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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular 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 by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. 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.

Thank you, Bible. Turn to the book. Revelation, the book of Revelation. You said, oh good, we’re going to talk about the book of Revelation. No, you don’t like the book of Revelation, do you? I figured you did. But the title of my message tonight, you know, I’m always having fun trying to figure out a title. What did I speak on? This This is called the devil and the divine, the devil and the divine. As you know, last few services I’ve talked about the story of Christmas.

We talked about Mary and then we talked the story about John the badness. And tonight we talked about the story of Joseph. And so tonight we’re still talking about the Christmas story. You know who else was also there when Jesus was born? The devil. In case you didn’t know that the devil was there when Jesus was born. And did you know the devil has to work through people just like God works through people? The devil also works through people.

And so the devil, he always has to get you to believe a lie. And the Lord can’t lie. So he can only tell you the truth. So who do you think should be the most powerful, the one that tells you the lie or the one that tells you the truth? Don’t answer that. And as you and I live our life, there is the truth and there is the lie. Do you realize how easy it is to tell a lie?

don’t even have to work at it sometimes. It’s so easy. But trying to be honest and tell the truth, regardless of the consequences, sometimes it gets a little on the rough side. But this is a little bit about what we’re going to talk about. But in the book of Revelation in chapter 12, look there in verse 1, Revelation chapter 12 verse 1, and there appeared a great wonder in heaven, A woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”

Now many believe that this is talking about the nation of Israel and the twelve tribes. And I believe that also. In verse 2, and she been with child cried, Trevalen in birth and pain to be delivered. I guess sometimes when you think about a woman having a child, I’ve heard of the call of, you know, they have a dry birth. In other words, the water-sacked bus and then it’s got to be a driver and it’s excruciating pain. I would have no clue.

That’s only what I heard. But do you know in the Old Testament from the time that Israel became a nation, as the years go by, you’ll notice that it seems like Israel was down in Egypt. know in a certain period of time until the law came like you know a child born in Israel has got to go to about 13 years and they’ve always known the law and then call a bar of misfund and they’re responsible for themselves and so on.

And it seemed like okay now they’re supposed to accept that responsibility and as you go on through time it’s just like a a person laid out in the length of time. But when Jesus Christ came, there was no word from the Lord. Four hundred years of silence. And then all of a sudden Jesus came on the scene. Israel was under persecution. It was a bad time. But look what he says here in verse three, talking about the devil, Satan.

There appeared another wonder in heaven and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his heads. Now you and I know who this red dragon is. And if you’ve got a question about who it is, well, just look down here and you’ll see it in verse nine. See in verse nine. And the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceived with the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

So in verse nine, let you know that all those names is talking about the same one. Now Jesus has got a lot of names, but it’s all talking about the same one. But notice up there in verse 4, look in verse 4, and his tale drew the third part of the stars of heaven, which we believe are angels, and did cast them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman, which is Israel, and we know that the dragon is the devil, which was ready to be delivered, and then you are on the line this part, because this is part of the Christmas story, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

So the devil desired to devour the divine when it was born. But I wrote down a little statement and I’ll read it to you. Satan wanted to devour Christ all his life. You see, it’s not just that the devil wanted to get him when he was born. He stayed after him all his life. Did Jesus have any problem with the devil later on in life? Yeah. Take a Bible and look in Matthew in chapter Matthew and chapter 2. We looked at a part of this the other night when we talked about Joseph and the dreamer.

But in Matthew chapter 2, if you look there in verse 13, the devil uses people to accomplish his will. This is why sometimes when you can’t explain it, it seems like all of a sudden people turn. They change and can be sweet one moment and ugly the next. Yes, sometimes it’s because we have our own sinful nature, but sometimes there is a devil that you cannot see behind the scenes and he uses people. Look at verse 13, and when they were departed, talking about the wise men that came to see Christ, behold the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, say, and arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt and be thou there until I bring the word.

For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.” Now we read over there in the book of Revelation, chapter 12, that the devil sought to devour Christ from the day he was born. And now he sees that Herod is doing his dead level best and he wants to kill all the children. But what was he doing? You see he was stabbing at one baby trying to hit the one baby. Look what he says in verse 14, when he arose he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt.

And was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets saying out of Egypt, shall I have I call my son? Then Herod when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men was exceeding wrath and sin for slew all the children that were in Bethlehem. I had someone ask me just today at the Tampa Bible study. So why did God let a little three-year-old girl that I know about die of cancer, a three-year-old girl die of cancer?

You know, those are tough things to understand, let alone accept. And so then I told them about the little girl that we saw at the hospital that has leukemia. I said, sir, did you know that when Jesus was born, there was a lot of little babies two years old and under. And And it says that there was weeping because their children had been killed. What wrong had those children done? None. What wrong had their parents done? None. But you see, everyone is going to die.

Some will die from cancer, some may be from leukemia. Some will die because they got too old. And you’re going to have cancer or high blood pressure, cholesterol, strokes. You name it, it doesn’t really matter. But sometimes I believe God knows what’s ahead for the people before they ever live their lives. And God in His wisdom may allow them to die early than to live long and suffer longer. I don’t know. I’m not God, but I do know this.

I know that God cannot make a mistake. I know that God cannot do wrong. So therefore, I do not question why God does what He does. I don’t want to be so foolish as to think. I understand more and therefore I can set in judgment upon the Almighty. God forbid. But there’s a lot of people that do and they get mad and bitter at God as though God did something wrong. And you as a Christian must be very careful that you don’t believe or think for a moment that God has done something wrong.

And you want to take it out on God and not be faithful or not trust Him or not talk to Him and not walk as close as you are to as though God failed you. God doesn’t fail. God doesn’t sin. God doesn’t do anything wrong. And so if God allowed all these little children to die, then God has a higher purpose. See, God was protecting one little baby, but that one little baby wasn’t just a normal individual. This was a unique baby.

This baby that God spared and let live lived to die for the sins of the world. So you and I need to understand that and believe that. Look in Matthew chapter 4. Matthew chapter 4. You don’t find a lot about the childhood of Jesus. Oh, there’s a few books that have been out. No, the lost books of the Bible and things like that. You’ll be better, you just stick with the Bible. But notice here in chapter 4 verse 1, has the devil left Jesus alone?

Has he left him alone? No, here he comes again. And he says in verse 1, then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterwards hungry. Now, Now, to be tempted of the devil, remember, the devil is seeking whom he may devour, and he wants to devour me, you, even the Son of God. So the devil is always looking for a weakness, a weakness in your life.

That’s the reason you study the Word of God so you can be strong in your defense, so that you can protect yourself from the devil. The devil knows what areas of our lives we are weak. Do you think the devil knew that Jesus had an eight for a long time? And the devil knew that he was hungry? And the devil knew, hey, all I gotta do is this, you know, uses as an opportunity.

So I want you to understand, so that you know when the devil tempts you and you wanna do the will of God, The devil says, I can feed you. I can feed you. You just do whatever I tell you to do. You see, if you are who you claim to be, the son of God, all you gotta do is just command those stones and they’ll be turned into bread. Aren’t you hungry? Aren’t you hungry? You see, the devil knows that you and I have desire.

Did Jesus have a desire for food? He says he was hungry, I mean he was hungry. He wanted to eat something. The devil also knows you and I and knows us very well. Now he was talking about the Son of God, who didn’t even have a sinful nature. But you and I, we do have one. So if the Bible says this, the devil walks to and fro throughout the earth, seeking whom he may devour. I was going to preach a sermon one time called out of the jaws of the lion.

You know, really build it up how that I have been in the jaws of the lion where the lion had me in his jaws was ready to chop down on me, ready to kill me, eat me up devour me. And by the grace of God, he comes down and he delivered me from the snare of that devil. Don’t you think that would be a pretty good sermon? Do you know what he’s trying to do with Jesus? He’s trying to get him in the jaws of the lion.

He wants to devour him. He wants to get Jesus to make a mistake and to hit him when he’s weak. Because if he can get him while he’s weak and get him to sin, he can’t be the payment for our sins and there would be no one else. All the devil has to do is get him to commit one single sin. And then we won’t have a savior. There’s be no body that could down that cross and pay for our sin.

For God so loved the world that He gave us what? Only begotten Son. There was no body else that could do it. So Satan has a plan. Did you know that Satan has a plan for your life? Yes, God has a plan for our life, but so does the devil. And the devil wants to devour you so that you and I cannot do anything effective for the Lord. So he makes a statement here. And verse three, and when the tempter came to him, and I know it says for and when, it doesn’t say if, it’s when.

The devil will come, not if he does, but when he does. The devil is after you and he’s after me. He walketh about seeking whom he may devour and he’s waiting for you to be weak in certain areas of your life. And that’s why you have to guard every area of your life all the days of your life you have to be on guard. And you can’t let down. Now, I want you to see this in verse three when it says, the tempter came to him.

So the devil is after you and he’s coming to see you. And he’s going to use whatever it takes to tempt or to lure you. But notice what also he says in verse 11, then the devil, and you ought to underline that word, then the devil leave with him. And behold, angels came and ministered unto him. So the devil will come and the devil will go.

And you think, well, he’ll never bother me again. Oh, he’ll be back. He’ll be back. You can count on it. He will be back. Also, the thing I want you to see if you’ll look there in Matthew chapter four. In chapter four, notice in verse six. and saith unto him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written. See, the devil knows scripture. The devil can quote scripture. He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and if their hand they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone.

And the worst, hey, go ahead and pull yourself off that temple. Because the angels are going to watch over you and not even allow you to stub your little toe. Now, you understand with us in life, there’s one desire that we all have. One desire is for food and sometime we’ll do almost anything to make money to buy food. There’s another thing that all of us want. We want protection. And see, that’s one of the reasons why everybody likes to have insurance.

What is insurance for? Protection in case, you know, in case. Because it’s so hard and difficult to trust God that we can’t see, but if I know I got this policy and I make my payments, and then if something happens and goes wrong, I got a policy. Guaranteed, they got to take care of my health, they got to take care of my car, they got to take care of my house if it burns down. And so we want protection and some protection is not bad.

But it’s like the devil saying, look, you just do whatever I tell you. I’ll protect you. I see, I’m already the one telling you, you can do this because see, the angels are not gonna let you get hurt. I’m telling you truth. I’m telling you the truth. But see, he was deceptive. The Bible says, do not tempt the Lord thy God. don’t tempt God by being so stupid and foolish. I was told that hard times comes to all of us.

And because of these hard times, it’s kind of rough to go through. But it’s worse when you’re stupid. Do you find yourself doing stupid things? For example, somebody’s always trying to help me out in the ministry. They gave me this. And I thought, this can’t be real. I mean, nobody is this stupid, but then maybe they are. Recently when I went to McDonald’s, I saw on the menu that you could have an order of six 9 or 12 chicken nuggets.

I asked for a half dozen nuggets. We don’t have a half dozen nuggets. He said, the teenager, you don’t. We have six, nine or 12. So I can order a half dozen nuggets. But I can order six, that’s right. So I shook my head and ordered six nuggets. Now there’s some people that are just plain stupid. No, I was checking out at the local Walmart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine.

I picked up one of those little dividers that they keep the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn’t get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the divider looking at all over for the barcode and couldn’t find it. Not finding the barcode, she said to me, do you know how much this is? I said to her, I’ve changed my mind, I don’t think I’ll buy that today. I’ve been in the store and I’ve seen those things there, but I had no clue it a long time ago what they were for.

But this wasn’t written about me. A woman at work was saying put in a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the internet and they kept asking for a credit card number so she was using the ATM thingy. Now some of y’all, if you don’t do anything with a computer, you won’t get that. This one says, I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car.

do you need some help?” I asked. She replied, I knew I should have replaced a battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can’t get into my car. Do you think they would have a battery to fit this at the store over there? I said, I don’t know. Do you have an alarm to? I asked. No, just this remote thingy. Handing it, she answered, and handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manly unlocked the door, I replied, why don’t you drive over there and check about those batteries?

It’s a long walk. Some people forget you got a car key, but you punch the button. That really messed my car up because mine don’t work anymore. I have to use the car keys. Several years ago, we had an intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and says, I’m almost out of typing paper. What do I do? Just use paper from the photocopier, the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the copier and proceeded to make five blank copies.

By the way, she was brunette. A mother calls 911 very worried about and asked the dispatcher if she needs to take her kids to the emergency room. The kid had eaten ants. The dispatcher tell her to give the kid some men a drill and he should be fine, the mother said. But I just gave him some ant killer. This dispatcher rushed him to the emergency. I mean, if you could eat some ants, give them some ant poison, right? it’ll kill the ants.

Can you imagine that a parent would be that dumb? But listen, in this life there’s a lot of people doing a lot of stupid things. Here we are in, you know, 2000 years since Christ, everybody’s got all the evidence they need to verify that Jesus Christ lived upon this earth. and look at the effects of this one man after all these years. He was divine and the devil has lied to so many people for all these years trying to get people not to believe him.

And then for those that do trust Christ’s Savior, look how many lives the devil is ruining because God’s children won’t trust their heavenly Father. It’s enough to make you weep. But you know, here in verse 6, it’s like the devil says, look, you look to me and you trust me, I’ll feed you. I’ll satisfy that hunger desire. You look to me and I’ll take care and I’ll protect you. I’ll protect you. And so did you know that a lot of the problems that the nation of Israel had is, is because they look to Egypt or to Syria.

They look to other people for help instead of looking and trusting the Lord. And that’s why the Lord says the eyes of the Lord, the Lord to run to and fro throughout the old or whole, are looking for a person whose heart is right between him so that God could be strong on his behalf. God, just looking for somebody to trust him. See, God wants to lead you. God wants to provide. God wants to feed. God wants to protect.

God wants to do these things for us. And then we do everything, but look to him and trust him. You see, if the devil did that to Christ, that’s why the devil does that to us. Look what else he says here. You see there in verse eight. Again, the devil taken him up into a exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. You see, Satan will do whatever he has to offer you the world if you only serve him.

And God can make the other side of the, you know, the fence looks so green. And you say, well, I’m on this side and I’m serving the Lord in things like I’ve never had so many problems in my life until I started serving the Lord. I know in the other side, look so green. Well, if I just did what the world wanted me to do, I could have this and that and the other boy, look what I could have had.

Look what I could have been. I could have been somebody. I could have been a contender. And so people just wander from the Lord because there’s a devil and he lures. He lures because he lies. He deseces. And we can look to the Lord and we can trust the Lord because God knows what he’s doing. 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 by the 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. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are 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. broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.