Christ Revealed in His Own Word #113

What is Wisdom

Saturday, June 28, 1997

Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship

This evening I would like to take a short and simple message on the crucifixion of self because after all, this is our Communion Service and we do this in remembrance of Him Who Died in our place. I would like to take paragraph 142 for our text tonight so that we may tie this Message of How Christ is Revealed in His Own Word in with the Communion Message.

Now, in paragraph [142], Brother Branham said, Now, the next thing happens, is when it's all gathered up into that one Person, Jesus Christ, Bride and Body at the physical return of the Lord Jesus, making His three times when He was brought on earth, killed, crucified, raised up, manifested Hisself in the form of His Body,...

Now, what does it mean that Jesus came and was crucified? Why was He crucified? For what purpose? We find our answer in [John 3:16] For God so loved... That is why He gave the person who was dearest to Himself. He gave the thing which meant more to him than anything else to express that Love. That is why Jesus said in [John 15:13] “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” That is the total expression and the greatest expression of love a person could ever give.

[Hebrews 13:8 & Malachi 3:6] Now, if He is the same and He changes not, then won’t He do the same thing each time He comes? And if He does the same thing each time He comes, won’t the response of the people be the same as well? So, then, if we believe that He is to come back to earth again at the end-time, then how will we know His presence, and what sort of things can we expect of the people of this earth to do?

First of all, we know that He came at least once, and that was nearly 2,000 years ago. So let’s see what response the people had for Him back then. [1 Cor 2: 1-16]

[I COR 2:1-9] And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching [was] not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, [even] the hidden [wisdom], which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

Now, in these 5 verses we just read, Paul is telling the people how he has approached them in all honesty and openness. He said, I never came to you with great swelling words to impress you, nor did I come to you with a preconceived notion of who you were so that I might play politics with you, but I came in fear and even trembling for your sakes, and I never tried to put on a show of intelligence or personal intellectualism, But I came to you in the demonstration of the Spirit of God and of power. And why did I come this way? I came knowing that your Faith can never exist based upon the wisdom of man, but your Faith exists because it is based upon the power of God’s Word. In fact we know according to God’s Word, that “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” So faith then is not based upon material things, and neither is it based upon the senses. But Faith look to the unseen.

So we see here that before Paul even gets down to his message of what he wants to tell the Corinthians, he first let’s them know he is not there to play games with them. Church is not a place for feel goodism, although the denominations have made it a feel good thing, but it’s not!

We should come to church because we want to hear the Words that God has given for us to hear, so that we might benefit from those words. And this is what Paul is telling these Corinthians. He goes on in verse 6 to say, [I COR 2:6-9] Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known [it], they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. In other words, there is a wisdom from God that is perfect, but the wisdom of man is not to be compared with the Wisdom of God.

Paul said, I came to speak wisdom among them that are perfect, although this wisdom is not of this world, for the wisdom of this world will come to show that it is really nothing. Now, that is quite a statement for Paul to make and I’m sure there are many people, in fact most people who think Paul is wrong here, but I am here to tell you tonight that Paul is right and the world is wrong.

I would like to ask you a question tonight, “what is wisdom” and What is Truth? Can anyone answer me this. We have thousands, if not millions of schools throughout the entire world that profess to teach wisdom and truth in their classrooms, and yet we find more divorce and more misery year after year and it is not from the so called lower class that we find these conditions, but amongst the so called elite and so called educated as well. You can check out almost any divorce case today and you will find that the marriage began as a young couple who fell in love with each other and wanted to spend their lives together because of this love, yet this same loving couple somehow grew out of love, so what happened?

I’ll tell you what has happened, the Word of God has been fulfilled that is what has happened. In the book of revelations we read that the spirit of the people will be this way in the end-time...

[2 Tim 3: 1- ] But Mark this, realize and understand this, that there will be perilous times in the last days. For People will be lovers of self and utterly self centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate greedy desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive blasphemous, scoffers, who are disobedient to their own parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. They will be without natural affection, and they will become callous and inhuman, without love and unforgiving, slanderous, without self control and yet inflated with self conceit and love for self. Therefore they will be lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. For although they hold to a form of piety, they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of the Truth and their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession. Avoid such people as these and turn away from them. For of such are they that worm their way into homes and churches and seduce weak natured congregations of spiritually dwarfed people who are loaded down with the burden of their sins and are easily swayed and led away by various evil desires and seductive impulses. These weak-minded people will listen to anybody who teaches them and they will be ever inquiring and getting information, but they will never arrive at the recognition and knowledge of the Truth.

What an indictment of the day in which we live. Never before since the dawn of time has there been so much access to the Truth of God’s Word and yet never has there been so much pseudo-knowledge flooding the minds of the people. Because the people universally have more wealth and material possessions that at any other time in the history of mankind, the people today think they have somehow become better off than their forefathers. But material things does not bring happiness. Jesus warned us of this condition in the book of Revelations.

[Rev 3: 14-21] And unto the messenger of the church of the Laodicean age write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and yet thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: Therefore, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and change your manner of thinking. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Look at the condition of the people of Laodiea, because they have a vast amount of material possessions, they think somehow they have need of nothing else, and what a sad state to be in especially because they don’t even know that they are spiritually naked and poor, miserable and blind to this condition.

Money never will by happiness. Jesus said, The Love of Money is the root of all evil. With money you may be able to buy things but never true happiness. There is only one thing that will produce True happiness and that is something money could never buy.

King David said, in Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

And the Prophet Jeremiah said, “ O Lord, Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.”

The Prophet Habakkuk said, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

The Apostle Paul told us how True joy can fill your heart when he said, “For what is our hope or joy, or crown of rejoicing? are not ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His Parousia?

Now, then the fact is that material things can never bring satisfaction or joy. O, there may be some fleeting moments in your life that something new may make you happy, but that happiness only lasts for a moment, and is only surface and not satisfying nor is it fulfilling.

And just as we began by speaking about the wisdom of this world. It will never lead you to what Is Truth, because the worldly wisdom is based upon what you can see, taste, feel, smell and hear. Worldly wisdom is based upon that which is sensual to your outer senses, but can never satisfy what your inner being is thirsting for, and that is Love, True Love where you know that you will never be lonely and left alone. True Love that is corrective and not just some mushy mushy soft soap anything goes sort of love.

I remember, years ago when I taught school, I knew that Love is corrective, and that most kids today on the surface don’t really want total freedom from their parents, they just want to test their parents love and concern for them, and so they try things to test the boundaries of that parental concern. And I was strict in my classes and when the guys in my class would get out of line I would do a little bit of rough housing with them. sometimes I would put my arm around their neck and squeeze a little bit tight and may rub their hair with my knuckles or something like that. Once in a while I might grab them by the front of their jean jackets, and lift them off the floor and hold them up against the wall and talk to them a little, eye to eye. But I never hit anyone with intention to hurt, or harm and they knew it. As a result I had kids come to me about their drug problems and other things they felt they couldn’t talk to their parents about. Well, for a few months I quit doing this, and then one day the toughest kid in school came up to me and said, “Mr. K, why don’t you manhandle us any more”, And I said, “why do you want to know?” And he said, “Because we don’t get it at home and we need it.” I felt like crying for that kid right there.

Children need to have an assurance of Love and sometimes the only way we can express it is by showing our concern for their welfare. A man might roughhouse with his sons, or hug his daughters, and hold their hand. This doesn’t show weakness on the part of the Father or mother, it shows an outward display of their love for their child. It seems to me that the generation that went through Word War II seemed to think it wasn’t a manly thing to be concerned for the child’s inner being, so they worked very long and gruesome hours to provide for their out being. And so materialism took the place of Love. Giving things took the place of giving of ones-self.

Time spent with the ones we love was replaced with things, and this can not satisfy. I am thoroughly convinced that what the children of today need more than anything else is parents who are devoted to loving and caring for their children, not in a material fashion, but with their time and energies applied toward the fulfillment of their inner being.

Our bodies are only valued at a few hundred dollars for our blood and organs, yet we spend all our time fixated on the outer shell we call our body. But their is a Soul that is greater than our body. That soul is immortal and needs to be cared for as well. There was a time when we looked at the greatness of a man by what he did for others. All the religions of the world are based upon the teachings of a man and yet there was not found among the leading religions of the world, whether Christianity, Judaism, Muslim, or Buddhism that has taught materialism. So where does it come from? From the devil. Who was it that went to Jesus when He was fasting in the desert. Who came and offered Him bread.

Who took Jesus up to the highest point of the temple and offered Him every thing that He could see. It was the devil. Then if this was true then, why would it not be true for today?

You talk to any divorced couple today and you will find that material desires or material success is what has led to many of the break ups in marriages. Let a man rise to a certain financial standing, and he begins to think that he no longer needs the little woman who helped him to get there. More marriages today are dissolved over financial matters than any other reason. We seem to rate people by what they have rather than what they give anymore. And Jesus said, there is no greater love than to lay your life down for a friend. That is the supreme sacrifice because that is the supreme expression of love. we hear stories of love and how the man dies to save the woman he loved, and yet how often do we apply those same principles in our own life.

And yet we see the world today making fun of this notion, and they pump the people with their self serving slogans of, “have it your way, or you deserve a break today,” and so we find the condition of the people is one which has taken a break from their responsibilities toward one another, and every thing has become self serving. No wonder the world is full of neurotics. And no wonder the world is falling apart.

But we are told that the world will be ever learning, but they will never come to the knowledge of the Truth. Even the Prophet Daniel warned that knowledge will ever be increasing right up to the end-time, but it won’t do them any good, because it is knowledge that is earthy and of no eternal importance.

But let’s just stop here for a moment and ask this question. What is wisdom and why is it important. The answer is this, the wisdom of man means very little because it is always changing. 300 years ago man had proved scientifically that if you exceeded the extreme speed of 30 MPH you would leave the gravitational pull of the earth. Just 200 years ago science believed that to cure most diseases, you had to bleed yourself out. I suppose they thought that since the diseases were carried in the blood, that by getting rid of your blood you would get rid of the disease, but what they didn’t think of is that your heart can’t keep beating without blood either, and so when George Washington had pneumonia, they pulled his big toe nail out to cure it, and he died.

If you listen to the so called health experts they will tell you one thing in the 70’s, change it to the opposite in the 80’s and then come back to it again in the 90’s and by the year 2000 I’m sure they’ll change again. They tell you that you can’t get aids from casual contact and from mosquitoes but I know a scientist who works for Proctor and Gamble who said that they proved in their lab that aids can be transmitted by mosquitoes, and this scientist said the government was given their findings, but they refuse to publish it for fear that people will panic. So the lies go on and on and on. They also say you can’t get aids which is a virus, from a swimming pool, but I have read to you articles where the scientists say that pools are chlorinated for bacteria only, and if they were chlorinated for a virus, it would take ten times as much chlorine and you could not swim in it, so the lies continue and the people die and the false wisdom of this world is looked upon as truth when it is nothing but lies.

Go to the Air force museum and you can see what man’s wisdom has produced. Billions of dollars worth of air machines which were made for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is the destruction of others persons. There’s your man’s wisdom. Death and destruction. Did you know that there are cures today for cancer, but the AMA has such a strong hold on congress that these cures are not permitted in the United States. Did you know that the American Cancer Society spends only about 4% of the money that it rakes in on the people who need it. The rest is for the fancy living of the officers and for donations to the political parties and political candidates. It’s nothing but a money making racket.

There’s your worldly wisdom. [ 1 Cor 1: 20-31] That is why Paul said in [1 Cor 2: 1] That “he did not come in excellency of speech or of man’s wisdom to proclaim to you the testimony of God”

[Isaiah 55: 8-9] Then how will we know the ways and thoughts of God? [I COR 2:10-16]