South Shore Pentecostal Church

J. Craig Ouellette: Welcome to the Apostolic Truth Radio program with Pastor Craig Oullette, 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: Genesis 3 and 8 says, "And they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, 'Where art thou?'"

J. Craig Ouellette: Luke 19 and 10, all the way into the New Testament there. We read this scripture last week, I believe also.

J. Craig Ouellette: "For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." And then Romans 8:15, just a little bit after the New Testament, after the Gospels and the book of Acts, Romans 8 and 15, "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father."

J. Craig Ouellette: Okay, we're supposed to have a good relationship with God. All right? So being a Christian is more than just believing Jesus died, rose again for our sins, Amen, that he's coming back. But we're supposed to have a relationship with God.

J. Craig Ouellette: So this series is called God Came, Part 4, and the question is, what do you mean? Why did God come into the world? And here's some of the reasons that we've been looking at: to fulfill promise made in Genesis 3:15, so that we could know Him, to demonstrate His love, to provide an answer for sin, to provide a way to overcome sin, to restore what was lost through sin.

J. Craig Ouellette: God came so that we could have fellowship with Him. And that's the one we're going to try to focus on today. All right? God came so that we could have fellowship with Him. God doesn't want our relationship locked up in a building. Now, we're supposed to come and meet together as a group. But when you leave here, God doesn't want you to leave Him here.

J. Craig Ouellette: God wants to be with us all the time. Okay, and that's why we're called children of God. So let's, let's try to lay some foundation and understand what God is trying to do, because, because the Bible is a picture of God's faithfulness and God's plan.

J. Craig Ouellette: So God, God knew that man was going to sin. God knew that man was going to sin, and God already had a plan. So God, the Bible is showing God working this plan from beginning to the end. And He's showing how faithful He is, because across the 1,000 years, thousands of years, God keeps His word.

J. Craig Ouellette: Now, we can find somebody who keeps it 100 years, that's pretty amazing. But God does it across thousands of years. This is why you got to read the whole Bible, because there's a story there that God is trying to bring to us. Okay, there's a story, and it's God dealing with man.

J. Craig Ouellette: This is what the Bible's about, God dealing with man in different ways, bringing us to the place where we are today. So the Lord came to restore fellowship. Adam and Eve had fellowship with God until they sinned. Okay, and by fellowship, we mean that Adam and Eve could talk with God on a regular basis, and God would talk to them. They weren't afraid.

J. Craig Ouellette: Because we find people later on in the Bible that God talks to them, but they don't really have a regular relationship with God. God might shoot something into their life or give them a rebuke or something. But Adam and Eve, before they sinned, God would show up and they weren't afraid. And they weren't amazed. It was natural to have a relationship with God.

J. Craig Ouellette: All right? So the Lord Jesus came to restore that kind of thing. But in the day and age we're living in, God is trying to do it, God is doing it with us each individually. He's got to restore it to me and you, each one of us individually, before we can corporately have that relationship also.

J. Craig Ouellette: All right? So we're going to look at some scriptures, just to show that God had fellowship with Adam and Eve before sin. And, and we'll try to bring some of this out. Genesis 2:16 and 17, "The Lord God commanded man saying of every tree of the garden, 'thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.'"

J. Craig Ouellette: So God has said this to Adam. And he hasn't said it in in muddled words. It's clear. Adam understands. Adam is hearing the voice of God. He knows that what God is saying to him.

J. Craig Ouellette: In the same chapter and verse 21, "The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he woman and brought her unto the man." And so again, you have this sense that God and Adam, Adam is not surprised that God is there.

J. Craig Ouellette: God is a regular part of Adam's day. You understand what I'm saying there? Okay? Again, in Genesis 3 and 8, they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, "Where art thou?"

J. Craig Ouellette: So they understood when they heard God's voice, it wasn't, "What's that?" They knew it was God's voice. And God could call unto Adam, and then Adam responds. And he talks with with the Lord. But he's afraid because they've sinned, they've disobeyed. But still, we see that God is reaching to communicate face to face with Adam and Eve.

J. Craig Ouellette: In fact, the word presence there means God's face. The word presence, they heard the voice, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord in verse 8. It means God's face, panim. So God was let it, God was letting them understand him in an intimate way. God was coming and communicating with them.

J. Craig Ouellette: Again, the Lord spoke plainly to Adam and Eve about their sin. They weren't, when they got cast out of the garden, they weren't thinking, "Well, what did we do?" "Why did God do that?" "Did God, was it really a tree of life and God took it away from us, or, you know, what happened?" They knew what had happened. God spoke to them plainly.

J. Craig Ouellette: Now, what I'm what I'm driving at is God wants us to have a relationship where He can plainly speak into our lives the things we need to hear from Him. He's not going to speak to all of us the same way because we have different purposes and callings and responsibilities in God's worldview and God's calling in our lives. Okay, but still, God will speak to each one of us individually.

J. Craig Ouellette: And He should be able to speak at least sometimes where we say, "I know that was God." "Now, was that God?" I mean, we'll have times where, "God, is that you? Is that really you?" Sometimes you have to go to God again and ask Him, "Here I am," like Samuel. "Speak, Lord, for your servant hear."

J. Craig Ouellette: Sometimes you have to give God permission to speak because He respects our sovereignty. God respects that He gave us a free will. So He does not override our free will. We have to give Him permission in some areas. And the area that deals with our free will, I must give God permission. I must decide, "Yes, Lord, I'm going to do it your way." Amen?

J. Craig Ouellette: Then God made them coats, He cast them out of the garden. So they understood. They understood what had happened. God spoke to them plainly. In Genesis chapter 4, when Abel, Cain and Abel offer up their sacrifice, Cain's sacrifice is not accepted.

J. Craig Ouellette: But God speaks to Cain and lets him know. He doesn't leave Cain hanging. He Cain understands. Cain can see that Abel's sacrifice is accepted, but his is not. And he's angry because of pride. Sometimes we do that. God, well, God spoke to them, but he didn't speak to me. We get angry. Pride.

J. Craig Ouellette: That's why sometimes God has us come to the altars is because we've got to overcome our pride. Sometimes the trip to the altar is overcoming what others think, what we think others might be thinking about us. So the real battle in life is to learn to do what God wants and not be turned aside by other people's thinking.

J. Craig Ouellette: So sometimes God has us, the altar call, because God wants us to humble ourselves. He wants, He wants to see, "Do you want what I've got for you more than the opinions of other people?" Amen? Praise God.

J. Craig Ouellette: So God speaks plainly to Cain. "If you do the right thing, I'll accept your offering just like I accepted Abel's offering." And he can look over and see what Abel did and know what he needs to do. And then he kills Abel. And God still comes and speaks plainly to Cain.

J. Craig Ouellette: So my point is, the God of the Bible has not changed. And if God spoke plainly to people back then, God will speak plainly to people today. Now, he's not going to tell you to do something that violates the word that he's already given us. So that's why we got to study the word.

J. Craig Ouellette: And sometimes the reason God doesn't speak audibly to us or in different ways is because it's already in here and we're not willing to pick it up and look. This is God, this is this is God speaking. All scripture given by inspiration of God, profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, instruction in righteousness. I don't go get another book to interpret this, I read the Bible.

J. Craig Ouellette: Now, that doesn't mean I won't look up something something on customs or to understand a word meaning or something like that or geography. I'm not talking about that. But if I, if I got to go to a catechism to get an understanding of this, I'm not going to get the answers God has got for me because the answers that we need are already in the Bible.

J. Craig Ouellette: Now, if you start to study, people that have lived for God through the ages, saints and people that have prayer lives, you'll find out that they had circumstances where they didn't know what to do and they had problems and pressures and they prayed to God. And quite often, more often than not, the answer was, a scripture came to them.

J. Craig Ouellette: And they opened up the Bible and found the answer there in the Bible. Now, sometimes God is talking to us, but we don't recognize again that it's God's voice because we don't know what's in here.

J. Craig Ouellette: And so we measure it against the world, but the world is not being run by God. The world is under the dominion of the devil and the lusts of people that are bound in sin. And so I can't compare the world way of talking and thinking to understand if I'm hearing the voice of God.

J. Craig Ouellette: I've got to go to the Bible. The Bible's the foundation. But my point is, is God wants to speak to us. Okay, again, in Genesis chapter 5:24, an amazing passage that there's a man named Enoch way back in the Old Testament. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not for God took him. Enoch didn't die. God took him right up to heaven.

J. Craig Ouellette: But God took him because he walked with God. Well, if you're going to walk with somebody, you got to agree with them. Amos 3 and 3 says, "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" Agreed is past tense. So before I can start walking with God, I got to agree with Him. So sometimes the reason we can't hear God is, he's walking there and I haven't agreed to walk with him, so I walked over there.

J. Craig Ouellette: So he might be talking, but I can't hear him because I've gotten too far away, or I'm walking the other way, or there's a lot of noise in between us. So if I'll start to walk with God, I'll be able to hear. But to walk with God, I've got to agree with God. So my point here is, God and Enoch must have been talking.

J. Craig Ouellette: Doesn't say what they were saying, but they had to be talking and have communication to agree with one another. Does that make sense? Maybe that's a leap. I don't think it is. I think it's true because again, if I'm I have to agree. But if some, if I just start walking with somebody, they don't say anything, I don't know if I agree with them or not.

J. Craig Ouellette: So they have to start saying something before I can figure out if I do agree or not. So God had to be saying something to him. Amen? Again, the world devolves into sin. Okay, and so even though God starts it out perfect, and one sin, this is why you hear people preaching about sin and drawing boundary lines and in your life and so forth.

J. Craig Ouellette: One sin of Adam and Eve leads to sin in Cain and Abel. And Cain's sin leads to him being cast out from the presence of the Lord and starting a lineage of people that are godless. And eventually, that lineage intermarries with the godly lineage through Seth, Adam and Eve and Seth. And the world becomes corrupt.

J. Craig Ouellette: And God says, He's still talking, He finds a man, Noah, and God is talking to Noah. And it's got to be a real conversation because He tells Noah, "Build the boat this way." It's not like Noah's got some kind of like a faint vision or dream or something. God is talking to Noah. "This is what's going to happen. But I'm going to save you and your wife, and your sons and their wives, but this is what you need to do. Build the ark."

J. Craig Ouellette: And you read chapter 6, at the end of it it says, "And Noah did everything that God asked him to do." So again, there's conversation. God is talking. God is telling Noah, "Here's what you need to do to deal with this circumstance."

J. Craig Ouellette: We go on to after the flood and you've got Abraham, which we go there a lot to that that scripture. But Abraham's really is, you may say he's back in the Old Testament, and he is. But he's he's a good prototype for the Christian walk.

J. Craig Ouellette: Abraham is able to obtain a promise from God because he does what God asks him to do. Same thing in the New Testament. It's not about earning, it's about having faith, enough faith to do what God says to do. Don't tell me you got faith in God if you don't do what he says to do.

J. Craig Ouellette: Faith in God means, I'll do what He says to do. I believe Him. I'm going to obey Him. So Abraham, again, he obtains a promise from God. And God is speaking, again, plainly to Abraham. Now the Lord God had said, in Genesis 12 and 1, "The Lord God had said unto Abraham, 'Get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred, from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great. Thou shalt be a blessing. I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curses thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'" So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him.

J. Craig Ouellette: So Abraham does it. Now if you read the Bible, you find out Abraham doesn't seem to respond right away, but eventually he does do what God asks him to do. And if we were to look over in Hebrews 11 and 8, this is a New Testament commentary on what Abraham did.

J. Craig Ouellette: Hebrews 11 and 8 says, "By faith, by faith Abraham, his father faith, by faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, he did what? He obeyed by faith."

J. Craig Ouellette: So if you're stuck in this thing, "All I got to do is believe," you're not going to get the relationship with God that God wants you to have. If I believe Him, and He says, "Repent," I'm going to repent. If I, if I believe God and God says, "I want you to move to China," then I'm going to move to China if I really believe God. That's right.

J. Craig Ouellette: But the real point that we're trying to bring out here is that God talked with people, and they understood. They had real communication. And what this is trying to show us is, God wants to talk to us. God, God doesn't want you always in a mystery that I got to wait till Sunday, or I got to go talk to the pastor. And there are times where you need to talk to elders and pastors and bishops and prophets and all that. God has put that there for guidance and for instruction. But God wants to be able to speak into our lives.

J. Craig Ouellette: And when, when God speaks into your life and you know it's God, what what does that do? That makes you strong in God. You know that He's real for yourself. Everybody else can fall away, but you can say, "I know God talked to me. I know He's real."

J. Craig Ouellette: So God wants us to have communication with Him. Again, God spoke, I got Abraham there, spoke plainly to to Moses, Aaron and Miriam. Okay? And so, again, we're talking about God, even with sinful man, God again, time and time, reaching into humanity, speaking to people to have communications.