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 Bibleline Ministries dot O-R-G 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. your Bible and turn to the book of James chapter 4, James and chapter 4, the devil. What did he know and when did he know it? If I had known that the first day I was going to have a wrench meeting there in Colorado, I’m not sure I would have had it.

If I had known, I only had two kids the first night. I probably would have thought, I’m worth more than that. Do they know who I am? And I’m I supposed to have, and I had about three or four of us in the Firehouse Five, two little kids in front of me. And the thing is they were junior high kids. So there’s no way they’re going to take and determine to go to Bible college, you know, for the next semester.

AndWisconsin, andespie, and I thought, I’m hearing you high kids are not the kind that says, hey, thank you so much for all you’ve done for me. And I thought, this will be a waste of my time. I mean, I am so valuable that I’m going to spend my time with two little kids. But I’m glad God didn’t tell me in a day.

arij,Rogue, and I’ve had a lot of teenagers. You know, I don’t know. But when I stop and think about the opportunities that I had, I had told the church, we’re gonna start a bus ministry. Because, see, I used to run a bus ministry whenirgin I was at Tennessee Temple, back in 1964, I think it was. And because I had a bus ministry at the foot of the in-e-in-in-in-in-in-in, City and down at the bottom of St. Elmo right there in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

And I came to the conclusion that since I’ve done it, I am an expert. I’ve done this before. All I need is get me a bus, I run around there and everybody will just beg me to get on. Well I’ve worked at Saturday. I’d knocked on, I don’t know, it seemed like 10,000 doors, probably maybe 60, 70. But I knocked on a lot of doors. People in churches couldn’t wait for Sunday morning to come when they stood outside and they watched me when I pulled in with my bus.

I had teachers already signed the you know the take them into the various classes so they could teach all these kids and so when I pulled into the park and a lot of the church I had one kid on my bus. Lots of people told me yes my kids can go my kid can go promises promises promises and then whenever I showed up nobody would do the answer the door. They’re not kids are not coming. Next week promises promises.

I was so discouraged disappointed that when I got back to the church and here I had all these people waiting to teach these classes from these kids that were going to get off the bus and there weren’t one kid. If I had known before, that’s all you’re going to have. I don’t even know if I would have started the bus ministry. But you know with one kid, you can’t get any less than zero. You can only go up and go up we did until we had in 1978 we averaged over 600 on bus routes just on the buses.

My town now came to church. So you have to have a beginning. If I had known when I went to Minnesota and that first day that I got there, believe it or not it was Wintery, it was like blizzard condition and snow banks up for five feet. You’re driving on the road, you can’t see any houses, you can’t see roads. And then the guy pulled into the church and was a little overinked in church. A little little small thing.

I thought, I have wasted my time coming to this little old place. Because nothing is going to happen here. Well, this preacher would not have been there. A lot of those people that went to Bible college, they would have never done that. They started the camp, built several churches, had about three or four churches going. And we had kids from there to come to college, CBC in Colorado and also down to FBC. But you see, God is so smart, so wise, and not letting us know what tomorrow may bring.

Because if we really knew what tomorrow may bring, we may not want tomorrow to come. And you’d be surprised how disappointed and discouraged you can be. So I want you to see this verse. I read it to you before, you know it’s in the Bible. It’s nothing new, but I want you to get this. I want you to look up there in chapter four, verse six. James chapter four, verse six. But He giveth more grace, wherefore He saith. God resisted the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

Some people say that God’s giveth us grace is the desire and the power to do the will of God. The desire and the power to do the will of God. So if you humble yourself to the Lord and say, Lord, it’s not for me to decide, you know, whether or not I should or should not go, it’s your decision. One thing that I tried to determine over the years, I never wanted to determine whether I went to a place or not because of the size of the church or the distance or the money.

I just wanted to do it. If I can do it, I’m going to do it. And yes, I have traveled sometimes long ways and get absolutely nothing. And then sometimes I go for a day and they treat me very well. But you can’t make that your criteria. Now, I know there’s some people that they won’t go unless they get a guarantee of $10,000. That’s a lot of money. But that’s what they demand. And there’s people that pay it because they are so good.

Bill Clinton gets $100,000 a lick. I don’t believe what he has to say is more important than what I have to say. But he can get $100,000 for speaking someplace. Well, you angel, how much do you get? No, never mind. How much do you think you’re worth? Well, look what else he says here, and that’s in verse 7. He says, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Now you ought to know that the devil is going to do whatever he can to destroy you and he works on your mind to disappoint you and I.

To get us so down and that we just it don’t seem like it’s worth it. I’ll never forget whenever I had graduated from FBC and I really didn’t know where I was gonna go but next thing you know I’m in I’m in Indian summer camps. Camps speaker. Never been to Indian camps before in my life. Here I was. We’re the wife and my two kids and we living out of the back end of our station wagon and I got a little pool trailer behind us.

And that was all of our possessions. We had a few other boxes, the stuff that we buried in somebody’s basement up there in Georgia, and later on we got them, but that wasn’t much. We didn’t have much at all. And next thing you know, I’m going out there to speak in Indian camps. Now remember when I wanted to start the church here in Colorado, all I had was a body that could go day and night and I thanked the Lord for it because I could just, you know, if I got a couple hours of sleep and night I’m good to go.

And so I would repair pallets, oak pallets at King’s Super’s warehouse at night. And then at 3.30 in the morning, I would go and throw papers. And I would throw these papers and then when it got daylight, I could go work at Don Jackson Turkey Farm killing turkeys and making turkey deliveries. Well, you have no idea how many times I thought to myself, self. It’s just why you went to Bible school, so you could throw newspapers so that you could kill turkeys.

You could repair pallets. But in the back of my mind, I know I’ve got to do this to get to this. If that’s what I have to do, then that’s what I’m going to do. But if I had known in advance how difficult it was going to be, I probably would have to do it. would not have left. God in His wisdom blinded me to the future. And what I had to do was take God one day at what?

One day at a time. One day at a time. Now look what He says here in verse 13. Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city. Continue there a year, buy and sell and get gained. The goal was profit. We’re gonna make a profit. And he says in verse 14, whereas ye know not what shall be on the moral. Now, let’s don’t take this verse out of context. Let’s just leave it right there.

Look what he’s saying. We know not what shall be on the tomorrow. It means that you do not know what’s going to happen tomorrow. God hasn’t told us what’s going to happen tomorrow. Because if God told us, we might want to change it or alter it or deny it or not get out of bed the next day. So God in his wisdom says you don’t know what’s going to happen. What you need to say is if the Lord will we shall live and do this or that But now you rejoice in your boasting Because you brag about what you’re going to do and how it’s going to be did you know that God has a?

a ways and means committee a way to humble us and And that is by not letting you know what’s coming tomorrow because God can pull that rug after Monday you and nothing flat. You can be flat broke. Have nothing. God can do this. And so He makes this statement here. All such rejoicing is what? All such rejoicing, the motion about what you’re going to do and what I’m going to accomplish and I, you may not get anything done. I can say, Lord willing, we are gonna start a Bible college.

But I don’t know if we’ll ever have a Bible college. I can’t make some things happen. I’m just saying that here I am Lord. And if you want us to have one, I’m ready to go. I’ll do anything you say do. But if you close the doors, so be it. If you open the doors, here I am. I’ll teach, I’ll do whatever I can, as long as I can. You’re in charge of my life. Do whatever you want to do.

But whenever you begin to dictate to God how He must do something, then we’re in trouble. Then we’re in trouble. Look what He says in verse 17, therefore to Him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to Him it is Him. What you do that he’s calling sin goes up there to verse 13 about saying what’s going to happen. You determine how it’s going to be. You see, when we dedicate our life to the Lord, God has the right to interrupt our schedule.

God’s plan may not be your plan. You could have all kind of dreams and ideas about what you want to do and where you want to go and sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t. So I wrote a few things down. Look in Ephesians chapter 6, the book of Ephesians and chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. And the question that I wrote down, why doesn’t God tell me the devil’s every move in advance? that helped me when I’ve got an enemy like the devil.

Why can’t God save me some time and tell me what is the devil going to try to do to me tomorrow? I want to know. And if God would tell me I could prepare better. I mean exactly what’s he gonna do? He got all these demons running around and they can do all these kind of things. Wait a minute. Why doesn’t God tell me tomorrow what they’re gonna do? Well sure like it would save a lot of time. Now I do not know the rules of engagement where you know God has rules by which he must go by and the devil is not going to be able to do it.

has rules that he must go by and there’s like an agreement. It’s like a great big game of chess and who’s trying to get who and checkmate and I’m the low pawn here and everybody’s making moves and you think well God what are you trying to do with my life? Now you ought to understand that God can take the devil and use his wicked devices to put you right where he wants you to accomplish exactly what he wants to accomplish.

So I want you to look at this verse and you’ll notice there in verse 11 where he says put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. It’s not like God stops the devil. But he tells you how to prepare for the devil. So God doesn’t tell us what he’s going to do tomorrow and God doesn’t tell us all the ways in which the devil is going to try to get us tomorrow.

But we do know and understand that the devil is on our trail and he is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. So I I mean, if I’m God’s child and God really loves me, God’s not gonna let Satan get me. Is he? I mean, God’s not gonna let the devil ruin my life. Is he? Why wouldn’t God allow the devil to get the best of me? Don’t he care about me? And when he talks about knowing the wows of the devil, You don’t have to know everything.

Oh, but God has given to us the weapons of warfare. And if we’ll do what God says, do, we’ll have what we need to battle tomorrow. But if God told us in advance all the details, the exact details of tomorrow’s battle, we may not want to face tomorrow. It could be so discouraging, so does heartening. And God doesn’t even tell us in advance some of the great blessings we’re going to have tomorrow. Did you know just me receiving a couple of these letters, do you know that is heartwarming to my soul?

Do you think I’ve got another kinds of letters? I have. I’ve had some where people have just taken me to the task. I mean, just whoop the daylights out of me. And I thought, why do they feel that way toward me? I don’t feel that way toward them. Why don’t everybody love me? I’m such a lovable guy. I don’t bother anybody. All I do is try to win people to the Lord and challenge them to serve the Lord. What’s the problem?

And especially God’s people ought to be for me, right? Not against me, but not everybody’s gonna be for you. You already know that in advance, you just don’t know who it’s gonna come from and how it’s going to be and what time of the day. And there’s all kind of thing. But God in his wisdom has saw fit not to reveal them. Well, let me just mention this to you. Call this important to know. You remember that there were times when Judas, the Bible says, he bare out of the bag what was put into the bag.

What did that make him? A thief. He was like the secretary for the group. He was in charge of the finance. He was in charge of the finance committee. And so he would take out, so he was a thief. Now, the devil, I don’t believe, can read your mind. But I do believe he can read the impressions upon your face. And I believe that he might be able to see and tell what kind of an attitude you have when you know the will of God and you refuse to do it.

He also might be able to read your actions. Do you think that’s possible? Do you think the devil could have saw when he was taking money out of the till and could? Say, now this is the guy I’m gonna get. And this is the guy that I’m gonna get to betray the Lord. Did you know that by him betraying the Lord so that he would be killed? Fulfill the will of God. Did you know that the devil in thinking that he finally has defeated Jesus actually produced the victory?

Because Christ came back from the dead. And Christ, even though it was ordained by God that he would die at the hands of wicked men, God has fulfilled his will in that he raised him from the dead. So Satan does not know everything. I’ve often wondered why it seems like throughout the Scriptures, over a span of about 15 to 1600 years, with all these writers up to 40 different writers, and all these years, prophecy was written far enough in advance that the guy who wrote it could not fulfill it.

it. So it could not be said, he made it happen. He said it and then he made it happen. But God would allow one man to reveal one thing and then a couple hundred years past and another man reveals something and then a couple hundred year later another man reveals something. And I believe there are several reasons for that. One is so that the devil would not know the plan of God. Now he might know over all that there’s something going to happen and a Messiah to maybe on his way, but he doesn’t understand everything.

He even misquoted Scripture. And if he had known that Jesus Christ was going to have to die and pay for our sins on the cross, well, he might have, that, hey, well, I’m not going that route. I need to change this thing here. And maybe that’s why he was trying to kill him in the Garden of Gethsemane. I don’t know, but I know that the devil is not God. He does not have the ability to know everything, and he does not read thoughts.

The Bible says Christ could do this, but not the devil. But He will try to interject thoughts into your mind. So he even told Satan the Bible says that he entered into Judas and got him to betray the Son of God. Why would the Scriptures be written in such a way that even when Jesus was born, Why didn’t Satan know where Jesus was going to be born? Did he understand Micah chapter 5? There’s two. But thou bethlehem, Epheth, thou thou be little among the thousands of Judea.

Yet thou thee shall he come forth, or to be ruler in Israel, who’s going forth to have been from old everlasting. Did he know that? Why couldn’t he have found a way to tell Herod so that Herod could have been here in advance and have him killed? See, there’s a lot that we don’t know that goes on behind the scenes. But God has seen fit to word things in such a way. And even with His disciples, the Bible says, even when He told them of His crucifixion, it says, but they understood not for these things were hidden from them.

He hid them from them. So because see, if those disciples had known precisely what was going to take place, is it possible that they might have tried to intervene, change the out course? If you knew what was going to happen to you tomorrow, angel is going to have a wreck on the corner of Hillsborough and children. He’s going to have a wreck. What would you do? He wouldn’t go there. They said, not this boy, not this boy. I’m not going there.

So if God says this is gonna happen at two o’clock that tomorrow You’re gonna go buy the bank and there’s gonna be a robbery and you’re gonna get shot and killed Whoa, what’d you do? You would not go buy that bank Because you knew what was gonna happen so you would avoid it so you could change the out course of the plan of God Maybe that’s what God wanted. God in his wisdom knows that it’s best for you and I.

And this is why he wants us to trust him day by day. Because if he was to give you a written detail of tomorrow, did you know the old devil would know exactly what to do to you tomorrow? So he has to wait till tomorrow too. Isn’t that wonderful? Both of us have to wait till tomorrow and fight it out again, every day of our life. But if we yield ourselves to the Lord, He will guide us and protect us and use us and we’ll have the armor that we need to fight the old devil.

And God says that whenever the battle is over, there’s no more work to do that God’s going to take us on out of here. Some good stuff. Take your Bible and turn to 1 Timothy 1, 1 Timothy and 1. 1 Timothy chapter 1. I want to show you just a couple of thoughts here. 1 Timothy chapter 1. And notice they’re in verse 20. And he says this, of whom is Hymenius and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan. that they may learn not to blaspheme.

So evidently there’s somebody that had overthrew the faith of some of God’s people. And it says that they knew this, but they have made shipwreck of their faith. And so it makes a statement also there in chapter two of 2 Timothy, but we won’t look at that right now, where it says that they taught things that were not true and overthrew the faith of some. But is it possible that the Lord may turn you over to the devil that you may learn a lesson, that you may learn?

That them, not to blaspheme, but for somebody else it might be a different story. God can use the devil. Remember, God did not stop the devil from tempting Peter. Remember, he says, Satan hath desired thee that he may sift you his wheat. Why didn’t God stop the devil from doing it? But he didn’t. He allowed the devil, and then what did Peter wind up doing? Decide the Lord three times. Did you know the devil was behind that? Peter never had any inkling that he would do such a thing.

Christ already knew what was going to happen, and he just happened to tell him, before the cockroach thrice, you’re going to deny me. You are going to deny me three times. See, Jesus already knew, and he already knew who was behind it and how he’s going to influence you. And though he told Peter, it was said that when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. You see, there’s lessons for you and I to learn. And when we lift ourselves up with pride, God utilizes whatever necessary to teach us valuable lessons.

You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again, or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible and 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.