Christ Revealed in His Own Word #31
“Neurosis
#7 Disassociation”
Saturday Evening, July 27, 1996
Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship
This evening I would like to continue our mini study of
pp’s. 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 Brother Branham’s statement that the world is
now in a neurotic condition we have found that the AMPLIFIED version of [2
Timothy 3: 1] is the most fitting scripture for what Brother Branham said: “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” We found
Websters definition of Neurosis as: “Any of various Psychic, or mental,
functional disorders characterized by one or several of the following
reactions: (1) ANXIETY, (2) COMPULSIONS and (3) OBSESSIONS, (4) PHOBIAS, (5)
DEPRESSION, and (6) DISASSOCIATION.”
Now to this point we have covered : ANXIETY, COMPULSIONS, OBSESSIONS, PHOBIAS, and DEPRESSION,
We have found that the scriptures speak of these five characteristics of
neurosis and actually prophecies of their end-time manifestation as concerning
the mental condition of man at the end time. In our study thus far we have
found first and foremost that anxiety is the main condition that is to be
manifested in the end-time. Actually, Anxiety is the precursor in which the
other characteristics stem from. Anxiety is spoken of in the scriptures mostly
in reference to the cares of this
life, which can be translated as the
anxieties of this life. It is manifested by the person who worries
about what may happen. And since the worry is about what MAY happen, it shows
that it is a worry about a possible future event. So it is not speaking about
worry that is caused by a present event, but about what MAY happen in the
future. And we know that worry is just a manifestation of a symptom which shows
a much larger problem. Namely, worry
shows a lack of understanding, and
a lack of trusting God, and a focus
that is out of perspective with the reality of God’s plan for our lives.
We read from [ Romans
8: 29-31] which tells us that all things shall work together for our good
because we are predestined, our paths are predetermined. We find also in [Proverbs 16: 9] “ A mans heart deviseth his way,
but the Lord directeth His footsteps” And if we take these scriptures to heart we should never fret nor
worry about any possible future event because after all, worrying is not good
for your health. 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. 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 and once you have surrendered yourself over to them, they
then take over your life and you enter into a state of obsession 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.” So you can see how these different characteristics actually are
defined stages of Devil
possession. From the message Go Wake Jesus pg 18, Brother
Branham said, “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. And the purpose of Satan is to bring you first under
his influence.
Once he has you under his influence, then he tightens down
the screws and brings you into bondage to himself. Now how does he do this? We
find our answers in the scripture.
[ John 8: 34]
(read) First, we see here that sin (is unbelief),
and it is caused by entering into an undo influence of an unbeliever. When you
enter into sin or unbelief, then you become a servant of that influence. Next
we find in [ 2 Peter 2: 19] we also
find that when we are overcome by a certain influence, we thus become in
bondage to that influence. (read)
And in [Gal 2: 4] Paul tells us as much. (read)
Now thus far in our study we have found that this bondage is
a result of an influence that begins with anxiety. The Devil has laid out a
snare or trap for every one in the whole world. And that snare or trap is in
the guise of the economy. He knows that people have to make a living. He has
known that since the curse that was placed upon man for his disobedience in the
garden. Let’s go back now and read how this all got started and then we shall
have the background for these conditions in the end-time.
[ Gen 3:1a] “Now
the Serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had
made.” And so here we can see that
Satan had a design to take man under his control from the very beginning. He is
shrewd and he caused man to fall just like he caused 1/3 of the angels of
heaven to fall in the very beginning. [ Rev
12: 3-4a, then 7-9]. Now what I
want you to see here is that Satan knew the weakness of man and he used this
knowledge of mans weakness to control him just like he did with the angels of
heaven, he knew that they were designed for worship, and Lucifer and (Michael
which was Christ) were coequal and they two led the angels in worship of God,
until one day Lucifer got lifted up within himself and wanted to build a better
kingdom than Michael had, and so then Lucifer began to receive worship from the
angels and thus began the war in heaven.
So we see that the Serpent in whom dwelt the Antichrist
spirit of Satan, we know that he was shrewd and smart and he knew just how to
get man to come under his influence. And he already knew that if he could get
man to do what the angels would do, then they would get kicked out as well and
he would have more of a following. And so man was cursed by God and the curse
was that man would be subject to an economy of sorts where he depended upon his
toil and labor to produce a living for himself. Now let’s see if that’s not
right.
[Gen 3: 17-19]
And so we see that man had to begin to labor in order to live. And this is
where Satan made his decision to use the curse which God himself placed upon
man against man in order to bring man under his influence. Hitler did the same
thing. He promised the people a better living, two cars in the garage and two
chickens in every pot, and when he had the people under his influence, he began
his persecution of the Jews and the people just turned their heads and didn’t
become involved because after all, look what he did for them. And so we see the
influence that Satan has upon the people. He has blinded them by material
prosperity. In [Rev 3: 14:17] we see that the predominant spirit of this
age is that man is so consumed with his material possessions that he is blind
to his spiritual condition. (read)
And so we see then according to [Luke 21: 31-35] that the cares of this life will be the snare that
will completely entrap the entire world, and they will fail to stand in the
presence of the Son of Man when He comes.
(read)
And so we have found thus far in our study that Satan used
the economy and the life style as a trap to not only catch you off guard, but
he uses it to give you another focus, a wrong focus just like he did with Eve
back in the garden. And this then, because it is of his design, brings you
under his influence. And once under his influence he then step by step brings
you under his full control. He did it
to Eve, he got her to step out from the protection of the Word and once he did,
he implanted himself into her and brought for his own life in her. And so we
have seen how this influence of the cares of this life begins to turn us from a
Christ Centered focus and brings us to the place of coming under a wrong influence all because of our anxiety concerning the things which
MIGHT happen concerning the cares of this life.
The whole
Christian world is out of focus tonight.
They talk about the next depression, the nation going broke, the new world
order, and they are completely missing the Lord Who has come down from heaven
with a shout. And so we see the condition of the church is looking at the “what ifs”, and they are missing their
deliverance from those things. They are focused on the very trap and delusion
instead of the way out of it. Sometimes, Satan will make those cares of life
more real to you than the promises of God will appear to be. Yet Jesus
commanded us to “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and ALL the things you have need of will be added unto you.” Now if you see a trap, the first thing you
should do is look for a way out of it. But fear causes people to panic and they
stop dead in their tracks. Fear causes them to crystallize in their thinking.
And they do not focus on the way out which is Christ. They say He is the only answer, but their actions shows that
politics is their saviour. Just look at the Moral majority and the Christian
Coalition. They have a political focus rather than a Christ centered focus.
And so we see the progression of how ANXIETY leads us to COMPULSION
which we found is irrational behavior. We found in our study that this
COMPULSION is a setting forth of habits and as brother Branham told Brother
Vayle, “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.” And 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.”
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
this progression. 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 these wrong influences, you begin living a lie. You are not being
moved by the dictates of the Word of God in your heart and 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. 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." And in [Romans 8: 15] we read, “we have not received the Spirit of bondage
to fear, but of adoption to be set free.[Gal 5: 1]
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. And that leads us
to the next step which is OBSESSION. Webster told us that OBSESSION is devil
possession, and so you can see the progression from anxiety and worry to
compulsive behavior and after a while, this compulsive behavior actually takes
on the life of the influence and then you have devil possession. Then under
this devil possession there is only one thing and that is PHOBIA or fear. You
become afraid of every one and every thing. At this point you are always
looking for the worst in everyone and everything. You live under fear. And the
only thing that can change your condition is the Joy of the Lord which comes
from His Presence and His Love.
This fourth characteristic of neurosis is PHOBIAS
which means fear and we found out that Fear has a penalty according to [ 1 John 4: 18] (read). In Hebrews 2: 15 we see that through
fear we are made subject to bondage. In fact the very penalty that is
spoken of in 1 John 4: 18 that is
brought on through fear is bondage. But we have found in our study that PHOBIA
or fear has a penalty and that penalty is that you stop doing what you set out
to do. Joseph feared to take Mary to be his wife, and so God had to send His
Messenger to appease this fear. We found in the book of Kings and Chronicles
that the people out of fear were forced to worship other Gods. And then
depression sets in.
Now I don’t have time
to go into these scriptures again but as we saw last Sunday, this Phobia leads
you into DEPRESSION which manifests
in the fact that you don’t want to eat any more. And so you begin to shut off
the Spiritual Food In Due Season. You quit eating from Gods Word and from His
Message, and when this happens you become weak and sickly. This then leads us
to the last attribute of Neurosis which
is DISASSOCIATION. And with this in
mind I want to examine this last manifestation of Neurosis in the Scriptures.
[Eph 4:17-18]
(read) Here we find that they cut
themselves off from the Life of God because their understanding has become
darkened. The world alienated here is a Greek word ( apallotrioo) and it means
to shut off ones self from fellowship and intimacy. Now why is this? [1 John 1: 7](read) And Because we are told that our fellowship
comes from walking in the Light. So then
if we no longer walk in the Light, then we no longer have fellowship.
It’s just that simple. And the word walk here is a word (peripateo) which means
“to make ones way, to progress forward in, or to regulate one’s life by, or to
pass ones Life in.” And so we see The
Word of God is a Living Word in which we live out this Word. It is not only
something that we believe but it is our very Life. And if it is our very Life
then to leave it means death to us. And
the word fellowship here is a word (Koinonia)
which means “communion, fellowship, communication, association or joint
participation in.” And so we
see that it takes this Word of God to become a reality in your lives and when
it does then it brings a common bond to you. It is not just a matter of knowing
it is true. It is a matter of it being real to you. For to just know it is true
could still place it in a historical
perspective as it does to the nominal Christian. But to know it is real,
it then begins to live out in your very life. When you read this Word you can
actually see it manifesting itself all around you. Because after all- Gods
Prophet said, “God interprets His Word by bringing it to pass.” And so when you read His Word, and then see
it taking place, you are in actuality living out that portion of Gods Word.
We read in [Matt 13: 10-17] That only a certain
group of people will come to an understanding and all others are not meant to
see and understand it. We see the interpretation of this when we actually see this manifested before us
when we try to share the Gospel to
others and we see their dead response.
We see the Interpretation of [1 Tim 4: 1] When we see the exodus from the True Message of the
hour and we see people chasing after new and different doctrines and going back
to Pentecost.
We see the Interpretation of [1 Thes 4: 15-18] when we look at these pictures hanging on the wall
and we hear the Voice of God on the tapes and we see the Vindication of God
having come down and actually proving that he is here among us.
And so we could go on and on but what I am trying to show
you tonight is that to walk in this light brings fellowship. It brings a
sharing and a joint participation together. We walk in it and we communicate
together what we see taking place. The Word then is a living reality. Not just
Truth. But a Living Truth. We see it, we feel it, we touch it, we hear it, we
eat it, we breath it. We are totally immersed in it and because there are
others who are experiencing the same Living Word in their own lives, we then
talk to one another and this brings us into fellowship. But Neurosis brings
about just the opposite. A wrong focus brings about wrong influences which
brings about wrong associations which brings about wrong actions and wrong
communications. And thus death instead of
deliverance and Life. [1 Peter
1:3-(5) 7-(9)] Notice this end-time revelation is to bring end time
salvation and deliverance. Let’s bow our heads.