This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. 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.

Today at the downtown Bible study, we had an interesting study, and I thought, I’m going to share a few of those thoughts with you tonight. I thought it’s good, and I think it’ll help you. And I definitely want Jay to listen real good. I won’t tell you why. It’s not important. But there is, and you know it, a spiritual warfare going on. You understand that? Do you believe that? While we’re in here in these physical bodies, there is another world being lived at the same time ours is.

It’s just an invisible world that you cannot see here with a natural eye. There’s been times when God has opened the eyes of some of His children and they have been able to see things that the rest of us never see. that you and I are told in the Bible that the devil is real. Have you seen him? No, you say, I saw his wife. No, no, no, no. But the devil is real. Demons are real. Follinate, they’re real.

They’re as real as God is real. And there’s things that God tells us in His Word that we need to be aware of. But I want to kind of give you just a little bit of a background so that whenever I get to the key part that I won’t talk to you about. Hopefully you’ll see it. So take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew, the book of Matthew, chapter 26. Matthew chapter 26, remember when Jesus Christ was here, he says, I do not do the things that I do by my own power.

He says, everything that I do, I do it by the power of the Holy Spirit. they said, you’re doing it by the power of Beelzebub. Now, Beelzebub was the devil. So they attributed all of his miraculous powers to the devil and not to God. Now, there is a problem. Their perspective was wrong. God says they’re wrong. Now, here in the book of Matthew in chapter 26, I want you to notice, look there in verse 52, verse 52. As you know Jesus was going to be arrested in the garden, Jesus had betrayed him, Peter was going to save the day.

Boy, He pulls out his sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? Now we know that Jesus put his ear back. Now you know, why would I want to arrest a guy that can put a guy’s ear back on his head? Something must be wrong with them. I mean if he can do that, you know they even got critical of Jesus because, hey, he goes by and he takes his tree and he curses a tree.

I mean what kind of a guy is this? Yes, but the understand it withered. It withered. Whatever power he had, it was real. They saw it. And he walked on water, raised the dead. Did all of these things. But he says, I do it by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now there’s something here. And he makes this statement as he talks to Peter, he says, Peter, put up your sword. In verse 52, put up again thy sword into his place.

For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently write now this moment. Give me more than 12 leagues of angels. You know, a league according to the Roman definition of the word could be anywhere from three to six thousand military troops. I mean, and this is twelve of those. Do you know we’re talking about over seventy something thousand? That’s our lawful law of angels.

We often hear that song, He could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set Him free. But this is about 10,000. How many angels are they? I don’t know. But He says, I could ask right now, my Father, and He could send me about 70-something-thousand. He says more than that. See what He says? More than 12 leagues of angels. But how then shall the scripture be fulfilled that thus it must be? In other words, there’s things that the scripture says must happen, and Jesus couldn’t do anything that would violate the fulfillment of any scripture.

I like that. It means that he must know how he must die. True? He knows how he has to die. He knows what is going to lead up to it. And everything that He did, it was about the fulfillment of Scripture. So who were these twelve leagues of angels? Now you and I, as we know, have never seen an angel except me. But there are angels that you cannot see. And he says, I can ask now, presently. Now if he has all these angels, what does he need them for?

He even talks about his armies that he’s going to be bringing with him and so on. So there is an awful lot of things behind the scenes that you and I can’t see. But I think there’s some things that we can understand. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Revelation in chapter 12. Revelation and chapter 12, I want you, along with myself, to understand a little bit more about how prayer works. Prayer is piercing that invisible wall, that prayer that you and I pray to the Lord.

It has to be heard by the invisible world. God, God is a spirit, must be worshiped in Spirit and in truth. We’re praying beyond this veil. We are not limited to what we see or here or the physical abilities or talents you and I have. We’re not limited to that. There is a lot we could avail ourselves of If we only chose to do so. I young mentioned this before, but let me just mention to it again. All right?

I’m one person. I could say, okay, I am going to play the piano. And I’m going to lead the singing. And I’m going to play the guitar. And while I’m doing all of this, I want to run the sound board. And while I’m doing all of this, I want to direct the choir. And then while I’m doing it, I want to sing and acquire too. And I also want to be the yesher, you know, that takes up all the money.

Have you noticed all the people that take up money get new cars? No, they don’t. I want to take up the money. I want to make the deposit. I want to write the checks. I want to be the one that cleans the church. You say you can have it. No, no, I’m just I’m just joking. I want to clean the church. So I want to be the janitor. I want to cut the grass.

I want to edit all the programs it goes on the radio. You know if I was to make a list of all the various things that’s done and I want to keep them nursery. Not really. They have everything but the nursery. So I could go through a list of all the things that are done and say, I want to do them. How long do you think I last? But would it be a shame if we had all these wonderful people to do all these different jobs, and then I would try to do it all myself and nobody else gets to do anything?

What in the world would I be thinking? Think for a moment. If this thing about angels is true, if this thing about prayer does avail much, the scriptures tell us that the prayer of the righteous man availeth much. Isn’t it found somewhere in the Bible? James chapter 5, very good. So we send the Bible. And he gives us illustrations about somebody in the Old Testament who prayed that it wouldn’t rain for three years or three and a half years.

All kinds of stuff. It’s a powerful book. The Bible gives us the idea that prayer works. Our problem is we don’t know how it works, so therefore we don’t do much of it. We just think about things and we may just pray a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but I’m talking about taking it seriously. Do you really believe that when you pray and you talk to God, something’s going to happen? We’re supposed to believe that.

So there’s somebody on the other side listening to our prayer and is supposed to execute some kind of a response to what we’ve asked for. Let our request be made known unto God.” So there’s a spiritual war that goes on. Now notice this, hearing the book of Revelation in chapter 12, notice in verse 3, and there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his heads, and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, which was the nation of Israel.

For to devour her child as soon as it was born, and that’s why we had all those little babies murdered. You see, the devil was stabbing at one baby. And that’s why all those other babies were killed. And a lot of things Satan doesn’t know that if God allowed him though, he would intervene and keep the word of God from being fulfilled. That’s why I believe there’s certain things that God doesn’t reveal to us, lest we would try to change the course of events that are prophesied that has to be fulfilled.

Interesting. But now notice what he says here in verse 7. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought in his angels. So we know there’s two groups here. groups here. Michael has his angels and the devil has his angels. The good and the bad. The good and the bad. So which one would you believe God has for your benefit? There’s good angels, but there’s a war going on between these angels.

And we would think that, well, Lord’s angels automatically win every time and there’s no problem. We can’t see really what’s happening behind the scenes and things that will happen that will affect our whole lives. But as I read the scriptures, it gets very interesting to me because I’m always trying to figure out something. Look what he says in verse 9, and the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil and Satan, so we know who he is, which deceiveth the whole world he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

And down in verse 10 he says, he is the accuser of our brethren, he’s cast out. And he talks about how that a whole world has been deceived. So whether we like it or not there’s a good possibility that the devil and his angels have deceived us, not just because we have an old sinful nature, that’s what he uses, but we’ve been deceived. We don’t see everything clearly. We get deceived by people. We try to be figured out to all their motives and we let the devil put thoughts into our minds, causes to think the way we shouldn’t think.

And isn’t it true that the Bible says perfect love cast out fear. Perfect love cast out fear. And the Lord tells in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 he said the Lord has not given us the spirit of fear but of love, power and of a sound mind. I think a lot of Christians do not have a sound mind and that they are governed by a lot of fear. But where does this fear come from? It didn’t come from God.

Fear doesn’t come from God. Love, perfect love, casts out fear. It’s when we’re questioning whether or not do I really love Him and does He really love me? If you ever settle that, you’ll settle 95% probably of all your problems because you will quit. What do you think is the main goal of the devil to get you to question God’s love for you? Because if He doesn’t provide for you the way you think, I see there, He doesn’t care about you.

He didn’t forget all about you. You’re on your own. He doesn’t love you. And you’d be surprised that all the questions and doubts you can have. Now, do you think that just comes from you normally? Well you have an old sinful nature, that’s true. But the Bible says that the devil deceives the whole world. Now, he may not do it himself, but he has, I guess you would call it like a chain of command of those that are in authority.

Take your Bible and turn all the way over there to the book of Daniel, chapter 10. The book of Daniel in chapter 10. Now you wouldn’t think that there was a problem back there in Daniel’s time with, you know, things like dealing with angels. I mean, he was just a good man, and yeah, he had an incident with some lions at one time, but not nearly serious. But Daniel in chapter 10, look there in verse 1, in the third year of Cyrus, King of Persia, a thing was revealed under Daniel, whose name was called Beltish Azer, and the thing was true, but the time appointed was long.

the thing and had understanding of the vision. In those days, I Daniel was born in three full weeks, three full weeks. He mourned. And the Bible tells us that he had prayed and talked to the Lord and searched his heart, seeking for the will of God. And it seemed like, well, I guess God must not have heard him. He must have took a vacation. So here in Daniel in chapter 10, you see in verse 7, he says, And I, Daniel alone saw the vision.

For the men that were with me saw not the vision, but a great quaken fell upon them so that they fled to hide themselves and left him all alone. But he got to see something and hear something that was very interesting. Now, it’s not as important at this point to try to figure out, know this man because it looks like the man is the Lord. If you look there in verse 5 and so forth, but whether it is or not, I haven’t figured it all out.

But there’s something strange going on here because Daniel was given a vision. Daniel wanted to know the understanding of the vision. Daniel had somebody appear to him, and whenever it happened, he told him something that was really strange, wonderfully strange. See, look down there in verse 12, then said he unto me, fear not Daniel, for from the first day that thou did set thine hard to understand, to chasten thyself before thy God. Thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words three weeks later.”

Now Lord, can’t you move faster than that? Now I understand that there’s different periods of time and different dispensations, but understand just a little bit about the spiritual warfare that goes on behind the scenes. You’ll notice what he says here in verse 13, but the prince of the kingdom of Persia, which stood me one in twenty days, weeks. Below Michael, I wonder who Michael is.

Did we just read about Michael in chapter 12 of the book of Revelation? Michael and his angels? I believe it’s the same one. This is Michael the archangel. And look what he says. Michael, one of the cheap princes, that means he wasn’t the only one. He was one of others. And how many princes were there I do not know, but he says, came to help me and I remain there with the kings of Persia. Now am I come to make the understand what shall be followed by people in the latter days, for yet the vision is for many days.

So there’s things that they know, things they can do, but battles they must fight. In other words, there has to be some kind, I guess you could call it, rules of engagement in the spiritual realm, where when they fight, can they kill one another angels? I didn’t figure that out yet. You’re dead, but there is a battle that goes on and they have to be rules. has to do everything right. The Satan wants to do everything that’s wrong. But I do believe he has limitation in his power.

Why would I think Satan is limited about some things that he can do and some things he can’t do? And you’ll read that in the book of Job, chapter 1 and chapter 2 in particular, where he appears with the sons of God and the Lord says, hey, where you man?” He says, oh, just running up and down through the earth, seeking whom I made of our. And the Lord said, hey, have you ever considered my servant Job? And the devil said, what good would it do?

You have him protected. You put a hedge about him and I can’t get at him. He said, but you take that hedge away and he’ll curse you to your face. The Lord is the one that sic the devil on him. On John, the Lord did that. But the Lord wanted to show to the devil that there was somebody who loved him more than anything else in the world. And he says, nah, he doesn’t love you more because you see, you gave him all of these things.

Take all those things away from him and he won’t love you. So he lost 10 kids in one day. He lost his crop. He lost his servants. He lost his wealth. He lost his cattle. How would you like to have all of that hit? And the Bible says, in all of this Job said not, nor charged God foolishly. But he says, the Lord giveth and the Lord take it the way blessed be in the name of the Lord, the devil lost.

It wasn’t long until you get to chapter 2. He said, if you considered my servant Job, oh we’re going to go. go through that again. He says, you let me get at his body. A man will do anything for his life. Let me get at his body. And so the Lord says, okay, you can get at his body, but you can’t take his life. See, the devil has limitations that God puts upon him about what he can’t do. And yet there’s things that he may permit him to do.

Did you know that every once in while you and I might need to really be tested? Ew. But you see, if he told you when he was going to test you, how he was going to test you would know the reason for the testing. So he doesn’t tell you anything. God doesn’t tell you. Only that you know what God can do, what the devil can do, and you’re to be aware of that and be found faithful. When it appears that God has totally failed you, you keep serving God.

Now did Job have anything happen to him? He struck his body with boils all over his body and he says there in an ash sheet what broken pieces of pottery scraping himself. And his wonderful loving wife who bore him ten kids says, See why don’t you just curse God and die? Every man needs a woman standing right behind him and still Joe would not sin against God. He maintained his integrity. Did you note your trust in the Lord is what integrity is about?

Your character is revealed by how much confidence do you really have in what God says. Do you really wanna know how strong you are? It’s not scary, huh? Sometimes we can’t let our light shine unless God turns out all the other light. And when you see His hand move them for the light switch, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don’t do it. And you’d be surprised like Moses had made this statement, I don’t want to see how wicked I really am.

I want to see how wicked I really am. We are afraid of truly being tested to the hilt because we’re afraid to fall on the part. We’re afraid of saying and doing something to really ruin our testimony. So we pray that God put a hedge about me and protect me. Don’t let that dirty bird get at me. my wife and my kids because we don’t want to find out. We want to be able to go through life totally protected.

We want the Obama help care from the cradle to the grave. So nothing happens. Everything’s covered. I think we’re in a heap of trouble. Now take your Bible and turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, 2 Corinthians and chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10, and this is what he says, in verse 3, for though we walk in the flesh, that means in the body, in this physical body, we do not war after the flesh. Get this for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.

They’re not guns and bullets and knives. We’re not fighting that kind of a war. God says his war is a different kind of a war. It’s a spiritual warfare. It’s to try to capture the minds of an individual and capture the mind you can’t use force, you must do it with truth. If God captures your mind with truth, He’s got you. And see, God wants to take and this is your strong hole up here. This is why you do everything that you do.

So we want something that can pull down all of those things that are against Christ out of your mind. So that you are surrendered Mentally. Look what he says in verse four, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of stronghold. And you are on the line of our mighty through God. If you’re not strong in the Lord, you are not strong. If your prayer life isn’t strong, you are not strong.

No man can be greater than his prayer life. If you don’t pray, you will not have the spiritual strength that you’re supposed to have. 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 tool 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 Bibleline 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. Live 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.