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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 a good plan 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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

If you don’t study the Word of God, if you don’t learn good sound doctrine, you’ll be He tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine that comes along. And you’re not going to be able to take a strong stance. So in the book of James 1, look what he says here in verse 8. A double minded man is what? Unstable. And how many of his ways? All of his ways. Well what is an unstable man? Well, look what he…

Everybody has problems. And your problems is to… get you to seek the Lord. Ask of God. This is how you grow. Facing situations you don’t have answers for. Needing help, needing wisdom. So God says in verse 2, my brethren counted all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. you’re going to have them. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith work at patience or produces maturity in your life. You learn you don’t get what you want when you want it.

You’ve got to be paid and wait on the Lord. If you’re not patient and wait on the Lord, you try to do it yourself. You try to get ahead of God. Look what He says, but let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect or complete an entire wanting or lacking nothing. God wants you to be a strong Christian, nothing lacking in your Christian life. mature enough that you can handle whatever the problem is you can handle it.

Between you and God you can handle anything. True? Between you, you won’t believe this, between me and God we know everything there is in the world. Between me and God we can do anything. I am only as strong as I’m with the Lord. Without Him I can do, yeah, but you ought to see what we can do with Him. I can do all things through Christ with strength and with me. Now, get what he says. If any of you in verse five lack wisdom, and it means you do and you should seek the Lord ask for wisdom.

And then in verse six he says, but let him ask in faith in other words believing. Nothing wavering for he that waiver is like a wave of the seed driven with the wind and tossed. This is what happens to a person who doesn’t get well grounded in the Word of God. why you lose your direction. And there’s false teachers in this world that can ruin your life and trap you. And what the way that the lost people live and how they think they can teach that to a Christian and a Christian can wind up living just like a false teacher can do their same man.

But the only thing is, oh, once you’re saved, you’re always saved. But do you want to live like a You want to think like a lost man. You want to live like the world. You want to be like a brute beast. Do you want to be destructive? You want to be unstable? Well, this is why he warns all of this and why we’re supposed to put our confidence and trust in the Lord. Why do you think Peter is talking to the believers?

You’re not talking a lot of him talking to the believers. Believers that need to be aware of false teachers because false teachers, it takes its toll upon God’s children. And this is why he says here in the middle part of verse 14 of chapter 2, he says, and heart, they have exercised with covetous practices, cursed children, don’t believe like them, don’t do like them. Now, he uses an illustration from the Old Testament about these. There was a man named Balaam.

He was a prophet of God. And Balaam, well, he was the king of Moab. And he didn’t see the children of Israel come up and he was up on the top of mind. He was looking at him down in the valley. And he was scared. And as the Bible says that no doubt his knees smote one another, he was scared to death. And he wanted Balaam to put a… curse upon the children of Israel. And I said, I can’t do that.

I can’t do that. But you’ll find out the Bible talks about the way of Balaam, the heir of Balaam, and it talks about the doctrine of Balaam. So hold your place right here because we’ll come back to 2 Peter, but I want to digress here just a little bit and go back there to the book of numbers. Numbers and chapter 22, Numbers explant 22. You’ve probably been through this many times before, but just kind of look at it one more time because it references this, tells us about this, and there must be a reason, must be a reason whether it is.

Because there is a man who wants to be a man who wants to God, who wants to be a man who I’m D.C.G.R.A.P. We got a lot to do, but we have to get an emergency throughout the day. But we would have to be connected, but we’ve to be connected. There’s a lot to do. We got a lot to do. We’ll say that’s where we’ve got a lot to do. We’ve got a lot of quick training, but we’ve got a lot to do.

We’re ready for our team meeting now. We’ve got a lot of stuff to do now. We’ve got a lot of stuff, but we’ve got a lot of exercise. They’ve got one of the ones that we’ve got. So we’ve got a lot of So down here in verse six, come now therefore I pray them, curse me this people. He wanted them to curse those people. You see, that’s what false teachers are in the process of doing. If they can get God’s people to sin against God, then isn’t it true that God’s supposed to chasten his people?

Well, the way to get God to chasten his people is to get the people to sin. And so there’s false teachers in this world who are going to be very deceptive. They will sin, but they’re not content with just them. They want to get everybody they can. Did you know the homosexuals or after your children? They’re not content with us whatever they do. They want it taught to the little kids in school. They want the teenagers involved hotly involved.

They want college kids involved so they can have co-ed and all the rest of it and sin abounds. It abounds. But because there’s somebody teaching air. And so he makes this statement. He says in verse 6, come now therefore I pray the curse me this people, for they are too mighty for me. Per adventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them and that I may drive them out of the land. For I know not that he whom thou blessed is blessed and he whom thou cursed is cursed.

For some reason rather this prophet had God hand upon me, could bless and he could curse and whatever he decided, that’s the way it would be. Isn’t that powerful? So you have to be careful. But what did God tell you? He said, Pelicans, Shanahan, God said unto them, God said unto them, God said unto them, Thou shalt not go with them, Thou shalt not curse the people, and you ought to unline this part of it. They are blessed. They had been blessed by God.

And God was watching over them and God was providing for them and God was meeting their needs and God was defending them and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They are blessed people. You can’t put a curse on them. So he says, he went back and comes and I’m sorry, I can’t do that. I can’t do that. And so Beylak was, he was satisfied, right? No, he wasn’t satisfied. He went after him three more times. So finally, in Balaam says, well, let me just see if the Lord wants me to learn some more.

Well, he’d already done a game and answer. But you see, there was the era of Balaam. And see, that was because he would do it for wages. There was so much of an offer made to him that he just couldn’t turn it down. He did, until you find out later, that he gave him some counseling on how they could They could. Help destroy Israel. Balaam did that. He knew the truth and rebelled against obeying the truth. And there was a price to pay.

He even got on a donkey one time and he was trying to go down this place. And the Lord told him not to go. He would determine that they do it anyway. And so there was an angel of the Lord standing in front of the donkey, but no, Balaam, he couldn’t sit. He’s riding the donkey. And it was real narrow. And the donkey would stop and wouldn’t do it and rub his legs up against the thing and he was mad He was gonna beat the donkey and next thing you know The donkey spoke to him.

This is why you hitting me That ought to give you confidence if God can use a jackass he can use you wouldn’t you think so? But now noted look down in verse 22 and God’s anger Was kindled because he went and the angel of the Lord stood at the way for an adversary against him Now I just want you to notice that you’ll study in the book of 2nd Peter talked about the way of Balaam, the way of Balaam.

Notice the word way mentioned here in verse 22. Look in verse 23, and the asse of the angel of the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand and his turn aside out of the way. You’ll be surprised how many times it’ll mention that too, because we’re talking about the way. The way he was going was the wrong way. And the thing is, is as some of God’s people go the wrong way. And you’ve got to know what is right and what is wrong.

He knew what was right, but he did wrong anyway. This is why you’ll find out later, he’s talking about it’s better not to have known the way of righteousness than to know it than not obey it. But look what he says. He goes down to here in verse 26, and the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where was no way to either turn to the right or the left. In other words, he had to box him in because the way he was going was wrong.

And he didn’t want him to go to the right, didn’t want him to go to the left, so he put an angel right in front of him. Don’t you get it yet? You see, God loves his people. God loves his children. God loves us. He wants us to do right. He wants us to go the right way. And so sometimes there’s things that happens in our life to kind of check us here and check us a little bit there.

And sometimes God will force you to stand still and just don’t do anything. Remember whenever the children of Israel were coming out of Egypt and there was Charleston, Heston, he led them right up to the Red Sea. And remember they couldn’t go right, they couldn’t go left, they couldn’t go back. And he said, stand still and do what? See the salvation of the Lord. Don’t you just let me wonder if He did that? I love that. I ain’t even love the part when your printer says, his God is God.

Don’t you just love that? His God is God. Well, I love that. Anyway, some of y’all think I’m losing it, don’t you? Not yet. Not yet. I’m not seen now yet. But look what he says down here and he says in verse 20, and Balaam said unto the s because thou hast mocked me. If I had a sword in my hand, I’d kill you. and the angel of the Lord said to Balaam, is that what you want me to do?

You? Look down in verse 31, and then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the, what? In the way, and his sword drawn in his hand, in verse 32, and the angel of the Lord said to him, wherefore hast thou smitten thine as these three times? Behold, I went out to withstand thee because thy, and you are on the line, that way is perverse before the end. The way of Balaam is a perverse way.

It is the wrong way. And so he says in verse 33, and the assew me and turn from me these three times, unless she had turned from me, surely now have I also slain thee and saved her life. In other words, you know, I could have just went ahead and slew you and kept the donkey alive. But look at verse 34, and Balaam said unto the angel of the Lord, I have sinned, for I knew not that thou stood it in the way against me.

Now therefore if it displeases me, I will get me back again. So all of this, just like God promised that this is what he wanted to do. He wanted him to listen, wanted him to learn, and he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do what God says to do. He finally had to learn a few lessons. But look in chapter 24. Chapter 24, the last part of that verse, a verse nine says, blessed is he that blesses thee and curses thee.

And this is what he was supposed to do. There was the right ones to bless and ones that were supposed to be cursed. And he’d gotten himself all mixed up. And he says, the Lord, they like told him says, the Lord have kept thee from honor. He’s held back. You’re from getting to see their adversity. therefore now flee thou to thy place. I thought to promote thee under great honor, but lo the Lord have kept thee back from honor.”

See there by you doing what God told you to do, he’s cost you. You paid a great price. You could have had such honor. Look what I would have done for you. Yeah, yeah. But believe it or not, it wasn’t over yet. And he goes down through here and he tells from things that God had prophesied about the star that was coming. See that in verse 17, I shall see him but not now. I shall behold him but not not.

There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel and shall smite the corners of Moab. Judgment coming above Moab. And then he makes the statement about Amalek, not in verse 20. Amalek was one of the first nations that ever existed. Emma like is the type of the flesh. And remembering the book of Exodus, we’re done in chapter 17, where it says that they were fighting the Amalek Heights and so forth. And here’s Moses standing there and they had to hold up his arms and so forth when his arms were up.

They had victory and when his arms went down, the tide turned. And so they had to hold up. I see that’s the two nations. Moses was doing the two nations all the way back in the Old Testament. And so if you learn and they were fighting and Joshua, the great general that he had. Now look what he says in chapter 25, chapter 25. And verse 1 and Israel abode in Chittom and the people began to commit Hordom with the daughters of Moab, the daughters of Moab.

Why did they do this? did you understand that in chapter 31, he had given them counsel and this was bad advice. He told them, says, I cannot curse Israel. He said, but if you get Israel and the women together, God will have to whip them. And so in the next chapter 26, God had a bunch of them that bit the dust and some of them went to hell with their boots on. But now notice in chapter 31, look in chapter 31, way over here, there’s no connection to it like it’s just a verse standing all by it’s little on some and look there and PHI says in verse 16, 31.

Behold, these caused the children of Israel through the counsel of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of your. And a great plague came upon the children of Israel, and so many people were killed. So you see, it wasn’t all over back there in the 25th chapter. Six chapters later you find out he had given some bad advice about getting them to commit adultery, the hoardom of God’s people. And there’s more thing to happen. And this is why Balaam is mentioned here over in the New Testament because there’s people who even know the truth and can lead you astray.

You be careful not only of those who are really false, but you watch out for so-called good Christian people that are not teaching according to the book. You have to learn the Word of God yourself. How do you know that what I teach you is the truth unless you have a Bible and you look at it, but whatever I teach you, if it doesn’t lead you and teach you according to being more godly, stay away from me. If I teach you things that causes you to be more ungodly, wicked.

You know I’m teaching you wrong, because the Bible says the Holy Spirit is holy, and the Holy Spirit can only lead you to do holy things, godly things, teaches you right, the live right, and if it teaches you and leads you to go into sin, you know you’re listening to the wrong thing, the wrong belief. Go all the way back Thank you to the book of Peter all the way back there.

This is why he says up there, he was trying to get Balaam to curse God’s children. And so he says up here in verse 14, have an eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin, begowing unstable souls. And heart they have exercised with covetousness, practice, cursed children, trying to get God’s people to live like cursed people. living in sin, doing wrong, going the wrong way. And that’s why it says here in verse 15, which have forsaken the right way.

And are going astray for second the right way, the perverse way. The same thing we read back here in the book of Numbers just a minute ago, following the way of Balaam, the way of Balaam, the son of Ozor, who love the wages of unrighteousness.” This is why you find out that says they make merchandise of you. And it’s over there in verse 3 of chapter 2, but making merchandise of you. But in verse 16, but was rebuked for his iniquity, the dumbass speaking with man’s voice forbade the madness of the prophet.

You would think that he was doing everything God wanted him the dude. No, he wasn’t. God had already told him what to do, but he kept on. Well, can I go? Can I go? So God was angry. And so he went and then he put an angel in the way. And then he put a donkey talking to him. He did not heed any warnings whatsoever. And then he gave to the enemy bad advice that would, on how to hurt God’s people.

And God says, he knows how to deliver his people and he knows how to deliver the ungodly and the judgment. So you’ll notice when he makes that statement about that in verse 9 of chapter 2, the Lord know of how to deliver the godly out of temptation and how to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. Now just go over there in chapter 3. go straight on over to chapter 3. And notice what he says in verse 5-7, but the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store reserved, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and predation of ungodly men.

It’s the same thing that you’re talking about over here in this. God says he’s going to punish those who have sown discord, who have lied about him and that’s why he made the statement there because of this promise. Now what I want you to see is be close here in verse 17 of chapter 2. This verse is virtually the same verse that you read over there in the book of Jude. Verse 17 of chapter 2 says, these are well without water, clouds they are carried with a tempest, tossed, towed by the wind, There’s no water, they look real, they act, they have no substance.

It is to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. That cannot refer to a child of God. That cannot refer to a child of God. And so you have these wonderful things mentioned in here, warning, warning, warning. And then when you get over to chapter 3, he says, no one, that in the last days scoffers shall come. they will mock what God says in verse 4 of chapter 3 and saying, where is the promise of His coming? For since the Father’s fellow sleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the grief.

That’s what they say, but it’s not true. That is not true. Look up here. This letter that I got from this guy done in El Paso, any amazing that he’s listened to a message that’s on YouTube that’s put up here by Jesse and here’s a guy down there, his whole life is changed. He said, I did not know for sure until I heard that message that you preached on the YouTube. I think it’s just wonderful but there’s a lot of responses that I get and I thought it’d be great one time just to go through and make a copy of all of those things that you know the nice things people say.

There’s a lot of the other kind too but we don’t want to talk about those. But just to realize the impact that the gospel has when people finally sit and hear it. This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin on us. God, He loves us. He hates our sin. This morning I went in to get me a cup of coffee and I, there’s this young boy in there. I don’t know if something 18 years old and I’ve seen him in there and I just talked to be nice.

Get my coffee and I go sit down. Today I went in And then I got ready to get my coffee and he says, is that Big Capper is that regular? I said regular. He says, oh, I’m sorry. He says, you know, all these times I’ve been giving you decaf. I kept thinking why I was only drinking a half a gun. It just didn’t taste right. It just wasn’t right. And I could not drink the coffee and it just made me yuck.

But I didn’t know. I just thought it was the coffee. It wasn’t because it was a decaf junk. And so anyway, he said, I am so sorry. I went in there and I sat down. I’m drinking. He’d come in and nobody in there. He came by and he says, I’m sorry. I’ve been giving you a decaf. I says, I’m still alive. I didn’t die.” And I asked him, I said, do you know where you’re going to go when you’re dying?

I’m feeling fuel. And so nobody was in here. So I talked to him a little bit. And so I was explaining to him. And so this guy came in, I said, you can take care of him. And if you get a chance, come back. I’ll talk to him some more. And so he went and took care of him. And so I was doing my thing and drinking my regular coffee. And here he comes. Come back up there and he was standing there.

And he stood there and I said, well, let me show you something. I pull up my wallet, I did the wallet illustration, now explaining to him. And I didn’t ask him what you trust Christ said because there’s just something in there, he doesn’t get it yet, doesn’t get it. So I get ready to leave. I realized I got a Spanish track in my pocket. So when I got ready to leave, I went down there and I gave him, I said, do you speak Spanish?

He said, yes. I said, this is in Spanish and it’s just for you. I said, I want to see you tomorrow and I want to know if you read it. He said, I’ll read it. So anyway, y’all be praying about this kid. I’d like to get him. But it’s so, this is a neat little story. This is the neatest story in all the world. There ain’t no story greater than this old story. This is the most important story in the whole world.

This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us, hates our sin. For us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in hell. But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven. To go to heaven we have to be perfect as righteous as God. None of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. We’ve all sinned. And come sure of the goodness, the righteousness of God. So because of sin, we can’t get in.

So God says, you can’t save yourself. I need a savior. 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 our sin separates us from him. So Jesus Christ, who had no sin to death to die. So to prove he loves us, he took our sins, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead, said that all we had to do, believe he did it for us, and he put this payment to my account.

Well, if I got a payment for all of my sins, I don’t have any sins to condemn me. That’s why there’s no condemnation to those who believe this. Because once you believe that this payment but you got a payment for all your sins, and I can’t go to hell because I don’t have any sin to pay for it. He paid for all my sins. If people could just get that in their mind, Christ died in my place. Christ paid for my sins.

Came back from the dead and He’s coming again. And once you believe that He did it for you, He gives you as a free gift ever lasting life. It’s so simple that you can tell when somebody’s adding to it. You add something to it. It’s not the gospel. Let’s pray, shall we? Has bow nice clothes, no one looking around? If you’re hearing the auditorium, or if you’re watching by internet tonight, wanna write where you are, just the best you know how, would you accept Jesus Christ as your savior?

Would you believe that He paid for your sins? Don’t trust the preacher, don’t trust the church, don’t trust anyone, don’t trust yourself. Put your confidence in the true and living God. He sent his son Jesus Christ to die for you, pay for your sins, and if you’ll believe it, he’ll give you as a free gift everlasting life. I pray that you would. Our Father, we thank you so much for all that you’ve done for us, for giving us a free gift of everlasting life, and the privilege of telling others what you’ve done for us.

We do pray Lord for these that we’ve mentioned, Pray for ranch tomorrow night and good results and put this coming Sunday. And all the things that needs to be done, less than every area of this ministry, you’ve been good to us. We’re thankful for what you’ve done. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen. This is your invitation to join us for our third Sunday dinner held in the Florida Bible College of Tampa building on the Calvary Community Church Campus. The dinner is a family-style, Calvary dish dinner and a great way to showcase your favorite dish and pick up new recipes.

Each month, you have the opportunity to invite your family and friends to join as for our Sunday morning service at 1030, and then stay for our third Sunday dinner immediately following noon. Third Sundays at Calvary Community Church, where you’ll be fed spiritually and physically. 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.