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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 message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I want to speak to you on a little subject that really can help. It can really help you. you. If you can control this one, you’re doing good. Because a lot of times, you know, we think we’re doing pretty good as long as people don’t know what we’re thinking. You know, we kind of curb our words and we curb our actions, but we can’t, nobody sees or knows my mind except the Lord. But that’s enough to kind of haunt you a little bit.

So anyway, these are some things that I believe will probably, you know, help you a little bit. You know, the Bible says, the tongue, no man contain. So you have to control the mind that controls the tongue. So there’s the biggest key. Can you control the mind? Yours. We would love to be able to control somebody else’s mind, would we? Sometimes maybe people do, they try to get into your head. You know like two people playing golf and the guy’s getting ready to hit the ball and you say something simple like this.

Now watch the water on the right. See that sand trap on the left up there? I’m gonna read I’m telling you this so that you don’t hit the ball in there. Now a little by little you can get into a guy’s head and actually know he doesn’t put that ball in the water, he doesn’t put it in the sand. That’s because something that gets into your mind. You can get it all day but he doesn’t get into your mind.

You’re driving along the road and you’re just a sing and have a wonderful time and you look up there and lo and behold you see this billboard and they can make a whopper look so real. And you can see the deduce is just running all over the place and the ketchup and the and you can just see it and I look over at Betty and she says no. It doesn’t do the same thing to her. Me, the saliva starts running on the group.

Any whoop or lovers in here? A few of you. You know what really gets them? It’s when you go into McDonald’s. It says, can I have a whopper? Oh, I’m sorry I’m in the wrong place. They say, you sure are. But anyway, remember, if you’re going to fight a battle, fight to win. I wish America would learn that. If you’re going to get into a battle and you’re going to fight to win. And if you’re going to battle for the Lord, you fight to win.

Isn’t that a good little statement? Because if you’re just going to piddle, piddle. But I like to win. But anyway, you can curb the way that you talk and act so that everybody sees that nice, clean Christian kid or guy, girl, man, woman. But it’s kind of hard to curb sometimes the thoughts. And if you don’t curb them consistently, sooner or later, it will come out. Be sure you’re seeing that all the mind will come out. Have you ever seen somebody really watching their testimony and all of a sudden somebody make a mad and then they say a bunch of words that they wish it could draw back?

I didn’t mean to say that. You’re probably meant to say that. You just get into trouble. But anyway, number one, fight a war you expect to one. Look in your Bible to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 23, and I want you to look in verse 17 and 18, 17 and 18. Just kind of let you know there’s things to think about, things that are in your heart. Sooner or later, you know, they do come out. But it says in verse 17, let not thine heart envy sinners.

Isn’t that a good statement? Do you envy the prosperity of the wicked? Look how wicked they are and look how they’re prospering. What’s wrong with me? I mean, why am I suffering and I’m doing right? So therefore, the heart of God’s people is tempted to do the evil that they do and to go astray from the Lord. So don’t envy the prosperity of the wicked. It’s not good. Look at the last part of that verse where he says, But be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.

Did you know if you could think about the Lord all the time, you know it’ll keep you from a lot of trouble. It’ll help you to guard your mind. And. Pray all ways, well you can’t pray all ways if you’re never thinking about the Lord. And so when it talks about that and meditate day and night, it means to have the Word of God in your mind to where you think about what God wants. And everything that you say and do is this is this going to help me spiritually or it’s just going to help my flesh to, you know, meet and lose control.

And is this going to lead me into temptation? Or another verse that I really like in the book of Romans where it says, make no provision for the flesh. You ever heard of that verse? Make no provision for the flesh. Means don’t make opportunities for you to, you know, fall into the lusts of the flesh. Don’t make an opportunity. Stay away from the edge. Don’t see how close you can get to the edge without going over. Maybe not too wise.

Now look in verse 18, For surely there is an end and an expectation shall not be cut off. Expect good things from God and be patient on the Lord and wait for the Lord, and in due times you shall reap if you faint none. because see there’s a lot of things in life that gets us to quit. To stop thinking about the things of God and end our being in our life. Look at number two, replace the secret pictures in the gallery of your mind.

You’ve often heard me say, you know, you can guard what you see, but there could be years ago when you were not saved and didn’t watch yourself and you saw things and you hang those galleries of those pictures upon the walls of your mind. And every once in a while you You can go back and walk down that gallery that hallway and you can look at pictures and think of things and things that people even said to you are, things that people did to you and you know you can rehearse those things and get mad and angry all over again.

Somebody can say something and you can have a flashback to a time, yeah I remember when somebody said this about me and you know, I’ll say, there you are, your blood pressure is going up. Did you know that things can affect you physically just by mere thinking about things? Did you know that you can be afraid of something and it caused your heart rate to race? Or if somebody says or doesn’t, it scares your death. The hair on your arm can stand straight up.

See something you think can affect you totally, physically. And so the things that God says about the body, merriment is like health to the bones, being happy. You walk around miserable all your life. It’s gonna affect you physically. And if you learned to have the joy of the Lord, you’ll be healthier longer and happier and so forth. But it’s important to know. And look at number two, replace the secret pages of the gallery of mine. Psalms 51 and verse two says, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, cleanse me from my sin.

In other words, always keeping your mind clean as clean as you can. You have an old sinful nature, but don’t let it become the excuse that you use for not taking steps and having a pure thoughts and clean thoughts. And you can’t help it sometime when thoughts come, but when they do come, keep them going. Don’t dwell on them. Don’t dwell on them because they hatch and get more thoughts. And then more thoughts. Next thing you know, it can contaminate your whole mind.

Next thing you know your mind is not as clean and pure as it ought to be. So whenever you do something wrong and you think something you shouldn’t think, you should recognize what it is. That’s wrong. That was sinful. Admit it and think about something else. It’s called the replacement principle. Replace something with something better. And so that’s why you got to think about somebody led to the Lord. There’s something scripture, or sing some song. And so think about something else.

And that’s why in the book of Philippians in chapter 4 talks about think on these things and the God of peace shall be with you. You think upon the things that are not right and you don’t have the peace of mind because you’ll feel guilty because you think about the things you’re not supposed to think about and you know it and you know God knows that you know it. And that’s when it hurts. So important. In the book of Job and there’s 31 verse 1 says, guard your eyes.

Make a covenant with mine eyes for then. Why should I think upon a maid? In other words, Job was in such bad shape. He couldn’t even think straight. And his physical condition was he had sores all over his body, he’s sitting in an ash heap, he’s lost everything. And the only enjoyment he probably could have God out of life is thinking about a maid, somebody else, somebody other than his wife. He said, I don’t even want to do that.

He said, it wasn’t so much that Job had, we call for a come Lord. God wanted him to see how much further he has to go. Sometimes you think you have reached a level and I don’t need him anymore and all of a sudden here comes some bunch of trials and testings in your life just to see you, see you’re not as strong as you thought. You don’t know everything like you thought. Because we reach a certain place and we think, man, I finally have arrived.

God says, you what? Arrived? You haven’t begun to fight. And God will teach you so much more. So it’s just like in lifting weights. You lift the weights and then you’re sitting in front of the mirror and see how big and strong you look. Yeah. And then you have to do them again because it breaks them down and then you’ll go each and more. and then it builds them up and then you got to break them down again. And then it’s the thing that pulls against you that breaks it down so that you can build up.

So sin has a purpose in the Christian’s life. And I’ll show you that toward the end. But anyway, right now look at number four. Give the Holy Spirit his most effective weapon. Everybody knows that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. So the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God. Is that true? You’ve heard that in the book of Ephesians chapter 6, right? All right, but you got the Holy Spirit. You know the Holy Spirit doesn’t fight many battles in your life if you don’t learn the word of God.

So you and I are supposed to learn the word and the word is the toll by which the Holy Spirit uses. And if you don’t learn the word, that the Holy Spirit is within you, but you grieve him because you didn’t give him the tolls to work with. The Holy Spirit doesn’t fight all of our battles just because I’m saved. You see, it’s the Christian putting on the whole armor of God. It’s the Christian learning the word. And the Holy Spirit that lives within you brings to your mind the things that you have studied, the scriptures, and can help you.

And so therefore, if you want to have a lot of victory internally, then you need to learn the word of God and entrust the Holy Spirit to bring those things to your mind. and that gives you power in your Christian life. But a lot of Christians never learn the word so they can’t think about the word. But the Holy Spirit says that the sword of the Spirit is the word, so you need to know the word. So learn the word of God, it is so very important.

Look at the statement here. Either God or Satan will express himself in your soul. As you hide God’s word in your mind, he will enable you to guard your thoughts. Where’s his first found? I will hide his word in my heart that I might not sin against God. It’s somewhere in the Bible. Psalms what? One 19 verse 10 maybe? Anybody got a Bible? I know this is the Bible church, but is anybody here have a Bible and you can find that verse and tell me what verse it is and read it to us?

Verse 11, how of all shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed according to thy word? Is that what it says? I’m 1 and 2 and 11. Aha. So what does verse 10 say? With my whole heart and by sauteing, let me not wander from that command. So you see, learn the word so that you can be able to bring it to your mind. The word of God is so important. When you look here in 119 Psalms, it talks about, and it’s so simple, you say, the thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

The entrance of thy word give us light. So those are statements in the book of Psalms that are really, really good. Anyway, number five, remove hidden provisions for defeat. You see, there’s things that people can’t see and know, but there’s things that you know. So how strong do you want to be? How much peace do you want? How much joy do you want? Did you know that if you want the peace of God, the love of God, the joy of the Lord?

Did you know that you are the ones that can’t keep anything hid from God? So you have to be open and aboveboard. You have to come clean with God. And if there’s things in your life, maybe nobody else knows about it, that you do. And so if you want God to bless you, then you have to keep things right between you and him. Look what we have here. You must make it a habit of capturing your thoughts by praying, reading the word, and removing provisions out of your life that tempt you to fall.

Understand that you may lose some minor battles, but it is in those losses where you develop a determination to continuing to go forward with the Lord. And you know that whenever you do something that you shouldn’t do, should cause you to discern, I still have a sinful nature, and I failed. And that sin in my life can become a determination. To correct, be more on guard. Sometimes we know that we fail and we’re so glad we didn’t fall that far.

Or we didn’t commit something that bad. So just a little bit can bother some Christians and some Christians can fall flat on their face, clean on the bottom, clean in the mud, and then, hey, I fell. Some people can just start to stumble and it bothers them. In other words, you become more sensitive to the things that goes on. Some of God’s people are not very sensitive to spiritual truth, to being enlightened by the effects that sin can happen in your life.

And some things that doesn’t bother, some Christians will greatly bother somebody else. But you cannot make a man see. You can’t make what you see him see. You wish you could, but wouldn’t it be neat, preacher wouldn’t have a problem if everybody just walked in the light. Oh, wouldn’t that be neat? But does every Christian walk in the light? Who said that? What did you say? You wouldn’t have a job. I wouldn’t have a job. That is true. I don’t want a job.

But you wouldn’t have… Nobody would have a job if it wasn’t any problem, but everybody doesn’t walk in the light as they ought to walk in the light. It would be great because he says in the light, you don’t have to stumble. So when you start to stumble, it should be aware, right away. I’m not walking in the light as I ought to, and it should put a little fear of God in you. You know, there’s some of God’s people that don’t want to fall.

They don’t want to fail. I’m one of them. I have watched long enough God’s people who mess up their lives, who rebel against God and sure enough, some deep sin gets them. Well, I haven’t seen the hurt that comes from that, the agony, all the damage is done. And I tell the kids in college, just remember, the more you humble yourself, the more God exalts you. But you have to be careful that the higher you go and when you fall, the greater the fall.

And the greater the fall, the greater the splash. And the greater the splash, the more people that are affected. See some people, they have never been exalted to the place of being used in a great way for the Lord. So they don’t make that big of an impact in a lot of people’s lives. But But whenever we hear of some TV personality that falls in the sin, everybody hears it, and everybody knows it, and it becomes news, and it affects a lot of people.

But some people that never do anything, they’re just a person sitting there in the church, and anybody knows them. If he don’t come to church, nobody knows it. And if he don’t read the Bible and get in the choir, nobody knows it. He doesn’t know it anyway. So when he falls into some sin, nobody even cares. But there’s a God that loves that person just as much as the one that everybody knows. And even though you may not seem like you’re that important or that you’re not gonna influence that many people and nobody cares what I do.

God does. And it is important. And you are important. And therefore you need to watch yourself all the time. And just because nobody can go into your house and see what you watch or what you listen to, or sit in your car and what kind of music you hear. Things that you think about because they can’t see your mind, God does. Learn to keep your mind clean and pure. But remember, not everybody’s on the same page. Now everybody sees the same thing.

Don’t walk around with your magnifying glass, just try to find air and fault and somebody else because they don’t live up to your standards. you may not be living up to somebody else’s. So the best thing to do is examine yourself. You just find out what keeps me walking with God, what helps me and do that. You’ll have a pretty good full time job doing that. But anyway, there’s a good verse there in 2nd Corinthians in chapter 10 and verse five when it talks about capturing the thoughts and bringing them into captivity under Christ.

so that if Christ can capture your thoughts, then you see it can capture your way of life because your actions are born within the mind. And if you learn to think right, you can learn to live right. And if you can’t think right, you can’t live right. Number six, realizing that when in a war means fighting many battles, and there’s a lot of battles to face. I want to show you this here in the book of 2 Kings, looking 2 Kings.

And you would think, well, Elijah, you know, he’s going to die. And Joe Ash there, no, he dies a little after that, but he’s going to die too. But look in chapter 13 and look in verse 14. Now, Elijah, he didn’t got sick. And you said, well, these guys could do all these miracles and he’s getting sick. Why don’t he heal himself? He brought a guy from the dead and all that stuff. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Now, we’re not talking about Elijah, we’re talking about Elijah. Was fallen sick and his sickness were of he dying. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him and wept over his face and said, Oh, my Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the horseman thereof. And Elijah said unto him, it wasn’t dead yet. Take bow and arrows and he took unto him a bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, put thy hand upon the bow.

and he put his hand upon it. And Elisha put his hand upon the king’s hand. And he says, open the window eastward, and he opened it. Then Elisha said, shoot. And he shot, and he says, the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria. For thou shalt smite the Syrians in effect. He says, till thou have consumed them. And he said, take the arrows, and he took them. And he says unto the king of Israel, smite upon the ground.

Then he smoked Christ and stayed. It means He stopped. And the man of God was wrought with him, mad upset. Thou should have had smitten five or six times. Then thou hast thou smitten Syria till thou hath consumed it. Whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but three. In other words, plan for victory in the future. If If you’re going to fight a battle, plan on winning. Can you win the battle of the mind? Or you can learn to think the way God wants you to think.

If God says keep thyself pure, it starts with the mind. And the way you can control the mind is with the word of God, being in subjection to what the word of God says. He says you only stomp the floor three times and that meant you can have three victories over Syria, but if you’re done at five or six, you’d have had much more victory. Did you know that you could have had victories in a lot of areas of your life if you’d have believed it?

If you just believe and trust the Lord that He will give you what you need to fight some of these battles and battles they are because the worst person that you’ll ever have to face is not going to be the devil out there. It’s that old man like that lives inside of you, the bottle of the mine. Look at the next statement. Number seven, learn to live in the fear of God. Pray that God would make Himself so real to you, where you truly believe He is watching everything I say and do and think.

Fear the Lord and you will depart from evil. In other words, have I respect for what God says. In other words, the fear of the Lord is like this. Mama says, Johnny, don’t put your hand in the fire that he respects money enough that he doesn’t put his hand in the fire. He doesn’t have to experiment. He respects mom and daddy’s judgment. I respect your judgment so much. I don’t have to learn it on my own. I can learn by obedience.

Therefore, I don’t put my hand in the fire to test it and to see if what they say is true. Because if I put my hand in the fire, my hand gets didn’t you cry about it? Well, that’s what people do in life. So it means to fear the Lord. Theore in Proverbs in chapter 15 verse 3 says, the eyes of the Lord are in almost every place.

In every place beholden the evil and the good. God sees everything. He sees what you do right, sees what you do wrong. He’s God. And then look at the next verse in Proverbs 16 verse 6, by mercy and truth, iniquity is purged and I really love this last part of the verse by the fear of the Lord, man depart from evil. See, if you don’t have the fear of the Lord or respect for God that you ought to have, you’ve got to find out for yourself.

You don’t just take God’s word that this is going to hurt me. So you got to find out for yourself. You got to find out if adultery is really that bad. Nothing so far. And then you reap consequences down the road. And you may want to murder somebody. You know, it could be your husband or your wife. God says, no. Well, I don’t see anything wrong with it. Okay. Next thing you know, you’re behind bars for 30 years or they give you life or they, you know, whatever.

There’s consequences. But some people just got to find out for themselves. They got to find out. Now, if I had a perfectly white glove and there’s a mud hole down there, if I take this beautiful, perfectly white glove and I throw it into the mud, does the mud become glovey? Or does the glove become muddy? Now, so you can go out there and play in the mud and think you’re not going to get spots on your pearly white glove.

This is why in the book of Ephesians in chapter five when he talks about keeping yourself spotless. So if you get something on your beautiful white robe, you know, it’s the blood of Christ that takes away the stain of sin, nothing else can. So as Christians and we sin against God, we should apply the blood of Christ. And He forgives, yeah, He can forgive and remove some of the stain. But you see, you need to understand, keep thyself pure, and it starts up there in the mine.

What do you think they mean when they say, you know, curiosity killed the cat? Now I have never seen a cat get killed by curiosity, but maybe they do. I’ve seen a mouse get killed by curiosity. You know you put some cheese in that little thing. There has to be something on the inside of that little mouse that loves cheese. Otherwise that cheese would not attract the mouse. So there’s something about the cheese that the mouse likes. And that’s why you can use it to lure the mouse to the track.

Now there’s a devil out there. He knows what you like. So in order to get you away from the Lord and get you into His trap, He’s got to lure you with something that you like. Haven’t you heard a lot of people say, you know, I like this and I like that and I like this and I like that. I don’t see anything wrong with doing this. And I don’t see anything wrong with going there. And that’s the words that I don’t see.

They don’t see. else says, you know, I don’t see that that would be good for me. And though they stay away and they stay with more freedom in their life and some people are totally trapped in their life. So when you say, would you like to serve a Lord? Well, I can’t. Can you do this? I like can’t. And some people have built a wall around themselves of these bricks made up of I can’t, I can’t, I can’t and become a prisoner inside of their own little makings, their own little wall.

They trap themselves. It’s not that the devil out there trapped me. I trap myself by my own decisions, by what I did, because I have something inside of me, you know, the rat that likes cheese, you have a sinful nature, dwelling on the inside of you that likes the things of the world, and you’re going to get in the heap of trouble. So don’t be lured to the, you know, the curiosity. I just got to know what it’s like.

And I had this last line here that I think is really good for you. You know you have left your first love is when you no longer need Him. When you think you don’t need God like you’re used to. You know where God’s been so good to me and He’s blessed me and I’ve got a place to live, I’ve got money and I’ve got this and I’ve got that. I don’t need God like it. You’ve left your first love and fell in love with the things of the world.

You see you need to think you really love. If you really love the Lord, I need to love the Lord. So always be aware. We hope you’ve enjoyed this lesson today from Dr. Arnold and Pray that Bibleline is a blessing in your life. We are so grateful to our listeners and supporters who help us accomplish so many great things for the Lord. During this month to every person making a financial donation in any amount, we’re going to send to you the DVD teaching series on how to witness to Roman Catholics.

Many Catholics love the Lord so much, but sadly they are lost. Although the Roman Catholic Church uses words like grace and mercy, they rely upon works as the cause of salvation. So many wonderful people are being deceived by the world’s largest religion and this DVD series could help you win them to the truth. Again we’re so grateful to those of you who support this ministry. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634 and don’t forget to include your mailing address as well.

God bless you and thank you for supporting Bibleline. 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.