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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.

If I was to ask you, how many of you in here want to serve the Lord? You trustly Christ as your Savior, but do you want to serve the Lord? Not without a fight. Not without a fight. If you really want to serve the Lord, not without a fight. If you want to do right, it’s going to be a fight. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Genesis and chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3. Anytime you cover something like this, you’ve got to start at the beginning.

You would think that if I wanted to serve the Lord the devil would be afraid to bother me and God would make everything easy for me and Because I want to do right Everything ought to be a piece of cake But it’s not that way the devil ain’t gonna leave you alone You have a problem sometimes in your discernment. You don’t always know what’s right You and I get deceived so easily so quickly here in the book of Genesis, everything was going long fine.

And he was a perfect couple that had a perfect environment and something went wrong. But anyway, they were told not to eat the fruit of a certain tree. Well, lo and behold, they did. Adam blamed it on his wife. The wife blamed it up on the serpent. And so the Lord had to whip all three of them, put a curse on all of them. So you and I have been battling ever since. The whole human race because of what happened back then.

And they knew to do right and they didn’t do it. Now you and I had been there in the garden, we wouldn’tpect done that, right? We wouldn’t have done that. But isn’t it true that you still know what’s right and what’s wrong and you still do wrong? On purpose. You ever get mad on purpose? Angry? Envious? Filled with jealousy? Every one of us have a battle. There’s a fight. I want you to look in verse 14. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field and upon thy fellowship thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

And I will put immity, that means war. I’m going to put war between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, thou shalt bruise his heel. In other words, there are several things that you could look at. Many believe this is the first prophetic verse in the Bible, a reference to the time that Christ will be on the cross and that the battle comes down between Satan and Jesus Christ. And so therefore, even though Jesus Christ was on the cross, Christ took His heel, crushed the head of the serpent, but He bruised his heel, but he destroyed the serpent.

So it is true that when Christ was on the cross, he destroyed the power of the devil. He had victory over sin because they didn’t get him. He had victory over the world. It didn’t get him. And he had victory over the devil because he came back from the dead. He won. Satan was defeated. So there’s a lot of truth to this prophetic scripture. But there’s also something else I believe that needs to be looked at. only was there to be a woman that was to be born in time, the woman had a son.

And that was Jesus Christ. But it says between thy seed and her seed. It did not wait until that time. There’s also a battle that goes on between the seed of a woman and the seed of the devil. And they have been warned against each other. It’s called the Battle of the Ages. No battle has ever lasted this long. It started in the garden and the battle is still going on. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 John, 1 John, all the way over there in the New Testament.

in 1 John in chapter 3. The Lord tells us, you and I, to love one another. Okay, that’s the talking part’s done, but not without a fight. You know you cannot love somebody without a fight. You fight on everything that you do. There’s a battle. There’s something inside of you that tries to keep you from demonstrating love. It should be the easiest thing in the world, just to love everybody. But something somebody says or does could cause you not to want to love them.

Instead of loving them, you can hate them so quickly. You have to fight. It’s always a battle. Wouldn’t it be neat if every man loved his wife all the time, the way he should? But especially in the beginning of a marriage, there’s always this rocky part of the road Where they learn how to give and take a little bit, call the adjustment period, always learning how to adjust. Like I said, sometimes people when they get married, it’s kind of hooking up a racehorse to a jackass.

Somebody’s got to speed up or somebody’s got to slow down. There’s got to be some kind of an adjustment need. Well, here in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 11, look at what it says, for this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain. Cain was the son of Adam and Eve from the very beginning. Look at this. It goes all the way back to the very beginning, first child ever born.

I don’t want you to love like he did. Not as Cain who was of that wicked one. Well, who’s the wicked one? Well, if you read through here, we find out that the devil is the wicked one. Look in verse 10. in this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. So you’re talking about those children that are the children of the devil. Well who in the world are the children of the devil? Have you ever seen one?

When Christ was here in the book of John chapter 8 verse 44, He says ye are of your Father the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning. Well who did Satan murder? He murdered Abel. He just did it through Cain. He got Cain to do his dirty work. There’s always been this battle. Somebody is using you. You’re being used when you get angry and bitter and envious. Fill of jealousy and that hateful sp- somebody’s using you. You need to understand that.

The Bible says that when you’re born into this world you have the seed of the serpent within you and you are a child of the devil. God is God and He is the Creator but He’s not your father and you’re not born into His family until the day you accepted Christ as your Savior and you are born into God’s family. And then you had the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman was Christ. Christ came from Mary and through Christ who has no sinful nature, but when you’re born of Him, you have His nature placed within you.

So you have a human nature, you’ve got a sinful nature. Christ had a human nature, but He didn’t have a sinful nature. But Christ had a human nature and a divine nature. You and I have a human nature and a sinful nature. And then when we trust Christ as our Savior, God gives to us a divine nature. When He makes the statement, not as Cain, look at verse 12 again, who was of that wicked. Well that means that Cain was of the devil from the very beginning.

Yes or no? Yes he was. And he murdered his brother and he slew his brother and wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous. You say, well, now what made the difference? God says, I want you to bring a blood sacrifice. And Abel did. He believed God. King did not believe God. He brought the works of his hands. So he was trying to save himself by his works and able through a sacrifice because he believed what God said.

So it’s looking at the works of an individual. One believed God and one did not believe God. There is your first fundamentalist and your first modernist in the Bible. And in verse 13, Marvel not my brother, if the world hate you. Now we know that according to the scriptures here, he was a murderer from the very beginning. And the Bible says that he had the seed of the devil within him. You also read in the book of Ephesians in chapter two where it says we are rebellious by nature.

The children of the devil. And that’s why we war the way we do. We have a nature that is identical to Satan’s. You and I have a nature within us that’s identical to Satan. You say, I don’t believe in the devil. You have a nature identical to Satan. And that’s why it’s so hard and difficult for you to believe what God says, what the Bible says, to believe truth. Because the devil doesn’t want you to believe the truth. So you are going to have to fight all the way with this other sinful nature that’s within you.

So lo and behold, you trusted Christ as your Savior. God did not take away that old sinful nature that you have. I want you to take and go to the book of Galatians and chapter five. Galatians and chapter five. And look there in verse 16. Verse 16. This is what the Lord tells us to do. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The reason is because you still have the lust of the flesh, because you still have an old sinful nature.

It’s in your body. You trusted Christ as your Savior. You were born of God. But this new birth that was born of God does not sin. It is righteous. It is perfect. There’s nothing wrong with it. So you have within you these two contrary natures and they fight all the time. There is nothing that you’re going to do for God without a fight, without a battle. In verse 17, for the flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh.

Flesh, first birth, spirit, second birth. They are contrary to each other because one is sinful and the other one is perfect. And therefore they fight all the time. Two natures contrary to each other. They can never work together. So inside of you, you have these two contrary natures. They’re always going to be fighting against each other. There can never be peace inside of you. There will never be peace between these two natures. You’ll have to fight all the days of your life.

Now you can surrender and just give in and let the old sinful nature totally control your life if that’s what you want. Go ahead. But even you can’t surrender without a fight because the new birth will fight against the flesh and the flesh against the new one. So when you want to do that which is wrong there’s going to be a battle. When you want to do right there’s going to be a battle. You see you’re going to have a fight either way.

Some of you sit in here and you know Christ is your Savior. You may want to leave your wife or your husband and go to another And you don’t because you’re fighting. It’s a fight. Are you capable of committing every sin in the book? Yes. How come you haven’t done it yet? Because there’s another part of you that says, no, that’s wrong. And yet, don’t you want to serve the Lord with all your heart and be enricious, obedient to God?

You say, yes, I do. But why don’t you? Because there’s a part of you that doesn’t want you to and will fight against you doing it. It’s the battle. Look there in verse 17 again, where it says, and these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. In other words, you cannot do the things that you would, can’t mean, well, walk in the spirit, but then he turned around and said, well, you can’t because he won’t let you do it.

You can’t do it. Well, I want to walk in the flesh?” Well, you can’t do it because it says right there. So that you cannot do the things that you would. You would walk in the flesh while you can’t do it. You would walk in the spirit while you can’t do it. It’s not what he’s talking about. You can’t, not the context. It means so that you cannot do the things that you would without a fight. You ought to take right beside that word, wood, and write out those words without a fight.

You can’t walk in the spirit without a fight. And you can’t walk in the flesh without a fight. If you’re God’s child, there’s going to be a struggle on the inside of you. Now sooner or later, you may give in, but not without a fight. It’s always going to be a battle. And if you have walked away from God and you’re not right with the Lord, there’s still something on the inside of you that keeps battling with you because you know what’s right and you’re not doing it.

And the Holy Spirit living within you is going to prick your conscience. And if you don’t respond, sooner or later, you’ll harden yourself, become stiff-necked, as the Bible says, sear your conscience as with a hot iron. In other words, so scar your conscience that it has no healing, no sensitivity. Where it doesn’t bother you anymore. Now, he goes down to his says, so that you cannot do the things that you would without a fight. And then it names these various things.

Look in verse 19, the works of the flesh are made known. Look in verse 22, the fruit of the spirit is made known. So if you was to read the works of the flesh and then you read the fruit of the spirit, which one would you like to have for your life? You show I like to have love, not without a fight, you won’t get it. Well, I want joy, not without a fight. I want peace, not without a fight, because the flesh is gonna try to keep you from having love or showing love and all those wonderful things.

Look there in chapter six and verse one. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, flesh, You which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of maintenance. So whenever it’s talking about here you are and you want to serve the Lord, you serving God means you serving God in the spirit of verse 22, love, you serving God in the spirit of joy, you serving God in the spirit of peace, in the spirit of long-suffering, in the spirit of gentleness, in the spirit of goodness, in the spirit of faith, in the spirit of temperance.

You serve God that way. See there in verse one, it says, in the spirit of meekness, in other words, having this kind of an attitude so that whenever you are trying to restore someone who is fell in the flesh, you want to restore someone in this kind of a spirit, the spirit of meekness. It’s a choice, but you can’t do that without a fight. You say, I just won’t love. Okay. How do you get it? Not without a fight.

You’re not going to have it. Because you see, you have a part of you that old flesh nature is going to war against you. The flesh does not want you to show love. Does it want you to have joy? Does it want you to have peace? Why? Because there’s no peace to the wicked. Sayeth the Lord. And the old sinful nature that you have, that old man doesn’t have peace, doesn’t want you to have peace, doesn’t have joy, doesn’t have love, doesn’t have all these wonderful things and doesn’t want you to have him.

And if you want that, you’re going to have a battle in your life. It’s going to be a war. And so the only place you can become spiritually strong is from a spiritual book. So the Holy Spirit in dwells you in order to teach you God’s Word. So as you learn the word of God, you can become spiritually stronger. And the flesh says, I don’t want you to read the Bible because if you read the Bible, you’ll get spiritually strong.

The flesh says, I don’t want you to go to church because if you want to church, you’ll hear the word of God and you become spiritually stronger. The flesh doesn’t want you to pray because if you did, you become spiritually stronger. And the flesh doesn’t want you strong. He can’t whip you if he lets you get strong. So he fights you and some of you give into the devil and you have no victory in your life. And you don’t have the fruit of the spirit that you’d like to have.

It’s always gonna be something that you heard about. And some people claim to have it, but it escapes you. It’s not real. It’s just a figment of the imagination. It’s just a pie in the sky, but it’s not real. It is real, but it’s a choice. A choice on which side do you want to win, but it’s going to be a fight. It’s going to be a battle. But these are some meanings of the words that are listed in Galatians in chapter 5, verses 19 through 23.

But when he talks about the works of the flesh, this is what you will produce if you let the flesh that lives within side of you, that all sinful nature control your life. He says, walk in the spirit, you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. You may still have these desires, but you don’t have to fulfill them. Sin is the fulfillment of these desires. You sure I have wrong thoughts sometimes? Just don’t fulfill them and learn how to control the thought because if you don’t control thoughts sooner or later they’ll become an act.

That’s what you have to guard against. Let her a adultery. Y’all probably said, what in the world is that? Adultery, violation of the marriage bed, a crime or a civil injury which produces or may introduce into a family experience offspring. Is it the word of God that says adultery is wrong? The flesh will tell there is nothing wrong with it everybody does it. That’s the flesh The flesh says everybody does it. If it feels good to it, whatever you want to do, nobody has a right to tell you how to live your life.

What about God? I am not a judge. I’m not trying to judge anybody. I’m just telling you what the judge said. The judge said it’s wrong, but the flesh will lie to you. Always to see it. It’s so bad that you go through it. Look down at letter E, idolatry, the worship of idols, images or anything made by hands or which is not of God. One day I was still a student at Fort Ababa College, but this young man, Richard Hordmel, had trusted Christ’s Savior.

He was the little-o-150 pound quarterback for Miami, Miami High, and I was given devotions for them and teaching them the Bible. And lo and behold, they were winning all their football games. But I didn’t play much attention to football. But they became the national champs. I mean, the high school football championship for the nation. And one day he says, can I have you talk to my mom? I says, I like to talk to him, mom. He says, my mom’s Catholic.

He says, and you know, we’re Cuban. And I says, well, I’ll talk to him. I went up to his house. After I got off the work, they picked me up. I didn’t have a car at the time. and so he picked me up and took me to their house. Went to the house and she, trust the Lord, just right off the bat, just, but she could speak some English. And the grandma mom was sitting there, but she didn’t understand the English.

And Richard looked at me and he says, can you explain this to my grandma? I says, in Spanish? He says, no, you just tell me what to say and I’ll tell her. So right. I went through the whole hand gesture, let this hand represent you and me. I went through every bit of it. And he would translate it into the Spanish. And he talked to his 84 year old grandma, and she was a staunch Roman Catholic. And I said, ask her if she knows where she’s going.

She died. And he asked her. She shook her head. No. I explained the gospel. He explained the gospel. She trusted Christ as her savior. She got up, walked out of the room. She went into another room and she came back and she put some things down on the, the untapable coffee table, went back in the room, came back with some more. She put some more things out there. And she looked at me and she says, what about all of these things?

She had those statues, all kinds of statues. And I says, the Bible says they have eyes, but they see not. They have mouths, but they cannot speak. They have ears. They cannot hear. And I says, and God says in Psalms, they that put their trust in them are like them. I says, you don’t need those things anymore. Because you can talk directly to your heavenly Father. She took everyone of those things and walked in there and threw them in the trash.

And she had just heard the gospel for the first time. That’s the power of the gospel. People who never heard the gospel before. It didn’t take 10 times talking to her. I didn’t have to talk to her twice. One time she heard it, she understood, she trusted Christ, she was saved, and she could see the error and so much. Idolatry, you can worship money, you can worship your wife, you can worship your kids. Anything that comes between you and God is an idol.

It can be sports, it can be a job, It can be a land. It can be a car. It can be anything that keeps you from God. There’s nothing wrong in having things, but when those things come between you and faithfulness to God, it’s an idol. You’re worshiping something other than God, because God doesn’t have a priority in your life. You want to use God as a backup if something happens in your life. Then you’ll cry out to God and say, God, deliver me because I’m in trouble.

But as soon as you get out of trouble, you don’t need them no more. You put them back on the shelf and live your life the way you want to live. That’s spiritual adultery. It’s idolatry. It’s wicked. And the flesh won’t tell you that. But you come to church and you listen to the Bible and lo and behold, the Bible will tell you those things. The next thing is witchcraft. The practice of witches, sorcery, enchantments, or enhancements. Intercourse with the devil powers more than natural.

I’ve had somebody ask me, well, what about all this Harry Potter stuff? I’ve never read one of the books, don’t care to anything of the supernatural that leads toward the idea of magnifying witchcraft and those things. I got wicked. Period. Don’t care for it. Don’t like it because the flesh loves it. A lot of times you can find out if something’s good or bad, just find out what does the world think about it. If the world loves it, it might not be good.

it out, bind up. Don’t just, well, there’s nothing wrong with it, says you or says God. God says in his word you don’t even talk about some of those witchcraft things. He says, stay away from it. And yet we magnify it and plant it into the minds of little kids. It’s all harmless. No, it’s not harmless. There are witches. It is a wicked thing. The Bible says this is an abomination and he wanted nothing like that in the nation of Israel.

I don’t have a hobby horse, they’ll have an axe to grind. I just made a promise to God years ago, I’ll try to teach truth as I understand it. I care not about anything else. I don’t care how people accept it or if they reject it. That’s between them and Lord. I’m going to try to do my dead level best, teach the book and explain it. Look at letter N, N-V-E-N, mortification experienced at the supposed prosperity of the Bible.

and happiness of another. He’ll will let others on account of supposed superiority.” In other words, you begin to envy somebody. I always say this, don’t try to keep up with the Joneses. Just wait and catch them on their way back. Drunkenness, intoxication, a state in which a person is overwhelmed or overpowered with spiritless liquors so that his reason is disordered and he staggers and walking. I have never experienced drunkenness. He says, you’ve been deprived all your life. Yes I have.

I haven’t had the first hangover. I haven’t woke up vomiting all over the place. I haven’t been in the intoxication unit trying to dry out. I’ve missed all of that. Yes I have. I’ve had a clear cut thinking mind all these years. I’ve had better health all these years. You run a risk. You play a silly little game if you believe in just a little social drink and never heard anybody. Yeah? I saw a lot of these here, social drinkers.

And the more they drink, the more social they get. You should never do anything that would do anything to your mind where you can’t think and be responsible for your actions. You’re running a risk. Now the flesh will tell you the opposite. You’re going to fight. If you want a little godly life, a righteous life, it’s a battle. Fight it, fight it, fight it, fight it all the days of your life. When When you look at the fruit of the spirit, oh my goodness, look at this thing.

Love, love, joy, peace, look at the word peace. In a general sense, a state of quiet or tranquility, freedom from disturbance or agitation, applicable to society, to individuals or to the temper of the mind, heavenly rest, the happiness of heaven. In other words, a little faith will take a soul to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to the soul. In serving the Lord, we are supposed to do things in the spirit of long suffering, in the spirit of joy, in the spirit of love and the spirit of peace, the spirit of goodness.

Because you see, these are things you demonstrate to other people. You say, well, I just thought these were things that I’m supposed to have. If you have it, then you did not not be a problem showing it, right? So then living for the Lord, walk in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit means you allow the Holy Spirit to demonstrate these qualities through you. These are things that God wants us to have in our life. Are you a new listener to Bibleline?

Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel-Driven Man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of the Gospel-Driven Man.

The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address, and God bless you and thank you for listening to 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.