South Shore Pentecostal Church

Tina Ouellette: 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: And I'd like you to open your Bibles here to the book of Genesis chapter 2, verse 8. And we're going to be talking about man's choice today, man's choice. We all have choices. Where we end up in life is based on our choices. Where we end up in eternity is based on our choices. We have those scriptures there, we're going to read those. Different scriptures trying to give us a biblical grounding or basis for what we're talking about here today.

In Genesis chapter 2, verse 8 and 9, it says, "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground, the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, good for food. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Verses 16 and 17, same chapter: "And the Lord God commanded the 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."

Joshua 24, just a few chapters away, six chapters away or six books away from where we're at, right after Deuteronomy. The end of Joshua 24, verses 14 and 15, a familiar scripture to many. Joshua, speaking to Israel as he's about to depart off the scene, says, "Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood." And the flood there does not mean Noah's flood, but it means the Euphrates River.

"And in Egypt and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood or the Euphrates River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua is definitely putting out a challenge to make a choice. He's doing that.

In Mark chapter 1, the Gospel of Mark chapter 1, verses 14 and 15 says, "Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel." As I've said recently a few times, that lets us understand the gospel's not just the death, burial, and resurrection, but the gospel includes the kingdom of God. Repent and believe the good news of the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is part of the preaching of the gospel, and the kingdom of God Jesus said in the Gospel of John, you can't see it unless you're born again. You can't enter into it unless you're born of the water and spirit. What that means is if you're sitting in church and you're not born again, there's a lot of things you won't understand. You won't get them. There's a lot of things going on you don't see the reason for it.

When you get born again, you start to see things from God's point of view. When you get the spirit of God, you start to understand the thinking of God and the motivation of God. This is why we're always saying you need the baptism of the Holy Ghost, because there's a lot of people sitting in church and they're hearing things but don't really understand what they mean or how they apply because they haven't been born again. And so they can't see the kingdom and they can't understand what the kingdom is about. Can you say amen?

Man and free will. We're talking about man's choice, and by man's choice we mean humanity's choice, our individual choices to make decisions. God created us all with a free will. Sometimes people say, why doesn't God just make you love him? But love has to come because you choose to love. God doesn't just want servants, he wants people to love him. He wants people to choose to love him.

Just like a husband and wife, you don't want the husband just to be a husband because they've gotten married. You want them, the wife wants that husband to choose to love the wife, the husband wants the wife to choose to love him. Amen? And again, we understand the Bible tells us that marriage is a type of Christ and the church. So when God makes Adam and Eve, he's trying to give us a picture of what he wants with us in the church.

Human beings have the capacity to make choices. That's why God lets us make choices. He'll let us make the wrong choice, not because he doesn't care or wants us to make a wrong choice, but because he wants us to make a choice for him. We're talking about man's choices. The Lord created man with a free will so that man could have a relationship. Again, God wants a relationship with us. He doesn't want just an army of soldiers.

He doesn't want just churches full of people saying, praise the Lord. I mean, he does want people in the church praising Lord together, but he wants those people to be there because they love him. God wants a relationship. Again, we look back in the beginning of Adam and Eve and you look in the garden of Eden and you see that when Adam and Eve sinned, they hear the voice of God calling them in the evening.

So they understand it's God's voice and they hide from God. But looking at that story, you understand that this wasn't the first time that God had come to them in the evening. God had had a regular relationship with them. God was talking to them and they were talking to God, and God showed up and they weren't afraid. They weren't talking with God because God had delivered them from something or given them something; they were having a relationship.

God wants a similar relationship with us where he can talk to us, where we want to talk to him. If you got a good relationship, you want to talk to the people that you got a relationship with, right? You don't have a schedule to talk to them, you want to talk to them. Amen? And so it's the same thing that God wants from us. He doesn't want us just to talk to him on Sunday and Wednesday, but he wants us to talk to him seven days a week.

He doesn't want to just hear from us when we got a problem, although he does want to hear our problems and help us, but he wants us sometimes just to say, thanks Lord. Thanks for this day. Thank you that I'm alive. Thank you for all that you've given me. Maybe I don't have everything the way I'd like it, but I've got enough. Praise God. Thank you for the good things that have happened in my life. Lord, I praise you.

If you've been saved, you got something to praise him about that too, to thank him for that salvation. So the Lord wants us to love him. The first commandment is hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God, love, love, love, love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5. He doesn't just want us following the rules, but he wants us to choose to obey him because we love him. Amen? We're talking about man's choice.

From the very beginning, Adam and Eve were given choices. We read in Genesis 2:8 and 9 that the tree of knowledge and good and evil, they were both there in the middle of the garden. So it seems to me when I read it that you got the tree of knowledge, good and evil, and tree of life is right there. It's not like they didn't know the tree of life was there. But they are going to make a choice that's the wrong choice.

The Lord had given them a number of commandments, most of them are positive, but the one negative was don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He said be fruitful and multiply. Subdue and have dominion over every living thing. Man is supposed to be in charge of the planet, not animals. Subdue and have dominion over every living thing. It doesn't mean be mean to them or cruel, but man is supposed to be in dominion on the planet. That's what God has said.

He said dress and keep the garden. The word keep in some translations means to guard. They'll translate it that way, at least three that I looked at this morning. But it means you're supposed to take care of it, watch it, guard it. Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you do, you're going to die. Man has a weakness, even before he's a sinner, man has a weakness to temptation.

If man did not have a weakness to temptation, Eve would not have been tempted, right? Even without sin in our lives, we've got a weakness or a proclivity where we go, we lean towards temptation. Of course, the devil's there to try to influence us to go towards temptation, and a lot of times he uses temptation to short-circuit God's blessings for us. The tree of life is there, but if I can get them to eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil, they won't get the tree of life.

It might even have been that the devil was afraid that they'd eat of the tree of life first, so I better get in there and tempt them because if they eat of the tree of life, they won't want that other tree. We're talking about choices. This is how life is for us, choices every day are set before us in front of our face. The world tries to tell us, and the devil and our flesh often try to get us to go one way where God is trying to get us to go another way.

The devil tries to manipulate our sin nature and weakness to temptation by convincing us that God is against us or that we need to satisfy our desires to be happy. This is how the devil works. Those aren't the only two ideas that he brings, but those are two of the major ideas. He brings those ideas trying to make us believe that God is against us. There's a lot of people that think they're angry at God, they think God's against them.

They've never tried to serve God, they've never tried to let God be God. They've tried to lift themselves up to the same level as God. When I start dictating to God, I'm making myself a god. When I start telling God how it ought to be, I'm lifting myself up to his level. As Paul says, we see through a glass darkly, we don't see the picture. All we see is what we can understand by our own senses and what we've been in contact with.

That's all we understand. It's like a piece of a puzzle sitting there and telling the rest of the puzzle how it ought to fit together. It doesn't understand the picture. God understands a picture, and because he is God, he already knows time ahead, time back, and time present. As it says in Psalm 139, he's there before me, he's behind me, he's with me. God is already there, God already knows.

God has already created things that he can change things and it's going to work; he's smart enough to do that. After all, he had Joshua said, moon and sun stand still, and it didn't interrupt the whole solar system, didn't throw it out of whack. Everything's still going, God knew Joshua was going to do that. God is big enough to adjust it all. Hallelujah! Praise God, he's big enough to adjust it all. Praise God. You need an adjustment in your life, you need to get into God's hands. Hallelujah! Oh, but Brother Ouellette, you don't know what I'm going through. I don't, but God does. Hallelujah!

The tree of life was right there in the midst of the garden with the tree of knowledge, and I think the devil might have been concerned. He didn't want man to have that tree of life, just like he doesn't want you to have eternal life today. He's going to do all that he can. He'll tempt us in order to drive to sin in order to drive us away from the Lord and a relationship with him. By Adam and Eve yielding to eating of the tree, it broke their relationship with God.

Every day, God came and talked with them, and they weren't afraid to see God. Now they're afraid to see God. Now they're not living in the same situation. They have to move out of the circumstance that God had designed for them. Life got harder. When we sin, life gets harder. It might be easier for that moment that you sin in. You might get something in that moment, but in the long run, it's going to get harder.

Somebody asked me today, they said there's a lot of killing in the world, man kills people. I said it's because of sin. Death is in the world because of sin. No amount of education is going to fix it. No amount of culture is going to fix it. The only thing that can fix sin is the blood of Jesus applied to your life. Hallelujah! You get the blood of Jesus applied to your life, it fix the sin in your life.

How do you build a building? One board at a time, one brick at a time. How do you fix a world? One soul at a time. Apply the blood of Jesus. Hallelujah! And it starts with you. Don't look out there, that's what a lot of us do. We look out, they shouldn't, they shouldn't, they shouldn't this, that. Let me get right with God. Let me be right with God. Let me not be part of the problem. Hallelujah!

And so often, I'm going to say again, often if I look at my life, a lot of times when temptation comes the strongest in our life, it's when God is about to open up a path of blessing for us. God is about to give us something. The devil comes with ideas into our life that are negative, that cause us to turn from God or to not believe God or to choose our own way. Often those strongest temptation for that comes when God is about to move and open up a path of blessing for us.

Because he doesn't want you to have God. He knows if you get what God's got for him, you will start to love God. You start to love God, he's got a problem. Your lies don't have the same effect on you. When you know that God is real, your life changes. When you know you can touch God in prayer, your life and view of life changes. When you know that God is a miracle-answering God, your life changes. When you know God personally, your life changes.

When you're sitting in the pew and you don't really know God, you can hear the preacher get excited, but you don't really understand. But when you got the Holy Ghost, all of a sudden that same thing making the preacher excited starts to jump in you and something gets excited in you and you want to praise God the same way. Hallelujah! Amen. The Bible reveals again that we live by God's words. We live by God's words. The Lord allows us to come into situations to reveal what choices we will make.

Deuteronomy 8:2 and 3 says, "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40 years in the wilderness to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to know what was in thy heart whether thou wouldst keep his commandment or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna, that he might make thee to know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord does man live."

Of course, Jesus quoted that when the devil tempted him in the wilderness. When the devil said, make the stones into bread. He had power to do that. Would that have been a sin? No, it's not a sin. But he's not there to use his power for himself. He's there to use his power to be our savior and redeemer. So he's got to learn and come under his humanity. Here's the problem that people have with Jesus.

You got to understand he's both man and God. Fully man, fully God. Fully man means he's subject to like passions as all of us in this room are. If he's not subject to the same temptations we are, he's not fully man. If he's not fully man, he can't be my redeemer because I need a kinsman redeemer. I need somebody related to me. The human race needs a man related to them. So he's fully God. As God, he knows all things.

As a man, he doesn't. That's why Jesus can say of that hour, knoweth no man, neither the angels nor the son of man, but my Father in heaven. He's not saying that he's not God, he's saying in my humanity, I still have a physical, limited brain. So Jesus becomes our kinsman redeemer, and he quotes and says, we don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of God's mouth. Really what he's saying is the only reason anything grows is because God has spoken it.

I don't care what you plant, it's only going to grow if God gives a word for it to grow. I don't care what you go to school for, you're only going to accomplish it if God gives a word that allows you in your life to accomplish it. You can say I'm going to go do this, but if God doesn't give you breath to do it, God doesn't give you a word to live, you're not going anyplace. Man does not live by bread alone, we live by every word.

We all got up today, and the only reason we got up today is God said, breathe. God said, live. God's given us time. He's given us an opportunity to make a choice. Hallelujah! Let's give him some praise. Lord God, we thank you. We praise you, we magnify you. We give you the glory and honor, Lord God. You are worthy, you are worthy. Hallelujah!

We see that God's word is life for those that obey him. And when we don't obey God, it brings death, it brings sin. So that's the first lesson out of the garden of Eden: don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the day that you do, you're going to die. Sin brings death, obeying God brings life. But wait, I thought it's all grace. Well, it is grace. But you still got to obey God to obtain some of that grace.

Praise God. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, right? What does that mean? That means even though God's got grace for me, if I'm proud, I'm not going to get it. I've got to obey God and humble myself to get that grace. Hallelujah! So there are some things that you're only going to get, certain elements of grace in your life, by obeying what God says to do. Illustration from the Old Testament: Genesis chapter 6, it says, "And Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."

At least the King King James Version says. Now does that mean that Noah is automatically saved from the flood because he found grace? It says he found grace. Is Noah automatically saved from the flood because he found grace? No. What does Noah have to do? He has to do what God says to escape the flood. He's got to build the ark. He's got to build the ark the way God says it and get into the ark to benefit from the grace that God has provided.

No different in the New Testament. We're saved by grace, but to benefit from that grace, we have to obey God, submit to God. Grace just means that we couldn't make it available by any amount of work. God made it available. But now that it's there for you and me to tap into what God has made available, I've got to do things God's way. That's a strange message today, but that's a Bible message. That's what the Bible says.

We only exist. Again, the Bible says Paul said, "In him we live and move and breathe and have our being." Nothing exists outside of God. Nothing. Not even hell. Heaven and hell exist inside of God. Nothing can exist outside of God. All creation exists within God. So the Lord doesn't just take our life because he loves us. A lot of times people say, well, why doesn't God just take this such and such life or this life over here and they're doing this and they're doing that?

If God just took a person's life because they're a murderer, we wouldn't have an Apostle Paul. We wouldn't have a Moses. We wouldn't have a David, right? So God looks at us and gives us a chance. He gives us a choice. A chance to make a choice to do it his way. We got a chance to do things God's way. God doesn't just take people's lives away the minute they do something wrong, thank God.

I can say that for my own self personally. Many times I've prayed, God, thank you for your long-suffering. Thank you for your mercy. You were patient with me when I knew I wasn't doing the right thing. So the word of the Lord is not there to restrict us, but it's there to guide us into the path of life. People don't understand, the word of God provides guide rails, provides a map how to get to God, how to stay in relationship with God, how to not fall out of relationship, how to not get lost in this life and continue with God.

The word of God is a map. And you can't just say, well, it's in the Old Testament. The principles of the Old Testament is still the same God operating the same way. Sin is still sin, and you still got to believe and obey God. And there is a path of life. Notice what David said in Psalm 16 and 11. There's a path of life that God wants us to be on. And in Psalm 16 and 11, David says, "Thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore."

In other words, when I get into God's presence is when I start to see things as they really are. We can get so confused in our mind. We can look around and we can think that everybody's doing this and that and this and this is going on and where is God? And they're not serving God over there and they seem to be getting ahead and I'm serving God and I seem to be going backwards. You can get into that place.

That's Psalm 73, that's what that's talking about. And he said, I was felt like I had been foolish in serving God until, until, until when? Until I went into the sanctuary of God. What he's saying is when I got into the presence of God. Sanctuary is where God is, right? It's where God's presence is. When I got into the presence of God, I realized I had been thinking foolishly. I realized I was looking at things the wrong way.

I realized I was thinking that the evil are getting ahead and it's useless to live for God. But now that I've come into the presence of God and I feel God's presence, I remember that there is a God that judges, there is a day of judgment. And God is going to reward those that live for him. And those that do not live for him will receive the due just for their lives. And so he comes away saying it's worth it to serve God.

I was thinking the wrong way. So getting into God's presence is important because we are living in a world that wants to convince everyone of us there is no God. And the only things that matter is what you get down here. And as long as you got a good job and you got a family that you like and a house you like and whatever education you like, it's going to be okay. It's a lie. You can have a big house and be unhappy.

You can have a big family and be unhappy. You can have PhD, THD, and whatever kinds of Ds and still be unhappy. Amen. But when you got God, little is much. When you got God, a room with nothing in it but you and God seems like a lot. A dark night with no light but God seems like a lot. It's not dark to you, you got the light of God shining in your soul. The light of God. Amen. The presence of God.

The word of God is not there to restrict us. Again, Jesus said there's a narrow gate that leads to the path. In Matthew chapter 7, David said, you'll show me the path of life, that means there is a path, right? Jesus said, enter in at the strait gate. Because narrow is the gate that leads onto life. So Matthew 7:13, 14: "Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat."

It's easy to live the way the rest of the world lives. It's a broad way. Is that why Broadway's called Broadway? Verse 14: "Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leads unto life, and few there be that find it." In other words, you're not going to just stumble into the gate. Nobody is going to stumble into the gate that leads to the path of life. The only reason you found that gate is because in your heart you said, God, is there a way?

God, is there a truth? God, if you're there, I want to know you. God, I want to know who you are. And when a person breathes prayers like that, God starts to lead them. They don't know that they're going on the path, but God is leading them to a path that leads to a gate. But it's a narrow gate. What it means is not everybody gets through it. It's a narrow gate, that means I might have to drop some things to get through it.

Means I can't carry my whole old life with me through that gate, I've got to leave some of it behind to get through the gate. See, a lot of times people are looking for a church that will let them bring the whole thing through. God said it was a narrow gate, not me. God said it is. And if it's a narrow gate, you can't bring everything through. You're going to have to let some things behind and reach for God.

Again, we got all these illustrations in the Old Testament. This is Abraham. Abraham, you're going to have to go through the narrow gate. Get out of your country, from your kindred, from your family, go to a place I'm going to show you. It's narrowing down his life pretty big. Oh, past relatives, the most important thing. They're gone. That's what God—I'm not saying that God's saying that to anybody here, but I'm saying that God will narrow down your life.

They're gone. Well, can't I just stay in the country I'm in and serve you? No, Abraham, you got to go where I tell you. If you want this promise, you got to leave the country you're in and go to the country I'm telling you to go to. Now it is no different for every human being today. If you're going to live for God, you got to live for God the way God says to live for you. Not the way everybody else is, but the way God says to live for you. Amen.

So it's a narrow gate. There is a path of life. God's word will lead to the path of life. But it'll lead you up to the gate, but he says you got to go through the gate. Now I don't just go through the gate and camp. The gate leads to the path, and I got to go through the gate, get on the path, and stay on the path until I see his face. So the path of life, I think we all know these scriptures, but we're going to talk about them anyways.

John 14:6: "Jesus says I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me." You know what that means? That means you don't really know who the Father is until you know who Jesus is. So you can pray all the prayers you want about Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but if you don't really know who Jesus is, you don't really know who the Father is. You can pray your prayers, but you don't know who you're praying to.

But Jesus said, I'm the way. What's he mean? He means he's our example. I'm the truth. He means he is God, he is the word of God manifest in the flesh. I am the life. When I get his spirit, I get true life, eternal life. So I need to follow him. I need to follow his example. And that means if Jesus sacrificed, I'll have to sacrifice. If Jesus endured, I'll have to endure. If Jesus was misunderstood, I'll be misunderstood.

If Jesus was rejected, I will be rejected. If Jesus felt alone, I will feel alone. This is what this all saying, he's our example. If your own family doesn't understand you, that happened to Jesus. So he's our example. And Jesus, again, he says in the Gospel of John in chapter 6, verse 38, he says, "I came not down to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me." To serve God, you're going to have to do God's will. Not my will, not your will, God's will.

That's where the rub comes in because you might have people around you that don't want you to do God's will because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Or they might not want you to change. Listen, I had people say, what did they do to you? They didn't do anything to me, I got God. And I knew they weren't going to understand, so I was prepared. I was prepared for that. I did not expect my family to understand.

I knew I'd found God. I've been through enough darkness, I didn't want to go back to where I came from. Listen, if you've been through darkness and God brought you out, you need to get down on your hands and knees and thank God every day. If God really brought you out of darkness, you'll do what he wants you to do because you don't want to go back where you came. At least that's how I was.

Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life. Until I get him into me, I don't have resurrection power. When I receive the Spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Ghost—Spirit of Christ is not different than the Holy Ghost. Spirit of Christ is not different than the spirit of the Father. God is one spirit, the Bible says. When I get the Holy Ghost, I get Jesus. This is Bible. So when I get the spirit of Christ, I receive resurrection power because the same power that caused him to rise up from the dead in the grave is now in me.

It's just that we only have the earnest or the down payment. In order to come to Jesus, what do we got to do? Praise him? That's getting baptized as a step, but why do I get baptized? Well, I got to get Jesus in my life. I got to die to myself. The reason I get baptized is I died to myself. I'm not doing it my way, I'm now doing it God's way. And God said get baptized in the name of Jesus. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.

Peter, talking about the like figure where as Noah and his family is saved by water in the ark, we are saved by water baptism. Galatians 3:27: "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Romans 6:3: "We're buried with him, and if we've been buried with him into his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection." Colossians: we receive the circumcision made without hands.

In other words, God does a spiritual work in you when you get baptized, he cuts away some things spiritually that you can't deal with yourself. And if I've died to myself, I'll do what God says. See, the problem is that you got people that have a belief in God, and they believe in the goodness of God, and they've had a touch from God and maybe even been used of God, but they have not died to themselves.

Why do you think Moses had to spend 40 years on the backside of the desert? He had his own opinion how God was going to use him to deliver Israel, but it didn't work. 40 years later, Moses has died to himself. God, I can't do it, I can't do anything. Pick somebody else. He doesn't have any confidence in himself anymore. God says, now you're the man. He died to himself. Let's give praise to God. Lord, we thank you. Help us to understand, help us to yield to you, Lord God. Help us to understand there is a path. Help us to understand you're putting choices in front of us.

Luke 9:23 tells us about dying to ourselves. Luke 9:23, Jesus said unto them all, not to some, he said unto them all, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me." That means I got to die to myself, right? If I'm going to deny myself, I have to die to my will. When my will comes into conflict with what God is asking me to do, I've got to deny myself, I got to die to what I want, right?

I got to take up my cross, I've got to take up the instrument that's going to kill me. I got to bear the load for God. And I got to go where God says: follow me. So if I'm going to claim him as my good shepherd, I've got to go in whatever valley the good shepherd goes in. If I want the table with anointing and cup running over, I've got to go through the valley of the shadow of death following the shepherd. Amen.

I've got to follow Jesus. I got to make choices, choices, choices every day. You don't just get born again and it's all good. Take up my cross daily. That's why I say have a prayer life. Get that prayer life going in the morning. It's a lot easier to take that cross up if you've got down on your hands and knees and said, God, I need you. Lord, I want to touch you, I want to live for you, and I need your help. You mean that when you pray, when you get up from there, you're going to have some strength to do what God wants you to do. Hallelujah!

The Bible often describes believers as trees. It says in Jeremiah, it says it in Isaiah, it talks about it. But in Psalm 1, which is a well-known psalm to most people, it describes a blessed man and says, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." So in other words, trees take time to produce something, don't they? I don't just plant an acorn and tomorrow I got an oak tree, right? And if I plant certain kinds of fruit trees, you plant them, some of them it's five, seven years before they bring forth fruit even after they've started to mature.

Trees take time to develop. But it says the man that delights in God's word. He's not following the world's way. He's not standing in the way of sinners, sitting in the seat of the scornful. But he's delighting in the word of God. The word of God has become his guide. The word of God has become the light of his path. The word of God has become his meat. The word of God has become the direction by which he goes for.

And God says, I'll show you what he's like: he's like a tree planted by the rivers. I planted him there, but trees take time. Sometimes we don't receive what God's got for us because you've got to be patient in living for God. It takes time for God to bring forth the fruit out of your life that he wants to bring forth. If we're trees, it's going to take time. It takes time for a tree to grow to stature, it takes time for the tree to bring fruit.

Blessed is the man that delights in the word of the Lord. He'll be like a tree planted by the rivers that brings forth his fruit in season. Stay by the word of God. Stay doing the word of God. God will plant you, God will make you fruitful, in due season you'll bring out the fruit. Amen. You'll have what you need. And when God plants you next to that river, when everybody else is withering up, you've got something to sustain you. Hallelujah!

Thank you, Lord. You don't know you're built on the rock until the storm comes. You don't know you got the right foundation until the storm comes your way. But when you're on the right foundation, when the storm comes, you're still standing. When the storm has gone by, you're still up. You're still alive. Build it on the rock. Build it where God says. It might look everybody's got a good house, but when it's built the right way, God will bring you through. Thank you, Jesus.

You all remember about those hurricanes they had down there in Florida back about 10 or 15 years ago, and they found out certain neighborhoods, the whole neighborhood was demolished. They weren't built the right way. They didn't follow the standards to build them, and the storm came and took them away. But the ones that were built the right way, they're still standing. Build your house on Jesus.

Build your house on the rock. Storms are going to come, but God will bring you through the storm. There's going to be dark nights, there's going to be hard nights, but you're still going to be standing when God is done. You build it God's way like the ark, you'll go through the storm. Hallelujah! Sin tempts us to react in the moment. Sin is always about this momentary thing. This temptation for this momentary thing.

But living for God is a long-range vision. It's looking beyond the moment. To live for God, I got to look beyond the moment to eternity. I got to look beyond the moment to where I'm going to end up. I got to look beyond what I want right now to where I want to be with God. Sin wants you to be involved in the moment. Sin wants to bring you to the moment. Sin wants to bring you right here and now and not look out to where this might lead.

Eve ever took time to think, if I eat this and I do die, what happens? Will Adam be left by himself? What does death mean? All she did was focus on the moment. Looks good to eat, be nice to be knowledgeable like God. Amen. Taste good. Let's do this. That's sin. But living for God, I've got to look beyond the moment. Where is this going? Where is this going to lead if I do this? And that's where the word of God gives us direction.

It lays out a path. Every kind of sin you can think about, it's there in the Bible someplace. So you can find out what happened to people that stayed on the path that's not of God, and you can find out what happens to the people that have stayed on God's path. Amen. And as we obey the Lord, as we start to obey the Lord and stay in obedience to the Lord and follow him, it keeps us in a place where we produce fruit in our life.

And again, a lot of times the reason people fall away is fruit takes time to develop. Sister Ouellette read me something out of a book back a few weeks ago and it was talking about: gifts are given, but fruit must be developed. You want fruit of the spirit? Fruit must be developed, it's going to take time. I'm going to develop that, I got to get planted where God wants me to be planted.

And I got to follow the word of God. I got to start applying the word of God in my life. And again, now I'm going to throw this out there. You got people that go to church, say they believe in God, say they're saved, say that they love Jesus, but they do not have a prayer life. Well, I thought the Bible said, seek me and you'll find me. Seek me means I got to pray. Seek me doesn't mean wait till Wednesday or Sunday.

Seek me means pray and find me wherever you're at. When work sent me to Saudi Arabia, I didn't quit seeking God. I needed to find him in Saudi. When work sent me to India, I didn't need to wait two weeks to get back, I needed to find God in India. And guess what? When you seek him, you find him. Kept me in Saudi, kept me in Bahrain, kept me in India. All list of miracles God did. I'm telling you God did miracles to help me and keep me. Amen.

Those are different things. If you obey the Lord and you follow him, you're going to have fruit in your life. New Testament starts with choices. As we read in Mark chapter 1, verses 14, 15, Jesus said the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel. There's a choice. I can choose to repent or not choose. It's a choice. God's throwing a choice out.

We have a choice to believe what the Bible says and follow it or go our own way. The whole thing really is: are you going to believe the Bible more than what the world says? That's really what it comes down to. You got all kinds of things happening in the world and you got people saying, oh, this—you know, the Bible doesn't mean that or science is bigger than the Bible. Listen, a lot of the science that they are presenting to you, they are only presenting the facts they want you to hear and omitting a lot of facts, and they're not telling the truth.

And if they really told the truth, it would match the Bible. Yeah. The earth is not billions of years old. It's not. They don't have a way to prove it. They're theorizing, they're hypothesizing. Nobody's been around that long. Nobody knows that after 1,000 years or 10,000 years that things weren't working different than they are, that there's less radioactivity or more radioactivity. They got thousands and hundreds of things they found in archaeology that disproves evolution and they label them as Ooparts and put them in the back room so it doesn't upset your view of evolution.

There's books you can read about this. They're lying. God is going to come back someday. God is going to come back. This world is not billions of years old. And man didn't come out of some thing out of the sea. The Bible says God made man out of the earth. The reason they want you to believe evolution is because it undermines Genesis, and if it undermines Genesis, you don't believe the Bible. That's why they're teaching what they're teaching. You got to understand we are fighting anti-God ideas, anti-God ideas.

Jesus said, repent. The time is at hand. Believe the gospel of the kingdom, believe that gospel. I got a choice to believe what God says. Repentance means I got to deny myself, doesn't it? Right? It's admitting I've sinned. It's admitting I've done things that are contrary to what God wants. That's repentance, that's part of it. It's also a commitment to stop sinning. It's not just admitting I'm wrong, but it's a commitment that yeah, I did the wrong thing God, I've done I've gone against what you said, but I don't want to do anything wrong again.

That's repentance. If I'm just trying to get forgiven, that's not real repentance. And I have to turn from sin to Jesus. That's right, you got to do that. Praise the Lord. Do you know a lot of times the problems and storms we go through in our lives is really God trying to get us to turn to him? Wholly, completely, not partially. He's trying to get us to go from believing in God, yeah that God's there, I believe in resurrection, believe Jesus is God, praise God, I believe God can heal, to a point where God, I'm going to do it your way.

When the storm's on you and things are blowing away, and it gets down there's nothing but you left, and you know you're the next thing to blow away, you'll be willing to do what God says. And so God brings storms into our lives because sometimes we are not committed to God the way we are supposed to be committed. And we might be up set with God, but he's trying to save our soul. He's trying to save our soul.

In the Old Testament, had promises from God without power. So Abraham's got a promise, but he's got no power. Noah's got a promise, but he's got no power. Jacob's got a promise, no power. Israel's got a promise, no power. They got a law, but they got no personal power. And this is why the Old Testament's filled with all these stories of Israel going up and down and up and down and up and down. You got a people that know God, have something from God, but got no power to live for God.

The New Testament is about getting the power to live for God, the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is God in us. And when I get God in me, I get God that can help me overcome myself. I get God that will make me want to have his way. I get God that will cause me want to pray. I get God that will cause me want to tell somebody else about God. Amen.

The New Testament provides that new birth, and with the new birth we die to sin in repentance, we're buried with Jesus in baptism and we receive his name, and we're raised in the newness of life by receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Let's read these couple scriptures, we're getting ready to close. We're talking about choices today. We all have choices. I don't know about you, but like Joshua, as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.

1 Corinthians 6:11. He's talking about to the Corinthian church, and they had all kinds of people that were involved in all kinds of sin. You got the whole list, the whole list of stuff in verses 9 and 10. But he says, "And such were some of you, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of God." Now what he's really saying there in different kinds of words is they were born of the water and spirit.

That's what that verse is saying. Sanctified, justified, right? Sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, that's water baptism. When you get baptized, you get sanctified, justified, you get the name, and by the spirit of our God. When I get the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I'm sanctified, justified by the spirit of God. He's saying that, he's talking about being born again of the water and spirit in those very verses right there. Amen.

2 Corinthians 5:17. When you get born again: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature." You can't be a new creature until the old creature dies. Doesn't say you're a transformed creature, it says you're a new creature. Right? Doesn't say you're a multiplied creature or you've been an enhanced creature, you're a new creature. That means you're not the same as you were before, spiritually speaking.

If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are new. When you get born again, life looks different. Amen. The New Testament is promises from God with power to obtain the promises. Each day every one of us has got to make a choice to live for the Lord. Choosing the Lord is life, right? John 14:6, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. He's the bread of life.

He's the word manifest in flesh, right? He's the word manifest in flesh. So if I get this word of life, if I read this Bible, it'll feed me spiritually. He's the light. He shows me how to walk in this life. Right? He's been tempted in all points like as we are, so he can show me how to do it. He's the door. If I'm going to come to God, I got to go through Jesus. You cannot come to God by going through the Father, Holy Ghost; you've got to come through Jesus.

Through what God has done in Christ is what that means. What God has done in the humanity of Christ. Again, we got to understand God chose to robe himself in flesh. Humanity needed another Adam. The first Adam failed, the Bible says Jesus is the last Adam. He's the progenitor or the beginning of a new race of born-again believers. He's the good shepherd. You got to let him guide you.

He's the resurrection. Amen. When the trumpet sounds, the dead in Christ are going to rise first and we that are alive and remain are going to rise up to meet them. But even in this life, sometimes we get buried by problems and situations and the Holy Ghost will resurrect you above that situation. Hallelujah! You can be down there and say this is the end, there's no use, I give up. That Holy Ghost hits you and all of a sudden you rise up and say, I'm going to overcome in this in Jesus' name, and you're walking and praising God.

He's the way, the truth, and the life. He's the true vine. That means you got to stay connected to him. You can't just touch him once in a while. If I'm going to bear fruit, I got to stay connected. I got to be the tree planted by the river. Tree doesn't move around, tree stays where God plants it. Finally he's the I Am. He's the God of eternity robed in flesh. He is the Father manifest in flesh. He is the Holy Ghost manifest. When you get Jesus, you get the Father, you get the Son, you get the Holy Ghost. That's why the name of Jesus takes care of everything in baptism because he is the I Am.

Would you stand here this morning? We all got choices. What choices are you making today? What choice do you want? Amen. If you haven't made a choice for the Lord, it's time to start going in that direction. If God has been asking you to make some choices in your life, you already believe, already got the Holy Ghost, but maybe God is asking you to make some choices. Today's a good day to start making those choices. You want to know God, you're going to have to make the choices that God has laid out to know him.

The altar's open, you can come and pray and ask God. Maybe you're wrestling with a choice, you're not sure about the choice, but you can ask God to help you. Lord, is this really the way you want me to go? Maybe you know the choice you're supposed to make but you're worried about family and friends and what other people are going to say and how it's going to affect your life. The altar's a good place to iron that out. I remember sitting at that altar, kneeling at the altar right there in this church thinking, God, I don't have the power and strength to live for you, but I know what you're asking.

But then I realized I'm going to have to trust God in faith because that's the only way I'm going to have to step in faith to receive what God wants for me. Come on, God is here. He's faithful God. He wants you—he's already chosen you, he wants you to choose him. He wants you to choose him. Lord God, we thank you here today. We praise you, Lord God. We thank you, Lord, that you have given us choices.

You haven't consigned some to hell and some to heaven, but we all have an opportunity. This is for whosoever will. This promise is for whosoever will, our children, all that are far off, even as many as you're calling, Lord God, it's for all of us. Lord, we're asking you, Lord God, help us here to make the right choices. Help us, Lord, to have faith to make the choices we need to make. To make the choices you want us to make, Lord God.

Help us to be planted where you want us to be planted. Lord, to get rid of the things and add things that need to be added and remove the things that shouldn't be there. Lord God, to believe you, Lord God, that we could be the tree planted by the waters, bring forth our fruit in our season, Lord God. Lord, we thank you, Lord God. Help us to understand where we end up is going to be a result of the choices that we make.

Help us to determine in our heart and our mind today we're going to choose according to your way, Lord God, your word, your purpose, your will, Lord God. Lord, we praise you, we thank you, Lord God. We love you, Lord God, we worship you, Lord God. You are worthy, you are worthy, you are worthy, hallelujah, you are worthy. Come on, he's speaking to our hearts, he's helping us. He's here to help us.

Come on, if we'll just give to him and act according to what we know the word says. And if we're not sure, we got a choice, we feel like a choice, we need to make a choice but we don't know what the Bible says. If you'll pray and ask God to show you, God will guide you in the Bible where you need to be to receive an answer for the choice that you've got to make. Come on, he'll guide it, he'll confirm it. Hallelujah, he's a faithful God. He's not a respecter of persons.

Lord, we're asking you, Lord, to strengthen all that are here, Lord God. Help us in the choices, God. Help us to make the choices that you're impressing upon us, Lord God. Help us to make the commitments we need to make. Help us to lay at your feet things that we're trying to handle. Hallelujah, sometimes that's the choice. The choice is we're trying to handle something that God says give it to me. Hallelujah, we're trying to wrestle or work something out that God says just give it to me and I'll take care of it, I'll take care of it.

You do what I've told you to do, you just do what I tell you to do, and I'll take care of the rest. Amen. Don't be an Abraham and Sarah and try to work it out in your own mind. Hallelujah, do what God says to do and God will work out the rest. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we praise you, Lord God. We thank you, Lord. Hallelujah, hallelujah, come on, he's working here. Come on, there's strength, there's strength in the altar, there's strength in praying, there's strength in seeking God.

Hallelujah, sometimes when we touch God, we don't realize it because we're expecting some big shock or some big jolt, and sometimes he just comes slowly on us and upon us, starts to speak to us and talk to us, and we don't even really realize that he's been talking to us and moving on us until we get up and leave the church and we find out we've been in the presence of God. Come on, he's speaking here. We got to make decisions, we got to make decisions, choices.

God lets us make choices, but our choices determine the outcome, determine the fruitfulness of our life in God. Hallelujah, Lord God, we praise you, strengthen everyone that's here, Lord God. Everyone that's in the valley of decision here today, Lord God. Asking you, Lord, to help them make the right choice. Draw them with bands, cords of love, Lord God. Draw them, help them to see, Lord God, that your way is life. Your word is life, Lord God. Help them to see, Lord God, that your words give the path to life, Lord God. It's not there to inhibit, but it's there to strengthen and guide us.

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. 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 SSPCWhitman. Write us today and request a free copy of today's message and join us for another broadcast of Apostolic Truth.