Christ Revealed in His Own Word #144

See Thou Forgettest Not #2

Sunday, October 19, 1997

Brian Kocourek, Pastor Grace Fellowship

[Deuteronomy 8:1-19]

[Psalm 103:2]

[Proverbs 3:1-6]

Wednesday night we began to look at paragraphs 176 through 178 which are the last three paragraphs of “Christ Revealed in His Own Word”, and as we read from these three paragraphs, we heard Brother Branham telling us, “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.”

Then we took these thoughts to the Word of God and we read from [Deuteronomy Chapter 4:1-40] which we shall not re-read this morning to save time, but I would like for you to read these on your own, at home. And as you read it, I want you to think how these words can be applied to this hour for those of us who have been following the Presence of God in the Pillar of Fire, and how it will be when we are ready to cross over the Jordan in this hour (which is that great dimensional gulf which separates us from this present earth and the Millennial earth).. While you read Deuteronomy 40, you will notice how that time after time, Moses called to remembrance the people, and told them that they had better not be forgetful of a what God had done for them.

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. In other words, he is saying, God is Faithful to His Word, and we should be the same to Him. But in order to be faithful, there is something that we should never do, and that is to be forgetful. 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 from Grace. And why is that? Can anyone tell me what Brother Branham taught us was the reason why Jesus never falling? ______. It is because Jesus never by-passed His Theophany and therefore, He had full remembrance of Who He was and what Glory He shared with God before the foundations of the world. [John 17:5] And can anyone tell me what that word Glory is? It is the Greek word Doxa, and what does it mean? Opinion, assessment and Judgment. So if He knew Gods Opinion, assessment and judgment then He was always in remembrance of these things and then He also knew why He had to some to earth and what He was to do.

Þ Therefore the One thing we have need of more than anything else is a good memory that will not be forgetful of the Promises that God has given us. [Psalms 103:1-14]

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. And I want you to notice the emphasis that Moses placed on “not only hearing, but taking heed and remembering”. He says, DON’T FORGET what God has done for you over the past forty years. DON’T YOU DARE FORGET.

Now, how many remember the mini series on the garden of your mind? Remember, that during this series we found that by scripture we are told that “as a man thinketh, so is he.” Right?

And if a man is what he thinks it is because his thoughts are actually seeds that he sews in his mind, and when those seeds bring forth into maturity they will produce exactly what type of seed they are. This message you are hearing is number two in a mini series we will be dealing with that will concern your memory and the importance of that memory concerning the things of God, and how your memory will be affected and will affect your walk with Him.

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. [2 Tim 1:7] (read) 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. And as I said Wednesday night, I believe that our life styles today plays a big part in people having such poor memories. Alzheimer’s which we call a disease is directly attributable to having too much aluminum in the brain. Which is true, and this occurs from drinking to many things out of aluminum cans. And what about the effects of alcohol upon the brain as well, they say that 1 oz. of alcohol will destroy something like 50,000 brain cells. And what about the other things that Brother Branham said are rotting our brains.

Brother Branham told us in this Message of “Christ Revealed in His Own Word”, 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. There are reasons why people forget so many things. 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.

Another reason why people forget things is because the things they forget are not important to them. Our schools do not train children like they used to. There are certain things that used to be enforced no matter who did the teaching, and number 1 was respect for authority. we used to be taught carefulness and cleanliness, but today these important principals have been laid aside in favor of self esteem. But what good does it do for a kid to have self esteem if his esteem is wrongly guided. Remember the old sayings, “Cleanliness is next to godliness. That saying came out of the great reformation days when methods were applied to our worship. And having or applying methods to our worship is not a wrong thing to do. sanctification is what the movements brought forth, but it came by a system of methods, called Methodism. And what those methods did was to teach the people certain disciplines which led to a good and wholesome way of life.

Remember the other saying, “every thing has a place and everything in it’s place. This also is a part of order and where you have order, you have respect for authority. But today the children are not taught to have respect and therefore they have no order, and how can you have a memory without having order, and a method to recall that memory.

And so today the children have technology instead of order and that is why they can not remember anything.

Therefore the first and foremost principle in having a memory that works is to have an order to your memory. Children today are sloppier than any generation before. I have always said that everything seems to cycle in 20 year periods of time. If you notice ties and certain types of clothing, cycle about every twenty years and so do fads. we had beatniks in the fifties, hippies in the seventies, and today in the nineties we have I don’t know what they call themselves. But if you’ll notice the one thing in common with these three groups, #1) First of all, in their mind they had a contempt for the established order, and would not conform to the order of society. #2) This lack of respect for order showed in the way that they dressed. #3) This lack of order and respect for order manifested itself in their lives to the place where they held no absolutes and their conduct thus exuded an anything goes attitude which led to so called free sex and drugs. And who ever heard of free sex. The payback comes in a mighty shocking way through unwanted pregnancies, and rampant spreading of social diseases, not to mention the lowering of the expected level of moral living and the genocide that follows through abortions and euthanasia.

And so we find also a dumbing down of society which has to be in order to have the scripture comes to pass as the WUEST translation tells us that the great deception will come because it is geared to the gullibility of those who are ordained to perish. And it also tells us that this gullibility is caused by the fact that they would not accept the love for the Truth. And remember, love is an active thing, an active faith which stems forth from a passive revelation. But it follows in an order and then manifests that order, and this is what they do not want. The Order of God is to oppressive to them, and thus they leave His order to establish their own disorder. But notice what God says about it. [Heb 5:14, Heb 12:11, 2 Peter 2:14]

And thus since they have left their love for the Truth, they have had to rely upon their own technology to even remember anything. But this technology that we as a people have become so dependent upon to help our memory is actually helping to destroy it. And if it was memory that kept Jesus from sin, and from falling into temptation, then without it, the people shall surely perish. [Deut 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.

Now, the first principle as I said in establishing a memory that will work as it is supposed to work is to re-establish order in our mind. Our technology does not do that. It tries to implant an artificial order or it tries to augment it’s own order and in doing so it actually helps in destroying our memory. Therefore, what we have produced today by our technology is a dumbed down society that can’t even make change at a cash register, and it’s not because the people don’t know how, but it is because the order that is necessary in making change wasn’t important to them and therefore when it was time to learn they did not pay attention.

And that is the second principle we must have operating in our lives if we are to re-quicken our memories, and that is priorities. You see without priorities, you can not have an order. Therefore, we must know what is first and second etc. Because without setting priorities it does not matter what order you have, because no matter what order you have it won’t work without setting a priority level.

You see, your Mind acts like a sort of file cabinet for you. 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 alphabetically, 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 recall. 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.

Now, there are certain techniques that we can utilize that will help us to improve our memory, and one of them is a tool that even God Himself uses and that is selective memory which we spoke about on Wednesday night and we showed you how that it can be a good tool to improve your memory because even God Himself uses this technique with us. [Isaiah 43:25] I, [even] I, [am] he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

Now, since we have already mentioned that our minds are like a file cabinet and in order to recall what we want, we must have an order to what we think, and then also we must have an order to the way we store that information, and an order to the way we recall what has been stored. And an important thing which must be done with any files is regular maintenance. The computer is just a memory devise that helps to store information, and it has what is call memory, or RAM random access memory for retrieval of information. But unless you perform an operation called defragging your computer periodically, your machine will require more and more memory just to keep up, and it will take more time to recall the information you are looking for. Therefore, if your files are kept up and unnecessary files are deleted on a regular basis, then you really won’t have a need of additional memory. And did you know that God has given us a way to clear out from our own memories those things which are non essential in our walk with Him. [2 Cor 10:5] [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, Therefore, 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 and peace of mind depends upon having a good functioning memory. Therefore, memory, and having a sound mind, is critical if we are to live a full and complete life. [Is 26:3]

[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. Page 80 pp 1 The Breach63-0317E Like the wife, here not long ago we went over here to the super market, and I said, "We found a strange thing: a lady had on a dress," and it was so strange. See? They--they... Nearly all of them don't wear dresses. You see? And somehow they're forgetful; they go out without them. So then we... They're willfully forgetful. [300 Unveiling of God ] The Pillar of Fire appearing visibly among us, identifying that the Message is right, like He did at Mount Sinai... Remember, before the true message come forth, Moses preached, and he led them out of Egypt, but there before the real commandments was laid down (the seals was brought in), God come down before the people and proved that Moses was sent from Him (Is that right?) in a Pillar of Fire, that Moses said he had seen in a bush and talked to Him. Oh, in this last days to see that same Pillar of Fire right among us, speaking the same Word, not only that, but interpreting It by making It manifest and proving that It's the Truth. So the people has not one way to disbelieve, lest they just wilfully want to, and then, "He that sins wilfully after having a knowledge of the Truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin."

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.

The mind thinks in pictures. Pictures are remembered, abstracts are forgotten.

· Chain linking: picture one thing in your mind, then other. Vivid picture, smells, sounds, feelings. The body can not tell the difference between that which is real and that which is imagined.

· years ago people had better memories because they exercised their minds more. They read and in the reading they pictured what was written.

· Tell a story and have the people close their eyes and image what is being said. Make the story have about four things happen in it, and then repeat the story and have the people follow along in their mind and see if they can not only keep up with what is being said, but actually even move quicker from the scene tot he next.

· memory: sometimes you forget something and hours later it comes back into your thinking. Did you forget it ? NO, the problem is you misfiled it. Can you imagine having a file folder that was just anything thrown in at random. If I gave one person a file that is in order and another person one that is scattered. then who will find what they are looking for first? The One who’s file is in order.

· Priority is a very important characteristic needed for memory. How important is that thing we are filing? If it is the highest priority, we place it in a special file in our mind.

· Selective memory is one which even God Himself does and we should do as well. But our selective memory should be done according to the right priority.

· Repentance is a change of the mind, a willingness to change and this is very important if we are to bring our memory into control.

· Technique and motivation are two very important things that are needed and we must have a balance between these two.

· note taking is ineffective for helping your memory, because it actually helps you to forget. If you would walk on just one leg, with a crutch for quite a while, then your other leg will weaken. The muscle weakens, and if a muscle is not exercised it becomes weakened.

· Also we very seldom re-read our notes, and when we concentrate on what we are writing, we are missing out on what else is being said. It is virtually impossible to listen and write at the same time.

· Pegging : Peg or hook, whatever we leave on the peg or hook, when we go back we know that it is there. a Mail box is where we store mail, a refrigerator is where we store milk, etc. we need to store in mental places. use 10 pegs, 10 places in our body parts. 1toes, 2knees, 3(thigh) musctle, 4rear, 5love handles, 6shoulders, 7collar 8face 9top of head point, 10ceiling notice the order up the body.

· a place to put the information,... the information to be placed in a vivid picture...mental glue called action....association is action, something you know and basic association is :something you don’t know and place them together logically. but pegging uses action to take the two things and pegs together illogically.

· three things to do in the pegging process. 1) when you peg something exaggerate the picture bigger than life, larger than reality 2) animate the pictures 3) make the action hard not passive (lots of movement 4) include lots of emotion with the action 5) something that could never happen in real life. completely outrageous, ludicrous, nonsensical. Like cartoons.

· RECALL first of all we must ask ourselves the right questions, for when we ask ourselves the right question, we open up the right file doors.

· First question we always ask is what is my peg.

· second question is what was my action

· when you see the action you also see the item

· When you want to recall you go to the right file or peg, the body list: first peg, second peg, etc. a vivid picture with action and emotion brings forth recall.

· the act of applying the technique engages your memory. the technique and act of engaging, that brings recall.

· Your conscious mind does not think of the actions, it just does it. trust your memory.

· when you are driving and want to remember directions, you must picture in your mind the Texaco station, or the BP station, then when going left or right we must have an image for L=Leaves or R=rat.