South Shore Pentecostal Church

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Apostolic Truth Radio program with Pastor 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: Psalms 16, probably a familiar scripture to many. Peter quoted from it on the day of Pentecost. He referenced this scripture there. In Psalms 16:8-11, it says, "I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore."

Moving on to 1 Corinthians 13:12-13, it says, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." Amen. Then Ephesians 4:4 says, "There is one body," referring to the church, "and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." Say, "One hope."

And then finally, Hebrews 11:1, another scripture familiar to many. Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I would like to spend some time this morning talking about abiding and an abiding hope. Amen.

We saw reading in 1 Corinthians 13:12-13 that the Apostle Paul, when he was teaching about spiritual gifts, the gifts of the Spirit, he proclaimed that the gifts of the Spirit are there to help the church. 1 Corinthians 12:7, our gifts are given according to God's will, His purpose, and His calling. So God gives us gifts according to that. We should desire the best gifts, the Bible says, earnestly desire. But then we find out in the next chapter that love is required for the gifts to operate properly. Then we find out that there are three elements that should abide in a Christian's life, which are faith, hope, and love. Say, "Faith, hope, and love."

Now, Paul said these three abide. He didn't say these are just passing. When you're young you've got hope, and when you're a little older you've got faith, and later on you've got love. But he said that these three elements ought to be abiding in a Christian's life. Amen. As Christians, I think we're familiar with faith. We need faith to please the Lord. We read that in Hebrews 11:6. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, that He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

We walk by faith, the Bible says. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Amen. And so a lot of times living a Christian life, you have to learn to walk by what the Bible says and not by what you see or what you feel. Amen. Walk by what the Bible says and not by what you see or feel. The devil is the great deceiver. The Bible says he can transform himself into an angel of light. So things can look a certain way and it's not really that way. That's why you've got to pray. That's why you've got to get the Bible in you. There are all kinds of voices in the world today saying that things are a certain way when that's really not the truth.

A lot of voices in the world saying things are a certain way when that's not the truth according to God. And you can think a lot of people are swayed because majority—majority of voices does not make it God's way. Our compassion for somebody doesn't make it God's way. Amen. So we're justified by faith. So we need faith to please God. We walk by faith. We're justified by faith. Hebrews chapter 11 records the roll call of faith. You've got Moses, Enoch, all different kinds, Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, different ones.

So we're familiar with faith as Christians. We're also familiar with love. The two great commandments: love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with all thy strength as recorded in Mark chapter 12. Love your neighbor as yourself. Amen. But we're not so familiar with hope. Amen. We major in faith, we major in love, but we're not so familiar with hope. And again, Paul said that in this life, faith, hope, and love abide. He said, "Now we see through a glass, darkly." In other words, we don't see everything the way it really is.

Even if we're getting things from God, we only get a portion of the picture. Even if God reveals truth to us, we don't understand the whole picture. We see through a glass darkly. But he says even though things are going to change and things may be different, good or bad in our lives, faith, hope, and love ought to abide in us. Amen. Are we okay with that? Praise God. We're talking about an abiding hope. So Christians often tend to think of hope as just a nice word. We read it, okay, I'm moving on to faith. We read it, I'm moving on to gifts. We read it, I'm moving on to prophecy.

We read it, I'm moving on to love. We think of it just as a nice word or a nice idea or maybe even an undeveloped faith or something. But Paul said it abides distinctly from faith and love. And because it abides, it's existing alongside of those. We need that in our lives. A lot of the times we often ignore it. And sometimes you meet Christians, well, I'm focusing on faith. I'm just going to have faith. You've got other ones, well, I don't have that much faith but I love people. I love God. God wants us to have faith, hope, and love.

Not major in faith and ignore love or major in love and ignore faith or ignore hope. God wants us to have that. And a healthy Christian life needs faith, hope, and love. Amen. Faith, hope, and love, they're abiding elements. Now, abiding, what does that mean? Well, it means they're not temporary. It means they're not coming and going. If I've got faith on Sunday but I don't have it on Monday and Tuesday, it's not abiding. If I've got hope on Wednesday and Thursday but I don't have it on Saturday, it's not abiding. If I've got love sometimes when I feel good, it's not abiding. What he's saying is these are elements that not only should we agree with them, but we ought to take them into us.

We need to get them into us and they need to be a part of us. Amen. Praise God. Now, I don't know about you but that creates a prayer life for me. Amen. Because I know that there are times I need to pray to get my hope. There are times I need to pray to get my faith. There are times I need to pray to have the proper love that God wants me to have. Amen. And so if I'm going to have these things abiding, I can't just work on yesterday's service or last week's revival. I've got to have a fresh touch with God each day. Amen. I've got to touch God because these come from God. They don't come from us.

They're not a matter of culture or education or training. They can give us the right thinking, but for them to really be in us, we've got to have the Holy Ghost. They come from God. They're elements of the spirit. Amen. So the Bible is telling us that this abiding from a biblical perspective, it means to continue, to dwell, to remain, to stay in a place. Sister Ouellette was talking about pruning here this morning and it made me think of John 15. He said, "Every plant in me that bears not fruit, I take away. And every plant that bears fruit, I prune it that it may bring forth more fruit."

God sometimes prunes us. But later on, down in verse 7, he says, "If my words abide in you and you abide in me, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done." Now he's talking about praying, right? Asking what you will, it shall be done. He's not talking about posting something on the internet, hoping God will look. He's talking about praying, isn't he? He's talking about taking our petition to God. And he's saying if I reach a place, if you reach a position where you are abiding in God and God is abiding in you, His word is in you and you are in Him, the prayers you pray God will answer.

Not might, God will answer. Hallelujah. So sometimes we pray a prayer, but we pray the prayer out of our want, our desire, our understanding. We didn't pray it out of the Word of God, and so the word wasn't abiding in us to guide the prayer, so the prayer doesn't get answered by God. But if I'm abiding in Him and He's abiding in me, I'm in the spirit and the spirit's in me, the word is in me and I'm in the word, and I'm agreeing with the word and the spirit, I'm not going to pray a prayer that doesn't agree with God. Amen.

So that's what we're talking about abiding. So the Bible's telling us that successful Christian living requires these three elements: faith, love, hope abiding in us. Abiding in us. And we start stumbling not only when faith or love isn't present, but also hope. That's why we're talking about hope. If all I think about is faith and love but I ignore hope, when my hope goes down, I'm going to stumble even if I've got faith and love. Do you understand what I'm saying? We'll bring that out. We'll show why we're saying what we're saying there. Amen.

The necessity of hope. Hope is more than just a positive word, an idea, or a state of mind. But the Bible says we're saved by hope. Did you know the Bible says that? We think I'm just saved by faith. I'm justified by faith. But the Bible says we're saved by hope. Look at it in Romans 8:24. Romans 8:24 says, "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for it?" That's the Bible. Hope needs to be part of our life. Amen. Our hope is in God's truthfulness.

That's where hope starts. It starts in believing the Word of God. In Hebrews 6:17-19, the writer makes this statement that our hope is an anchor. Our hope is an anchor. Amen. So the Bible lets us know there's going to be storms in life. The Bible lets us know no matter how much you pray or live for God, storms come. Sometimes storms are the result of following the path that God has ordained for us, just like the apostles in the boat. "Get in the boat, let us go to the other side." A big storm arises. The Lord knew the storm was coming.

They were in the storm because God wanted them to go there. Sometimes we're struggling in our Christian life because we're afraid of storms. If I'm following God, the storms that come, He's got control. Amen. The only reason I need to be worried about a storm is if I ended up in the storm because I didn't follow the Lord. I was going the way I wanted to or the way I thought. But if I'm going the way God wants me to go, a storm comes up, God is in control. So in Hebrews chapter 6 verse 17, it's talking about God making a commitment to Abraham.

He says, "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability," or the unchangeableness, "of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." You read your Bible, God is setting out hope. You go to church, God is setting out hope. You pray and God starts to speak to you, God is setting out hope. Amen. You're trying to live for God, God is setting out hope.

Amen. So God lays hope before us. He puts it right there in front of our face. But sometimes we're not willing to reach out and lay a hold of the hope that God is making available. Then we go home and we cry. "God, where are you? God, how come it's going this way? God, I need you to do something." God said, "I laid it right in front of you. You need to lay hold of the hope that I put in front of you. You need to grab on with both hands and not let anybody loosen your grip. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life to which you're called."

Amen. Don't be blaming God if you've been praying, lay hold of the hope. And sometimes that means I've got to get up from where I am to go where God puts the hope, to grab ahold of the hope. Sometimes it means I've got to go out when nobody else is going out, but I've got to lay ahold of what God has put there for me. You've got to lay ahold of what God is putting there for you. Hallelujah. Amen. So he said lay hold on the hope that is set before us, verse 19, "Which hope we have as an anchor for the soul."

Amen. We know about anchors. Anchors hold you in spot. Anchors hold you in a place so that even though the storm is battering you about, you can hold your position until the storm is done. Amen. When Paul and those sailors were in the storm all those days and they had given up hope, at least they knew let's throw out the anchor so we don't get smashed on the rocks. They throw out four anchors. We're not going to just troll around. We're going to anchor in the spot we're in. We're going to hold here until daylight comes.

Sometimes you need to throw your anchor out of the word. Amen. And just hold until God comes, God's daylight. God's when the sun comes up. God's when you see where you are. God's when you know where you're going. Amen. You've got to throw out the anchor and hold it, the anchor of the word. You hold on to what God has put in front of you. Oh, give Him some praise. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He said, "Which hope," verse 19, "we have as an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Melchisedec."

Now, you might not understand all those words, but the picture is, Moses was told to make a tabernacle. And Moses was also told to make an ark of the covenant. God says, "I'll meet with you above the ark where the cherubim are on the mercy seat." He says, "Put that ark behind a veil. And only the high priest can come into that veil." But now Paul is saying, if you accept Paul as the writer of Hebrews, Paul is saying we've got a hope that went where only the high priest could go. We've got a hope that gets the very presence of God. We've got a hope that doesn't just touch the church altar; it touches the heaven where God is.

Whither the forerunner, Jesus, has gone there. In other words, He's gone to prepare a place for you and me. He's gone to give us a place where we can have a habitation of God. I've got an anchor into that place. When I got saved, I got an anchor, the Word of God. Amen. It's an anchor within the veil. If I'll just hold on to the anchor, I'm going to make it. Hallelujah. Let's give Him some praise. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And the hope is the truthfulness of God. And you can say, well, I don't know, I've never had God answer me a prayer.

Well, we've got a lot of prophecies. Prophecy tells you God keeps His word. Prophecy lets us understand God's going to do what He says He's going to do. Amen. He told Abraham, "I'm going to give you a child." Well, Abraham had to wait, but God did do it in due time and season. Amen. He said, "I'm giving a promise unto Isaac and Jacob," and God did that. God said, "I'm going to bring the children of Israel out of bondage, out of Egypt. They're going to be there for a while, but in the fourth generation, I'm going to bring them out."

And God did that. He brought them out to the promised land. He fulfilled His word to Abraham, confirmed it to Isaac and Jacob and fulfilled that word and brought those people into that land. Amen. And some of those people, the descendants, are in that land today. That lets us know that God's word is truth. Amen. You can trust the Word of God. You don't know how God's going to do it or when God's going to do it, but if God said, "I will," He will do it. Hallelujah. In the early 1900s, the students of prophecy, many of them were looking in the Bible, and when God said, "I'm bringing Israel back," they were spiritualizing it because they said Israel hasn't been a nation for almost 2,000 years.

They didn't understand. God said, "I'm going to do it," and God did it. In 1948, God made that nation rise up again. It took almost 2,000 years, but God keeps His word. Hallelujah. God said, "I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh." On the day of Pentecost, God poured His spirit out on all flesh. Joel spoke it about 700 years earlier, but when God says I'm going to do it, God is going to do it. All I've got to do is lay hold of the promise set before me, grab ahold of the anchor for my soul, grab ahold of what God said I can have, and believe God and hang on in the storm or in the fair weather. But God is faithful. We've got a hope that reaches the very presence of God. Hallelujah.

Now, sometimes we don't realize we talk about faith, and again, the Bible says without faith it's impossible to please God. But we don't realize or we don't look close enough. In Hebrews 11:1, it says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for." In other words, the things I'm going to have faith for, I started out by hoping for them. Before I had faith for them, I hoped for them. But when I got close enough to God to believe that God was speaking to me about certain things, my hope now became real to me. Now it's a substance to me. Now it becomes faith.

Without hope, you cannot reach faith because faith is the substance of things hoped for. I've got to have hope to have faith. Amen. So faith starts out as hope, and when that hope becomes tangible or real, it becomes faith. When God tells you something and you know it's sure in your soul, nobody else might believe it, but you don't need them to believe it for you to believe it because your hope has become faith. Your hope has become, "I know that God is going to do what He said He was going to do." Amen.

So we know the Bible says in Romans 10:17, "Faith cometh by hearing the word of God." But the Bible lets us understand that hope also comes from the Word of God. Look over in Romans 15. I didn't write it on the sheet there, but it's Romans 15 where we're reading from there. I meant to write it there. And in Romans 15:4, it says, "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have," faith? No. "...might have hope." So sometimes my hope's not good because I'm not reading or I'm reading the wrong things.

I might be reading the news on my phone rather than the Bible. I might be reading Facebook and Reels rather than the Bible. And the voice from Facebook isn't always saying the same thing that the Bible's saying. And so it might make my hope shaky. I might be reading the world news and all these things are coming up, but the Bible says there's going to be wars and rumors of wars. That's part of the end times. But the Bible says the Word of God is given to me for comfort, but also to give me hope. What's it mean?

It means wait a minute, if God talked to Abraham, maybe God will talk to me. If God talked to David, maybe God will talk to me. If God helped David in his situation doing shepherding with a bear and a lion, maybe God will help me in my circumstance. God gave Abraham a promise that was not possible by the medical standards or the human standards, natural standards of his day. But God brought it to pass. Maybe God can do the same thing for me. Maybe God can do the same thing for you. Amen. Where do I find out what God does? I read the Bible.

I read the Bible and I find out that through reading the Bible, the Bible's given to us to give us comfort and hope. Hope. God is not a respecter of persons, the Bible says. So that means He's going to hear your sincere prayer as much as anybody's. When you pray, God doesn't look and say, "Well, what neighborhood do they live in? Who's their parents? What's their nationality? How educated are they? How much Bible they know?" God does not do that. God looks at is your prayer sincere? Are you being honest?

Listen, Cornelius didn't know that much Bible, but he did what he knew. Right? We're talking about Acts chapter 10. There was a centurion named Cornelius, a Roman officer. He prayed every day. He fasted. He gave money to the poor. He was not a Jew. God sent an angel and said, "Your prayers have come up for a memorial." You don't have to be a certain nationality. I don't have to know a certain level of Bible. I just got to be sincere in my prayers, and I got to be willing to listen to the answer that God will give me. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Sometimes that's why we need faith because you're going to have to have faith to abide in the answer that God sometimes gives you to your prayer. We want God to—we have faith to believe God can do, and we ask God to do something, and then we already have it in our mind how God ought to do it. When I go to ask God, here's my problem, I can say to the Lord, "This is how I'd like you to do it," but I've got to leave it in His hand and let Him do it the way He wants to do it. I can say to God, "I'd like you to accomplish it in this time," because it seems like if I don't get an answer by this date, I'm done.

But listen, who says you're done or not? God. Not you, not the devil, not me. God decides when we're done. So if we really need that from God and God doesn't answer it, that means God's going to hold you up till you get the answer. Oh, hallelujah, let's give Him a praise here. Lord, we thank You, Lord. We thank You, Lord. We praise You, Lord God. We worship You, Lord God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Again, we saw that hope was an underlying, an undergirding element for faith. But finally, we find out from reading 1 Corinthians 13 that hope is also an underlying element in love.

In 1 Corinthians 13:4, Paul starts to give the definition of what love is. This is the love that God wants to abide in us. Charity suffers long and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own. When you got true love, you're not trying to manipulate people, right? If you've got true love, you're not trying to manipulate people. You're not trying to get them to do it your way because that's the way you want it. That's not love. Charity is not seeking its own. It's not trying to use things to get its own way. Is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.

Charity, true love's generally got a positive opinion about other people. Amen. Does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth—hopeth all things. So that tells me that hope is connected to love. Now, he said the greatest is love, but that doesn't mean I don't need hope and faith. The three are to abide. I need all of them. Why is the greatest love? Because if I've got love, if I've got God's power and God's authority, love will cause me to use it the right way.

If I don't have love, I might have authority and use it the wrong way. Fighting spiritual warfare, hope is a part of the armor of God. We've been talking—we started that a couple weeks ago on Wednesday night, and we'll be doing a couple more weeks of that on Wednesday night, the armor of God. We're finishing up our walk with God out of Ephesians 4, 5, and 6. But hope is a part of the element of the armor of God. Look over in 1 Thessalonians 5:8. He said, "But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation." Not the faith of salvation, not the love of salvation.

If I want to guard my mind, I've got to have hope. If I want to guard my mind, I've got to have hope. Amen. The hope of God in me. So he says in love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. My hope in salvation. Listen, I'm believing in God. It's the anchor again that enters in the veil again. It doesn't look right. It doesn't look like it's working. But I'm hoping in God. I'm hoping in His word. I'm holding on to the word. I'm walking according to the word. My mind is being assaulted by the enemy and all the ideas that are contrary to what God says.

My emotions feel one thing, but my hope is not in my emotions. My hope is not in my eyes. My hope is not in my physical strength. My hope is not in my intellectual knowledge. My hope is not in who I know. But my hope is in God and in the Word of God. My hope is in His spirit. My hope is anchored in the veil. Hallelujah. And so sometimes we're not successful in our spiritual warfare because we've left hope out. We're trying to jump from nothing to faith. But remember, faith is the substance of things hoped for. We're trying to jump like some people do with the salvation message; they try to run in the gospels and leap over Acts and land in Romans.

Can't do that. Amen. It's in the book of Acts. So hope is a part of the armor of God. So I need hope for faith. I need hope for love. I need hope for spiritual battle. Amen. Praise God. We're looking at the necessity of hope. Let's define hope a little bit. Biblical hope is an earnest expectation for something good. Biblical hope is an earnest expectation for something good. If you got the mind that nothing's going to go good today, you need some hope. If you got the mind that it's never going to work out, you need some hope.

That's not God's mind. It's like the scripture says in Philippians 1:6, "He that's begun a good work in you will be faithful to perfect it to the end." He didn't bring you this far to throw you to side, to let you fall down. Amen. So if I'm looking at my situation always with a negative mind, I need some hope injected. And I need to go to the Bible and get a hope shot. Everybody was willing to get a COVID shot, but they won't get a hope shot. Get a hope shot. Amen. It's going to help you. Praise God. Get something into you. So the Lord will use hope to grow us.

Look over in Romans chapter 5. In Romans chapter 5, most people are familiar with the first two verses there: "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" what? "The hope of the glory of God." Now he's writing to the church, isn't he? Isn't Paul writing to the church at Rome? That means he's writing to believers, right? And even though they're believers and they're already saved, he's still talking about hope. Amen.

And he says, "And not only so, but we glory," verse 3, "in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience." None of us likes tribulation. None of us. You can say, well, if you're sadistic you like it. No, if you're sadistic, God will deliver you and you won't like it. Praise God. Amen. None of us likes tribulation, but tribulation can have a purpose in our lives. He says, "Not only so, we glory in tribulation." Why? Paul's not saying I like pain. Paul's saying I'm glorying in tribulation because I'm looking beyond the tribulation. He says tribulation's going to work patience.

If I can endure the tribulation, when it's over, I'll understand that God is able to keep me. God is able to deliver me. God was able to bring me through. Amen. And the next time tribulation comes, as long as I'm faithful to God, God's going to do the same thing because God doesn't change. So I'll be patient. The first time I couldn't wait to get out of it, but now I know I've got to go through as far as God wants me to, but I'm patient because I know that God is faithful to deliver me. Hallelujah. Amen.

And then it goes on to say, "And patience, experience." So after I've gone through a few situations, I got experience. I might not like it, but I know how to handle it. Right? You go to a job and you don't know what to do, but after you've been there a while, you're experienced; you know what to do to handle the job. You've been through certain circumstances. The first time, it's a mess for most of us, but after you've been through it, now you've got an idea what to do to handle it. Amen. So after I've gone through some tribulation a couple times, now I don't like it, but I know what to do to handle it.

I can pray. I can get in the spirit. God can lift me in the spirit above my physical situation. I still got a trial and a tribulation, but God puts me in the secret place for a little while to refresh me. Hallelujah. God lifts me up above it. And while I'm in it, I don't know that I'm in it. I know I'm going back to it, but I'm not in the thing the whole time because I'm in the presence of God where there's joy and fullness of peace. Hallelujah. And so tribulation, experience, and experience gives me hope. Hope.

And hope makes not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Listen, a lot of times we lose our love of God when we go through a tribulation. We get angry at God. You can say I would never do it. Listen, I know some apostolic preachers who are mightily used of God, and out of their own mouth: "When I was going through a tribulation," he said, "I was standing in front of restaurants screaming at God, 'Where are you?'" He went through things saying, "I'm an apostolic preacher. They're not supposed to go through this stuff."

Ideas he had to fight. But now he's come out the other side. He's not there anymore and his tribulation has worked patience and experience and hope. Sometimes we want to be strong in God, and God says, "Okay, I'm going to give you something to give you some spiritual exercise. I'm going to give you a tribulation to wrestle with." Here's some tribulation weights you've got to lift. Every day you're going to have to lift that tribulation. We all know you don't get fit and get in right shape just by going to the gym once in a while, right?

If you're going to do it, you're going to have to face that situation pretty regular if you're going to build up some tolerance. Same thing spiritually. God will let some things in our lives. And sometimes we're not asking for it, but God has called us to something, and we need to go down a certain path to be able to handle and deal with where God has ordained our life to go. There's a lot of people that they won't—they won't allow themselves to go there because they don't want to face those things. And they're miserable. Listen, I know people that know that God has called them and they said, "I don't want to call—I don't want to accept the call because I don't want to make the commitment."

And their life has had all kinds of things that has been bad in their lives, all kinds of things they wouldn't had to go through. But let God lead you. Let God lead you. So God will lead us. God will use hope to grow us. Now notice in Romans 15:13, the Bible says God is a God of hope. That's one of God's attributes. Romans 15:13: "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." He's a God of hope. Say, "The Lord is a God of hope."

Oh, come on, that's good. Say it. The Christian life is going to include many situations where the normal course of life doesn't look good. But we serve a God of hope. We were listening to Raymond Woodward and he was talking about his wife went through cancer. I don't know how that turned out. I think it was a few years ago. But she came—when she came home with the reports from the doctors, he said she put those papers on the ground and she stood on top of them and danced on them and said, "I'm not accepting the report."

Sometimes that's all God needs from you is, "I'm not accepting it, God, unless You say it's this way. Did You tell me? The doctor might have said, but have You said it to me, God? Have You said that? Have You said this is the end? Have You said this is the way it's going to be? Are You the one that's bringing this or Are You allowing it? Are You letting me stand in a position like the children of Israel between Baal and God, waiting for me to make a decision?" So Naomi, the first place you find hope in the Bible is in the book of Ruth, Ruth 1:12.

First place. Naomi told her daughters-in-law, "Stay in Moab. I don't have any more sons. I don't have hope of giving you a husband." But guess what? Ruth had hope. God had hope. God had a solution that Naomi and Ruth and nobody else envisioned. Had no idea that this Moabite girl was going to come and be put into the lineage of Christ. Who hope against hope? I know it says it for Abraham, but she's doing it too. Even in Naomi's mind, "I don't have any answers for you. Why come? Stay back there."

But the God of hope had an answer that nobody guessed at. See, hope will move you forward even when you don't see a way. Hope will move you forward because you know that God will make a way. And we see that when you're living for God, a lot of times things are not the way you think they're going to be. Abraham's often called the father of faith. But notice that Abraham's faith started with hope. Look over in Romans chapter 4. Romans 4:17, "As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were."

In other words, if God speaks it, doesn't matter whether you see it or it exists. If God says it's going to be, it's going to be. That's what that verse is saying. He calls things that don't exist as though they already exist. God talks about things that He hasn't done as though He's going to do them because He knows that if He said He will, He will do them. So He calls the things that be not as though they were. Then he's talking about Abraham, "Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now yet dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God."

Hope against hope. In other words, he's saying I'm hoping for something that nobody's ever done. I'm hoping for something that's not written in any history books. I'm hoping for something that I can't find anybody that's ever had a promise like I've got. And look to us, we can look around and most of those promises, we can find somebody who's already had it. But here's Abraham, I can't go and ask the pastor. I can't go and ask the apostle. I can't go and ask somebody else. It's never happened.

I can only ask God because God said it to me. Oh, has God said anything to you? Come on, if He said it to you, you can ask Him about it. Now sometimes God will say things and we do need to ask Him. Remember the book of Habakkuk? He said the just shall live by faith. God said, "I'm going to give you a vision, write it down so people can run." The vision's for an appointed time. He didn't know when it is, but he said, "I'm going to let you understand it's going to happen, but it's for an appointed time." You can ask God.

Oh, you've got to throw off the anti-hope. Come on, there's antichrist and there's anti-hopes and anti-faiths and anti-loves. You've got to throw off that anti-hope. You've got to quit looking at yourself and feeling sorry for yourself and feeling like you're in the position that's so bad and everybody's against you and it's all going the wrong way and all people are saying things. Hope in God. God is bigger than our circumstance. Hope thou in God. God is able to do the impossible. Nothing is impossible with God. Hope in God.

God is able to raise you up from the dead. Hope in God. God is able to give you hope when you've got no hope. Hope in God. The enemy might have put your eyes out and bound you up, but pray another prayer like Samson and God will give you strength in your circumstance. Hallelujah. Amen. So Abraham believed and followed the Lord and his hope became the substance of faith. Amen. Hope in God. We're talking about an abiding hope this morning. Jesus, the hope of God. Now sometimes as Christians, we suffer because we've got hope but it's misplaced hope.

God blesses us so much in this world sometimes that our hope gets down on this world and not in God. Our hope gets down on our natural situation rather than our relationship with God in heaven. And when our hope gets anchored down in the world, God didn't say I'm going to make everything the way you like it. But He did say if you're born again, you've got the hope of the resurrection in you and you may go through some things in this life. But when the trumpet sounds, you will stand with the Lord.

And so sometimes Christians, people that believe in God, that go to church, that pray, that believe the Bible are suffering because their hope has been misplaced. It's been anchored in this world. Now I'm not saying God doesn't give us hope for this world. Yes, He does. "Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of the sinner, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord." He's going to be prosperous. God will bless him in his season. But our hope is not here; the world's going to burn.

Bible says that. The world will burn. And when the world burns, won't matter if there's a USA, a Russia, a China. Won't matter if there's an NBA, a WNBA, or whatever, MLB or what. Won't matter how big your bank account is or if you don't even know what a bank is. It will not matter. But if your hope has been in God, when the trumpet sounds, you may endure some things down here, but you're going to be relieved from all pain. When you wake up, the One that created all things is going to wipe your tears away.

So our hope's not in this life. Paul said if we have hope in this life only, we're miserable. And so sometimes we get misplaced hope. We've got hope, but we're placing our hope in things that God may not have guaranteed you. But He did guarantee when the trumpet sounds, the dead in Christ shall rise up to meet Him in the air. The Bible talks about the blessed hope. Titus 2:13, he says, "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."

Now if you back up, he's talking about the grace of God that brings salvation unto all men. He doesn't say the grace is there so we get everything the way we want it. But he said that grace teaches us that we've got to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for the blessed hope. That's a promise. Say, "The blessed hope is a promise." That is a promise. If you've been born again the Bible way, the blessed hope is a promise.

Paul called the second coming of the Lord "the one hope of our calling" in Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians 4:4, "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." What's that hope? That we'll rise up to be with Him. What does the Bible say? Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. All right, say it another way: we'll have trials and tribulations here, but when we wake up in God's morning, it's done. Hallelujah. An abiding hope we're talking about here this morning. Amen.

Paul encouraged the church at Colosse. We're getting ready to wrap this up, but at the church at Colosse, Paul dealt with them about hope. They had questions about whether the body of Jesus was a real body because there was a heresy coming in that God's too holy to touch physical matter. So He sent some demi-god or some god lower than Him to create things. But Paul lets them know, "No, no, you're saved by that blood of that body, by that flesh." So in verse 5 he says, "For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye have heard before in the word of the gospel."

There's a hope laid up in heaven. In verse 23 he says, "If ye continue in the faith." Now notice again, it doesn't say if you continue with faith, but continue in the faith. What does that mean? That means you continue in the beliefs that have been conveyed to you by the church, not tradition, but by the Bible. If you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. He's encouraging the church: don't give up your hope. Just because there's ideas that are contrary to the Bible, don't give up your hope.

Just because there's those that seem to be smarter, don't give up your hope. Just because there's philosophers that got ideas that seem big and fancy, don't give up your hope. Then he goes on to let us know what that hope is, verse 27, "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Now what does he mean? He means the Holy Ghost is what he means. The spirit in Christ was the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost in us is the hope.

That's the spirit of Christ. You've got the Holy Ghost in you, that's what gives you the hope to know that you're rising up to meet Him. Amen. It's Christ that gives us hope and victory. Through Him, we're able to do all things. Can you do all things through Christ that strengthens you? Can you do it? Amen. Amen. Amen. Praise God. Hallelujah. So he's trying to encourage them: don't lose your hope. So we see that hope's an essential element of the Christian life. It needs to be an abiding element working along with faith and love.

Maybe your love isn't working because your hope's not right. Maybe your faith isn't working because your hope's not there. But hope, where does it start? We said before, hope starts with the Word of God. You want more hope in God? Start reading your Bible. You want more hope in God? Start reading your Bible. Amen. Again, Romans 15:4, "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." As Paul said in another place, he said these things are given to us to be examples.

We again need to remember that our hope ultimately is not in this life. David said, "My flesh shall rest in hope." David was saying even if I die, my hope isn't gone. My hope is in the Lord. Let's stand here this morning. The Lord wants to rekindle and refocus our hope here today. God wants to rekindle and refocus our hope. Are you hoping for something from God? Are you just riding along? Are you hoping that God's going to do something through you and with you? Are you building your hope by praying and reading the Word of God? Are you doing that?

Even if your hope doesn't seem to be humanly possible or earthly possible, has God spoken to you a hope? Listen, if God spoke a hope to you, He's going to do it. Even down here. If God has said He'll do it, He will do it. But you need to search the scriptures to see what God says He'll do, and then you need to pray and ask God and start to listen to God. So today's a good day to reach out to the Lord for hope. Amen. This altar's open here. Amen. If you just want your hope increased, you want your hope rekindled, you want your hope refocused, today's a good day to ask God.

Help me focus my hope, God. Let my hope become substance of faith. Let my hope cause a love that allows me to bear all things, God. Hallelujah. Come on, pray, church, pray, pray. Come on. Oh, God. Hallelujah. Come on, God wants to kindle our hope. God wants to kindle our hope. He wants us to be anchored in hope. Hallelujah. To have a hope, Lord, that You're going to bring us through that we can know You. He wants you to have hope in your relationship with Him above all things else. God wants you to hope in a deep, personal relationship with God. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. He wants you to hope that He can lift you above your limitations, that He can lift you above your fears and your doubts. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Lord, we thank You for hope today.

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 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 10:00 AM and our Sunday evening service begins at 6:00 PM. Adult Bible Study and Children's Churches held on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM.

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