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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 a 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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. If you want to be rewarded when you get to heaven, you’re gonna have to have a decent-sized battle. Something that really challenges you. So I sat down one day in a restaurant and I wrote an outline of what I considered the ultimate warrior. It’s in my book, the ultimate warrior.

I just want to give you parts of it for right now, because of something I want to say. A soul winner is an ultimate warrior, but I want to leave off the word soul winning for right now. I just want to talk to you about being an ultimate warrior, because an ultimate warrior has got to look for the ultimate war. War, he doesn’t have anything. I mean, little skirmishes, oh, little skirmishes, but you want a big battle, something that really shows what you’re made out of.

As they say, what kind of metal do you have? I mean, do you have, you know, a piece of rebar down your backbone? Or a piece of spaghetti? What are you made out of? How tough are you, really? So that’s why when they have competition, they have all these football teams. get out there and knock each other around and try to say who’s the best. And then they keep on going until they finally get to the Super Bowl. And hopefully they’ve got two worthy opponents.

And that’s what all of this knocking out everybody until they get to the two, that’s the best. And then they get in there and go at it. Because see, they know that if you’re going to win, you’ve got to have a worthy opponent. Well, here you are. God wants to reward you and he got the perfect, the ultimate weapons for you to fight with. He’s already designed where you’ve got the ultimate enemy, the devil, the devil. And you are going to have a battle, and I’m I’m not talking, somebody asked one time.

I said, do you believe in the devil? He said, I sure do, married his sister. Well anyway, the ultimate warrior needs the ultimate weapon. The ultimate weapon, according to Division 6 17, is the sword, which is the word of God. So God has given you the ultimate weapon you need fight the ultimate enemy in the ultimate battle. Isn’t God good? He didn’t tell you to fight a battle and then give you nothing to fight with. That would be terrible.

Also, he says, the strength, which is the Holy Spirit. So he gave you a sword, the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit. And if you know how to use them and let the Holy Spirit use you, you’d be surprised. You may have a chance of winning. So it’s not like that God didn’t give you what you needed to fight this ultimate battle. It’s just you didn’t use it. What God made available. The next point I brought out was the ultimate warrior needs the ultimate mission.

What does God want me to do? I don’t want to do some little bitty thing. I want the ultimate mission. Alright, he gave us one. One of the greatest things that a man can do in his whole life. Alright, what is the great thing that God has? He gave us the great commission, the great command. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And lo and behold, I am with you always, even until the ends of the earth.

So we have been given a command. That is a big command. You mean, how long do I have to do this? I mean, do I do it six months? The Mormons do it for two years. They go on a mission trip, pay their own way, and they don’t get nothing, no help from back home, and they got to go and off on their own, go around the world and live for two years and do that and they come back.

Every one of them. And here we are, and nobody wants to do that. Nobody’s prepared, but they do that. And they reach millions and millions and millions of people. God’s people have the truth. And most of them cannot commit themselves to it. Because the devil defeats them, defeats them. And I think it’s something we need to ultimately think about. the mission which is to preach the gospel to every creature and in every generation. You see I’m not responsible for the next generation except to reach the people of this generation that’s supposed to reach the next generation.

So my responsibility is to reach and to train people who can reach the next generation. You see it’s one thing to win people to Christ it’s another thing to reach people who can reach somebody else and then somebody else and somebody else. That’s what makes church so important because you learn the discipline that you need to serve the Lord. The other point that I brought out was the message. I mean if you’ve got a mission you ought to have a message.

And the message of course is what God has given to us to go into all the world and preach the gospel not just anything that you want but the gospel, the gospel itself. And the gospel of course is the death, Berlin resurrection of Jesus Christ which is what he He did for us so that we could be justified by faith. And so the ultimate warrior needs the ultimate enemy. Now I know you may think your wife is the ultimate enemy.

You may think it’s your husband. Sometimes you might think it’s the kids or is that boss you or you are? No, those are only people that the devil uses. Sometimes you need to think what’s behind this? What’s behind this? Have you ever noticed sometimes that little woman is just so sweet, nice and kind? All of a sudden she can turn mean and ugly. Just that quick. Now don’t blame everything on the devil. I don’t want you to do that.

Sometimes she is just blaming me. Sometimes you can’t figure them out. But you have an ultimate enemy, one that’s worse than all the others. So your boss may be bad, but he’s not the ultimate enemy. your wife and kids and husband, but they’re not the ultimate enemy. I’m not your enemy, but there is an ultimate enemy that’s behind the scenes that you cannot see. And the Bible describes him as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour because he’s hungry as can be.

And he devours you, and you’ll notice in the book of Galatians in chapter 5, he says, love one another and be kind one to another and do not devour one another. So whenever Christians are devouring each other it’s because the devil is controlling one of them. And that’s why he’s using you to devour somebody else. So there’s a devil behind the scenes. That’s why you need to always realize the devil wants to use me and you need to understand God wants to use me.

You are the the one that decides who gets to use you. Do you want the devil to use you? All you have to do is find out if he’s using you is, remember, the devil always gets you to say and think and do that which is wrong. The Holy Spirit cannot lead you wrong. The Holy Spirit can’t lead you contrary to the word of God. So the Holy Spirit will always lead you to do right. And if whatever you’re doing isn’t right, surprise.

Somebody’s got control of you. And see, they can’t control you unless they can get control of that old sinful nature of yours. Remember I told you this? The only reason you can catch a rat with a piece of cheese is because there’s something on the inside of the rat that likes cheese. The reason the devil can use sin to catch us with and lure us with is because we like sin. We have something on the inside of us that likes to sin.

Call of those sinful nature. Well, doggy. And three of those things is revealed in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. So sin is what can always be traced back to the thing called pride. Pride, PRIDE. We want our own way. Before you ever trusted Christ is saved, the Bible says, according to the course of this world, we all walk that away. had the same kind of a mind of rebellion to God and children of rebellion, children of disobedience.

That’s how God sees us. Because we were lost, all we have was a sinful nature, and we walked according to the course of the world. Now that you know Christ is your Savior, God doesn’t want us to walk according to the course of the world. He wants us to be different. So he says the ultimate warrior needs to fight the ultimate enemy. And the ultimate enemy, chapter 2 of the book of Ephesians in verse 2 talks about the prince of the power of the heir, which is a reference to the devil himself.

So we have the ultimate enemy. Every one of us has the same enemy. And that’s why almost all of us fight the same battles, not the same kind at the same time, but in the course of our life, you’ll be surprised that you will have fought the ultimate battle. God is going to reward us when we get to heaven because of the battles you’ve had to fight. Now you may lose a little skirmish here and there, but you don’t have to lose the war.

Always keep getting up. When the devil knocks you down, always get back up. And you seem like you’re defeated, always get back up, always keep walking. The next thing I wanted to mention to you is the ultimate warrior needs the ultimate battle plan. In other words, you have to have a way to fight the devil. One is God says, you don’t fight the devil according to the will of the flesh. In other words, it’s not with bazookas and AK-47s and hand grenades.

You can’t fight an enemy. You can’t see like that because it’s a spiritual warfare. So God says that he wants us to fight the battle, but it’s got to be fought and you’ll find these verses like this according to his will, according to his will. In other words, according to his will is according to his word. So when you study the Word of God, you’re learning and getting some ammunition to fight to battle. When you don’t study the Bible, don’t have time to study, don’t have time to memorize, you don’t have time to go to church, you’re not getting the ammunition you need to fight the battle you’re going to face.

You will have the battle like it or not. It’s not according to your choice. God is going to allow you to fight the battle. Ready or not, here it comes. Now it’s not more than what you could bear had you served them and studied and prepared. But when you don’t, you fail. And that’s why a lot of God’s children live a defeated Christian life. So he says this. He says, now if is the time to be saved, then now is the time to fight.

Doesn’t it say in the Bible that now is the accepted time, salvation now? If now is the time to witness, now is the time to serve. It’s now. Most people, it is so easy to dedicate your life to the Lord, which is out there and hard to dedicate the day, which you do have. So you got to keep that in. So the ultimate warrior needs a ultimate battle plan. God has a plan, a way that will work. How for you to stay strong?

He says, do not, do not be conformed to this world because you can’t fight His war according to the course of this world. You’re to be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or discover. Where’s that perfect and acceptable plan that God has for you? So there is something God has for you and it will work. And you can fight the battles and you can win if you wanna win. But if you go through life and you always feel down and defeated and nothing ever works, that your own fault.

Do right. Find what the God talks about on how to fight the battle. Then the ultimate warrior needs the ultimate mental toughness. They often talk about these players and how they got to be mentally tough as they come down to the final drive or the final this or the final that. Can they do it? And they got the, you know, the March madness with the basketball players and who can do it and who’s mentally tough. A Christian has to be mentally tough.

The Bible talks about in the book of 2 Corinthians in chapter 4 when he says, having therefore received this ministry, we faint not. It means that we, we don’t quit because the ministry God gave to us is more important than anything else in the world. And it’s an important one. So if I was the devil, I would do everything I could to discourage you, to harass you. I mean, to try to do everything I could to keep you from being what God wants you to be.

And that scripture tells us in the book of Philippians chapter 2 and verse 5 through 11, having the mind of Christ, having the mind of Christ. And it talks about Christ, did not think it Robert to be equal with God, but he humbled himself and became obedient, even unto death. And we’re, for God had highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God, the Father.

But have this kind of a mind that he had, he humbled himself and became obedient. And that’s something you and I can do. Just humble yourself to the Lord and become obedient even to death until you die. As long as you’re in this body There’s going to be a lot of problems you’re going to have but remember I said this morning the problems are simply Opportunities for you and I deserve the Lord to prove whether or not do we love the Lord more than anything else in the world Because if you don’t then anything you put between you and God God has the freedom to remove Remember I’m saying I’m telling you the truth God is a jealous God God.

Jealousy is means I don’t want to be replaced. This is why a girl gets so jealous when another girl looks at her boyfriend. You don’t want to be replaced. Or some husband see his wife winking at some other guy. That’s murder. You don’t want to do that. So you, as a child of God, got to understand, don’t make God mad. Don’t make him angry because you make him mad, you can’t win. Also this, you must believe that the battle is worth the fight.

Why fight a battle to you that’s not worth the fight? That’s why you have to find out what do you believe is something that’s worth fighting for? Some things are not worth fighting for. You know, some things, you know, you can accept it or leave it. Other things you can be very greatly concerned about, but you wouldn’t die for it. But there are some things that I would die for. And so in 2 Corinthians 4, when he says, having this ministry, we didn’t quit.

And in that chapter, and I preached the sermon on this one time, in verse 8, we were troubled, but we didn’t quit. In verse 15, it says, well, we were perplexed, but we didn’t quit. And we were persecuted but we didn’t quit. And we were cast down but we didn’t quit. This is what Paul is saying. Because he said they were in this ultimate battle with the devil because in that same chapter it talks about that there was a veil over the eyes of those that do not believe because the God of this world has blinded the mind of them which believed none.

unless the light of the glorious gospel should shine into them. And we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Inside of you, the knowledge of how to go to heaven is the most powerful truth on earth. That’s what makes you so rich. That’s what makes you so valuable. The knowledge you have on how to go to heaven. Because you have something that most people do not have. You have that truth. Therefore the devil is going to do everything possible to keep you from sharing that truth.

The ultimate warrior needs the ultimate victory. When that time comes, when that moment comes, don’t you want to be able to say, I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. I finished my course. Therefore there’s later for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord is going to give to me, not only to me, but also to all of them who love His appearing. So whether you fight or not is your choice, but you’re in the battle, you’re in the war, and you can run be AWOL and not fight at all.

You can throw up, you know, I surrender, I surrender, I’m not going to fight, and do nothing and God never use you. Or you realize that I’ve got one life to live, this one little short period of time God’s given to me. And for all eternity God’s going to reward me for what I did for him. But nobody can make you serve the Lord. Nobody can make you love God. Nobody can make you faithful. That’s a personal thing. I have always, all these years, trusted the Lord, the challenge and motivate people.

Because I know all I can do is just tell the truth as honestly as I know how and lead the results to the Lord and see what God will do. Now let me just tell you this. Who do you think of everybody you know or have ever heard about? Has ever fought the real ultimate battle, the ultimate battle? Where do you think it was fought? It was fought on Calvary. You stop and think when Jesus Christ went to the cross, and even before He got there, the battle that He fought, but He came into this world for one reason, and that was to die on the cross to pay for our sins.

We often say that all our sins were placed on Him at the cross, and to a certain point, And just about every sin you can name was done against Him. They lied about Him. They beat Him. They mocked Him. They scorned Him. They spit on Him. They hit Him. They pulled His beard. They shamed Him by stripping Him naked. You named the sin that people, they even come to the place. They murdered Him. They murdered Him. They lied about Him.

think of all the things that happened to him. And they said, if you are who you claim to be, if you are the Son of God, then why don’t you come down? Why don’t you come on down? Save thyself. But if he had it, he couldn’t have saved anybody. Now, me ought to come down zapped them one and went back up. But then that’s, that’s me. So Jesus Christ had all these sins against him, all these lies, the devil against him.

He even asked his disciples to pray for him and they wouldn’t, they just fell asleep. All for Succom, have you ever felt forsaken? Alone? You name what you’ve ever faced and gone through and Jesus has gone through that. Tempered in all points like as we are yet without sin. The ultimate battle against the ultimate enemy, let me ask you something. Did he win? He came back from the dead, sinned it into heaven, seated in the heavenlies. And whenever you and I believed that what he did, his victory that he won, was for me.

The battle he fought was mine. He fought my battle. He died in my place. But he came back from the dead, ascended into heaven, and what he did was put to my account as though I did it. So as far as God is concerned, He sees me in His Son seated in the heavenlies. It’s a done deal. It’s done. That’s where God sees me. I am as secure as anybody can ever be. When you trust Christ as your Savior, He can never cast you out, never lose you.

You’re going to heaven because of the ultimate battle that was fought on Mount Calvary by Jesus Christ against the ultimate enemy, the devil, and sin and the grave. In order to free me and give me victory over the devil, over sin and over the grave, I never have to fear death because of the victory that he won for me. Look up here, this hand represents you me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. Now God says that He loves us, hates our sin, but He loves us.

And for us to pay for this sin is eternal separation from God. You see, where’d all those sins come from? We failed. We failed. These are all our failures. All the time we broke the law of God. We trespass. We overstepped a boundary. And therefore, we’re guilty. We failed. And though God says that He loves us, but He hates our sin. And if we pay for our sins, it’s death, inhale for all eternity. But God says that He loves us, He wants us to go to heaven.

To go to heaven, we have to be perfect, and none of us are perfect. So the Bible says that we cannot save ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. The Bible says that when Christ died for us. All we had to do is be lead that He did it for us because you cannot earn eternal life. This hand represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin, because our sin separates us from Him.

So Jesus Christ came into the world and He fought all these battles, but never failed. He was victorious all his life, never committed one sin. He fought the ultimate battle against the ultimate enemy. Paid for our sins and came back from the dead, victoriously. And all that you and I have to do is believe He did it for us and He would put the payment He made to our account. We get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did.

He says, these things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. I know that I have eternal life. I know that I know that I know that I know. I know I know I know I know. And I want you to know that I know I know I know I know. Do you know? Do you know you have eternal life? Do you know you’re going to heaven when you die?

That’s the best news in all the world. And there’s only one person that can get the credit because only one person fought the battle for us in one. Christ won the victory. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around. If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I’m not going to ask you to stand up and come forward. I’m not going to put you on the spot. I just want you to write where you’re sitting.

Just talk to the Lord and say, Lord, I don’t understand at all, but I know I’m a sinner. Our friend, if you’re watching by internet tonight, I want you to know that there’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you can do to save yourself. If you’ll trust Christ, He will save you. He died and paid for your sins. and said, if you would trust Him, He would save you and give you the free gift of eternal life. So it has bound nice clothes.

No one looking around, is there anyone here that say, yes, that made sense to me. I want to be certain of going to heaven when I die. And I believe Jesus Christ died on that cross, paid from my sins. And right now I will trust Him to take me to heaven when I die. If you’ve never done it before, would you do it right now? And if you will, would you let me know by an upraised hand? Just slip it up very quickly and put it right back down.

And it went off. It went off. Our Father, we thank You so much for this time together to study Your Word. Nor does a lot we don’t know. The battle is raging. And Father, we just pray for wisdom, that we will seek Your Word and apply the weapons that You’ve given to us and by prayer and yield unto You that Father, we can have victory. We ask to strength in every life here. Help us to do right to honor you in all the things.

Christ name we pray, amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Each 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 1030 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.