Christ Revealed in
His Own Word #121
Being Stablished in The Faith
Sunday,
July 27 1997
Brian Kocourek,
Pastor Grace Fellowship
[Phil 1:27] Let your manner of
life be more abounding and fruitful in Jesus Christ as it becometh the Gospel
of Christ: That whether I come and see you , or else be absent from you, I may
still hear of your affairs, that you are
standing fast and firm in one Spirit, with One Mind striving together for
the Revelation of the Good news brought to you in this hour.
[Luke 22:25-36] Prayer...
Last night we spoke from
Brother Branham’s sermon “Christ is Revealed in His Own Word”,
paragraphs 156 & 157, where he talked about how the revival fires are over
and what is left is a stabilization of Gods Elect. Therefore, this morning, I
would like to continue with these thoughts from last night as we read again
from these 2 paragraphs from brother Branhams Message, Christ is Revealed in His Own Word.
[156] A fine minister said awhile ago, said,
"Brother Branham, if I could just have the joy of the Lord in my
heart..." I said, "Son, the revival's over." See?
Now, the stabilizers is been put on the ship. Great fearful waves are out here
before us, but we know just beyond that wave yonder we're nearing the shore.
See? We're nearing the shore. Just
stay stable. ( Now, I would like to ask the question, “how can I
just stay stable with so much falsehood being preached amongst the churches in
this message? Well, brother Branham goes on to tell us how we can stay stable.
He says,) “Just stay in the Word; stay
with God. No matter how you feel, what anything else, stay right with the Word. Let it stay stable. When you see all
these great big old clouds around us, and storms a-coming, and atomic bombs,
and everything else they're talking about; but our stabilizer is right straight in the Word. God said it would be
here; we'll crest every one of them. Yeah. We'll go right over the top of them.
Yes, indeed. They can't sink us; they can't drown us. You put us in the grave;
we'll come out again. That's just all there is to it. There ain't no way in the
world to keep it down there. We'll caress every one of them, 'cause our great
Chief Captain is calling at the other side.
We're anchored in Jesus, The storms of life I'll brave; I've anchored in Jesus, I'll fear no wind or wave;
[157] Whatever
it might be, let it come, what may, what it will, doesn't make any difference;
we're anchored right there in Jesus. If
I live, I'll live to the glory of God. If I die, I'll die to the glory of God.
I just want... Just to the glory of God is what I want to do. When that's all
over, I don't want to stay any longer. I want to go to where--to my reward that He bought for me, not what I
earned, but what He bought for me, what He give to me by His grace.
Now, this morning I would
like to focus our thoughts on these things that Brother Branham is pointing our
to us here, when he said, “The revival fires are over for the most
part, so Just stay stable. Just stay in the Word; stay
with God. No matter how you feel, what anything else, stay right with the Word. And then in paragraph 157 he also
added, Whatever it might be, let
it come, what may, what it will, doesn't make any difference; we're anchored
right there in Jesus. If I live, I'll
live to the glory of God. If I die, I'll die to the glory of God. I just
want... Just to the glory of God is what I want to do. When that's all over, I
don't want to stay any longer. I want to go to where--to my reward that He bought for me, not what I earned, but what He bought
for me, what He give to me by His grace.
Last night we began to break these thoughts of Brother Branham’s
down into three main points.
First of all) Last night we Showed you the
importance of being stabile in these times, especially as we see the
approaching of the squeeze which is the
beginnings of the pressures that will be placed upon the True believers before
they go home in the Rapture and before the Tribulation sets in. (explain what the squeeze is for those who
don’t understand what it is). We examined how important having the right focus
is to being stable. And we showed how that when we are focused properly, wonderful
things begin to happen in our lives, and we begin to live for others.
The Second point) I left for today, which is this:
we shall examine what this stability is, and what happens when we are able to
be anchored in Christ, Therefore we
will be looking at the rest and peace which comes from God alone, and is an
outward expression of this stability.
Thirdly) I would like to Show you what brings this stability into our lives,
and also I would like to show you what can cause your stability to waver. Because
if we waver back and forth in anything, then we are not stable, and the Lord
wishes that we be stable and therefore not founded upon a Rock which is
immovable. [James 1:2-8]. So you see that our stability in the Lord, and in our
Life comes from having the proper focus, and being Christ centered. For an
illustration of what I mean by Christ centered in our thinking, let’s look to
the Scriptures again to see what happens when a person is Christ centered and
then what happens when that same person looses their focus on Christ.
[Matt 14:22-33] Now the fact of the matter is that Jesus had just
fed five thousand men, plus only He knows how many women and children, and all
with a few loaves of bread. So the Disciples should have know that when it
comes down to it, Jesus had control over the elements. And so when Peter began
to walk on the water, instead of fearing, he should have been ecstatic and
overjoyed. And the Apostles, all of them really missed out on a great lesson in
faith here. But the thing I want you to notice is that when Peter was focused
on Christ, everything else just seemed to not matter at all. He was able to do
what can not be done in this dimension. scientifically what he did was
impossible, but so has it been proven that scientifically, the bumble should
not be able to fly, but since no one has been able to tell that to the bumble
bee, he keeps flying.
We so often are limited by
the things which we fear. And fear we are told has a penalty. [1 John 4:18] And this word torment is a
Greek word which means a penalty. And what is the penalty of fear? It is the
stopping of forward progress. We are told also in the Scripture that when
Joseph heard that Mary was expecting a child, he feared that she had an
illegitimate child in her, and so the Bible tells us that ‘Joseph feared to
take Mary to be his wife.” And so God sent forth his angel in a dream to quell
his fears. That is why it seems that every time the Angel of the Lord came to
man, He usually began by saying, “Fear not, for I have come from the presence of the Lord”. We also find in [2 Tim 1:7] That God doesn’t want us to
be afraid.
In the book of Job we hear
him say these words, “The things I feared the most have come upon
me”, and this is not just a truism, but it’s a fact. Because after all,
our minds are but a garden of seeds that have we have sown. And whatever seed
we sow is what we shall reap according tot he law of reproduction as God set
forth in the Book of Genesis. If we sew positive seeds of Faith, we shall reap
what we have been sewing, and we shall reap the blessings that come by
believing. But if we sew negative seeds of doubt, then we shall also receive
what doubts we have been sewing.
Therefore if we are to doubt anything, we should doubt our doubts. For
Faith is the evidence of things which we do not see, touch, feel, smell or
hear. Faith is the evidence, therefore if Faith is the evidence, then it is the
conviction, and assurance of those things being there, although in our five
outer senses we can not detect it’s presence. And Faith is not only the
conviction, but it is the substance. Then if Faith is the Substance, then it is
real.
Look, let’s just examine [Hebrews 11:1] for a moment. Gods Word
tells us that Faith is not a substance, but THE Substance. And we know that
substance according to Webster, is “the real or essential part or element of
anything; the essence, reality or basic matter. The physical matter of which a thing exists.’ Therefore, if Faith is THE Substance, the
Faith must be made from the same essence that God is. Right? Now, this word for
Substance is a Greek word, Hupostasis and we find this word also uses by the
same author of the Book of Hebrews in the first chapter.
[Hebrews 1:3] Now, which word do you suppose in this verse is the
same word for substance used in chapter 11? It is the word Person. Which
describes the very essence of God. Therefore if Faith is THE substance or
essence of God, then Faith is no different that the Son of God because let’s
face it, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
was God and the Word became flesh.” And since we are also told by Scripture that “as a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he”. And Jesus added to that, “Out of the abundance or overflow
of the heart the mouth does speak, then a man and His Word are the
same. Therefore a man is the composite of what his thoughts are, and no more
and no less than what he thinks in his heart is what he is.
Therefore as we read in the
Book of James, if a man is double minded, if you are unstable in your thinking,
then you will be unstable in your doing. I believe this even goes to the point
that if we are stressed in our thinking, then we will be stressed in our
bodies. If we are uptight in our thinking, then we will be tight in our bodies.
And if we are bound in our thoughts, then we will be bound in our bodies. And
just like Joseph, when he feared to take Mary to be his wife, he stopped his
forward movement and God had to send an angel to quell that fear.
Therefore we should never
fear the trials that we are going through, because these trials are placed upon
us for a specific purpose, and that is for the purpose of testing us and
correcting us in our thinking, and for bringing forth in each of us the
Character traits that God has ordained for us. [1 Peter 1: 3-7]&
[1 Peter 4:12-13 ]
He tests us because he loves
us...[Hebrews 12:6-8] And these tests are to bring forth an
advancement in our character and our lives. Every test we take is for a
purpose. And the test is not to disprove the thing being tested, but tests are
designed to prove the thing. The Wuest
translation tells us in [1Peter1:7]
That we are tested for the purpose of Approval. And when we pass the test,
there is always a reward. When we finish 1st grade we are tested, and when we
pass the test we are asked to come up higher. We don’t give a child in the
first grade a college entrance exam. We wait for them to pass through all the
stages of their education that prepares them for college before we give them
that test. Therefore, a test is designed with the purpose of showing what stage
you are in. And we have a promise that we will not be tested beyond that which
we have been prepared to pass. And when we have been tested we can expect to
receive the reward for passing. [James
1:12]
So therefore, if we are to
understand how it is that the Believer can be stablished in the Faith, and
stabilized even in times of difficulty, we must know one thing, he doesn’t gain
this characteristic on his own. God is the one who has to the power to stablish
us, and God never operates outside the realm of His Revealed Word. Therefore is we are to understand the purpose
of why Christ is Revealed in His Own Word, we should be able to see that it is
for a purpose, and that is to get us ready for the Millennium, where satan will
be bound for a thousand years, and what will be the force that binds him? [Rev
20:1-3] we are told that it is some sort of chain that binds him, right?
And what is that chain? Brother Branham told us it is a chain of circumstances,
because he can’t get to the believer any longer, because of our body change.
[Romans 5: 1-11]
[1Peter 5:10] Amplified And after you have suffered a little while,
the God of Grace - who imparts all blessings and favor - Who has called you to
His Own Eternal Glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself complete and make you what
you ought to be, and shall establish and ground you securely, and
strengthen and settle you.
[Romans 16:25] Dunamai
power, to make you stabilized or steadfast to make one firm in ones conviction,
[1 Thess 3:12-13, &
2 Thess 2:13-17, 3:3]
[1 Cor 1:4-10]
[1 Pet 1:13]
[James 5:8]
[James 1:8, 4:8] Double minded
purify your understanding you double minded.... A double minded man is
not stable...
[Col 2:5-7] Stabilized in the faith...
[2Cor 1:20-22]