South Shore Pentecostal Church

Tina Ouellette: Welcome to the Apostolic Truth Radio Program with Pastor J. Craig Ouellette, a radio ministry of South Shore Pentecostal Church, located in Whitman, Massachusetts. At a time when many Christians do not know what to believe, South Shore Pentecostal is honored to bring you clear biblical teaching on which you can confidently build your faith. Thank you for joining us.

J. Craig Ouellette: We would like you to open your Bibles this morning to these scriptures. We're going to talk about truth, grace, and faith. Starting out in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 17, a verse that sometimes is misunderstood or maybe misapplied, but a very important verse. It says, "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

Then into Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. It is a scripture that it seems like we've said quite a few times recently, but nonetheless an important scripture. Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." Then in the book of Titus, Chapter 2, verse 11, it says, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ."

Our hope is to see the Lord. That's really our ultimate hope. We get saved and God keeps us in this world as we live with Him, but ultimately, we want to see the Lord. When I got the Holy Ghost, I felt that presence of God. That's what motivated me to continue to live for God. I want that again. The Bible lets us understand that baptism of the Holy Ghost is a foretaste of things to come. Ephesians 1:13 says it's like a down payment that God has given us. So that presence of God, if you like that presence of God, that should be the motivator to live for God.

If you've come out of the world and you got the Holy Ghost, you can say you are blessed because you know the difference of living out there without God and having God now. Because of that, you understand that you don't want to go back there. You want to keep what you got and you want some more. We're talking today about truth, grace, and faith. Our blessed hope is that we should be looking for the Lord every day.

We're going to talk about some elements that are involved in salvation. These are not the limitation of all the elements, but there's a number of them that we're going to talk about today. Truth today doesn't have a good name. Truth is disavowed in a lot of places. A lot of people don't believe in an absolute truth, which is an absolute statement, so they're actually contradicting themselves to say there's absolutely no truth. People don't believe in truth, or they think even with people that are Christians, they kind of make the Bible stretch. But the truth has got a meaning. That's why we've got a Bible.

If God wanted us to just stretch it out, we could just give it by word to each other, and it wouldn't matter how it stretched. But the fact that we've got a Bible says that God's got a way that He wants us to understand and apply. He doesn't want some to have one application and some to have a different application. He wants us all to have the same application in things that count. This is what the book of Ephesians talks about in chapter 4: the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, until we all come in the unity of the faith. God has to bring us up to the same place.

Grace refers to something we don't deserve. Grace is the Lord offering us something we don't deserve and can't earn. That's what grace is. It is God making something available to us. Faith is belief in what God has said and is saying. God can speak to you today and tell you something, and it's not going to contradict the Word of God, but it could be for you personally. If you've got faith in God and you know the voice of God, you'll believe what God is saying to you.

Faith is belief in what God has said and is saying, and faith is rooted in hope. That's why the devil likes hopelessness. He's hopeless. He's got no hope. He knows where he's going. He's going to the lake of fire. There's no escape, there's no repentance from that. That's where he's going. He's going to be bound in the lake of fire eventually. He'll be in the bottomless pit for a thousand years and then later on he's going to be in the lake of fire. He has got no hope. Because he doesn't have any hope, he doesn't want you to have hope or me to have hope. The devil will come, and when you start losing hope, that's the devil. God is a God of hope. When you start losing hope, you know the devil's around and it's time to grab ahold of God and seek God.

Faith is rooted in hope. In Hebrews 11:1, it says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for." Substance is something you can get ahold of. So when your hope becomes solidified enough to you that you believe you've got it, now that's a transition to faith. That's where faith starts to come. Without hope, you're not going to have faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In other words, when real faith comes, you don't have to have it in your hand to believe you're going to get it. You don't need a timeframe; you believe you're going to have it. That's faith. You believe that God is going to do what He says.

Faith is required to access what the Lord offers through grace. You have a lot of people today being taught or thinking that since God gives it by grace, I don't have to do anything, I just got to believe it. But I've got to have faith, the Bible says, to access what God provides through grace. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. God makes it available, but I'm going to have to use faith to appropriate it. It really boils down to faith in the Word of God because this is God speaking. The Bible is God's spoken word to us. If I'm going to appropriate a promise of God, then I've got to believe what God says about the promise if I'm going to receive it. If I don't believe what God says, even though I believe God can do it, I really don't have the faith that God is talking about that I need to appropriate what God wants me to have.

Romans 5:1-2 says, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Again, we see that God is providing something through grace. He's making it available, but it takes faith for me to stand into that to access what God has given. This is why we read our Bible and pray. As we read the Bible and we get the Word of God in us, when the Word of God starts to germinate in our heart and our spirit, we start to believe what God says, and now we can start to grab onto what God has made available to us.

The grace that makes salvation possible is available to all humanity. Titus 2:11 says, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." We know ultimately this is talking about Jesus, but what God has done through Christ is now available to the world, to all men, regardless of nation, race, education, or status. It is available, but we've got to get there by faith. Truth is necessary because it defines why we need grace and how to apply the grace of God through faith. Truth defines why we need grace. Truth shows us right from wrong. If I don't think there's a right or a wrong, why do I need grace? Truth tells me whether I'm right with God or not right with God. Truth says this is the way God wants me to live. Truth says this is what I need to do if I want to serve God.

Truth puts down boundaries and definitions of how we approach and work in faith. Just because I believe God will do it doesn't mean I'm going to get it if I don't go about it God's way. People seem to dismiss this scripture, but the Bible says the devil believes and trembles. There's no doubt in the devil's mind that God is God. He knows that for sure. But that belief in God is not going to change where he's going. That shows you can have a belief in God and believe and know who He is and not get what you need from God.

Truth tells us that all men are sinners and fall short of the glory of God. That's why we need truth. You got a lot of people today that don't want to believe that there's a sin or they can live the way they want to live, but the Bible says there's a way that we must live if we want to see God. There's a way I must live if I want to have God in my life in a positive way. God's going to be in your life one way or another, but you want Him in there in a positive way. You don't want Him in there in a negative way. I need truth in my life if I'm going to have God working in a positive way.

The Bible lets us know it's a truth: all men are sinners. All men need to be saved. Not some men, not the men and women we deem bad and we deem good. They're okay. God is the standard. I'm not the standard, you're not the standard. God is the standard and His Word says all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Then the truth is the Bible says the wages of sin is death. That death here, the Greek word "thanatos", means eternal separation from God. It's not just talking about a physical death and you go off into oblivion or a physical death and now you're going to go to be with God maybe after a million years. The wages of sin is death, it's eternal separation from God. That means I've got to take care of my sin problem if I want to see God. But my problem is I can't take care of my sin problem. Only God can take care of my sin problem. So I've got to go to God and say, "God, how do I do this? How can I deal with my sin?" I've got to look in the Word of God and apply the truth of God to my life in order to deal with my sin.

Truth tells us who God is and how He relates to man. To take this a little step further, when we look over to the Gospel of John, chapter 4, Jesus is talking to the woman at the well. He says, "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." So God is not just looking for somebody that goes to church. God is not just looking for somebody that says, "Praise the Lord." Oh, He wants that, but that's not all that He wants. God is not looking for somebody that just reads their Bible. God is looking for somebody that will worship Him in spirit and in truth. In other words, there's some kind of desire in them. There's some kind of motivating factor and they understand that their life is having boundaries of truth that God has given. They're standing in a place of truth and they have an understanding of the God that they are worshipping.

There are places where the Bible says you don't even know what you worship. In that passage right there, Jesus says to the woman at the well, "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." That tells you that the Jews' conception of God was the correct conception. They did not believe in a Trinity. That's Jesus saying that. We've got to back up and look at that now.

In John chapter 4, verse 21, Jesus said unto her, "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." Not to be rude, but just to lay it out what it is, if God was a Trinity, they didn't know who they were worshipping because the doctrine does not establish for a couple hundred years after the church starts. But Jesus says we know what we worship. They understood. God is concerned with how we worship Him. He's looking for somebody to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Then He goes on to say in verse 24, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." My point is truth is a necessary element in salvation. We need grace. If we didn't have grace, none of us would be here. Grace is God making an offer, an opportunity, a way to us. But we need faith to appropriate what God has given us. I need faith that is guided and directed by the truth of God. I must do what God says to appropriate by faith the things that God has made available. This is what the Bible is trying to teach us and help us understand.

Grace and truth in John 1:17: "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Sometimes people read that verse and they think there wasn't any grace in the Old Testament and now we've got all this grace. I've had people that sincerely believe God and said it's all about grace. Without grace, we wouldn't have what God's got for us. But I'm going to say really that love precedes grace. The reason there is grace is because God is love. Love is really the bottom line because God is love and God cares about us. He doesn't just throw down judgment on us, but He provides an opportunity where we can come to Him. This is what the Bible is about. It's the story of God creating and reaching to man across ages, starting from the beginning with Adam and Eve, and God through different centuries and different times and different situations reaching, talking, showing. He doesn't change. His offer may have different applications and it may be different in a time period, but really it was all leading up to what He's going to do through Jesus Christ.

What this verse is talking about here does not mean that before Jesus Christ came that there was no grace, because the Old Testament is a story of grace. God coming to Adam and Eve in the garden is grace. After they sinned, He could have just written them right off, killed them right there, and been totally just in His actions. But God comes and finds Adam. They're running from Him and God runs to find them. Grace. Noah and the ark is grace. Genesis 6 says Noah found grace in the eyes of God. Now we know Noah's got faith. He's in the roll call of faith in Hebrews 11. By faith, Noah, being warned of God, prepared an ark to the saving of his household. Even when it didn't look like it was going to happen, Noah's got faith. But in order for Noah to appropriate what God has promised, he must build the ark. He must build the ark the way God says. The Bible doesn't tell us for sure, maybe 100 to 120 years. He was working a long time at it. But the point is not whether it took him a second or an eternity; he had to do what God said to do to appropriate what God had made available to him.

Same with Abraham. Lot finds grace in the eyes of God. God sends two angels to bring Lot out. Remember Abraham's prayer was, "If you find ten righteous, will you not destroy the city?" The angels come in and they don't find ten righteous, but they do come and say, "Lot, you got to get your family out of here. Do you know anybody else?" He goes to his other family members and they don't respond, but God's grace brings them out of the judgment. David finds grace in the eyes of God. He commits adultery, he murders Bathsheba's husband, and both of those sins under the law, there's no sacrifice for adultery. There's no sacrifice for murder that David can take to the tabernacle. But God lets him live because of grace.

Grace existed in the Old Testament. So when we're talking about the law came by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus, same idea. There's truth in the Old Testament, but what it's talking about is the grace that comes by Jesus, which was not in the Old Testament, is the grace of salvation. Those Old Testament believers knew that what they had didn't give them salvation, but by faith, they did what God told them, believing if I do everything God tells me to do, somehow God will make a way for me. Somehow God will justify me. I don't know the right sacrifice, but all I can do is I believe God. I believe He's just, that He cares, and that if I'll do what He tells me to do the way He tells me to do it, somehow God will make a way. When the resurrection happens, this is why you see in the book of Matthew, after Jesus is risen out of the grave, it said saints came to Jerusalem; many of them rose out of the grave. They were justified in their faith. They had lived all they knew how to live without the salvation. God was saying, "I'm resurrecting some of them to show that those that lived by faith by what I said before are being justified." But today, we've got the salvation. We've got the promise that brings salvation. The truth, the grace of God that brings salvation, comes through the person of Jesus Christ.

Before the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, salvation really wasn't available except by faith. There's a scripture in Romans chapter 3 that talks about this. Romans 3:23-25 says, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." What the Bible is saying is God justified those in the past that didn't have the blood when they did by faith what God had given them to do. The cross reaches back to Adam and Eve and it reaches forward to the great white throne of judgment. That blood is working both ways. It didn't become available until Jesus died, was buried, and rose again, then sent the Holy Spirit back. You’ve got to have the Holy Spirit. Death, burial, resurrection, that's great, we got faith, but we don't have any power and we don't have any new birth. If I want to be part of it, I've got to have the Holy Ghost too. I must be born again. I've got to be a different person than I was before. I can't be a sinner anymore; I need to be a new creature. I need to be a new creation in Christ.

Salvation being made available and offered to humanity is the result of God's grace. Even though that salvation is offered through grace, it doesn't mean there's no requirements from God to obtain or step into the grace that God has provided. Titus 2:11-13 says that grace should teach us something. It says the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared unto all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, if you've got the true grace of God working in your life, all of a sudden you're going to realize I can't do that anymore. I need to change some things. I need to line up with God. When you stand before God, it's not what a pastor says, it's what the Bible says. Our church is full of people that have believed this for a long time; that doesn't override God's will. Twenty centuries of people believing different does not change what God has said in the Bible. Majority opinion does not change what God has said in the Bible. We get messed up in America because we live in a democracy. We sometimes act like we think we can vote out what we want of God's Word and vote in what we want of God's Word. But God's kingdom is not a democracy, it is a theocracy, and He is King. If He says it, it stays that way, even if the whole kingdom rebels.

The grace of God that brings salvation should teach us some things. It trains us to reject godless ways and worldly desires. If you've tapped into the grace that brings salvation, it should be training you to reject worldly ways and ungodly ways, and it should be training you so that you want to receive the godly ways. The grace of salvation should teach us to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. It teaches us to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. One thing if you're going to live for God, you're going to learn some self-control. If you don't stay self-controlled, you're going to do things that create problems for you and you're going to have a hard time relating to God. God's going to be telling you that's not right. You're going to have conviction hanging on you. You keep doing it and God's going to keep getting you. God will teach us to be self-controlled, controlled by His Spirit. Really that's what He wants. He wants us to listen to the Spirit and not say what we feel, but to say what God says. To not act how we feel, but to act how God says.

To live soberly, I'm not drinking. I'm not even having a little bit of wine because I want to live soberly. I want to live right for God. Going back to Leviticus chapter 10 where God gave a command to Aaron and his sons, He said, "Do not drink any wine nor strong drink when you come into the sanctuary to do service to me, lest you die." When you get the Holy Ghost, you become the sanctuary, the temple of the Holy Ghost. If I'm going to go drink, I'm telling God we just step out of the sanctuary for a moment. Even if I'm not getting drunk, He didn't say, "Just make sure you're not drunk before you come in, Aaron and your sons." No, no wine nor strong drink. None. Not just a little, none. Since we're the temple of the Holy Ghost, if you want God in your life, God's willing to step out if you want Him to. But when He steps out, you're not under His control, you're not under His authority. You're walking out of His hand. Then something happens, you're saying, "God, I thought you were my Savior, I thought you were my God." You’ve got to let grace teach you. Bible says, "Come out from among them and be ye separate. Touch not the unclean thing and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons."

The salvation should teach us to live soberly, righteously, godly. Grace provides the offer of salvation, faith provides the access to that offer, and truth tells us how to apply our faith to obtain the salvation that God is giving us. If I got faith to believe in salvation, I'm also going to have faith to obey what God says. Notice this: the Bible says that we've got to obey truth. Romans 2:8 says God's going to put indignation and wrath to those that don't obey the truth. Now whatever the truth is, you better find out, because if you're not doing it, you're going to be under wrath and indignation.

Romans 2:4-6 says, "Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" If you got to an altar and repented, you need to thank God. You need to thank God your mind and conscience didn't get burned out or you didn't get taken out before you got there. If you found yourself crying at an altar, praise God. Verse 5 says, "But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds." We're all going to be judged according to what we did. Did I do things according to faith in God or according to my own desires and ways? If I'm doing things according to faith in God, I'm obeying the Word of God. If I'm not doing it God's way, then I'm resisting God.

He says in verse 7, "To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life." What He's saying is once you got saved, you still got to be patient to live for God. You got to still continue to live the way the Bible says. You've got to continue to seek God. Patient means sometimes you feel like giving up or you feel like this is too hard or you feel like I want to get this done. Many times you hear people that are living for God say, "Just come, Lord Jesus." The reason God doesn't come is through patient continuance in well doing. Patient continuance to live for God: one more prayer, one more praise, one more church service, one more witness, one more Bible passage read, one more hope lifted up, one more meeting with God's Spirit. Patient continuance in living for God. He says He's going to give those people that are patient to do that eternal life. Verse 8 says, "But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath." If God's saying there's a truth to obey, God is not going to expect something of us that's impossible for us to do. God is either going to show us what it is or give us the ability to do it. God is not going to ask you to do something that you've got no hope of doing. If God is asking you to do it, He's really just asking you to do what you can do, do what you know to do, start trusting God and believe God to do the rest.

Again, the Bible says there's truth to be obeyed. In Galatians, Paul's talking to the Galatian churches and they were not obeying the truth. He says, "Who bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?" What happened that you're not obeying the truth? When we look at the book of Galatians, you hear a lot of people say, "Well, the book of Galatians says we're not under law anymore." That's true. But it doesn't mean there's no law; it means the Law of Moses. When it says we're not under law, it doesn't mean there's no law. We're still under the law of God, we're just not under the Law of Moses. It doesn't mean that everything because it's now grace that I don't have to do anything. When we look in the book of Galatians, it's not teaching you can do whatever you want because you're under grace. If it was, in Galatians 5:19-21, Paul would not give a list of things that if we do them, we will not inherit the kingdom of God. We're not under the law, but He's given them a law.

Kingdom of God, you got to be born again to get into it. John 3:3, you can't see it unless you're born again. John 3:5, you can't enter it unless you're born of the water and spirit. The kingdom of God today is God in us, but there's a kingdom of God where God is going to be here on earth, and there's an ultimate kingdom of God where God's people are with Him in heaven. You might be able to get into the kingdom down here, but you can't stay in if you don't do it God's way.

In Galatians 5:19: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest." In other words, these are things that happen because of our carnal sinful nature. "Which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness," which means sensuality, "Idolatry, witchcraft," which means sorcery, "hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Who said it? The Bible said it. Paul wrote it, but God told him to say it. That means you can't say that there's no law for Christians. He just gave a law. He said if you do these things, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's what the Bible says. I'm going to try to believe the Bible.

We're talking about grace and truth. What we're trying to say is the truth is God has given us grace, but the truth is even if God has given me grace, if I'm an adulterer, I'm not going to heaven. If I'm a heretic, I'm not going to heaven. If I'm involved in witchcraft, I'm not going to heaven. If I'm a drunkard, I'm not going to heaven. Even though there's grace. That's why I'm saying truth defines some things in our lives. Truth lays down some boundaries. Truth defines that if I want to appropriate what God has given by grace and I've got faith to believe, then I've got to know what God wants and what God does not want and what I need to do.

Abraham, if he wanted the promise, it didn't matter how much he believed; he had to leave Ur of the Chaldees. He could not stay there and receive the promise because God said, "Get you out of your country." He had to do what God said to obtain the promise. God made him an offer that he couldn't earn and didn't have a right to. It is grace. On the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when Peter preached to the multitude, he said, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." I believe that. But then it goes on to say when the people were convicted of their sin, they asked Peter and the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Notice Peter doesn't just say, "Call on the name of the Lord, it's Jesus, you'll be saved." He tells them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." So if they had faith, and the Bible says that they that believed that day were baptized and added on, they believed, they responded. They couldn't just stand and say, "I believe, I confess Jesus is my Lord." They needed to get baptized, they needed to respond to what Peter said.

It's the same thing today: we've got to respond to what the Bible says. There's a truth that must be applied to our lives in order to be saved. The Bible tells us in the last days before the coming of the Lord that people will resist sound doctrine. We'll look at it in 2 Timothy 4:3-4: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to them teachers, having itching ears." In the English Standard Version, it says, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions." I've seen that across the years. A lot of people go to the church not because what's being taught: "I like their music, I like their youth program, they got a lot of people, they got a lot of activities." All that stuff's good, but that's not why you pick a church. They might have the best benefits, the biggest youth group, but if they're not teaching you truth, when it's all said and done, you're not going to heaven and your kids aren't either.

The Bible says we're living in a day and age as the time comes. We're living at a time where you see it today: people are angry against the truth. Not just biblical truth, just plain truth. They're angry against it. They get all worked up and they'll come and shoot you because you're telling a truth they don't like because you're telling a truth that contradicts what they want. They want to believe they are a certain way or feel a certain way or are a certain thing, and it's obvious they're not and somebody tells them, doesn't matter what you think you are or who you are. Then they'll shoot you. We're living in an age where people don't want to hear the truth. Truth has got requirements. Truth means some things are right, some things are wrong. Truth is a line in the sand. You're on one side or the other.

The Bible tells us that when the Lord comes, He's going to judge those that don't obey the gospel. That applies to people that have already passed on. When you die, even if the Lord hasn't come the second time yet, you're going to stand before God and He's going to judge you according to whether you obeyed the gospel. Second Thessalonians 1:7-8, Paul's writing to the church at Thessalonica, and he says, "And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel." That means if I believe the gospel, there are some things I've got to start obeying. He's going to take judgment on them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ or don't know God. There are people that have had experiences with God but aren't obeying the gospel. He's going to take vengeance on them. The verse does not say the Lord will take vengeance on those that don't believe the gospel; it says them that don't obey the gospel. It applies to them that don't believe, but He's talking about people that know and don't obey. I don't want to be there.

Truth, grace, faith, they're all necessary elements in obtaining salvation. It'll lead to a new heart. Grace is God's offer of salvation. The fact that God makes it available is God's grace. Faith is necessary to obtain what grace has made available. For by grace are ye saved through faith. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. But true faith means I must obey the truth. Have you believed and obeyed the truth? Maybe you've believed and didn't know the truth. Maybe today's the first time you heard the truth. Have you believed, have you repented of your sins? Doesn't matter how much a person believes if you don't repent. Repentance is an acknowledgement that God is God and you have broken His law, that you are not right before Him. You are unjust before Him, and if He were to come to you right now to judge you, you would be lost. Repentance is that acknowledgement that I am wrong with God and I need God to forgive me. I don't just need to be forgiven of what's the past, but I need to turn to God and now live for God and turn from the old way that I lived. That's repent. If you're just asking for forgiveness but you got no plan of starting to live for God, it's not real repentance. If you're just trying to get out of your sick circumstance because you're sad and now you're in a mess because you sinned and you recognize that and you're crying to God, but you don't have a plan that "God, now I'll do all I can to live for you, I'll change my life, you tell me what to do, I'll go where you want to go, I'm going to do what you want me to do, I'll give my life to you," now you're repenting.

Have you been baptized? If you really repent, that means you died to sin. If you really died to sin, that means you want to get baptized. Why? Because God said so. Repent, be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. If I'm really dead to sin, I want to do what God says. I want to get buried with Him, I want the name, I want my sins washed away, I want a spiritual circumcision in my life. I want to break the hold of sin in my life. Not most of it, all of it. I want sin broken in my life. Bury me, God, and raise me up with the Holy Ghost so that I can rise above my sin. Have you received the gift of the Holy Ghost, initial evidence speaking in tongues? That's the sign, the only sign the Bible gives us that somebody's received the Holy Ghost. If you've already applied grace and truth in your life, you need to praise God. Thank God for reaching into my life, thank you for convicting me of sin, thank you for giving me an opportunity, thank you for loving me enough to come in the flesh and offer your humanity as a sacrifice for our sins. If you need strength in living for God, the altar is a good place. If you want a better touch with God, the altar is a good place. If you want the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the altar is a good place. If you want a fresh revelation of God, the altar is a good place. If you're struggling in your walk with God, the altar is a good place. If you want to have a deeper walk, the altar is a good place. If things aren't working out in your life, the altar is a good place. Like Jacob, when things were going the wrong way in Jacob's life, his sons had done some things and killed a bunch of men deceitfully and Jacob was worried, but God said, "Get back to Bethel, get back to the place where you met me, get back to the altar that you first found me." The Bible says as he journeyed, the fear of God went on those around him. God made a hedge, God made a way when he got back to the altar where he first talked to God and made a commitment. The altar is a good place to make a commitment. Oh God, if there's something that I need out of my life, if there's something that I need to let go, show it to me that I might put it on the altar. If it's traditions, if it's my preferences, if it's others' opinions, work a work in my heart and in my mind. Break the chains of anything that the enemy's working in me that I might have the peace that passes understanding, that I might have that resurrection power.

Tina Ouellette: Thank you for joining us today as we have studied the Word on Apostolic Truth Radio. My name is Tina Ouellette, wife of Pastor J. Craig Ouellette of South Shore Pentecostal Church, located at 58 West Street in Whitman, Massachusetts. If you love praise and worship, you will love services at South Shore Pentecostal Church and we invite you to come and worship with us. Sunday school for all ages begins at 10 a.m. and our Sunday evening service begins at 6 p.m. Adult Bible study and children's church is held on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. You can learn more about our church on our website at southshorepentecostal.com or you may call us at 781-447-1668. If you have been blessed by this radio ministry, you can help support Apostolic Truth Radio via online giving through Venmo at SSPC Whitman. Write us today and request a free copy of today's message and join us for another broadcast of Apostolic Truth.