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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

You’ve got to have something that really challenges you. Years ago, years ago, I was sitting down and, you know, I years ago, and keep me some coffee and get a couple napkins, and I write down a few little notes. Well, I was thinking about the gospel, I was doing the gospel-driven man booklet. And so as I said there, and I was thinking about, God has given to us the ultimate purpose in living. I mean, if you could think of all the reasons, the causes that a man could live for, God has given us the best.

When I think of how many things I could live my life for. Well, you know, we’re fortunate, we live in America. You know, the American dream, doing anything that you want. And when you read the Bible and you find that God has given to us the ultimate challenge. So I said, then I started thinking about that. And the next thing you know, I’d outline me a whole sermon. And I put it in my book, The Gospel Driven Man. Every once in a while I gotta remember this.

Because as time goes on, you can get a little actadaisical. And thinking it really doesn’t matter now, in the words, I’ve already done lived, you know, a long time. And they were singing that song just while they go. And I was thinking about it. I don’t know why I was singing this song, this old house of clay. And we’re going to leave this old house of clay. This old house of clay. I’m longing for home. Yeah, I know. I’m longing for home.

I’m going to leave this old house of clay. That phrase is in there somewhere. And I thought, is that all I am? Is just an old house a clay? Sure, there’s more here than just this old house of clay. Well, we do live in this old house of clay, and for some of us, it’s getting older. And well, all of us were getting older at the same time, but some started earlier. And I’ll start it before I did. So that’s why he’s so much further ahead down the road.

But we know the day is coming when it’s all gonna be over we’re not going to have it. But anyway, I title it the ultimate warrior. I mean, if you’re going to live life and you’re going to do something, wouldn’t you want to be the ultimate in whatever it is? Well, in order to fulfill that, there’s a lot of things that you need to think about. So I want you to kind of look at some of these scriptures. Turn in your Bible to the book of 2 Timothy, chapter 4, 2 Timothy, chapter 4.

The Bible tells us that Timothy, being a young man, was being challenged by the Apostle Paul, an older man, to give it all he has. In these scriptures, 2 Timothy, I’ll get there in a second, and in chapter 4, look there in verse 7, he says, I have, I mean, it’s already done, I have thought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Three good statements in this one verse. So when your life is over, will you be able to say that?

Well you can’t say it when your life is over unless you can say it now. You should be able to say that now because this is you’re in the midst of the fight. But you need to understand what it means. And so as I thought about that I started making a few little statements and you’ll look there in your notes there. The ultimate warrior needs the ultimate weapon. I mean if I’m gonna be this ultimate warrior that God has, what is what kind of a weapon will I have?

Now I saw a movie one time and it was Arnold Schwarzenegger and he’s got two or three of these machine guns, one in both arms, I think he had one on his leg and guns everywhere, knives all over the place and bullets and all that kind of stuff and everybody’s shooting at him but not a person with the same kind of material can hit him. He can run and dash between bullets. And that he can see one coming up and he got him.

Phew, he got him. Phew. The ultimate mean machine. And he was just kicking down everybody. I never saw so much blood shitting all my life. They were dead bodies everywhere. And they all had the same kind of guns that he had, but they couldn’t hit him because he was a better runner. Dodge into bullets. But then somebody who made the movie could make anything happen. But that’s just make believe. That’s pretending. Listen, it’s not real. Don’t you want something that would be real?

No, I don’t really want somebody firing at me with bullets. I mean, not real bullets. But we have the opportunity to do something wonderful in this world in which we live. And so the ultimate weapon, look at number one, the sword which is the Word of God. That’s in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 17. This is the ultimate weapon that you and I need, the Word of God. And you can’t fight this ultimate battle of all time without the ultimate weapon.

That’s why you and I need the Word of God. That’s why we studied the Word of God. We memorize the Scriptures. And that’s what we use as our weapon, and we use it for our defense. We use the Word of God all the time. When the Bible says, how shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed according to thy word? Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against in God. So you have the word of God.

The word of God is the most important thing you’re gonna learn. So if you want to do something, you’ve got to know the word. And if you don’t want to do anything, you don’t want to fight. Then you don’t need to know the Bible. I’ve often done one of why some people have no desire to learn the word of God. Because they’re not interested in getting in the battle. It’s more like, look, I’ve got my little pinkies inside the pearly gates.

I’m going to heaven. And that’s all I care about. I’m not interested in getting any battles, any fight. I don’t want no scars. I don’t want any, I have to worry about any reward. I don’t worry about anything. I just want everybody to leave me alone. Just let me coast to life until I get there because I’m going to heaven, ain’t I? I know, but you realize what it would be like, the victories that you could have. And one day when you get to see the Lord face to face and he’d be able to say, well, done thou good in favor of?

You lazy good for nothing. I want to know what he would say. Lord, and the Lord is a lot of a lot of string you never heard before. I mean, if he’s anybody knows any words, he knows them, but he’s a lot of this to let you know because you realize that God has given us great opportunities. Look at the next statement, the strength, which is the Holy Spirit. He acts chapter one verse eight says, But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.

That power is not only power to do what you’re supposed to do, but it’s the authority. You have God’s Holy Spirit living inside of you, and the Holy Spirit is going into all the world through us and you were to be a witness. So what would stop you? If God told you, this is what I want you to do, what in the world could stop you? Well, that’s where the battle comes in. There’s many things that stops us from being what we ought to be for the Lord.

So you have the authority. And whenever he gives us that commission there in Matthew 28, take your Bible look in Matthew 28. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and Matthew, chapter 28. Now there are people who do not believe that Matthew 28 is for this time period. is on page 1044 in a church Bible. You have one right in front of you there or an old school fill reference Bible. But I do believe that the Great Commission is still enforced for today.

If it’s not enforced for today and it was only good of them until Paul, okay, now we don’t have to go in all or we’re on preach the gospel. You just took away the authority. See what it says in verse 18, Jesus came and spoke unto them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go you therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even until the end of the world or end of the age.

Now this section right here if it only went up until Paul started preaching well then there were other disciples that had already gone into other countries. Did Paul get a hold of him and say look the The order has been canceled, the command has been changed, we don’t have to do that anymore. We can all go back to Jerusalem and sit in our lazy bar chirns, you know, sipplin’ our lemonade. It’s been rescinded, it’s not in authority anymore. What do you do about all those people that already done left and went into all the world?

Did God have to go and tell them, hey, look, you don’t have to do it anymore? No. That command was given and it’s still in effect. I have no scripture that says where God canceled it. And nobody can find any scripture where God canceled it. So evidently, it’s still in effect. We’re still supposed to try to win people to Christ and challenge them to serve the Lord. So that’s mentioned in number two, the ultimate warrior need, the ultimate mission.

You’ve got to have something that really challenges you. Well, how about going into all the world and preach the God? gospel. And not do it just for a week. Now, sometimes they have these mission trips where they get college kids to go to a field where they get challenged, want to serve the Lord, and maybe go to the mission field or go to Bible college or whatever. And it lasts about a week or two and then they fizzle out.

Well, I was really in there for two weeks and then back the way they were. I’m talking about something that will last your whole lifetime. Do you realize I have been fighting the same battles for over 50 years? Now everybody’s heard of a guy named Mike Tyson. You ever heard of Mike Tyson? He was a bad man. He’d eat off your ear. That’s Horanfield. He was a bad dude. You ever heard of a guy named the Cassius Clay before he became a Muslim.

He was a great boxer. You can’t deny it. The guy had skill. He could box. He was one of the greatest boxes I have ever seen in my life, but he needed to know how great he is by his challengers. See, that’s why they always had him. They had to come up through the ranks to deserve that right, getting to ring with the champ, whoever the champ might be. So they had to win this battle in that battle, in that battle, in that battle, finally they get to go head to head with the man, whoever that man was.

I was gonna do it and I changed my mind. I didn’t want to make him look bad. You know when I’m joking right? The whole time I’m talking and never… But you’ve got to have somebody that’s an ultimate challenge to whoever you are, whatever you’re doing. If you want to win a bet, that’s why having a foot race between you know some and Al Marr, me or somebody else in here, Bob Brooks, he would be a good one, but it wouldn’t be no, it wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

When you get to heaven and you stand before the Lord and God is gonna reward you for what you’ve done for Him, you want to say Lord, man, I would just pay for it kid. I mean, we was a really knock-down dragon, but I picked a tarot in Lord for your honor and your glory. Lord says, yeah, but I sent the devil, you didn’t fight the devil at all. Yeah, but you know, that kindergarten five kid, I got, I took care of him.

You’ve got to have the ultimate challenge in life. And did you know that life that God has given to us is a challenge? And can you live for the Lord? There isn’t anything of a greater demanding in your whole life, then can you fight the battles that this entails? Look at the next one. You’ve got to have the right mission. You’ve got to have the right message. Isn’t it wonderful that you and I know that the message that God has given to us, that there isn’t a greater message?

Of all the messages in the world, {* No man can hear a better message than the message of the gospel. If that’s the greatest thing any man can hear because that’s what he has to have in order to go to heaven, there isn’t a greater message in the world for a man to hear than there must not be a greater message then for a man to tell. I must be telling you must be telling the greatest story in the world.

Did you know these kids they went out Friday night so went in. They went on the greatest mission and they went and had the greatest results you can have is a man trusting Christ to save your first and trust in the Lord because there isn’t anything better than that. So they had the best message anybody could ever hear in the world. Now if I was the devil, if I was the devil, and I’m not the devil, but if I was the devil, I would do everything in my power to stop somebody from doing that.

So they have got to fight the ultimate enemy. And this is why this is so important. Look there in number three, the ultimate warrior needs the ultimate enemy. In other words, somebody to stop you from being able to succeed. You see, if there’s no battle, then there’s no real war. There’s no fight. See, some people, they want to make a six-foot splash in a six-inch mud puddle. They want to wear the medals, but they don’t want to fight any battles.

Have you ever noticed when they showed the pictures of those people over in Korea, and they have all these men standing around here in their uniforms. They got medals weighed on them down like this year and they have to walk like that. All these medals they got, all these medals! And they haven’t had any wars. They fight. They’re wives at home. You get a medal. Where did they fight? North Korea has had any battles in 60 or 70 years.

Where did these men get all of these men? Well, I guess they have to just buy them. Whoever can afford them. I thought about it. I’m going to go buy me some medals. You know, I have seen some of these kids that have all these trophies. They got trophies. They ran. They got a trophy and they played football. They got a trophy and God, they got trophies. And I’ve never had a trophy case. I’m going to buy me a trophy case.

And then I’m going to buy me some trophies. But if just because I bought a trophy and I put it in there, does that mean I must have accomplished something? Huh? Well, not if I bought it. I didn’t do anything to earn it. I don’t have a right to those trophies. Well, when you get to heaven and God wants to reward you, you have to have a right to that trophy. You have to have a right to that reward because he salvation though it is free rewards are earned.

You deserve those. You work for those. You fought for those. This is the sign of an accomplishment. It’s what God wants to give every person because we’re all in this battle. Now look what we have here. Number one, the devil which is the prince of the air of this world. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 2. Let’s just take a look over there very quickly. The book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians in chapter 2. This whole chapter is pretty good, but we’ll just look at a couple verses.

It’ll look in verse 2. Chapter 2, verse 2, this is on page 1251 in a church Bible. And you’ll notice what he says here. And verse 2, we’re in, in time pass, we walked. That means we lived according to the course of this world. We live like the world. And he says, according to the prince of the power of the earth. You were under Satan’s dominion, though you did not know it. And you were living like the devil, means you went your own way, not gods.

You were rebellious, though you didn’t think so. You were just strong willed. But he says here, the spirit that now worketh in the children of what? Disobedience. Do you have to teach children to be disobedient. It comes naturally. Where did they get it? Their mother. I had to say that. I probably shouldn’t have. The devil made me do that. Well anyway, the mother and the father, right? Okay. We got that settled. Now look what he says in verse three.

Among whom also we all had our conversation or manner of life in time passed in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we’re by nature, the children of wrath, just like everybody else. We were all the same. Now, that’s the way we were. Now, you have trusted Christ as your Savior. Now you’re God’s child, born into God’s family, and God didn’t take us out of this world. He left us in this world and says, wait for your life.

I used to scare the kids when I try to be the monster from the black lagoon and I’ll come after and I’m like, I’m gonna get you and the kids were just run and scream bloody murder and so I would come after them you know and how long I run for your life. Well what we’re talking about is fight for your life. Is this life that God gave you? Do you fight to live the good life, to fight to live the life that God wants you to live or Or do you just wave, I surrender, leave me alone.

And you don’t wanna fight. Because you see, to fight the battle of God, Hastera, you’ve got to prepare how to use your weapon. And if you don’t know how to use the word of God, you realize how many battles you’re going to lose just because you don’t know the word of God. And I’m not talking about just, well, I know that verse and I know that verse, but yeah, but do you know how to use that verse? See, there’s one thing of having a knowledge of the Bible, but you want a working knowledge of the Bible where you know how to use the scriptures to fight battles with.

And so this is what you’re going to have. You’re gonna fight those battles. Now, look in first John chapter two, first John chapter two, all the way over there. First John is right before second John. First John and Phoebe chapter two, this is on page 13, 22. And look in verse 15, you see, you were saved because God loved you so much. He died on the cross, paid for all of your sins, gave you the free gift of everlasting life, and you’re going to heaven.

No wonderful. God really showed how much He loved us. He died. What more can He do? He died for us. Now, he doesn’t ask you and I to die for him. He asks you and I to live for him. Will you live for the Lord? And to live for the Lord, God wants you to love him more than you love the world. You see, Will you live for the Lord? And to live for the Lord, God wants? you to love him more than you love the world.

You see, love is a powerful motivator. But if you don’t love the Lord, then your life becomes, well, you do it out of, well, I have to. I have to go to church. I have to study the Bible. I’ve got to memorize the verse. I’ve got to. I’ve got to. I’ve got to. I want to. I want to. And you do it because I love the Lord. That little song we sung while I go, I wrote a couple of the verses about, Lord, you are more precious than silver.

And then I put a little course in there. Or I guess you could say a verse and I like the part that Lord, your love His love is greater than the mountains and your love is wider than to see. And Lord, I want the world to know that I love you. Just send me wherever you want me to be. But you serve the Lord because you love the Lord. So he says here in verse 15, love not the world.

world. God is saying this to you and I. Do not love the world. We see it, but yeah, but I do. I love the world. I want what the world has to offer, the praise, the honor, the glory. All right, now, you’re the one that determines what you love. You see, sometime we think, well, oh, I just fell in love. I just saw this girl. I just fell in love. In other words, like it was against my will. I I couldn’t control it.

Can you control your emotions, your feelings? No. Like you said, you know, I fell in love with her. And her. And her. And her. This one guy says, what are you gonna be when you grow up? I’m gonna be a farmer. Why? He said, I won’t be outstanding in my field. Well, love not the world. Some young get that from them. Neither the things that are in the world. Because if you love the things of the world, you can’t love the Lord like you ought to.

If you love them more than you love God, then they’re gonna take precedence in your life. So he says, if any man loved the world, get to look at the last part, the love of the Father is Rove in him. Because the Lord doesn’t love the world. And if you’re going by the love of God, and God doesn’t love the world, and you wanna please God, then you can’t love what he doesn’t love. You have to learn how to hate what he hates.

He hates sin and he loves the things that are righteous. So you’ve got a choice to make. So you prove your love to the Lord by the way you live your life. Your whole life is one big thank you to the Lord for how good he’s been to you. Now look what he says. He says this in verse 16, for all that is in the world, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life. Those three things that were mentioned all the way back here in Genesis when the devil was talking to Adam and Eve, and all the time whenever Matthew chapter four, when the devil went after Jesus himself and tipped him, same principle.

It’s the same thing here. It’s the same fight. A lot of men in the Bible, who at one time maybe loved the Lord with all their heart and fell in the sin, until they took their eyes off the Lord. And they were captured by the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. And it destroys a lot of people.

And you and I are no different. We’re going to have the same battles. So when you have these lusts of the flesh, that means the desires of the flesh to do what you want to do, go your own way to be rebellious. All right, fight against that and win. Fight that. So that means you’ve got to have something that you want better than the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. something better would be the things of God.

So you have to focus upon the things of God. Well, that causes you to think about, what does the word of God say about all these things? When you put it in proper perspective, then you understand, I wanna live for those things that will be eternal. I wanna live for the things that God’s gonna reward me for. And when you understand that it makes the decisions that you’ve gotta make in life a little easier. Look at the next point, look at number four.

The ultimate warrior needs the ultimate battle plan. Fight by any means according to the will of God. In the words, by all means Paul kept saying in chapter nine, by all means, by all means, because you see, that’s why, and I mentioned this suggestion, any way we can, every way that we can. arij, we want to get the gospel out. I want to have ministries that every thing you can think of. I’d love to have a ministry to the blind.

I to the death. I’d love to have a ministry to the Spanish. I thought, man, we can have a great Spanish church right here. Just have it on two o’clock on Sunday afternoon and just get some Spanish people to come in here. But we got to train a pastor. We’ve got to have a person that can know the word of God and be solid and strong. And we can trust him. And I bet we can reach a lot of Spanish people that speak Spanish.

speak English. Man, I love to reach them. I want to have somebody can go to every nursing home in this city, the county, and go to the prisons and go to everything. There ought not be one place. We don’t go. We ought to saturate the area. But it takes a lot of people doing that. And you don’t have to always be the preacher behind the pulpit. It’s just the average person, the layman, who has a knowledge of the Word of God and been prepared and he wants to fight a few battles.

He wants to accomplish something with his life. So these are things that I like to see done. And think about this. The number, the note right there, number two, if now is the time to be saved, then now must be the time to fight. Now must be the time to witness. Now must be the time. Because if now is the day of salvation, then now must be the time to witness. Do you think you can witness to the wrong person?

Oh, I witnessed to the wrong person. What if you led the wrong person to the Lord. You think God will forgive you for that. Think how dumb that sounds. I just led the wrong person to the Lord. I don’t know if they were chosen or not. God has decided to save everybody that would trust Him, whosoever be leave it. Look at the next statement, the ultimate warrior needs the ultimate mental toughness. I love these scriptures, but I want would take a Bible and turn to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4.

And this is what Paul says. I brought this out many times before, but repetition is theological mucilage. More mud you throw in the wall, more is going to stick. And 2 Corinthians in chapter 4, look what he says in verse 1. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy. Get this. Having this ministry, we faint not. No, don’t leave off that little part in between as we have received mercy. Do you realize that you and I, where we were headed, we were on our way to hell, we were going to hell and God had mercy.

Now seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not, we We can’t quit. We can’t stop. That’s why we have to have this motivating force of the truth of the Word of God. Because without the force of the Word of God, after us it wears off. I mean stories and illustrations and desires and things like that, they all change. But if you stay straight with the scriptures and keep believing it, you can stay strong all your Christian life.

It doesn’t have to change. Don’t miss out on all the fun. Join Pastor Jesse and Kyla Martinez on Thursday nights from 7-9 p.m. for Tampa Youth Ranch at®, Calvary Community Church. Tampa Youth Ranch is a great mix of live music, games, Bible study. Food and fun, wherebool teens 13-18 get Sounders to know God and!!!!! The Bible with their friends! Check it out online at www.tampayouthranched.org and see the cool pictures from past activities and all the fun you’ve been missing!

No right, no problem. Call 813-334-4655 today for information on getting a ride to Tampa Youth Ranch. Thanks for joining us on Bible Eye. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 48811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. We will be changed. God 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.