South Shore Pentecostal Church

Announcer: 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're going to talk about the legacy of a father. Everybody say "legacy." Amen. And starting from Genesis and working towards Malachi, we're going to look at these different scriptures. I think most of them you've probably heard at one time or another.

Genesis 2:7 says that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Down at verse 15 in the same chapter, and the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Then in Chapter 26 of Genesis, we're going to move over to verse 1. These may seem unconnected, but we'll make a connection eventually. Genesis 26:1 says and there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines unto Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him and said, "Go not down to Egypt. Dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. Sojourn in this land and I will be with thee, and will bless thee. For unto thee and unto thy seed, I will give these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father. And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven and will give unto thy seed all these countries. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because"—why is this happening? Because.

God says "I'm going to do this because." Because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. So Isaac is getting a promise passed to him because his father listened to God.

Exodus 20. This is the Ten Commandments. The first time that they are given. We're just going to read verses 3 through 5. He says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." And we'll read verse 6, "And showing mercy unto the thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments."

Finally, in Malachi Chapter 4, verses 5 and 6. Actually, the last two verses of the Old Testament. And what it says is, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

So, one point to be made here is the beginning of the Old Testament and the end of the Old Testament start with fatherhood. God is concerned with fathers. You could say well it didn't start till chapter two, but it started with our Father, our godly Father in the beginning. He created the heavens and the earth. The next thing he does is he makes a human father in Genesis 2:7. Makes the family.

And then he closes out the Old Testament saying that the hearts of the fathers need to be turned to the children, and the children to the fathers. He's talking about family. When fathers' hearts are towards their children, their family becomes the next priority after God in their lives. Not a third priority. It's not family, job, God. But God, family. It's not family, hobby, God. But God, family, church. Amen.

So God's plan for humanity from the beginning included the concept of the family. We saw that he made man first in Genesis 2:7, and God made the woman from Adam to be a helpmeet. And again, these are not positions of value but positions of importance and complementary. God says it's not good for Adam to be alone, so he makes a woman. So there's something inside of Adam that God has to draw out to make Eve. And Adam without Eve is not a complete man. There's something that he needs.

So, almost all men and women are going to get married. Not all of them, but most. There are some that God makes them uniquely. And God talked about it this way. He said that some men are born eunuchs, some men are made eunuchs by people castrating them, and some men are made eunuchs of God. He said but not everybody has this gift. So some men have the gift to be by themselves, but most of us—God intends for us to be married.

So a helpmeet is a companion that's a complement. In other words, the two of them together make a whole. Where Adam is weak, Eve is strong. Where Eve is weak, Adam is strong. This is the idea. So it's not like Adam is—because he's first, he's better. The Bible's not saying that. God did make him first to make a point there. And he made Eve to help fulfill the command to be fruitful and multiply and populate the earth. That's God's plan. God said multiply, be fruitful. Amen. So God is not worried about the population size. God will take care of that.

Family is the basic building unit of all society, and it starts with a man and a woman. So we go again to Genesis and we read this here. Genesis 2:24 and 25. This is after Adam has been put to sleep and awakened and God has brought Eve to him. And it says, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife. They shall be one flesh. And they were both naked and the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." So the man and the woman together make one flesh. Two men can't make one flesh. Two women can't make one flesh. A man and a woman make a flesh. This is what God says. Makes one flesh.

You can try to do it, but it's like trying to make a square peg and a round peg fit in the same hole, and it's not going to work. You know? Or triangular peg and a square hole or hexagonal peg or whatever kind of peg you want to say. It doesn't work. Amen. You've got to have the complementary things together to make a family. God made the man the head of the family.

So when we go to Genesis 2:15, this is before Eve is made that God gives Adam the command. "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." So God has given man a job. God has put man in authority. And then he gives the instructions about not eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So all of this is given to Adam before Eve is made. And so somehow God conveys it to Eve. Either Adam does or God does—the Bible doesn't tell us. But God gives Adam his assignment and authority before Eve is made.

The responsibility of man as the head of the family is illustrated throughout scripture. And I know I'm laying a lot of background, but the Bible lets us understand Eve was not cursed because of sin. You read your Bible, it doesn't say she's cursed. It does say there'll be pain and sorrow in childbirth and that the husband will be the head, but there's no curse put on her. But there is a curse on the ground because of Adam's sin. The ground is not cursed because Eve sinned—it's cursed because Adam sinned. All right? If we read that, we can read it in Genesis 3:16.

It says, "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth thy children. Thy desire shall be to thy husband, he shall rule over thee." So this is God saying this. "And to Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee." So the ground is cursed because Adam listened to Eve rather than God. God's putting responsibility on the man. Sometimes that's why a man needs to wait to get married. He needs to know that he knows himself. Because even if you've got a wife that's living for God, you might not always see eye to eye. And there's humanity there, and you need to be strong enough to do what God says to do. Not stubborn enough, but strong enough even when maybe the wife doesn't agree. Amen.

Eve didn't have any sin before she sinned, but she still was weak to that. The Book of Romans says that death and sin came into the world through Adam. And we're giving all this to show that God has put responsibility on men. Things that are going on in the world, God is going to hold men responsible. It's not that women, if they do them, they're not going to have the judgment, but men are going to have the greater judgment because God has given us authority. God has given us responsibility. Amen. And that's why we're saying all these things. So because God had designated Adam as the head of the humanity, his actions had a greater impact upon humanity. Do you see where I'm going here?

Now when the Lord gave the Ten Commandments to Israel, he placed again the responsibility on the fathers. He said "I don't want you to make any graven image, anything that's in the heaven, anything that's earth beneath, anything under the waters. Because I'm a jealous God, and the sins and iniquities of the fathers will go onto the third and fourth generation. Not just that generation, the third and fourth. In other words, your great-great-grandfather. That's how far it goes." So we have—it's right on the screen there. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. For I am the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." That's part of the Ten Commandments. Amen.

Now when it says God's jealous, it's not jealous the way we are. God is jealous because he's the one that has delivered them. He's the one. He's talking to Israel. He delivered them out of bondage. He delivered them out of Pharaoh's hand. He delivered them out of a situation they could not get out of. Amen. They had no help to get themselves out. They cried unto God, they prayed, and God heard the cry and God sent Moses when the time was appointed. And God delivered them out of the hand of bondage. They had been in a situation where their sons were being thrown in the river. Not the daughters, the sons. See, the devil knows where the impact comes from. Amen. There's a war against the family. Amen. The devil doesn't want fathers in the house. He wants women by themselves taking care of them all burdened down, and men going around doing whatever they are because he knows that when the man is in the house, children are going to be raised up the right way. They've got a better chance of doing it. Hallelujah. Amen.

And he lets them know he's jealous because he's the one that delivered them. It'd be just like your wife or somebody comes and saves you, does all these things, you go give your affection to somebody else. You're going to be jealous and you've got a right reason to be jealous because you've got a relationship. Amen. So the responsibility as man as the head. Again, this Bible tells us that the sins of the father or the iniquities have an effect up to the next four generations. It's repeated four more times in the Old Testament. Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, Deuteronomy 5:9—which is the Ten Commandments again—and in Jeremiah 32:18. The sins of the father impact the family. That's why if you're going to live for God, if you want your family to live for God, men, we've got to live for God. If I want my kids to live for God, I've got to live for God. I can't just act it. I've got to apply it. Amen. So many problems that a person or a family or even nations deal with are really the results of sin in families that go back to generations. If it's the third or fourth generation, you can look at that person and wonder what's going on, how come they're acting, but back there in their life there probably was a father that sinned and didn't repent.

And you say, "Is that true? Does that really happen?" Well, we've got an example in 2 Samuel 21:1. And there are other examples we could probably bring out, but this seemed to be the one that came to my mind. I believe the Lord brought it. It says, "There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. And David inquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered and said, It is for Saul and for his bloody house because he slew the Gibeonites." Now, at this point, this sin happened 30, 40, 50 years ago, maybe even more. But now God's letting the effect of it come. Do you see that? If you're reading 2 Samuel, this is pretty far into David's reign. This is after Absalom's revolt and he's come back and there's been other revolts and Bathsheba—it's after all of that. And David is king in Hebron seven years before he is in Jerusalem. And so Saul was the king 40 years. So we're reaching back 40, 30, 40, 50, 60 years that this event has happened. So sometimes things happening in our lives are the results of sins in our family.

Now I'm going to say that when you come to God, you get baptized in Jesus' name, the blood of Jesus has got a big effect of breaking a lot of that stuff because you've got a new family. You've got a new lineage. Amen. That's why it's important to do it the right way because if I want to get free from all the sin of the past—we don't even know all the things that our fathers or our grandfathers did. The sins of our past fathers, the sins of our fathers go onto the third and fourth generation. Amen.

So sometimes you look at some son or some boy or some daughter and what's going on to them is not the direct result of them, but there's sin that's got an effect and a hold in them. My father-in-law used to say his dad died when he was 15 of an ulcer from drinking. He was an alcoholic. And he saw his father in the hospital sit up and he had an ulcer in his stomach, and that ulcer touched his heart and he died. And my father-in-law said, "I made a commitment never to drink when I saw that happen." But he became an alcoholic anyways till he came to God. The sins of the fathers go onto the third and fourth generation. Amen.

But thank God, God is a person of mercy and grace. Amen. Showing mercy and grace to the thousands that love me and keep my commandments. Amen. If a person will turn from sin and turn to God, God will forgive that sin and God will break the yoke of sin. Sin is a yoke. People don't understand that. They think I've just got to reform my mind, I've just got to get more discipline. There's always some sin, every human being, no matter how disciplined you are, no matter how straight your mind is, that we are weak to it and we are vulnerable to it. Adam did not have any psychopathic problems or psychology. He didn't have any family history, yet he still sinned. Eve didn't have any bad mothers and daughters and sisters before she sinned, she still sinned. We are gullible to sin because there's a devil in the world that is enticing us to sin, trying to get us to fall into sin. The answer is Jesus Christ. Amen. And if a person will repent, give their life to God, and come to God, God will break the hold of sin. God will straighten out your thinking. God will help you so you can understand. God will give you strength to do the right thing. God will give you joy to serve him. God will change your life. God will make you want to love him. God will make you want to be a witness. God will make you want to be in church. Hallelujah. God will break the past. God will break the hold of the devil. God will lift you up and make you new.

But if you don't deal with the sin problem, it's going to come at you from the third and fourth generation. Amen. You could have a tendency in your family because of your great-great-grandfather had sin that he committed and did not deal with. You say it's not fair. God told us. It's right there. He let us know. And he also let us know that if we'll repent, he'll take care of us. Again in Exodus 20:6, the man's the responsible head of the house. What he does has the biggest effect. But the good news is the Lord is a God that shows mercy to those that love him, keep his commandments. Amen. Okay, you've got people today they say, "Oh, yeah, I love the Lord. I'm saved. I praise God." Have you been baptized? No. Well, I thought Jesus said to get baptized. Right? Are you loving your neighbor? No. Well, I thought Jesus said love your neighbor. Right?

So you've got people—do you go to church? No, I don't go to church. I worship at home on my own. Bible says forsake not the gathering together of yourself as is the manner of some. The Bible says we're holy temple built together for habitation of the Lord. If we're built together, we ought to get together. Right? Does that just make sense? Amen. And that's why the presence of God shows up when we come to church. Amen. Praise God.

So he's a God that's merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving transgression and sin. So when fathers repent of their sins and turn towards God, the Lord will forgive those sins and start to help correct the results. Amen. Sin brings a curse. Again, people don't understand it. Sin brought a curse into the world. All the curses in the world today are the result of sin. Every one of them. Sin brings curses. Obeying God brings blessings. You want blessings, obey God. You want curses, don't obey God.

We think—and here's what happens—we think because we slide by today and nobody sees it and lightning didn't strike us, that the sin didn't have an effect. But it brings a curse. A curse doesn't always show up when you think it's going to show up. The effect of the curse may show up a month later, three months down the road. You're on your way to work and all of a sudden you're in an accident and you wonder what's going on, and it was that little thing of sin that you thought nobody knew about and you let it go. You didn't repent. And repentance means you're asking God, forgive me, and I'm asking you, Lord, to help me not do it again. Listen, sometimes you've got to change the way you go to work because of temptation. That's right. Oh, I've done it. Yeah, I'm not going to that Dunkin' Donuts, I'm going over this one. That's right. Sometimes you've got to change the way you go to work because there's temptation out there. There's a devil that wants the men's souls because God made men the head of the family.

Sin brings a curse, but obeying God brings blessings. And you could think of Psalm 1, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of the sinner, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight shall be in the law of the Lord." And whatsoever he does, he's going to be blessed, he's going to prosper. Even when everyone others around him are not prospering because he delights himself in the word of God. You live for God, you make your mind up, you'll find out that even when others are going through desert times and bad times, God's holding you up and bringing you through. Amen. You can get a raise when nobody else gets a raise. You can get a vacation when nobody else gets a vacation. Yeah, yeah, that happens. God will do that if you're serving. God will do that. God will promote you when nobody else is getting a promotion. God will bring some favor into your life and your family because nobody else when nobody else is getting because you're doing what God wants you to do. Blessed is the man and woman. That just means people in general.

So let's look at some research here. The research is showing that the father has great impact upon the family. This is without even church, without even the Bible. This is secular research. Great impact upon the family, especially the children's society. The children in homes without fathers always have greater problems. 85% of youths in prisons come from fatherless homes. We don't need more money from the government. We need the government to help fathers be in the home. No, they're helping them get out of the home. Yeah, they're helping them get out of the home or stay out of the home. They're not helping them get in the home. Amen. They're not doing that. The government is not trying to help the family. They can say all they want. They can move their mouth. They can put all kinds of AI advertisements out and all kinds of things. But if they were interested in helping the family, they'd be helping the father get in the home. Amen. Because that would take care of 85% of their prison problems.

71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. You want to raise up the school scores, put a father in the home. 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. You want to deal with the homeless problem, get fathers in the homes. 60% of suicides are from fatherless homes. You want to deal with people that have got no hope, don't have an answer, don't know which to go, get a home, get a father in the home, and a lot of that stuff's going to be taken care of. Get a father that knows God and it's definitely going to be taken care of. The spirit of God will work in that house. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

And there's the reference if you want to look it up. The statistics are from an organization called No Longer Fatherless. www.nolongerfatherless.org. That's where you can look right there. You can find other places. Amen. So the New Testament emphasizes the impact of the father. Because I know some people think, "Oh, you've been in the Old Testament the whole time. It doesn't really apply because we're in the New Testament." Wrong. Wrong. Ten Commandments, the Bible, the whole Bible applies. You've got to figure out how to rightly divide it. But Ephesians 6:4, Paul's writing to Christian fathers and probably fathers-to-be. "And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Amen. Fathers are supposed to be involved in that raising up of children and teaching them about the Lord. Amen. That's a job of the father.

Again, in Colossians 3:21, "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged." So fathers have a responsibility to discipline children but not with harshness. Not so hard that you provoke them to wrath. Fathers have a responsibility to teach children about the Lord. This is God saying this. This is what the Bible says. Hallelujah. I'm not making it up. It's not my denomination or your denomination. Amen. Being too harsh can bring discouragement on children. They need discipline, they need direction. Amen.

I'm always amazed you meet people out there, "Well, we don't go to any church. Where are your kids going? Oh, we're just going to let them figure out what they can believe in and when they grow up." Yeah, they're going to end up in a snare of the devil because they won't know it's a snare till they're caught in it. And a lot of times that's because those parents are not willing to repent themselves and admit the way they were living is not the right way of living. Amen. I've seen people they're adults and they're raising their kids and they're listening to Led Zeppelin. I'm going what is wrong with those people? Jimmy Page, he's into the occult. That music's not coming just out of his own heart. That's coming from the pit of hell.

So even the New Testament emphasizes there's an impact, a responsibility of the father. We look over in Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5, and it tells us. It doesn't specifically say the father, but because the father's the head of the home, you know that he's going to have to be involved in what this is saying. Amen. Deuteronomy 6:4, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might." And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. It's not just memorized. You've got some affection for it. You've got some connection for it. "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, when thou risest up." What's he saying? He's saying it's good to talk about God anytime. Amen. Sitting in my house, walking outside in the woods, laying down to sleep, getting up from sleep. It's a good time to talk about God. Amen.

"Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. Thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates. And it shall be when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware to thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to give them a great and goodly cities which thou buildest and houses full of good things which thou fillest not, and wells digged which thou didn't dig, vineyards and olive trees which you didn't plant, and have eaten to the full, beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and shall swear by his name." This falls on the fathers to teach. Doesn't mean they have to do all the teaching, but they need to make sure the right things are going on in the house. Amen. Does that make sense?

When it talks about binding them on their hands and binding them on their head, today they call that phylacteries, little leather things. But if you study it out, they never did that till they came back from Babylon, literally. So that became a custom after they went to Babylon captivity and came back. God's not saying literally do it. What he's saying is your hand is what you do, your mind is where you think. He's saying let this word guide what you do, and let this word guide where you think and what you look at. That's what he's saying to do. And when the word is in my heart, if I go to do, the word says "Wait a minute, you shouldn't do that." If I go to think or look, the word says "Wait a minute, don't do that, you shouldn't do that." And it brings me back to remember that once I was a sinner, but now God has delivered me. Amen. And everything I got God gave it to me. Amen. I didn't build my house, God built my house. I didn't get my ability, God gave me my ability. I didn't make my life, God gave me life. I don't have breath because I'm healthy, God is giving me my health. Hallelujah.

Amen. So we're supposed to teach the children. It's supposed to be part of our lifestyle. This is the difficulty living in the world we live in because we are living in an anti-God world. At the end of that there's a lady that works for Microsoft high up, working with AI and all different kinds of things. And she said "You need to watch. I work with AI. A lot of those quotes that were negative that they attributed to Charlie Kirk were all developed by AI bots. They weren't true. Half the negative ones were not true." That's what's going on in our world. You've got to be careful. You've got to be careful.

Jesus taught the Shema. So again, it's not just Old Testament. But in Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:29, when he is asked what's the great commandment, he said "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul"—in Mark he said "with mind and strength." Mind and strength. In other words, all of you. In other words, all of my being. I'm supposed to love God with all my being. Not just my actions. It's not just a temporary commitment. It's not just a day of the week. I'm not just a Christian on Sunday and Wednesday and Easter and Christmas. But I'm supposed to be trying to reach to God every day. Amen.

So the idea that what I read you about the Shema doesn't apply. No, Jesus held it up. He said "The great commandment is hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy strength, with all thy mind, all thy soul. Amen." So let's talk about legacy versus heritage because that's the title. You're going, "Well, he's got legacy up there, but we haven't said a thing about that." There's a difference between a legacy and a heritage.

So a heritage—this is one set of definitions—it's the collective culture, traditions, languages, and artifacts inherited from the previous generation. You know, so if your parents have been here in America for years, a couple generations, you could say I've got an American heritage. It's generally something you are born into rather than something you personally create. An inheritance usually refers to material things passed down. But a legacy is something transmitted or received from an ancestor or predecessor or created as a lasting impact.

So it's more than something material. It's something that has an impact. A legacy usually has individual impact, consequential changes. Personal achievements might be involved in that, but it's the impact that it has. A legacy is something that's passed down that has a lasting impact and consequential change. So this is the story read about Isaac, right? God said to him "Stay in the land of the Philistines. Do not go down to Egypt. I'll bless you and I'll keep you because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my commandments. Because of that, you're going to be blessed and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed and your seed's going to multiply as the stars in heaven." That's Genesis 26:1 through 5 we're talking about. That's where he comes. He had a promise. It's not a physical inheritance. Abraham is passing a legacy onto Isaac who will pass it to Jacob who will pass it to the children of Israel. See, a legacy is not that material thing, but it's something that has an impact on us.

God needs fathers that will pass a legacy onto their children. God needs fathers that will pass a legacy onto their children. Not money. Amen. Abraham passed wealth onto Isaac, but that's not the legacy. It's not the sheep, it's not the silver, it's not the cattle, it's not the servants. It's the promise. It's the promise and how to live. It's the promise and that there is a real God, a true God. And if you serve him, he'll be there to meet your need, he'll give you the promise that's been passed on. That's the legacy. The legacy goes beyond the material.

Now again, here we go with some more statistics. Fathers have a big impact on children continuing to live for the Lord. So here's some statistics on church attendance—two ideas. If a father does not go to church, even if his wife does, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshiper. If a father goes regularly, regardless of what the mother does, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will attend church as adults. Why? Because God made man the head of the family. The responsibility is on the men to get into church, serve God, be an example, and pass a legacy down to their children. Hallelujah. Amen. And again, there's a footnote there, but if you want to look it up and see where I got that from, it came from Promise Keeper and Baptist information centers.

We are in a spiritual battle. Yes, we are. The devil knows the effect of the father upon the family and the coming generation. So the devil's plan is to keep fathers out of church. Make them think it's a waste of time, make them think they don't really need to commit. Or if he can get them in church, make them think that giving material things in their job is more important than church. And Jesus said "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his soul?" Amen. It's better to have less and have God than to be rich and go to hell. This is what the Bible's trying to help us. It's better to have a little less, amen, and maybe you've got to watch your pennies, but you've got God and God's there. And if you're living for God, God's going to give you what you need, and usually he's going to give you more than you need when you serve God.

The Bible says "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." And that's Matthew chapter 6. So if you back up, he said "Everybody's looking for clothes, everybody's looking for a house, everybody's looking for food." But don't be that way. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. If I put God first, God will give me clothes. If I put God first, God will give me food. If I put God first, God will give me a house. If I put God first, God will heal my body. If I put God first, God will intercede for me when I've got nobody to intercede for me. If I put God first, I'll make it through the midnight hour. If I put God first, I'll go through the storm but come out the other way because God is faithful. Hallelujah. Amen. Give him praise. Oh, come on, stand up and give him praise. He is worthy. Hallelujah. Oh, yes, Lord. Break out change. Hallelujah.

Amen. You may be seated. So the devil uses the trick to make fathers think it's more important to give their children an inheritance—a big house, a big account, a big education. Nothing wrong if God lets you have those things. But don't let that come in front of serving God. Amen. Children need to see their parents, particularly their father, serving God. Hallelujah. That's why so many fathers are out. The devil knows if I keep the fathers out, that family's going to have a harder time. It's going to be rougher on the kids. Amen. Even if the mothers are good mothers and they love the kids, it's rougher on the kids. See, the father's a protection. The father's a defense. God has set it that way.

Notice the devil didn't come to Adam—the devil came to Eve. If he'd come to Adam, Adam would have blown him off. Bible says Adam wasn't deceived. It seems like he took that fruit because he wanted to be with Eve. He definitely was the family man. He was in a bad, hard decision to make. "My wife's going to be in sin and I'm without sin." Amen. The devil knows that. So if he can get a man all caught up in their job, making money—and you feel good when you're doing a good job and making money, and you feel like "I'm doing everything I need for the family"—but if you're not there in church for those kids and your family, at some point, all that money you make is not going to solve the problems that are going to result. Hallelujah. I don't care if you've got enough money to have a different social worker every day of the week and a different psychologist every day of the week. It will not fix those problems. Because the problems are spiritually rooted.

Amen. When we choose God, God says "They're in my kingdom. They belong to me." Automatically, the devil is limited what he can do to a person that has chosen God. He's got to get permission from God. Just like any good father with their kids. If there's somebody that they know in the neighborhood's not doing the right stuff, the father's going to step in and say, "No, you can't do that." God, when you're living for God. But if you're not living for God, you are vulnerable. The devil can just get you at will.

Let me show you scripture here. 2 Timothy 2:24. He's speaking to Timothy and instructing him how to be a good man of God. He says, "The servant of the Lord must not strive but must be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves." In other words, what he's trying to say is you're going to be talking to people that think they're doing the right thing by not following God, and they're really opposing themselves. When a person rejects God, you are opposing yourself because God has made you. So instructing those that oppose themselves, "if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." Not just repentance, but repentance that brings them to a point where "Yes, God, not only do I want to be forgiven, not sin again, but I want to do what you want me to do."

Verse 26, "that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at will." At his will. It says that when you're not living for God, the devil's got the ability to come and take you at will into bondage. Amen. A lot of times you think, "Well, I'm not doing that, I'm not doing this even though I'm not going to church." You need to thank God because the devil could put something on you and you will be all bound up. And sometimes the only reason you're not bound up now is somebody else was praying for you. And the prayers kept the devil away. Amen.

So the devil knows that and he uses the trick. Amen. And again, Jesus said "What's the profit of a man?" And back to murder. Sister Ouellette was talking about murder. The Bible says in John 8:44 that the devil was a murderer from the beginning. If you see murder in the world, that's a sign that the devil is working. That's the devil. He's a murderer from the beginning. That is the spirit of the devil. And he's a liar, he's the father of lies, the Bible says.

So many fathers and mothers are being deceived into thinking and believing that having material things, success, and popularity are more important than the Lord. "Oh Mom, they're having a party on Sunday. I'm going to miss the party if I go to church." Better to go to church. It's better to go to church. Amen. You don't know what's going on at that party. What also you're doing is you're teaching your children that God is more important than what you want and what you like. Amen. It's better to have less and have the Lord than pass on millions and be famous. And as I already said, if you seek first the kingdom of God, his righteousness, God will supply. Our actions show where our heart and values and commitment are. And a commitment to the Lord is actually a commitment to family. That's right. A commitment to the Lord is commitment family. Amen. You say you're committed to the Lord but you don't come to church, you don't bring your family to church. You're not committed. You're not committed.

So let's stand today. I've got a challenge to the fathers. Some of you are already doing these things, and if you're doing them, praise God. Today we're honoring the fathers. We're not beating up on the fathers, I'm just emphasizing the importance of the fatherhood. We are honoring the fathers here today. Every father that's in this house, we are honoring you today. Amen. God has caused you to be a father. God has done that in your life. But there's a responsibility. We're asking fathers to determine that they're going to pass on a godly legacy to their family. The fathers that are here, we are asking you that you're going to make your mind up. I'm going to pass a godly legacy onto my family.

If you're not married but you think you're going to be married in the future, you still need to think about what I just said. Amen. The fathers will meet this challenge. How do you meet this challenge? You're going to commit to regular church attendance, committing to daily prayer and Bible reading. I'm not asking you to say it to me. I'm asking you to say it to God this morning. I won't know. God will know. So I'm not asking you to make any pledge to me or this congregation. I'm talking about you are making it to God. Committing to daily prayer and Bible reading, to be an example to their children of living for the Lord in order that the legacy of faith, salvation, and truth can be passed to the next generation. Amen.

All right. This altar's open. I'd like the fathers to come. We're going to pray with the fathers. Amen. But right now, the altar's open for everybody to come and just pray and worship God. Amen. We all have a challenge. Amen. Praise God. Mothers, you want your husbands to be men of God, you need to be praying for them too. Amen. You need to be praying for them. Lord God, we thank you today for fathers. Lord, we see the responsibility that you've put upon us, Lord God. Lord, it's a heavy responsibility. Every father here knows. There's been times where we wonder what we could do. Can we carry on? Sometimes we've felt like running, sometimes we've felt like quitting. Amen. But, Lord, you've brought us this far. You're a faithful God. Amen. We're asking you, Lord, to bless every father that's here this morning. Every one of them, Lord God, to give them strength, to give them a renovation of the mind, Lord God, to help them understand the goodness. Hallelujah. Amen. If there's mothers here today that the fathers are not in church, Lord, we're praying for those fathers here. Lord, we're asking you, Lord, to break the yoke of the enemy. Hallelujah. Cast down the imaginations. Bring them into right thinking, Lord God. Amen. Whatever curses are there in the past, we come against them by the blood of Jesus and the word of the Lord. We thank you, Lord God. Amen. We break every curse. We break every bond of the enemy. Amen. We're reaching back to generations here, Lord, believing what God's going to do. Come on, he's going to help, he's going to strengthen. He's here right now. Yeah.

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 in 58 West Street in Whitman, Massachusetts. If you love praise and worship, you will love services at South Shore Pentecostal Church, and we invite you to come and worship with us. Sunday school for all ages begins at 10:00 AM and our Sunday evening service begins at 6:00 PM. Adult Bible study and children's church is held on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. You can learn more about our church on our website at southshorepentecostal.com or you may call us at 781-447-1668. If you have been blessed by this radio ministry, you can help support Apostolic Truth Radio via online giving through Venmo at SSPCWhitman. Write us today and request a free copy of today's message and join us for another broadcast of Apostolic Truth.