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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. 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 prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us at 813-884-4328, or you can donate on the homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org. 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 take your Bible and turn into the book of Luke, the book of Luke chapter 17. You know there are some people who teach that you have to persevere in the faith. You know that’s just one of the requirements after you get saved. You’ve got to persevere. You’re saved by grace and we all know that. You’re saved by grace. But if you don’t persevere, well then you weren’t saved to start with. So of course you’re going to have to persevere to prove that you really were saved.

And if you don’t, then that’s a sign you weren’t really saved. It’s just what they call backloading. Some do a front load and tell you got to do all these things to get saved. And then there’s others who teach you have to do these things to stay saved or to prove you’re saved. Both of them are no good. It still worked for salvation. And I was reading a few of the comments that people have made on some of the sermons that I’ve got on YouTube a lot Calvinism and they’ll come on there and say that Yankee Arnold, he doesn’t understand Calvinism one bit.

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about and I thought to myself, why you’re not a drunk that’s in denial. In other words, you say you believe this but then when somebody confronts you with it, well I don’t believe that. Then he said, well let them explain what you do believe and what they explain what they do believe is the same thing you just told them that they did believe. And they say, you don’t believe it. And you want to just reach out and just slap a jaws a little bit in Christian love, of course.

But here in the book of Luke, it makes a simple little statement. It says in verse 32, remember Lot’s wife, I was going to preach a sermon one time called the sin of the mayor’s wife. Wouldn’t it be a good title? in the newspaper, the sin of the mayor’s wife. And I bet there might be some people that says, I know the mayor’s wife, I’m coming out to hear that sermon. But I’m not going to do it. Well, I might do it.

I’m tempted to do it. And of course, who you think I’m talking about? Law’s wife. I was going to preach a sermon called Seven Ducks in the Water. Seven Ducks in the Water. Now, that’s a good sermon because remember when he had to go down to water seven times the one that had leprosy. He had to make seven ducks in the water. He had to dunk himself seven times. I know I did. Seven ducks in the water. Now let me see if I can get this straight now.

This is a good one. Now I’ve got to see if I can remember this just right. There’s these three people that died and they went to heaven. Anyway, were told whatever you do don’t step on the ducks. Just don’t step on the ducks. I got a hundred one word of this one. Anyway, they’ve done fine for about the first couple of years and finally one of the guys stepped on a duck. The punishment was God brought over the ugliest woman he had ever seen in his life.

I mean she liked she’d been baptized in lemon juice and you know she looked like homemade sin. And she was so ugly, she was so ugly. And it says, you’re gonna have toovery go around heaven with this woman, you know, for the next 10, 15 years. The next guy thought, well, last thing I’m gonna do is stop on a duck. So a couple more years passed by and guess what he did? Stepped on a duck. So here comes the next ugliest woman.

I mean, she was really, she was worse and the other one. And so he had to walk around heaven with that ugly woman for the rest of the lightning 10-15 years. And so this lady, she says, well the last thing I’m going to do is step on a duck. And a couple years pass and lo and behold… Here comes out the most beautiful, handsomest man she had ever seen in her life. And so the Lord told her that she was going to have to walk around with this handsome man.

And she said, okay, so they started walking off and she says, I don’t understand this. I just don’t get this. He says, I don’t either. He said, all I did was step on the dot. Anyway, that was a boa special. Ha ha ha ha. There’s a point to this, but I just don’t know what it is. Surely you can find something to put it with, so it makes sense, you know. So anyway. What’s this? Ha ha. All right, we’re moving right along.

Here in the book of Luke, chapter 17, look in verse 33. after says, remember Lot’s wife and it says, whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, because she sought to save her life, but she looked back and that was the wrong way to look and she turned to a pillar of salt. Betty will look back one time and she backed right into a telephone call. So you have to be very careful of what you’re doing now.

When he makes a statement he says, and whosoever shall lose his life, See, the next word, shall preserve it. It’s like sometimes living your life, and I know with the women sometimes, they probably think, you know, they get up some morning. And at the end of the day, you know, that was a total waste of makeup. No, there’s nothing happened, and you got all beautified for nothing. Do you always want to get beautified and look good just for yourself or because you know somebody else is gonna see you?

Now, on Saturdays, because I know that nobody’s gonna come by the church. So I don’t shave, and I look a little on the rough side. And sometimes I wear jeaned, tinny shoes, and just a shirt hanging out, because nobody’s gonna come by. You know, just as soon as I do that, there comes somebody at the door. And I think, I got, I didn’t get dressed up for no reason at all. And there was a reason. I should have cleaned up.

And sometimes I think everywhere over in Israel. And I thought, I gotta look clean shaven. Betty says, Yankee, remember your image, your image. Sometimes I wanna take my image out. And I looked over Boaz, our guide. He hadn’t shaved for three days. But I gotta clean shade. But anyway, when you’re talking about saving your life is like, can I preserve it for later? Preserve my life for later. Because we know that every day we live is a day that we don’t get back.

But it’s a day that can be profitable because it can be preserved and I get it back. So every day you serve the Lord is not a day wasted. It’s a day that’s been preserved for later. Because God’s gonna reward you later for what you did that day. So that day is kept in, it’s preserved. My mama, God bless her.

She might have sold a little booze on the side. But she also did a lot of preserving. We raised, she raised everything. She canned everything. And she had this big old pressure cooker. And it had that little whistle on it. It builds up steam inside of that thing. And they got the stuff inside of it. And they used a lot of pressure. And once in a while you’ll hear about it exploding, knowing people getting killed from it, lid blowing off, now that never happened to my mom.

But she did have a washing machine that, well it was, well it had an electric cord to it. And we didn’t live in many houses that had electricity, so it doesn’t work too good. But there’s one day she had it and had plugged in and she was washing clothes. It had that old ringer type. And so she was down there washing the clothes and getting in her hair got too close to those rollers. And next thing you know, it didn’t take that much to start rolling up her hair.

And she started screaming, well, I’m just a little kid, I’m just listening to my mama scream, I don’t know what to do. Finally my older sister, Lizzie, she went over there and she hit the top of that thing and it popped open. It stops and it’s okay. But my mama thought she was gonna lose all of her hair and they can be devastating. But you’ve got all these things that can happen to you, but to be preserved so that today is not lost, and you have something that’s going to mount to something on down the road.

So I believe that this, a little bit of what the Lord is talking about, is that I don’t have to waste this day. Not just that I spin it, but the Bible talks about you spending this day, but you’re spending time and you’re supposed to get something for it. So every day we should strive to get something for the time spent this day. So God allowed me to live today. So if I live it to fulfill the lust of the flesh, well, I don’t get anything preserved.

I don’t get rewarded for that. I haven’t secured anything. But every day that I live for the Lord, I am preserving time down the road. And one day days we’re going to be with the Lord. So I would like you just to write or underline those two words, shout, preserve it. And so there’s, like my mom said, she would preserve. Every kind of fruit there was. I mean, beans and butter, mainstream beans and even corn. I mean, you name it.

My mom was able to do it. And lo and behold, can you believe this? My wife never preserves. But my daughter does everything. My daughter, see, that girl is, she is one fantastic woman. she can cook anything. Now, some people don’t like dear meat, but if you ate her dear meat, you’d love dear meat, because she can make it taste better than steak. And I’m talking about she knows how to cook. Would you say, she can preserve it, buddy?

If she brings it down here, it’s not preserved very long. Every time I go to Georgia, she serves me some venison, and I love it. But anyway, look at another verse, looking at chapter 10 of Matthew. Matthew in chapter 10, Matthew chapter 10, he has told his disciples to go and to various cities and preach the gospel and so forth. And he had just told him right before that to, well, it says about the Lord looked upon the mountain, he was moved with compassion upon them and says, when the shepherd is, you know, smitten, then the sheep will scatter.

And he also said, pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that that he will send forth for labors into his vineyard. And that’s the one thing that we’re always striving of. Why do I want people to go to college? It’s something going to the vineyard. So then going to the harvest. You want some more people out there, winning people to Christ. And so if there’s anything that people ought to learn how to do more than anything else in the world, learn how to win a person to Christ to talk to him about the Lord.

So chapter 10 talks about this, and he warns them about not being afraid because fear is a success crusher. He keeps you from being successful. Fear can destroy you because you’re afraid to talk to somebody about the Lord. That’s the most curious thing in the world. Some people have to do anything. I’ll do anything. Just don’t let me talk to somebody about the Lord. Stop and think. You can talk about football. You don’t talk about politics. If I say, could you come up on the platform and just give me a five-minute testimony of how precious God is to you.

What? And they’re going to cardiac arrest. Now they can talk to anybody about anything else in the world but just getting in front of somebody and talking about the Lord. Oh, that’s a no-no. That brother died in that and yet this doesn’t kill you to talk about anything else but it’s amazing what it can do to you because the devil works on you on that. So here in Matthew in chapter 10. Now there’s three things that he tells him in chapter 10 about fear not fear not fear not fear not.

You know what people can say what people can do and not been afraid that you’re not worth anything. A lot of people just get to the place sometime where they just I don’t have any value. I mean I’m worthless. No you’re not worthless but it does want you to be worth something and he talks about your worthy of certain things. Look here in verse 37. In verse 37, but remember this, one of the biggest enemies you’ll have in your Christian life is don’t be those who know you the best because they see you at home.

They know what you really like. So that’s why that verse right before the end. A man’s foe shall be day of his own household. Because see if you want to serve the Lord and you’ve got people in the household that don’t, well then you’re a natural rebuke to everybody who don’t want to serve a woman. So he says here in verse there, he that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Now it means that they’re not worthy to pay the price.

In the Lord they can’t afford to pay it. Because serving the Lord we know going to heaven is gift. Serving the Lord, well that’s different. That’s going to cost you. And some people cannot pay that price. They want the victories, but they don’t want the battles. You know, they want all those medals to wear. Look at all my medals, but they don’t work. I often get a, you know, a little curious of all these people that are over North Korea.

They haven’t had a war in 70 years. And yet here’s all these generals they got. And they only got so many medals on both sides, they can hardly walk around. And I thought, well, where did they get, what battle did they fight? Well, you usually get one if you went to this country, that country, this country, that country, and you get little medals and things like that. They haven’t been out of the country. They won’t let them leave. They cut their, if they did, they won’t get them back.

But it’s amazing. Now, where did they get all these metals if they haven’t fought any battles? That’s the way a lot of Christians are. They want the metals. They want the rewards, but they don’t want to do anything to earn them because rewards are earned. And to get those, you have to be able to pay the price. It’s like, you know, there’s a portion. Well, I want that. Can you afford it? No. Then you can’t have it. And so that’s why he mentions this on here.

You’re not worthy. Means you can’t afford it. Sometimes the kids call me up at the time. Dad, you think I can have this and get this card and blah, blah, blah, I say something. You can have anything you can afford. You can have anything you can afford. And so I have never signed in a note for my kids. Now, I’m not saying you don’t have to, you can’t if you want to do whatever you want to do. You’ve got to make, you’ve got to work and get what you can afford.

because down the road, you could always count on somebody to bail you out, bail you out, and there’s not gonna be nobody to bail you out. One of these days, dad is gonna be gone, mom is gonna be gone, have fun, but learn how to work. Save a little bit, do this. So anyway, so he says down here, look at the very next word, verse 38, and he that takeeth not his cross and followeth after me, not worthy of me, in other words, you cannot afford to follow Christ.

Because you want to serve a Lord, then it requires you to discipline yourself. And some people cannot discipline themselves. Remember we always say there’s two forms of discipline. Self-discipline, impose discipline. Which do you prefer? Can you discipline yourself? Or do you have to have somebody discipline you? Always having to get on your case or wake you up and challenge you, motivate you. Or can you encourage yourself in the Lord? Or do you always have to have somebody encourage you?

Pick me up. What if he enters nobody? I haven’t had a pastor in over 50, 60 years now. Cause I’ve always been the preacher. Well, who keeps me motivated? The people. No, you gotta have some strength that you get from the Lord and keep yourself going and always motivated to keep doing what’s right. Otherwise you can wear up. This is why I think sometimes if you don’t really love the Lord, you burn out because you’re trying to do it and it’s not real.

It’s mechanical and you’re forcing yourself to do something you really don’t want to do. I got to go to church today. Well, I don’t wake up that way. Man, I’m going to church today. I can’t wait for Sunday night. Could I stay challenged up about something like that? Another people says, I hope you don’t go long. And he’s one minute over. And you’d be surprised. Everybody knows about what time I stop on Sunday morning. What time? What time do I usually stop on Sunday morning?

Five to twelve? Pretty close to it, huh? So hopefully what I get through, but you’d be surprised how many, if I was to go one minute over, head to start turning and say, that clock stopped or something? What’s wrong with it? So how long have you been here? Well, if you want a calendar or you want that one man got up and walked out of my meeting and I said, where are you going? He says, I’m going to shave.

I said, why didn’t you shave before you came? He says, I did. You know, there’s always somebody like that. You know, I got a, anyway, yeah. One time I asked this guy, I says, would you wake up at person sitting beside you? He says, you put him to sleep, you wake him up. Some people, you just can’t win. You know, I feel good today.

Well, maybe it’s because I’m still in a jet lag and I haven’t woke up yet. This is all a dream. Well, anyway, wherever we are, you’re supposed to serve the Lord and you know that. But look at the next verse, I want you to see that. In verse 39, he that findeth his wife, I mean, he that find in his life shall lose it. And that was funny, and not even in planet. And he that loses. One man says I regret that I’ve only got one wife to send to the country.

I can’t hardly see. I got tears in my eyes. He did find that his life shall lose it and he that loses his life from my state shall find it. I got 15 verses to get to and I’ve only got to the first two. You know I’ll be surprised with old Warren over here. Here we are. Now he had that sweet innocent look. Don’t you have just an innocent baby face look even though he’s 60 years old. He got that baby face look.

And everywhere we went, he was always pulled aside. I mean, he just looked guilty about something. I didn’t know. There must be something on your record that I don’t know about. Yeah, he had his Bible with him and the dog came and the dog sniffed and next thing you know, they pulled him aside because they smelled some dynamite or smoke. I mean, there was some, and believe it or not, in the book of Romans chapter 1 verse 16, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of that word is dynamite.

And that little puppy spelled that dynamite is Bible. And so he got pulled over that. And then you got pulled over for something. I don’t know what it was, but he was always waiting on him. We were waiting on, oh, dear Warren over here. But he looks so innocent. But they must have saw something that was… Anyway. have you recovered? You’re recovered. What about those girls? All she’s gonna go up to the Grace Farm. And anyway poor John, you have no idea that poor guy, he had three women that he was responsible for.

And it was automatic that these three women they saw every gift shop. Every gift shop not they, there goes John, poor John. But I think everybody had a good time and it was a great experience for everybody. And I’llLot do my best. I kept telling them I said, now you got to stay focused. You got to stay focused. I can’t stay focused this morning. I have been like a bouncing all around the wall. Somebody raised to say, you know, you got a brain the size of a BB inside of a box car.

And you know, that doesn’t make you feel too good. A brain the size of a BB in a box car. You know, that’s, that’s pretty bad. But anyway, take your Bible, turn to 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy and chapter 4, 2 Timothy, chapter 4, and start there in verse 7. 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 7. Now Paul has, you know, run his life and his course and he’s now getting ready to depart on be long before he be with the Lord in heaven.

So he says, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course and I have kept the faith. So he has preserved his life because whatever you do for the Lord, you never lose. And so that makes every day precious to you because your life is made up of time. And when you waste time, you’re wasting your life. So if you will invest it for the Lord, you’re saving your life. And that’s what the Lord’s talking about. He says, I have kept the faith henceforth, there’s laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge shall give me at that day.

Now, the little thing to remember here, the righteous judge, if you can live your life believing that God is a righteous judge and He is going to reward you for what you did for Him, you know you’re going to win. And you can live with that confidence and that gives you boldness. Look up here, this hand represents you and me. The Wall of Rep. sin we all have sin on us. God says that He loves us, He hates our sin.

And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in hell. But God loves us, He wants us to go to heaven, to go to heaven we have to be perfect and none of us are perfect. We’ve all sinned. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection, and God says you cannot earn eternal life you cannot work your way to heaven. He says there’s only one way to get to heaven. And most people have heard this, they just don’t understand it.

Jesus Christ had no sin. He was God in the flesh. He came into this world. We have any other questions And voluntarily took our sins and paid for their own cross. He came back from the dead and God says all you have to do to go to heaven. Will you believe that when Jesus died, He died for you? Paid for your sins so that you wouldn’t have to pay for them. And the only thing that makes His whole thing work is if you will believe He did it for you.

You’re saved by grace through faith. It doesn’t cost you anything. It’s free. But you have to believe He did it for you. That’s faith. Taking God at His Word. And if you’ll believe that, He will give you as a free gift everlasting life. And you get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you. And understand this. You think about the difficulties when Christ was here. And yet He finished the race that was set before Him, endured the cross.

When you partake of the bread, you realize what He was willing to go through for us and how he suffered for us and how that he bore our sins in his own body on the cross. And when he shed his blood, he gave his life. He did this and he says, I suffered for you. And here we are beneficiaries of this. And God says, now I want you to suffer for them. the message to them. And God says, I will reward you, regardless of how difficult it may be.

And you may even die for your faith because of what you’re doing for the Lord. It will be worth it all because there’s a God in heaven that keeps the books. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed, never y eye closed, and no one look around. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you right now say, I don’t understand at all, but I believe that when Christ died, I believe I believe He died for me.

And right now I will put my trust in Him. And if you’re making that decision, I’d like to pray for you. But I’m not gonna have you forward, not gonna embarrass you. But right where you’re sitting, say, preacher, I will accept Christ as my Savior right now, and I’d like for you to know it, and I’d like for you to pray for me in closing. So with His bow nice close, is there anyone at all? So if yes, pray for me, I will trust Christ right now as my Savior.

Would you just slip your hand very quickly? Yes, God bless you. Anyone else, God bless you, man. You can put it down. Anyone else. There’s no tricks to it. Just say that made sense to me, and now I wanna trust Christ right now with my only hope of going to heaven. Anyone at all. Our Father, we thank you so much for your blessings. Thank you for giving us the free gift of everlasting life. We pray, Lord, your will to be done in the lives of each person here.

And we pray, Lord, your blessing upon the individual who indicated that they would trust you as Savior doing so they become your child for all eternity. And while we ask your blessings upon each person, we want them to realize the importance that whenever the difficulties seem like it’s just too much, consider him. Consider Christ and what he was willing to go through as he suffered for us. We’re not paying for people’s sins. Christ did that. But Father help us to be willing to get that that message to them so that they can have that free gift of everlasting life.

So blessed today in Christ’s name. Men, reserve the last Saturday of the month for the Iron Sharpen’s Iron Men’s Bible Study and Breakfast at Calvary Community Church. Join us at 730 for a home cooked breakfast. Then at 8 a.m. the featured speaker of the month will present a one hour classroom style men’s Bible study in a relaxed atmosphere where questions and dialogue are welcomed. The scripture tells us that Iron Sharpens Iron, and this men’s Bible study is open to those of all levels, whether new believers or mature Christians.

The Iron Sharpens Iron men’s Bible study and breakfast. Don’t miss this muddly opportunity for fellowship and the study of God’s Word. 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.