Christ Revealed in His Own Word # 102

                      Election Not Education,

                        Wednesday, May 14, 1997

Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship

 

 

116  Notice how that they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Now, that don't mean that educated men don't come in. Look at Paul. I guess there wasn't a smarter fellow in his day than Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus. He was educated under Gamaliel, one of the greatest teachers of the day, great, strict Hebrew, a Pharisee of denomination; and Paul was brought up under him. He knowed all the Jewish religion; but when he come to the church, he said, "I never come to you in the education of man and so forth, because if you would, then you'd trust in that. But I come to you in the power and manifestation of the Holy Ghost, that your faith would be in God." There you are. That's right.

 

Now, let’s stop here for just a minute. You see, brother Branham is not saying that you should not get a good education, but what he is saying is, “God does not look at your education, He looks at Election”. Because Enoch, Moses, Daniel and Paul were three men of God, used mightily by God, who were very smart, and in fact brilliant when it came to the sciences and all.  But they did not depend upon their intellectual capacity when it came to the things of God. When it came to God, they knew that Revelation comes from God and God alone. Because if it came by man’s intelligence, then the scientists of His day would have had the same answers as Daniel, and so would the men of Enoch’s day, and Moses Day and Joseph’s day and Paul’s day. But God does not deal with us through education, by revelation. And I hope we are catching what brother Branham is telling us here.

 

In Matthew 16 Jesus said to Peter, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father which is in heaven. So, don’t think with God that education means any thing, because it doesn’t. You need education to better your earning power while you are hear on earth, but when it comes to understanding God, education gets in the way.  You hear a man like brother Vayle who is very astute in many things, and brother Branham even called him Doctor Vayle, and this stumbles many people in this message because they think that Brother Vayle has a doctor’s degree and yet in reality he only had a few months of college at a Baptist college but he got kicked out for teaching the other kids to speak in tongues. And although he did teach school many years ago, you did not have to have a college degree to teach school back then. All you had to do was to pass a test that certified that you understood the different parts of education which used to be the 3-R’s of Reading wRiting, and aRithmetic.

 

Today they have to have a four year degree to teach in the public schools and yet they turn out more illiterates than the teachers of yester year who had no college training. In fact home school mothers are turning out better trained students than the public school teachers are. The national average home-schooler is 1.5 years ahead of their public school counterpart. So that ought to tell you what a college degree will do for your teaching abilities. They just indoctrinate them more into their liberal feel good agenda’s. I know, because I had to go through that kind of training when I went teachers college at the University of Minnesota. So don’t get the idea here that brother Branham is telling you that God can not deal with a man who is educated. Education has nothing to do with God, and God has nothing to do with education. God deals with man by revelation alone. So, if you are educated, that only means that you have to be able to throw out more of your own thoughts in order to receive the mind of God.    

 

117  Many tried to impersonate these people, but they got the thing all messed up just like they do today.  There was one raised up before the time of Jesus, led four hundred people off. And you know how the Scriptures read about these things, trying to do it before the time come. And some of them tried to impersonate Him, and they was all this, that, and the other. And He said in the last days how they would raise up false Christ’s in the last days, and false prophets, and show signs and wonders. We have all that. See? But that doesn't do away from the real. It only makes it shine out better, because we have a real Christ, not a false one.

 

Now, there is a difference between being ignorant and being educated. I’ve see many educated people that are as simple minded and as ignorant as a person could possibly be and yet they have their degrees and masters degrees and whatever more the world calls for. And they’ve spent thousands of dollars on education to help to make them knowledgeable. Yet when it comes to common sense they haven’t got a dimes worth.   In [2 Tim 3:7] we are told that men will be, “ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth.”  

Christ Revealed in His Own Word #102

Wednesday, May 14, 1997  “”

 

Now, that would have to be a paradox of sorts because, the Scripture says they will be ever learning, and that means they will be ever ( at all times) learning, which means that they will be continuously adding to their knowledge, or increasing in knowledge, yet they will never be (able) which means they will never be capable, they will never have the power to understand the Truth.

 

Even in the Book of Daniel we read, “even to the time of the end, many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” And yet what good is the knowledge going to do for them. It can’t save them, and even those who know what is coming upon the earth, like the new world order and the one world government, they can’t stop it even if they know it’s coming. But instead of man humbling themselves and acknowledging that God is Above all, they continue in their little minds to think that God is ignorant to their devises. But God is not ignorant of their little schemes and devises. He knows the ones that He has called and the ones He  hasn’t. As brother Branham so often put it, You believe He's infinite? If He isn't, He can't be God. Then, just think, being infinite He knew every flea that would ever be on the earth, how many times them fleas would bat their eyes, how much tallow was in each flea, every blade of grass it would ever set on; that's infinite. We're finite; we stumble in darkness. God likened us to sheep, and we must have a leader. And that leader's not man; that Leader is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Christ among us.

 

  118  Now, now, we realize then that God sent His prophets. That was the way He had of bringing His Word to the people, through the lips of His prophets. And notice, you know, Moses said, if you want to read it... In Exodus the 4th chapter and the 10th and 12th verse, Moses said God spoke to him. God talked to a man lip to ear, and He said... "I'm slow of speech." Moses said; "I'm not sufficient; I can't go." 119  He said, "Who made man to talk, or Who made him dumb? Who made him to see, or Who made him to hear? Didn't I, the Lord?" Said, "I'll be with your mouth." See? So...  120   And Jeremiah said, if you want to read that in Jeremiah 1:6, Jeremiah said that, "God put words in my mouth." See? He talked lip to ear with one prophet and spoke through the other prophet, he had no control at all and spoke through his lips. He's got ways of getting His Word out, you know. Yes, sir.   121  So you see, the Bible is God's Word, not man's word. Moses said, "God spoke to me with a voice, and I heard Him. I wrote down what He said."  122 Jeremiah said, "I couldn't speak at all, and the first thing you know, my lips was talking, and--and--and I was writing." God spoke through his lips, and it come to pass. Daniel, Isaiah, and so forth, all those prophets were just about the same.

 

Now, then, what is brother Branham telling us here? Remember, the Message is “Christ is Revealed in His Own Word.” I believe what he is telling us here is that, education has nothing to do with God, and God has nothing do with education. Education is only a tool which man uses to try and better himself, or to increase his knowledge. But education will never substitute for Revelation and Election. God Reveals Himself to whomsoever He will, and only to whomsoever He will, and only through His Word, and their is nothing you or any one else can do to alter that.

 

[John 1:1] “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  So, then is God is the Word, then in order to Know Him you must Know Him by His Word. And in order to do so, you can not do this on your own. God specifically wrote His Word to confound the wise and prudent but to reveal Himself to babes such as would learn.

 

[1 Cor 1:17-2:16]  So we see by the scriptures that what God considers wise, the men of this world do not, but what God calls foolish, they consider to be wisdom. Therefore, as long as we live in this world we will have to face a situation where we can not count on receiving acknowledgment for receiving the wisdom of the just, but that is not so bad considering that men who are considered very much accomplished in the things of this world will never merit any credit with God for their efforts either. So then what we have is a stand-off. But a person who makes an investment that is long term is far better off than one who makes only a short term investment.

 

[John 5:19 & James 2:5 & 1 John 2:15-17] Therefore we can see what Jesus has in mind when He speaks to us about the conditions of our understanding in.   [Matt 6:19-21]