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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 to 1 Corinthians in chapter 16. These are a couple verses that are right here together. And I want you to know that sometimes in our Christian life it’s wonderful watching the Lord open up doors. Do we take advantage of all of the open doors? No we don’t. Well, you said, well the Apostle Paul did. No he didn’t. had some problems too. One of the things is when we get to have an, well we wish we had taken advantage of more opportunities and sometimes you have to make opportunities.

To me I often considered all the problems that you have when you kind of have a camp. You know you’re taking some of these parents a little brats and a lot of them are exactly that. undisciplined, they don’t have any respect for any authority, and you’re taking sometimes a bunch of problems with you to camp, and their parents are not there, and you’ve got to pray to the Lord that you’ll be able to survive the week. And sometimes it runs so smooth that you just can’t believe how smooth it can run.

And then sometimes it seems like nothing works and everything’s chaos. And yet you can be just as faithful one time as you are the next time. I can be just as faithful when I was in Colorado as I was in GeorgiaInitialized from down here and yet at different times things are different because well there’s there’s also opposition. So I want you to see this in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. He makes the statement here in verse 6 and it may be that I will abide.

Yea, and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey, whether so ever I go. So wherever he went, he wanted to abide with him doing the winter time and that they would send him forth. That means that they would prosper him or support him and go into other places. Paul did not know all the places in advance where he was going to go. And sometimes he went places and he didn’t do what he went there to do.

And I know that he was a man just like we are with passion just like us. He was not a superman. He was a man. He was a man that God greatly used. And sometimes we think with these people in the Bible, well they were far above what we are. No, they were just like us. They had problems. They had a lot of difficulties. They had weaknesses, and they had failures. You read the Bible and you’ll hear all these stories about these great men of God who also messed up a lot.

God doesn’t use perfect people, I wish he did, but if he did, then I wouldn’t be able to be used. He uses people over and over again, And I often wondered, Lord, you must be hard up. They go to the bottom of the barrel and get somebody like me and some of the people that I know and used them over the years. But aren’t you glad God is a God of second chance and third chance and fourth chance? Remember, when he told Jonah to go and preach and he got swallowed up by a whale, God gave him a second chance, didn’t he?

He gave him a second chance. But anyway, notice what he says here. He says in verse 7, 4, I will not see you now, by the way, but I trust to carry a while with you if the Lord permit. See, he had to take it one day at a time. You see, you can have your plans, but then God may alter some of those plans. God knows more than what we know, and sometimes we don’t always make the right decision.

Sometimes we make decisions and trust that if the Lord knows that I need to make something else, we’ll trust them to reveal it to us. we can correct that. It mentions that in the book of Philippians in chapter 3. In other words, live and walk according to the light that you have because you can’t walk according to light. You don’t have so do what you can with what you do know and then trust the Lord’s leading guide you as you go.

But he’s made a statement here, but I will tear you at Ephesus on the Pentecost for a great door and effectual is open unto me. And then that’s the end of the verse, right? No, that’s not the end of the verse. Great opportunities but also great adversaries. I was talking to somebody the other day whenever I used to drive the bus and when you first start off you’re there in Colorado and you’re gonna get on this bus and you’re gonna travel 2,150 miles.

Now we’re gonna go up here to camp. It’s not even 500 miles. Now that one was four times farther. This is maybe a little over 300 miles, something like that. And in the meantime I’d have to drive the whole way and that’s a long drive and you wonder if the bus is going to hold up because I never could afford good buses. I didn’t have the over-the-road buses. I I had a school bus that would go about 55 miles an hour.

And there was no air condition. And you ever go across Kansas? The way to go across Kansas is about 90 miles an hour at night. Well, the car ain’t going to do it. And the only air condition you got. And after three days on the road, everybody’s stinketh. You don’t stop and everybody can take baths. Everybody’s using canal number nine and lily of the alley and all that stuff, you know. And so trying to, they even have one called Stereo deodorant.

He didn’t kill the smell. You just couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Bob Daly, he was one of our race car drivers, and he had a deodorant called Pit Stop. But anyway, I’m getting ready for camp, by the way. You didn’t know what to do. But anyway, we had a great time. And I would break down all of a sudden the bus wouldn’t run. I had to put a little bit of the side and there’s 18 wheels going past us about 80 miles an hour.

And our bus was just rocking, Owen. And I remember getting out there a couple of times and I would try to clean out the gas filter and then I had to get the kids on the bus and getting them in the back of the bus and try to push the bus to try to catch it so I can get started again. And all the things that we went through was just incredible. I have broke down in every state from Colorado to Miami.

And I’ve lost breaks at times. I’ve dropped drive shaft, carrier bearings, and blown up clutches, and just a few things. And now I have a clue how I’m going to get out of this. But you have the problem. But is it worth it? Many a times I will think this is not worth it. I was, you know, the Bible talks about it in Ecclesiastes, all this vexation of spirit. and vexation of spirit. Vohad-alayhi, it’s all empty, there’s no value to it, and then you’ll have some kids dedicate the lives to the Lord and go on and serve the Lord.

And then you’ll look back years later and see, what if I hadn’t have done that though? The price you paid, that’s why the Bible talks about, you know, the skin of your teeth, scarcely saved. Because you see, when we talk about being scarce, they say, it’s like, here I am 76 years old and only one man’s ever witnessed to me. What if that man had missed me? And so I was just scarcely saying in other words, the opportunities for me to trust the Lord were slim, very slim.

And missionaries that travel and learn languages and go to the foreign fields and spend their life and get a handful of people to trust the Lord, the price they paid just to reach a few people. In other words, if they hadn’t been willing to do that, they’d have never heard the gospel. So they paid a great price. But wasn’t worth it. It’s always worth it. If you were that lost person, you wouldn’t care what anybody had to pay as long as they reached you.

True, you’d want them to reach you. And that’s the way we look at it. But it says here, and there are many adversaries. So there’s many problems along the way. Now look there in 2 Corinthians in chapter 1, 2 Corinthians in chapter 1. Now Paul is talking about here, about maybe even an opportunity that God had given to him, but he did not take total advantage of this opportunity. And I believe there’s a reason. You see, you’re physically, you’re an individual.

Paul was a man, but there’s limits of how much a man can take, and you can’t do it all. And that’s why it’s so important to have somebody to help you and to encourage you to walk with you. But he makes a statement here and he does use the word we But it says in verse 8 for we would not brethren have you ignorant of our trouble Which came to us in Asia? That we were pressed out of measure above strength in so much that we disbared even of life now, but you got to be Pretty low To get where you just despair of life itself Don’t think that you’re the only one that gets like that.

Because others get like that also. Even some of the greatest leaders, they get like that. They get down. They get discouraged. This is why it’s so encouraging when somebody encourages you. Do you know there’s been times when, since I’ve been down here, do you think there’s any time in the last eight and a half years I have been a little down in discouraged? You think that happens to me? I mean, with all that I know, there’s no way I could be possible, right?

But I’ve had people and they’ll say, kind words, no, I am so glad you’re here. Your message this morning, buddy, that that really helped me. You know, it don’t take a lot. You know the other day I sent out a newsletter on, is God confused. I sent it out to 3,000 people on my email mailing list. person sent me a thank you note, one person. And they simply says, thank you so much. That was such an encouragement to me.

I emailed them back and I said, you have no idea how your few words meant so much to me. Because they were the only ones, it was a she, she was the only one out of 3,000 emails that said I really appreciated what you said. And it was that message that he was talking about. Now, I know there’s hundreds that listen because I can tell, but there’s very few that says anything. Now, on the YouTube channel, there’s a lot of people that were writing nice things on there.

Then I get somebody who always wants to take me to task, but I just let the other people answer them. They really nail them. But we’ve had, I think, I checked it this afternoon. It was about 2350 people in the last week have watched that video. So you can always need a word of encouragement. Sometimes you know, and this is what you have to watch, husbands have to watch it. They don’t just take their wives for granted, or the other way, or take a kiss for granted.

But to let them know, you know, I love you. Thank you so much and I appreciate you. And I am so thankful, she’s not here tonight, but I’m so thankful that my wife is, she’s like a war horse. She’s been steady. She’s been steady. She’s not over, you know, or under, she’s just steady. And she’s always complimenting me. She does. She’s always bragging on me, giving me a word of encouragement. That was great, did a good job. And you’re such a wonderful husband.

And you know what that does to a person? Or if a woman said to her husband, you dog, you never do anything right. That really picks him up, wouldn’t it? But should the man do the same thing back? You know, it doesn’t cost very much just to say something nice to somebody, because everybody’s having a rough time. I was thinking about, because I went over there to the hospital and seeing Carolyn’s husband that’s in the hospital. And, but he’s going through it.

The man, he’s suffering, he’s hurting. But as I stood during I watched him, I also realized Carolyn is hurting just as much as he is. Because it takes its toll upon the person,,,,,,,, that there’s nothing they can do for the individual, and theydisabled them in the best place, they got doctors and they’re doing all they can do, and sometimes it’s almost like it’s out of your hands, you just gotta step back and let the Lord handle it, and let the Lord do whatever you want.

But you know who needs some prayer right now? I would say that her husband more, he needs prayer. And I think Carolyn probably could use a little bit because see she can get discouraged herself. It wears on you. You get tired, you get physically worn down spiritually, you can get just whipped and totally drained. One of the worst things I hate is sitting in a hospital or waiting in a waiting room. Do you realize what that’s like? If you haven’t been there, just be patient, you will be.

You’ll be in the waiting room or you’re be in the bed. But sooner or later it comes and it happens to us. And here you have Sandy here. She just had one of those things that makes you jump up. Yeah, that thing, it makes you jump up and down and run around and all that kind of stuff. That’s that pacemaker. Don’t be keep up with you. But she just had that done this week. But there’s a lot of people that’s going through know a lot of things and y’all know what Betty’s gone through but she’s now she’s in the process of healing and I think the Lord he’s been so good but you know even if when she was in the hospital it just wore me out.

I think the Lord for some of the people who gave a gift card so that I wouldn’t have to stay home and fix Betty Mills. How many of y’all believe I actually fix meals? One day I roll her all the way in there to the kitchen where the dishes were and I says honey I have no desire for you to get out of bed and wash these dishes so you can do it right there in this year bed here.

I didn’t do that. I didn’t do that. And I don’t have her washed in dishes. I just stack them up and wait until she gets well. I have to watch what I said. Some of you all believe every word that I tell you. No, you don’t believe that. I hope not. You do. Yeah, you do. But now notice what he says. We despair even of life. We had the sentence of death in ourselves. Now that we’re death, I want you to remember that because I’m gonna refer back to it in a moment.

Because in order to reach lost people, we have to die to reach the dead. Now that sounds funny, I know. We have to die to reach the dead. And also, we give our life that others may receive eternal life. Because by the given of our life and the sacrifice we may be able to get other people to trust the Lord. But Paul says here in this verse 10, who delivered us, talking about the Lord from so great a death and death deliver in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.

He also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons, things may be given by many on our behalf. In other words, a lot of people making it possible for Paul and them to do what they did. Now as they went, I want you to look there in 2 Corinthians in chapter 2. 2 Corinthians chapter 2 and look there in verse 12.

Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, now there’s a lot of people who try to make a difference and Paul’s gospel was not the same as Peter’s gospel or the same as Jesus’ gospel. But in the book of Romans, yes, it talks about my gospel. Paul is talking about my gospel, but where did he get his gospel? He got it from Jesus. It says, so in the book of Galatians in chapter 1, I received it of the Lord.

So Paul did not have a separate gospel than what Christ had. It’s all the same gospel. He just one went to the Jews, one went to the Gentiles. And so he says here, Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord. So he went to preach the gospel at Troas, and a door was opened unto me to preach this gospel, and there was this opportunity. So what happened? Verse 13, I had no rest in my spirit because I found not Titus my brother.

Now I don’t know the impact of not having somebody like Titus there, era. And you read the book of Titus, it’s a tremendous little book, not many chapters, but it’s a very important book. But Paul wanted Titus to be there and he looked for Titus. Now they didn’t have cell phones in those days. They couldn’t use the internet. But if they got separated, how in the world would you find somebody? They didn’t have them telephones at all. And they didn’t have Western Union.

I mean, they didn’t have wire service of any kind. And if you’re going to this city and he’s going to go to that city, how do you know where somebody said, if you never find, you know, you can miss somebody and never see them again for the rest of your life. But he says here in verse 13, I had no rest in my spirit because I found not Titus my brother, but taken my leave of them. I went from thence into Macedonia.

In other words, it looks like there was an open door and it looks like he did not take advantage of this open door. It looks like he left because he could not find Titus and he went to another place. Now I’m not saying that that’s the case, but it sure looks like it. We don’t always take advantage of every opportunity. And physically, if you read the first chapter, Paul dispirited even of life. Paul was having what’s he called a downtime, where it was really hard.

He was struggling, dispirited even life itself. And we think sometimes when these guys were super men walking around. they had an old flesh nature just like we do. And when you get to chapter 11 and 12 when it talks about some of the things that he went through and how he suffered and how he heard and he says in care of all the churches, he says, I don’t mean to brag, but let me just mention a few things. He said, bear with me for a moment in my folly.

Let me tell you what I’ve been going through. Let me tell you how bad it really was. Let me let you know what price I paid to reach people for the the Lord. And then you’re trying to convince, I’m not an apostle, and you’re somebody special. You read the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 4, and it’ll show you their attitude they had toward him. So then he says in verse 14, now, thanks be unto God. I love that phrase because it’s also similar to thanks being to God for his unspeakable gift.

You’ve heard that before, which always causes us to try, up in Christ. Though I may not do everything that I should, God knows that in the flesh we are limited in what we can do and how much the body can take. And sometimes we don’t take advantage of all of our opportunities, but the ones that you don’t and don’t preach the gospel, you still want to take advantage and try to win those who already know the Lord to serve the Lord.

So you’re doing it all the time. You’re thinking about it, you’re praying about it, and it’s just a constant thing in your whole life. But don’t become too critical of yourself, and don’t become too critical of others. Because when you get down physically, sometimes you can get down spiritually, and you have no idea what somebody else is going through. True? Somebody can be having a hard time, and you have no clue what’s going on in their life. cut people a little slack and let them let them alone sometimes.

Sometimes I struggle with when do I get involved in their life and when do I just stay out of their life. Some people don’t want the preacher to know everything that’s going on and sometimes people think well he doesn’t really care about me. So there’s a thin line of caring and caring too much. Notice what he says. In this verse 14, which always causes us to triumph in Christ and make us manifest known the saver of his knowledge by us in every place.

So wherever Paul went, heutherford wanted to preach the gospel. That’s what he was always about. But he didn’t take advantage of every opportunity. Sometimes there was other things that hindered him. And that’s why he makes this statement in verse 11, lest Satan should get an advantage of us. Then he talked about we were hindered, Satan hindered us. This could be one of those places where he had been hindered. And yet if he’d have had Titus there, maybe he could have done something.

It’s just like, and I showed a couple of guys this the other day. I had up there in Georgia, I had sat down and figured out a whole thing about the youth branch ministry. And I figured out how to do it for a one year certificate. And I figured out how to do the man, the message, the man’s in the method. And so I was going to have a You A three months on for teaching the ranch philosophy. One month off, three months on, one month off, three months on, one month off, and it would take the whole year.

And it would be done on a Sunday night for two hours and then Tuesday, Wednesday, so from Sunday night, four days a week, and I would teach it because I didn’t have anybody else to help. There was nobody else there that I could depend on because I had come to the church and this is what I want to get done. And I didn’t have anybody of the quality that I needed teachers. So I had a open door to do something, but I knew that this would tear me down.

I would not be able to run the pace, not at my age now. I don’t mind doing a lot, but there’sGaza a limit. And I thought if I only had a couple people, I could take advantage of this opportunity. I think it could be done. And that’s where John John and Tim King and all, they were there. And I had some people, but I’m only one person. And you think there’s an opportunity, but I I can’t take advantage of it, though I wanted to, but I have to let it go.

And then to find out, okay, 15 or so or 20 years later, I’m doing some of the same thing I want to do then. Sometimes you have to wait for the right timing of things. Some things you can’t make happen. Let me show you this in closing. This end represents you and me and all of the represents sin. of us, we’ve all sinned. None of us are good enough to go to heaven because sin keeps us out of heaven.

And no one’s perfect, no one’s righteous. The pay for sin is eternal separation from God in hell. But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven. But He says, you can’t earn eternal life. All of your good works will never pay for sin. So Jesus Christ, this hand representing Jesus Christ, he’s got into flesh. He came into the world because he loves us. He hates our sin because our sin separates us from him. He took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead and said if we would believe he did it for us, he’d put that payment to our account and we’d go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us.

That’s the best news in all the world and we need to keep letting people know that. Let’s pray, shall we? With His bow nice clothes, no one looking around. And if you’re watching by the internet, right on the screen, it says, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. You don’t have to punch it, but we’d appreciate it. Just let’s us know that somebody trusts the Lord. But if you’re here in the auditorium tonight and you’ve never trusted Christ as Savior, would you trust Him right now?

If you’ve already trusted Christ as Savior, you know you have eternal life. But remember, you always examine in yourself to see where am I, and I walk with the Lord. Am I closer than I was a year ago? Or am I drifting? Am I more dedicated now? Do I love the Lord and more? Pray for camp this week. Pray for Jesse and Peter and all those that’ll be working, those in the kitchen, the counselors, those in charge of the activity.

All of it works together. And for the safe trip of the kids going to camp. Follow me, thank you so much. You’ve been good to us. Thank you for the privilege you’ve given us to serve you. And Father, we know that times that we’re all struggling. We pray especially for Carolyn Bernstein and her husband and Ashton Blessons upon him. Going through a lot of suffering right now. And we pray that you put a hedge above them and watch over and protect them.

And bless each one for being here. Thank you for loving us in Christ and we pray, Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, The Teaching Ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach by the line and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing 813-884-4328. That’s 813-884-4328.

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’re 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 broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

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.