This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calbra Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the Internet. Your regular prayers and month… and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach This is toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calvaryoftappa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

If God is going to use you, God has got to prepare you. When God has to toughen you up, He has to let you get beat up a little bit. As you go through life, whether with people or things, they are to rough you up so that you get strong in the Lord and not in the power of your own strength, not in your own wisdom. But you as a child of God, realize there are some things I cannot control.

I must trust God. I don’t do this because I’ve got people who believe in me. I do this because I believe God wants me to do this. And in the power of the Lord, I will do such and such. And you do that and you hang with that and you don’t change. And God will work miracles. Because what are you going to do? If everybody you know, every friend you have, all decide to turn against you. Now what are you going to do?

Are you only as strong as the ones you hang around? What if they don’t agree with you anymore? Well, they don’t love you anymore. What if they turn and say mean and hateful things? What are you made out of? Well, this is why you have to sometimes go from childhood to maturity and God’s got to bring you through the wilderness. As that song says, some through the water, some through the floods, some through the fire, but all through the blood.

of who Christ is and what He’s done for you. It’s an awesome song. But I read the words to that title one day. God leads us along. Some of you might want God lead me alone. No, God leads us along. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of 1st Samuel, 1 Samuel 22. David had been anointed king of Israel when he was just a little lad. God had looked over the other seven brothers and he picked the smallest one, the youngest one and says this is the one I want to be king.

God did that because that was the will of God. It’s what God wanted. So from childhood until he became became the king, there were many things God was going to bring him through in order to prepare him to be the king. He can’t go from here, straight to king. God has many things for him to learn, lessons to go through. God took a shepherd boy, not the most intelligent person in all the world. He wasn’t born in a palace.

He was a little shepherd boy. and God blessed him. And no doubt while he was out there he learned how to play the harmonica. Well a harp. And the Bible says that he was a sweet musician of Israel and he would learn the same and he played and he was skillful. Did you know that God used that? On a day whenever Saul would have his down moments and he would bring the little young David boy in there and he he would play his harp and perform.

And Saul was aged and he enjoyed it and it sooth his spirit, calmed his bad attitude. When it wasn’t long before Saul realized there’s something different about that boy. Someday that boy is going to get my job. And so he tried to kill young David. Why did God let him go through all that? Why would God let this young boy Why who didn’t ask to be the king? At the same time, God had prepared him, and at one time he had to kill a bear with his bare hands and a lion.

Pretty good. But there was a time unve a time in David’s life where there was many things that God had to do for him. Here he had to run for his life. And yet God had promised you’re going to be the king, and yet here’s a man running for his. The king was trying to kill him. Look in verse one. And David therefore departed. and escaped to the cave of Dulam, and when his brethren and father’s house heard it, they went down to them.

And every one that was in distress, every one that was in a debt, every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them, and there were with him about 400 men. In other words, he got all the derelicts, all the rejects and people that they weren’t doing to good with King Saul’s army and his reign. Next thing you know David had all these volunteers who came to him and they had an idea that God’s gonna use this guy.

God’s gonna use this guy. He’s been anointed he could be the next king and therefore if they be around David and when he becomes king hey they get all comprehend Dhabi positions. And these men became known as the mighty men of David. The mighty men of David. These men would have died for David. They almost worshiped this man. They loved SERVED this guy. And David was just an individual that knew God, and God was leading him along. long. to go from Bethlehem where he was born to Jerusalem is only a few miles.

That’s not far from Bethlehem to Jerusalem because that’s where he’s going to be the king. Well, he was He was born here. Maybe five miles. I mean, I’ve been there. I’ve been to both of these places five times. I’ve been there. It’s not far from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, but God had to lead him not from. not fromSteam to Jerusalem, he had to lead him to a place called Zigglag. Zigglag. That’s a strange funny place. See, God didn’t take him from here straight to here.

God had to lead him through Zigglag. And for you to get where God wants you to be, God may have to lead you to a place like Zigglag. And the next question you have, I know it’s going to be is, what is that? Look in chapter 27. Chapter 27, look in verse 1. And it//// says, dam it said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. Now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a to didn’t God say that you’re going to be the king of Israel?

Well, I know that one of these days I’m going to perish by the hand of Saul. Do you think he was feeling a little low? Down just a little bit. In other words, He was facing682 the death of a vision, the vision of what I’m going to have and what I to be someday, it’ll never be real. And I’m destined to be killed by Saul. And so He says here, there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines andImpro shall despair of me to seek me anymore in any coast of Israel, so shall I escape out of his hands.”

So David arose and he’s running for his life. I have no hope. Heavoided the camp of the enemy, the Philistines. He went and lived with the Philistines. And they besieged him. And they didn’t know for sure about him, but he pretended like he was a crazy man. He let his spit drill out on his beard and he had like a idiot in the idiot, you know. And they said he’s madvironn a good actor. He could have probably been a holy movie star.

Here was David, the God that’s going to be the King of Israel and he’s pretending to be a mad man and he’s now in the enemy camp of the Philistines. What way that God leads his dear children along. And there’s times in your life where you like men ain’t nothing being done. I’ll I’ll never get to be able to be anything great for the Lord. Well, God has to lead you through the trials and tribulations. God has to let you learn some lessons.

is that there’s somethings you can’t make happen. You are not to exalt yourself. You’re not to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. You’re to let God do what God wants to do when God wants to do it. And God will do it. Believe it. Just trust him. You just keep doing right as he leads his dear children along. Now look there in chapter 30 and chap. He had been with the Philistines and the time where they had your union union.

You know what? Well, David didn’t want to have to fight against Israel because that made him be fighting against King Saul and fighting against Jonathan. Oh, God, he didn’t want to do that. God didn’t want him to do that. So these people that he was staying with, they said, we don’t want you to go with us because the leaders around there, Captain says, look, isn’t this the same David? That the children of Israel used to say he has killed his or saw the killer’s down and David, his tens of thousands, and we’re going to let this man, they592 all of that go with us.

They didn’t want him. So David was rejected by them. They didn’t want him to help. So he says down here and he has now about 600 men with him. He’s gained a few since the other chapter. And verse one, and it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziklag. On the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag EntityItem He had committed his life and burned it with fire and had taken the women captives.

They slew, not any, either greater small, but carried them away and went on their way. Now keep us in mind. This was in the land of the Philistines. So they had gone and they said, we don’t want you fighting with us. So they returned back to the city where theytarian (£a…where… notsudoMembers They slew not any, either greater small, but carried them away and went on their way. Now, keep us in mind. This was in the land of the Philistines.

So they had gone and they said, we don’t want you fighting with us. So they returned back to the city where they were living. When they got back, they found out the city was was burned and their wives and children were gone. In other words, it’s everything David was losing everything. So in verse 3, so David and his men came to the city and behold, it was burned with fire and their wives, their sons, their daughters had taken captive.

Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wet a bunch of sissies. No, it was their wives. It was their kids they were concerned. Get this. Until they had no more power to wait. In other words, they cried till they had no more tears left. And David’s two wives were taken captive. And it says in verse 6, David was greatly distressed. You ought to underline verse 6. Now I covered these scriptures not long ago, but I was hitting it from a different viewpoint.

Something I want you to see now is this. In verse 6, Before God could take David and make him a king, David had a lot of lessons in which to learn. And the lessons is this. He’s not the trust because of the power of his men, the mighty men of David. He can’t trust in them., in his wife, there has a time when God…………………………..will take everything you have away from you. the same degree, but there’s things that you have to learn in this life.

And that might be somepointers tradem that you would love to have,ixel, but you cannot have because God wantselcome you——– that you need to be satisfied with nobodytml but just you and Him. Where you don’t have the power or the might to do certain things and you got to let God do it. impoverish it. Can you be patient? Can you wait? Trust the Lord. Think what he says. And he says in David was greatly distressed for the people’s sake of doing what to him.

The very people that loved him, the very people, they’re going to be our king, the very people. Why are they so mad at him for it? Because we trusted you, we followed you, we did whatever you said do and look at the results. Do you know that Moses went through the very same thing? Moses did not want to be the leader of Israel. He didn’t want to do it, but God did. And whenever He brought the people across the Red Sea and into the wilderness, all ofa said, hey, there’s two and a half million people here.

What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? Been three days in no water. And they were ready to stone Moses. What are they meant? Was God leading Moses? And the people following Moses? Well, when you don’t like where the man’s taken you, it’s his fault, right? Crucified. They’re really stone him. At one point Moses says, Lord Jesus Christ will go ahead and kill me. Take me on I have brought out my life. And here you are and you want one day you want to be a leader?

Okay, what are you willing to go through? Are you willing to go through Zig Lagg? Where everything that you have, the people can turn on you. I’ve had it happen to me in the ministry over and over again. You got lessons to learn, but you got to go. And those that think to it, well, I thought we was going to, and I thought, and I thought, and I thought, where’s this land of milk and honey? You promised us before they got into the promised land.

He had to bring them through the wilderness and they were went through the wilderness for 40 years. Think about that. When God who had Moses already in Egypt, let him go out of Egypt, the backside of a desert, and left him there for 40 years, waiting. Waiting until Moses was right, waiting until the people in the land, in the iniquity of the emirites are not yet full. And he says that he had to get Israel ready and make a nation out of them and an army out of them.

So God had all these things in mind and he’s planning. God is behind the scene and he has an overall purpose. And he says the wickedness of the people in the land that had the land, God says because of their sin, sin, he was going to take it away from them and he’s going to give it to them. See, the earth belongs to God and God can give it to whoever he wants to. This is his world. Those are his planets and that his stars.

This is his earth and you are, as the Bible says, you are the chief of his pastor, the people of God. So God is free to do whatever he wants with that which belongs to them, but God works according to the rules, the rules of law, the rule of love. God could show the various characteristic traits of himself. He may show his judgment and his wrath or his compassion, his mercy. And he chooses different vessels to do it and different nations to do it.

But God is alive and God is working and though you may think my life is dull, it’s boring and whatever else, it’s because you fail to see what’s been done. He didn’t take and create us and then take a vacation some place. God is intricately involved in the daily affairs of every individual. In verse two there are 11 days journey from Horriba by the way of Mount Sir on Decades-Parnia. In other words from Mount Sinai where God gave him the law Decades-Parnia, he said it’s only 11 days journey.

In other words they could have right there and went into the land. But how long did it take them? 40 years. 40 years to go to 11 days journey. Why? Because you see, God used the wilderness experience in order to take all of those individuals who believed that they can’t go into the land because of the giants of Enakkor in there. And we can’t win. And so they came back with an evil report and convinced the children of Israel that they can’t go and so their unbelief kept them from going into the land.

And so God said, I’m going to let you wander right on the wilderness for 40 years. And during that 40 years, he says, all of God is going to die off. And I’m going to take the other generation in. And he says, but Caleb and Joshua, they’ll get to go into the land. Now stop and think for a moment. That means that during these 40 years, and all these people that had died, death was by the hand of God.

Everyone that lived that went into the land was by the hand of God. Because God could have kept them alive or God could have killed all everything in God’s hands. And that means that God individually knew all those who did not believe and those it did and God calls some to live and some to die. Well, it was just an accident, that a freak accident. This person died. No, everything is been watched upon by the eyes of God. And whether man lives or whether man dies in God’s hands.

Now, God may use wicked things in this world, but God is in charge. God is still on the throne. God still rules. Christ, when he was here, he told them in Luke 13, he says, do you think that those 18 that died because the tower’s alone fell upon them? They were more wicked than somebody else, he says, that’s not true. In other words, he knew the real reason, but he knew they died. But it wasn’t because they were more wicked than somebody else, but then evidently God did know the reason.

He doesn’t say it. He makes this statement because some came and says, why was this child born blind? He said it wasn’t because of the sins of the mother and the father, and therefore this child was born blind. He says that’s not true. He said, I had nothing to do with the mother and the father and their sins. He said, this man was born blind that you might see the power of God. In other words, he had been blind from birth all the year because God was going to do something in the life of this one blind person.

See, there’s a reason. You just may not always know it. Why would God have a man like Moses born and he couldn’t speak right? Had an impediment of speech. Moses used his flaw as an excuse not to serve God, but God says, I want to use you just the way you are. Moses wouldn’t do it. Moses missed out on some mighty good blessings. When God told Moses certain things to do, Moses at times got angry. And because of his anger, he said and did things he should not have done.

And when he did so, it was not permitted to go into the promised land. Just a coincidence? No, he died upon the mountain right before they was to go in. So, well, the one lives, one dies. You say, well, it’s just an accident. No, it’s not. There’s a God in heaven that knows what’s going on. And God will bring you into something that He may lead you through something that you may learn what God wants you to do. There’s always something that’s going on, and you should always ask, Lord, what do you have for me to learn?

What do you want to teach me through this. And I assure you, there are lessons to learn in every testing, every trial, every temptation that you have. There’s something to learn. I have over the years wondered why did God leave me here and in the there and in the there and in the there and in there. My life is a step. It’s a walk. You’re walking with God. It’s a step at a time. You don’t have to know where it’s going to end up.

You just go ahead and serve God. Just keep walking with the Lord. And if you’ll serve God faithfully today, you’ll be where you’re supposed to be tomorrow and if you’ll serve God that day then you’ll be where you’re supposed to be the next day and then thousands upon thousands of died in the world never got into the land and so many of them they blame Moses and God says it if I hit he says you people he says you wicked people and here you are now with a man like David a man after God’s own heart And he says here in verse six, and the people speak of stoning him because the soul of all the people, they were what?

They were grieving, grieving. They were hurting. Every man and his sons and his daughters. But David had all these men that got around him and really encouraged him. Is that what it says? I didn’t know what it says. And David encouraged himself in the Lord. Get that. David encouraged himself in the look. Do you think, now listen, David didn’t have the Bible like we have today, but he did know, he did know the stories in the Old Testament. Many of these stories that were written before him, he knew what God had done with Moses.

He know the stories, just like we can read them, he knew them, and he had to encourage himself. Just like with Joshua, Joshua had to suffer consequences. Because of the sin of AI, you see, if God is going to use you, God has got to prepare you. And God has to toughen you up. He has to let you get beat up a little bit. As you go through life, whether with people or things, they are to rough you up.

So that you get strong in the Lord and not in the power of your own strength, not in your own wisdom. But you as a child of God, realize there’s some things I cannot control. I must trust God. I don’t do this because I’ve got people who believe in me. I do this because I believe God wants me to do this. And in the power of the Lord, I will do such and such. And you do that and you hang with that and you don’t change.

And God will work miracles. So look in verse eight, David inquired at the Lord saying, Saying, shall I pursue after this trip? Shall I overtake them? So he didn’t ask his men, he asked the Lord, Lord, what do you want me to do? Shall I pursue? Will I overtake them? And the Lord says, go and you will win. And you will, in the last part of it, you will recover everything. You’ll not lose anything. In the end time, in result, you will not lose anything.

You’ll get everything back. You see, the road from Bethlehem to Jerusalem was a short road. But God didn’t want to take him from here to here. God wanted to take him the opposite direction to Ziegler, and then he becomes king. Because, see, he has to learn it’s not because of the power of his men that he has, The friendship of his men? It’s not anything else. You’ve got to learn how to be strong and encourage yourself in the Lord.

Because what are you going to do if everybody you know, every friend you have, all decide to turn against you? Now what are you going to do? Are you only as strong as the ones you hang around? What if they don’t agree with you anymore? What if they don’t love you anymore? What if they turn and say mean and hateful things? What are you made out of? Well, this is why you have to sometimes go from childhood to maturity, and God’s got to bring you through the wilderness to a place called Zig-leg.

And it may not be one, it may be four or five of them he’s got to bring you through. As that song says, some through the water, some through the floods, some through the fire, but all through the blood. because of who Christ is and what He’s done for you. It’s an awesome song. When I read the words to that title one day, God leads us along. Some of you might want God leave me alone. No, God leads us along.

And so you may be in the middle of your little zig-lag or you may be heading into it or you may be coming out of it. But learn the lessons that God has for you. And you’ll have those lessons even while you’re young. You have lessons to learn. Look up here. This hen represents you and me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God, He loves us, but He hates our sin. For you and I, to go to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous as God.

And none of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. We cannot enter into heaven because of sin. So the goal is to get rid of sin. And God says that you cannot get rid of this sin, except by death. The wages of sin is eternal separation from God in a place called Hell. But God loves us. He says you cannot save yourself. You cannot earn eternal life. This then represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in a place.

He came into the world because He loves us. He hates our sin. He says it separates us from Him. So Christ took the sin. All of it. Paid for it on the cross came back from the dead. Instead, if we’ll believe he did it for us, he would put the payment to our account and we get to go to heaven, and watch Jesus Christ did for us. I’ve trusted Christ as my Savior. I hope that you trust the Lord as your Savior.

It’s so important not only to know Christ as your Savior, but to realize that God is working in your life. God is leaving you alone. It doesn’t matter about your family situation, the job situation, the finances situation, a health situation, God wants to lead you through everything and He wants to become more real to you than the clothes you have on your bank. He wants to teach you things about Himself. You would never learn any other way. Let’s pray, shall we?

Every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, then what I write now is just between you and the Lord say something like this, Lord, I know I’m a sinner, I believe Christ died, paid for my sins and I’ll trust Him to take me to heaven when I die. I’m not going to embarrass you. I’m not going to point you out or make you bend up or walk down the aisle.

I want you to write what you said and say, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior and I’d like you to pray for me. 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 Bible line 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 homepage. 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 believe in that the Lord is coming soon just keep looking up