South Shore Pentecostal Church

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Apostolic Truth Radio Program with Pastor Craig Ouellette, a radio ministry of South Shore Pentecostal Church located in Whitman, Massachusetts. At a time when many Christians do not know what to believe, South Shore Pentecostal is honored to bring you clear biblical teaching on which you can confidently build your faith. Thank you for joining us.

J. Craig Ouellette: We want to talk about the heart of the matter today. In the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, Proverbs 4:23, a familiar scripture to many of us, but I find it to be a very important scripture. It says, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."

Jeremiah 17:9 is a lot of times a wake-up call to many people in the world if they actually hear it. It says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins, or what's directing your heart, even to give to every man according to his way and the fruit of his doings." We're living in a world where people say, "Just follow your heart," but the Bible says that if we follow our heart, it's not going to end up good in the end. We've got to let God redirect our heart.

Then in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, verses three through nine, and then moving on to verses 18 through 23, it says, "And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, 'Behold, a sower went forth to sow. And when he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them. But other fell into good ground and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.'"

Skipping down to verse 18 gives us the interpretation. Jesus explains what we just read. He says, "Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside. But he that received the seed in stony places, the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it, yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while. For when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended."

"He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."

Even in what we read there, there's a principle. Sometimes you can read something in the Bible and not understand it, and if you're willing to read a little further, you'll find the answer. A lot of times God says things in a way that he's trying to get our attention. Jesus spoke in parables because God wants to make sure that you're serious about knowing what he's got for you. Sometimes God will put things out there and we'll go, "I don't get that." God wants to see if you are hungry enough to find out, because there is an answer. He will explain it, but he wants to know if you really want to know what he's got for you.

The heart of the matter is that the world is contending for our heart. The devil contends for our heart. What often people do not realize is that the devil, through the world, contends for our heart. Many things that are going on in the world that draw us, that are not of God, they're really the devil's invention to get at our heart. He knows that for most of us, if he directly came to us, we would reject it. He must come in the back door, come in a subtle way, a way that seems to be okay, seems to be appealing to us. We can look around and others seem to be doing it, so it's okay. So he comes in. That's the snake, the subtlety of the serpent. He comes in quietly and entices us.

This is how the devil works in our lives. When you see somebody when they're at their old age and they're an evil person, they weren't born evil. But through life, different choices here and there along the way have led them down a path. The world is contending for our heart. The heart is often considered the central organ of our body. The health of the heart is the overall health of our body. One cardiologist recently stated that the heart is the mirror of our overall body state. In other words, if your heart's good, your body's good. If your heart's not good, your body's going to have some problems, too.

The heart is that overall indicator. The heart controls the blood flow, which controls the flow of oxygen, nutrients, antibodies, and other elements that we need in the body. Our spiritual heart controls what's going to happen to our spiritual body. If I've got a good spiritual heart, I can get a good flow of the Holy Ghost to my spirit. The idea with the heart here is it's an analogy. The Bible refers to the heart as the center of our being and motivation.

The word "heart" appears 762 times in the King James Bible. It's an important word. God talks about it a lot because it's my motivator. It's your motivator. Jesus said in another place, "Where your heart is, there is your treasure." Some people will acknowledge God, but their treasure's really over here. They'll recognize that God is real and they give maybe lip service, even give some sincere praise, but won't really serve God because their heart is over there. It's impossible to serve God until I shift my heart to God, because there are going to be things contending for my heart.

In Matthew 12:34 and 35, Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. When things come out of our mouth, we want to blame somebody else, but really, it was down there. That was the problem. It was already in my heart. Maybe social etiquette held it back for a while, maybe my conscience held it back for a while, but it's in there. If there's something that's not right in my heart, eventually, if I don't let God deal with it and get it out, it is going to come out in words and deeds.

The Bible reveals that in God's dealings with man, the Lord is looking at our heart. When you go back to the book of Genesis and you see God creating everything good, and then finally God deciding to bring a flood upon the earth, we find out that God said that the imagination of every man's heart was continually evil. It was the condition of men's hearts that brought the judgment on the world. When men's hearts get continually evil, God can't get in. There's no space for God. If it's continually evil, there's no space for good. Once you reach that point, God might as well judge you because you're not going to turn around if all you've got is continually evil thoughts.

We look in Genesis again and we see that God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The judgment that was coming was the result of men's hearts. That makes me want to get in an altar and pray. It makes me want to say, "God, search me, know my heart. Try me, know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

You're not going to make it to heaven without God leading you. You don't make it to heaven because you go to church. You don't make it to heaven because you belong to a church or a religion. You make it to heaven because you get born again and you let the Lord become your shepherd, and he leads us. That's how it is, because there are paths in this life and we do not know how to navigate them. But God does. We may think we know. Again, the Bible says there's a way that seems right unto a man, and the end thereof is death. We look around and say, "That looks like it's working for them, it's working for them, it seemed to work for my grandparents, let's go this way," not realizing it's going to end up in death.

I've got to have God leading me. Not just when I feel like it, not just because I've got an area that I've got an ability. I've got to let God get ahold of me. I need a shepherd. I need a God. I need a guide. I need somebody that knows the way. That's why God put on flesh and came down here to show us, "This is the way. I'm not asking you to do something I haven't done myself. I came in the flesh, I walked, I dealt with the temptation. If you'll look to me, I'll get you through." God wants us to make it to heaven, but we've got to listen to him. We've got to follow him.

Again, when we read in Exodus, we read about the plagues and we see Moses talking with Pharaoh and bargaining with Pharaoh to let my people go. God says, "Tell Pharaoh they're my people, let them go." What you see in all these transactions continually is the heart of Pharaoh. God hardens Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh hardens his own heart. You see it again and again through all of these plagues. It's Pharaoh's heart that is determining the decisions he's going to make, whether he's going to let them go or not. The Bible lets us know in at least three places that Pharaoh hardens his own heart. When God hardens his heart, God was only moving along the progression that Pharaoh was already working in. God was not overriding Pharaoh's will, but Pharaoh did not want to serve God nor to know God.

If I don't want to serve God, God will say, "That's okay. I gave you a free will." But when my heart starts to harden, it's not just God's fault, it's my fault because I made a choice to do it. It's your fault because you make a choice to do it. Oh, don't let the world harden your heart. The world's trying to harden your heart. Don't let the devil get to your heart, but let the Lord that made your heart, that loves your heart, let him get ahold of your heart. Let him fill you with joy unspeakable.

The Lord spoke to Israel in Jeremiah chapter four, verses three and four, and he was telling them that you need to do something with your heart. Jeremiah 4:3 says, "For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, 'Break up the fallow ground, your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like fire.'" You see, God doesn't just bring judgment out of nowhere, but God will try to deal with us. God will try to give us an opportunity to come to him.

I don't believe anybody dies without having an opportunity to know God. A lot of people refuse God, but none of us goes through life without an opportunity of God reaching for us, speaking to our hearts. God was speaking to Israel. God was speaking to Judah. Listen, in Jeremiah's time, they had fallen away. They were double-minded. They would go to the temple and they would worship and they'd had their feast days and offer up the proper sacrifices, but on the side, they had Baal and other gods and they were doing things that were not of God.

God says that's not going to work. You're going to have to circumcise your heart. You're going to have to get some things out of your life. You can't have that world and me in your life. You've got to serve me or serve the world. You can't do half one way and half the other way. You've got to give your heart to me. You've got to plow your ground up so I can put some word in, so I can sow something in there. You've got to let me get in. You've got to take off the things that don't belong there so that I can work with your heart.

God comes. He's not trying to bring wrath on anybody. The Bible tells us even in Noah's day that Noah was a preacher. So they had a time. They could see Noah. "Noah, what are you doing?" "I'm building an ark." "Why are you building an ark?" "There's going to be a flood. It's going to rain." "What's rain?" "Water's coming out of the sky." "That's never happened, Noah." For 100 or 120 years he's building the ark. At least the size of a football field in length, some people say two football fields, depends on what you want to say, but it's big. It's a witness. But they didn't want to believe. It's just like people today.

The Lord is coming again. The Lord is coming for his church. There are a lot of people saying, "They've been saying that forever." But God is on his way. God is coming for a people. God is going to have a people that wants to serve him. God is going to have a people that are willing to yield themselves to him. God is going to have a people that love his presence. That's why they're serving him. They love his presence. They love the peace that passes understanding. They love the feeling of God's pure love. They love that purity that they feel in God's presence. They love that enough that they're willing to go through pain to get some more. They love that enough they're willing to give up some things to maintain that with God.

God is looking for a people, and that born-again experience is the beginning of that, what God is looking for. Again, in Jeremiah 17:9, it tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We don't like that. We go, "Well, I did some things wrong, but I'm not desperately wicked." The Bible says that's our heart. What happens is we learn the right things, we learn etiquette, we learn society, we learn how to be polite, and so a lot of times we do the right thing, but inside, it's not right. We look good to others, but it's not right. If God were to show it, we'd be appalled at ourselves.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. It goes on to say, "Who can know it?" A lot of times we think we know our heart and we don't. A lot of times God lets circumstances and situations occur in our life so we react in a certain way so God lets us see our heart. We think we're so good and then we do something and God lets us see, "Your heart's not as good as you think it is." God's just trying to help us to help us realize I need a heart change. I need a heart operation. Lord, I need you to do something with my heart. I need you to help me. I need you to change my heart. God, I need you to reach in. Just like the cardiologist might give me a heart operation to save my life, God, I need you to do a heart operation to save my soul.

I need a heart operation. The Bible says the heart's deceitful. Our own heart will deceive us. A heart without God will lead you into evil. It's not how much evil. When we die, God doesn't weigh you and say, "Well, you're 90% good and 10% evil. Okay, well, let nine-tenths of you go to heaven." God doesn't do that. You're almost good enough, you're not really that bad. We do that in society. Especially today, they get you feeling sorry. "Well, because they were raised in this environment, they couldn't help it, they had to rob or do something." No, that's not true. It's either wrong or right.

God is not going to say, "Okay, you're 90% good or 99% good." No sin is coming to heaven. So I've got to let God deal with me. Again, Jeremiah 17:10 lets us know that God allows things to occur in our life which reveal our heart. It says, "I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to every man according to the fruit of his doings." The Lord reveals our heart so we can repent. God will let things happen. Sometimes we go, "Why did this happen to me?" Sometimes it's God allowing us to see our heart in the circumstance. How do we react?

I was talking to a man yesterday that had lived in China for a while and he was involved in some of the house churches there. He said they got broken up. He had a scholarship to China for engineering and he lost it because they found him in a house church over there. He said it got broken up and they said to him, "Hey, don't get worried. We'll collect again." If you joined the church there, they've already said, "We're dead." You join the church there, they said, "We're dead. We're not trying to escape. If we get killed, we're willing to take that. We've made that commitment." Here you can't get people to commit to church for a week. There they're going and knowing if they're found, they might be killed. Or they might be harvested for their organs, which is what they do in China. That means they'll take you to a hospital and maybe they just cut out your kidney today and another kidney tomorrow and your heart the day after. That's what they do there. Here, if church lasts three hours, we've got a hard time.

I heard years ago about a missionary. He went to China, I think this was before communism was there. He went there and he said, "I'm going to preach from the book of Matthew." So he got up and he read out his chapter out of Matthew and they all sat there. Finally, he found out when he said he was going to do the book of Matthew, they expected him to do all 28 chapters. They weren't going to leave till he did all 28 chapters. Because that's what they wanted out of church.

Let's give God some praise. Lord God, we thank you, Jesus. Lord, we give you praise. Help us here today, Lord God, to understand. Lord, you're searching our hearts. A lot of times things that are happening, it's just you trying to reveal our heart to ourselves, Lord, so that we know where we're at, Lord God. So that we can come to you, that we can cast our cares upon you.

You know the famous song, "Amazing Grace." Some of you probably know the history behind that, but maybe you don't know the history. The man that wrote that song was involved in slave trading and he was against Christianity and he railed against that Christianity. But one night, one night on the ocean as the boat is going down and they're manning the pumps and the boat is about to sink, he realized, "God, if this is what I've got to do to come to you, come on and save me." That man was saved that night, the man that wrote "Amazing Grace." But you see, he had to be in a situation that revealed his heart. He was okay up through a lot of things there. He had been cold towards others, been involved in slave trade and all kinds of stuff. But when he was faced with his death, he realized, "I need God to do something. I need God to change me. I've been doing the wrong thing. I'm about to sink and lose my soul." And that man came to God and wrote that song, "Amazing Grace." Give praise to God.

We need to understand that our lives, as we live our lives, we are sowing things with our lives. The Bible says God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. We sow things with the way we live and we're going to reap what we sow. When you sow seeds, they may not spring up this year or next year or even in 100 years. They found seeds in the pyramids and they still grow. Seeds eventually, unless they're destroyed, are going to grow. When we're living our life, we are sowing things. Sometimes 20 years down the road, all of a sudden we are reaping a harvest and wondering, "Why am I dealing with what I'm dealing with?" We are reaping what we've been sowing.

I sowed a lot of bad stuff before I came to God. But God pulled up that bad stuff. Helped me to sow some new stuff. Help me to sow some good stuff. Help me to sow something that's going to help me have a good harvest. Lord, I'm asking you with your blood to cancel out the bad stuff. Don't let it come through to my kids. Don't let it come through to my grandkids. Don't let it come through to other people I know. God, pull out that stuff. Get into my heart and do a work in me, God, because I know your word says whatever I sow I'm going to reap. Help me now to sow good things.

We think God doesn't see, but God sees it. I might not see it. Your friends might not see it. Your family might not see it. But God sees it and the devil sees it. If it's not good, you're going to reap a bad harvest. But if you're sowing the good stuff, there's going to be a good harvest. If you're sowing a good thing, there's a day of joy. If you're sowing a good thing, there's a day of resurrection. If you're sowing a good thing, there's a day of overcoming and praise in God.

We've got to read that scripture in Galatians so that you see it. He says, Galatians 6:7 and 8, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

I've got to let the Spirit start to lead my life. If you let the Spirit lead your life, you'll start to sow some good things. If I'm going to let my own desires lead my life, I'm going to sow carnal things and there's going to be a bad harvest somewhere along the line. But if I'll let the Spirit lead my life, there's going to be a good harvest. Now there's many that they start out and they're sowing the good thing and the devil sees they're sowing the right thing, they're following the Spirit. But then it doesn't come right away. So the devil comes and tries to talk to them. "Oh, you might as well give up, the seed's no good. You've been planting it for a long time and nothing's been happening." But the Bible says, "Be not weary in well doing, for in due season you're going to reap. Don't faint, but keep doing it. Don't give up, but keep doing it. Don't believe it's not going to work, but keep doing what God's got for you. Be not weary in well doing, for in due season..." That means God's got an appointed time.

Numbers 32:23 says your sin will find you out. Again, our sin might be hidden to all the world. You might be breaking all kinds of laws and just because the police didn't knock on your door or the judge didn't come or nobody pointed a finger at you, if you've got sin in your life, it's going to find you. The results of it will catch up, that's what it means. Eventually your sin catches up with you. It doesn't catch up right away because God is merciful. God doesn't want us to be overcome by sin. God wants us to be saved. And so God tries to hold things off, but there's a law of sowing and reaping. It's a spiritual law. It's a law from God. What you sow is going to grow eventually.

So God will hold off things. But if I'll take my sin to God, I can get it under the blood and God will wipe it away. God will wipe the record clean. But if I try to hide it, I can't get rid of my sin by doing good works. See, a lot of times people say, "Well, I think this is probably worth a million dollars of sin, so if I do a million and one good works, I'll cancel it out." It doesn't work. That doesn't work. I can't do enough good things to take care of my sin. If I could do that, Jesus didn't need to come. But he came because there wasn't any answer. So I needed some blood that was pure. I needed a sacrifice that could atone for my sin.

It's I can't do enough good to overcome one sin. One sin. If I do one sin and spend the rest of my life doing good, if I do not confess my sin to God, I don't overcome my sin. So I've got to come to God. So a lot of times people get fooled. I mean, there's groups of people that call themselves Christians and they think by doing so many prayers and paying so much money in and going to so many services, I'll do enough good to offset. But that's not what the Bible says. That's something that was made up after the church started. That's something that they made up to appease people, keep them in the church, but not get them saved. The only thing that deals with our sin is the blood of Jesus. And the only way I get the blood of Jesus working in my life the way it needs to be is I must be born again.

That means I've got to repent of my sins. I've got to quit sinning. Everything I know's a sin, I've got to repent of it and ask God to forgive me and ask God to give me the strength to not do it again. Then I need to get baptized in Jesus' name. It's a spiritual circumcision. I need to be baptized and buried with him. We had the analogy in Jeremiah, right? Cut off the foreskin of your heart. That's what water baptism does. I'm dead to sin, I might as well get buried with Jesus. If I've really repented and I mean it, I'm going to get buried with Jesus. Because when he rose up, that means I've got a hope of rising up too when he comes, because I'm getting buried with Jesus. And I want his name stamped on me. So when the devil comes along, he sees I belong to him. I've got the name of Jesus stamped on me. And the angels know I belong to God. The angels are now on your side because they know you're God's property.

I let God work. I've got to let God work in my heart. And if I let my carnal nature guide me, I'm going to be lost. But if I'll let the Spirit lead me, then I can be saved. Romans chapter eight, verses 12 and 13. He's talking to people that are born again. And he says, verse 12, "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds," or kill the deeds of sin of the body, "ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." You see, a proof that God is working in your life is God is able to lead you. If God can't lead you anytime, it's debatable if God is working in your life the way God wants to work.

Again, it goes back to the shepherd analogy, the good shepherd. I've got to go where he wants. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He doesn't say to the sheep, "Well, there's five pastures, which one do you want?" He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He restores my soul. If I don't go with the shepherd, I can't get my soul restored. Leads me beside the still waters. He doesn't say which stream do you want to drink in? He says, "Here." Again, sometimes we have a problem because that looks pretty good, but I want to go over there. We're like Naaman, right? Elisha said, "Go dip in the Jordan seven times and you'll be healed." He goes, "The rivers in Damascus are better. Why should I go there?" But the healing's there.

What you need is where God says. See, and all we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way. We think we know what we need. We think we know where to go to get it. But if I'll let the Spirit of God lead me, then I can receive what I need. So he makes me lie down in green pastures, he restores my soul, leads me beside the still waters, leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. A lot of times people try to get on the path of righteousness and they haven't let God put them in the pasture, haven't let God restore their soul, haven't let God lead them beside the still waters, and they're trying to go down the path of righteousness. They're not letting the shepherd lead them and heal them and give them what they need.

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we feel like the results are unfair and we don't deserve what's happening. And again, often what's occurring at that moment is the result of what we have sowed in our lives in the past. And again, God is merciful. And again, the Bible says in Numbers 32:23, "Your sin will find you out." Your sin will catch up with you.

So let's go to the parable of the sower and let's talk about that, because the matter we're talking about, the heart of the matter, what's the heart of the matter? The heart of the matter is really where is our heart at? That's the issue. Where's my heart at? Where's your heart at? In the parable of the sowers in Matthew 13—and you can read it in Mark and you can read it in Luke also, the same parable and there's little bit of differences of information that's worth looking at—in that parable, the conditions of the heart represent different soil types for planting. The word of God is the seed. When we hear the word of God, what does our heart do with the word of God? This is what Jesus is really talking about. When we hear the word of God. Again, how important that is. The Bible says faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. A lot of times people have weak faith because they're not hearing any word from God. They're hearing the word of the world.

If all you hear is the word of the world, it gets more negative by the day, right? That's why you've got people that flip out and do horrendous things. They don't have any hope. If they could get ahold of Jesus, they wouldn't be the assassins, the murderers. They'd change their mind. God will give you hope where there's no hope. God will give you joy where there's no joy. God will give you direction when you don't have any direction. God will give you a way to look at life that you couldn't believe. In one minute it's darkness, and the next minute it's light. One minute it's turmoil, the next minute it's peace and joy.

Those are illustrations in the miracles, aren't they? They're in the boat in the storm. Right? They're in the boat in the storm and it's storming, they wake Jesus up and say, "Don't you care? We're going to perish." He stands up, rebukes the wind and the waves, and it's calm. In other words, God can change the circumstance in a moment.

So the word of God is the seed. There's four types of heart conditions: the wayside heart, the stony heart, the thorny heart, and the good heart. So when we look at these different types of soil, the heart represents soil, is it prepared to receive the seed? The wayside heart is a heart that's not prepared for the word of God. It's hardened. So when the seed comes, it just lays on the top of the ground. And if you've ever planted seed in your garden or grass seed or anything, you just leave it on top, the birds come and get it. Most of it doesn't grow, the birds come and eat it up.

The same thing happens in our lives. If our heart is hard, if our heart is not open to receive, if it's so hard that the word just sits on top, the devil watches. When you come to church, the devil is watching to see if you're paying attention. He wants to steal the word away. That's what the Bible says. It says he's there and when somebody doesn't understand it, he comes and snatches the word away. He does not care if you come to church, but if by the time you've left, you don't remember what the pastor said. A lot of times I talk to people, "It was a great service." "What'd they preach on?" "I can't remember." Well, I can understand you don't remember everything, but what was the text? What verses? Do you even know what book were they in?

So the devil comes and tries to steal. He's watching. He comes to church. If you're worshipping God and in the presence of God, he stays back. He's not going to get near you when you're worshipping God because you've got angels coming around you and the presence of God is there. He's not going to be doing that. But if he sees that you're not paying attention, he's there. And he's going to start to give you, "Oh, this is too long. Can't you—you've got to do this when you get home and you've got to do that or you shouldn't have come, or can't you wait till it's over?" or he'll give you a song or he'll give you the movie you looked at or he'll give you something else. You've got your cell phone, he'll beep—all your friends will beep you. You had no friends on Facebook and now you've got a million of them right now. That's the devil. He will do those things to distract us so we do not hear what God is saying to us.

That's why I want to sit in the front most of the time. Because if nobody else is paying attention, I don't want to see it. I want to hear what God's saying. I learned that a long time ago when I got in the church, I found out the closer I got to the altar, the stronger God got. I found that out. And I found out when I'm in the back, a lot of times people are doing all these things and looking at different things and stuff and there and I'm thinking, "No, I need God." So I'm going to try to get near the front. That doesn't mean if that's the last seat I got I don't sit back there. I'm not saying that. But I try to get up in the front and I try not to let things distract me.

I've even sat in church and prayed and said, "God, help me not to take a bathroom break because I don't want to miss something." I could go downstairs, there could be a prophecy. There could be a move of God, somebody could get healed and I didn't see it. I don't want to miss what God has got. So the seed of the word is given, but it doesn't penetrate. And the Bible says the fowls represent the devil and his spirits, comes and takes away the word before we can receive it. The devil comes through distractions when you open your Bible, when you come to church, when you come to your prayer place, when you open your Bible. You need to prepare your heart to receive the word of God.

Sometimes we want to just barge into the presence of God. And sometimes God lets us do that when we're new in the Lord. But as we get older, we realize he's a king and I can't just barge into his throne room, but I need to approach him like a king. Yes, he's my heavenly father, yes, and he loves me, but he's still a king. He's still God. And so I need to prepare my heart. So sometimes when you start praying, it's hard because you've got to get stuff out of the way. You start to read your Bible, sometimes it's hard to kind of—you've got to get yourself out of the way and focus. You have to make your mind up, "I've got to get something from the word." I've sat there sometimes and you read one verse 20 times because your mind is going. But I make my mind up, at least I'm going to get one verse. When I leave, I'll know what that verse said. I concentrated on it. Prepare your heart to receive what God has got for you.

So the wayside heart, I don't want a wayside heart. If my heart's hard, I'm missing what God's got. Then he's got the stony heart. This is the heart that initially receives the word with joy but falls away after a while. And a lot of people, they'll come into the church, there's a big move of God and they like God and they like the feeling of God and there's not too many people that don't like the presence of God. Sometimes it scares them and they start to receive that. But they don't have root in their heart. So the seed finds a place and starts to grow. But when tribulation comes, it doesn't have enough root. When persecution comes, there's not enough root.

When you come to God, if you're going to live for God, you have to make your mind up. Not everybody is going to be enthusiastic about it. Not everybody is going to agree with you. Not everybody, even in your own family, is going to understand. Especially if they're not born again. You get born again, you get enthusiastic about it, you're going to meet people in your family and friends that think you've gone to a different planet, and you have. But they can't see it. Just make your mind up, I'm not in it because they want it. I'm in it because I want it. I'm not in it because they understand it or accept it or I can explain it to them. I'm in it because I need God and I want it. I want them to want it, but if they don't want it, I'm still going to want it.

So the word has got to get down in my heart. Again, Second Timothy 3:12 says, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." I don't think that means every day, but there'll be times and places. And notice it doesn't say all that believe in God, all that believe in Jesus, all that will live godly. That means not only are they talking about Jesus and going to church, they're living their life in a way that demonstrates God is doing something in their life. Again, you've got a lot of people that say, "Okay, that's fine for you. Just don't bring it around me. Okay, you go to your own church, just don't bring it into the business square." That's not the way God wants it. That's not the way the country was founded. That's a perversion of the principles of the country. The country is founded on a constitution based on God, Declaration of Independence. So God belongs in the public square in this country. Separation of church and state, the way they portray it, is not the way that it was made. It just meant that the government's not supposed to favor any religious group above another one and make a law doing that. It didn't mean the government can't help Christianity. A lot of our first four presidents had Congress giving money to missions, money to print Bibles. And nobody said, "Hey, that's against the constitution." Everybody's saying, "Yeah, we agree with you."

Again, Jesus said the world would be offended if you're living for him. In John 15:18 through 20. So you make your mind up, I'm living for God. If you make your mind up you're living for God, God will be there to help you, he'll bring you through everything, he'll never let something greater than you're able to bear come upon you. He'll bring you through and the joy will be unspeakable. John 15:18, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." So if you've got Jesus in you, they're going to hate you, too, right? Verse 19, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." When you get born again, God's saying, "I chose you." He's putting a mark on you saying, "I have chosen you to be mine." And instantly the devil's against you and the world is against you. The world doesn't like you because it didn't like Jesus.

Verse 20, "Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also." So you have to arm your mind that things are going to happen if you live for God. But be of good courage. Jesus said, "Be of good courage, I have overcome the world." In other words, you can do it with me. "Fear not, little flock, it's my father's pleasure to give you the kingdom."

God's got good things for us. God's got good things for those that choose him. God's got things that are unspeakable. We can't understand it. You hear all these different opinions about 30 minutes of silence in heaven. Well, I think one of the reasons is when we see God, our awe, we won't be able to say anything. It'll take our breath away. We'll be speechless.

The thorny heart. And of any ones, that's the one that concerns me the most for people that are born again in the church: the thorny heart. Thorny heart is good soil. It's got enough soil for deep roots. But there are other things growing in the soil that are taking away the nutrients and there's things growing there that's choking out the seed, the good seed.

So in Luke 8:14, rather than reading it in Matthew 13, because he says it just a little bit differently that I think makes the point to me at least, he says, "And that which fell among the thorns are they which when they have heard, go forth and are choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection." The wayside earth, nothing even starts growing. Stony ground, it starts—the plant starts growing but there's no fruit. But thorny ground, fruit actually is starting to appear. The evidence of God doing something by the word is actually starting to appear.

But because of the cares of life and the deceitfulness of riches and pleasures, it's choked. And again, the reason this is so insidious is the cares are not sins necessarily. The riches are not sins necessarily. Pleasures are not in themselves sins unless you're violating something of God's commandments. And so what happens is we can lose out with God because we let legitimate things of life choke the word of God out. That's the dangerous one for believers. More than any of the other ones, that's the dangerous, dangerous one. In all things that we're doing, a lot of times we think, "Well, I'll just—I can just go for this education and we'll go off to some school and we'll go where there's no church." And the reason we're doing that is I've got to make enough money to have this kind of standard of living or this house or this kind of thing to pay the bills. And God knows we need a house and God wants to pay the bills, but sometimes our cares will drive us to a point where we're not able to grow and receive what God has got for us.

So the cares of life, they're often legitimate, but we need to make sure that our cares don't overwhelm us to the extent that it prevents us from living for the Lord. I mean, you can get so caught up, "I need this house, I need this kind of thing, I got to have this position, this kind of different things." And if God gives you those things, that's fine. But when you have to strive for those and they're preventing you from living the way God wants you to live, that's choking the word. If you're so busy after the cares of life you can't pray, you're being choked. If you're so busy trying to make money you can't go to church, you're being choked. If you're so busy in social activities with friends and different people and family you can't go to church, you're being choked.

And so sometimes our fears and worries of what others think may cause us to distort the importance of the cares. Now again, the Lord's not saying, the Bible's not telling us to be irresponsible. It's not saying that. The Bible's not saying don't work. It's not saying that. The Bible's not saying don't get an education, it's not saying that. But it's saying don't let those become priorities that prevent you from having a relationship with God. If there's no time to pray and no time to read your Bible and no time to be a part of a church congregation and find out what God wants you to be, life is choking you. Life is choking you. And even though fruit started to grow, it's not going to come to perfection, the Bible says. And again, riches by themselves are not wrong. So the Bible doesn't say money's evil, it says the love of money. It's my attitude towards money, my affection towards money that makes it bad. It's not whether I've got a lot or a little. That's not the point in God's idea. God is not against, God will make some people rich for his purpose. God will bless you so you can bless the kingdom. God is not against you having a big house or a lot of cars and all those things. That is not—God is not against that, it's where is my heart on that? Where is my heart? And even pleasures, not all pleasures are sinful. There are things that God has created for us to be enjoyed. But if I get so caught up in those things that I don't have time for God, it's going to choke the word of God.

Then finally we come to the good heart. And the good heart, the Bible says, the good heart will give different yields. It's good soil. The seed of God will fall in it. Some of us will bring 30, will increase by 30, some by 60, some by 100%. We don't all have the same harvest level, but it's not how much. Again, it's not what God's looking for from me. As we said last week, God's looking for the faithful person. What am I doing with what God has given me? He didn't say, "Brother Ouellette, here's what I'm giving you, and this is how much I expect you to give me back." He didn't say that. But he does expect me to try to take what he's given and use it for him, to give him return. God expects all of us to take what God has given us and use it for return. How can I please God? Time, our time. You can always say, "Well, I'm not trained, I'm not comfortable speaking to people I don't know, don't know how to go out and talk in front of people, and I don't know that much Bible," but we can all give some time to God. And we can all spend some time giving to God to pray, to read his word consistently.

If God is there seven days a week, is it fair that I should be able to give him something a little bit each day? I mean, what if God said, "Okay, the days you don't give me something, I'm not giving you something. Sun's turned off." I think it's worth it, we can give him something, right? Find some time, some time to give to God. So Luke 8:15 says also the good ground are those that bring forth a harvest with patience. So even when it's good ground, we have to be patient on God. It leads back to Galatians 6:9, "Be not weary in well doing, for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not." That means there's going to be a time when you're working, it's going to be hot. You have to learn to pace yourself. Living for God, you've got to learn to pace yourself. You can burn out trying to live for God, too.

So four types of heart. Since the heart is central to successful living for the Lord, we must guard our heart. We read this scripture starting out, "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." The word "keep" means "guard" in this case. Guard your heart. And if you look at the next verses following to the end of that chapter, Proverbs 4:24 through 27, it goes on to tell us the areas we need to look at to guard our heart. He said our speech, what we look at, where we go. Let's read the passage so you can see it. Proverbs 4:24 says, "Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee." So that means a crooked, crooked speech, bad speech. So my speech, my speech. Why? Because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So what's coming out of my mouth is an indication of my heart.

So that's one of the areas where I guard myself. "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee." Watch where you're looking. And looking can be physical but can also be spiritual and emotional. I can physically be looking out that window, but my mind is over there. I can physically be walking straight in front of me, but my heart is some other place. The eyes of my heart. What am I really looking at? So my heart, I have to see where my eyes are looking, and I have to be careful what I allow to be put in front of my eyes because it'll be there later on. Sometimes we do struggle in prayer and reading our Bible because we let some things come into our mind that when we get down to pray, they come up, and we've got to get through those.

And then where I go, it says, verse 26, "Ponder the path of thy feet, let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil." In other words, be careful where you go because you can go into environment that's going to affect your heart. So we're talking about the heart of the matter today. The heart of the matter. A lot of times Christians struggle because they don't guard their eyes, they don't guard their mind, they don't let God have the way that he wants in our heart.

Every one of us, we've got to ask: where's our heart today? Question to myself, am I cultivating a heart for the word of God? And I don't mean just to memorize it, but am I letting it affect me? Can the word of God find a place in your heart, in my heart? Am I letting the devil steal the word out of my heart? Am I preparing my heart for the word of God so that when tribulation comes, I've got some roots?

So where's your heart today? This altar's open. If you just want to come and ask God to search your heart, you want to ask God to help you. Sometimes we've got things we've got to deal with, but we need to ask God to deal with them. "Lord, if there's something in me, show me. Lord, if something's not right, please show me. Help me, Lord God, so that I can do things the way you want them to be done." Just give glory to God. He wants to fill you. He wants to anoint you. Help us, Lord God, to prepare our hearts, Lord God, to be good ground. Help us, Lord God, to weed our gardens, Lord God. If there's thorns, to get them out. If there's things that are growing there that shouldn't be there that are choking the word, help us, Lord, to get those out of our heart, Lord, we pray.

Lord, we're asking you to help us give our heart to you, to yield to you, Lord God, to receive the good thing that you've got for us. Lord, if there's something that shouldn't be there, take it away, Lord God. Lord, if I'm letting things in the garden of my heart to be there to come in, Lord, that shouldn't be there, Lord God, we're asking you to take them out, Lord God. Help us here today, Lord God, because it's the heart of the matter, Lord God, the heart, Lord God, that's central to us. Do a work, Lord God. Get in, Lord God. Let that blood work, Lord God. Search me, oh God. Know my heart. Try me, Lord God. Know my thoughts, Lord God. See if there be any wicked way in me, Lord God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Lord God. We thank you, Lord God. We love you, Lord God.

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