Christ Revealed in His Own Word #59
The Way of Death
Sunday,
December 8, 1996
Brian Kocourek,
Pastor Grace Fellowship
Last Sunday we
continued to look at this thought of repentance that brother Branham spoke to
us from Paragraph 60 where he spoke of science and Medicine not even thinking
to go back to what they came out from. He said, “Do you think they would ever
refer back to that?” Now the
sad thing is that we are in the age of Laodicea which according to [Revelations
3], is time for a once for all repentance to take place. The Angel of the Lord
said to the Laodicean Messenger that we must “ be zealous therefore and
repent.”
In [Isaiah 55: 6-9] We see that His ways
are not our ways. (read) 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] Which we
found that there is to be a time when we will not only come to that once and
for all repentance, but we will actually go beyond a change of the mind, to a
lace where the Living Word has become a reality to us because we are actually
living it out. “Therefore we will be leaving the principles ( the first things or elementary teaching of )
Christ, and we will be moving forward into the (finishing off). And in order to
do this we will come to the place that we will not be focusing again upon the
foundation of a changing of the mind, (which we know a foundation is the
principle thing, it is that which you build upon) and so we will be leaving this first changing of our mind set,
from our ideas to Gods Ideas, and the first building blocks of faith toward
God, etc. In other words, once we have come to the place that we know that
our own thinking must be abandoned in favor of Gods thoughts, then there is
still a further move into or toward
perfection that we must come.
And I believe
that just to know it is right, does not mean we have arrived. But to be a part
of it does. Just to be able to see the Message of the hour does not even mean
you have received it all, but to be a part of that Revelation and Manifestation
of the Spirit of God through His Word means that you are part of it.
Brother Branham
said from the Message [Works is Faith
Expressed, pp. 310-11] “But if it
is taking place, then believe that It’s Him, “In that day the Son of Man will
be revealed.” amen! The Son of Man will be revealed in a body of flesh, you
people the church, just exactly like it was before the days of Sodom, a called
out group away from all of them, setting out, believing the promise of God.
Glory! Then the works that the Holy Spirit is doing today by these visions
never failing, promises never failing, and all the apostolic signs promised in
the Bible of Malachi 4, and oh, the Revelations 10:7, all of that is being fulfilled and proved by scientific, every other
way. And if I haven’t told you the Truth, these things would not happen.
But if I have told you the Truth, they
bear record that I’ve told you the truth. He’s still the same, yesterday,
today, and forever, and the manifestation
of His Spirit is catching away a Bride. Let that Faith, that
Revelation, fall into your heart that this is the hour.
From [Proving His Word pp. 235]
Brother Branham said, “The BrideGroom
call will come right through this, when the Son of Man will come down and come
in human flesh to unite the two together. The Church has to be the Word; He is
the Word, and the two unites together, and to do that it’ll take the
manifestation of the Revealing of the Son of Man. ...See? It’s Son of Man,
Jesus Christ, will come down in human flesh among us, and will make His Word so
real it will unite the church and Him as One, the Bride, and then she’ll go
home to the Wedding Supper, not to the marriage.” Then brother Branham quotes the scripture that says, “Cause the Marriage of the Lamb has come” But
the Rapture is going to the Wedding Supper. When the Word here unites with the person, and they two become one,
and then what does it do then? It manifests the Son of Man again, not the
church theologians, the Son of Man. The Word and the church becomes one.
Whatever the Son of Man done, He was the Word, the church does the same thing.”
Now the question
is this. When does a woman become the Bride of the Groom?
A: ___ And the answer is when she takes His name, right?
And Brother Branham said from the Message, [God’s only Provided Place of Worship pp. 214], the
following, “The Name is in the Word,
because He is the Word. Amen. What is He then? The Word interpreted is the manifestation of the name of God.” And we all know that God
interprets His Word by bringing it to pass which is the manifestation
of His Word, which is the manifestation of His name. Then as we enter into this manifestation of His
Word, we are entering into the interpretation of it, and thus we become a part
of that Word manifested.
Then we become
one with the interpretation by becoming one with the manifestation. Then
entering into this manifested Word brings us into oneness with it, and since
the interpretation is the manifestation of the name of God, then when we have
moved from Faith in the Word, to the reality of the Word, by becoming part of
that manifested Word, this is when we receive the name and thus become Bride
and Mrs. Jesus. We thus have become a
part of the interpretation of that Word, for without a Bride there would be no
Groom.
As Brother
Branham said in the Message [171 Super
Sign PP 171] It's
on your hands, tonight, throwed right back in your lap! Hebrews 13:8,
regardless of how many Council of Churches we have, still remains as
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." "The works that I do!" If His Life is in you,
it'll manifest Jesus Christ. Amen. Now you all can't be that one, but you can be a part of that, with your
faith. All of them couldn't be a Jesus,
when they was on earth, but they could believe Him and accept the message. There was one Moses, one Elijah, one Noah, on down, always
been that, but the rest of them could accept it. And they would a had no ministry unless there had been somebody believe it.
Jesus would a had no ministry unless somebody believed it. Paul would a had no
ministry unless somebody believed it.
Notice then, our
receiving the manifestation as the interpretation brings us into oneness with
the Revelation, and just as God had to send One with The Message, there had to
be ones it was sent to. And the ones that the Message was sent to, are as much
a part of the reality of the Manifestation as the One being Revealed as well as
the One in Whom God reveals through.
Now let me break
this down into 3 points here. One Who
reveals Himself, One in Whom
that One uses to reveal Himself, and
the ones to whom He is revealed.
Again, I want you to catch this because this is the revelation of how God made
Himself known to us through Christ Jesus His Son. One Who reveals, One In Whom
He is revealed through, and Ones to Whom
He is revealed. [One Who], [One In Who] and
[Ones To Whom].
#1) First of all,
there must be One who reveals Himself. And we know that God Himself came down
with a Shout. [ 1 Thess 4: 16-18, Eph 1:
17, Acts 3: 19-21, Luke 17:30, Rev 10: 1-2,]
#2) Secondly,
there must be one that God reveals Himself through, seeing that He promised
that He would do nothing lest He reveals it through His Servants the Prophets.
[Amos 3:7, Acts 3: 22-23, Acts 13:41
Rev 10:3-7, Mal
4: 5-6, John 14:7-9]
#3) And Thirdly,
there has to be a people in which His Revelation of Himself is made known to and upon receiving this
revealing or Revelation, they become one with it by receiving the manifestation
of It.
[Heb
12:25-29, Col 3:4, 1 John 3: 2-3, 2 Thess 1: 7&10-12, 2 Cor 3:18, 1 Cor
13:12, Rom 12: 1-2,]
[Identification
PP 108] A lady asked me, coming down the road the other day from up here,
she said... It's Florence Shakarian, Brother Demos's sister-Sister Williams and them, sittin' in the car. She
said, "Brother Branham, I fast, and fast, and fast, and still I can't cast
out devils." I said, "You
wasn't born to do such. Your duty is to fast. The Holy Spirit's working on
somebody else out there for that." You don't know the place.
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 last Sunday we
focused our thoughts on the Heavenly Gift spoken of in [Hebrews
6:4]. we found that this Gift is His Word in which is contained His Spirit
as we saw in [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. Therefore the Word of God is a carrier of God Life as we
see in [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.”
[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]
[22
Without money without Price 59-0802] After the taking away of the
Holy Spirit out of the earth, that formal church religion will go right on, not
knowing the difference. ... They don't
know the Holy Spirit, so they won't know when It's gone, and they'll just be
going right on just the same. When the last one is sealed into the Body of
Christ; they'll still be going on,
trying to bring converts to it, because they don't know what It is. ...
they'll be so far away, just in religious rituals, until they will not miss the
Holy Spirit, because they don't know what It is to begin with.
Now it comes down
to this. If they do not know Him, then how will they know even as He is known.
A Groom does not make love to Himself and say that He knew His Wife. It takes
two to know, for Mary herself said, “How can I be with child having known no man?”
And so I believe that this knowing, which is the Greek word Ginosko, not only
speaks of a mental and rational sort
of behavior, but speaks also of a
relationship which becomes established through and intimate knowledge or
sharing in something. And this intimate knowledge which He has shared with His
Bride is Himself.
[2 Tim 3:7] Never able to come to this
knowledge [Matt 24:38-39] Because
they do not know only destruction remains for them. [Matt 24: 50] Aware is Ginosko, they miss it because they not aware.
Just like brother Branham said, “Because
they don’t know Him they won’t know when He leaves the earth.” [John 8:43]
[Rom 1:27-28] And therefore they are
turned over to a reprobate mind [1 Cor
2: 8 & 14]
[Heb 10:25-26] If we disbelieve
willfully after we have received this knowledge there is no more repentance
left.
[2 Peter 2: 20] If they are again entangled in the things of
evil after they have come to this knowledge, there remains no more hope for
them.
[Eph 4:13] God desires that we enter
into this knowledge of Himself in order to come to completion
[Mark 4:11] We are ordained and fashioned to know. [John 10:38] The knowledge comes by the vindication which is the
manifestation of the revelation.
[Luke 21: 25-35] By knowing we will
overcome the trials ordained for the whole earth and be able to stand in His
Presence. [John 14: 16-21] The
Spirit of Truth is to make us to know and be known and to recognize the
manifestation of Himself.
[Col 1:9, 2:2, 3:10] It was Paul’s
desire to se the people filled with this knowledge
[John 8: 32] Ye shall know the Truth and
it is this knowing of the Truth that shall make you free.
[2 Tim 2: 19] The Lord knoweth those who
are His, He has an intimate relationship with His own.