This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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. You’re prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue to be 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 to talk to you a little bit about something that I believe that every one of us should be sold on. It would be a shame for the people of the Calvary Community Church not to believe the message that we’re going to talk about this morning. This is the heart of this church. This is what it’s all about. And so I want to start by these words. Is the missionary necessary? Now if he’s not, we don’t need to support him and we don’t need to do what we’re doing if it’s not necessary.

And so I want to give you some scriptures that I think will help us. There will be some verses that I will change around a little bit, but I wanted you to know what I’m not changing the word of God. I’m only trying to take certain verses and apply them to our purpose because each one of these verses will tell us something to do. But we need to know what is that that we’re supposed to do. You see in James chapter 1 it says, be not just here’s only but doers of the work.

Now this man shall be blessed or happy in his deeds. So there’s scriptures that I put in a little of a meaning which I believe explains what the scriptures are saying. So you understand that. One of the things that we need to find out is what on earth is God doing? Why are we here? When we trusted Christ as our Savior, God gave us a new birth. And the Bible says you are born from above. Means our citizenship is really in heaven.

So we were born of God. And as Jesus says, as the Father has sent me into the world, even so send I you. So why are we sent to do what? When He says you’re strangers and pilgrims. We are away from home, but we’re going home, but we’re not there yet. Why did God leave us here after we trusted Christ as our Savior? Missionaries are necessary. And the reason the Bible talks about Jesus Christ came into the world to be the Redeemer means to pay for the sins of the world.

Because without a payment for our sins, every person will spend an eternity separated from God in a literal fire burning hell. The people need a Savior. It’s not that they need a closer walk with God, though that’s important, but you can’t get that until he becomes your Savior. You can have fellowship with the Lord, which is good, but you can’t have that until you trust Christ as your Savior. He has to save you from hell first before I can become his child.

He has to save me. So I need to be saved from something. So if you’re saved from something, you’re saved to something, to an inheritance that’s incorruptible and undefiled that faith if not away reserved in heaven for you. So I’ve got me in your reservation. It’s already been paid for and it’s I’m good to go. So the light was to shine into all the world. When Christ was here, He commanded His disciples, go ye into all the world. And then he says, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, He shall be witnesses.

You shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. So that is a mission. And we know what He wants us to do. Going all the world on this mission. To tell the gospel. Now that’s so easy to say, but if you really believe it, it can change your life. These verses that says like in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6, it’s impossible to please God except by faith. So he says, without faith it’s impossible to please God.

But faith to do what? What’s the mission? It’s so many. But without missions, it is impossible. to please them. Now here we are. Do we want to please the Lord? Well then we need to know what was the mission. It’s just like I told my daughter, she comes at daddy, what is your will for me? I wash the dishes. Well praise your holy name. I love your Father and I want to do all things to please my Father. What is your will for me?

Wash the dishes. Anything else? Now just wash the dishes. I don’t want to wash the dishes. I’ll tell you what, I’ll shine your shoes. I’ll bring you the newspaper. Now, that’s good, that’s good, that’s good. But I told you what I want you to go wash the dishes. You see, that hasn’t changed. Some people are willing to do for the Lord anything, except what He said to do. But they want to be happy and peaceful and joyful and have all the wonderful things of life.

So we’re so diligently seek to please the Lord. Now this is why it’s so good when you have people in the church as a body of believers and you all believe the same thing. I saw a little cartoon one time as these three or four, five little bitty kittens was going into this year room and it had on their prayer room. Little kids going into a prayer room. And the next scene was these lions coming out because prayer is preparation for battle.

When you don’t pray, you’re not preparing for battle because it’s a spiritual war and you’re always battling with the mind. These are on the same mission as we are. This is what makes it so wonderful to have the missionaries come. I want them to know we stand with them and as much as possible we got your back. We’re gonna help you. We’re gonna help support you. And we want to stay with you year after year. As much as we possibly can do it, I believe that is the will of God.

It’s just not well that’s a good thing we ought to do. Well if the preacher says do it, no no no. That’s the will of God. That’s what the Word of God says. So we need them and they need us. You see this church we need missionaries. We need to see them as somebody who is doing what we’re supposed to do. So if we can’t go ourselves, then we’re supposed to send them one or the other. And if you’re not a missionary, you’re a mess.

But everybody’s a missionary, but not everybody is one that’s going to be going to the foreign fields or doing it full-time. When Christ says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men, right? Isn’t that the way it says? In the book of Matthew in verse 19, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men. But when it says fishers of men, what does that mean? It means be a missionary. What is a missionary? A fisher of men.

They go on fishing. They go to this country, that country, that country, and we’re helping people to go fishing. And God says, follow me and I’ll make you a fisher of men. So if you’re not a fisher of men, maybe you’re not following. So if you’re following, you want to reach souls. And so we do it a lot of different ways. But whatever your way is, it should be a way that people come to know the Lord. So either we buy helping, it’s just like this.

We had missionaries come. There were some people in the kitchen working hard, peeling potatoes, cutting up stuff. Well, why were they doing that? So that we could work together. But is that important? We had deacons working. We had people in the booth up there sound people, people that do all the work around here. Everybody doing what they can and I was actually amazed myself because often I’ll have people say we could build a work like that to it if we had your workers.

I says where do you think we got them from? We didn’t bring them in from the outside it’s because they’ve got a vision on the inside. The while they were here they saw you know I can do that Otherwise, the preacher can’t do everything. Jesse can’t do everything. He just about had to do everything. But I mean, it’s a lot of things that everybody pitches in that can do. So he says that we should not be ashamed of the gospel.

I don’t wanna be ashamed of the gospel or ashamed of his testimony. So the shame of all shame is to not go or support missionaries. Wouldn’t it be a shame for us to get to heaven and God says, now give a count of yourself, you knew what the mission was. What did you help to do concerning that mission? Of getting the gospel to people. What did you do? Well, Lord, I didn’t go because you didn’t give me any talent and abilities.

And you didn’t give me any money. So I just didn’t do anything. Well, there’s stories in the Bible about a servant who doesn’t do what God wants him to do. But every person has to settle this in their own mind. How much do you want to do? What kind of an involvement will you have? Trust in the Lord. I love this verse from the book of Psalms. Psalm 37. And he says, trust in the Lord and do good. What would be something that would be doing good?

Is supporting missions a good thing or a bad thing? It’s a good thing. So don’t you wanna do that which is good? And God says, and we just read that verse this morning from the book of Hebrews in chapter 13 about doing good. This is good. So we should do that which God wants us to do. You’d be surprised what a blessing it is to yourself. how that you feel so much better when you’re doing that and walking in obedience to the Lord.

And it just relieves a burden off of your shoulder because I’m doing what God wants me to do with my life. Now, I am not God and I’m not the judge. I’m not gonna sit in judgment on anybody’s life and you’re not gonna sit on mine. God is though. And so we gotta learn to please the Lord. And so, delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart, delight thyself in the Lord.

what would be delighting God to support missions, either be a missionary or support missions. You know, years ago when I was at Florida Bible College, Hank Linson went to Florida Bible College. And so there’s a whole bunch of us who went to Florida Bible College, but when we went to Florida Bible College, the college is only two years old. There wasn’t a lot of students there. And it wasn’t long before people began to catch evasion. And lo and behold, there was over 14, 1500 students at Florida Bible College.

fastest growing Bible college in the world. Today you can’t hardly find enough people to go to college because see there’s no vision for doing something or being a missionary or pastor or a preacher or whatever because see if nobody goes to Baba Khan, most of them will never find up serving the Lord full time. They won’t be the missionaries because see it closes the doors. The colleges will close their doors and the church will dry up because there’s no purpose there.

There’s no reason why we do what we do. Next thing you know, everybody goes to sleep, church dies, and then where is the church? Where is this body of believers that God put here to do the job? And we’ve lost our vision, we’ve lost our mission. Because this life is so, well, it’s so important. We gotta do everything else, but that. We don’t have time. Yeah, I know. I know a little bit about that. Commit thy way unto the Lord.

Support missions. That’s why I wanted people to learn less support missions more than anything else his church does. Do you know in reality, ranch is a mission. We call it a ministry of the church. The radio is a ministry. The internet, it’s a ministry. But we’re talking about supporting full-time outside of our ministry and those are our missionaries. Trust also in Him. Learn to trust the Lord and do right. Give what you should give. Talk to the Lord about things.

But see how can God use you where you are to do what you can. You don’t have to maybe totally revolutionize your life. You see, it’s just little small changes in your life. Little areas that you correct and actually know you’re you’re gonna write road. You see, it’s kind of like this, if this is the right road, and you start going off just a little bit. Well, right here, see, it’s not that big of a difference. But on down the road, see, when you keep going the wrong direction, it gets to be a lot of difference.

And you’re like totally be changed. But if you make little adjustments to go back to the Lord, you’d be surprised how you get closer and closer and closer to the Lord. It’ll work. And you’ll be surprised one of these days when you stand before the Lord, God’s gonna reward you for what you did. God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. It would be so good if we could just pull back the curtain from all the wisdom of this world.

You know, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life and look beyond the curtains of heaven. As the Bible says, God has rolled them back and we can see into eternity and see that there’s another world out there because we get trapped into this one. This is all we see. We can’t see God. We can’t see the new heavens and new earth. So we get, this is all there is. So it’s just do whatever we want while we’re here.

It won’t matter. Nothing matters. And yet if that new world is true, everything matters. Everything you say and do matters. All the time where you waste matters. The time you invested for the Lord matters. Because see, when you get to heaven, God’s going to reward you for what you did. You say, how do I know those other things are out there? Because God said so. If he says so, it must be worth it. You see, we don’t work to get to heaven.

We’re going to heaven because Christ came into the world and he did the work. He lived that perfect life I could not live. He was a righteous individual, I’m not. But because he lived a perfect life, he put his righteousness, his perfection to my account as though I did it. It’s just like I was born in this world and I lived that perfect life just like Jesus did. But I was everything, but he put it to my account as though I did when I believed he did that for me.

He died on the cross, he paid for my sins. It’s just like I paid for my sins. Christ did it for me once and for all. So that day will come and he promises. Psalm 37 verse five, he promises it and he shall bring it to pass. You see, this life and what you do for the Lord and you dedicate to the Lord, the day will come when you’ll be so glad you went ahead and put God first. In other words, living by faith is learning how to walk on water.

You step out by faith trusting God, and you don’t know how he’s going to do something, how he’s gonna meet your needs, whatever, but I want God to do more than anything that’s my life. And you in your mind, you just go ahead, whatever you wanna bring into my life, go at it. Do anything that you wanna do. It doesn’t matter what people say, what people do. It doesn’t matter all my hurt, my pain, whatever I go through, all my grief, whatever, if that pleases you, I’m satisfied.

And you go ahead and you just trust the Lord and the Lord. And you’ll win in the long run. But you try to save your life from all of those things that happen to you, you’re gonna lose. And God teaches that. I beseech you, this is two of the verses that I really love concerning service that’s in the Bible, Romans chapter 12 verse one and two. You’ll hear me talk about them all the time. I beseech you, therefore, brother, by the mercies of God that you present your body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable on the God which is a reasonable service.

Then in verse two, and be not conformed to this world, but be it transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. If you check it, you’ll find out it’s pretty close. But what does it say? How’s it pose effect to me? How do I apply that? Well, when it says I beseech you, therefore, brother, that you support missions. You see, it all goes back to what was the purpose?

What on earth is God doing? What did he wanna do? What was his purpose? What was his goal? That has not changed. It might have been 2000 years since then, but it hasn’t changed. When he says that you present your body as a living sacrifice. Do you know most Christians have never sacrificed for the Lord anything? They don’t wanna do anything, it costs them. their time, their talent or their money. They can give their time, talent, money to anything else in the world, but not God.

I know a lot of Christians and that’s not a lie. I know a lot of Christians never give a dime to the Lord’s work. They’ll do everything else they want. They got money for everything else they want, but they can’t support God’s work. People that never give to the internet, they’ll never support the radio ministry. They’ll never give to ranch. They won’t help college kids to camp. They don’t support the church regularly. You say, you picking on us, not unless you’re guilty, but if you’re not guilty, you don’t have to worry about a thing I’m saying, do you?

Because you know the truth. You know how you’re doing between you and the Lord. But so does God. It is my job. Remember that verse who was just read this morning? I don’t know how come Jay always wanted to read in the scriptures that I like to preach on sometimes. He said, obey them to have the rule over you, that they may do it with what? Joy and not with grief, because this would be unprofitable for you. In other words, don’t cause the preacher grief.

You say that’s what it says, that’s what it says, I’m just translating it for you. Oh, there are a lot of people who cause a lot of grief. I’m gonna write a book one day, All My Grief. This is All My Grief. Wouldn’t you like to just read a book on just grief? It’s probably your best salary. This was written years and years ago, But it was a missionary named Jim Elliot, to the Alaca Indians on an Ecuador. You And I remember reading about that and hearing all about that.

But it says, a man is no fool. Think of how many people have used that quote. A man is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Isn’t that an awesome state? That was found in the flyleaf of his Bible. And him and some of the missionaries were killed. And later on the wives of those dead missionaries went in and reached the tribe. And even one of the daughters went to Florida Bible College.

And she wrote Elizabeth Ellis, there’s always enough time to do the will of God. He said, well, I just don’t have time to do the will of God. I don’t have time to read the Bible. I don’t have time to pray. I don’t have time to give. I don’t have time to, I don’t have time. Do you realize time is in God’s hands? And He loaned it to you temporarily. And little by little you’re running out of time. Why do you think the Bible says in the book of Ephesians chapter 5?

Redeeming the time. Why? Because the days are evil. The days are evil and they’ll eat up your time. They’ll eat up your life and leave you with nothing. Supporting missions. He says it’s your reasonable service. It’s only reasonable. If God can save me and give me eternal life, call me His child and give me that promise that I’m gonna be with Him for all eternity. And then he asked me, he said, I’m going to leave it down here so you can just tell somebody else that’s good news.

All he wants me to do is go through life telling good news of what he did for them, how they can have eternal life. Be not conformed to this world. Whatever it is, that’s the will of God for you. I can tell you this. It is the will of God that you not be conformed to this world. You are not to be like the world. Now just ask yourself this question, are you? Are you conformed to this world? Are you just like the world?

Is there any difference in what they live for and what you live for? What’s the purpose of their life, the lost man’s life? What’s the purpose of your life? Why are you living? What are you living for? You say, for my wife, I live for my family. You got it all wrong. You ought to live for the Lord. And by living for the Lord, you want to treat your wife right. You want to treat your husband right. You want to treat your kids right, but you got to have God has to be first.

He is preeminent has to be. That’s why Jesus says, unless you love me more than mother and father. He says, you can’t be my disciple because if you love anything more than me, then you’re not going to serve me because you’re going to serve that, which you love more and you’re not the same way. Why do we well and lay up treasure and heavy says, where your treasure is there, will your heart be also is where your love is going to be.

be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now, all we’re talking about is the will of God. And what does he say? Be it transformed. How do you transform your life by the renewing of your mind? How do you renew the mind by the word of God? And that’s why when you don’t have an appreciation for the Bible members, this is God’s love letter to his children, it’s the word of God. So we should study the word of God so that we can know the will of God.

So it’s the will of God to know the word of God so you know the will of God. Ain’t that clear? It’s fairly cool, wasn’t it? Isn’t that good? It’s good. That you may prove or discover what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You’re only going to live one time. No reruns, no instant replays. One trip through life, don’t you want to get it right? Don’t you want to get it right? where you can’t get it right if you don’t know the book.

And you can’t go through life saying, I believe whatever my preacher says, whatever my preacher says. Yeah, but what if your preacher is wrong? Although then I’m messed up. Know what you know because you know what the word says. Believe the Bible, study the Bible. And you’ll be surprised. God has given to every one of us that believe the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the teacher of the Word of God. You remember whenever you used to go to Sunday school and use it a little brat child, and you used to sing that little song that goes like deep and wide, deep and wide, there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.

Now remember that song? Deep and wide. You’re supposed to be deep in theology so that your roots are deep in the Word of God. So whatever the wind blows, it doesn’t move you. You’re not tossed by by every wind of doctrine that comes along. But wide in our evangelism. Now, I don’t know some people who go down so deep and stay down so long, come up so dry. But we try to take college kids and put the word of God into them, put water into them, into their well.

And sometimes I can’t put the water into the well because they got so much trash in their well. So we got to get trash out of their life so you can put something good and value in their life. And then when they leave college, we want them to have enough water in their well, they got enough for a lot of people. as the scripture says, out of his bellish, he’ll flow rivers of living water. But this fake key of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.

Missionaries are necessary support missions, and if they are, he says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every preacher. That’s really what it should say. If every preacher knew the gospel, every preacher would be preached in the same thing. You take all the preachers of all the religions, or they all preached in the same thing about how to go to heaven. No, they’re not. And that’s a shame. But when he says, go ye, he means be a missionary.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? So when I said chapter six, the lie says, Lord, hear my, send me. That penetrated in my little heart when I saw that till the first time. And I said, well, if he can do it, I can do it. Lord, hear my, send me. But I didn’t have any talent, no, I couldn’t do anything. I’m a Georgia boy. I mean, out of the woods, the sticks.

And I, what can I do? What can I do? I’d sit in a corner of a Bible bookstore and I’d sit there and I’d try. Because I wanted to do something for the Lord, but I didn’t know what I could do. And I thought that God would, you know, do something miraculous and nothing like that ever happened to me. It was just a little slow by bit by bit growth in the Lord. And I find out, well, I can do that.

I can do that. I want to be so clear, so simple, that anybody who listens to me will think, anybody can do what he does. If he can do it, God can use me. That’s the point. God can use you. And probably in a greater way. Here am I saying me, but as we were allowed of God to be missionaries, But the rest of that verse, if I remember it, but as we were allowed for God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God which tried at our heart.

But see, there’s a verse there that says that we ought to be missionaries. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, Matthew chapter 28. Go ye means be a missionary. How can you put it in the other way? So if there’s people who are willing to go, shouldn’t we be willing to help them and send them? I was so thrilled that so many of y’all gave so much money for the missionaries. Because I went out on the limb and I told them that we wanted to be a blessing to them.

We even sent out a little letter and just thought it would be good. Just get something back from their request, you know, what do they need? And they actually know {} people that wanted laptops and I thought laptops, there’s $600, $700, we can’t afford that. You know, somebody gave us money, they went and bought them. Person bought them, gave it to them. And then I looked at the offer in the last week, and it was about $4,400 or something like that for missions.

That is incredible. That’s because, you know, a person given five, somebody given 10, somebody given 20, and somebody given a lot. But it’s people doing what they do. See, what I don’t want is for the rest of the year, nobody give anything to me. Well, we did it one time in the year, now they can starve until next year. No. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a 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 Bibleline 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 Bibleline 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 1030, 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.