Christ Revealed in His Own Word #133

With all thine might #1

Wednesday, September 3, 1997

Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship

161 Do you see Him now in His Word and all of His Word made manifest right here before us? Oh, church of the living God, get to your feet; believe Him with all that's in you. Hold to that little Wheel in the middle of the Wheel; let It stabilize every move and every motion that you make. Every thought that you have, may it be controlled by this Power on the inside of you, because God is setting right in His Word of this hour in the evening Light, showing forth the Light.

This evening I would like to begin looking at three things brother Branham mentions in this paragraph.

He said, Do you see Him now in His Word and all of His Word made manifest right here before us? Then he said, ? Oh, church of the living God, get to your feet; believe Him with all that's in you. Now, I don’t think he was telling the people to get up and stand on their feet, right then. There is something more that he is saying by using this statement. Can anyone tell me what it is that he is telling the people here? __________. Now, I believe what he was telling us is this; He is saying, “Now that you see that He is here, you’ve got to get yourselves ready to move when he moves, do what he does, and say what he says.”

[1 Peter 1:13] Now, what do you suppose Peter was saying here? Gird up the loins of your mind. And why do you suppose he chose the words Gird up the loins of your mind. And another question I want you to ask yourself is this, where do you think Peter came across this concept of girding up in order to be able to move out.

[Acts 12:1-9] Notice here that it was the Angel of the Lord that told Peter to gird himself and be ready to move out. So we see that what Peter is telling us here then is that at the Time of the Revelation of Jesus Christ we must also be in the same condition, whereas he was instructed by the Angel of the Lord in the Pillar of Fire to gird up himself and put on his sandals, and be ready to move quickly, to be saved, we find a parallel here in this hour, because we know that this Presence of God is here to save our lives as well.

[1 Peter 1:5, 9-13] So we see that Peter is speaking of salvation, a certain type of salvation, in this first chapter. And we see this salvation is associated with the Presence of the Lord, or what we call the Parousia of Christ.

Now, the word salvation that Peter uses here is a Greek word, soteria which means: deliverance, preservation, safety, and salvation. It is the deliverance from the molestation of our enemies. In other words it saves you and delivers you from the penalty of sin, power of sin, pleasure of sin, and the presence of sin,

#1) You are saved from the penalty of sin, (That’s justification). And what is the penalty? Death and fear.

And what penalty does fear have? [1 John 4:18] Fear has torment, it binds you and stops you.

#2) You are delivered from the power of sin, (Now, that’s sanctification) And what is the power of sin? It’s ability to blind [1 Cor 15:55-57] And sin is unbelief {John 16:7-9] and the strength or dunamis of sin ( or this blind condition) is the law which is nomis or traditions and customs. That is why beholding His Presence will cause us to cast down our traditions and creeds which hold us back. [1 John 5:17]

[20-23 Unveiling of God 64-0614M] Brother Branham reads from [2 Cor 3:18-4:1] But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, has changed into the same image from glory unto glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; But have renounced the hidden things and the dishonest, not walking in craftiness and handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth condemning ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them which are lost:

May the Lord add His blessings to the reading of His Word. Now, my subject this morning, I trust that God will reveal this. And each time, if you who take the tapes and listen, and I hope and trust that you have had a spiritual understanding of what that God has been in trying to get over to the church without saying it right out. See? It's a thing sometime... We have to say things in such a way, that it might thin down, it might bring some to go out, some to leave, and some to ponder over. But that's done purposely. It must be done that way. Then it might be that some would say, "You mean God would purposely do a thing like that?" He certainly did. He does yet.

Now, to me this is one of the most astounding things that brother Branham could tell us because, after all, our whole concept of God is that He is full of mercy and long-suffering and not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to the knowledge of the Truth. But that is just not so, as we will find this in the Scriptures. It is true that He is all of those things mentioned, but not like many would believe it.

[Psalm 103:1-18] What are His Benefits?

No, remember we are looking at the fact that the strength of sin is the law as we read in the scriptures, and this word for law is the word nomis which actually means traditions and customs. So we find that what encourages unbelief to foster and grow is the fact that through traditions and custom, wrong teaching is encouraged, because we are so used to doing things a certain way, that when God’s Word comes along to bring forth correction, we have become so hardened to doing things a certain way that we are no longer flexible to change and then we don’t take the correction of the Word, but we just keep moving along in our old unbelief.

And speaking about a hardening of the heart, science has just proven through a study of some 900 men, that those men who are least willing to make changes in their life are also those with the highest amount of hardening of the arteries. Therefore, as brother Branham said, in order to do any act, you must first do it in your heart. Therefore, the spiritual act must occur first before the natural, which means that if any man hardens his heart toward God, he should expect a hardening of his arteries as well.

In addition to this, we know that Revelation produces justification which is a cleansing, and we can never have a conscience that is freed up from our guilt and trespass without going through the process of Justification through Faith, and without a free conscience we become bound. So you see how unbelief works. [Romans 6:16] [James 1:15]

E-68 Pardoned 63-1028 Another thing, we find out in [Hebrews 9:14] that pardoning produces purity, the worshipper having no more conscience of sin and has cleansed hisself from dead traditions. When we really come under the Blood, we are cleansed from dead traditions. The Scripture says so, Hebrews 9. Watch, "Cleanse your conscience from dead traditions..." Then, if you do that, forget that you are a Baptist. Forget you are a Methodist. Forget you are a Pentecostal, whatever you are. And forget those dead traditions and come to the Blood. ( And I would like to add, “How do you come to the Blood?) By walking in the Light!

7 God’s provided way 64-0206E I want to speak just for the next few minutes now on "God's Provided Way for This Day." God always has had a way. There's two ways: that's our ways or His way. God has a way for today, for He's always made a way for everything. God at the beginning knowed the end. So He has laid out His Scripture for each age. And that age, when it comes along... Now, don't fail to see this. That age when it comes along... Usually the ministry is so mixed up in isms and so forth, and traditions, till it's a million miles away from the Word. And then God always sends someone on the scene: a prophet. And this prophet... God never changes His system. He never changes His ways. He always does it the same way. He always has. He must do it this time. And through this, God works and vindicates that Word, as I spoke to you last night: God doing His own interpretation. God needs no one to interpret the Word to Him; He interprets It Himself by vindicating It, making It real. And when God says He'll do a certain thing, then He does it. There's no more question to it. That's the way He does it.

105 Events made Clear by Prophecy 65-0801E They missed it again, as usual, called Him a fortuneteller, a devil, Beelzebub, and said He made Himself God, when they ought to have knowed by their very Bible that He was God. ....Now, they had done to Him what all the prophets listed that they would do, just as they are doing in this very Laodicean age, put Him out of the church: blind, naked, and don't know it, just what the prophet said, the prophet of the Bible. Blinded by man's traditions, they put Him out, the Word out of their churches, as usual, as prophesied of them.

13-4 Mighty God unveiled 64-0629 The Mercy Seat was in plain view of all Israel on that day of the Atonement. But alas, the traditions of the church fathers in that day had, by their traditions, had veiled the true Mercy Seat from the people. If they would've knowed the Scripture, each piece would've come like the Chinese tag. The Old Testament prophecy would've been fulfilled, and it was. And if they'd been taught the Scripture, they would've seen the Mercy Seat. As Moses said in here that... To this day they're veiled. It's still over their hearts; they don't see it. But He was God, the suffering and the Atonement. He was the genuine Mercy Seat standing in full view. As we sang the hymn: 14-1 Lo! behold Him in plain view, There He is, the mighty conqueror, Since He rent the veil in two. See, He came the Mercy Seat, hanging in clear view of the congregation. But them being under the popular opinion... Now, men and women, and delegates of this convention, I want to say this without respect of person. But in the view of today, in view of what we're here for today, I'm afraid that the traditions of the fathers, the church fathers, has hid this from too many people. Since the Holy Ghost is come in this last days as prophesied, and the veil has been rent, too many people try to hang to their traditions of the fathers; and that's why they can't see this extreme joy, and peace, and things that the church has today. Yet it's in plain view of those who believe. He hid the Word, the promised Word of this day. 17-3 But still it's veiled. It's veiled not to the believer, but to the unbeliever; he cannot see it. God always veils Himself from the unbeliever. Traditions hide it. Like they did then, they do it today. That was a spiritual veil that we have now, where the natural veil was there. Vindicated by the prophet with the written Word, a prophesier, one who comes with the written Word to make It plain: they knowed the Word was there, but they didn't know what It meant; and Moses made It plain. He said, "The commandment says this, and this is why." He made It plain. And before It was made plain, It was veiled. And so is It today, veiled to the people until It's revealed and made plain to the people--God, the mighty God, veiled in human flesh, the Word.

So we see that traditions actually hide the truth from view. Now, you might ask, “How can this be?” How is it that traditions actually hides the Truth. The answer is because traditions like many things we do in life, are a result of something that the people have tried and because it seemed to work, they continue to do. They are really nothing but accepted habits of the people. But, just because they were right at one time does not mean that those things will always be right. Everything we hold to must be done in the light of the Word for our day. Because each age took on a different spirit. There was the age of the ox, and the lion, and the man and the eagle. And we know the age of man was when the reformers went forth in a world-wide missionary endeavors spreading the message of Justification and Sanctification. But if you were to go forth today with only that you would be a million miles from the Truth.

Look, in the book of Acts Paul met some people who had been baptized under John’s Message and he told them that wasn’t good enough, that they had to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when they did, they received the Holy Ghost. [Acts 18:24-19:6].

Now, point #3) You are saved from the pleasure of sin, ( That’s the infilling of God’s Spirit by His Word which warns you and keeps you), [Romans 1:28-32] [2 Thess 2:10-13] [2 Tim 3:4] [Luke 8:14]

#4) You are saved from the presence of sin, ( which is by His Presence and the change that we are to receive by It. Because remember, brother Branham said the reason satan is bound is not by log chains, but the chains of circumstance, which is to say, “he can’t get to you because of your body change”. [2 Thess 1:8-9]