Christ Revealed in His Own Word #77
Wednesday, February 12, 1997
Brian Kocourek,
Pastor Grace Fellowship
[1 Cor 13: 11] When I was a child,
I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, : but when I
became a man, I put away childish things... Prayer
This evening I would like to
continue from “Christ Revealed in His Own Word” and this is number 77.
For the past few weeks we have been studying about this Complete Seed that was
sown in the first age which has come up
to a complete body in this last age. We focused our thoughts on what a seed is
and how that seed, when planted, will bring forth a crop that is in the same
likeness as the seed. We called our little mini series, “The Garden of your Mind”,
of which we focused on the mind as it pertains to a garden, because our minds
are full of many seeds which are thoughts, of which some are good or righteous,
and others are bad, or evil. And we found that as a seed is a carrier of life,
our thoughts too are carriers of actions which create an atmosphere, and from
this atmosphere reaction occur.
We showed how that as with
any garden, we must have a plan if we are to harvest or reap the desired
outcome of our garden. For you can not just let anything else grow in your
garden than what you desire for harvest, or the other seeds will sprout forth
as well, and they will compete with
your planted seeds for life. As you know in any garden, if the weeds crop up,
they compete with the good crops, not only for room, but for nutrients from the
soil as well. The weeds, if not kept in check and under control will many times
crowd out and suffocate the good crops, or the crops in which we desire a
harvest, because “many more are the children of the desolate than she which has a
husband.” And you should know by experience, that weeds are more
plentiful and grow faster than a
harvest crop.
So then in order to
eliminate the bad seeds, or at least the effects of the bad seeds, we must
learn to cultivate the “gardens of our mind”, in order to
prepare for a better harvest of the desired planting. Now we all know that the
Lord calls us, His planting, and the type of plant that He likens us to are, “trees
of righteousness” as we see in [Psalm
61:3] and as we also sing the song, “that they might be called trees of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be Glorified.”
And just like any other
garden, our garden is planted according
to the purposes of the one who plants it, and for the glory or betterment of
the planter. If a person wants to harvest certain types of foods, they must
plant the seeds of what they want to harvest. You do not plant a fully
developed plant. No, that is called transplanting. But what we plant in the
ground is seeds, that when they mature, they will reproduce the plant in every
detail seeing that the seed contains the life of the plant, then it also
carries the genetic code to reproduce that plant in every detail. So you see,
the garden is planted with a desired harvest in mind, and it is up to the one
who plants it to watch over it until harvest time. And so besides cultivating
out the bad seeds, we are also to make sure that we water and fertilize the
garden. And since we are the planting of the Lord, He will do His part in the
watering and fertilizing of His garden as well. And this is what I would like to speak on today. This garden, the
garden of our minds, the planting of the Lord, the trees of
righteousness, or whatever metaphor we can use to type the Bride of
Christ and this Complete Body that Brother Branham spoke about as coming forth.
We want to look at the maturing process or the getting ready for harvest
process this evening. So with this introduction in mind, let’s begin to read
from PP. [88-89] of “Christ
Revealed in His Own Word”.
[88] A family of friends of mine
down in Kentucky just had a little baby born the other day, and the mother was
up when they was cooking our dinner. And she was helping the other sister cook
dinner for a bunch of us men that'd been out hunting. And so the baby got to
crying. I was talking. I think the mother felt a little embarrassed, so she
runs and gets the baby, and starts to feed the little fellow. I said, "You
know, that's just nature." See? Now, you can't... They have never found any better way for a baby to get what it
wants then to cry for it. Now, you might give it a book of ethics, and set
down here, and say, "I want to teach you theology, son. Now, don't you go
to squalling around here like other kids; you're different. Now, when you want
to be fed, you ring this little bell over here." Just don't work. No, it
just don't work. So when you watch
nature...
[89] Now, we see where every age, and it was directly designed it out that we're in the last age. The shuck has pulled away, and we've
had fifteen years, nearly twenty now, years of the message sweeping across from
nation to nation, and this morning hooked up across this nation (See?), and no
organization. It can't organize. There's nothing ever been like it or will be
hereafter. See? The thing that's the
matter with the message today is, those who obtain it in their hearts
must lay in the presence of the Son to get ripened. See? You can pick up
the message, and then let the Son bake all the greenness out of you (See?), make you matured Christians. You
see what I mean? God's coming soon to receive His church, and we must have that type of Christians for Him to
receive. The wheat's got to get
ripe. All right.
Now in getting back to the
Scripture that we read for our text, let’s open our Bibles again to[1 Cor 13: 11] When I was a child, I spake as a
child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, : but when I became
a man, I put away childish
things...
Now, here we see Paul
speaking of a certain time in life when we are at a certain level in our
maturity. He begins by saying, “When I was a child,” and in using
the word “When” we can see that Paul was looking back at a specific
period or time frame that was part of his growth cycle or growth process. “When
I was a child,” see? And then we are not only looking at this period of
time, but now that we are focused on this period he wants to further elucidate
to us certain attributes that were associated with that period of time in his
life. And therefore he continues by say, “during this time when I was a child, there were certain attributes that
predominated my life, “I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.”
Now, what we may conclude
from Paul’s statement here is that the reason we speak as a child is because
our understanding is only that of a child, and this is because the way in which
we think is only at the stage of that
which is only a child. And therefore, our speaking is only a
reflection of our thinking, which is an outward manifestation of the condition
of our mind. Notice how brother Branham made reference to this when he said
that a baby gets what it wants by crying. You can’t expect a baby to ring a
bell, or something of that nature. It hasn’t got the functional attributes to
do that yet. It is not that the baby doesn’t possess the mental genetics, but
those attributes and characteristics have not as yet been exercised to the
place of strength and maturity. And so we find Brother Branham pointing to us
the simplicity of growth which he types also with our spiritual maturity.
And Jesus told us the same
thing in [Luke 6:45] (read) Notice
that he is telling us that out of the abundance or overflow of the heart, which
is the understanding, the mouth does speak. So what things you say is dependent
upon what you know. I could not in any way expect any of the children in here
to stand up here and speak to us concerning Einstein’s theory of relativity. No
more than I could expect them to get up here and teach us about the Godhead.
They may be able to tell us that there is only one God, and this One God had a
Son, and that’s all I would expect from
them at this stage or process in their spiritual growth. But if Brother
Branham were to stand up and that was
all he could tell us, then we would not have any higher aspiration to attain
unto. Now this is not saying that it would be OK to just stop where we are at.
Because the minute you stop, that is the minute you begin to die. God does not
expect us to exceed his Prophet either, but as brother Branham has said, I’ll
paraphrase, “You are now here and I am up
here. One day you too will be up here as far as your understanding is
concerned.” Jesus told us the same
thing in [Luke 6:40].
And so we are looking at the
fact that our words are only a reflector or
reflection of what stage of
growth we are at. Now the way for any child to grow up, is that
they begin to speak the words which they hear their parents speaking.
Sometimes, it may come as a shock to some parents when they hear bad or vulgar
words come from the babies mouth as their first words. But the baby can only
say words which it has heard. A baby, like any person is limited to words which
it hears from others. That is why we need to listen to the Voice of God on a regular basis. And just as a baby begins to formulate their little minds to the
place where they begin to speak intelligible words, based upon what they hear,
so too our minds, spiritually speaking, in order to grow up into the full
stature or reflections of our Heavenly Father, must begin to formulate our
thoughts into the same Words which He spoke to us.
[John 5:19, 30] Now, I
want you to notice that Jesus, just
like any child, did not have words of his own. We all began our talking by
emulating the words which we heard our fathers of mothers speak, and Jesus was
no different. [John 7:16-18] And to tell what kind of words parents speak
around the house one has only to listen to their little children.
If the children talk about
Jesus and the things of God then you will know what goes on in that home. But
if the child cusses and uses vulgar
words, then you will also know what kind of atmosphere is in that home.
“By their fruits you shall know them.” And we know that the fruits is what they
have been taught. It is the teaching for the season they live. And so we see
that Jesus as our example, said, “I can of mine own self do nothing, What I
say, What I do, I have been taught this by my Father. Even the Doctrine I speak
is not mine, but His that sent me”.
Jesus told the
Pharisees in [John 8:38] “I speak
that which I have seen with my Father: and you do that which you have
seen with your Father.” And so
if we are to grow up into the Image of our Father, we must fist see Him, and
then we must recognize what it is that He is doing, that we might conform to
this image. [1 Jn 3:1-3] [1
Cor 13:12] Now this knowing comes as
a result of seeing and
experiencing the power and Presence of God. And what Paul is speaking of here
is in reference to what he said in verse 9. So let’s read verses 9-12. (read)
Now, I think we would all
agree, that Jesus was our elder brother, and he set the example for what we
should follow after in our growing into the stature of Sons and Daughters of God. He was our role model and our absolute for
the Life that we desire. [Romans 8:29-30]
Now the Weymouth translates it like this: “For those whom He has known beforehand He
has also predestined to bear the likeness of His Son, that He might be the
Eldest in a vast family of brothers,”
Therefore, we can see that
Jesus was the role model that God, our Father, set before us. And Paul tells us
himself that we are not to be like children in our thinking forever. He went on
to say, [1 Cor 13: 11] But
when I became a man, I put away childish things...
Now, I would like to ask
some of you younger folks in here this question. Why would a person put away childish things when they become a
man? Because the condition of their mind no longer regards those things as
important to them. And we have already
seen the answer that Paul gave us. Because when we are a child we think and
understand as a child and therefore we hold to childish things as well. But
when we grow up in our thinking and understanding, then those things that we
held to as children don’t have the same impact on us any longer. Therefore we
have passed from that stage of life into another as we see in... [Malachi 3: 16-18]
Peter was a pretty practical
man and he tells us that when a person has suffered in their body, they no
longer have a desire to sin, because their desires are changing with the growth
of the spirit. [1 Peter 4:1] And
this is true. The suffering in the body is but a process that helps us to turn
our real affections in the right direction. And we are looking at the process
of maturing here tonight.
[John 6:44-45]
[John 14:26]
[2 Tim 2:2]
[Hebrews 5:12]
[1 John 2:7]