Christ Revealed in His Own Word #58
Be Zealous
therefore and repent
Sunday,
December 1, 1996
Brian Kocourek,
Pastor Grace Fellowship
We have been looking
at this thought from Paragraph 60 where brother Branham speaks of science and
Medicine and how they would never go back to thinking thoughts that they have
proven oven time to be false. He said, “Do you think they would ever refer back to
that?” And so we see that the
church and politics, seem to be the only groups of activities that do not seem
to be able to repent in their minds and change their thinking. And yet we are
told by the Angel of the Lord to the Messenger of Laodicea in Revelations 3, “To
be zealous therefore and repent.” [Rev
3:14-20] Be zealous to repent, that is the key. Be quick to change your
thinking, to let go of your own ways and receive God’s ways.
[Isaiah 55: 6-9] His ways are not our
ways. His ways are always right, but “there is a way which seems right unto man,
but the end thereof is the ways of
death.”
Now this brought
us to [Hebrews 6: 1-6] Therefore
leaving ( Moving forward from) The principles ( the first things or elementary
teaching of ) Christ, let us move forward into the (finishing off) not laying
again the foundation ( the principle thing, that which to build upon) which is
to first of all be able to change your mind set, from your idea of lifeless
works, and the first building blocks of faith toward God, then let us etc. [3]
this will we do if God permits] So we see at the time that God permits this
will begin to take place. And when is that?
At the time of the once and for all enlightenment which we see in verse
[4-5]. And to reject this, that
person will never be able to repent or change there mind toward God again. [6]
Now this morning,
I want to approach our thoughts on this Heavenly Gift is that we read here in
vs [4].
Many people tell
us that this is the Spirit of God, which is true. But how does this Spirit of
God come, because gifts usually come wrapped. And as you might well know,
little children many times never bother to completely unwrap their gifts. They
enjoy the wrappings more than what is in the wrapping. And in this case, the
Holy Spirit is wrapped in a shell or seed called the Word of God.
[Mark 4:14] “The seed that the sower sowed is the Word of God” And we find in
[1 Peter 1: 23] That our new birth comes
by the Word of God which is an incorruptible Seed.
Now, what I want
to speak about this morning is this seed. It is the Heavenly Gift that is given
to us and within this Word, Seed is contained many things. First of all we know
that every seed by definition is a carrier of life. And therefore being a
carrier of life, the life has to come from someone or something. Now since we
are talking about the heavenly Gift, and we are speaking of this gift being the
Word of God, therefore the Word of God is a carrier of God Life. [John 6:63 & 5:26] The Life comes
from the Father and is passed down to the Son.
Now Life as we
know it is a very complex thing. And it contains what we call attributes and
characteristics. These attributes and characteristics are what we call the
nature of the Life. Those identifiable characteristics which give the Life it’s
special uniqueness.
[2 Peter 1:2-4] You’ll notice that
everything we have need of that pertains to Eternal Life, even the very nature
of that Life itself comes forth from the Word of God. And it is this nature
that I want to speak on this morning, and the being able to know this nature
and being able to identify this nature, because if a nature, any nature has
identifiable characteristics, then if we know what those characteristics are,
then we are able to identify that Life when we see it or come across it.
[Hebrews 4:12-13] We find in looking at the Word of God that
we are told that His Word is a discerner, And this word discerner comes from a
Greek word, Kritikos which sounds like and is the equivalent of our English
word critical. And the word means “relating to judging, fit
for judging and skilled in judging.” This word as applied to this scripture
tells us that “the Word of God is quick
in discriminating and passing judgment on the thoughts and feelings.”
Now, just because
a person may be critical in there nature does not mean the same thing as what
we are looking at here. Because with this word Kriticos, or critical it not
only means a judging, but it also means “fit
for and skilled at.” Now, I have
met a few people in my time who have been very critical in their nature of just
about everyone and everything. But this form of criticism is far from
Discernment.
Christ Revealed
in His Own Word #58
Sunday, December 1, 1996
What these people
show is that they are aware of every detail that differs from their own
thinking and how they think every detail should be. In other words, they have
their own absolute and they are it. But with this word kriticos we are looking
at a discerning that is fit to judge and a discerning that is skilled at
judging. And the reason for this is because the absolute is the One which God
Himself set forth as our standard. And that is His own Word.
Therefore we are
not looking at something that is a great mysterious thing, here. But we are simply
looking at God’s Own Words, (which are His Thoughts expressed) and this Word is
our standard. Then anything that would run contrary to this Absolute, we are
commanded to assess and properly
assigned it’s origin. And to make things even simpler, God has told us that
anything that is contrary to His thoughts and His Words has it’s source from
the devil himself.
[1 John 4:1] Notice that we are
commanded to test the spirits. This word try that is used here is a word
which means to “prove, discern, examine, and scrutinize to see whether a thing is
genuine or not. And then after examination, if it passes the test, then we are
to receive it as genuine and we are to approve it and deem it as worthy.” And so we find that this trying of the
spirits is a whole process that we must go through in order to come to this
conclusion. We find this process is not just to make a determination as to
authenticity and genuineness of the spirit, but we are to come to this decision
with a purpose in mind, and that purpose is to separate out whatever is not of
God from the things which are from God., Then we are to not only accept what is
from God, but going beyond mere acceptance, we are also to deem it worthy which
means to judge it as valuable to us for our use.
Now what are
these spirits that we are to discern and judge? The word is Pneuma and that is
the word which is used of the three fold man. We speak of His Body, Soul and
Spirit, and when se speak of his spirit we are speaking of His Pneuma. The
Spirit is the influence by which we are governed in our soul. Brother Branham
taught us that in our Spirit we have five inner senses.
1) Memory
= the ability to retain or revive in
the mind past thoughts, images, ideas, etc. |
2) Imagination
= the power to
form( conceive or picture ) mental
images of what is not actually present. |
3) Reasoning
= The ability to draw conclusions or
inference from assumed facts. |
4) Conscience
= The moral sense.
Knowledge from within. Inner thoughts and feelings. |
5) Affection
= The emotional state of being, disposition. The prevailing
aspects of our true nature. |
We have found
that these five inner senses make up our spirit and control and influence our
being. And it is this influence that we are told to try, ( That we are to put
to the test, and examine and scrutinize) with the purpose of finding out from what source it originates.
Basically to see whether it is from God or from the devil and then to deal with
it accordingly. If it is of the devil, then we are to flee from that influence.
But, if it is from God then we are to receive it and accept it and make use of
it as we would something that is of value to us.
Notice that this scripture
begins by telling us, (in fact commanding) us NOT to believe everything we are
told, but we are first told to examine from where this influence is coming
from, then we are to either receive it as from God, or we are to reject it as from the devil. In other words, if the person does not have
their source in God we are not to believe anything they may tell us.
You might say,
“Yes, but I thought we are to believe all things, and hope for all things like
the scripture tells us in Corinthians.” Because then we will have love. well, let’s just see what the scripture does
tell us, for after all, don’t take my word for it, you must have Bible, God’s
Word for what we accept and put into practice.
[1 Cor 13: 4 - 10] Now notice that it s
love that does all these things. And notice that before it tells us in verse 7
to believe all things, and hope or earnestly expect from all things and to endure all things, we are first told in
verse 6 that love rejoices not in iniquity but rejoices only in Truth. So we
are not told to believe a lie, or to endure a lie, or to hope in a lie. We are
told that which is true that we are to believe in, and to hope for and to
endure.
Christ Revealed
in His Own Word #58
Sunday, December 1, 1996
From the Message
[Then Jesus Came] 57-0407 Brother
Branham told a story of a certain time when he was at a meeting in Mpls, MN.
and a certain man who wrote an article in “McCalls” against AA Allen, and he
tells us that when he found that this man was there in the meetings, he talked
to that man and told him, “No doubt at all, but that you never
researched your articles right. You said, AA Allen wrote that book (about
the devil biting that woman in the hand and face), and AA Allen had nothing to do
with it. Then if that was such a mistake, I believe the rest of it is a lot of
mistakes. “ He also said in [Respects]
in speaking about the same incident, “If the man never checked up his article any
closer than that, I doubt that the rest that he’s ever said about brother Allen
is truth.” And we also know that we have been taught that the biggest
lie is one that is 99% true. In fact he
said, “now, a lie that is just an outright lie, anyone can detect that. But
that lie that’s got about 99% truth in it, that’s the one that’s deceiving.”
And what we are
looking at is the discerning of what influence the spirit is being influenced
by. In other words, what influence is this person I am talking under. Who and
what is influencing this person. And if what they are saying has got but 1%
falsehood in it, then why should I believe them at all. And then being able to
discern or judge by examination the content of what is being said by the
standard of God’ Own Word and verifying that it is indeed what God said or not
what He said. And then taking the appropriate action.
So when the
Scripture tells us to believe all things, hope for all things and endure all
things, we know as we pointed out in verse 6 that the all things must be Truth.
I also want to point out another thing about this all things as well. First
of all we know that this chapter in [1
Cor 13] is speaking about love. We are told that above everything else we
are to put on love. [Col 3:14]“And
above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.”
And we know also according to [1 John 4:
8, 16] that “God is Love”. And Jesus said, “I can of mine own self do
nothing, what the son Seeth the Father do, the son doeth likewise.” And
he also said, “The Word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent Me.”
And so And so when He said, “If
you Love Me you’ll keep my Word.” Then we know again that this al
things which we are to believe in and hope for and endure has to do with God
Who is Love, and our relationship to Him and to each other Who have their
source in God. For Paul said, “He might gather together all things which are in
Christ, and we know that we are the ones he is speaking of, therefore we are ”All
things in Christ.” And
therefore when we are told to believe all things, and hope in all things and
endure all things, Paul is speaking of our relationship to each other and to
those who are in Christ.
Therefore we must
learn who is and who is not in Christ, and since Christ is the Word, we must
then learn who is and who is not in this Word. Then we will know who we can
trust and who we can not trust, who we shall hope for and who we shall not hope
for, who we shall endure and who we shall not endure. And that means to put up
with. And we find our answer in [1 John
4] Again.
[1 John 4: 1 - 2] Now does this mean
that everyone who says that Jesus came in the flesh? If it did then it would be
speaking of every denominational person who claims to be a Christian. But this
is not what this scripture is telling us. If you read carefully what this verse
tells us, it says, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:” And this is what we want to
know, right? What is the Spirit of God and what is not? Then he tells us how to
tell the difference.
He says, “He
that confesseth” .... and that word confesseth is the Greek word, Homologeo
and it comes from two Greek Words, the first of which means at the same time,
at once and together and the second word is Logos which we know to be the
expressed thoughts. And so this
scripture tells us that “he that says the same things at the same time and at
once together as what the Father has said about the coming into flesh of Jesus,
It is He that has the Spirit of God.
Now, look, we
have men running around this message who are trying to place the Fullness of
the Godhead in the themselves as part of the Bride and they are not saying what
God has said and what His Son has said and what God has revealed to us through
the Shout which is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which is what we are to
confess or say the same thing He said about Him. And this is how you identify
who is of God and who is not. By what they are saying. As Brother Branham said,
“You
give them the Word test.”
Christ Revealed
in His Own Word #58
Sunday, December 1, 1996
In the First Church
Age the people gave the false apostles the word test and found them to be
liars.
[Rev 2:2] We see that these people gave
those false apostles the word test. They did exactly what Paul and John told
them to do. Paul warned the people of these men in [2 Cor 11:13] and he told us how they would come in verse [2-4]. In fact in the Church Age Book,
we are told that the way that the people in that first church age tried these
false apostles was to check what they were saying against what Paul had spoken.
[83-1 EPHESIAN.CHURCH.AGE --
CHURCH.AGE.BOOK.CPT.3] "Thou hast tried them that say they are
apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars." My, that is a blunt
statement. "Thou hast tried them who call themselves apostles." Isn't
that presumptuous? What right has a people to try those who call themselves
apostles? And how do they try them? Oh, I love this. Here it is in Galatians
1:8, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto
you than that which we have (already) preached unto you, let him be
accursed." It was the apostles who brought the original Word to the
people. That original Word could not change, not even a dot or dash of it. Paul
knew it was God Who had spoken to him so he said, "Even if I come and try
to give a second revelation, try to make one little change in what I gave
originally, let me be accursed." You see, Paul knew that first revelation
was correct. God can't give a first revelation, then a second revelation. If He
did, He would be changing His mind. He can give a revelation and then add to
it, as He did in the Garden of Eden when He promised the Seed to the woman, and
then later designated that Seed had to come through Abraham, and then later
said it would come by the same blood lines in David. But it was the same
revelation. It only gave the people more information to help them receive and
understand it. But God's Word can't change. The Seed came exactly as revealed.
Hallelujah. And see what those false apostles were doing. They came with their
own word. Those Ephesians knew that Word as Paul had taught it. They were full
of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of Paul's hands. They looked those false
apostles in the eye and said, "You are not saying what Paul said. You are,
therefore, false." Oh, that sets my heart on fire. Get back to the Word!
It is not you that really tries the apostle, and prophet and teacher, IT IS THE
WORD THAT TRIES THEM.
And so in getting
back to what John told us let’s again turn back to [1 John 4: 1-2] Now let’s read verse [3]. Now, notice what he is telling us here. If a man teaches the
coming into flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ in any other way than what we are
taught by God Himself, then that man proves himself to be anti Christ.
Therefore those spirits who would make themselves to be the Living Word of the
Living God, telling the people that the fullness of the Godhead is in the Bride as though it is in them, are
antichrist unless they are backed up and vindicated by God Himself. And in this case these men have no more
vindication than Jannes and Jambres had. And that spirit who would pervert the
Godhead to make it two spirits, (one a feminish and the other a masculine) is
also an anti Christ spirit as well. As is also those spirits who would tell
people they must have a visitation by an angel to receive the Holy spirit
baptism. These are antichrist spirits.
But as you full
well know that these things were spoken of to come in this hour. [1 Tim 4: 1-2] Notice they speak these things knowing full well they are
teaching wrong, but notice also their consciences are seared. You can’t tell
them they’re wrong. They’ll do what they want and that’s all there is to it.
[1 John 4: 4-6] Notice that the world
will hear them but not those who are of God. And the world will not hear God’s
seed either. But I want you to pay close attention to verse [6]. John is telling us that those who
are of God will hear those who are from God. And in discerning who is from god
and who is not from God you will know also the difference between truth and
error.
[John 3: 18-21] Those who possess the
nature of God will come to the Light, others will not
[1 John 2: 18-20] Others will have to
leave because there nature is not the same and they can not feed on the same
things. there diet is different. They may eat some of the things you eat, but
they can not eat only the things you do. [ 2
Peter 2: 12-21] [Jude 10-13]