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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 prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at The Bible is made through the Bibleline website at calbreyoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

You’ve heard me use the words divine perspective, human perspective. edit from Manspul in the view. Look at that, from God’s point of view. It’s kind of like if you were driving in the Atlanta rush hour and you can’t see very far down the road. Honey, can you see down here? What’s causing the problem? Well, I don’t know. I’m not God. Well, can you see what problem is? I mean, what’s causing the hang up? There’s got to be a reason for it.

There is a reason, but I don’t know what it is. I can’t see. you go back and forth and you’re trying to figure out, well, should we have probably gotten off at that last exit? After all, we got to get to the airport. Well, it’s a little bit late now because we got people behind us, we can’t back up. Well, sure wish we could figure out where we’re going. And what’s the hold up? I’m gonna put a wreck up there.

And it doesn’t matter. From your perspective, if you can’t see, you can’t see. And so you begin to wonder, you think, you plan, you imagine, you just don’t know. I do that all the time. I’m not God. And then all of a sudden there’s this helicopter overhead. You turn on the radio and lo and behold, they’re the guy in the helicopters giving you a bird’s eye view. Telling you, by the way, he says that 285 is clear as a bell.

No problem, no hang up. But if you’re on I-20, there’s a crash and you can’t get on the 285. And where are you? You are on I-20. And you know that there’s a problem and what’s going on? Because somebody up there can see what you cannot see. There’s people who like to live their lives thinking that there isn’t anybody else. It’s just them. We’re all just people living our lives upon the earth and so everything that happens is just say a natural disaster.

And we have this problem with the mother nature. There’s storms and there’s hurricanes. all these floods, there’s just all this natural stuff. And so man, if he looks at it only through the natural eye, must then begin to explain from the natural eye, from his viewpoint, trying to figure out what’s causing the problem. You remember whenever Adam sinned against God, the Bible says that God caused him to be an evacuee. I guess you could say he was a refugee.

He was kicked out of his home. He lived in a place of paradise and was asked to leave. He said, you can’t stay here anymore just because of a simple thing like sin. And nothing else would have mattered. I guess he could have built walls around paradise so that God couldn’t have got him out. And I guess he could have hooked up on the angel who stood there at the entrance way, keeping him from coming back in. He could have him up.

It wouldn’t matter after he had sinned, nothing else mattered. It was too late. The wages of sin was death and he was going to die. And so God had to discipline, chasten, correct, punish, sin. Even when they had two children, if you remember, one of them got mad and killed the other. So Cain killed Abel. The Bible says that God in heaven saw what he did. And he said, his blood cryeth up on the meat from the ground, trying for revenge.

I mean, what had Abel done? Abel had done no wrong. What had Cain done? Sinned. And because of his sin, Then he took another man’s life. Why didn’t God prevent that? Couldn’t God have prevented that brother from killing the other brother? Yes, but did God let it happen? Yes, but there was a price to pay for Cain because of what he did. God put a mark upon him. We don’t know how bad it was, a house of air. He said, my punishment is greater than I can bear.

I want you to look there in Genesis in chapter 6 and look in verse 7. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing and the fouls of the air, for it repented me that I have made them. Why did God feel this way? Why was God going to destroy all these people? Well, if you read it carefully, you may find there’s a reason.

In some people’s mind there was just a flood. But there was also a divine perspective. There was a reason for the flood. It was not a just natural disaster, just a catastrophe. It came by the finger of God. It was by the definite decision, purpose of God. And God knew exactly when the flood was going to come, he knew what the people had done. Now look there in verse 5. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.

Was God looking? Was the people doing what they wanted? Yes, but God saw it. You see there is a divine perspective, God looking down upon the earth. Either we have to factor in the idea of God or we have to factor him out. That’s the way you have to look at it in all of life. Everything that happens in your life, you either have to factor God in or factor Him out. Even Christians, many times do not see the hand of God in their own life.

Is it true that the Bible tells us that God chastens His children? Is that a definite scripture? God will chasten His children. Yes. When the chasing comes. Do you see it as a natural phenomenon, a natural catastrophe, a natural disaster, or do you see the hand of God working in your life? You eat the factor God in or you don’t factor Him in at all. And yet we know that God says sin will be dealt with. But how many people admit that God is working on them?

God is working in my life because they look at it from the human perspective. They don’t see God. They don’t like the fact that Him. Did they ever stop to think that He could be because of sin? And that nothing that the governor, the mayor or the president, the federal government, any of them could have ever done was to stop the judgment of God doing what God did. They said, we’re going build the levees higher and bigger and stronger.

You mean God couldn’t have got over that wall? Didn’t God know what was coming? I believe there’s more behind the scenes than what we see or want to even discuss. I don’t hear much of it on the news. Nobody talks about that. It’s like if the mayor had done what the mayor should have done, then that wouldn’t have happened. And the governor had down what that would have happened and yes we don’t but there’s a God in heaven that was in charge everybody the Bible says in the book of Romans chapter 13 says is in subjection to the higher power the higher power is God and even state officials are in subjection to a higher power well ultimately you can look up and say God why did you let this happen and God may have a reason but Nobody likes to go that far.

Nobody in their right mind wants to look at a national disaster like that and say, look what God did. True. Nobody wants to blame God. Because God’s a good God, God’s a loving God, God’s a merciful God. And what we saw was not good. It was not a blessing. It was not mercy. It was chaos, murder, rape. people’s lives destroyed, family separated. So you either have to factor God in or factor Him out. He either makes a difference or He makes no difference.

But as you studied the Bible, what do you find? In verse 5, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the years and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and it repented the Lord that he had made men on the earth and it grieved him at his heart and he says, I’m going to destroy it. Now, there was Noah, his wife, three sons, their wives. Isn’t it amazing that God is able to let one die and one live?

How to salvage those that listen to what he had to say. But if you look at it only from a human point of view, you’re going to say, well, if the rest of them had built a boat. If they had got it together and built their own boat, somebody had just thought about it, but they probably had some zoning laws against shipbuilding, and they wouldn’t let them build a boat. But if they had just built a boat, it must have been the mayor’s fault.

I don’t care what the government at that time would have decided. And how many they want to blame and point fingers, there was nothing they could have done to have stopped the flood. True, nothing they could have done because God had decided. But if we don’t see God and we don’t factor it in, then everything, of course, boils down to what man could have done. I believe that New Orleans and the area from a biblical point of view is only symbolic of the rest of our nation.

I believe that our nation is like the nation of Israel is sick from the head to the toe. I think we are a nation in rebellion to God. I believe we are a sinful nation, a wicked nation. We are not a righteous nation. I believe that the city was filled with abortions and that the city was filled with prostitution and the city is filled with homosexuals and the city is filled with people committing murder. It’s a wicked place, a scary place to even go sometimes and to visit.

And then for all the gambling, which I believe that God is against alcohol, you name it and had it all. I believe it’s a sin city. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Job. You remember when Moses was told to go down to see Pharaoh and say, Pharaoh, let my people go. God said so. And he said, no. So he defied Moses. Now from Pharaoh’s point of view, he He was only arguing with one man. Have nothing to do with God, he’s just disagreeing with Moses.

He didn’t expect his God to be any stronger than his God. And matter of fact, he thought maybe his God is bigger and better. And he had magicians. Moses says, let my people go, or this is going to happen. And plague after plague. Ten plagues. In his mind, he saw nothing more than natural disasters. national natural catastrophe. It would have happened anyway. Moses had nothing to do with it. God had nothing to do with it. And they tried to explain things away.

Surely there was something they could have done to prevent it, but they were sent by the finger of God. You see, there’s another viewpoint that God in heaven has not turned the world over to the people and say, Y’all do whatever you want. I’m taking a vacation. I got other worlds to be concerned about. Y’all do whatever you want to do. No. God is intricately involved in every detail of what’s going on on this earth. If God says He is not unrighteous to reward every one of His children for what they do, then God must know everything that you do.

If it is God who says that with every temptation He’ll make a way of escape that And he must know every temptation you face in order to make a way of escape for you. God does care. And God says he chastens those he loves. We want and we always say it. We sing it, God bless America. Do you ever think that there’s coming a time when God won’t be able to bless America? We have been blessed, but we have taken the blessings of God and turned them into curses and to sin.

today, people do whatever they want, and even those so-called righteous people are afraid to say anything for fear they will be labeled in a negative way. We wouldn’t dare say anything that God did that because of their sin, because of all the righteous people or the poor people had nothing to do with it. Either you factor God in or you factor Him out. In your personal life, you either factor God in your life or you factor Him. I know the words God has nothing to do with anything.

Or if God does, to what degree? To what extent? Do you see God working in your life? As I look back over my years, I have seen the hand of God work in my life. and to me is awesome to know that the God of heaven has guided my path, has protected my life, and I know that I could be leaving here at any time I see the Lord working in our church in a wonderful marvelous way, and everything that’s happened, I think it’s awesome, because see I got another view, I don’t look at it just through the eyes of an individual, I believe that God is alive and God is working and God’s moving and God will even bless our chasing and we make indecisions and God is aware of what’s going on.

He’s notincerity by surprise. Here in the book of Job I want you to see several things. It says Ibid here in verse 1 there was a man in the land of us whose name was Job and that man was perfect and upright and one that feared God and shunned evil. hated evil. Good man. ButPope had some children that the Bible says unless they have cursed God in their heart. He made sacrifices for his family. And whether it was to reveal the sins of his wife, because he when Joe was tried and became afflicted even to his health, his wife told him, says, why don’t you just curse God and die?

When the Lord had taken 10 of his children. I wondered if there was a time when he said,FINEST you forgot one. Not out of it. I’m just then a little facetious. But said that Joel was a good man, a righteous man. And God was able to keep this man who was near dead, who wanted to die because of all the things that were happening to him. And the way he was with his physical body, his wife had turned against him, his family had lost and he lost his wealth, his lost his health, and he said, Lord, I just wish I could die, and God wouldn’t let him die.

God wouldn’t let him die. Then you have ten children that probably wanted to live, and they all died. For you not to factor God in would be a great sin. For you to totally factor God out as though there is no God, and everything just happens, then prayer has no purpose. has no meaning, then life has no purpose itself. Then who are we and what are we? What is going on? Then we live like atheist. If you’re going to live like an atheist, you might as well believe in evolution.

You don’t know where you came from, what you’re doing, where you going. You have no answer or explanation to the cause of life. Here in Job says there was a day when the devil came to see him and he said, what are you been doing? He says, just walking up and down through the earth. He says, you consider my servant Joe, and he said, oh yeah, I thought about him. See in verse 8, he said, there’s none like him in the earth, a perfect man, upright man, one that fears God and shuns evil.

Satan answered the Lord and said, yeah, does Joe fear God for not? In other words, he got a reason. He got a reason. You put a head down the bottom and you won’t let me get at him. You have blessed him, given everything he wants. He said, you let me get at him. You see, this is a bird’s-eye view that you won’t have of life if it’s just natural. If you only see things through the human eye, you won’t see another world being led at the same time.

You cannot see into the spiritual realm of what God Himself may be doing. You wouldn’t see Satan and God having a conversation. You wouldn’t see why God says, Hest thou considered him? It was God that sick came on Job. What was all the wickedness that Job had done? Job had done in him. But God used all the things that tried Job as chastening also upon those that were perhaps not right. I don’t know. Job says, lest they have cursed God in the last part of verse 5, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.

So Job did it. He knew his kids. And he knew his wife. And then he had his friends that supposedly had all the answers. But all their answers were wrong. All their answers was wrong. Look there in verse 19 of chapter 1. And behold there came a great wind from the wilderness. Smoked the four corners of the house and it fell upon the young men and they are dead. And I only am escaped alone to tell them. A great win came, hit the house, smashed it, and they’re all dead.

Now. We have our news analysts there and they’re interviewing. What happened down here? Well, it was just a great win. It came through. But you know, if that mayor had built a wall around this city and around my house, what we should have built it higher and bigger and stronger, it wouldn’t have happened. I don’t care where this house was. I don’t care how well it had been built. If God wanted that house to fall, there’s nothing no man’s going to do to stop it from falling.

is going down. And you can blame the mayor, you can blame the governor, you can blame the president of the United States. If there was a atomic explosion right here and 2 million people get killed, I got a hunch. There’s nothing anybody could have done about it. We’re at the place right now that we can’t stop the terrorists from blowing America up. We can’t stop them. They choose to do so. We can’t stop it anywhere. Our trust is not to be in the president, our military, our response efforts, FEMA, you name the organization.

It’s not in the Red Cross. It’s not in the Salvation Army. The Lord has told us over and over again throughout His Word. You put your trust in me and do right. Our nation will have to worry if we were a righteous nation. I have not yet found where God has brought in and destroyed a righteous nation. If the nation was righteous, but I have seen over and over again where God will wipe out a sinful city, a wicked city, but not a righteous one.

Check your book. I may be wrong, but I don’t think I have found it yet. A great win came. Did God know that wind was coming? And God allowed it. God allowed those people to get killed? God allowed it. And those that survived, like Job survived, his wife survived, God can allow one to live and one to die. And yes, you should have comfort and compassion. See, the devil brought all this upon Job on his body, has sores all over his body, sitting in an ash heap and were broken pieces of pottery scraping his source, wishing he could die and God let him suffer like that.

And what had he done wrong? Nothing. So while some were dying, some were living in misery. God permits both to the righteous man, a wonderful testing with great rewards in the future. To the wicked, God can take him out of this world. man is going to die. I want you to take your Bible turn to Habakkah in the Old Testament. This is the message that God gave to him. God gave him a message that just so heavy for him to bear.

And he had said to the Lord, Lord, I know that Israel. I know that Judah, I know we’re a wicked people. But if you bring in those wicked Chaldeans, the Babylonians, destroy us, they are more wicked than us. Why did God bring in these other nations to destroy Israel? Because God had promises of it, if you will love me and if you will serve me, I will protect you. And I’ll put none of those diseases that happened in Egypt.

I’ll put none of those upon you. Whether you got diseases, protection, all depends on how you lived. it. Depends on how you live. If you’re wicked, here she comes. If you’re righteous, the blessings are on the way. Here we are in America and we’re getting to the place where we tolerate sin. We say nothing. We don’t cry out. We don’t say it’s wrong and wicked because after all that’s not politically correct today. I still believe it’s sinful. It’s wicked and it’s wrong.

I’ll say it all until the day I die. I’m wrong. I’m wrong. either I believe the Bible or I don’t believe the Bible. Either there is a God factor or there is no God factor. If there’s a God in heaven, we have to see what God has to say. Look there in Habakkah chapter two. Look what he says now in verse nine. He says, woe to him that covet it an evil covetousness to his house. In other words, a man because he covets sin brings it upon himself, but he doesn’t desire consequences of sin.

He wants to sin without the results of sin. So they try to insulate themselves with a position of power so I can do something about it or money I can do something about it. See people that they have position of power and they have money then they can buy their way out of any trouble that you may have. Long as there’s hospitals and there’s doctors I can buy my way. Live like I please and pay my way out of trouble.

A lot of people think this way. God sees, God knows, and he says that he made be delivered from the power of the evil, but not the evil, just the consequences of the results. He says in verse 10, that thou hath consulted shame to thy house, by cutting off many people and have sinned against thy soul, for the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. Woe to him that built it the task.

with blood and established a city by what? Iniquity. Do you think there’s a God in heaven that says, I don’t see it. Did you see in masses where the people were crying out to God for mercy? They all cried whoever they put their trust in, the government. And isn’t it true today that most people trust the government to deliver us from everything? If government is big enough and government is strong enough, government can do anything for us. And God said, I want you to put your trust in me.

We don’t have people putting their trust in God. You can’t live as you please and get away with it as an individual. What if you choose as a family you’re going to live in sin? Can you get away with it? What makes people think you can do it as a city or as a nation? You can’t. God is going to chase him. I believe what we have seen happen is only a forerunner of what is to come. I can hear God standing up in heaven saying, can you hear me now?

Can you hear me now? And people say, did you hear that? No, I didn’t hear nothing. You didn’t hear anything. I didn’t hear anything. And how many as a nation around this country, this whole nation, the people of America will be on their knees, getting themselves right with God. If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and call upon me and turn from their evil wicked way, then I will hear and heal their land. But we’re bringing upon ourselves and will the righteous also die?

Yes. Well good people suffer it. Yes. The Bible says, when evil comes in like a flood, the righteous are to raise up a standard, mean the wall, keep it from coming in. You see the righteous people in America have let down the wall, the standard, and let the evil flood come in to our whole nation. In verse 12 one more time, woe to him that build a town with blood and establishes a city by iniquity and it’s a shame I believe what is going on and all the blame game instead of people look at themselves and say in is it because of my sin is it my sin see if nobody wants to examine themselves they want to insulate themselves from the consequences of their evil deeds and I believe that there great consequences, not being able to see from a divine perspective.

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. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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, calvaryoftampa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bible Live, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen, the trumpet will sound. 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.