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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. and 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.

And so we serve the Lord in stages. A little here, a little there, But God is looking for somebody who is wholeheartedly wants to serve Him. And because we don’t wholeheartedly serve Him, we left little pockets that we have not yielded to the Lord. We kind of keep those for ourselves. And those little areas that we don’t totally give to the Lord are a little, they’re beach heads for the enemy to attack. And remember, Satan attacks the mind. I want to show you a verse, hold your place here in Judges, but just take your Bible and turn to the book of 2 Corinthians and chapter 10, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, and just look at this verse with me.

There’s an awesome verse here that I want you to see. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10, a look what it says in verse 3. And you’ll notice in verse 3 says, for though we walk in the flesh, means this whole physical body. we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They’re not the kind you put your hands on like a, you know, a hand grenade or a bazooka or something like that. There’s a story of a man, Shemgard, in the book of Judges, it talks about he killed 600 men with an ox code.

I mean with a spear, 600. 100. This thing, what he could have done with an Uzi. But you and I fight a different kind of a battle. And so notice what he says in verse 4, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds are nailing up here. In your mind, there are strongholds. There are places where you have that are very strong and there’s places or areas, attitudes, desires, lust that are not totally 100% yielded to the Lord.

Satan is looking for a beachhead, just a little piece of that ground. It’s okay if you serve the Lord but just let me have a little piece of ground because from that little piece of ground so you can fire front it. Why do you think Israel over there may a mistake by giving the Palestinians, the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, what have they done with those little pieces of territory that they gave them for peace? They used it to launch mortar attacks into Israel.

They should not have done that. You see, you may want to make peace with Amalek, but Amalek won’t make peace with you. It won’t work. But now look again at what he says here in verse 5, look in verse 5, casting down imaginations. Talk about things in your mind and every high thing get this that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every what? Thought to the captivity of Christ. So Christ wants to capture all of your mind all of your thoughts.

And by that you are able to war a good warfare because we don’t use guns and bullets and tanks. We use the word of God because our battle is a spiritual battle. We’re battling for the souls of man. We keep ourselves strong and if we keep trusting the Lord God can put us anywhere He wants us to be in the world and we don’t have to worry. We’re invincible when you’re right with God. When you’re right with God, then God’s responsible to take care of the soldier.

To supply all of his needs. But when you don’t, God’s gonna have the authority as a father to do something to us. So you picture the nation of Israel and they are sometimes obedient, sometimes disobedient, but I want you to see this. Look there in verse 6. And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. You see, you have within you the desire to be disobedient, but you can do away with the disobedience by obedience.

So there’s part of you that wants to obey, there’s part of you that doesn’t want to obey, but if you will obey, you can have victory over disobedience. Now go back there to the book of Judges. The book of Judges chapter 3. Because Joshua is now dead, and they were now to carry on after he had died. But there came a generation of people that did not have to fight. Now we have a generation of sissies. People never had to fight for anything.

It was given to them. Well their parents had to fight battles, but now they didn’t have to fight any of them. And so now they don’t know how to war. in verse 1 of chapter 3, now these are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan. So there’s a lot of people, knew anything about these wars, and how to do that. In verse 2 the last part of it, as before it knew nothing thereof.

There was unskilled, they never had to fight the battles. We have Christians today, and it’s just like I guess you could say concerning our country, and the founding of our country, there’s people who knew what it was like to have to fight for our freedoms. We didn’t have to fight for our freedoms. It was given to us. There’s been people over the years that have fought to keep our country free, but majority of the people in America never had to fight for anything.

And so how do we appreciate the freedom that we have? That’s why we’re going to is it. We’re going to lose it because nobody is willing to fight for it and it takes a lot. But look what he says here. He says, I left them in the land. Now God told them to take them all out but because of their disobedience God could have done it but God left them there. God allows their disobedience to test them, to prove them.

So there’s an evening in the land. When I trusted Christ as my Savior 54 years ago, God could have taken away my old sinful nature. Boy, that would have made it nice. But He left that O Amalek in the land to test me, to try me. Well, I’d be faithful. Do I love Him more than the things of the world? God could have taken away your old sinful nature, But it didn’t do it. He left an enemy in the land and says, no, you can have victory if you choose to have victory.

And you can be totally defeated if you choose to be defeated. He says, if you will trust me, you can have victory and if you don’t, you’re going to be defeated. So you and I have a choice. We can either walk with God or not walk with God. But look what he says here. That in verse 5 he says, and the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites and the Amorites and the Pizzarites and the Hives and the Jebusites, and they took daughters to be their wives, their daughters, and gave them their daughters to their sons.

And what’s those next three words? Served their gods. So usually as we said the other night, you leave God and then you worship what’s wrong. And when you worship what’s wrong, then God is going to do something. You see, God does not make a serving. He didn’t make these people in Israel. He didn’t make them serve Him. Did He let them live any way they wanted? Yes. But when man chooses to rebel against God, God is free to determine the punishment.

Is that a good deal? I can choose the sin and God can choose the punishment. But can I choose the sin without the punishment? You’re going to have to suffer the consequences. So can we learn here, you know, all the years later, can we learn anything from the book of Judges on how God deals. You picture the nation of Israel as a man and you’ll find out in his walk. He is what we call committing praso, habitually practicing sin, habitually rebelling against God.

But in all these cases of all his rebellion, does Israel stay Israel? Though the nation has been chastened, conquered out of the land, there’s always a remnant. Israel is a type of eternal security. because there was a covenant keeping God that ruled over these covenant-breaking people. And when God gave His Word, God keeps His Word. When God says to us, He’ll never cast us out and never lose us, but because we are His children, God will chase in us.

So when we read over there while ago in the book of Romans in chapter 7, but we were sold under sin. In other words, we sold ourselves back under slavery when you and I let our sinful nature conquer this land that we live in. You see, this is the only body I have. It’s the only piece of territory I have. It’s where I live. So God wants me to possess this body. As he says in the book of the celonas in chapter 4, knowing how to possess this vessel.

So I’ve got a body belongs to the Lord. It’s his territory. It’s his land. My body belongs to him. And he loves me to live in it and to rule this land. So he says not to let that old sinful nature have dominion over this piece of property. No more than they were to let the enemy that that stayed in the land and have victory over them that were in the land because God gave it to Israel. So says they sold themselves because of rebellion to God and sinned, then there’s a price to pay.

So look what he says here in verse 8, therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and he, he sold them into the hand of Cushan Shacham, king of Mesopotamia. and the children of Israel served for eight years. Now, as you go through, you will find out because of their sin, they sold themselves in sin. In other words, because of their sin, he sold them to the enemy. And the enemy was able to rule over them. So this is why God says that he raised up people.

Look what he says in verse seven. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and forgot the Lord their God and served Balaam and the grows. I mean they offered sacrifices and so forth and had high places and they worshiped the false gods. So what did the people do? Verse 9, when the children of Israel cried, cried unto the Lord. The Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel. And guess who this one was?

Atnion he was Caleb’s younger brother. Remember Caleb Joshua Caleb and Caleb says, I want that mountain. I want that mountain. He was 80, something years old. So I want that mountain. He had a younger brother. His younger brother became one of these judges and God used him and it says in verse 10, and the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he judged Israel and went out to war and the Lord delivered them. And they had rest for 40 years.

Now remember Remember this, Christians are like yo-yos. They have victory one day, defeat the next. Victory and defeat. And you’d be surprised. Sometimes along the way, because of total rebellion, God may have to take you out of the land. I don’t know what that would mean. Getting the idea. If you don’t learn the lesson while you’re in the land, he may have to take you out of the land. Now, there’s a possibility, yes, we know that God can chase in the discipline, and maybe He had to take us home and just leave your body.

Here he goes back to the dirt. Now you can do that if you want, but that’s not really my cup of tea. I’d rather not do that. But now notice, once they had this problem, they rebelled against the Lord, and now along comes a deliverer. God says they cried to Him and God forgives and so on. There’s a verse in the Bible that says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just if it gives us our sins and so on.

So when you read 1 John 1 and 9, he’s talking about the same principle. You see, in the Old Testament are many stories. These stories illustrate doctrinal truth. They are the illustrations of New Testament doctrine. You can study doctrine. Just take a course on Bible doctrine. Just plain Bible doctrine. dry to me. I really wasn’t that excited about it. Dr. Cameron was just excited to listen to it, but most of the time I watched him he was just reading his notes.

He just read his book. Do you remember that? He read his book. I thought I could have stayed at home and read books. But it was his stories that he told. And then he would stop moving. And take a swag of his Coca-Cola. But he would tell stories and the man was a master at storytelling. And I mean he’d tell stories just make you just laugh. I mean it was just so funny. He told one story one time about how he was going to baptize this real heavy set lady in the baptistry.

And for some reason, they didn’t put much water in the tank. Now when you have a lot of water in there and you have somebody that’s big, I’ve baptized people that have been 300 pounds and a foot taller than I am, and then there’s nothing to it because the water holds them up. But try it when you only got about two feet of water or even three feet and you’ve got a way to go. I have had him slip out of my hand.

But when Dr. Cameron told her he had this lady and she, the water was low. She slipped out of his hand and when she went down, the water came up and lost about another foot of water and it went out that way and over that way and up the stairway over there. And he says it like the bus of the gut getting her out of there and we like the bus of the gut laughing at him. But some things are just plain funny because you tell her and you just and you just pictured happening.

And they’re so funny. But I have to watch, I don’t get sidetracked. So it’s so easy for me to get sidetracked, Ellen’s stories. But those stories are good. But now notice what he says in verse 12. And the children of Israel did evil and y’all are underlined this next word again in the sight of the Lord. So they did it again. If you look over there, it says that they did it again. In chapter four, they did it again.

See their inverse one and the children of Israel again did evil in the side of the Lord. And what does the Lord do in verse two? And the Lord sold them into the hand of J. And king of Canaan, he sold them their sin sells you in the slavery. And so they kept going back in the slavery. And the enemy got to rule over them. Now here you are and you know, Christ is your savior. But when you yield to the lust of the flesh you’re selling yourself back into slavery Because sin begins to dominate your life and there’s a price to pay And that’s why you’re gonna cry later on for God to deliver you and God always has mercy Aren’t you glad?

God will forget so as you read even in the book of judges Here in the Old Testament There’s more to it than just meets the eye. There’s illustrations in here that’s letting us know look as a child of God You can be like a yo-yo up and down up and down because you’re not stabilized yet But if you listen and learn what God has to do you can have victory in your Christian life But God left that old sinful nature inside of us to test us to prove us he could have took it away away, but he didn’t.

He wants us to walk with him and to trust him. Just like sometimes we think, man I would love to have been like Israel in the Old Testament. Oh you are. There’s a lot of similarity between what God did with Israel and what God will do to you. And if you totally rebel against the Lord you should understand my heavenly Father will let me choose to rebel. And God is is going to choose how he’s going to beat the Torah to you.

Does God want us to serve him? Yes. Does he make us? He just makes you wish you had him. And he knows how to deal with every one of us. And he does it with specialized attention. He is interested in every one of us. God is watching you. I used to say, there’s an eye up on high watching you and your share is. Now, just to kind of give you that, I want you to see this. Look there in verse 31, in verse 31, and after him, or a Shemgar, the son of Anith, which slew of the Philistine, 600 men with an ox code, and he also delivered Israel.

One man, there’s another story about one of David’s mighty men who went down into a pit on a snowy day with a lion. Now think of this, the environment where he was. There was a pit snowy day and a lion and he gets in the pit with the lion. I’d like to do that. So you see, God, his appearance was impressed. He put it in the book. This was one of the mighty men of David’s, and he was able to fight a lion in a pit on a snowy day.

I’ve often wondered how bad was snowing. Trigy, see, very good. Where are you? But I mean, if you’re looking for a battle, is there a lion after you? Did you know there was a lion after you? He even has a name, and the devil has a roaring lion seeking whom he made the vowar. There’s a lion on your trail. He’s following you every step, just waiting for you to make one little bad step so he can devour you. It means to swallow you up.

You know how he devours you. He eats up your time, destroys your life, causes you to give up hope in the Lord and trust in him and not believe in his promise. And he just ruined your life. See, we often say this, how come a little mouse will let that mouse trap? Because you see, if you put cheese on that mouth trap, there’s something inside of that little mousey that likes cheese. If he didn’t like cheese, he’d leave that thing alone.

But see, he wants the cheese. See you and I, we have the desire for sin, and the devil knows it. We want our own way. So the devil come along and he entices. God doesn’t. The devil does and tries to lure you. Look like a hap. Yeah. And you go. And there you go. And you’re going after that sweet little thing that you want. But the thing is, there’s a, there’s a mouse trap fixing to get you. You say, well, I can just do it and then quit.

But what you understand is it’s going to get you kind of like the fly that was flying around and mama fly says to the baby fly. You see all those flies down here? Baby fly says, yeah, I see them. Don’t you go down here? But mama, they look like they’re having so much fun. She says, they’re not having fun, huh? But they’re just jumping all over the place and dancing and I don’t like it, and I want to do that too.

He says, don’t go down there, it’s a trap. Mama turns her head and, and baby fly goes down there. And never seen contact paper before. It catches flies. Once that fly gets on it, the fly’s not getting loose. It becomes a trap. Sin is a trap. It traps you. He says, well, I can just do this wrong and it won’t matter. Yes it does because see the next time the lust is there or the desire is there, you have a tendency to satisfy the way you did the last time and it gets worse and worse and worse and worse.

So we’re supposed to be smarter as we go through life but sometimes we are and sometimes we’re not. Verse 3 talks about and the children of Israel cried under the board. They had 900 chariots of iron but God delivered them. But that’s what you’re going to find is you go through the book of Judges. They messed up. They’ve confessed up. And God delivered them up. So as you live your Christian life and you mess up, is God going to deliver you if you come to him, talk to him, always believe it.

But you see, the devil wants to conquer your mind and get you to question and doubt and just be upset with everything. Well, you don’t really learn to trust the Lord be patient Look at this hand represent you and me the wall it represents sin. We all have sin on us Now God says that he loves us and I hate what we do wrong But all of us have an old sinful nature and we all sin and you Can’t stop I know it’s a can’t stop because you are a sinner.

That’s what we are we naturally are rebellious But God says that He loves us. But the pay for this sin is eternal separation from God. And God doesn’t want us to be separated from Him. He wants us to be with Him. But we’d have to be perfect and none of us are perfect. So God says you can’t be perfect by your good work because your good works are no good. So you can’t save yourself. This hand represents Jesus Christ.

He’s the Lord God in the flesh, came into the world because he loves us. He hates our sin because it separates us from him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead and said that if we were believed that he did that for us, he would put this payment to our account and we’d get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s good news. And once you believe it, God gives you eternal life and he’ll never cast you out and never lose you.

But always remember, as a child of God, you’re a child forever. He’ll never unborn you. He won’t make you serve Him. But He says, if you will serve Me, He says, I will bless you. I’ll honor you. I’ll reward you when you get to heaven, and I can use you. But if you don’t, God says you’ll be like a yo-yo, and you’re never going to have the peace. You’re never going to have the joy. You’ll become a slave to things that you don’t want to be a slave to because it’s going to ruin your life.

And some of God’s children have gotten themselves so trapped, so scarred that they also defeat themselves thinking, God can’t use me. God can use you. If I had a big old diamond up here and it fell off and it broke, whatever I pick up, there’s still diamonds. It’s not as glorious as it was before, but it’s still diamond. You are valuable to the Lord. And even if you fall and you mess up and you break up, you be surprised what God can do.

He talks about it in the Old Testament, beauty out of ashes. Beauty out of ashes. God can do things for you. Let’s pray silent. We’ll hear about my clothes and no one looking around. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him right now? Just between you and the Lord said, Lord, I don’t understand at all, but I believe that when Christ I believe He died for me. And I’m going to trust Him as my Savior.

That’s my only hope of going to heaven. And so, friend, right now, if you would trust the Lord, I’d like to know it. So whether you’re watching by internet or here in the auditorium, you that are watching by internet, there’s a button right there on your screen. So yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior. If you will, we’d love to hear from you. It just lets us know that someone trusts the Lord. We won’t know who you are.

would love to, but we don’t. But if you’re in the auditorium, and if you’ve never trusted Christ and you will, would you right now say, yes, that made sense to me, and I’ll trust Christ as my Savior, as it went on. If you have already trusted Christ as your Savior, do you realize that your body belongs to the Lord? It’s like a piece of territory, like the land of Israel. Look at all the enemies are surrounding Israel, trying to destroy it.

That’s the kind of the way we are in this whole world. But God loves you and He made a commitment. He had a covenant made. He’ll never forsake, could never leave you. And he said, I’ll never lose you. And if you look to him and trust him, he’ll keep his word, believe him. Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity we have to come together and study a word. We thank you for the ministry you’ve given us. Thank you for this service and those that are watching by the internet, bless each one and twice.

You’ve been listening to another great message from Dr. Arnold, and we hope that Bibleline is a blessing to you. In appreciation for your support of this ministry, we’d like to send to you a gift. During this month, for a gift in any amount, we’re going to send Dr. Arnold’s teaching on the subject of marriage. This nine-lesson CD series includes titles such as God’s view of divorce, eight pressures of raising children, how to love your wife, and the humorous but insightful teaching, and then the war began.

So you are married, single, or dating, you will certainly benefit from this teaching series on God’s design for marriage and divorce. And this CD Series is yours for a 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. God bless you and thank you again 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.