South Shore Pentecostal Church

Announcer (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: Job 24:2 says, "Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks and feed thereof." Then in Jeremiah Chapter 1, verses 17 through 19, just a few pages after Job, Jeremiah 1:17 says: "Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them."

See, when we let the looks of other people stop us from doing what God wants, we get confounded. We get confounded. Amen. He says: "For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." Now, if God was with Jeremiah, who didn't have the Holy Ghost, and we got the Holy Ghost, God is for us. Amen.

Romans 14:17, a familiar scripture, says: "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." That's the kingdom. When you get born again, you get put into that kingdom. Ephesians 6:13: "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." Say stand. Say, "I'm going to stand." Amen. And you may be seated here this morning.

We must stand here today. Amen. And I understand. Listen, I wasn't raised in this, and so I understand that raising your hands felt weird to me. I had to learn how to do that. Why? Because the Bible says I need to. I was not a person to open my mouth and make a big noise, but I need to for God. He's worth it. Amen.

Not a person to want to get out in front of people, but for God, I will. I'll get out in front of people because we're involved in a spiritual battle. War is not comfortable. War is not comfortable. It doesn't mean that in a war there's never a time of rest or comfort, but in general, you've got to be willing to deal with discomfort.

Sometimes God lets some things happen in our lives because what he's trying to help us to do is learn how to deal with this. I need to learn how to deal with spiritual warfare. I need to learn how to rebuke the devil and keep my joy. I need to learn how to fight and maybe take some bruises, but get up and know the war's not done. I might have lost a battle, but I haven't lost the war. Amen.

Amen. And so sometimes God lets some things happen in our lives because he wants you and me to learn how to deal with them in the spirit. Amen. If God just took everything away, we would just cruise on. Amen. So, we must stand. The blessings of salvation—the Bible declares that those that are born again have entered into the kingdom of God.

Today the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. There's a day when there's going to be a physical kingdom of God on this earth, but today it's spiritual. In Luke 17:21, Jesus said the kingdom doesn't come with observation, but it's within you. So, God manifests his kingdom in the earth through people. The way we say, "God, we want you to move," then we won't move, right? Because the kingdom's within me.

If I get the Holy Ghost, the kingdom's within me. You get the Holy Ghost, the kingdom's within you. "Oh God, move. God, do this. God, do this." And God says, "Well, go down here and talk to this person." "I can't do that. I'm too scared. I don't know enough Bible." It goes on. And we all feel that way, but we've got to learn to overcome it.

The kingdom of God is in us. And if I want the kingdom of God to move, I've got to let God move me. I've got to let God move me. Amen. Praise God. And the Bible lets us understand there's benefits to the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost.

Everybody's looking for peace and joy. And actually, they're looking for righteousness too because they're going around feeling guilty. They might be going over here to the bar and doing this and doing that and getting high—they're trying to escape their guilt. They're trying to escape their depression. They're looking for a clean high that only comes from God. Amen.

So the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. So we start with that righteousness. The righteousness means our sins are covered by the blood. That means I don't have to go around feeling guilty. If I sin and I confess it, God forgives me. God forgives you. I'm reconciled to him. Amen. That doesn't mean everything's perfect in my life, but I'm dealing with what I understand and God's dealing with me.

If I will deal with what God deals with me, things are going to be okay. Amen. My problem comes when God deals with me and I don't deal with what God says. But if I do and deal with what God wants to deal with in my life, God's going to be—I'll be okay with God. Amen. We have peace through the kingdom. People are looking for peace.

That's why they're taking all these vacations. They want to take them and then they get home from the vacation, they've got to take another vacation because they really didn't get any peace. Amen. Even that even happens to Apostolics. Praise God. Amen. So, when you're in the kingdom, you've got peace of mind. Amen.

Right? You can go—you're not afraid to lay your head down on the pillow and go to sleep. I don't need the TV running 24/7. Listen, there are houses where they've got to run that TV all night long. They go to the bedroom and that TV still got to run there in the living room or the kitchen or wherever it is.

You've got people that never sit in their car with the radio and songs off or something. Amen. They've got to always have something talking to them. But when you've got the peace of God, you don't mind if the radio's off because maybe God will talk to me. Maybe the Holy Ghost will come in the car. Amen.

Maybe I'll feel the peace of God that passes understanding. Maybe when I get out of my car on the way to work and I walk into work, I'll have the joy of the Holy Ghost because of the peace of God. So the kingdom of God has got great benefits. Amen. We can take our problems to the Lord. Amen. It's not that living for God means no problems, but now we've got God that knows our problems.

We've got God that can handle the problems we can't handle. We've got God that's going to give us strength in the midnight hour. We've got God that's got all the sources and the resources to help us in the circumstance. So I can take my problem to the Lord in prayer. And the Bible says when I take it to him in prayer with thanksgiving, amen, the peace of God that passes understanding is going to keep my heart and my mind.

In other words, I won't need a tranquilizer. I don't need a psychologist. I just need the peace of God. Amen. I don't need to go to bed and sleep for three weeks. I just need God. The peace of God will keep you. Amen. But sometimes the problem is I don't take it to God. Now if I get down on my prayer place and I say, "God, here's my problem, and this is what I'd like you to do, and this is what I need you to do," and then I get up and I carry my problem around with me, I did not take it to God.

I need to take it to God, lay it at his feet, leave it there. And when I come out of the prayer place, God's got the problem. I don't have the problem. God's got the answer. God's going to help me. He knows what I need. He's going to bring me through. Hallelujah! And the peace of God that passes understanding is going to keep me. Hallelujah! Amen.

I'm not afraid of dying. I don't want to die, but I'm not afraid of dying. I don't want to die a painful death. I don't like pain. But I'm not afraid to die because I've got the Lord in my life. And as we mentioned a little bit on our Friday Bible study, we said the devil can't take you out unless God allows it.

And if you're God's and he loves you, he's not going to let the devil just take you out. We talked about Jesus. They wanted to stone him and he walks through the crowd. At Nazareth, they want to throw him down the hill because they didn't like what he said. He goes through the crowd. Amen. They can't do anything. Now listen. You're living for God.

The devil can't do anything to you that God does not allow. Amen. And if you're doing the will of God, he's going to keep you alive until you've fulfilled your purpose. Hallelujah! Amen. I'm talking about the kingdom of God, the peace of God that passes understanding you can have. Amen.

And Proverbs 16:7 says: "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." So when you start to live for God, a lot of times God will even take care of your enemies that didn't like you. They can be provoking you, saying all kinds of things to you, but you start to please God and all of a sudden your enemies start to change.

Let's read that one, Proverbs 16:7. He says: "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." Now I'm not saying, and the Bible's not saying, that when you're living for God that means all of a sudden you don't have any enemies. The enemies might still be there, but God will deal with them. Amen.

And there'll be times where God will maybe let enemies rise up for his glory, to train us, to teach us. How we handle them might be a witness to somebody around. Amen. There's a lot of things that God is doing when he does these things. So we're in the kingdom of God. If you're born again, you've got righteousness. You've got God's righteousness.

Amen. The devil doesn't like that. If you're born again, you've got access to the peace of God, the peace that passes understanding. Amen. If you're in the kingdom of God, it includes joy. So the relationship of salvation of the Lord should give us a joy that's unspeakable.

I don't know about you, but when I feel the Lord, I feel good. Even if I'm sick, I feel good. Amen. The presence of God makes you feel good. Amen. It makes you feel like a young person on a spring day and you wake up and you're ready to do something. Hallelujah! The joy of the Lord gives you strength. Amen.

And so it's a joy you can't really describe it. You try to explain it. They see you're acting different. They see you're acting funny in their mind. Amen. But the joy of the Lord. Amen. Now we all have times where we get down and we've got problems, but there ought to be more times of joy in God than times of sour faces. Amen.

If I've got the Holy Ghost and I'm praying and seeking God, there should be more times of joy than sour faces. Praise God. Amen. Amen. The joy of salvation gives a new meaning to life. Now, I don't know about you, but all of a sudden I got saved, now I've got a purpose. What do you mean? My purpose is now I want somebody else to know about this.

Now I realize God's got a reason why I'm alive. I've got a purpose. Amen. The joy of the Lord gives me a purpose in life. It gives life meaning. I'm not just trying to get through, make my money, make a family, have the things I want. I've got a purpose. There's a reason why I'm here. And I'm part of why God has planned for me to be here.

So that joy of the Holy Ghost gives me a reason—a reason for life, causes me to want to tell somebody else about God. And the Bible says the joy of salvation is our strength. So we're saying all that to help us understand that when you get born again, you're put into a kingdom that's got righteousness, peace, and joy.

But the devil's not going to just say, "Okay, they've got righteousness, peace, and joy. Let them do their thing." He's going to try to encroach on your joy, on your peace, on your righteousness. He's going to try to steal it. He's going to try to make you, rather than feel like you have abundant life, make you feel like you've got a squeezed life.

He's going to try to intimidate you. He's going to try to get you to look at everything that's wrong so you don't see everything that's right. He's going to try to get you to make you think it's a cloudy, overcast day every day when the sun's actually shining. He's going to try to make you think there's no reason to hope when you've got all the hope in the world.

He's going to try to make you think that things are never going to get any better when God's about to turn a new page the next day. Hallelujah! God's got that. So there's spiritual boundaries. When you get into the kingdom, you need to draw some boundaries in your life. Amen. And you're going to draw those boundaries and say, "Devil, you're not coming across that boundary."

Listen, you put a fence around your house, you get somebody in your yard you don't like, you go out and tell them you get out, right? And the fence is there. Okay. You got somebody nearby, you don't have a fence, and they keep coming in your yard and there's somebody you don't get along with. Next thing you do, you're going to put a fence up, right?

But why don't we put a fence up for the devil? Why don't you put a fence up and say, "Devil, this is the kingdom God's put me into. You're not coming across that line." Spiritual boundaries. Amen. So that righteousness, peace, and joy comes from being a part of the kingdom. And the Bible declares also in Second Timothy that God's given us the spirit of power, love, and sound mind.

You believe that? When your mind is going bad, you pray it: "God, you didn't give me a bad mind. You gave me the spirit of power, love, sound mind." Do you believe that? That's what the Bible says. He tells Timothy, "Stir up the gift that's in you." And I understand that he's talking about specific spiritual gifts that Timothy had for ministry, but it also talks about the Holy Ghost.

Stir up the Holy Ghost that's in you. That's why sometimes you've got to open your mouth and shout when you don't feel like it. Hallelujah! You've got to praise God when you don't feel it. I'm stirring up the gift. Hallelujah! It's been sitting there. It's been getting kind of stuck and all stiff and stuff, so I'm going to open my mouth and praise God.

I'm going to open my mouth and give him the glory he's worthy of. Amen. I'm going to praise God. Open your mouth and praise God. Stir up the gift. Hallelujah! Amen. You're praying in your prayer place, you don't seem to be getting any place, maybe you need to open your mouth and start to say the prayers out loud.

Hallelujah! So Second Timothy 1:7: God's not given us a spirit of fear. You start getting afraid, it's not coming from God. Not, not, not, not, not coming from God. You start getting afraid what's going to happen, it's not coming from God. Amen. It's coming out of hell because God's not given us a spirit of fear, but power, love, sound mind.

But if you don't believe that scripture, you've got nothing to combat with. But if you believe that scripture, you can say, "Now wait a minute. God gave me a spirit of power." Amen. That means I can deal with this. I can get what I need to overcome this. God's given me a spirit of love. I can go through this and still love myself and love others even when they're trying to do me wrong.

He's given me a spirit of a sound mind. I'm not going to flip out. I'm not going to be overcome. I'm not going to end up in a psych ward because I can't take it. God's given me a sound mind. I've got a helmet of salvation. I'm strapping it on my mind. I'm not letting the devil take that out of my mind. I've got power, love, sound mind.

Listen, that's a sword. You cut the enemy down with that. Amen. Give him praise. Lord God, we thank you, Lord God. We worship you, Lord God. We magnify you, Lord God. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! So when my righteousness, peace, and joy starts to fade, something's entered into the kingdom.

When my righteousness, peace, and joy starts to fade, something's crossed the boundary into the spiritual kingdom that God has put me in and you in. Do you understand what I'm saying? So that's like a little alarm. Amen. Everybody's got these Ring doorbells and can see everything. Why don't we put some spiritual Ring doorbells on so we can see what's going on around us?

Amen. Get into our soul. Amen. We won't even go to the door unless we see what it is. Now we can look at it at our phone. We're up in New Hampshire and we're seeing who's at our door. Why don't we do that with our spirit? Amen. It is in the Holy Ghost. You can do it. Amen. You've just got to have your mind put on.

Just like you had to pay somebody to do that. You had to call them up, find out, come over and do it, set a time. You've got to set up a time you're going to pray. "God, I'm going to put some spiritual things in my life. Amen. I'm going to have him have a guard here. I'm going to have somebody monitor the area." Amen. You turn on your spirit—amen—your spirit detector—amen—and keep yourself in the love of God.

Hallelujah! So when fear starts to raise its head, something's entered in. Now I am not saying I don't ever struggle with fear. I'm not trying to say that. I'm not saying I don't ever wake up in the night with fear. Amen. I'm not saying that. But I am saying when those things happen, I go to this and pray, and it always deals with the circumstance and the situation.

And I'm finally able to go down and lay my head onto the bed and go to sleep and get up the next day like it never happened. Amen. So I'm not saying I don't ever go through that. What I'm saying is you can overcome it if you'll do what the Bible says. If you'll make a commitment to God, you can have the victory in your life.

Commit, commit, commit. That's the key. Commit. Amen. See, if I've got an 80% commitment to God, that 20% leaves a 20% door for the devil. I need a total commitment to God. If I've got 95% commitment to God, I've got a 5% door the devil can come in. You need a total commitment to God. But when you've got a total commitment, he can't come in east, west, north, south, up, down, in, out.

The enemy can't come in. You've got a commitment. You've got a spiritual boundary. Hallelujah! So, as we said, we read the scripture in Job and also in Proverbs 22:28: "Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set." So the Bible also reveals, we read in Job, that there's evil people or spirits that are willing to remove the landmark.

The landmark's your fence. The landmark's what marks the boundary in our spiritual lives. There ought to be some landmarks. Your life is what God has given you. And when the enemy starts to encroach on your life, he's trying to remove the landmarks God has set in your life. He's trying to take away from you what God has given you, what God says you can have.

Hallelujah! So when I read righteousness, peace, and joy, that's not me. That's not King James. That's what God says that you get when you come into the kingdom. Amen. That's what God says we can have. It doesn't matter how many devils are out there. The Bible says: "Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world."

Not "they." Why does it say "he"? It means the "he" means the devil. That means when you've got the Holy Ghost, you've got more power than all the demons. Not most of them. Not a good chunk. All the demons. Amen. Lord Jesus. All! Doesn't matter what they say. Doesn't matter what they try to do is scare us into submission, scare us into running away, scare us into thinking it's going to work out the worst way it possibly could, when God is in control and no demon does anything that God does not allow him to do.

So there's evil spirits that's going to try to get into your kingdom, the kingdom God has given you in the spirit. And so the Bible also tells us that we're involved in that spiritual warfare. We read that scripture from Ephesians 6:13 and Ephesians 6:12 says: "We wrestle not against flesh and blood." You go to work and you're wrestling with that person next to you, and you forget and you think it's them, or they don't like you or something.

A lot of times you're really involved in a spiritual battle. And most people are ignorant of spirits working in their life. So they take thoughts from the devil, don't even realize they're being used as a tool of the devil. That's right. They don't realize it because most people are not looking at the spirit world. They just look at them.

You've got all these—all these kids think that—all these kids think they're the opposite sex of what they ought to be and nobody's thinking anything about it. But there's spirits there. There's spirits that are working on those people. Amen. There are spirits that are working on people to do stuff like that. To make them think they like what they're not.

To make them think it's better to pierce yourself and hurt yourself. Listen, some of those people are piercing themselves, they've got so much pain inside they're doing that to make sure they're still alive because they feel that. So we're wrestling with spirits. Now, we got the victory if I keep my mind on the Lord and I keep my eye on the Lord and I listen to God.

I can have the victory. We're involved in a fight. You're involved in a fight. If you're going to go to church, you're going to be involved in a fight. Yeah. If you're going to go to church, you're going to be involved in a fight. If you're going to try to live for God, you're going to be involved in a fight. Spiritual warfare. We wrestle not with flesh and blood but spirits.

And because we're fighting evil spirits, the Bible says we need the armor of God, right? And the idea that Paul was conveying is that we need to take a position. He says: "And having done all, stand." Right? Let's go read it. We'll read it in Ephesians 6, verses 12, 13, and 14. We're not going to talk about the armor of God; it's just we're just trying to lay the foundation for some of the things we're going to talk about.

If you can get the victory in your mind, you get the victory over the devil. If you get the victory in your mind, you get the victory over the devil. That's where the battle is. The battle is in your mind. Amen. Yes. The battle is in our thinking. That's where the battle is. You get the victory in your mind and you get your thinking to go according to the word of God, you will win the battle.

So Ephesians 6:12: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." It's right there in the Bible. "Wherefore"—Paul's not denying that there's a battle—but he says, because we got a battle, here's what you need to do: "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness."

And then he goes on to describe the armor of God. Now, the best weapon doesn't do anything if you don't use it to fight with. And it's hard to fight when you're running away. You're likely to trip over—if you're trying to face the enemy while you're running away, you're going to trip over what you don't see. And if you—you turn around to run, you'll see what you're going to run around, but you'll probably get hit in the back.

So if I'm going to fight, I've got to take a position. I have to take a position. I've got to plant my feet in that position. Oh, you see how many people today, they don't want a position? "Oh, we don't want to talk about that; it's causing division. We don't want to talk about that; it's causing disagreement." They don't want anybody to have a position because when nobody's got a position, nobody can fight.

But when you've got a position, now you can plant your feet and you can fight the fight. You can hold your ground. Amen. So if you're going to fight, soldiers have—they always have a battle line where they start from. And battles are won, the defending soldiers, by holding their position. And an army doesn't win by one guy moving forward, but the army has to move forward together.

You've got to have a starting point. So you've got to win a fight. I've got to—in armor, it doesn't matter how good my armor is, how sharp my sword is, how good my shield is, how well I'm trained, how much experience I have. If I don't stand, I'm not going to win the fight. Amen. God's trying to help us understand.

You've got to stand up and fight. So we're going to talk about a few things that you've got to fight for. Hallelujah! First Corinthians 16:13. He says: "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." It's a military term. He's telling them stand like soldiers in your position. Watch. In other words, be—be vigilant of your position.

Stand fast not with faith, but in the faith. See, a lot of people are vacillating because they don't even really know what the faith is. They go over to this church, they baptize name of Father, Son, Holy Ghost. They get baptized, go over here, they get baptized in Jesus' name. They don't even know what the faith is. They go over here, they say you don't get the Holy Ghost; they stay there.

They come over here and they say get the Holy Ghost and they say, "Okay." They don't even know what the faith is. That's why they can't stand. They're buffeted back and forth because they can't plant themselves because they don't know what the faith is. They're not using the Bible; they're using other people's opinions. Hallelujah.

So if I'm going to stand fast in the faith, I better find out what the faith is. Is God three or one? He's one, the Bible says. If I make him three, I can't stand. I don't even know who to grab onto. Holy prophet! Hallelujah! Come on. You've got to get a hold. Do I need to be baptized in Jesus' name?

"Oh, well, they say it's just a testimony." What does the Bible say? You're saved by baptism. So you've got to find out what the faith is. If you don't know what the faith is, you can't plant your feet and stand. You can't hold any ground. And the devil's definitely going to assault you to try to back you off. Amen.

So I've got to know at least the salvation and what Peter said, if you want to just go by Peter. I think his word's pretty good; it's in the Bible. He said repent, didn't he? Come on. He said get baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. That's what Peter said. Peter did not say get baptized in the name of Father, Son, Holy Ghost.

He said get baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And that's what you find out in the Bible in the Book of Acts. That's how they baptized. Amen. And then he said, "And ye shall receive the Holy Ghost." Jesus said, "Wait for the Holy Ghost. You'll receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you."

You and I need the Holy Ghost. How do I know I got the Holy Ghost? "Oh, I felt tingles." No. "I had joy and ran around the church." No. "I got healed." No. "I got devils cast out of me." No. "I prayed and saw a vision." No. "I spoke in tongues." Yep. Amen. And how do I know it's the right tongue?

Because when I'm done speaking in tongues, I am praising Jesus. I've got joy in my soul to praise God and praise Jesus. When you get the Holy Ghost, it will cause you to love Jesus. It will cause you to want to witness about Jesus. That's how you know you got the right thing. Yes, hallelujah! Because there's no other name. No other name given among men whereby you must be saved. It's the only saving name.

And again, got to live holy. And we're not defining all that today, but holy means there's got to be some difference in my lifestyle from the rest of the world. There's got to be some difference in your lifestyle. If I think about everything the same way the world does, I'm not holy. If I do everything the world says and does, I'm not holy.

If my goals are all the same as the world, I'm not holy. That's right. That's part of the faith. Live holy. Amen. And so—so God's asking us and again Jude wrote—he wrote to the early church. He said, "It's necessary for me to write to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints." We're going to read that verse.

You know, I mean there are people that go to church and don't even know the Book of Jude's there. It's in your Bible. It's not big, but it's there. Jude 1:3: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."

Okay, now Jude's writing that around 60 or 65 AD, 66, somewhere in that time. So if you put the Day of Pentecost at 29 or 30 AD, we're talking 30, 35 years, 36 years since the church has started. And here's Jude, who's Jesus' stepbrother, saying already people are slipping away from the faith. He's telling them that people are coming in and changing what it means to be a Christian right there in your Bible before the Bible's even done.

It's happening in the early church. People are coming in and denying the Lord and using grace as an excuse to do what they want—lasciviousness, it says in the King James. Already they're changing it. And he says we need to fight, contend. You need to stand for the faith. You need to plant your feet down for the faith of God.

This is what he's saying right there. And if he just said the faith, now notice he doesn't give you a catechism after that. So it's—it's implied that everybody really knows what the faith is supposed to be and that there is a set of beliefs and doctrines that are core beliefs to the church. Otherwise, he can't tell you "contend for it."

So you need to stand in the faith. Stand fast in the faith. If you're going to live for God, you've got to find out what the faith means, plant your feet, and defend it. Now just in believing and finding out what it means, you've—God's got to tell you that that's what it means too. Because you can't fight for something that you know but don't believe in. You'll give up.

But if you believe it, you'll fight for it. Amen. Paul told the church in Galatia, Galatians 5:1. He says, "Stand fast in the liberty." The liberty. And again, a lot of people bend that in a way that's not really the way Paul meant that to be. But really what Paul was saying is don't get entangled in the idea of keeping the law—that the idea of keeping the law of Moses is going to perfect you.

Stay in the liberty of the spirit and let the spirit direct your life. Now the spirit directing your life doesn't mean there's no boundaries. Because you can look over in Galatians Chapter 5 and he talks about the fruit of the spirit—love, joy, peace, and all. But right before that he says all these other things—fornication, lasciviousness, covetousness, murders, envyings, all these different things.

He says people that do these things will not—will not—will not inherit the kingdom of God. So when Paul says liberty, he doesn't mean you can just do what you want. He just means you're liberated from the law of Moses. You don't have to be circumcised physically. You don't have to go to the temple. You don't have to offer up a blood sacrifice anymore.

But I need to follow the spirit of God. So in the Book of Romans Chapter 8, verse 1, he kind of outlines this. Romans Chapter 8 is the chapter about living in the spirit of God. And he says: "There is therefore now no condemnation"—verse 1—"to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

Now if you've got an ESV Bible this morning, it doesn't have that last part of the verse. All right? But it's there. And if you look a lot of the translations, they've got that there. So I've got a—there's no condemnation if I'm following the spirit and I'm not walking after my fleshly desires but after the spirit of God.

We go down to verse 13 and it confirms—it says about walking in the flesh versus the spirit. He says in verse 13: "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify"—if you do through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body—"ye shall live." Next verse: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

Okay, if I'm going to be a son of God, I've got to listen to what God says. Isn't that—that's what it's saying. If you're going to be a child of God, you've got to listen to what God says. You can't just go to church and hear a nice message or something or pick the things out of the message you like.

You've got to go see, is God saying this? Is this what the Bible says? If God is saying this, I've got to follow it. If I'm going to be his child, I've got to listen to my father's voice. Hallelujah! So I've got to listen to God's voice. So again, if I follow my flesh, I'm going to die. But if I follow the spirit and let the spirit tell me what needs to be killed and what doesn't, I'm going to live.

So the law of liberty is the liberty to follow the spirit of God. Stand fast in the liberty. We've got liberty. It's—I'm not going to serve God by rules. I've got to follow his voice. And it—there are some rules in the New Testament. If it says repent, I've got to do that, right? Amen. If it says get baptized, I've got to do that. Amen.

If it says seek the Holy Ghost, I need to do that. Right? What does the Bible say about seeking? It says: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added." Again, a lot of times the reason our lives are meager is because we're not seeking God first. Many people in the world.

So we're not seeking God the way—way we need to. We need to seek God the way God wants us to seek him. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Hallelujah. In other words, I want to live the way God wants me to live. Not seek first the kingdom of God and my righteousness. His righteousness. And all these things—go back and read Matthew 6.

Sometimes we're suffering because we're not seeking God first. We're seeking our own thing. And it might not be a sinful thing that you're seeking. But a lot of people we get in this mentality—especially in this country—we get this mentality: I've got to get my job, I've got to get my education, got to get my house all set up, get it all the way I want, then I'll do what God wants me to do.

No, no, no, no, no, no. You better start following God now and let God start to open those doors for those other things. God knows what you need. Amen. Many people in the world. God cares about us. Amen. He—he knows. He made us to have needs. So if I seek him first and his righteousness, he's going to be there to help me.

He's going to give me what I need. He'll give you what you need. Amen. So stand in the liberty to follow the spirit of God. Amen. Philippians 1:27 says: "Stand fast in one spirit." And what it's really saying is stand fast in unity. If you're going to live for God, you've got to get in unity in the church.

That doesn't mean you have to—that we're not talking about agreeing with everybody's doctrines or false doctrines or differences of opinions, but you've got to get into unity with the body. Philippians 1:27: He says: "Only let your conversation"—and this conversation in this particular verse here means citizenship, so he's talking about being in the kingdom of God, being a citizen of the kingdom of God—"let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel."

So church is not just a place where we come to get uplifted. It's not just a place where we come to get delivered. God does those things. God does lift us up. Church is not just a place where we come to just learn about the Bible. Amen. Church is not just something where we come when we've got a need and we give it out to God and God helps us lift us up.

All those things happen. But church is really a body where God is trying to form the people together to be his body—his hands, his feet, his mouth to witness to the world. And so God's trying to bring us into one spirit, one mind. If you read the Book of Philippians, there were a couple of people that they were at odds with each other, and they're preaching the gospel out of contention.

Paul says, "I want you to strive to be in one spirit, one mind. Stand." So Ephesians 4 says: "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Oh, we've got to, because we've got to bring our humanity under God. Amen. Amen. We've got to bring our humanity under God.

Amen. The biggest—the biggest lie is, "Well, I'm Italian or I'm, you know, Haitian or I'm Grecian or I'm Eskimoan or something." And because of that, my genes and DNA from 10,000 generations, this is the personality I got. God gives us the Holy Ghost to change our personality. Amen.

God—he's not going to totally take everything away, but God's going to give you the Holy Ghost to lift you above whatever nationality you came out. God's not looking for Americans. He's not looking for Europeans. He's looking for children. Come on. Saints of God. So strive. God wants us to get together, be in one mind and one accord for his purpose. Amen. To preach the gospel. Amen.

Doesn't mean that—doesn't mean you've got to get on the corner and pass out tracts. You might do that. Listen to God. That's okay. Again in Philippians 4:1, Paul says to them: "Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, dearly beloved." Stand fast in your relationship with the Lord. Amen.

That's what Paul's saying. Now the fact that he says stand fast means I've got to plant my feet. Stand fast doesn't mean plant them, back them up. Plant them, back them up. Plant them, back them up. "Something's wrong, back up." Stand fast means find your position in God, get a relationship with him, put your feet down, stand fast, and when the devil tries to interfere in that relationship, stand fast in the faith, stand fast in the spirit, stand fast that you're a child of God, stand fast that greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world.

Stand fast against opinions. Stand fast against denominations. Stand fast against all the things. Stand fast against problems. Stand fast and maintain your relationship with God. Hallelujah! In other words, when things go bad, don't quit praying. When things don't work out, don't quit praying. Don't quit going to church because it didn't work the way you want.

Don't quit going to church because you're too upset and you don't want anybody else to see you. You should be in church because your relationship with God. Stand fast in the Lord. Hallelujah! Let's give him praise. God, we thank you. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. Hallelujah!

Amen. When you get down. I mean we all fight this. These are fights we all fight. You're going to fight every one of these if you're living for God. So there's times and you've got to stand. So the devil's going to come tell you the Lord doesn't care. But if you've got—if you've got a relationship with God, you know that God cares. Amen.

If you read your Bible, you know that God cares. Amen. Salvation is a landmark. That's a landmark in your life. Hallelujah. The day you got saved, that's a landmark in your life. Hallelujah. All of a sudden life is different. There's a new boundary, a new dimension. Salvation is a landmark in your life.

Amen. You put that landmark down and the devil's going to come and try to interfere with the relationship, but you say, "I know I was saved. I repented and I meant it. I got baptized and I wanted to, and I got the Holy Ghost and heard myself speaking in tongues, and I felt the presence of God, and God has met me in my prayers, and God has helped me in the midnight hour."

Amen. I've got boundaries. I've got things to remember. I've got some landmarks in my life. You've got any landmarks? Amen. Maybe you can't see them because you've been backing up so far the landmarks are over the horizon. Hallelujah. Amen. When you get a visitation from God, you need to remember that. Amen.

You get a dream from God, remember it. You get a prayer meeting where you feel the presence of God, remember that. Amen. You get a—a service or a time where God opens your understanding to the scripture, remember that. That presence, the peace that passes understanding, remember that.

You're building relationship with God. You're building relationship with the Lord. Amen. That means if—if having an experience like that builds my relationship, if I have that happen more times, my relationship gets stronger, right? So if that happens in prayer, maybe I need to have some more prayer. Amen. If it happens in church, maybe I need some more church. Amen.

So stand fast in the Lord. Stand fast. Second Thessalonians 2:15: Paul's writing to the church at Thessalonica and he says, "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle." Now tradition here does not mean tradition probably the way we are all thinking.

Okay? Because you can go to different churches and they're going to say, "We've had these traditions for hundreds of years." It's talking about—it's talking about the teachings and instructions that the apostles have delivered unto the saints to live for God. So what it's trying to help them understand is, "This is how you live for God. This is the word of God, and this is how you accomplish or apply that in your life."

So there's things that God's going to say to every one of us in the church that God gives us to help us live for him. They're not traditions in the sense of like Lutheranism or, you know, being, you know, Episcopalian or the Catholic Church or Greek Orthodox—it's not talking about those kinds of traditions, you know, that we celebrate Christmas on this day or that day.

It is not talking about that. It's talking about instructions of God for living. Come on. God bless. And it's saying stand fast in that. Stand fast. And particularly in your local assembly, if the pastor says you ought to have a prayer life, stand fast in it. You ought to fast sometimes, stand fast in that.

You ought to read your Bible, stand fast in that. You ought to apply the Bible to your life, stand fast in that. That's the kind of things he's talking about. You apply them to your life. Amen. We look at a couple translations of that verse. Young's Literal Translation says: "Stand fast and hold the deliverances that ye were taught."

So in other words, he's saying that some of the things you've been taught will keep you free if you apply them. What were you delivered from? You were delivered from sin, death, the world, the devil. If you'll apply the teachings, it'll keep you delivered. Amen. Hallelujah. The Bible in Basic English says: "Keep the teaching which has been given to you."

So it's talking about teaching. It's not talking about ancient traditions that—that we're—you know, that we think about so much. So the Bible's trying to teach us here today—we're going to wrap it up—that even though we've been translated into the kingdom of God—if you're born again you've been translated into the kingdom of God, this is Colossians Chapter 1, verse 12 and 13—even if you've been born again translated, we've got to be ready to plant our feet, hold the ground for the things that God—for the things of God.

Okay? So you need to stand fast. In this is just a small list. The faith. If you don't know what the faith is, you need to find out. Amen. Many people in the world. You can't be—let be tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Okay? But people are. A lot of people have a weak faith because they don't talk about some of the things they need to talk about because it causes controversy.

So—so that means they've got all these holes in their faith because they can't talk about it. Because if I talk with those people, they won't—they don't like it. Stand fast in Christian liberty in the spirit. Learn to follow the spirit. The spirit's given to guide us, the Bible says. It's not just for pastors or those in ministry; it's for every saint.

What about Ananias that comes to—to baptize Paul and pray for him and pray for him to get the Holy Ghost and heal him? We never hear another thing about Ananias after that except in Paul's testimony. He's a saint that was living close enough to God that God could talk to him and say, "Go take—go get see this man here."

You don't have to be a pastor. You don't have to be a preacher. You don't have to have a label. You just need to let—you just need to be willing to do what God says to do. Stand fast in unity. Unity in the church. Amen. And if you're not committed, it's hard to have unity. Amen. Your level of commitment is probably going to regulate your level of unity.

Stand fast in the Lord with your relationship with him. Stand fast in the teachings of the Bible. Not what my parents believe, not what my grandparents believed, not what the town or city or country I came for believed, not what the denomination believed—what does the Bible say? Stand fast holding onto the righteousness, peace, and joy of the Holy Ghost.

Would you stand here today? Amen. Praise God. Inviting you to—I'm opening up the altar. If you want to learn how to stand for God—maybe you're already standing. Amen. This is a good day to come before God: "Lord, I know I need to stand." Maybe you've been standing and you feel kind of weak and worn out from fighting the fight. God wants to help you today to refresh and lift you up. Amen.

Maybe you're—you want to stand but you don't know how to stand. Ask God to show you here today. Come on. At least come and worship God and let him refresh you in the spirit. Come on. Let him lift you up. Let him speak to you. Come on. God wants you to be—have victory. God wants you to be an overcomer. The Lord wants you to have the joy of salvation today.

Hallelujah! Come on. Give your problems to him. Give your problems to the Lord. Lay your problems at the Lord's feet. Hallelujah! Come on. Lord, lay them right there. Lord, I need you. Amen. Lord, I need you to take these problems. And if you're truly laying them before the Lord, don't pick them up and take them out with you. Leave them there. Amen. And when the devil comes, stand fast. Tell the enemy, "I left them at the altar." Hallelujah! Glory to 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 10:00 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 contact us at 781-447-1668.

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