. Did He pay for yours? And He came back from the dead and the only thing He wanted you to do is believe He did that for you. So when you believe He did it for you, He paid for your sins, then the reason I’m not going to hell cause He paid for my sins?

That was the best news I ever heard. I ever understood. And if you’re here this morning and you’re not positive going to heaven, don’t harden your heart. Don’t rebel against it because it’s a free gift. It doesn’t say you’ve got to do something or stop anything. It’s just you’re a sinner. Admit it. I’m a sinner. Say it in your mind, I am a sinner. Look, I am a sinner. You are. Everybody else knows it. You ought to know it.

And to pay for that, you’re going to die one day. You’re going to be separated from God in a literal fire burning hell. Believe that. That’s the truth. Christ paid for your sins. Came back from the dead. Believe it. And He said He’ll give you as a pre-gift eternal life. If you’ll believe it right now, He’ll give it to you right now. Before you get up to leave, you can say, I know I’m going to have Him. I said, day I trusted Christ as my Savior.

Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around. Would you write down the quietness of this moment just between you and the Lord? Because only the Lord knows your thoughts. You can’t make a mistake this way because nobody else can hear you. And if the true and living God, he knows. So would you believe it? Would you say, Lord, I know I’m a sinner. I believe Christ died, paid for my sins. And I’m gonna trust him right now as my Savior and preach our light for you to pray for me.

Would you just slip your hand out very quickly and put it right back down? not going to embarrass you, not going to have you forward. Right where you are, we’ll hear it by nice clothes. Would you say, yes, I will trust Christ right now as my Savior. I want to know that I’m going to heaven. Would you just let me know by an uplifted hand very quickly? Just slip it up, rub it down in with all. If you’re watching by internet, right on the screen says, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior.

If what I’ve said made sense to you, would you trust Him? Since you have already heard and understood, You know you have eternal life. Don’t harden your heart. If you know that you have hardened yourself against the Lord, be tenderhearted. Just confess that to the Lord. Lord, I have hardened myself to your will. Lord, I want a tender heart because I want to be submissive. I want to do what you want me to do. God will bless you, friend.

Father, we thank you again for your blessing. Thank you for all you’ve done for us. Thank you for this time together. And I pray you will to be done in the hearts each person here, Christ and every day. 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.

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 Man. A 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. Hot up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep in looking up.