Christ Revealed in His Own Word #143

See thou forget not #1

Wednesday, October 15, 1997

Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship

Tonight we shall read from paragraphs 176 through 178 of Christ Revealed in His Own Word, and then we’ll comment on a few things that Brother Branham says here in closing.

176 We appreciate all the minister brothers. I see Brother... How did your meeting, went all right, Brother Parnell? And Brother Martin, and oh so many of them here, Brother Lee Vayle... Oh, there's just ministers all over the place. We certainly appreciate you being here, fellowshipping with us around the Word. Maybe you might not agree with me just exactly on this. Don't ask you to. You see? Only thing, you just consider it. What you tell me I consider it. If ministers would pick up the tape, they'd say, "Well, I disagree with..." That's all right, my brother, you may shepherd some sheep, you feed them whatever you wish to. I'm trying my best to stay right with the Word for these that's been put in my hands for God, 'cause sheep want sheep food. Of course, "My sheep hear My Voice." And that's what... We live by every word that proceeds... Not just a word now and then, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's what the saints should live by.

178 Let us stand now to our feet. While we bow our heads... Brother Neville, you got something you want to say too? Brother Mann? All right. Everybody feeling good, say, "Amen!" [Congregation replies, "Amen!"--Ed.] Now, let us bow our heads. I'm going to ask Brother Lee Vayle if he'll come up through here or--he can. If you can get over there, Brother Vayle, if you can... Brother Vayle is our brother here, a writer of the Books. And he's getting the book ready now of "The Seven Church Ages" and working with the Seven Seals. And we'll soon hope to have them out pretty soon. All right. Brother Lee Vayle, God bless you.

Now, tonight I would like to close this Message by reflecting on these few words that Brother Branham closes out his sermon with, and that is this, “I'm trying my best to stay right with the Word for these that's been put in my hands for God, 'cause sheep want sheep food. Of course, "My sheep hear My Voice." And that's what... We live by every word that proceeds... Not just a word now and then, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's what the saints should live by.

Now there are three things we see here in these few words.

#1) He says that He is trying his best to stay right with the Word for the benefit of those that God has placed under his care as a shepherd. So we see that this Message is one which is given for the benefit of a specific group of Elect and predestinated people that have been placed under the care of Brother Branham’s Ministry.

#2) Sheep will only want sheep food and God’s sheep will only hear God’s Voice. Now, this is not a mysterious thing, it is just a simple fact of genetics. And if you have ever been out among sheep, they will never come up to a stranger. You have got to be recognized by them in order for them to accept you. You must first win their trust.

And #3) We must live by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and then Brother Branham is very specific when he says, ... “Not just a word now and then, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's what the saints should live by.”

Now, what these three statements have in common is this, Only those who are truly Elect and Ordained of God we will hear God’s True Voice, because only they are ordained to hear and understand His Voice, and then those who do hear and understand will take heed to what is said, and will make what is said a part of their life. Not just parts of what is said, but everything that the Voice of God tells us we will have a response to it, and no other voice including our own will we take heed to. And to have it any other way, would negate for you the Power of Revelation that comes from “Christ Being Revealed in His Own Word.”

Now, I would feel comfortable at this point with closing this sermon having said these few words tonight, but since we have a few more minutes of your time, we will go to the scripture and look at each of these three points. Therefore, let’s turn in our Bibles to [Deuteronomy Chapter 4]

Before we read from [Deuteronomy 4:1-40], I want you to be thinking as we read how perfectly these words can be applied to this hour for those of us who have been following the Presence of the Pillar of Fire and are ready to cross over our Jordan (which is that great dimensional gulf which separates us from the Millennial earth). (read)... And now that we have read this chapter, I want you to notice how many times that Moses calls us to remembrance and tells us we had better not be forgetful of a certain thing.

Þ [Deut 4:9] Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons; So what are we supposed to do in order to remember them? TEACH THEM TO OUR CHILDREN.

Þ 4:23 Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, [or] the likeness of any [thing], which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.

Þ 4:31 (For the LORD thy God [is] a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them. Look! God is Faithful to His Word, if we could only be the same. And to be faithful we must remember, because you can not be faithful to something that you forget. So remembrance is very important in being faithful. we know that Jesus, although He was tempted in every point, yet He never fell. And why is that? Can anyone tell me what Brother Branham taught us as the reason why Jesus never fell? ______. It is because He never by-passed His Theophany which we did, and He had full remembrance of His place and position with God before He came into the body for testing. Therefore the One thing we have need of more than anything else is a memory that will not be forgetful of the Promises that God has given us.

Þ 6:12 [Then] beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. why should we beware? Because the first thing that happens in the falling away is that of forgetting who and where you are at. A person that is lost is one who does not know where they are at. And when we use the word lost, we use it in reference not to those who are just wandering around as a way of life, but those who think they know where they are going but don’t know how to get there, and they lose there direction and can’t find their way out. That is a person that is lost. They forget first and then they get lost.

Þ 8:11 Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Now, a poor memory is not something that just happens. It must be made that way, for God has promised us a sound mind. Therefore, something has to happen to cause our memories to fade. There has to be something that starts the process of deterioration of the memory. I believe that our life styles today is a big part to blame. They say Alzheimer’s is directly attributable to having too much aluminum in your brain. That might be true, then does it occur from drinking to many things from aluminum cans? Well, then, what about the effects of alcohol upon the brain as well, and what about what Brother Branham said that is rotting our brains as well.

Notice the emphasis that Moses placed on “not only hearing, but taking heed and remembering”. He says, DON’T FORGET what God has trained you for the past forty years. DON’T YOU DARE FORGET. And I think that is a real problem that we have in this hour where everything is so fast paced that we have a tendency to forget what we hear. Therefore we so often resort to having to take notes and write down everything, or we tape record conversations, or video occasions of moments that we want to remember, because we are so unsure of our own ability to remember and recall specifics, and in the process of utilizing these methods, we are further weakening our own abilities to memorize, because like any muscle or any sense that we have, we must exercise them if they are to remain strong. But nevertheless, we have become so dependent upon our so called advanced technologies until we need calculators to make simple computations, and alarm clock to remind us to get up at a certain time, and reminders in our cars to buckle our seat belts, until we have come to the place where we have become so unsure of just what we do know and don’t know, and what we do remember and don’t remember, that we have become a very uncertain generation. A generation full of mush brains.

Memory loss has become synonymous with our generation as we hear so much of Alzheimer’s disease in which even President Reagan was affected, and we see this loss of memory running rampant throughout society, even in the white house where those famous words, “I don’t recall” have been stated more times in this administration than during any previous administration. Even Hollywood has identified with this phenomena by producing movies like “Total Recall” that focus on memory and the loss of it.

Now, we know that Brother Branham told us in this series that there would come a time that the world would go insane and the minds of the people would turn to mush because the brains of the people are turning to mush. In PP. 21 he said, The whole human race is rotten. Well, if them physical beings of our body is tearing down like that from eating hybrid foods, tensions, that rotten it, does not that also rot the brain cell? Then we can see how women can get on the street naked. We can see how they can speed through the streets at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, all these things. It's come to a place where the whole nation, the whole world, not only this nation, but everywhere, mentally gone.

But memory loss is not just attributable to the rotting of the brain. People forget things because those things are not important to them. Our schools do not train children to memorize anything, and we depend so much on technology that we are producing a dumbed down society who can’t even make change at a cash register, and it’s not because they don’t know how, but because it wasn’t important to them and therefore when it was time to learn they did not pay attention. Our Minds act like a sort of file cabinet for us. And if everything we have in our mind has been stored in a methodical orderly manner, then retrieval of the memory is quite easy. If I were to go into a file that has everything stored alphabetical, I could recall a file in just a few seconds. But if I were to dump the files on the floor and try to find a specific one, it would take me a very long time to find it. So priority has a lot to do with what can recall and what we can not. If something is very important to you, you will keep it in a place that you will always remember, and if it is not meaningful to you, you will have a tendency to misplace it or forget it until after you needed it. And so the Lord tells us in His admonition of Deuteronomy that self pride is also a factor in our forgetting His Word.

[Deut 8:14] Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; So we see here that a heart that is lifted up in self conceit is one that will be forgetful. I think of how often it is that people cry out to God for help in times of trouble, and when the Lord bails them out and gives them a good job, then watch what happens. Many times they become proud and lifted up and they begin to conveniently forget who made them what they are. That is why we see so many warnings in this Book of Deuteronomy, because the word Deut means two and onomy is the law of , so the word Deuteronomy means 2 Laws. Life and death. Blessings and cursings. etc. And we also see these same admonitions in the New Testament as well. [2 Cor 10:5]

8:19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.

9:7 Remember, [and] forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD.

25:19 Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee [for] an inheritance to possess it, [that] thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget [it].

Now, we might ask the question, why did the Lord allow forty years to pass before he allowed the children of Israel to enter into the promised land. And we know that during this forty years there was a great falling away. And those who fell away were those who so quickly forgot just Who it was that delivered them at the Red sea and from bondage in Egypt. And Then if Alpha has become Omega, why do you suppose it has been nearly forty years that we have wandered since Brother Branham went off the scene? Because the Bible predicted that there would also be a great falling away first. [2 Thess 2:3 & Heb 6:4-6] And why is there to be a falling away first? Because in order to perish there must be a forsaking of the Lord. So before there can be a tribulation to perish in, there must first be a people who have forsaken God.

On a positive note, God is allowing this time of testing to test our memory, and see just who is forgetful and who is not. Those who will remember what they have been taught as pertaining the Lord will inherit the Kingdom, and those who will not remember will forsake God and will perish. Therefore we can see that God is not slack concerning His promise but is long-suffering. [2 Peter 3: 3-9]

Memory is a very important and vital sense that God has placed within our spirit and it is so important to us that our very life depends upon having a good memory. Those who have lost most of their memory through sickness or accident we often refer to as living like a vegetable. Therefore, memory, and having a sound mind, is critical if we are to live a full and complete life. For having a lack of memory is attributed to those who are dead in the scripture.

[Psalm 88:10-12] we read, Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise [and] praise thee? Selah. Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? [or] thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? In the land of forgetfulness. And where is that? Amongst the dead.

[Ecclesiastes 2:16] For [there is] no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now [is] in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise [man]? as the fool. And if you will notice that this is spoken as a question. How dieth the wise man? He dies as a fool. In other words, with either one, memory is forgotten, and he knows no more or less than the other, for his spirit has left him.

And yet we see in our age a loss of memory that is more prevalent than at any time in the history of man. Could this then be speaking of the age in which men will cry out for death and make a pact with death, and cry out for the rocks to fall upon them? If a lack of memory is synonymous with death, then could it be that as man is becoming more and more susceptible to memory loss, it is because death is growing closer and closer?

There is far too much on this subject to cover in one meeting, but I would like to leave you with this thought tonight. Memory is a good thing, but selective memory is even better, because with selective memory, you are allowed to forget certain things and keep in your memory other things that are more important and that mean more to you. God is all for selective memory, because we are told that He has selective memory and will allow us to have it as well. [Philippians 3:13] Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

[Isaiah 43:25] I, [even] I, [am] he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

HEBREWS. 8:6-13 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first [covenant] had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this [is] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new [covenant], he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old [is] ready to vanish away.