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 move of God here this morning. We've had a move of God, but maybe a little bit different aspect of it here. I'd like to read these scriptures starting in Genesis 1:1-5, and then we'll go to Matthew 1:18, which is the Christmas story in the book of Matthew.

Genesis 1:1-5, familiar verses to many of us, says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

In the gospel of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 18, it says, "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.'"

"Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 'Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,' which being interpreted is 'God with us.' Then Joseph being raised from his sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus."

In Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 9-11, it says, "Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."

Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for your word. We ask you, Lord God, to open our hearts and understanding of your word today. Let it find a place in our hearts, Lord, that we can be anchored in your word, that it can be a foundation, that it can help us grow and move on in the position that you have for us. Help me to be able to express the things that you want expressed in your name, in Jesus' name. Everyone said, amen. Praise God.

So, the first thing, we're talking about the move of God. We need to understand that God moves with purpose. Sometimes we can get the idea that you're having church and all of a sudden God moves, or all of a sudden there's revival. But it's really not that way. God has got a purpose in everything that he does. God has got a purpose, and we see this illustrated by the days of creation in the book of Genesis, where God right off the beginning shows us he's got purpose. The first day there's light, second day waters are separated from above, third day earth comes forward and plants and different things. God's got order. God's got a plan. God is not randomly moving.

But when he's doing things, he's progressing towards something. Whenever God is moving, there's a reason why God is moving. If you want to get the benefit of what God is doing, you get with the movement, so to speak. If you'll move with the spirit, then you get the benefit of the spirit. If you oppose the spirit, then you can get kind of the backlash of the spirit. It's like trying to stand against a hurricane. It doesn't work too well. So we have to try to find out what God is doing.

Some of you might be familiar with a man, Billy Cole, who was a great man of God and faith. One man asked him, "How do you get into the move of God?" He said, "I find out what God is doing and then I go there." So that's the whole thing. If you start to find out what God is doing, God is going to do something in everybody's life if we let him. I've got to find out what God wants to do with me. If I've got to go some place in order for God to do that, then I must go. If I've got to change something in order for that to happen, then I've got to change that.

A lot of times we try to get what God is doing, but hold on to everything around us the way we like it. That doesn't always work. If we could take the picture of Israel coming out of Egypt, if they could have had Ten Commandments and stayed in Egypt, they would have done it. But that's not what was going to happen. They had to come out of Egypt, go through the Red Sea, go through some wilderness and come to a place where God was going to speak to them.

God had to get them out of their environment to a different place. That's why sometimes God has got to change things in our lives. Sometimes we've got to physically come out of an environment, but most of the time the environment's in our head, in our mind, in our emotions, and God's got to change that. So God, before he can move, has to sometimes separate some things out of our life so that we get to a place that we can hear God. For Israel, he needed to get them away from all those things that they had in Egypt. In spite of the bondage, they still had a lot of things that they would remember that was good, that made them think they wanted to go back sometimes.

God had to get that out of them and get them to a place where there wasn't any distractions. That's why it's good to come to church and turn your phone off. Because you come to church where you can get out of distractions. Yeah, I can pray at home, but praying at home is kind of like taking a vacation at home. When you take a vacation at home, you think of all the projects you should do. Most of the time you don't take a vacation. But if you go away, you can't do anything at the house because you're not there.

The same thing happens with God. Sometimes you've got to get away from the things of life. That leads us to a plug for the media fast, unintentionally. That's what the media fast is about. It's changing our thinking, our environment in the house. Turn the TV off from the regular sports and news and all that stuff, and if you're going to watch something, watch a Bible-based story, something that's going to edify you. Maybe some preaching, some good music that's Bible music. Do something like that. That's the idea. Now we're not saying that things you've got to do that you should not do those, but we're saying let's draw some lines so that your thinking changes and put a different environment of thinking around you.

So God, when we're talking about God moving, again, he moves with purpose. When we read in Genesis chapter 1 and 2, we see that God didn't just create because he was bored. God didn't just create because he wanted to show the angels he could do it. God is creating because he's got an end goal in that creation. The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:26 and 27, God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness." The whole point of creation was to create an environment for man because God wanted to create somebody that was like him that would relate to him. So creation is made so that we can live and we can learn and have a relationship with God. That's the real purpose.

Again, we're trying to show that God didn't just create things. The idea of evolution, that's not scientific, although they try to convince you it is. If you delve into it, you find out you've got more proof for God creating people on the spot than you do for evolution. But that's a whole story. So the actions of God are not random. He's working towards something. If you're a child of God, he's working towards something in your life. He's got an end goal and that involves the refining that Sister Shertel was talking about. Since God is eternal and not bound by time, we kind of get the idea that his movements are random and fragmenting because they're spread over a longer time than we are used to dealing with as human beings.

This is how God works. Because of that, we sometimes miss that what God did 100 years ago, God was doing to set up for today. We sometimes, as you start to read the Bible and become more familiar, you get an idea that's what the prophecies of Messiah in Israel are about. They're showing us that God had a plan. God was saying, "I'm going to do it this way through these people, and the Messiah is going to be like this. When the Messiah comes, this is going to happen, and the Messiah is going to be such and such." God is saying these things across time to let us know that he's not an absent God.

Just because we didn't see something or don't understand something does not mean that God is not present and working. Sometimes we've got to learn to tune into God. That's usually the biggest problem, is we're not really tuned into him. We're tuned into our approach of what we think life should be. Because of that, most of the time we're kind of like a radio station. We're tuned into the news 90 percent of the time, but once in a while we might tune to some other station. We kind of do that with God. We get on God's frequency on Sunday and Wednesday and maybe a little bit in prayer in the morning, but then we tune to some other thing for the rest of the day. Because of that, we miss God moving in our lives.

The main thing we're trying to understand is God has got purpose. We can see some of this in Genesis 15, verses 13-16. There's a lot of different examples that you could pick out of the Bible, but that was one that it seemed like the Lord impressed it upon me. So in Genesis 15:13, God has appeared to Abraham and said, "I'm your shield and exceeding great reward." So now Abraham has just gone and rescued Lot and he had an army, had some confederate tribes with him to help him. But now God appears to him and says, "I'm your shield and exceeding great reward."

In other words, "Abraham, I'll be your fight. You don't need a bunch of other tribes to help you. I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to be your shield." God will be a shield for you. God will fight for you. Sometimes he doesn't fight for us because we stand up and say, "I'm going to fight," and God says, "If you want to, go ahead. Wear yourself out." But if you'll stand and let me fight, I'll do it in a way that you'll be amazed. When we get ready to fight, we think we've got to knock down everything we see that's against us. When God fights, God just takes it away or moves you out of the thing or God isolates you, God protects you.

You can have people coming against you and you never knew they were coming against you because God was fighting for you. You'll never know till we get to heaven, you live for God, you'll never know who was going to shoot you and God turned it away, who was going to stab you and God held it back, who had bad intentions against you, but God said, "Not them, they're mine. They're living for me. They've got my name. You can't do that without my permission." God does do that.

If you've ever read that story about "Tortured for Christ," after the man gets out of 15 or 20 years of prison there in Yugoslavia or Romania, wherever he was at, he talks about a Bible study that an older woman has there. It's communist. This is before all the communism so-called dissipated and the Iron Curtain and all that came down. So this is before 1989. We're talking like in probably the 70s and the 60s and that era of time. She's holding Bible study. That's illegal. If they find you being a sincere Christian, they throw you in prison. The soldiers come to her door and say, "You're having Bible study. Stop that." She says, "We're having Bible study." They leave. God will fight for you. God will fight for you if you'll hold on to God.

God tells Abraham, "I'm going to give you this land, the land where you see, and I'm going to give it to your seed." God makes an agreement with Abraham. But now notice in verse 13. Genesis 15:13, and he said unto Abraham, "Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace. Thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full."

Now what's going on here? God is making a promise to Abraham. He made him a promise in Genesis 12:3. He said, "Of thy seed, all the families of the earth will be blessed." Now God's saying that seed is going to go down into a land and be in bondage. They're going to be there 400 years. "And you're going to die, Abraham, before all this happens." God is letting him understand some things are going to happen. They may appear random. They may appear like I'm not in the picture, but it's really part of the plan. It's really going to lead to what I intend to happen.

They're going down there. Why? Why is God going to put them down there? Part of it is it's a place where they grow as a nation. They are protected for a period. But it gets rough because God didn't want them to stay there forever. When the fullness of time is come, God wants them to come out of that. But he tells them they're going to be in bondage for 400 years. Then God reveals that part of what's going on is the land I'm promising you, Abraham, is full of people right now. But their sin has not come to the point where it's going to be judged.

Now what God is telling us is that God is a God of righteousness and love and judgment. Even though there's sin, he does not judge it right away, but he gives people time. God doesn't just say, "Well, I promised that land to Abraham, so you guys goodbye." But the sin is there and he says, "When that sin reaches the point, that's when the people are coming out." So God gives the Amorites. A lot of people think the Bible's full of fighting and all these kinds of things, but people don't understand the people that Israel came against were evil people. They had almost the mind of Sodom and Gomorrah and almost the mind of people before the flood.

When you read in Leviticus chapters 18, 19 and 20, and parts of 21, you look at it and God says, "When you go into the land, this is after 400 years and they're about ready to go in. When you go into the land, don't live or act the way the Egyptians did, and don't live or act the way the Canaanites did." Then he gives all these laws. Don't get involved, don't have sexual relationships with your cousins, your aunts, your uncles, people that are too close to you. Don't have it with beasts, men with men, women with women. Don't do these things, for all these things are things that they have done. That's why they're being cast out of the land.

I'm trying to help us understand God is not a random God. The Bible says God doesn't change. Moral law comes from God. This is why there's a war against Christianity in the public square. Because if they admit the God of Christianity, they've got to admit the morals of Christianity. That means that a lot of things they're doing are wrong because God says they're wrong, not because we say, but because God says that. So they're down there 400 years. My point is God is not random. When he takes time to do things, he doesn't always let us know the reasons, but there are reasons why.

Now there's a point to all this and we're getting there. Again, we saw that God revealed to Abraham in Genesis 15 that even though I'm giving you the land, you're not getting it now because the judgment for those people hasn't reached their point. Now again, what God is doing there is he's giving those people time to repent. He's giving them time to repent. God will give us time to repent. God will try to talk to us. God will give us space. All those people in Canaan, they had Abraham walking, they had Isaac walking, you've got Jacob with his 12 sons for a while down there walking.

They run in and they recognize that there's something going on with these people that's different. Even when they come into the land of Canaan after the end of 400 years and they come across the Jordan, Rahab comes out because we heard what your God did. Now she talks about something that happened 40 years earlier. We heard your God opened up the Red Sea when you came out of Egypt. So that lets us understand that it wasn't that they hadn't heard of God. Some of them didn't want to change. They were willing, but Rahab wanted to change. So God is very patient. He's very patient with us.

Talking about the birth of Jesus, the birth of Jesus occurs in God's perfect time. When we look at over in Galatians 4:4, it's a scripture that I say a lot. It says, "When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law." That tells us God had an appointed time in his mind and understanding when this was going to happen. Why did it take 4,000 years? I don't know we can answer that, but we do know it happened when God's had appointed time. When we look over in the gospel of Luke, we see that Luke is very careful in chronicling or giving a chronicle of events and when they occur, and he's letting us understand that when events are starting to happen in the gospels, they're happening because God has set it up and now is the time for it to happen.

Looking in Luke chapter 2, verse 1, "It came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn."

Now sometimes we think right past it. We don't really think about what's going on here. But Mary and Joseph are in Nazareth. But the prophecy says the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. But they're living up in Nazareth. So what does God do? God moves on the emperor, call for a census, and make everybody go to the home of their father. He calls it when she's ready to deliver, so that Jesus is born in Bethlehem to fulfill the prophecy.

I'm sure a lot of people were thinking, "Oh man, why do we have to go through this?" Again, it's two or three day journey one way to get there and not a comfortable thing. So God was setting everything up. When Messiah's born, it's not an accident. It's not God says, "Oh, I think this would be a good time." But if you start to study history, you find out that God had set the world up just right. When Jesus is born, he's born during Augustus. It's called what they call the Pax Romana. It's a Roman peace. The Romans had brought peace over all the area that they knew and they had built roads, and it was the safest and easiest time to travel in ancient history.

Greek was the language. Alexander the Great had come in and conquered everybody and made it all Greek. Even though Rome was the nation, Greek was the language. So there was a common language. Because the Jews had been dispersed because of all of their disobedience, they still had a synagogue in every major city in the empire. When the gospel starts to come, there was preaching points to start, with a common language, Greek, with safe roads to travel on. God knows what he's doing. He's not working by accident. God's got a purpose. Just get ahold of the purpose. Get into the flow of what God's doing.

So then we start to look that Jesus is our example. In Romans 8:29, "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." Why did God come in the flesh? Well, one reason is we needed a kinsman redeemer, but the other thing is we needed a living example. We needed to see what it looks like when God lives by his own law. We needed to see that it's possible to live God's way if we've got his spirit. So God came in the flesh so we could understand it's possible. This is how God lives. This is how God wants us to be.

Jesus is our example. So when it says we're supposed to be conformed to his image, it doesn't mean his facial figures and height and weight, but it means his character. His character. In Ephesians 1:3, and I'm laying a foundation. I understand that you might wonder where I'm going. Ephesians 1:3 says, "Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

Now the predestination is not people, but the reward and the endpoint for those that choose to live for God. The reward is predestined. If you're going to live for God, you're adopted. The adoption is family. You're predestined if you choose God, God has already got a reward determined for you. He's not making anybody get lost or saved. That's not true. You've got people that believe that, but the Bible says God's not willing that any should perish, or God so loved the world, not God loved half the world or God loved the predestined. God loved the world.

So it can't be that he's predestinating persons. Peter on the day of Pentecost, the promise is for you and for all they're called, for as many as will choose him. The promise is if you'll choose him. God gives us all an opportunity. But God through Christ, through what he's doing in the body of Christ, is adopting those that choose him into a family.

The Holy Ghost is the beginning, the earnest, the down payment. God has got heavenly things laid up for his people. And when we come to church and we have something like we just felt, that's to let us know it's not just our imagination, but it's real. It's to let us know that God is real, that I can feel him, that he talks to me, that he knows who I am. That's why I go to the altar. I want a communion with God. I can't get by no matter how great the preachers are. I've got to have an experience with God myself. It doesn't matter what they know. It doesn't matter what gifts or prophecy they got. I must have an experience with God myself. I've got to have God fill me. I've got to be moved by God. Not traditions.

God wants to gather all things in Christ. Again in that same chapter of Ephesians down in verse 9, 10 and 11, "Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times," which is a dispensation beyond where we're at right now, "He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."

I'm trying to bring out that God is not randomly working. God is working with purpose. His purpose, even though I believe God's got a special purpose for the United States, he's not dealing with just the United States. He's dealing with the world. God is interested in souls in every country. That's why we support missionaries there. We might be dry here, but they might be in revival there. So we'll help them over there.

But what God wants from us to push God's purpose forward, God requires people that are willing to believe and be faithful. Us here today. What God wants from me and you, he's looking for faithful people. People that believe and are willing to be faithful to move his plan forward. Maybe one of the reasons it's taken as long as it has is it's taken that long for God to find enough faithful people to move it forward. I'm not saying that's the truth, but it's just a question you could ask yourself and wonder about it. Because again, God gives us free will. We can choose to serve or not to serve. Just because God's called us doesn't mean we have to like it. Jeremiah didn't like all things God asked him to do. He tried to quit, but he had a fire in his bones. Hallelujah.

So we go to Matthew and I think Matthew, when we read Matthew chapter 1, there's a simplicity in the stories of Mary and Joseph that shows us, I think illustrates, what God is looking for. When we look at Matthew chapter 1, verses 18-25, Matthew is kind of Joseph's side of the story. Luke is Mary's side of the story. In Matthew, God speaks to Joseph. In Luke, the angel speaks to Mary. Both sides of the story are part of the story. We need to know that.

We look at Joseph. We look at these people. They're common people. They're common. The only thing that makes them unique is their lineage, but their station in life doesn't bring them above anybody else, does it? So but God is choosing them. God is choosing them to be the family for the Messiah. They didn't have to have a big education. They didn't have to have a place of position or power. What God needed was somebody, "If I tell you, will you believe me and do it?"

So Joseph, just think about Joseph in his position. He finds out he's betrothed to Mary. He finds out she's pregnant. The logical thing for all of us is she got involved with some other man. So he's not a vindictive person. He's minded to put her away privily. In other words, break the engagement and just do it between the families so it's not a big public deal. But while he's doing that, the angel appears to him in a dream and says, "Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived of her is of the Holy Ghost."

Now I don't know what any of us would do. Well, that might be God, but what are they going to say? They're going to say my wife's been unfaithful. They're going to mock me for taking an unfaithful wife. They're going to say all these things. What about any of the kids that we have after this? What's going to happen to them in the village? How are people going to handle this? But Joseph does what God asks him to do. God tells him, "Joseph, you're not naming the kid. Here's his name: Jesus."

So Joseph goes, takes Mary, and he withholds himself. They're married, but he doesn't have any relationships until she brings forth her firstborn child. Now to me that's significant, because there's a lot of guys that could make a reason why they could be in infidelity and different things. God expects us to be able to control ourselves. That's right. I'm not saying it's easy, but God expects it. Sometimes it's the way we think, sometimes it's our own selfishness, and sometimes it's things that are in our lives that provoke things.

Again, God comes to Mary through the angel. Can you imagine even for her? You're going to have a child. How? I don't know a man. The Spirit of God's going to overshadow you and that holy thing that will be born of you shall be called the Son of God. "Be it unto me according to thy word." Alright, God. Again, she's going to say, "What's my husband going to say? My husband-to-be, he's going to leave me. What's my parents going to say? Nobody's going to believe. They're going to stone me. They're going to stone me, they're going to talk about me. Be it unto me according to thy word."

Now without them, God's plan doesn't move forward. A lot of times we think we've got to have anointing, miracles, gifts of the spirit to move the plan forward. But here's two people that never works any miracles, no special Holy Ghost anointing on them, not given prophecy, but God has got them to move the program forward because they're willing to be faithful and believe what he says. Let's give God some praise. Hallelujah, Jesus. Hallelujah, Lord God. Hallelujah.

Again, it's simple faith, simple faith, simple believing in the things of God. See, God wants faithful and believing people. Again, as I've already stated, sometimes we get that impression, I've got to have an anointing of Elijah, I've got to be a Peter, I've got to be a Paul, I've got to be this or I've got to be that. When really, those people are part of the thing that God is doing, but behind that there's many people that are faithful and believing that don't have any gifts like that, but they're necessary for the moving forward of God's program.

John the Baptist, I mean, we know that he preached, but he's called Jesus called him the greatest of people born of women, yet not one miracle. Not one miracle. Greatest prophet, no miracles. Greatest prophet, no miracles. Sometimes we can be great if we'll just live the way God wants us to live. God wants faithful people. His plans move forward through people that are willing to believe what he says and be faithful and continue his plans. Believing what he says and moving forward often just means letting God do what he says he wants to do and not putting a timetable on God, not putting restraints on God. "Okay God, but you got you know, yeah I'll live for you but I need this kind of salary and I need this place and I got you know." It's letting God have charge.

We read about the miracle of the angel that frees Peter. Great miracle. James is killed by Herod. Peter's taken by James and they're going to kill him after the Passover. Then an angel comes in, wakes Peter up, breaks his shackles, opens the doors, three doors, and out of the prison and they escape. But why that happened, the Bible says, is unknown people, names we don't know, prayed for Peter. Prayed in faith. We know maybe a Rhoda and Mary because they were there, maybe John Mark, but the majority of them, they prayed that Peter would be released. Simple people with faith and believing, doing and seeking God allows God to do a miracle. We see the miracle, but there's unknown people that have faith and are believing and living for God. We don't know their names, but we know the miracle.

Again, you have Cornelius, and he's in there because he's the opening of the door of the church to the Gentiles, the Holy Ghost. But why is Cornelius there? Because he's an unknown man praying to God. God finally says, "Your prayers have come before me for a memorial. Send for Peter. He's going to tell you what you need to do." I'm trying to help you understand. Sometimes God is just trying to get us beyond ourselves, beyond our problem, and pray for his will, pray for the move of God. Pray. Sometimes the upheaval is God trying to reorder things and he needs somebody to pray. Peter not being arrested, no miracle. But with faithful people praying, a great miracle. Hallelujah.

Again, the church at Antioch, the great church at Antioch. This is the church that Paul will be launched from into his missionary evangelism across the world into Asia, the church at Antioch. How does that church come to be? We don't even know the names of the founders. When Barnabas gets there, it's already going. All we know is people fled because of the persecution of Stephen. They didn't give up, they continued to live for God. They said, "We can't live here in Jerusalem because it's too dangerous, so we'll go over here and we'll tell somebody." And a church is started. Unknown names, but faithful believing people doing what God can wants them to do, believing God in spite of persecution, in spite of being uprooted, in spite of suffering, in spite of things they don't like or understand, and God's making a church that starts an evangelistic work and launches Paul. Can we praise God? Oh, God. Hallelujah.

So all I'm saying today, when I read that story in Matthew of Joseph and I see the simple faith, uncomfortable situations, but God says, "I'm in it. Do what I tell you." "Okay." Simply acting on what God said. No frills, no bells and whistles, just doing. Just doing what God has asked them to do. And God in that puts the plan in motion. The plan in motion. Lord needs people that are patient. Luke 21:19, "In your patience possess ye your souls." Hebrews 10:36, "Ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God ye might receive the promise." God needs people that are faithful. In the parable of the pounds, the man with five pounds, the man with two pounds, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." You took what I gave you and invested it.

Are we using what God has given us and investing it? Am I using my life? Am I letting God cause me to invest my life in his purpose? Are you doing that? Am I doing that? This is what God is getting at today. The Bible tells us in the book of Habakkuk that visions are for appointed times. We should read that because it's important. God gives visions, but a lot of times the reason he gives us the vision is so we can see the picture and hold on to it till the time comes.

In Habakkuk 2:2, "And the Lord answered me and said, 'Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.'" So sometimes God gives us the vision and it's so clear, we think it's going to happen tomorrow. But God is trying to help us understand, and sometimes God does do that, but often God is giving us something to run with. It's going to happen, but he needs people that are faithful and patient and believing and they're not looking at, "Well, I don't know how to preach." That doesn't matter. "I don't know how to speak." That doesn't matter to God.

"You know, I don't have a calling." That doesn't matter. "I don't have a big education." That doesn't matter. "I've never been involved in religious things." That doesn't matter. "I wasn't raised in the church." That doesn't matter. "Will you believe me?" God says. "Will you believe and obey? I need some faithful people to move my program forward." Would you stand here today? The move of God depends on faithful believing people who are willing to endure and trust the Lord. He's trying to encourage us to continue in faith today. That's what God's trying to get us to do, to continue in faith. The question here today is am I being faithful? Am I believing what God is saying?

I'm not saying it's easy. The question's not, "Is it easy, is it the way I like, or does it look like a mess?" Yes, it can look like a mess. But what has God said? Are you letting God speak into your circumstance? See, a lot of times we don't let God speak. And again, oftentimes it's because we put boundaries around God. "God, I need help and here's the way I need the help." And that's our thinking. "If you don't fix this, this is going to happen." You know, that can be broken for eternity and nothing happens if God doesn't let it happen. Nothing can happen unless God lets it happen. So what I've got to do is I've got to start to let God be in control. Let's lift our hearts here today. If God's talking to you today, if he's talking, he's trying to get us to understand as we're leaving this year, getting ready for the next year, he's looking for faithful believing people. You believe and you're faithful.

Lord God, give us understanding here today. Help us, Lord God, prepare our hearts as we are leaving out of this year into the next year, the next times that you're bringing forward. Help us to get our hearts prepared to be faithful, to believe when you speak to us, Lord God, to trust you enough to let go of the things that we need to let go, to believe, Lord, that you'll not hold any good thing back from us, Lord God. And Lord, to help us understand and see that you're looking for people that believe and are faithful so that you can move your program forward, Lord God. Hallelujah. Amen. Our faithfulness and believing might just be the key to those we've been praying for. Amen, it might just be the key to those around us that we want to know the truth. Hallelujah. God is trying to get us to be continued in faithfulness and believing. Hallelujah.

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.