Christ Revealed in His Own Word #29

“Neurosis #5 Phobia”

Wednesday Evening, July 17, 1996

Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship

[ 2 Timothy 3: 1] AMPLIFIED: But understand this, that in the last days there will set in perilous times of great stress and trouble - hard to deal with and hard to bear

Tonight I would like to continue with this thought from pp. 20 & 21 of "Christ Revealed In His Own Word" where Brother Branham said, (20) Men now and people today are in such a neurotic condition, the whole world... (21) The whole human race is rotten. Well, if them physical beings of our body is tearing down like that from eating hybrid foods, tensions, that rotten it, does not that also rot the brain cell? It's come to a place where the whole nation, the whole world, not only this nation, but everywhere, mentally gone.

In examining this neurotic condition that Brother Branham is speaking of we went to the root word Neurosis. Webster defines Neurosis as: Any of various Psychic, or mental, functional disorders characterized by one or several of the following reactions: ANXIETY, COMPULSIONS and OBSESSIONS, PHOBIAS, DEPRESSION, and DISASSOCIATION.

Now to this point we have covered : ANXIETY, COMPULSIONS and OBSESSIONS, and we found that the scriptures spoke of these three manifestations of the mental condition of man at the end time. We found first of all that anxiety is a condition that is manifested through worry. It is spoken of in the scriptures mostly as the cares of this life. Worrying about what may happen in the future. Now if worrying were only a mental condition then we could just brush it off and say, well, The strong minded will overcome, but this is not the case. Worry is just the manifested symptom of a much larger problem. Namely a lack of understanding, a lack of trust in God and a focus that is out of perspective with the reality of God’s Divine plans for us.

[ Romans 8: 29-31] Now if we take this scripture to heart then we should never fret nor worry. In fact I have quoted various times through this study that worrying is not good for your health. In fact from Q & A COD 64-0823M] Brother Branham said, “If you worry, it'll break your health down, and that's what Satan wants to do.

Now, not only does worry cause health problems, but it also shows evidence of a deeper rooted problem. And that is unbelief and lack of trust in God. In Hebrews chapter 4 we are told that the Children of Israel did not enter into their rest because they did not believe. Rest and worry are at two extreme poles from one another. Rest shows a great deal of confidence and therefore trust and relaxation while worry shows a lack of confidence and therefore a lack of faith.

· [ 1 Peter 5: 6 - 10] "Casting all your anxieties upon Him for He careth for you."

· [ Phil 4: 6-7] Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Not only this, but as we have already seen in our study, anxiety or worry brings on further complications. We see according to Webster that the next manifestation of neurosis is compulsion which is a disorder that stems from pressure. Either peer pressure, political pressure, religious pressures or internal pressures. And the result of these pressures is that you begin to act in an irrational manner. Then after a while these irrational actions become habits or traditions. Now to those who are pressuring you these actions may not be irrational. But they are to you at first and then after a while when you get used to them they seem to be very much in the order of the things in which you have surrendered yourself over too.

[ Luke 21: 31 - 36] Now in this scripture we are told that the cares of this life or anxiety is actually et as a trap or snare for all who live on the face of this earth. Why? Because just as a trap it doesn’t end there. If our focus is on the things of this world, then we will be caught up into these anxieties which are a snare to us. So you see the snare is set for those who do not have their focus on the path. ( I remember when I was a boy, I had watched Tarzan and saw how they set traps for wild animals. So the next time we were playing guns in the woods, I cut a vine and made a noose in it, set a small not in it and cut a notch in a nearby tree to hold it down, then I laid the noose end on a few small sticks to hold it of the ground so as to catch the foot of the bad guys and then I covered the noose end with leaves. I set it on a path in the woods, and I waited for the bad guys to come along. I knew that if they were not paying attention they would get caught in the trap.) And that is exactly what has been set for mankind in this hour. A trap has been set for those whose focus is not upon Christ and His Promises for this end-time. Those who are lazily walking though life without paying attention to the conditions of the hour. Didn’t Jesus warn us "if the man of the house had know what hour the thief was coming, he would have prepared his home and he would not have suffered the thief to break in." Our focus should be on standing in the presence of the Son of Man as Jesus tells us here. We should not be concerned with the cares of this life, because they are considered a snare to the real things that God has in store for us. And remember people, every time we see people caught in a trap in the scriptures, they were destroyed.

We examined this in the Alpha ministry of the Pillar of Fire in Paul’s day. We saw in [ Acts 26: 9 - 11] [ Gal 2: 1-14] where we found out that there were men who had come in and professed to be believers but they could not get away from some really bad habits which we call traditions. They felt a need to be circumcised in order to somehow show outwardly that they believed. Yet Paul called them false brethren because they were teaching a lie as truth and holding others to it as well. And another thing, they were beginning to hold down the truth, to suppress it. And it was their lie that was used to hold back the Truth from the People.

[ Romans 1: 18] As I said, they used their lies to suppress the Truth. They hold back righteousness by using unrighteousness.

118 LEAN.NOT.UNTO.THY.OWN.UNDERSTANDING PHOENIX.AZ V-19 N-3 65-0120

You know, the Bible said you can believe a lie and be damned by it. See? That's exactly the truth. They form, no matter what the Word of God says, they lean to their own understanding. They lean on it; they believe it; they think it's the Truth. You can keep believing a lie over and over and over till it's the truth to you. That's right. But how do we know whether it's Truth or not? God proved it's Truth, 'cause it's in His Word and He a-vindicates It. He does His own interpretation of It. How do they do, get to this? They do it by their culture, their education, of their understandings of their--the degree of doctor's degree, and so forth, that they have come from some certain seminary and learned these things.

And that brings us to the third manifestation of this mental condition we call neurosis and that is Obsession in which Webster defines as: the act of an evil spirit in possessing or ruling a person. Having such a persistent idea, desire or emotion that one can not get rid of it. Brother Branham said, you can feed a habit or keep nurturing a habit and after a while it will take on a life of it's own becoming a spirit possession. Then it is demon possession. I don't care if it has to do with women or sports or even food. A demon is a demon. And if it is not natural, it's demonic. Remember, we just read where he said, “You can keep believing a lie over and over and over till it's the truth to you”

[ 1 Tim 4: 1] Seducing Spirit's and Doctrines of Devil's. The People being seduced into believing The Lie and then they are damned by it. Why, Because you can't turn them away from it. They love a lie and will be damned by the thing they love. [ 2 Thess 2: 10 - 12] Wuest speaks of the gullibility of those who are perishing. [ 2 Tim 3: 7 ] They can't come to the understanding of the Truth because they will not give up their own thinking.

[Proverbs 14: 12] which says, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" They will not let their own thinking go. The think because they thought of it that it must be right. They are possessed by what their own minds want to tell them and they are not willing to let go of their own thinking and receive a correct thinking based upon vindication.

This way of thinking is epitomized today in the White house by the slogan, " fake it til you make it." And how many Pseudo Christians do we have today that are trying to fake it until they make it. Apparently they do not understand that every seed will bring forth after it’s kind, and that a good tree can not bring forth evil fruit, and neither can a bad tree bring forth good fruit. Because the fruit is the teaching for the season.

Now I hope and trust that you are all following this progression here. First of all we see that the devil has set a snare to capture the minds of the people in hopes of controlling them. He uses the economy and the cares of this life and the anxieties that result. Once he has the mind of the people focused upon these earthly things then he has got them leaning. And which ever way the tree leans is the way it will fall. And so we see the snare is the lure to bring forth captivity to the minds of man. He lures them into an uneasy feeling of what might happen. he uses his mix of misinformation and the careless living of others to reinforce this upon even those who are trying to live right.

The whole Christian world is out of focus tonight. They are talking about the next depression and the nation going broke and the new world order and such as this and they are completely missing the Lord Who has come down from heaven with a shout. It reminds me of a story I heard where a man had fallen over board in the Atlantic during a big storm and he was adrift on a small rubber craft that he tried to hold onto before falling over board, but the rubber boat wasn’t heavy enough to keep him from falling overboard, so as he toppled overboard, he continued to hold onto this boat.. Well, as the hours grew into days as he lay adrift, the man got desperate and began to cry out to God for mercy. Finally one day he felt assured in his heart that God would deliver him from his plight. The next day a big ship came by and the Captain of the ship cried out, can we help you? He said, No, I’m waiting on God! another day went by and another ship came by. The Captain of this vessel asked the same question and got the same answer. Finally the man died of dehydration. When he came before God he said, I thought you had given me assurance that you would deliver me from my dilemma? And God said, I sent two ships by and you would not enter, what more do you want.”

And so we see the world condition tonight, and the condition of the church. They are all looking at the “what if’s” out there and they are all looking for Tribulation, but they are all in the same boat because they are missing what God has sent down for our deliverance. And wasn’t it the same 2,000 years ago. God came down Himself and stepped into His Son to bring forth a deliverance and salvation to man but man missed Him when He came back then. And so is it today, He has once again come but the focus of the church and of man is set on the cares of this Life, the very trap that will cause them to miss Him once again as well.

From the Message “A Deceived Church” Brother Branham said, But as Israel was bound by their kings that they could not follow the Real King, when He came, they didn’t recognize Him. So is it today, oh, Lord. The King of Glory has Appeared in the form of the Holy Ghost and Lord, they don’t know it. They don’t recognize It. They’re so organized, so tight, that they do not understand it, because it’s not in their organization. Lord this is the work of the devil that’s done this to the people. May the Samson of God, may the true in heart, those who are longing and crying and pleading and holding on, may they stay with it, Lord, until this new crop grows out. Until there comes forth a joy in Zion, and there comes forth a group that can recognize and understand. That can see the Messiah and the hidden power that’s hid from the world, that they will not understand now. Grant, Lord that they will see this, for wee ask it in Jesus name, a-man.”

Christ Revealed in His Own Word #29

Wednesday Evening, July 17, 1996

So what we have seen so far is that by getting our focus off the real things which God has for us we have actually accepted a substitute in it’s place. And that is the Trap. And ever time in scripture when the people fell for a trap they perished. Now, I hope you are following. First comes the cares of this life which chokes off the Life of the Word. Then comes the pressures, and the conforming to them. Then when you yield to them, you are living a lie. You are not being moved by the dictates of your heart or conscience any longer. And so the Lie takes on a life of it’s own, now in your body and the bodies of those who have also fallen. Devil possession takes over which is the third manifestation of neurosis, called obsession.

E-18 GO.WAKE.JESUS TUCSON.AZ 63-1103

Because he is so fully surrendered to the evil one, it took possession of him, and he had not his own understanding. He only did what the evil spirit put in him to do.

126 LEAN.NOT.UNTO.THY.OWN.UNDERSTANDING PHOENIX.AZ V-19 N-3 65-0120

Now, in Luke 17:30, He said, "And as it was in the days of Lot, when the Angel of the Lord..." Now, He was reading the same Bible we are. And when He... Go back and find out what kind of day it was before Noah's rain. Go back and find out what kind of a day it was before the world was destroyed in the days of Lot. Find out what it was, and you see what Jesus was talking about. "In the days of Noah, they was eating, drinking, marrying, and given in marriage; knew it not until Noah entered into the ark, and the flood come, taken them all away." In the days of Lot just before the world was--the fire burned the Gentile world, the Sodomites, there were homosexuals, perversions, everything in the world. A great... It was a modern Los Angeles; not a modern only Los Angeles, but a United States; not only in United States, but a world. It sure was perversion. Men lost their natural source of life and their natural understandings of common sense, become perverted by an evil spirit that changed the whole course of their natural life, and they were possessed with demon spirits. If that ain't the picture of the days of Noah, I don't know it, and in the days of Lot, I mean. In days of Noah also, eating, drinking, marrying, given in marriage, divorce courts filling, and everything, just like it was.

Why do they halt between two opinions? Seducing Spirit’s! And what are those two opinions? The Word of God verses the world opinion. You can not serve two masters.

[ Matt 6:24 & Luke 16:9-11} When you fall for surely you shall

Now tonight I want to examine this 4th attribute we see Webster refer to in the defining of neurosis. This 4th attribute is PHOBIAS which we all know is an irrational, excessive, and persistent fear of some particular thing or situation. In the book of Job we find out that the things you fear the most will come upon you. In [ 2 Tim 1: 7 ] we read, " For God has not given us a Spirit of fear, but of Power and of Love, and of a sound mind. " So then we can see by this that to have fear shows you don't have a sound mind. Because it is not of God to fear. Every time the Angel of the Lord came to man, the first words out of His mouth would be "Fear not! For I have come from the Presence of the Lord."

We find also in [ 1 John 4: 18] that perfect or mature love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment. Notice as I said earlier, the first is what sets the trap. Anxiety. The cares of this life. Being caught up into them and not having our focus on Christ in this Word, having come down with a shout for our deliverance.. The next thing happens is we get caught into the pressure and so compulsion results where we find ourselves doing things not because common sense tells us to, not because we really want to, but because we have been pressured into it. These irrational sorts of behavior then force us to be living a lie and thus once we have hit this stage we enter into the 3rd manifestation which is devil possession and by this time our minds are completely gone. No longer are we able to focus on the things of god but only on the irrational behaviors which have overwhelmed us. Whether it is preparing for the next depression, or the next election. Men are obsessed with trying to save this nation when they should be worried about saving their own souls and the souls of their loved ones. And so we see this devil possession take over because they’re believing the Lie.

In the next manifestation of Neurosis we see Phobias take over. The Word Phobia means FEAR. And this is the stage that does the most damage, because when a person is afraid they become bound by their fears. We read in 1 John 4Th. Perfect or mature Love will cast out fear because Fear has a penalty, it has to do with you freezing and crystallizing in your thinking.

Joseph began to fear that Mary had not been faithful and so God sent His Angel to tell him not to fear to take Mary as His Wife. What did fear do hear? It caused Joseph to doubt and it caused him to stop moving forward with the plan of God for his life.

[Luke 21: 25-27] notice that men se the things that bring on perplexing and anxiety and then fear follows shortly thereafter.

[ 1 Kings 18:21] how halt ye between two opinions? How long will you be lame and stopped in your forward movement? AMP How long will you be halt and limp between two opinions? NIV How long will you waver between two opinions? NAS How long will you hesitate between these two opinions?

233 ANOINTED.ONES.AT.END.TIME JEFF.IN V-5 N-3 65-0725M

. "For it is impossible for those which were once enlightened and didn't move on with the Word as it come to pass..." They're dead, gone

[Genesis 19: 26] Lot's wife crystallized when she quit moving on with the Word of God. What happened? First her mind stopped then her body did. First her mind crystallized then her body became transformed into her revelation.

[ Romans 8: 15]

[ 2 Tim 1: 7]

The 5th attribute we find in defining a neurotic is DEPRESSION which Webster defines as being low in spirit, gloominess; dejection and sadness. And all these result in a lessening of activity. Usually in a person suffering from depression, all they want to do is eat and sleep.

And finally the 6th attribute and final attribute that makes up a person suffering from Neurosis is DISASSOCIATION. This means that the person begins cutting off association with people and becomes secluded, wanting to be left alone.

Now although it is possible that a person may possess all these attributes, it is not necessary for them to have all these to be neurotic. Neurosis is having one or more of them, but it is not necessary to have all of them.

And I believe what we have here is a mental disorder that actually cripples the persons functionality as a human being. If the person is a wife and mother, it cripples her ability to function in those roles. If the person is a minister it cripples their ability to minister the Word of God. If the person is a Deacon, it cripples their ability to keep order and to help as needed in the assembly. What ever the persons function, Father, Mother, Sister or brother, it cripples those functions in the home. No wonder there is so much talk today of the dysfunctional homes. If the world is under a neurotic condition, then the homes have got to be dysfunctional. Sunday morning we shall focus our attention on what the cure for this neurotic condition is.