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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 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.

Look there in number three, the ultimate warrior needs the ultimate enemy. 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 at Korea, and they have all these men standing around here in their uniforms, and they’ve got medals weighed on them down like this year, and they have to walk like that.

All these medals, they’ve got all these medals, and they haven’t had any wars. I mean, who did they fight? Their 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 medals? Well, I guess they have to just buy them, whoever can afford them. I thought about it, I’m gonna go buy me some metals. 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 paid football, they got a trophy, and they got trophies, and I’ve never had a trophy case. Oh, I’m gonna buy me a trophy case, and then I’m gonna go 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.

But 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 a 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 two and verse two. Let’s just take a look over there very quickly. The book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians in chapter two. This whole chapter is pretty good, but we’re just looking at a couple of verses. They’re looking in verse two, chapter two, verse two. This is on page 1251 in a church Bible. And you’ll notice what he says here. In verse two, 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. Well, 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 3. Among whom also we all had our conversation, manner of life in time past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and whereby nature, the children of wrath, just like everybody else.

We’re 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, Fight for your life! I used to scare the kids when I used to try to be the monster from the black lagoon. And I’d come after them and I’m like, I’m going to get you. And the kids would just run and scream bloody murder.

And so I would come after them, you know. And how will 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 do you just wave, I surrender, leave me alone. And you don’t wanna fight. Because you see, to fight the battle of God has for you, 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, 1 John 2, all the way over there. 1 John is right before 2 John. 1 John and 2, this is on page 1322. 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.

You’re 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, 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. Well, I have to study the Bible. I’ve got to memorize a verse. I got it, I got it, I got it. Well, what if you could change that to, I want to, I want to. And you do it because I love the Lord. That little song we sung while ago, 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 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. God is saying this to you and I do not love the word. We see, but yeah, but I do. I love the world. Oh, well, what the world has to offer the praise, the honor of 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 saw this girl. I just fell in love. In other words, like it was against my will. I couldn’t control it. Can you control your emotions, your feelings? No. Like everyone guy says, you know, I fell in love with 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, God won’t be outstanding, they might feel.

I’m well. Love not the world, some of you don’t get that from. 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 of it, the love of the Father is not 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 would mention all the way back here in Genesis when the devil was talking to Adam and Eve, and all the time whenever Matthew chapter 4, 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, because 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 other 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, we wanna get the gospel out. I wanna have ministries to every thing you can think of. I’d love to have a ministry to the blind.

I’d love to have a ministry 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, they don’t speak English.

Man, I’d 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, 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 believe it. Look at the next statement. The ultimate warrior needs the ultimate mental toughness. I love these scriptures, but I want you to 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, reputation is theological, muesilage. More mud you’re throwing the wall, more is going to stick. And 2nd 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, 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 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 you know, 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. I don’t see how in the last fifty or seven years that I’ve known the Lord. But I would say about fifty-five of those years, my mind has been set like a friend. I know what I want to do. I know I want to serve the Lord. And I want to fight this battle. I want to win. I don’t want the devil to win. I don’t want him to get victory in my life. And just because I’ve seen a lot of people over the years, I’ve seen a lot of people serve the Lord and die, you know, in the ministry, doing what God wants him to do.

And then I’ve seen a lot of people who will fail by the wayside. Well, it’s my decision. I don’t wanna flail in the service of the Lord. I don’t want the devil to use the lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes and the pride of the love. I don’t wanna destroy my testimony that’s taken me 50 something years to build. I want to finish my race, finish my course with joy.” Now look what he says here. In verse seven, he says, but we have this treasure.

Now this treasure is the gospel. We have this gospel, the treasure, in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power, maybe of God, and not of a God didn’t give us a supernatural superman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, invincible body, so we can challenge the world. God lets us have the slow flesh birth that we have. This old physical body, this old house of clay that’s getting older by the day. And so we have got to, so where’s the power gonna come from?

It comes from this message we have. And it doesn’t matter who gives the gospel, God will honor his message. God will honor that word. That’s how I know it. If I honor the gospel and I make the gospel clear and simple and people here, they can trust Christ’s Savior. I also know that if I can teach somebody else how to give the gospel, that wherever they go, if they give the gospel, somebody else will trust the Lord. And that God can use anybody who will honor the gospel, this powerful message that we have.

You see what makes the difference between powerful message and a message that will not save us, grace versus works. The grace message is the only message that can save a person. It’s the only message that has power in it. Because God cannot save anybody who’s trying to save themselves. He cannot save a person who’s adding works to their salvation. God can only save a person who totally trusts in Christ. And if you trust Him and Him alone, you have the power of salvation.

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that keeps the 10 commandments and goes, basically go and roll and goes to the Catholic community church. No, it’s who’s who ever believe it. This is what God’s Word said. So he tells us this, now we have this wonderful gospel message. Then look what he says there in verse eight. So in order to do this, there’s things in this world that are gonna happen to you because the devil’s gonna throw everything at you.

Even the kitchen sink kind of get you destroyed. They get you sidetracked. Many of the people in the word of God fail because of sex. And pornography will ruin anybody. You’ve got to be careful and watch your testimony at all time. And you’ve got to watch yourself that you don’t take your eyes off the things of the Lord. They don’t take much to fall. And everybody has the same lust of the flesh. It’s only that the love of the Lord is a stronger desire than the things that of this world so that you can have something to overpower these desires.

And if the love of God stays strong in your life, you can have victory in your Christian life. If you begin to love the things of the world, the love of the Lord will wax cold and sin will abound. Now look what he says here. In verse eight, we are troubled on every side, yet not distress means we didn’t quit. We are perplexed, but not in despair. What he means is we didn’t quit. You see, that’s why it all goes back over there in verse one when we faint not.

We didn’t quit because of the ministry that God’s given to us. And so he says in verse nine, persecuted, would that keep you from serving God? If you got persecuted, what if somebody just says something hurts your feelings? They hurt my feelings, I’m not going to church anymore. I’m not gonna do this anymore because somebody hurt my feelings. Well, Lordy-da, you weren’t very strong, were you? If you can quit serving God and not be faithful because somebody upsets you.

Get a life, get a grip. Grow up. Don’t be a baby all your life. He says, but not forsaken, he’s, we didn’t quit. Cast down, but we didn’t quit. And always bearing about in the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. So we do what we do because, well, we want to fight the ultimate enemy. And we want to have a mental toughness where you have mentally dedicated yourself to serving God.

We try to get the teenagers to go to camp. We first of all, we’ll make sure they trust the Christ of Savior. Then we give them a lot of scriptures to memorize, and then we try to challenge them about certain things about what this world has to offer, what God has to offer, and help you to make a wise decision. And then at the last thing, we want them to, will you dedicate your life to the Lord? This mental dependence upon God, where you say, I am gonna serve the Lord.

And that’s what I want people to do. Look at the bottom. The ultimate warrior needs the ultimate victory. Wouldn’t it be a shame to fight the battle and nobody knows what you have fought? Here you are, you fight your battles and you’ve gone through it. And many of you will fight battles that nobody knows anything about. They weren’t there, they didn’t see it. They don’t know how you’re going through this or that and the other end. All the pain that you have, the suffering, they don’t know about your grief.

There’s a lot of things they don’t know. But then you’re not doing it for people anyway. you’re serving God. And the one you serve, the Lord, he says, he is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. Do you believe that the one you serve when you get to heaven, you think he’ll forget what you did for him? It would be a sin for God to forget what you did for him. That’s found in the book of Hebrews in chapter 6.

So you want the ultimate victory. And I love this scripture. But let me just show you what we have down here. Number one, He receives his own rewards according to his own victories in his own battles. I don’t get rewarded for your battles, for your scars, for your persecution. I’m going to be rewarded for what I went through. Paul says I fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. I have finished the course that God has for me.

And I want to end up with that one verse that was right after that verse. Second Timothy, and look there in chapter four. Second Timothy chapter four. Now look again in verse seven. I have fought a good fight. Now it’s the end of your life. The day the Lord is going to take you home tonight at 10 o’clock. Aren’t you excited? You’re going to face God. to get ready to check out. Would you be able to say, I have fought a good fight?

You ask, well, I always thought about it. I was right there, I was just getting ready to do that. Remember when Peter got out of the boat and started walking on the water toward Jesus? The other disciples said, and then, and then, and the boat? You know, I was just fixing to do that. I could have done that. I could have done it if I wanted to. And there’ll always be people that are members of the if-a-out-of-only club, if-a-out-of-only, if-a-out-of-only.

But now notice what he says. I fought a good fight. I finished my course. I have kept the faith. In other words, I kept believing, kept living, according to faith. And my faith was not shipwrecked, as he mentioned in an earlier chapter. He says this in verse 8, henceforth, because of this, look what he says. for if there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day. And not to me only, but unto all them that love his appearing.

You see, you’re a service to the Lord. Whether you are going to be able to fight sufficiently or not, it’s going to be based upon do you or do you not love him. He said, if you love me, serve me. And if any man serve me him with my Father honor. Now nobody can make you love God. We’re not going to heaven because calls we love God. We’re going to heaven because He loved us. But what you do for the Lord is going to be a direct ratio to caliber of your love that you have for Him.

So should we love the Lord, we should love the Lord with all our heart. Because if you study the commandments, those are two greatest things. Love the Lord with all of our heart and then love that neighbor as I serve. So if people don’t serve the Lord because they got a love part, they love the wrong thing. because if you love the Lord, serving Him is not a problem. Serving God is not a problem if you love Him. It’s only a problem.

If you don’t love him, and you love the world more, or the lust of the flesh, look up here. This hand represents you and me and the wallet represents sin. We have all sinned. God, he loves us, but he hates our sin. And for us to pay for the sin is eternal separation from God in hell, and sin we’ve all sinned, we’re all condemned. But God loves us and wants us to go to heaven. And to go to heaven we have to be perfect, no sin.

Well, there’s a problem. We committed the sin. We’re guilty and we have to pay. And so God says, you cannot earn eternal life. You cannot work your way to heaven by your good deeds. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into this world because He loves us. He hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So what Christ did to show us how much He loved us, well, He took this thing that was keeping us from Him.

All our sins, our sins have separated us. So He took the sin, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. And God says that if you and I, if we would believe that He did that for us, we would get to go to heaven. And because of His mercy He had for us, therefore because He’s given us eternal life and therefore because He has given us the right to be His children, He is now father, he says, because of that, he says, we faint not in getting this message to other people.

Because you see, we have received mercy. We should want other people to receive the same mercy. That Christ died and paid for their sins so they can have eternal life. This is the ultimate warrior. You know the purpose of our college? Produce some ultimate warriors, some people who can stand and fight this battle and win. And that takes a lot of time and a lot of work and a lot of effort. That’s why they can’t be taught how to fight that battle unless they’re taught by people who’ve been fighting that battle.

So we are privileged to have some of the best teachers these kids could have that spent some years fighting these battles and are still fighting and still winning. And that’s the way we should have for these kids. Good examples for these kids so that they can grow up to be the kind of people that God wants them to be. That’s why we want you to pray for the college kids coming in and pray for the teachers that we can stay well long enough unless we leave these houses of clay.

Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed and every eye closed. No one looking around. If you’re here tonight and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, understand you cannot save yourselves. You cannot work your way to heaven. Salvation is the gift of God. It’s not a works list. Any man should boast. The only thing God wants you to do is believe that when He died, He died for you. He paid for your sins, came back from the dead, and all He wants you to do is believe He did for you.

He loves you so much, would you trust Him? And if you will trust Him, God said He would save you, give you eternal life, and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you. If you’re watching by internet right there on the screen, says, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. If you’ve never done so, do it right now. With His bow nice clothes, no one looking around, is there anyone at all? Yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior tonight and preach out life for you to pray for me and close anyone No, just slip it up very quickly put a right back down If you have already trusted Christ as your Savior don’t you want God to reward you when you get to heaven and those rewards you have to earn Because God is given to you and I this wonderful opportunity this

Ultimate weapon of the word of God an ultimate mission we fight against the ultimate enemy and we have the ultimate battle plan and we can have the ultimate victory if we have the ultimate mental toughness I pray that you will. Father we thank you so much for this time together. Bless each one of you. Christ and every one. Amen. 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 40-8-11-George 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.