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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, 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, be seated, and take your Bible and open it up to the book of Ephesians and chapter 6, the book of Ephesians chapter 6. You know, it’s nice living in America. I really enjoy being a citizen of this great country. But you know, the main purpose of our government is to defend, protect, to secure our life, liberty and our pursuit of happiness or our property. So that you and I can enjoy life, and you and I can be free to do whatever we want.

And we can be able to keep what we make. Isn’t that wonderful that you get to keep everything we make? No, I’m not waxing political this morning, but just trying to give you an idea that we are supposed to enjoy the liberties which others have fought and died so that we could. And that our freedom is not really just so that we can do whatever we want to do. Because God has not released us yet to do whatever we want to do.

God has given to us responsibilities. So a man should want his freedom so that he can fulfill his responsibilities to God, to his wife, or to his children, to his neighbor. So there’s things that God has given to us and we want the freedom to do so. Now that works good or supposed to in the physical realm. But you and I have been called to battle to a war. And you say, well, I don’t want to fight. You pacifists.

You’ve got to whether you like it or not, as you’ll notice in my little first note there, the call to do battle means the struggle to wrestle, to fight, resist, to war is to God’s children alone, especially concerning the battle that we’re going to talk about this morning. So in the book of Ephesians in chapter 6, I want you to look there in verse 10. Finally, my brethren, so we know we’re talking to believers when he says my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that you you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. Stand therefore having your loins good about with truth and heaven on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

And above all, taken the shield of faith where would ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now, those are some very interesting verses, but we need to understand who we are, where we are, and what we’re supposed to be doing. If you’ll look there in your notes there, I want you to see the little statement that I wrote, to know your enemy and his strategy is absolutely essential.

Now you may think that your wife is the devil or you may think your husband is the devil, But, you haven’t figured them out yet. And since you haven’t figured them out, that means you couldn’t figure out the tactics of the devil. So forget your husband and your wife. There’s something behind the scenes. There is a real devil that you cannot see, just like there’s God and you cannot see. There’s heaven and hell, you cannot see. So there’s a lot of things that you and I cannot see.

I had a man tell me what I don’t believe in anything I can’t see. I said, you got a brain. He says smarty. But anyway, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. That’s half the battle. So I know that if we only feed the flock, we’ve faten them, but they kill. The wolves are hungry. But if all we do is warn the flock, then we starve to the death. And so we don’t want to do that. So trying to get a balance between feeding the flock and guarding the flock and warning the flock is sometimes a difficult thing to do.

If I was to tell you that this person is a wolf, and I say it too soon, And you say, I don’t see anything wrong with him. And then if I wait too long and he done gobbled up half of you, well, what did you say? Something. Sometimes you can’t win. So we’re always fighting battles, especially when you’re fighting for the minds of an individual. See, the pastor’s always trying to fight for your mind, because we know that during the day, during the week, who knows where your mind has been?

And who has been trying to influence your mind? And some of you have been watching things, you probably shouldn’t watch, reading things you shouldn’t read and got friends who have interjected thoughts and theories and so forth into your brain and philosophies of the world. And then you come to church. And then you hear something contrary, well, I don’t believe that. Well, I don’t believe that. Well, I don’t believe that. It makes it kind of rough, trying to get people to think the way God wants them to think.

So the next statement I have down here is the key to winning is believing you can and will. You see, I’ve been fighting the battle for a little over 50 years. I’ve won a lot of battles, lost a few little skirmishes, but I’ve won a lot of battles. I actually think I have fought more fights than a guy named Cassius Clay or Mike Tyson. You see, they were just fighting with the flesh. I was doing a lot more than that.

I’ve been fighting some spiritual battles with an enemy you can’t see. Oh, it’s different when you get in a ring and you can see your enemy and see the, you know, that fist coming at you. You can weave and dodge and rope a dope. But I’m talking about something that’s more real than that. I’m talking about the battle that goes on in your mind. So as a child of God, There is a real war going on. See, if I was the devil, no, I’m not.

If I was the devil, I would do everything in my power to confuse you, to lead you astray, to get you to question or to doubt God. Whatever it would take, by all means, to get you away from the things of God, I would do everything I could to keep you out of church on Sunday morning or Sunday night or Wednesday night or whatever, anytime, because I don’t want you to hear the word, Because I know the power that this word can have if it gets into your brain up there.

It could change your whole life. It could make a difference. So there is a war going on. Now Joshua in chapter one, it talks about be not afraid, be of good courage. He says, as I was with Moses, I’m going to be with you. And it says that you’re to study my word so that you can meditate upon these things so so that it will make your way prosperous and whatsoever I ask you to do. And so he says, I’ll have good success.

So God wants us to succeed. God wants us to be successful. I wrote down two little failures hereDrag in this area of serving the Lord. There’s two main things that people get wrong. They go from one extreme to the other. I’m just gonna let God do it all. Let God do it all. And that sounds so spiritual. I’m not gonna do anything. I’m just gonna let God do it all. Well, now that can be good to a point if that’s what God wants you to do.

Let him do it all. But as I read the Bible, I find out that there’s things in the Bible that God wants me to do. And I cannot shirt my responsibility by giving it back to Him. When I was in Colorado and we had buses and we would wanna run those buses on Thursday night for our youth meeting, I could have stayed home and says, no, I’m just gonna let the Lord drive that bus tonight.

After all, I’m just gonna rest in the Lord. I’m just gonna turn it all over to Him. And I don’t have to do anything. Just let God do it all. I don’t think any one of those buses would have rolled. The Sunday school teacher in the classroom was, well, no, I’m not going to teach today. I’m just going to let God do it. Now, see, there is certain times when you need to just totally trust Lord on things that you can’t do anything about.

Sometimes we call it, no, we pray like it all depends on God. And then we work like it all depends on us. And it’s amazing how many more things you’ll get accomplished in your life. But some people run from their responsibilities and then just, well, whatever God wants, whatever God wants to do, and it can sound so spiritual and so holy and yet be so sinful because it means you don’t discipline yourself and you don’t fight the battles, you don’t do anything, and then you whine, complain about all the sorry things that happens to you in life.

Did you know that there is the consequences of making bad decisions. So start making better decisions and you’ll be surprised that the result could be better. But the other extreme is I can do it all myself. I don’t need God, I don’t need church, I don’t need anything. I’m a self-made man. You quit too soon and some people instead of give it all to God or I can do it all myself and you’re not capable of standing against the devil.

You can’t win against him. You see the devil is stronger than you are. He’s mightier than you are. He has more tricks than you know about. He’s going to deceive you. The Bible says he have deceived the whole world. Now, while you’re right here in the book of Ephesians, I want you to see two verses, but look there in Ephesians in chapter three, and notice that God wants us to learn and understand more about the love of God. You see, you knew that He loved you when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to down the cross and pay for your sins.

That’s how God explains or shows to us, demonstrates to us that He really loves us. But as you You studied the rest of scripture and find out what God wants you to do. You’re still, you just learn more about the love of God. And he talks about the height and the breadth and the depth of the love of God. But in verse 20, he says, now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask, that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us.

You see, it’s not just a matter of just, I’m gonna let God do it all. No, it’s talking about asking of God means a dependence upon God. You’re asking God to do something because you want something. You’re desiring something. You’re thinking about the things of God. Lean not into their own understanding, but in all my ways, acknowledge God. To acknowledge God means thank God, think God, think God. And so he says unto him, big glory in the church by Christ Jesus.

Now, look over there in Ephesians in chapter 6, because you cannot have Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 20 without doing Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 11. Verse 11 says, put on. That’s responsibility. That means it’s not a matter of God’s going to do it all. He’s telling you to put on because God says I am expecting you to wrestle you to fight You to resist You to study You to witness you to pray Well, I’m just gonna trust the Lord to do it all God doesn’t want to do it all He will do what you can’t do, but he will expect you to do what you can do and Many of God’s children run from their responsibility Ability hiding under a cloak of pseudo spiritualism that won’t work It won’t work in your life Because you see like we want the government to defend our nation so that you and

I can have Life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness Well, God says I got something that I want you to do and if you’ll defend yourself the way I tell you to a God says, I’m going to have you enjoy a spiritual life, the spiritual life, to enjoy that spiritual walk with the Lord that you can’t have no other way. And if you do not learn how to defend yourself, to protect yourself, you’re in a heap of trouble, it’s not going to work.

So I want you to understand this. You see there in number one, point number one, why I need to be strong, why I need to be strong. Look in 1 Peter and chapter 5, 1 Peter chapter 5. You may know this verse, but look at it one more time. 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 8. And the reason you need to be strong is because, let her aid, because of the power of the enemy. You have an enemy and you’ll notice I just wrote down three little things But how to kind of give you an idea.

He got the first man and woman He got them He got the strongest man in the world. You ever heard of Samson? Went to the wrong barbershop lost his hair He also he got the wisest man in the world the wisest man And if you’ll look at my notes there, the first man, the strongest man, the wisest man in the world, and now he’s after who? He’s after you. Who’s after you? A lion. A lion is after you. You say, well, I can’t see him.

Oh, but he’s real. He is as real as a real lion. If God is real, this lion is is real. And look what he says here. In verse 8, be sober, be vigilant, be caught, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Now evidently, according to this, he wants to devour somebody. And if he’s got the first one and he got the wisest, he got the strongest how you doing? How do you know he hasn’t already, you know, got you?

You know the devil is a deceiver. He deceives. So that means he’s, he could get you without you knowing it. Otherwise because if you’re deceived you don’t know you’re deceived. Because you’re not assured of all of his traps that he lays. You need to understand your enemy. You’ll only understand your enemy by study what God says about him because you can’t see him. But he is alive and he is well on planet earth and he does an awful lot of damage.

Now if you look there at letter B because of the evil day, because of the evil day, and look in 2nd Timothy in chapter 3. Second Timothy, and chapter 3. And look in verse 1. As I said there in the notes, it’s the same as before, only more. Every day is not the same. You see, today you may be doing fine, But tomorrow’s coming and you don’t know what tomorrow may bring and you don’t know that the devil might dangle some bait in front of you, some temptation.

Maybe he’ll get you to become dishonest or unfaithful. You see, there’s all kind of things out there tomorrow. You may be fine today, but there’s But there’s always certain days it seems like everything come unglued. You’re not always on cloud nine. You’re not always in the best frame of mind. You’re not always with a smiley face and excited. There’s some days there’s going to be a lot of… there’s going to be a lot of heartache and grief and that little smiley face is going to go the other way and there’s days you’re going to have great moments of depression you You get down, you get discouraged, and all these things that can happen to you, the devil is real, and he is your enemy, and he has power, and he wants to ruin your life.

Strip you of your character, ruin your testimony. So here in 2 Timothy chapter 3, looking verse 1, this note also that in the last day’s perilous time shall come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, unfainful, unholy. Talking about people in the last day, you’re gonna become unholy. It means it’s not like God. Ungodly means you’re not like God. Godly means you’re like God. Holy means you’re holy in your life. It makes a difference.

He says, without natural affection, truthbreakers, false accusers, incontinence fears, despises of those that are good traitors, heady, high-minded lovers of love, lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God, have any form of God is but denying the power thereof from such turn away. God says all this in His Word. Well how do you know when the devil has been doing a work on you? How do you know when you can’t really see your enemy and yet look at your life.

See what’s going on in my life, examine yourself. And I’m not, examine life is not worth living. So you want to examine and see, well, how am I doing? There’s a real enemy. So you have to compare what does God want me to do? How does he want me to be? Now, am I doing that? So you gotta have something to compare. See, you can’t discern air unless you can discern truth. That’s why you have to know the truth to see how bad something really is.

Something isn’t bad. bad because you think it is. And something isn’t good because you think it is. You have to have a standard and that’s the Word of God. So you studied the Word of God so that you can know what God says about a particular thing. So important. Look there in your notes. I want you to see this. Because of my weakness. Because of my weakness. You see, I know the The devil is strong. I know the war is going on, but I need to understand that I am weak.

And get this. Without Christ, he says, I can do nothing. John 15. Without Christ, I can do nothing. So that means that I do need him, but I am supposed to do something. Will power and desire are not enough. Well if the mind can conceive the body can achieve hogwash I’m gonna float up off this platform. Okay that dog didn’t hunt. I’m gonna lose 10 pounds! Boom! That really didn’t work. And there’s a few other stupid things I could do and you know they’d be stupid but get this signs of weaknesses are revealed by my unhappiness, misery, discouragement, depression, madness, bitterness, jealousy, fear, worry, lying, deceiving, and so on.

So if this is a description of my present status in life, I have a problem because that’s not how God wants us to be because those things are the works of the flesh. It means that you may want more and your willpower won’t make it happen. And just because you desire something better won’t make it happen. There’s a responsibility that God has given to you and to me and that will make it happen. When we seek to fulfill that which God has given to us and to do things the way that God says to do it.

Now look at the part that I have in bold there. It is also revealed by my failure, my failure to bless. Are you a blessing to people? Does God, is He able to use you to be a blessing to other people? Or are you a curse? Do people want to be around you or do they run from you? What kind of a person are you? Are there people going to heaven because of you? Do you witness? Do you do the things you should?

Look what I got here. It is also revealed by my failure to bless, to encourage. Did you know that people are having a hard time? Everybody’s having a rough time. We’re living in a time where there’s a lot of economic woes in this whole world. A lot of fear about things that may happen or not happen. happened and a lot of people don’t know where to come down. They don’t know what to do. Well, here you and I are and we know the Lord and we’re rock solid on the Word of God and we don’t have to worry like people who don’t know the Lord.

So we don’t have to worry. The reason because see when you get strong in the Lord means you have become immune. You need to build up your immune system. So how you’re doing? Now, you know and I know that there’s some people, they’ll run to the doctor every time they get a running nose. You’re the hang nail. It’s going to be major surgery. And you get a run to the doctor. All that real thing. And then there’s some people they don’t go until they’re just about dead.

They want to be able to keep that record. I’ve been to a doctor all my life and they’re half dead. But they got the record they got to keep. You know? I don’t need no doctors. Well, blessed be God. I’d be dead if there wasn’t for you a few of them. So I guess I could say I’m thankful that we have hospitals and doctors and nurses. I think we need all of them. But there’s some things that God wants us to be able to observe in our own life and see how we’re doing examining yourself.

You’re in a war. If you’re not fighting, what did you do, surrender? Did you wave a white flag? It’d be like there’s people over in other countries, say the Middle East, and they want to destroy our country. Isn’t it amazing that as strong as America is, there’s people who still want to bring us down? True? They don’t matter what you do. How much good you’ve done around the world trying to preserve freedom and given to people and all the foreign aid that we’ve done over there, and yet there’s people that want to destroy America.

Okay. Should we just go ahead and surrender? Just let them have the thing. If they want this country, I’m tired of fighting. Let’s just let them have it. Just come on. Now, there’s a few people that agree with that, but there’s still a few that says, over my dead body, and he’ll fight to the death. Oh, here you are in a Christian realm. But see, ours is not fought with flesh and blood, Not with guns and tanks. The battle we talk about that we have to fight is a spiritual battle.

But God has given to you and I all the means necessary to stand to fight. And that is a responsibility. But it is a commitment. And so it’s up to us to decide what we really want to do. Look there at number two. How to be strong, how to be strong. Well, you got to build up your immune system. The power of his might. You know, that was mentioned there in that verse. Be strong in the power of his might.

The power of his might is an expression of his potential. Power is an expression. Might is the potential. Did you realize that you have the expression his potential available to you and I. So that we’re able to do what God wants us to do. And we can fight and we can win. But like I wrote up there that the key to winning is believing you can and yet you will. I actually believe that I know the temptation is out there, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, all those things are everywhere and they’re real.

I have an old sinful nature, but I know, according to the book, if I walk in the Spirit or walk in obedience to what God says, that the Holy Spirit that He gave to me is able to whoop the devil. I don’t have to be able to whoop the devil. All I I have to do is yield to the Lord, and He will fight by battle, but I have to do the yielding. I can’t fight Him myself. I don’t help Him fight Him.

I’m just to learn and stand according to the truth of God’s Word because He is a battle of the mind. You’ve been listening to another great message from Pastor Arnold, and we at Bibleline thank you for tuning in. In appreciation to those who support this ministry financially, we would like to send to you a copy of the Jim Tingen story. The Jim Tingen story is a true story about a young man that just couldn’t explain the gospel clearly. He wasn’t the type of kid that most people made friends with, but he knew that people needed to hear the gospel to be saved.

Believe me, you’ll be affected by this story in a profound way, and this book is offered to you as a gift for your donation in any amount. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634, and don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. So for this month, receive a free copy of the Jim Tingen story with your donation of any amount. It’s a small token of our appreciation for your support of Bibleline because without your thoughtful gifts and prayers from listeners like you, we would not be able to remain on the air.

Thank you once again for your continued support. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. 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. 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, just keep looking up.