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: When we're afraid, you can't receive things from God. Do you understand that? When we're afraid, we can't receive things from God. We can't, because we have to have faith. Faith in God. Faith starts by believing that God exists. That's the first step. If you believe that and you start to look at your Bible, if you start to believe what the Bible says, now you have faith. You can start to receive things from God. But while you're afraid, you can't receive. You have to admit your fear, like the man that had a paralytic son. He said, "I believe, Lord, help my unbelief."

I think we all pray that prayer sometimes. I know I do. Amen. I'm not ashamed that I do pray that prayer, but I know that if I can admit that I've got a weakness and be honest with God, God is going to meet me. "I believe, Lord, help thou my unbelief." A lot of times we believe God will do it, just not for us. A lot of times that's the stumbling block. Well, God will do it for them or them or they're special or something. No. God wants to do things for all of us.

When we come to Him and repent of our sins and get born again the Bible way, get buried in Jesus' name, get the Holy Ghost, God makes you a new creature. God is not dealing with you with your past. He's not dragging your past into where you are. He's now dealing with you as a new born-again creature. He wants to lift you up and get you beyond your past. Not forget the past, but get us beyond the past so that we can listen to Him and serve Him. Amen. Praise God.

Let's read these scriptures here this morning. Isaiah 9:6, a familiar scripture. I can't stop. I'm sorry. I didn't have anything there, but now I've got something here. Even Jesus in Mark chapter six, He goes into Nazareth and the Bible says He could do no great works there because of their unbelief. Now that's Jesus. Mark chapter six. Oh, we know Him. He was raised here. How can He have all these things? But yet He does. And it said He could do no great works there except to heal a few people.

What I'm trying to say is unbelief keeps us from receiving. Don't look at yourself against other people to receive from God. Look at you and God. I can't look at myself with that person or this person or somebody else and compare myself to them to say, well, they got it. Let's see. Do I measure up to them? I can get it. No. It's me and God. What do You have for me? Can I have it? Can I have it?

This is where we have to deal with God as each of us. God does want us to be a body, but we all come to God individually. We all have to have our own personal relationship with Him. Amen. And it's not just one thing. It's not like you graduate from school and now you go out in the workforce. It's a constant renewing. Living for God is a constant renewing. In this world, if you're going to live for God and be successful, you have to make a plan to maintain your relationship. It's not going to happen by accident. It won't happen by accident. You've got to make a plan to seek God. God's there waiting. God's waiting on us. Most of the time, God is just waiting for us to get serious. He's there waiting for us to want bad enough what He's got, to believe it. He's waiting for us.

So if I've got a plan to have a relationship with God, God will meet us. The fact that God came in the flesh tells us God wants to know us. The fact that God would allow His humanity to die and be abused for our sins tells us God wants us. God cares about us. He wants to be in our lives. Not just some people's lives. That's why Jesus said, "And this gospel shall be preached in all nations, to all people." God wants everybody to know.

Let's try to read these scriptures again. Isaiah 9:6. Again, a great scripture. This is a scripture worth memorizing if you don't have it memorized. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." You need a counselor? God can be your counselor. Now I'm not saying don't go to other counselors, human counselors, because in the multitude of counsel there's wisdom. But God can counsel us on a lot of things. A lot of the answers are here and we just need to go to God and let God speak it to us. We find it in here. A lot of things are the result of sin and improper thinking.

When you go to the counselor, what he's really doing is straightening our thinking out. Right? That's what it comes down to. If they're a good counselor, all they're doing is just trying to set your thinking in the right way. When your thinking gets right, your emotions start to get right. When your emotions get right, your body gets right. Amen.

So He's wonderful. He's counselor. He's the mighty God. He's everlasting Father. He's the Prince of Peace. Amen. In the Gospel of John chapter 14 verse 27, Jesus said these words: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." God wants us to have peace in our hearts, doesn't He? Amen. That's what it says there.

Just go over a chapter to John 16:33. He says, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." In other words, if I get in His hands, I can make it. Hallelujah. Praise God. If I get into His hands, I get into Him, I get into where He is, He's already overcome the world. That means I can overcome because I'm in Him that overcame. Hallelujah. Praise God.

He said, "I want you to have peace. I want you to understand there's going to be turmoil, but I want you to have peace." I think we all know that in life's situations, there's things that we don't like. We encounter situations that are ugly, bad, terrible. We wish we never had them. Things that we put pictures in our mind, heartbreaking, fearful, gut-wrenching. Things that may seem impossible to overcome. But Jesus said, "In this world we'll have tribulation." In other words, in this world, there's going to be things we don't like. Living for God does not remove all things we don't like. Living for God doesn't mean that it's now all a smooth road and blue sky. But it does mean we've got a God that'll help us deal with all circumstances and situations.

We've got a God that will never leave us nor forsake us. A God that said, "Cast all your cares upon me, for he cares for us." A God that said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." Amen. In another place He said, "Unless you're like a little child, you cannot receive the kingdom of God." What's that mean? That means I've got to get faith in God and quit believing in all the circumstances and the situations and all the voices that the world is putting on me. He also said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace," and He said, "Be good cheer, I've overcome the world," and He said, "Don't let our hearts be troubled." I'm saying those scriptures again because if you take time to think of the context in which Jesus said those, it makes more impact.

Jesus said those two scriptures, John 14:27 and John 16:33, on the night of the Last Supper. Jesus knows that in a little time, they're going to come and take Him away and arrest Him, start to beat Him leading up to prison, whip Him, mock Him, and crucify Him. He knows that the disciples are going to face something they never expected to face. He knows that all of a sudden it's going to be the opposite of what they thought was going to happen. Remember, they're following Jesus, who is God. What I'm trying to say is sometimes following God doesn't go the way we think it should go or imagine it should go, but I've got to have my faith in Him.

If you mold a picture of how you think, now that I've come to God, that God is going to work it, you are going to be shipwrecked somewhere down the road. Yes, you will. He said, "In the world you're going to have tribulation." There's going to be some problems. But be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. In other words, I can give you what you need in spite of the problem. I can help you even though it's not good for you. I can bring you through. I can give you a new perspective. I can cause you to look at it in a way you never thought of. I can actually cause you that you might end up praising me that you let me go through the circumstance. Hallelujah.

So again, Jesus is saying this on the night of the Last Supper, and the apostles are getting ready to run away. They're going to run away out of fear and they're going to wonder when this happens, when He's taken away. They're going to wonder, did I just waste three and a half years of my life? Was I deceived? Is there someone else? Did I misunderstand what God said? They're going to be asking these questions. Did we do something wrong and that's why it happened?

These are things you deal with if you're living for God. If you're living for God, you've got to deal with these kinds of questions. Because as you're doing the very will of God, you run into circumstances that are not the way you would like them to be. And when it turns upside down, the devil's there to tell you, you did something wrong. Or maybe you believed the wrong thing. God will try us. God will try us. "The trying of your faith being much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at Jesus Christ's coming." The trial of our faith. God will let it happen.

Those apostles are going to feel guilt for abandoning. They're going to wonder all these things. That's why Jesus is telling them, "I'm giving you peace. I'm not giving you peace the way the world gives. My peace, you don't have to come and buy it. You just have to believe it and receive it." Amen. You're going to have peace in the world. I've overcome the world. That means that through me you can have peace even in the bad circumstance.

Oh, say I can have peace in a bad circumstance. I can have peace when it's all upside down. I can have peace when it's not working out the way I want it. I can have peace when I don't know the answer. I can have peace when it looks like the ship is crashing. I can have peace when it looks like it's all done. But God has got an answer. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Those apostles and believers, they didn't understand that what looked like the end was actually the beginning. God will take us to a place that looks like a dead end and it's the beginning. The Red Sea. The Red Sea looked like a dead end, but it was the beginning of deliverance from Egypt. Hallelujah. And when the resurrection took place three days later, all of a sudden what looked like a dead end became a beginning. What looked like no hope became hope unlimited. What looked like no answer became the answer. What looked like no way became the way. And what looked like where they had made a mistake, they realized we had done the right thing. We have believed in the right one. We are on the right track. Amen. God is real and God is with us. Hallelujah.

So Jesus was trying to teach them a lesson. When you're following the Lord, don't lose your peace just because things look bad or don't seem to be turning out the way we think they should. God is bigger than our circumstance. God is bigger and He is able to work a miracle, and the Bible is full of circumstances that God has shown that He can work a miracle when there is no answer. Hallelujah.

In the city of Samaria, they're all walled up. The Syrians have got the Samaritans all walled up and they're at the point that there's no food in the city at all. And they're thinking nothing's going to happen. But God gives Elisha a prophecy: "By the end of this day, they'll be selling the wheat and they'll be selling the meat in the gate for the price that's here." And people did not believe. One man of the rulers did not believe. But they didn't understand that God was going to move on four lepers outside of the gate and they were going to go, "Let's go to the Syrians' camp because we're going to die here. We're going to die in the city. If we go to the Syrians, we'll die too if they kill us, but maybe they'll give us food."

And they get there to the camp and the Syrians have left the camp and fled because God caused them to hear something, either the sound of those lepers marching or angels or something, and they became afraid another army came. And Elisha's prophecy, they sold the wheat, they sold the barley in the gate. The city had all the food they needed when there was no answer that morning. Amen. God is not a respecter. I'm trying to say God can do it when you don't understand it. You don't need to know how, you just need to believe.

Peace in this world really is dependent upon a proper relationship with Jesus Christ. You want peace in this world, you've got to have a right relationship with the Lord. We read that scripture, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." What does that mean? That means Jesus is the ruler of the dominion of peace or the kingdom of peace. Jesus is the ruler of the kingdom of peace. Amen. And if I'm going to partake of the peace of Jesus, I've got to get into His kingdom.

I've got to get into His domain. Not His domain as the sovereign God, but His domain that He's created for believers, the church, the kingdom of God. There's going to be a day where God's going to take up His sovereign power and judge everything. That's going to happen. But right now, God is working through the kingdom of God, the church. And if you want to have peace in your life, peace in your situation, you need to get into the kingdom. And you need to stay there and don't let the devil butt you out of the kingdom.

Right? Sometimes we get into the kingdom, but we let the devil push us out of the kingdom or chase us out of the kingdom. It's not that he can come into the kingdom, but he'll throw an idea your way. And that idea is so fearful that we run out of the kingdom. We run from what God wants us to have. We run from the place of peace. We run from the thing that God wants to sustain us with because the devil makes us so afraid we quit looking at what God's got and look at what the devil's got.

Peace in your situation. Now Jesus demonstrated in His life many ways that He's the Prince of Peace. One day He told the disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." They got in a ship, and as they were going over the Sea of Galilee, a big storm arose so bad that it was filling the boat with water and they were afraid. These are fishermen that are used to being on the water and in storms, but they were afraid enough that the boat is sinking. They woke up Jesus, and Jesus stood up and rebuked the wind and the waves and there was a calm. What's Jesus trying to say? "I am the Prince of Peace. I can speak peace in a second. If I stand up, peace is going to come. I can put peace into your circumstance in a word." Hallelujah.

Again, He delivered the demoniac, which is recorded in three of the Gospels. In Mark 5:2-6 and verse 15, the demoniac, it said he had a legion called Legion. Legion, that means he had 2,000 to 6,000 devils in him by most people's understanding. Not just one devil, 2,000 to 6,000 devils. Mark says they couldn't bind him with chains. He broke the chains asunder. He plucked the chains and the metal bands off his thing. Demonic power can do that. Our girls knew a guy named Al who used to go to the prison there in Walpole and he talked about a guy he saw that had demons in him and saw him rip the chains right off the wall. He saw. Bible says it. This man told us about it. It can actually happen.

But Jesus, when that man saw Jesus, he ran and worshipped. Even those demons couldn't keep the man from coming to Jesus. If those demons had enough power, they would have made him run the other way. But he runs to Jesus and worships. They realized we better go right to Jesus because He's going to get us one way or another. So let's see if we can bargain out of this thing. And Jesus casts those devils out of them into a swine. They go down, the swine wouldn't take the devils, it killed them.

And when the people come and find this man who they knew had been possessed, he's clothed and in his right mind. Before, his mind was tormented. He couldn't live with people. He's living in the tombs. He's cutting himself. You know when people start cutting themselves, that's a sign of a demonic influence working. You've got kids cutting themselves. You've got people cutting themselves. Piercings, tattoos. Tattoos are microscopic cuttings filled with ink. Now if you've got those and you come to God, they're under the blood. They're under the blood. Just don't get any more. Don't get any more. God's put it under the blood, so you don't have to worry about it. Hallelujah. Praise God.

But you see, demonic powers affect people. They don't realize. But if you'll come to Jesus, He can give you peace. He can overcome all the demons in your life. We sometimes get all upset about one or two or fifteen or twenty demons, but Jesus took care of 2,000 or 6,000 with "Get out of him." If I give myself to the Lord, if I commit myself to the Lord, God's not going to let demons stay inside me. He's going to bring them out. God's not going to have something with demons in them. If I've given myself to God, God's going to take the demons out. You give yourself to God, God will take the demons out. Hallelujah.

Again, another time the disciples are out there rowing after feeding the five thousand. They're rowing and they're rowing and they're rowing all night and the wind is contrary. They're not getting anyplace. But the Bible says in the fourth hour of the night, Jesus comes walking on the water. And in the Gospel of John, it says when He got into the boat, the boat was at land. One of the other ones says the wind still when He got into the boat. What am I saying? I'm saying He's the Prince of Peace. He is. Your situation can be a torment, a turmoil, upside down one moment, but when Jesus steps into your situation, the Prince of Peace has arrived.

If you will let that peace have dominion in you, if you will let that peace take authority in you, if you will let the Spirit of God have authority in your life, you can have the peace that passes understanding even in your circumstance. God is able to change the circumstance in a moment or bring you through the circumstance.

Again, when Jesus was crucified, when He rose, when He first appeared to the disciples in the room, they were afraid because all of a sudden the doors are all closed. They're all in the room. There's Jesus standing in the middle. What did Jesus say? He said, "Peace be unto you." They're all closed up, thinking they got Jesus, they're coming for us next. So let's hide out until we can escape. All the doors and the windows are closed. Let's hide out. But Jesus shows up in the midst, says, "Peace be unto you."

If you let the Lord get into your life, not try to bring God into your life, but you let God get into your life and start to direct your life. Again, so many times people are trying to bring God into their life. Okay, here's the way I figured out my life. This is nothing wrong with this, it's not immoral, this is what I'd like to do, this is what I feel like would be good, and this is where I'm going, and I'm preparing for all this. But I know that I need God so I can go to heaven. Let's get God into this. Listen, God may not want to go that way with you. You've got to get into the Lord, right? He said "In me." He said "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." In me you'll have peace. I've got to get into Him. I've got to get into Him.

We have to understand sometimes we've got to change our direction. And it's not always a matter of sin. It's a matter of God's purpose for us and why we're alive. Because again, God knows us before we're born. Read Jeremiah 1:5 and read Psalm 139 around verse 16. God knows us before we're born. Now if I'm in a different place than God wants me to be, it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. Because I'm going to be encountering things God never intended for me to encounter. I'll be dealing with things that God doesn't intend for me to deal with. But if I'll go where God wants me to go and be what God wants me to be, then whatever comes, God already knows and God has planned for it. And He's going to give me what I need to deal with the circumstance. Praise God. We're talking about getting Jesus in our situation. Amen.

Again, peace in this world, when we're under the authority of Jesus. To be under the authority, again, you've got to be part of the kingdom of God, right? Now the Bible says to be in the kingdom of God, I've got to be born of the water and the Spirit. That means water baptism and Holy Ghost baptism. That's what that means. And on Wednesday night we looked at a whole bunch of different scriptures that showed spirit and water. So I'm not going to say those all again. But if you study your Bible, you've got to be born again and born again is a water baptism and a Holy Ghost baptism. Not just a Holy Ghost baptism, but a water baptism and a Holy Ghost baptism. Not just a water baptism, but a water baptism and a Holy Ghost baptism. And you've got to repent first.

So if I got a water baptism and I don't have a Holy Ghost baptism, I've felt God and God's in that and I'm going to feel something, but I'm not totally born again, if you want to say. I don't think it's right to say I'm half born or quarter born, but I'm not born again yet God's way. Or vice versa. I got baptized in Jesus' name in faith and I got, but I didn't get the Holy Ghost. I'm not born again yet. I need to do the whole process. The whole process needs to be done. And you study out the book of Acts and this is what the early church taught.

So I'm not talking about what some denomination says, this is our set of rules, this is what we believe. I'm not talking about some Nicene Creed or Athanasian Creed. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about what the Bible says and shows us. So again, when we get born again, I can't enter the kingdom without being born again. But when I'm in the kingdom, I'm in the kingdom of the Prince of Peace, right?

So that means I'm under His authority, right? Again, to not get into the kingdom and to go some other place and to do what you want to do, even if it's not sin, but not really get in the kingdom and expect God to be intervening is like me going to Russia and expecting the laws of America to apply to me in Russia. I'm in a different kingdom. It doesn't work. It doesn't matter that they work here, I'm in a different kingdom. And if I'm not in God's kingdom, I'm in the devil's kingdom, because there's only two places. There's not three, there's not a gray line. There's no fence you can walk on. You're either in the Lord's or you're not.

And so a lot of times again we have problems because we believe in God, we've had an experience with God, but we're not in His kingdom. Or we're not staying in the kingdom. I've got to stay in. I've got to get in and stay in. Where I'm in His kingdom, His laws are law. That's the law. It's enforced. The devil can't do anything there. He doesn't allow because He's the king of the kingdom. But if I'm outside of the kingdom, then I'm allowing myself to be in the realms under the influence of the enemy. And now I can come under his jurisdiction. This is why sometimes when you get saved, you don't go to the same places. Because if I go in that place, I know that place is not under the Jesus. It's designed to be under the devil. Amen.

So sin in your life will separate you from God. And when you sin, it also gives the devil authority. So if I sin, but if I repent, I'm good with God. Okay. But if I sin and I don't repent, I now have given the devil an area in my life that he has authority. So even little sins. You can be a good person from the world's point of view and maybe from even our point of view, but you've got a little sin there. The devil's still got authority in your life. You've got hidden sins. The devil knows about the hidden sins. He's got authority in your life. Remember Jesus said in the Gospel of John, "The prince of this world comes, but he's got nothing in me." What he meant was there's no sin that he can grab onto. He's got no handhold in my life. There's nothing that he can get ahold and bend me or do something to me because there's no sin.

So when we have a little sin, we give the devil authority in that area in our life. And so James says this: You want to be free from the devil? It says, "Submit yourselves to God." James 4:7: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Now I'm going to be in hot water right now. Anybody got a tea bag? If you know you're supposed to get baptized in Jesus' name and you're not doing it, you're resisting God. You're not submitted to God. If you know the Bible's saying to do something and you're not doing it, you're not submitted to God. All right? Now we're not talking about something that you read but you're not sure about it and you're still trying to understand what God really's saying. That's a different story. But we're talking about you know that God says this, and you're supposed to be applying that in your life a certain way. You're not submitted to God.

So guess what? The Bible says, "Submit to God and the devil will flee from you." If I'm not submitted to God, the devil does not have to flee. He's got a reason why he can stay there and accuse you. Now he's always going to try to accuse you even when he doesn't have a reason. You've got to understand that. But if you've repented again and you've done what God says to do and you've got the Holy Ghost, you're living for God, it's under the blood and you can tell the devil that. You can tell him, "Get behind me." Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Adam and Eve were afraid of God after they had sinned. Genesis 3:8-10. When they hear the voice of the Lord, they went and hid themselves, the Bible says. And God said to them, "Why were you hiding?" in so many words. He says, "Well, we were naked and we were afraid. We were naked and we were afraid." Sin brings fear. Sin brings fear and sin causes us to run from God. A lot of people don't come to church because they've got sin they don't want to deal with yet. So they stay out of church. It's not they don't believe in God. They're waiting.

You know some people think, oh well, I'll just wait until I'm almost on my deathbed and then I'll get saved. There's people that think that way. Well, you don't know how fast your death might come. You don't know that. And we don't know when God will quit working to draw us. If we resist God enough, God may say, "Okay, I'll let you have your way. You don't want to live for me. I gave you free will. You can have your way." You don't know where that point is. I don't know where that point is. And I'm going to say it's different for each one of us. Because God is not dealing with me the way He's dealing with you. He's dealing with each one of us by who we are and our background. So you might get a longer grace than I do. That could be.

But sin will separate you from God. Sin makes you run from God and hide from God. So I've got to humble myself. Again in James, he said in the verse before that, "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." Again, that's why some now sometimes people don't get the Holy Ghost. They'll come and say, "All right, I'm convicted of sin. I'll go to the altar, but I'm not going to speak in tongues." That's a pride thing. That's a pride thing. "All right, I need to get saved, but I'm only going to be the way I want to be. I'm not going to let the church tell me anything." Got a pride thing. "I'll live for God, you know, and I'll give my money, but I'm not going to speak in tongues or I'm not going to roll on the floor, I'm not going to cry, not going to lift my hands, not going to run, not going to dance." Those are pride things.

And a lot of times when we make those statements, God says, "That's what you're going to do now if you're going to come to me." And the reason why, the reason why we don't understand it is if God says something and I bow to that, I do it, I am worshipping God. By obeying what God says because He said it, I am worshipping God. I am bowing to God. But when God says something and the world says something and I say I'm not going to do it because the world's going to think this, I just bowed to the world. I made the world get my bow and not God get my bow. So that idol's got to come down before I can come to God.

This is Gideon, right? Book of Judges. Gideon's called. The first thing you've got to do is tear down your father's idol. Tear down your father's idol. Sometimes coming to God, you've got to tear down some things that have been put into you from your family. Let's give God some praise right now. Lord, we praise You, Lord. We thank You, Lord God. We love You, Lord. Help us, God. Help us, Lord God. We need You, Lord God. We thank You, Lord God. We know that You're the Prince of Peace, Lord God. Speak to our hearts and our minds. Help us, Lord God, here. Help us, Lord God, to humble ourselves under Your hand, Lord God. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Now since we're made in God's image and likeness, the Bible says that in Genesis 1:27. It says that we're made in His image and likeness. What that means is as God put a moral base into us. Okay? Ten Commandments. They're basically there in our hearts. Before God gave them on Mount Sinai, they knew it was wrong to kill. It was wrong for Cain to kill. Cain had never seen a list of the Ten Commandments. He knew it was wrong, right? They knew it was wrong to lie. They knew it was wrong to steal. Even looking back in Abraham's day when there's no Ten Commandments given, they know it's wrong to take another man's wife. Right? When they go over to the Philistines, they said, "You could have brought God's curse on us because I took your wife because I thought it was your daughter or your sister, you said." How could you do this thing? So they knew.

Why? Because God puts it in us by conscience. Now a lot of times we don't have peace because our conscience is accusing us. We're not doing what God has asking us to do and we push it down. And a lot of things you see people doing is because they're not dealing with their conscience. Their conscience is bothering them. They don't have peace. So they've got to party till the sun comes up because they can't get in bed and go to sleep. They always got to have one more thrill, something that's exciting enough to lift them above the conscience that's depressing them. Because they know it in their heart that something's wrong. Sometimes only subconsciously, sometimes consciously. Those sins that are there, they know that.

So they're going out and partying and getting drunk and getting high and sexual escapades and trying to accomplish things and trying always for something bigger and more exciting because they don't want to deal with themselves. They're afraid. They can't be in a room by themselves. I mean, you can go to people's houses, they run their television twenty-four hours a day. They don't want to turn it off and have any quiet in the house. There's something wrong.

When you get God, you're not afraid to sit in a room by yourself. When you get God, you're not afraid when you're by yourself. You might get lonely, but you start to pray and God's going to show up. Amen. We're talking about sin in our lives. So the guilt will take away the peace that God wants you to have. And the guilt will rob you of your peace. When a person gets born again, he's got access to the peace of God.

Now again, you have to learn, you have to have faith in what God says even after you're saved. You can have scriptures memorized, but if you don't believe what it says, it doesn't do anything for you. If you don't believe it. So if God says, "If you call upon me, I'm going to answer," if you don't believe that, you're not going to get any answers from God, mostly likely. If God says, "Seek me and you'll find me," if you don't believe that, you're really not going to seek God. And you might go from place to place hoping you'll God will show up in some of those places. But if I believe what God says and I start to apply it, then I can have the things that God wants me to have.

The Bible says that when we're born again, Bible says you must be born of the water and Spirit to enter the kingdom of God. Romans 14:17 says the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, joy and peace. If I got born again the Bible way, I can claim peace. I can claim peace from God. God, I'm in Your kingdom. I need peace. Now understand that doesn't always mean the situation changes, but God can give you peace in the circumstance and situation that you're able to deal with it and know that He's in control.

Again, if you've got the Holy Ghost, the fruit of the Spirit starts to work in you, and the Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. You can wake up Monday morning all troubled by what's coming down the road and maybe had bad dreams or you just feel uneasy, but you can say, "Wait a minute. I'm in the kingdom of God. I'm claiming peace. I've got the Holy Ghost, I'm claiming fruit of the Spirit, I'm claiming peace. I'm in the kingdom of God. He is the Prince of Peace, I'm claiming peace." Amen. And if you believe it, peace is going to come. You're going to find a peace that passes understanding. You're going to find a God that stands up in your life. You're going to find out a God that takes you through the storm and brings you to your destination.

And again, when I'm in the kingdom, now I can take my prayers to God. He said, "Be careful for nothing; but by everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." I'm in the kingdom, God, I've got a problem. Here it is. Hallelujah. And I thank You. I thank You for everything. I thank You for what's not working the way I want. I thank You, Lord God, that You're in my life. Here's my problem. Here's my situation. I need peace. You said it's part of the thing. You are the Prince of Peace. I acknowledge it. I'm claiming it. Devil, be gone. I'm going to have peace in the midnight hour. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

All stand up and give Him a praise. Come on, just stand up. Thank God for peace. Thank Him for peace that passes understanding. Come on, thank Him. Thank Him. God, I can have peace. Lord, I don't have to be tormented by my past. Lord, I don't have to be tormented by my mind. Lord, I don't have to be tormented by my mistakes. Lord, You are bigger. You're bigger than the earth. You're bigger than the galaxy. You're bigger than hell. You're bigger than all the false together. You're bigger than all my mistakes. You're bigger than my limitations. You're bigger than the judges. You're bigger than all my resources. You are able, God. You are able, God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Just be seated just for a little bit more. Hallelujah. Proverbs 16:7 says that God will, when a man's ways please God, He'll make even his enemies to be at peace with him. See, when you're living right for God, there's a lot of times God will override people around you to intervene for you. Right. Listen, there can be people that don't like you because you're a Christian and God will intervene. They've got hostility about you, but God says, "No, you're not going near them." God will intervene. Amen. They hold them back. God will lift you up just like Mordecai. Haman doesn't like Mordecai, he doesn't like the Jews, but God intervenes. Amen. The person you think you're taking down, he's going to take you down. The person you think you're above, I'm going to lift him above you. Hallelujah. When a man's ways please God, and that means men and women, when a person's ways please God, God will start to work in your life. Now that doesn't mean it's always a smooth road, but understand God is in control of it all. Hallelujah.

Again, a lot of times we have a hard time because God's purpose and ways are different than ours. If I'm going to be successful at living for God, I have to line up my ways and my purposes with His ways and His purposes. Do you believe that? I believe that. Yes, sir. All right. God says it. He says it in Isaiah. It's on the screen there. 55:8: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." God doesn't think the way we do.

So where we look and say, "That's a limitation that can't be overcome," God says, "That's not a problem." When we look and say, "I feel like it's got to be done this way," God says, "No, I can do it another way." When we think, "I've got to have this, this and this in order to deal with this," God says, "No, I can deal with it a different way than you think." And like Paul said in Corinthians, He said He'll take things that don't exist and bring them into existence to deal with the problem.

So we can look around and say, "I don't see the answer," but God can bring it out. He'll create it to deal with it. He'll take foolish things to confound the wise. He'll take weak things to confound the mighty. See, and that's why the disciples were blindsided by the crucifixion. To them, Him dying was a weak thing. "We're waiting for Messiah to get on the horse and the power of God to judge all the sinners and bring the kingdom in. Power! Power!" The way we think of it as human beings. "Yeah!" But God says, "I'm going to use death to destroy death. I'm using death to beat death. I'm not overpowering death by my sovereign ability, I'm using death to destroy death."

So sometimes we're struggling because we are trying to tell God or we're limiting in our mind how God, what God needs to do to deal with the circumstance. And sometimes we're having a problem because we have a different purpose than God. And again, it doesn't mean it's a sinful purpose. But God used death to defeat death and He used weak things to confound the mighty. So the Lord has a purpose for our lives. And it's not just to get saved. God saves us so we can get into the purpose. Okay? The end is not just get saved and now live a good life. That's not what Christianity's about. Christianity is get saved so we can now become part of the purpose that God has ordained for us. Amen.

So a lot of people are sitting there thinking, "Well, I'm saved, I'm all set." No, that's good. That's the starting point. That's the starting point. Now that I'm saved, what does God want me to do? Where do I fit into the body? What is the purpose? Why am I here in this world, God? Again, nobody's here by accident. He, our members are written in the book before we're conceived. So He knows why we're here. We're here with a purpose before we are conceived or created. So when we get saved, now we're in position to start to find out God's purpose. Now sometimes we do know His purpose before we get saved. But a lot of times people are sitting there thinking, "I'm saved and I'm all set." And if you're going to find God's purpose, you've got to have faith and patience. Faith and patience.

So faith in the Lord means you believe what He says. All right? It's not just the belief that He can do it. Faith in God is faith in God's Word. This the Bible says this is a supernatural book. "All scripture's given by inspiration of God, profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness, that the man of God or woman of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." So if I'm going to do good works and I'm to be furnished, I need the Word of God, don't I? All scripture, not most of it. Now one reason you've got to pray and study is because even though it's all scripture, sometimes you don't apply it all the same way. So you've got to learn how to apply different things that are in there. But it's all there because God has put it there. And if I believe God's put it there, then I should start to want to try to apply it in my life.

So sometimes we arrive at the point, "Now I believe God, I believe that's the Word of God, I believe God's able to do it," and we start going and we go down the road and things start happening and the thing we believe that God had spoken to us, and a lot of times He has spoken it to us, it's not happening. And in fact it seems like everything's going backwards to what God promised or said to us. And we need patience for God to work it out. So the scripture says this in Hebrews 6:12: "That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." Now if you go back and read the context, He's talking about Abraham and he's also talking about Isaac and Jacob. Those people waited a long time, went through a lot of things to receive what God had for them. But they kept going because they believed God. Not because it looked like it was turning out the way they thought. But they believed what God had said to them.

Again in Hebrews 10:36, he says, "Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." So again sometimes God'll put it on us, "Fast, go fast for three days." You go fast for three days, nothing happens the next day, the next day, the next day, the next month. But you have need of patience after you've done the will of God, you might receive the promise. God might do something during the fast, the day after the fast, and He might do something way down the road because of the fast. Doing the will of God does not mean that God always does something right away. We have need of patience. Hallelujah.

So as I've said already, faith in the Lord means you believe what He says, believe He cares for you. That's this is an important thing. When you're living for God, when you're in the kingdom, you're under His dominion. Nothing can happen there that He does not allow. So even though I'm in His hand, remember the devil's got fiery arrows, doesn't he? Fiery darts. So the devil can't come and get in in Jesus' hand, but he can launch some darts my way. Right? He can launch some missiles into the kingdom. But if I've got faith in God and I know what God says in 1 Corinthians 10:13, it says, "There's no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful." Say "God is faithful." Who will not suffer or allow you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10:13. When you're in the kingdom, things can still happen, but God is not going to let something happen that you don't have the ability with Him to handle. That's a good reason to get in the kingdom. Now if I'm outside of the kingdom, that promise doesn't hold. Things can come upon me. If I'm not where God wants me to be, things can come upon me that are greater than I can bear. So I need to get in the kingdom.

So we've got to commit ourselves to the Lord and obeying His Word and trusting in it. So let's stand here this morning. We all have to do this. We all have to make up our mind that we're going to stand on His Word. The scriptures we said, we read, we read in 1st John or not 1st John, John 14:27. Here it is in the Amplified Bible. He said, "Peace I leave with you; my own peace I now give you and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." Now notice what it expanded to: "Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled."

What's the word telling us? The word's telling us when things come our way, we've got a responsibility to reject them and stand up. "Wait, I'm feeling intimidated. That's not God. I reject that. I'm afraid. God has not given us the spirit of fear." It's okay that you say "That's where I'm at," but God has not give us the spirit of fear. That's not the way God wants me to be. This is the enemy. Am I in the kingdom? Am I in the kingdom? Then I can reject that fear. I don't have to be backed off. Amen. So sometimes we allow our peace to be taken from us. And it's saying, "Don't allow yourself. Don't let the situation throw you out of whack." Amen.

So let just to close, here's an example of peace in your situation. Three Hebrew children. I think most of us know the story here. Nebuchadnezzar puts up a big statue, says everybody's going to bow down when the music plays, you all bow down and worship the statue. And anybody that doesn't worship the statue is going to be thrown in the furnace of fire. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three Jewish people, understand, "I'm not going to have any gods before our God. We're not going to bow." They're brought before Nebuchadnezzar and he's upset, "How come you didn't bow?" And they said, "We're not careful, oh God, or Nebuchadnezzar. We know that God is able to deliver us. But whether He will or not, we will not bow."

Now notice, they're it doesn't sound like they're afraid. They're facing possible death. They're not afraid. They're not all upset, "I can't sleep tonight" or "I need a Pepto-Bismol." They're not like that. How is that? They've got the peace of God in their situation. They've learned to trust God and commit God, and whether God changes it or not, they're going to trust God.

And so we're talking about peace in our situation. We can have it with God. Sometimes God changes it, but many times God just gives us peace to have in the circumstance that we are in till God brings us through that circumstance. Amen. Do you got peace today? This altar's open if you just want to come and pray to God. Amen. You need more peace in your life, God will give you peace. Amen. You need better understanding, you want direction from God, God will help you. Amen. If you feel like you need a touch from God, God will give you a touch. Amen. You feel like you need understanding, Lord, from the Lord, God will help you with that. Hallelujah. Amen. If you're in a circumstance, amen, and you feel like you're battered back and forth by winds of the circumstance and all kinds of things happening, God is here this morning to give you peace.

This altar is open. If you are at a crossroads, amen, and God is trying to tell you go one way and you're afraid of going that way, amen, because you would like to go the other way. Amen. This altar and you need to come and pray and ask God for strength to go down the path that God has got for you. Hallelujah. If you need the Holy Ghost, God will give you the Holy Ghost. Amen. If you'll come and worship God, amen, and praise Him and just yield yourself to God, God will fill you with the Holy Ghost this morning. If you got the Holy Ghost and you want it again, God's going to help you here today. Come on, you just need to start to pray and give glory to God. Amen. You just need if you're in a circumstance, you can say, "God, I need Your peace." If you've obeyed God and you're in the kingdom, "God, I need Your peace here today."

You know, a lot of times we have sicknesses in our body because we don't have peace. My Lord. You know, a lot of sicknesses are the result of not really trusting God and not yielding to God. And our emotions get so out of whack that our body gets out of whack. We're so afraid. If you got unforgiveness, you need to do that here too. You know, I was here at the ladies' prayer on Wednesday here just for a few moments because I needed to meet an electrician and I sat down in the pew right about where Paz is there and prayed a little bit. And all of a sudden I had a picture in my mind. And I saw a young lady in a cage. She was locked in. And down on the ground near her feet was a key to open the cage. And the key said, "Forgiveness." But she wouldn't pick the key up. She was locked in her situation because she wouldn't forgive. The key was right there, all she had to do was pick it up. "But I'm not going to use that key." And she was in that cage because she wouldn't forgive something, whatever it was. Let's start to pray and worship.

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 a.m. and our Sunday evening service begins at 6 p.m. Adult Bible study and children's church is held on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. You can learn more about our church on our website at southshorepentecostal.com or you may call us at 781-447-1668. If you have been blessed by this radio ministry, you can help support Apostolic Truth Radio via online giving through Venmo @SSPCWhitman. Write us today and request a free copy of today's message and join us for another broadcast of Apostolic Truth.