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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 The prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calvaryoftampa.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.

Timothy and chapter 3 says this know also that in the last days perilous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their own selves. Cauvatas, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, un-thankful, unholy. There’s many things in God’s Word that warns us about the human nature. It says in the book of Jeremiah that the heart of man is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked and who can know it. What would people do if there was no food in the grocery stores and no trucks were able to run, no gas, people can’t go to work?

And I know it seems like it’s a far-fetched scenario. That’ll never happen. quickly things can change. And I was talking a little bit about the days of Noah and the flood. Where the Lord had told us as He looked down upon the sons of men and He saw the wickedness and He says and it was great that there was nothing that they would not try to do anything they imagined to do they did. They have no restraints. Nothing holds them back.

We have people like that today that have absolutely no morals whatsoever. There’s nothing to guide them. They are truly like sheep without shepherds. And the Lord says that He looked down upon the children of men and decided that He was just going to wipe them out. So he brought in the flood. He saved Noah, misses Noah, three sons, their wives. And think of how many people may have been upon the earth, especially when they can live for a thousand years before the flood.

And had children, how many people must have died? How can a God that creates the heavens and the earth not care what happens to people and the misery they have or the way that they die? Especially when we believe that there is an all-powerful God that can do whatever he wants to do. Why does God and why did God allow all those people to die in a flood? And whenever you see the scenes that they’ve shown from New Orleans, all those people that were dying bodies in the street in the Colosseum.

Old folks, women wonder where their babies are. And if there’s a God in heaven, how can God justify himself? Because I know in the minds of people, we often become bitter at God, angry at God, because they thought that whoever was in charge could have done something. And there’s always going to be the Monday morning quarterback that figures out what they could have done or should have done. But I do believe that could be a forerunner of something that’s really going to take place in our country.

And it could be that the Lord gave us a taste of what’s down the road and how that we might need to prepare in a better way. What if something really did happen that was really bad? The Bible says in the last days that There shall be earthquakes around the world more severe. What if there was more earthquakes that sent in not just 30-foot waves, not just a high level of water? But what if they came in 100 feet high?

What if California did break off? They’ve been talking about it for years. True? You’ve heard it. Well, one day when it happens and those people are destroyed, will it be because, well, somebody should have done something about that. Who in the world in their right mind would have built a city below sea level knowing the possibilities but not expecting it to happen and to have a lake that’s above you. That would be scary for me alone. And it didn’t matter how many levees were closed and secure.

All you need is just one break. One break. So it didn’t matter how many areas in your life that you guard if you had a fence and a hundred cattle in there and you had ten gates but you left one gate open where you You still lose the whole hurt to that one gate you left open. And it only takes one levy to break in order to do all the damage. How quickly things can happen. It doesn’t always have to happen the way that you think or expect or when.

And there could be major earthquakes or some nut get ahold of a bomb and blow a land off the map. The key thing, regardless of any catastrophe, I believe that there is a God in heaven who who is never taken by surprise. The question that many people ask, did God know that this was going to happen? Every bit of it. Did he know every person was gonna do every person? All the misery God knew it all. And why didn’t God stop it?

They didn’t. God, when did you know about this? How much did you know? Well, why did you let it happen? Can you and I have more compassion for those people and what they’re going through than God? What about the God that has the power to do something about it, to have all this compassion? Am I to have more than God? Interesting questions. Why didn’t God, if he has more loving compassion than what I do, why didn’t God stop it?

Why did God let it happen? Have you ever read the book of Job? It wasn’t so much that it had to do with And Job as it did with those people who were always trying to figure out why did it happen. And God used Job to teach them. They thought they had the answer to everything and they didn’t have the answer. They were Job’s good friends. And they were wrong in their conclusions, every one of them. They really didn’t know what was behind thePASS.

They didn’t know what had taken place between God and Satan. and how that Job’s integrity was being challenged. They didn’t see all of that. All they knew is Job must have done something wrong. Does the righteous sometimes pay with destruction, just like the lost man? When a lost man goes outside and a Christian goes outside and it rains, does it rain on On both of them are just the lost men. Or does the righteous suffer also? God does allow at times righteous people to die to suffer the same horrible deaths that the wicked.

Whenever God sent Jonah to Nineveh, what was the ultimatum? God said that he was going to destroy the city, the whole city. Around 40-some thousand people. God’s going to just wipe them all out. they did not do what was right. And so he said, Jonah and Jonah says God’s going to destroy this place unless they got right. I mean they all went down to the altar. They all got right and God spared the city. Jonah was still mad because he knew God was going to do that.

He knew that God would have compassion upon him. Jonah didn’t want God to have compassion. God was going to have compassion and Jonah didn’t want God to. He wanted God to zap him. And God says you got more compassion over that worm that killed that gourd that keeps that heat off of you than you do those people down there. And it ends the story with Jonah being a bitter man, a bitter man in spite of all the people that was going to be destroyed weren’t.

about sudden Gamora. Remember when Abraham says, Lord, if there’s 50 people there, you won’t destroy it. If there’s 50 righteous, God says, I won’t do it for 50. Oh, what about 40? What about 30? What about 20? What about 10? God said, I won’t destroy it for that many. That means that he was going to destroy Sodom Gomorrah. God brought judgment. Is this what’s going on? I don’t know. I’m not God. I don’t have all the answers. But I do believe that God, if he’s in charge, knows what he’s doing.

We may not understand why God picks and chooses like he does. I could not understand. And I mentioned this to Lee Patton down there to his church. Church. I had two great friends. One was Dr. Curtis Hudson and Lee Patton. They both got cancer. One lived, one died. I don’t. God has reasons that He hasn’t revealed to us. But I want you to take your Bible and turn there to the book of Matthew, the book of Matthew in chapter two.

Sometimes God will let his righteous die, but when they die, they go to be with him. So death in the Bible says concerning his saints is a precious thing. The death of his saints is a precious thing in the eyes of the Lord. Think about it. Because the only way you get there is you you got to leave here so death is not something that you and I are supposed to fear. But we do, don’t we? We do. Because we’ve never done it before.

Did God know that Herod was going to try to destroy his son? Was God able to miraculously provide for his son yet? Why didn’t God just kill Herod? If that’s what Herod wanted to do, why didn’t God just, you know of that. There. But God didn’t. There’s some kind of rules in the game of life and death that we don’t really understand totally yet. Like there’s in football, we know the rules. Play basketball, there’s rules. Every sport, there’s rules.

There’s rules concerning marriage, in children. There’s guidelines. There are guidelines to life. God made the rules. And there’s things God will do and God will not do. There’s prayers that God will answer, there’s prayers God won’t. There’s things that God has a four-time agreed upon of what the rules are. And I believe if there’s anybody who plays by the rules, it’s God. And He’s a righteous God. So there’s some things that God is able to do and some things he’s not because of rules.

I don’t know them all. He hasn’t revealed them all. God doesn’t have to. That’s part of the rules. He said the secret things belong at the end of the Lord, something God hasn’t revealed. Now are some things God has revealed? Being warned of God in a dream. get that, been warned of God. Isn’t it amazing that we have the technology today to have satellite system that can warn us about, you know, hurricanes and we can even track the hurricane and watch it on our TVs and see where it’s going to go.

And you know that pretty much they’re able to predict the path of a storm. Where is they think it’s going to hit in the eye of the storm and where is going to pinpoint. Isn’t it amazing of what man has been able to accomplish. And we have warning systems that will help us. Did not the mayor of the city tell the people to evacuate and some people did. Some people didn’t. Maybe some people couldn’t. But most people probably believe it wasn’t going to be that bad.

I believe there’s things in God’s word that God has warned us about. But he makes the statement, he has been warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod. They departed into their own country another way. Why? Because God knew the future. God knew what was going to happen if they faced Herod. They knew Herod’s motive and that Herod wanted to kill that child. So here’s this one child. Why was God to spare this one child and warn his mom and dad so they could take him to refuge a place of safety and God let all these other children and all the coast and all of Bethlehem, God let all of them die.

They all died. What if you were the parent of that child? That was your child? here at Kiel trying to find that one child. If you knew this, how would it make you feel about God? He took your child and left another one, and all God had to do to stop all of that was kill that one guy that wanted to do it. God says that it is He that is able to shape the course of a river and the ways of a king.

God raises up and God puts down. You see, there’s a lot more behind the scenes than what you and I will ever understand. But look what he says in verse 13, When they were departed, behold the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, rise, take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt. We have here some of the same stuff that was told down there. But what if Joseph had no faith? God. What if he hadn’t done it?

Well, it might be a different story altogether. We don’t know. He said, flee into Egypt and be thou there until I bring thee word. You go down here and stay there until I tell you to move. He says, for Herod will seek. Herod will seek. What are you going to do? All he wants to worship him. Now, that’s what Herod said. But God knew the real motive of Herod. And God’s not taken by surprise. All this that’s happened is not a surprise nor a shock to God.

It’s to us, those that are living that watch it, see what’s going on, trying to figure out how we could have prevented all of this from happening. Did it ever occur to people that sometimes you can’t prevent some things from happening? You’re not going to stop it. Most of our leaders had never faced anything like this before. Bush ordered the war in Afghanistan and also over there and I write. Did some people question his judgment about jumping the gun and doing so without real evidence of the weapons of mass destruction?

Has he taken any heat from that? Or whenever something else is gonna happen would you think you want to be cautious and be right the next time? So if he had jumped the gun down there and And that didn’t flood, he would have got criticized. If he waits too long, he gets criticized. In other words, the only way he could have done it was at the perfect time. At what point was that and whose judgment? Some people can’t win.

It doesn’t matter what you do. You and I are in the same situation. We don’t always make the right decision all the time. We wish we could. But it won’t work that way. Here he makes the statement, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. Did God know that? In advance? Yeah. What did he want him to do? Wanted him to leave. Yet God could have done something else. And then in verse 40, and when he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, departed into Egypt.

Why did he have to believe by that? Couldn’t God protect his child? God could have protected him. God could have bla- And there’s some places where the Bible says, God did things a different way. God will work different ways in your life. God knows what’s coming tomorrow. What do you think we are told just to trust the Lord without all the explanations? See, we say, well, I don’t mind trusting God if you just tell me what’s going on. God doesn’t tell us all the things that are going on.

and the same catastrophe that is death to the righteous, which is a precious thing in the eyes of the Lord, can be judgment upon the wicked. The Bible tells us in the last days, perilous time shall come, and that God is going to send worse things upon the earth. And he says, there’s going to be famine and pestilence. Just like he knew this about his son and what one man wanted to, God already told us what’s coming. And he describes the tribulation period as the worst time the world has ever known.

There’s never been a time like it. So evidently what we had just seen is nothing compared to what’s coming. Because what’s coming, he says, there’s nothing like it has ever happened. This is perhaps the worst calamity that’s ever hit the American shores. And yet it’s nothing compared to what is right around the corner. Do you believe that America truly is ready for a catastrophic event like that to happen in another major city? Have you noticed that regardless a man has that sinful nature and when given the opportunity how wicked they can become, can Can you believe that there were people that were raping killing people?

Shooting at helicopters trying to get in to help people. And while some people are trying to be heroic and helping, there’s others are just letting the old sinful nature run wild, no control. The Bible talks about the sinful nature of man. And dealing with the character of an individual is what would you do if you had the chance to do it and thinking that you would never get caught up with. What would you do? If you had four or five little kids and they were starving and hadn’t had anything to eat, nothing to drink, and there was a grocery store, and they had food and water on the shelves, would you go get it?

I would in a heartbeat. Yes, I would. And so would you. And there’s things that you’re going to face in life that you’re not going to have all the answers. the answer. But should you charge God foolishly? Just because you don’t understand why God allowed some things to happen. In this world, God is going to allow a lot of bad things to happen. And some of those bad things that will wipe out some wicked people is going to take out some good people right along with them.

But for us, it will be a blessing we get to go to be with the Lord, but for the wicked that wake up in hell.” And look in verse 15, “…and was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the Lord of the Lord by the prophets saying, out of Egypt, have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wrath and what I sent forth and slew, get to all the children that were in Bethlehem.

And in all the coast thereof, from two years old and under, why would God let that happen when he could have just killed one man? God could have killed one man, but God let that man live and wipe out all the children two years old and under. Then he makes his statement in verse 17, then was fulfilled, that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet. Saint Raima there was a voice of her in lamentation and weeping in great morning.

Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they are not. In other words, all these women, God prophesied in the book of Jeremiah about all these women crying and weeping and mourning because their children are dead. did God know it was going to happen? And God allowed him to be slaughtered. Because you see, Herod was stabbing at one baby. He was trying to kill one baby. But we believe that babies, until they reach the age of a kind of a with the Lord.

So they’re in heaven. And the one baby that was kept alive lived to die. because that’s why he came. But not to have a premature death when he’s two years old. God appeared to him and warned him. Look down in verse 22. But when he heard that Arcelias did reign in Judea and the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go hither. Notwithstanding been warned of God in a dream, warned again. Do you think God, miraculously sometimes intervenes, causes one person to think this and somebody else to think that and they make different decisions and they wind up in this place, that one in that place, this one is spared and that one is dead.

You and I will never understand this side of eternity. All the things that God has done and why God has spared you or spared me from some little accident or wreck that we could have been dead by now. Why am I still alive? I haven’t got the clue. I live only by the grace of God and so do you. Let’s just pretend if there is no trucks that can run because of gas and if there is no electricity because they have to have something to produce electricity and all of a sudden there’s no food and there’s no water.

If you have no food, no water, how fast would it take our country to be thrown into a real serious national crisis? And what would you do? How wicked would you get? The next door and date neighbors got food and water and you don’t. You talk about watching people, the ugly side of individuals. Why do you think in the nation of Israel when God told them about they’re going to come and they’re going to put a siege around this city?

you’re going to eat your own children and you’ll boil your own sons. Do and evil things. It’s amazing what we’ll do just to live. We have a lot of reason to be thankful, but we need to be cautious. And we’re not going to have all the answers. And I believe it’d be premature to judge too quickly. There’s some things people can’t think of. They don’t know it’s going to get that bad. There’s things in my life that I thought, well, if I’d have known that, if I’d have known that, well, I’d have known that.

Of course you’d do something different, but you don’t know that. And there’s always somebody who says, well, you should have done. and maybe you should have, but you didn’t know to do it. I believe that majority of people try to make the best decision they can at the moment. And it just don’t, sometimes it’s not the right one that somebody else would have made, or it’s the wrong one. It doesn’t make a person wicked just because they lacked a little knowledge, not knowing sometimes exactly what to do.

I hope that all of you will be in prayer for these people and to hear some of the stories of what happened to someone. And then the other morning I woke up Friday morning, I guess it was Saturday morning. I suppose I’d get up at six, I woke up at four. And for two hours I’d lay there, while I’d wait, I’d lay there and I cried. Coming up the road, I’d come a couple of times to make sure I’m still awake.

And I said, honey, I’d been listening to the news. And I’d stop at a restaurant and got something to eat, got me some coffee. And I couldn’t talk to her for a while. I was just so overwhelmed with all the suffering that was going on. Now, you stop and think. Their misery was terrible. But then to see the misery that you have in this life, and then look further and deeper than that and see, there’s something that’s even worse than all of this.

Then all the food or the medicine or the care that people want to give is where are they going to go spiritually? Do they have eternal life? Do they know the Lord? Were they prepared to die? See, that’s still the most important thing. But I know that Christians are supposed to care, and opposed to have compassion, and try to help people. Let’s pray, shall we? Our Father, once again, we thank You for Your love to us. That Jesus Christ came into this world, wrong no one, and yet suffered cruelly at the hands of wicked people, religious people, and Father was mocked and shamed.

And Father no doubt there’s a multitude of people that had been the astrodome and the Houston, all these areas, and Father the shame that so many of them no doubt had to go through with no facilities and Lord Distench, not taking baths, not being able to eat or to sleep properly, and then watching loved ones die. How horrible that is for so many people, even to see. And I would just pray that you’ll help those that are seeking to help others there, to help to bring some comfort to ease some of their pain.

We ask all of you blessings upon us help us to do right, to do what we can. We thank you for this time together. Bless our service tonight. In Christ name we pray. Amen. 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 toll-free 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 of today’s or any previous Bibleline program, go to BibleLineMinistries.org. and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our home page. 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 broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, Calvary of Tampa dot org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. And now a closing thought from Pastor Arden. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. 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 looking up.