Christ Revealed in His Own Word #139

Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?

Wednesday, October 1, 1997

Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship

[Acts 9:1-6] Prayer “ Lord what wilt Thou have me to do?

163 Here we are today setting in the midst of the Word, and the Word being revealed to us by Jesus Christ. Then this is God's Word. And be His subjects, we must walk close to the Author to understand It, for It to reveal, "Oh, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? If I must go to the fields and preach the Gospel, or must I stay at home? No matter what it is. If I must be a good housewife... If I must be a good mother... If I must do this, that, or the other, whatever it is... If I must be a farmer... If I... Whatever it is, Lord, what would you have me do?" Wasn't that what Saul cried out down there, "Lord, what would You have me do?" He was down on his road down to put all the church into prison, but then he cried out, "What would You have me do?" when the Light turned on as a big Pillar of Fire hanging above him, "What would You have me do?" I think that's a good word to close on, and say, "Lord, what would You have me do? When I see this Scripture so perfectly revealed right now, Lord, what would You have me do?" 166 Let us bow our heads. I ask everyone in here to search out your hearts now and ask that question, "Lord, what would You have me do?" And you people, if you're still on the telephone wires out across the nation, you bow your head and ask, "Lord, what would You have me do, seeing that we're here in the last days and the last hours, just so perfectly before us, so plainly revealed. What would You have me do?"

167 Dear God, while they're asking You that question I ask myself, to You: What would You have me do, Lord, as I realize that each day must be counted for. And I pray that You'll help me, Lord, to live so that each day, it'll be counted to Your honor and glory. I pray that You'll help everyone all across the nation, and those here that's present in the tabernacle, as we search out our hearts and say, "Lord, what would You have me do? What could I do, Lord, to further Your Kingdom and Your cause." Grant it, the God. Search us, our hearts, and try us; if there be any iniquity in us, Lord, any selfishness, any bad motives or objectives, O God, cleanse us with the Blood of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, Who we humbly accept His propitiation of His death and His resurrection. And being justified by believing that He did this, we gladly accept the plan of salvation that You give it to us. Father, we thank You for the message of the day, what we believe and what we hold onto, to know and believe that it's Your Word and Your Message. Not to be different from the other people, but to try to be more like Jesus Christ Who is our Example.

Now, this closing prayer continues, but for the last few paragraphs we find here that Brother Branham is focusing down His closing of this Great Message of how that Christ is Revealed in His Own Word, and then he concludes it by saying there is something we can do to honor what God has done. There is something we can do to bring glory to what God has done. And He asks the question, “Lord, What will you have me to do?” In fact he asks this question, 13 times in just a few short minutes.

So this evening, I would like to ask this question as well. Lord, What will you have me to do? We have come to this cross roads tonight, where we have sat under the Shout which you have brought to us, to bring forth your character in us, now, Lord, what would you have me to do? Surely, I am not worthy of anything but to receive your Grace and Truth as you brought it, but Lord, I love you so much, I feel that to fully receive what you have done, I would like to do something to show my gratitude, and my Love for you. Lord, what would you have me to do?

We found one day that you showed yourself to the Prophet Isaiah in such a mighty way that all he could say, was, “Here, am I, Send me.” [Isaiah 6:1-12]

“When the coal of fire touched the prophet,--

making him as pure as pure can be,

when the Voice of God said, who will go for us,

then He answered here am I send me.

Speak my Lord, Speak my Lord,

Speak and I’ll be quick to answer thee.

Speak my Lord, Speak my Lord,

Speak and I will answer Lord, send Me.”

Millions now in sin and shame are dying

listen to their sad and bitter cry

hasten, brother, hasten to their rescue

quickly, answer, “Master, here am I”

Speak My Lord, Speak My Lord,

Speak and I’ll be quick to answer thee

Speak My Lord, Speak My Lord

Speak and I will answer, “Lord send Me.”

[Matt 16:24-27] Deny : To forget oneself, to lose sight of one’s self and one’s own interests. And what of the Cross we are asked to bear? Whose Cross is it? It’s your own cross. And what does it represent? Paul tells us in [Galatians 2:20]

[Romans 6:1-11] So we see our crucifixion of self brings us to the place where we die out to self and live for God. He said we are alive unto God!

[2 Cor 13:4-5] He was buried in weakness but raised in power, therefore we should examine our own selves to see whether we are in “The Faith”. And what does it mean to examine ourselves? What is an exam? Is it not a test? The word means to prove oneself, which means to try by means of a test to ascertain where you are at. This means you must have to think in order to make the assessment.

[Galatians 2:16-3:12] 16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. 17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, [is] therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. God uses the Law as an instrument to humble man, to show man what his nature is, and to bring him to a true knowledge of himself, in order to bring forth true repentance, which is a desire to change the mind. (For a true repentance begins with the fear of the Lord and the judgment of God.) Now, we can not read verse 17 as though it is saying we have been justified by Christ and yet keep sinning, But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, [is] therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. Rather, we should read verse 17 as this: If we seek to be justified by Christ, and yet refuse to believe, then is Christ the minister of unbelief? God forbid.

As brother Branham said so many times, smoking and drinking is not sin, they are just attributes of unbelief. You don’t believe, therefore you do those things. That’s why people who have no desire to be saved will be saved. And people who have no desire to be cleaned up, sanctified and set apart for service will ever amount to anything in God’s economy. Now, I am not saying that if we clean up God will use you, but I am saying that God will not place His Holy Spirit in an unholy vessel. And neither will he make use of the gift you may have until you are cleansed and set aside for service. And why is that? Paul gives us our answer in verse ...

18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. And what might we ask is a transgressor? It comes from the root word parabaino which means to transgress or to go beyond the limits which have been set forth. to go past or pass over without touching a thing, to neglect or violate, and therefore to go past as to turn aside from it, to turn down. Therefore, If Paul is saying, if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself one who has turned down the thing which I stood for. In other words, You become a Judas Iscariot. A traitor to the cause for which you have taken a stand.

19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. Now, this is a tough one, because I have checked with many different translations and could not find a translation that yielded to the hunger in my soul. But with the best that I can do for now, I would translate this as the follows: “And how am I dead to the law, to the traditions and creeds of the church? For by use of and through the rigors of these traditions and customs I am found to be dead concerning them, but that is not bad since it causes me to realize that I must yield myself completely to the life that was in Christ Jesus in order to be made alive and go forth living for God Who is my Father.

Therefore, 20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. In other words, if I am now living by the Faith He had, the revelation He had, then My focus will be the same as His focus, and if My mental focus is the same as His, then my Spiritual focus will be the same as His because after all my mind is in my spirit, and He said, “Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus.” He did not say let this emotion be in you that was in Christ Jesus, nor did He say, let this shouting be in you or this jumping up and down be in you, nor did he say let this sincerity be in you, nor did he say let the gifts of the spirit be in you that were in Christ Jesus, but He said, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” and therefore, I am thoroughly persuaded that God has come down in this hour to bring our minds to a oneness with His Own, and therefore bringing us back to where we originated, which was in the mind of God.

As Paul continues, 21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness [come] by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. If righteousness comes by our traditions and customs, then Christ died in vain.

3:1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? Notice that he does not say that they deny that Jesus was crucified, but that this crucifixion was for them.

3:2 This only would I learn of you, (This one question, I would like to ask you), Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Did you receive the Spirit of God as a result of your obedience to some custom or tradition? Or did you receive it from hearing the Message of God and believing it? Was it from observing some ritual or from a message of faith? And let’s face it, God wants us to move forward, always! But tradition literally has to do with looking backwards and not forwards. Therefore by it’s very nature, will take you further from God.

3:3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, that you are now made perfect and complete and mature by what you can do in your flesh? Now, Paul is not saying here that you should not begin in the spirit and end up having your flesh reflect what is in the spirit. But he is saying, why would you begin by revelation and then wind up by works. Your salvation begins by a work of faith, and ends by the same, and does not end with a work of the flesh. And yet why are so many going this way? Why would we have people avoid coming here to church because we do not clap our hands and jump up and down and run around during the song service? In fact Paul even tells us that the law could never be satisfied by anything we do in the flesh because it was not written for the flesh, but for the Spirit.

Now, I am not saying that there will not follow a true active faith once a true passive faith has been set forth. Because in [Romans 6:19] Paul said, “Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness,” But first the soul must become pure through faith, so that the sanctified mind purifies also the body for God’s sake. Then what is done in the flesh is just a reflection of what is already in the mind.

But what I am trying to tell you is that no matter how long you live in this body, it was still sown in sin, and came forth speaking lies, and it is still a corruptible body, and therefore it will and must by it’s own nature manifest corruption. But we are promised that when Word is piled upon Word, the Word will take over every part of our body and bring forth an incorruptible vessel. And that is what we long for and wait for, groaning within ourselves for the adoption of our bodies.

3:4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if [it be] yet in vain. Have all the trials and testings that you’ve been through been for no purpose and brought forth no gain? What a miserable theology that these people must have who think that every test we’ve been given was done for some sort of a perverted thrill, and to think they would so despise God as to think this lowly of Him as to think He would get some sort of perverted thrill out of seeing his kids suffer.

[Romans 1:21-23] In otherwords, they did not honor God as they knew Him to be. But in their own notions or ideas they change the glory of God into a corruptible image, or figment of their own minds.

Notice in this Scripture that Paul shows us the progression of heathen perversion. The first step of their idolatry is ingratitude: they were not thankful. So satan showed himself ungrateful over against His Creator before he fell as well. Whosoever enjoys God’s gifts as though they had not received them, and forgetting the Giver, will soon find himself filled with self-complacency. Then the next step is vanity: “They became vain in their imaginations.” In this stage men delight in themselves, enjoying what is profitable for them. Thus they become vain in their imaginations, that is, all their plans, efforts and endeavors. In and through them they seek whatever they desire, nevertheless, al their efforts remain vain since they seek only themselves: Their glory, satisfaction, and benefits. The third step is blindness; for, deprived of the truth and steeped in vanity, man of necessity becomes blind in his whole feeling and thinking, since now he is turned entirely away from God, and this is the worst; for when he has lost God there remains nothing else for God to do than give him up to all manner of shame and vice according to the will of satan. Therefore, ingratitude and love of vanity of one’s own wisdom, or righteousness, or one’s good intentions, pervert man so thoroughly that he refuses to be reproved, for now, he thinks, that his conduct is good and pleasing to God. He then imagines he is worshipping a merciful God , whereas in reality he has none indeed, for he is worshipping his own figment of reason, more devoutly than the living God.

Therefore, as we said last Sunday, without an absolute, your worship will only be in vain. And you can not just pick the absolute of your own choosing, either, but that is what men will do. In [Romans 11:7-9] Paul quotes he old Testament as saying, The Election hath obtained it and the rest were blinded, for God hath given to them a spirit of slumber. Eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear. Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock and a recompense unto them... The snare then is the scripture itself, inasmuch as it is understood and handed down and taught in a deceitful manner, so that under the show of pious instruction the souls of the deceived and simple are craftily ensnared. Therefore, from one and the same table of the Lord, the one draws from himself death while the other receives life. And the stumblingblock consists in this, that they who are ensnared by false teaching constantly take offense. For if they are ensnared it is through that which they understand wrongly. To that they seem to cleave and with it they are pleased. So without realizing it, they permit themselves to be ensnared willingly. But they tale offense at what is pointed out to them as the truth from which they turn away. If they can not avoid the Truth, They distort it and deny that the Message or Scripture must be understood in that way. And finally their eyes become darkened, vs 10 so that, while others see, they themselves do not permit themselves to be enlightened; and while others are raised up they remain perverted in their minds.

Therefore, Paul continues in Galatians, 3:5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, [doeth he it] by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3:6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. 3:7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, [saying], In thee shall all nations be blessed. 3:9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. And as long as you try to work out your own salvation without the access that is granted to Grace through Faith, you will be merrily adding more fuel to the fire of your frustration, and with this aggravation will set in and then anger. Anger at yourself, and anger toward God.

3:11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, [it is] evident: for, The just shall live by faith. 3:12 And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.