Christ Revealed in His Own Word # 102
Election Not Education,
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]