South Shore Pentecostal Church

J. Craig Ouellette: Welcome to the Apostolic Truth Radio program. With Pastor Craig Oulette, our 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: Amen. You can open your Bibles here to first Timothy chapter four, verse one and two as a starting point. And we're going to be talking about deceivers this morning, deceivers. In first Timothy 4 and 1, if you've got that particular scripture, it says, "Now the spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and the doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron."

And then going across those scriptures that are on the screen, going to 1 Peter 5, 8 and 9. A familiar scripture, I think, to most of us here. It says, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world."

And then in 2 Peter chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction, and many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of, and through covetousness shall they make, shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not."

And then finally in the book of Jude, just a few pages beyond, verses 14 through 18. It says, "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of saints, to execute judgment on all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts or desires, and their mouth speaketh great and swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. But ye beloved, remember the words which were spoken before of the apostles by our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you that there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts."

And we're going to talk about deceivers today. Deceivers. Amen. So when we look in the early church, there's a number of warnings given to the early church, and we're not reading them all. But as you start to read the New Testament, you become aware that the apostles warned believers to watch out for false teachers, and false apostles, false Christ. As we just read, 1 Peter stated that we need to be sober and vigilant. So the word sober there, be sober, vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. We have to remember, there is an adversary. There is a, a, enemy of your soul.

Now, sometimes we don't, we forget that because God blesses us, we feel the presence of God so well that it's easy to forget there's a devil. And then sometimes when we see bad things in the world, we attribute it just to men alone, not understanding that behind often men's deeds and actions, there is a spirit of the devil, or the devil's minions that are working to accomplish those things in the world. And again, we're not reading the book of Revelation this morning, but you can go on Revelation chapter 6 and see that there's four horsemen that are released into the world, and it says that they're spirits. They're different kinds of spirits that go forth and they have dominion. Different things happen in different areas of the world as these horses are released. And the Bible clearly says that they are spirits. So we have to understand that many things you see going on in the world are the results of spirits.

Okay? And a lot of times the way things go depends on our prayers, your prayers. All right? Your prayer has, has the ability to change things. Your prayer has the ability to withhold things. If you're praying in the will of God, you can hold back darkness. Amen. So, but when we look at the word sober, the word sober and vigilant, we look at those. Sober has the meaning of having self-control. Every place in the New Testament we see it, it's having self-control without access, seriousness, sound, moral judgment. So this is a minimum of the meaning there. It also has the idea of temperate as opposed to drunkenness. Strong's Concordance says it means in, in the verse in 1 Peter 5 and 8, it means to abstain from wine.

So within the New Testament, the idea of holding back yourself from alcoholic beverages is part of keeping our minds straight with God. Amen. Vigilant has the meaning of being watchful. In other words, Peter says, "Be self-controlled, in your proper mind and watchful to avoid falling victim to an attack of the devil." Amen. A lot of times the attacks are, they're subtle. He doesn't come face up. Why doesn't he come make himself obvious? Because he knows for a Christian if he makes himself obvious, you're going to start to get serious with God. You'll say, "If the devil's that real, God's that real, I better get on the stick." If the devil's that real, I better start praying. Not understanding that the devil studies us to lay traps and snares for us.

Now we don't have to be afraid of the devil, but we do need to be vigilant and sober. So if a person's living right with God, the Bible says, "Greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world," meaning the spirit of the devil. So God in you, the Holy Ghost in you is greater than the devil. So it's not like the devil's almost as strong as God and he's edging God out. It's not it. Greater, God is greater. The devil's created. He's a created being. So God in you is greater. But if you don't have a grip on God, the devil can convince you he is greater. Sometimes God steps back to cause us to wake up and realize we need him so that we get strong enough in him so that we can fight the devil.

All right? Sometimes we're going, "God, where are you? God, what's going on?" And God wants us to be more serious. So God steps back and lets some things come our way, where so we have to buckle down and get a hold of the spirit of God. Amen. Now, again, Christians should avoid drinking alcoholic beverages. And I know there's a lot of opinions about that. But I'm going to give you some scripture why. The Bible says in 1 Peter 2 and 9, "You're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, called out of darkness into his marvelous light, and we should show forth the praises of him that's saved us." Okay. In the Old Testament, the priesthood, we're told they were shouldn't drink wine or strong drink when they went into the tabernacle.

So let's look at that in Leviticus chapter 10, verse 9 and 10. Now, I realize you got to make your own mind up about this, but I'll show you what the scripture says about it. In Leviticus chapter 10, verse 9, God speaks specifically to Aaron. Now Aaron's just had two sons burned up by fire because they brought a sacrifice in that was not acceptable to God in the previous chapter. Now God speaks to Aaron and he says to them in verse 9, "Do not drink wine, nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when you go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, that ye may put a difference between holy and unholy, and be clean between clean and unclean."

And I understand that people will go, "Well, that's the Old Testament. That's the tabernacle." But the Bible says, "We are temples of the Holy Ghost." If you've got the Holy Ghost, you are now the tabernacle. Okay? And, and if you're going to say you're going to drink, what you're saying to God, in a sense, is, "I don't want you in the temple for a little bit." That's what you're really saying, okay? And because, and again, God wants us to put a difference between holy and unholy, and clean and unclean. And many people are not willing to do that today. And a lot of times that's why they don't have the power of God in their life the way they need God in their life. Because they're not willing to draw a line. So they're mixed in. That's what happened in the days of Elijah with Baal, right?

It wasn't that they quit worshiping the Lord. It wasn't that they quit offering sacrifices to Jehovah. They were doing that, but they were also giving them to Baal. And when they were challenged by Elijah, "Which one are you going to pick? Is it God or Baal?" Nobody would answer a word. They weren't willing to draw a line in their lives. They weren't willing to, to put down a line and says, "This is right for God, this is what God says, this is how we're supposed to be if we're living for God, and that's not the way God wants us to be." They weren't willing to do that. Even though they were still worshiping Jehovah. Amen. And so, because of that, they were in the condition that they were in. So, again, we're priests.

And because we are priests, we shouldn't be involved in alcohol drinking and, and so forth, when we're, we're worshiping God or trying to serve God. Number two, we are kings. We're kings. If you look in Revelation 1 and 6, and this is just one, one scripture. There's some other scriptures in Revelation chapter 5. But Revelation 1 and 6 says, "And hath made us kings and priests," there's another one on the of priesthood, "unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." Now in the Old Testament, again, kings were warned to abstain from drink so that they didn't pervert the law and judgment. Did you know that?

If we go look in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 31, verses 4 and 5, we find out that kings are warned not to drink and princes are warned not to drink, lest they pervert judgment. So in Proverbs 31, verse 4 and 5, it says, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted." So another words, what it's saying is that drinking alcoholic beverages, it, it affects our ability to think right, to do judgment. He didn't say, "Don't drink too much." He said, "If you're a king, don't do it. If you're living for God, you're a king. You're supposed to be a king."

So you put that aside, you don't do that. Why? Because when we start to drink, we'll start to pervert judgment and I know we're not ruling on other people's lives, but we do have a law of God. And we will start to misinterpret that. Now, scripture I didn't write down, but it just came to me, book of Hosea says, "Wine and whoredom weaken the heart." In other words, that stuff, he didn't say a little bit or a lot. He said, "Wine and whoredom weaken the heart." Let's see if I can find the scripture now, now that I brought it up to you. Book of Hosea. Okay. It's verse 11 in chapter 4. "Whoredom and wine, and new wine take away the heart."

What's it talking about? The resolve to live for God. The resolve to live for God. It's, it's Hosea 4 and 11, "Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart." Now, notice the context that God is speaking this in. Verse 6, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Same thing happens to Christians. A lot of Christians are destroyed because they don't really know what the Bible says. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because thou has rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee." Well, how did they reject knowledge? God presented it to them and they didn't want it. God's given us a Bible. If I don't want to study the Bible, in a sense, I'm rejecting knowledge.

If I don't make this a priority in my life, if I don't, of course, this is implied that you accept this as being the word of God, right? He says, "I will also reject thee that thou shall be no priest to me." There's the priesthood again. Then he says, "Seeing that thou has forgotten the law of God, I will also forget thy children." A lot of people wondering why their kids are living or doing the what they're doing, even though those people talk about God and raise God, but they have not applied God's way. So God's saying, "If you don't apply my way, you forget my way, I'm going to forget your kids." That's what he's saying.

So that means I need to have God in my life. I need to find out what God wants me to have. How God wants me to act. Amen. And it says, he says, "You'll be no priest to me." This is why a lot of times people do not enter into the ministry God has ordained for them. They are not willing to make the commitment that God wants them to make. When God calls you, you may have to give some things up that you wanted to do that have nothing to do with sin. There's only 24 hours in a day, and you got to give the time that God asks of you to him to follow the calling. Amen.

All right? Again, alcoholic beverages deceive us. You got people that think, "Well, I, I know my limit. I know when I should stop." But notice what Proverbs 20 and 1 says. Proverbs 20 and 1 says, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a raging, whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." So we find out that alcohol has a way of getting the upper hand on us when we think we've got the upper hand. Alcohol has a way of creeping up on us and taking us farther than we want to be. Amen. You know, there's a lot of people that, that get pulled over, OUI's. And they didn't think they were drunk. And there're people that drink a lot, right?

Or they drink regularly, not so much volume, but as they're used to drinking. So if that can happen that often, that lets us understand that wine, drinking can deceive us. There's another scripture too. You know, we can look a little further. It's back in Proverbs 23, or yeah, 23 and 32. And it talks about the effects of people that, that drink a lot. But in Proverbs 23 and 32 it says, "At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." In other words, it gets you unexpectedly. It's subtle. Okay? And again, living for God is serious.

The devil's looking for an opportunity in our lives. And so I've got to be self-controlled, I've got to be in my right mind. The devil would like me to not be able to think right because then he can get me off guard. Amen. And so we need to understand that drinking alcohol is a deceiver. It's a deceiver. Again, in that same passage, verse 23, chapter 23, verses 29 through 30. "Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at wine, they that go to seek mixed wine." People that make a habit of drinking, you ever, ever been around them? Everybody else is wrong but them. They got problems with no cause. It's everybody else's fault.

They got wounds. Another point is drinking alcoholic beverages is not a good witness. It's not. You start drinking that and what do people associate drinking with? Partying. They don't associate you going to church with drinking. They associate that with partying and letting loose. And so it's not a good witness, particularly in this country, which one time had an amendment which prohibited drinking. That's part of the, the conscience, the subconscious of many people in this country. You can, you can, I know you can look at different scriptures about Jesus drinking wine, but the study of wine is, first of all, a lot of the concepts of wine is not, it's not the way people make it out to be.

They had ways to store grape juice and keep it fresh and they could put sulfur over the baths and they didn't need to, you know, drink, you know, drink that because they had water. There's all these ideas. That's those are not true. Those are not true. They have many ways of preserving grape juice and many times where they use the word wine, it means grape juice. It does not mean alcoholic wine the way we think it. What about Timothy, take a little wine for your stomach? Well, that's like medicine. There's alcohol in cough syrup, as long as you're not guzzling your cough syrup. Right? Okay. But that's a, that's a unique situation. You're doing something for that medical situation. And when you're done, you're not supposed to be taking medicine, you know, the medicine, right?

So we need to understand, it's, it's not a good witness, wine is a deceiver, we are called to be kings and priests. They were told in the Old Testament not to be, do that, to, to drink that stuff. We are kings and priests, we got the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is supposed to lift us up above everything that's going on in our lives. Amen. So that's that, okay? Now we're still, that's just one aspect of deceivers. That's an aspect where alcohol deceives people. You want to stay away from it. But again, as we look in the Bible, there's many warnings about false prophets and teachers that occur during the end times before the coming of the Lord.

So in Matthew 24 and 24, Jesus said there'd be many false prophets and Christ. Paul said, "God's spirit clearly said that there would be some that would depart from the faith." We read that in 1 Timothy 4, 1 and 2. "Some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines or teachings of devils, speaking lies with hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron." Now, the reason I'm talking about this is not to talk about false prophets and teachers in the traditional way, but I want you to understand it's not limited to religious people. There's a lot of false prophets on the news and in the media every day.

And we don't think of them that way because they're not wearing religious garb or claiming to be religious, but yet they are teaching and doing things the same way as the Bible was warning us about. So again, we, we tend to limit the concept of false apostles, prophets and teachers to religious people. And by that, we mean formally religious. And again, while these, these false apostles, prophets, teachers are primarily, it's directed towards religious people. It also applies to secular leaders and politicians. It does. It does. Now look, look what the scripture says. The first thing you need to understand, the Antichrist will be a politician. He's not going to be a religious leader. He's going to be a politician.

So look over in Revelation 13. Revelation 13 and 4, "And they worship the dragon which gave power unto the beast, and they worship the beast saying, who is like unto the beast, who is able to make war with him, and there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies." That's talking about the Antichrist. He'll be the head of a world government. And he has given power to him to continue 40 and 2 months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell in the heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints to overcome them. And power was given him over kindreds and all tongues and nations, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life, the lamb slain, the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Get your name in the book. How do you do that? You obey the plan of salvation. You repent, get baptized in Jesus name and you get the Holy Ghost. It doesn't matter what you say or what I say. If your name's not in the book, it doesn't matter what I say. It doesn't matter what you say. And you don't get your name in the book just because you feel like you got your name in the book. You got to do what God says to get your name in the book. You must be born again. The Bible way. Amen. Now we go down a little bit further, verse 11, same chapter, "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon, and he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed, for and he doeth great wonders so that he maketh fire to come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by the sword and did live. And power was and he had power to give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed."

And then go on, he causes all to get the mark. It's a religious leader that's going to bring the mark. It's a religious leader that's going to cause people to get the mark. The point is what I'm trying to bring out here is the Antichrist will not be a religious leader. He's going to be a political, secular person. And if that's true, then that means we've got to watch other secular leaders and people and measure them by the Bible. And that lets us understand that those warnings are not just directed to somebody that calls themself a priest or a minister or an apostle. So we need to understand, it's very important. So many of those in secular positions of influence are guided by communism and Marxism.

Do you know that? Do you realize that many political leaders out there, they're, they're undergirding philosophy is Marxism and communism? They may say they go to church. They may even go to church. But if their undergirding philosophy is Marxism and communism, they are not Christians. They are not Christians. Because a Marxist does not believe in God, they are atheists. Maybe you don't know that. Maybe that's why we're in the trouble we're in because people are voting for people that are atheists. And according to communist doctrine, socialism is just a stage of communism. It's a stage to get the full communism.

So if they got socialist policies, be careful. Be careful. So the warnings of the false apostles, prophets, teachers also apply to secular people in positions of influence and power. Here's some definitions of religion. Okay, just the Google dictionary, a particular system of faith and worship. A pursuit of interest to which someone describes supreme importance. That's a Marxist. Marxists, their religion is that doctrine of communism. That's what they worship. They'll die for it. They'll lie for it. They'll kill for it. They'll sacrifice you if they think they can get their goal. They'll use you. They call, they call many people that help them useful idiots.

And the reason, this is not, I'm not making that up, I'm not being crude. This is what they're, their own thing, their own writings say, they call them useful idiots because they realize they, they realize those people are supporting them, but they don't know where it's going. They're being used to help forward the agenda, but they don't really understand what the end result is going to be. And they call them useful idiots. Here's a, here's a definition from Miriam Webster, the third definition, a cause, a principle or system of beliefs held with ardor and faith. Again, those are Marxists. True Marxists worship and they have a faith. They have faith in communism and the goal of Utopia. And you got people trying to bring it into this country today. They're teaching it in the schools in the universities.

And we wonder why kids are doing what they're doing. Do you know that under communism, under Stalin, 20 million people died, not in World War II, just for him killing people because they weren't part of what he wanted. Do you know under China, under Mao Zedong, they estimate 65 million. And you got people promoting that. So when they get to a level where they got enough power, if you don't agree, they'll kill you. So there are many people in secular positions of power that are persuading and motivating people by great speeches, grand words, but they're false prophets. They're speaking lies in hypocrisy. That means they don't have a conscience. Everybody in this room, if you lie, something's going to twinge you.

Everyone in this room, if we do something to somebody else and we know it's not right, it's going to twinge us. If we steal something and, and nobody saw it, it's going to bother us. There's not a person in this room because we've got a conscience that's working. But there are people out there that have sold their conscience. They've let their conscience go. And they can smile at you and lie. They can even shoot you down and smile. All right? Now, maybe you don't know these things. Again, this is going back, going back to the war in World War II, when the Russians were fighting the Finnish people, Finland.

They, they couldn't get any headway. So here's what Stalin said. He says, "Get a bunch of machine guns, put them behind our soldiers and if they turn around, mow them down." That's history. That's the way they think. I'm telling you there's false prophets. You don't like it. People say, "Oh, don't touch politics." I'm not talking about whether you're Democrat or or or Republican. I'm talking about what your undergirding philosophy. And I gave you more examples. I could go on but you don't need to hear those. So they're speaking, you hear them, speaking against the rich while they're making themselves rich. Harping on, "We're going to, we're going to tax the rich and do this," and they're rich.

And if you investigate how they got rich, they didn't work. You got some of them that got two houses and millions of dollars and never held a regular job in their life. But every one of us in here has worked for what we got. Amen. Speaking lies to create false stories about people and motives when their own motives are corrupt. Again, many of the books that they write to tear down American ideals and what's going on in the country are actually lies. Or they're pieces of information taken totally out of context or omitting any facts that would contradict the way they're presenting it and they know it. Because they've got an agenda. The agenda is Marxism. The agenda is change the country.

You, you understand you got, you got Supreme Court justice, justice is thinking, "Well, the Constitution should be a changing document. You should, should change it as you go along." Do you know that doesn't even make sense? But, but you got them and they're doing that. If it, if it was just going to change as we go along, you don't need to write it down. Just go along. They wrote it down because that's the way it's supposed to be. So they're speaking, creating false stories about people and motives when their own motives are corrupt. They promise justice when they are unjust. They promise that they care when you are only a pawn. Look at 2 Peter 2 and 3.

Now there is a good end to this, so hold on. 2 Peter 2 and 3. It says, "And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you." In other words, the people are just a tool to gain the objective. And they'll say things that sound good to get you on their side. They don't care if they're true or not. So Peter is saying, "There's going to be people that will use other people just to gain an advantage because they want material advantage, covetousness. They want power, they want money, they want prestige. They will use feigned words. They'll appear to be sincere, appear to be lovable, appear to care," but they don't.

Again, we got in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, it talks about false apostles transforming themselves into angels of light. These same people, they transform themselves into angels of light, using great speeches and promises and catering to our carnal nature. When the government says they're going to give you something, be careful. Be careful. It doesn't matter who they are. It doesn't matter what party. When the government says they're going to give you something, be careful. When the government says, "We're going to build these houses for you," where do you think the money's coming from? Government doesn't have any money, except what they tax you. When they say, "We're giving you free health care," where do you think it's coming from? Somebody's paying for it.

So 2 Corinthians 11, 14 and 15, it says, "And no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." In other words, an angel that appears to be good. An angel appears to care, have the right point of view, leading the right way, doing God's way. "Therefore it is of no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness." Now again, we always apply that to false apostles, prophets and teachers. But if you've got people that are atheists, that is their religion. And if they worship a doctrine of policy or philosophy, that is their religion and their God.

And by speeches, they will make themselves appear to be our savior physically, our answer. The only answer is Jesus Christ. He's the only one. And the only assurance is, is to get saved by the Lord, get into the body, and come under his authority and dominion. And then you got, then you're in the hand of a God that works all things together for good. And it says what Israel was saying, "Calls the things which be not as though they were." He's in control. He's in control. Again, Peter in 2 Peter 2 and 18, "For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness." In other words, they, they, they present a picture that's not true. Get everybody all worked up and thinking and feeling a certain way. And then they start to speak their words and speech and they're false apostles. They're false apostles. They're false prophets. Understand.

Now, most important thing is the kingdom of God. But if you care about this country, unless there's a revival and people get back to God so that they obey the Constitution, we're getting ready to go down in flames. We're getting ready to go down in flames. The Constitution was only made for people that believe in the Bible, the God of the Bible. And people that don't believe in the God of the Bible, don't like it, don't understand it, want to change it. And again, the Bible tells us that people are being deceived because they don't know the truth of the Bible. So we look over in 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 10 and 11.

And this is talking about the time of the Antichrist. The day when, when the Antichrist is coming. And it says, "With all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause, God shall send them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." So here's what God does. God puts truth into our life. Every one of us, every human being, God puts truth in our life. And if we respond to that truth, God reveals more truth to us. If we reject that truth and continue to reject it, God finally says, "If you don't want to know the truth, that's fine. I'll let you believe a lie." Now what that means is, even though they are obviously wrong, you can't convince them that they are wrong.

Because they believed a lie. They've convinced, they've convinced God will let a strong delusion. That means they're under spiritual influence to believe a lie. Now God, God does not care about race or economic situation, our intellect, our education, our physical ability. God cares about our soul and you. So he's not looking at your black, your red, your white, your yellow. He does not care. We all came from two people, Adam and Eve. If you want to be technical about it, the Bible says Adam was, Adam means red, ruddy. Adam was not a black man, he was not a white man. He was a red man. God doesn't care about that stuff. God doesn't care about groups against groups. God cares about our soul and you.

So we're living in a day and age where lies are abounding. And people are believing lies. They're being lost. You got, you got, be careful when you listen to the news. Be careful what you read. Listen, there, there are news media and people out there that are lying through their teeth and they know it and don't care. They've got an agenda. So the Lord's going to draw people by his spirit, but if a person resists coming to the Lord, eventually the Lord says, "I gave you free will. You're going to be allowed to make your own choice." And God will let us be deceived. Because there's going to be great deception. As we get closer to the coming of the Lord, deception's going to increase.

So what do we do? In order to deal with the deception of lies that are occurring, a person must know the truth of the Bible. This, this book didn't come from Webster. It didn't come from the Encyclopedia Britannica. It didn't come from Western philosophy. It came from God. It comes from God. We have to measure our beliefs against the word of God. We must worship our motives, our beliefs, our thinking against the word of God. If I start measuring my motives by Socrates or Plato or somebody else, some other philosophy, I'm going to get off track. If I get caught up in Greek history and philosophy, or Roman history and philosophy, I'm going to get off track.

Those people did not bring salvation to the world. This book did through the spirit of God. This is truth. So in John 17 and 17, I think people misunderstand. John 17 and 17, he says, "Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth." This is Jesus speaking. Now remember, when Jesus says this in, in time, in the actual point in time where he says it, there's no New Testament written. He's thinking about the Old Testament. It includes what he's saying because the New Testament's part of it. But he's not looking at the Old, New Testament, he's looking at the Old Testament. And he's saying, "Thy word is truth." The word of God is truth. Psalm, Psalm 89, Psalm 119 verse 89, "Forever, O Lord, thy truth is settled in heaven."

He's a God of truth, the book of Isaiah. He cannot lie. So if God says something, then it's true. If God gives us principles, it's true. If God who made men and made us in his image and likeness and put things into us that makes us like him, says some things, they got to be true. And when you get other people saying things that start to go against that, you need to reject it. Again, the truth applied will make a person free. This is what John, Jesus says in the Gospel of John. John 8, 31 and 32. "Then Jesus said to those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed."

Now remember, Jesus is God, isn't he? Right? So it doesn't mean just the words that Jesus spoke in the New Testament. It means the whole Bible because the whole Bible comes from God. So he's saying, "If you continue in my word, you're my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free." And I realize some versions say, "Set you free." But I think, "Make" more appropriate because when you come to God, God will release you from your sin, but there's still a lot of making that needs to go on in us. Even after we're saved. And as we continue in God, we become more like him. We become more free. Our thinking is changed. Amen.

So I've got to continue in the word of God. Amen. I've, if I want to get free, if I want to make it to heaven, I've got to obey the word of God. If I want my thinking to be right, I've got to know the word of God. Not traditions, the word of God. Oh, but they've done it for 400 years. That doesn't make it true. It doesn't make it true. Roman Empire started somewhere 400 BC or 700 BC and went to 1043 AD. And they worshipped different gods during that same time, during thousands of years. That didn't make those gods true. Right? And so we got to understand, just because people believe it and do it, if, if doing it and believing it was true, we'd never be where we are today.

Again, a person needs to get saved the Bible way. I'm going to say it again. You may be blue in the face, or green in the face, or rainbow in the face, but I'm going to say it. This is what Peter said. When, when Peter was asked what to do when they were convicted of their sins. This is the, this is the birthday of the church. This is the first time the Holy Ghost is poured out in the church in Acts chapter 2. In verse 37, "Now, when they heard this," Peter's preached to them, "You're guilty of crucifying the Messiah." It says, "Now, when they heard this, you were, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?"

Now, I'm not going to, you, you just go in your own mind and look at what people might have told you to do. Does it match what Peter is saying? If you were, you went to another church, raised in another church, is what you told to do to get saved, match what Peter is saying. Peter didn't say pray the sinner's prayer or just confess Jesus and you're saved, or if you believe, you're saved. Peter said, "Repent, get 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." You need to get the Holy Ghost, too. Okay? And if you study the book of Acts, the only sign that tells us we get the Holy Ghost is you speak in tongues. The way the spirit gives you utterance. That's the only sign given.

You can check your book of Acts all over you want. Healing's not a sign you got the Holy Ghost. Just believing by and getting baptized is not a sign you got the Holy Ghost. We can show scriptures. It's not. Okay? Getting baptized, doesn't mean you got the Holy Ghost. But when you get the Holy Ghost, you speak in tongues. You need to obey the plan of salvation. Now, why doesn't the devil want you baptized in Jesus name? If you got to be baptized the right way, the devil doesn't care if you're baptized and it's not the right way. Can you find your baptism in the Bible? You might find some words that you think you should use, but can you find that actually carried out in the Bible? No. But can you find out baptism in Jesus name carried out in the Bible? Yes.

And if you start to search out church history, you find out, even in Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book and different ones, that that was the only way it was ever done for the first 100, 150 years in Jesus name. So at some point, somebody started to do it differently than the way Peter, Paul, and the other apostles did it. I don't know how you think about it, but a logical question is, who gave them authority to change it? And if Peter didn't do it the right way, what kind of passing on to the church did God expect to have? Of course, Peter did it the right way. That's how the church started. Now, why is that so important? Because you cannot really understand the Bible without the spirit of God.

The Bible says in order to be a part of the the kingdom, I've got to be born of the water and the spirit, which means water baptism and Holy Ghost baptism. That's what that means. And again, you got people that want to say, you know, "Well, no, that's water, born of the water," just means the natural birth of a man, but that doesn't even make sense. You know, why, why does in that instance, it mean natural birth when he's talking about the new birth, why is he reflecting back to natural birth? And then why do we see all these things in the New Testament telling us we need to be baptized? So people are using tradition. And some people, the Bible says, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus will what? Suffer persecution." When you start to live for the truth, the mainstream traditions are going to have a problem. They won't like it. You're upsetting the cart.

You need the Holy Ghost to rightly divide the word of truth. And here's a scripture just to back that up. 1 Corinthians 2 and 14. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." In other words, you need the Holy Ghost to understand God's ways and thinking. That's what the Bible's trying to tell us. We need the Holy Ghost to understand God's ways and thinking. Without the Holy Ghost, what happens? We use our own understanding. Well, I, I need more physical strength. I need more money. I need more skill. I need more charisma. God can use all those things, but God doesn't need those things. I need more popularity. God doesn't need popularity. God can make you popular in a second. I need more, more understanding. Get understanding with the spirit because the word is written by the spirit of God.

So if I get the author inside of me, now I can talk to the author and I can get understanding what God meant and I don't need to have some theology professor or some theological dictionary to explain the Bible to me. So we need to heed Peter's warning today. We're, let's stand here this morning. And I know this is a little different here this morning, but God wants us to be aware that not everybody, these, these warnings of false prophets are not just limited to people that formally call themselves religious leaders. Yes, it includes them. It's primarily directed at them. But there are other people, they've got a religion of atheism. They've got a religion of self. They've got a religion of their Marxist agenda. Amen. And they don't care. They're going to tell false lies and they're going to use language that's appealing to our carnal nature.

Are you being sober today? Are you being vigilant today? Are you grabbing hold of the Lord? This altar's open if you want to pray. Amen. Are you being deceived because of your own desires? Are you following the truth, or are you following the tradition? What are you following? Are you following the Lord? If you're follow, really following the Lord, you got to follow his word, which is truth. He said, "If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed." And Jesus is the one said, "You must be born of the water and the spirit." Have you been baptized the right way? There is a right way. Amen. Father, Son, Holy Ghost is just anonymous titles. It's not a name, those are titles. You need a name, the name above every name. The Bible says, "The name above every name is the name of Jesus." You need a name. You need a name. Amen.

Are you going to be part of the family, don't you want the name? It's his body, don't you want the name of the body? Amen. It's his body. He's the one that shed, God in the person of Jesus Christ shed the blood for the church, so we take that name. If I acknowledge that that blood shed for my sin, I want the name, the name. Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of Jesus. Baptism's a deed. Altar's open. Lord God, we thank you here today. Help us to start to gird our minds to be aware, Lord God, that not everything that is a false prophet, false apostle, prophet, teacher, necessarily presents themselves in a religious manner, Lord God. Help us to see clearly, Lord, that we need to get the word, your word into us, Lord God.

We need to draw boundaries in our lives, Lord God, to help us, Lord God. Help us, Lord, to let our mind be changed. Help us to understand that you've got good things for us, Lord. Your, your purpose and will for us is not bad, it's good, Lord God. You've come that we might have more life abundantly, abundantly life that you want to give us, Lord God. We're asking you, Lord, to open our hearts and minds to understand, you've got good things for us, not bad things. Help us to trust you. Help us to yield to you. Help us to believe. Give us understanding of the word. Lord, if we haven't received your spirit, Lord God, I'll put a hunger in us. Show us how to yield and receive that spirit, Lord God. So that it motivates us. So it puts a hunger in us, Lord God.

Lord, we're asking you, Lord, to move on our hearts and minds, to work upon each one of us. Lord, to help us make your, your opinion of us more important than others, Lord God. To make you first, to really bow our knee to you, Lord God. To submit ourselves to your word and your spirit, Lord God. Lord, we're thanking you here today. Work in a mighty way to those that are seeking and praying, Lord God. Overflow and bless them, Lord God. Give us a transformation in our mind. Help us, Lord God, to draw lines in our life and in our mind, Lord God. We give you praise here today, Lord God. We thank you, Lord God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Elai, tokoyaba, koskaya, lalababaya. Hallelujah. Come on. Some are praying, Lord God. Lord, give them the understanding. Lord, give them the overflowing. Lord, others that need the Holy Ghost, show them the need, Lord God. Give them an understanding, Lord, that it's not just the preacher saying it, but it's your word, Lord, that says that we must be born of the water and the spirit, Lord God. Help them to understand that your word is already settled, it'll will stand forever, Lord God. When we stand before you, that word is going to judge us, Lord God. Hallelujah. Give us a hunger and a desire to know you, Lord God. Hallelujah. Not just to be exercising gifts and positions, but to know you, and to serve you, and to love you, Lord God. Give us that hunger, Lord God, we pray.

Guest (Female): Thank you for joining us today as we have studied the word on Apostolic Truth Radio. My name is Tina Olette, wife of Pastor Craig Olette 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 Church is held on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. 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.