Christ Revealed in His Own Word #47

There Must be an Ultimate

Saturday Evening, September 28, 1996

Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship

Last Sunday we read from paragraphs [41-44] where brother Branham spoke on the need for an absolute, and we in turn examined this from the perspective of what it means to not have an absolute, especially in education. In fact we studied this from an aspect that in order to have an absolute, we must be taught Who and What that absolute is all about, because having an absolute means that you are totally dependent upon and committed to this ideal. Ignorance will never recognize an absolute. In fact in our studies so far, we have seen that the lack of an absolute leads to only one thing and that is chaos. We began to see how the lack of having an absolute has affected this country in which we live. As a nation we have an absolute which is our constitution. But the constitution is only effective if we know our rights that are guaranteed under it. But the American people have proven to be so lazy that they will not apply themselves to that which is important. And thus we are losing many civic rights due to the fact that the people are slumbering away there lives, asleep to what others would want to do with their lives and yet they just don’t seem to care. It reminds me of ... [Proverbs 24:30-34]

Thomas Jefferson warned the American people about becoming lax in their efforts to secure their freedom, saying, “Anyone who dreams of being ignorant and free, dreams of something that never was and never will be...”

And so we see that ignorance is the enemy of freedom as well as the enemy of the One True Absolute, which is the Word of God. After all True Freedom can not be separated from the Word of God for Jesus said in [John 8:32], “Ye shall know the Truth, and The Truth shall make you free. ”And why would God give us His Word if it doesn’t matter that we are ignorant of it. What good would it do us? There is too much a slothfulness among the people in this message still, and there are actually those who would glorify ignorance as being some sort of virtue. I know first hand a few ministries who claim to believe this message and not only do they not study this message, but they insist that brother Branham said, “you don’t need to understand it, just believe it.” But I ask you this question, “How can you believe what you don’t understand?” Because you could be believing a wrong understanding of what the prophet taught if you do not understand it, as so many are doing today. I have known ministers who actually gotten angry with their people for studying this message and when those people would read and study, they then began to ask questions that these men could not answer. Then those ministers bully whipped those people from the pulpits and declared before all that they were stepping on dangerous ground. Kind of sounds like the Catholic Priest if you ask me. But the main objective is to keep the people as ignorant as possible so that the people will stay dependent upon the Pastor.

I’ve seen them boast that they are like God’s Prophet who had only an eighth grade education, and yet they lie because although Brother Branham may have only had a formal education of eight years, he was self taught and he read many hundreds of volumes that require very skilled and sharpened senses to understand. He was able to glean the Early church Fathers which was a 38 volume set which included: Anti-Nicene Fathers and Post Nicene Fathers, Hislop’s Two Babylons, Foxes Book of Martyrs, 50 years in the church of Rome, The Glorious Reformation, The Life of Martin Luther, The Prince of the House of David, The Pillar of Fire, Grace abounding to the chief of sinners, Elijah the Tishbite, The Holy War, The Pilgrim’s Progress, St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen, The Life of Flavius Josephus, and not to mention he used a number of different translations of the scriptures in addition to the King James Version, such as: The Revised Version, Moffatt’s Translation, The Greek and Hebrew Lexicon, Bible Commentaries, Douay Translation which is Catholic, Scofield, Thompson Chain Reference Bible, Emphatic Diaglott, Standard Version, Vatican Translation, Lamsa Bible And he even quotes from the Zwingli Bible although he disagreed with one of their translations.

[Wisdom Versus Faith] pg. 30 pp 5, 4-01-62

Faith believes a God that can make me, can keep that Book in a order for me to live by. If the God Who made me is going to judge me, can't keep His Book in order, then He's a very poor God. I believe every word of It's the Truth. Yes. sir!

You see I disagree strongly with those who say the King James Version is the only version of Scripture. I believe that God is able to keep His Word in tact no matter which version you read. If His Spirit dwells in you and you are reading any translation, you will get a check in your Soul if you come across something that just doesn’t seem to fit. After all, brother Branham taught us to check out the Word and Jesus Himself said, “Search the Scriptures for in them is Life” and yet the King James version was not written until 1600 years after that.

E-17 Speak to this Mountain 59-1123

So I got the Lexicons, the commentaries, the different versions and even to the Douay version, everything that I could find. And every Scripture, the Greek, the Hebrew, all said the same thing: Jesus said it. There's no dispute, even through the Douay version, which is the Rome, or the Catholic Bible, Douay version. And none of them dispute it,

9 Israel in Egypt IC 1-34 53-0325

In the studying of the Scripture, I have been accused, and do a great deal of typology. Which typology is typing the Old with the New. I'll tell you why I do that. It's because of this. Maybe sometimes the great words that scholars and so forth try to give the Bible Its terms or pronouncing... I'm satisfied to take the King James for mine. It's waved the storms longer than any translation yet, and I just believe it that way.

E-4 Queen of Sheba 60-0401E

I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Lamsa, today, the translator of the Lamsa translation of the Bible. And such a privilege... You know, I would rather you'd give me a little rose bud, right now, than a whole wreath after I'm gone. I think maybe he'd think the same thing. I certainly can prescribe to his translation, for meeting him and finding such a lovely spirit of a real true Christian believer. God bless his gallant soul. I don't know as I've ever met any more spiritual man than Dr. Lamsa. May the Lord richly bless Him. Jesus said in Saint John 5:19, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing in Himself, but what He sees the Father doing, that doeth the Son likewise. See if that's not in your Bible, King James, or Moffatt, or any translation you want to take. See if it isn't the same thing. Get the original Greek diaglott if you want to. You'll find the same thing. "I do nothing until the--I see the Father..." In other words, He acted out in drama.

But men in this Message will tell you that there is only one translation and all others are wrong. Just as they will say that brother Branham was not educated, and thus he depended entirely upon God. Now although this is true in a sense, yet it is also misleading. Because, Brother Branham himself, said that he had to check every vision by the Word of God. And in order to do that, he had to know and understand the Word of God.

[Proverbs 17:16] AMPLIFIED Of what use is money in the hands of a self-confident fool to buy skillful and Godly wisdom, when he has no understanding or heart to receive it?

And I would like to add what good is all the Bible translations and the Messages of God’s prophet to those who are foolish because, if they have no desire to Know then what good does it do for them to have all this Wisdom and understanding.

E-57 PERSEVERANCE 62-0520

Well, "I know, but you see, we're schooled, and our pastors has done so-and-so. They got such education’s, and they’ve studied the Bible, and they've studied all history. And they claim that the days of miracles is past." Do you see what I mean? Ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth. Why? Because they really don’t want to know, they just want the prestige of being called learned.

In PP. [41& 44] Brother Branham said, “we've got to have something another that we have to hold on to. Something has to be a tie post; in other words, it's an ultimate. And everyone must have an ultimate or an absolute. I preached on it one time years ago, on a absolute, a place that's the last word. Now, there's got to be an ultimate to everything you do. ...Whatever it is, you got to have an ultimate. And so is it with Christian living; there's got to be an ultimate.

Now, this evening I want to focus our attention on this last statement here, “Whatever it is, you got to have an ultimate. And so is it with Christian living; there's got to be an ultimate.” We want to examine this thought of having an absolute for our Christian living. And as we saw last Sunday just how important it is to understand what this absolute is, we then can not truly have an absolute without knowledge of what and Who that absolute is all about. So we see then that training is the central element of having an Absolute.

[Deut 6: 1-9] KJV {7}NIV Impress them on your children. Talk of them when you sit in your home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. {7} Amplified And these words which I am commanding you this day shall be first in your mind heart; then you shall whet and sharpen them, so to make them penetrate, and teach and impress them diligently upon the minds and hearts of your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.” And so we see that to do so they were to place pictures and Scriptures and all sorts of things that the children will actually see with their eyes and when they see with their eyes it will have an influence in their minds and in their hearts.

You’ll notice here that God wants us to train up our children in the way that they should go. Why? Because when they get older, they will not depart from what they have been taught. [Proverbs 22:6]

As I said last Sunday, we must give our children the same tools to work with that have been given to us by God. And as I said last Sunday,. we Americans are about the laziest people on earth when it comes to raising our children. We want others to do everything for us when we can do for ourselves a much better job if we only put our minds to it. We are so careful to dress our children’s bodies for school but we fail to dress their minds and souls as well. We would never think to let a complete stranger have access to our children’s body? Yet why do we so quickly expose their minds to strangers when the mind is much more precious in the sight of God than their body. We don’t send our children to school without dressing their bodies first? Yet why do we send them off for some complete stranger to dress our children’s minds and souls?

We must give them the protection they need. get up with them and pray with them before they get that bus, and when they get home talk to them to see what things the devil tried to tell them each day. Then teach them what to look out for and how to handle each situation. Last week I told you the story about that little girl who was on her way home from school when she was approached by that Priest. And I hope you could see by that story just how you as parents can and should, give your children the proper training at home. Because what you are doing is giving them the antidote to the devils poison that their little minds are being injected with in school. Remember how this little girl battled that priest? The little girl, was approached by the priest and he asked her to attend his religious instruction, But she refused, saying it was against her father’s wishes. Then the Priest said that she should obey him, not her father. And she answered, ‘Oh, sir, we are taught in the Bible, to “Honor our father and our mother.’” But he said, “You have no business to read the Bible,”, But she answered, “But sir, our savior said, ‘search the scriptures’” [John 5:39] And the Priest replied, “That was only to the Jews, and not to children, and you don’t understand it.” But she did not stop with this because she was trained well. She said, “But sir, Paul said to Timothy, ‘From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures,’” [2 Timothy 3:15]. “Oh,” said the priest, “Timothy was being trained to be a bishop, and taught by the authorities of the Church.” “Oh, no, sir,” said the child, “he was taught by his mother and grandmother.” On this the priest turned away, saying she “knew enough of the Bible to poison a parish.” [Ezekiel 44:23-24]

Now it is no mystery why Solomon prayed for Wisdom. I think many times we read the bible and think that Solomon was such a peculiar young child and that he had such a soft and supple heart toward God on his own. But what made Him to think in those terms? Let’s find out?

[1 Kings 3:5-15] notice especially verse 6.... And let’s also read from [Proverbs 4: 1-13, esp verse 7, 16:16] Notice that it was the things that His Father David showed him about God that Solomon prayed for. Even in his own mind, he declared that what he had learned from his father was to seek after wisdom, and we know what else Solomon said about where to find wisdom. [Psalm 111:10] & [Proverbs 1:7, 9:10]

[ Isaiah 33: 6] Notice his treasure is the fear of the Lord. And what is your treasure this morning? You parents want your children to grow up and be successful? Then instill in them the Fear of the Lord. That will begin to lead them into a disciplined life of sowing and reaping.

[Ephesians 6: 10 - 17] Now we know that the loins in synonymous with the mind, for we see in [1 Peter 1:13] That we are to gird up the loins of our minds at the Revelation of Jesus Christ. First He has girded the loins of our mind with Truth and He has given us a breast plate of Right-Wise-ness to protect their little hearts (understanding) from the lies of Satan. Next He has given us The Shield of Faith to keep them from being stung by the devils lies, and The Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God to help them defend their little minds. And the helmet of Salvation to encircle and protect their minds, and their feet should be shod with the Preparation of the Gospel. We would never think to send our children to school without shoes for their feet, but what about sending them without being shod with the preparation of the Gospel. we would never send them out without their loins being covered and protected, yet we send them out without the loins of their mind protected?

[Deuteronomy 4: 8 - 10]

[Matt 5:19]

[Psalm 86:11, 90:12, 143:10]

[Isaiah 28:9]