Christ is the Mystery no 159
Living Christ, living Presence, Living Word
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
This morning we are going
to pick right up where we left off last night and go to the next paragraph in
our study of brother Branham's sermon, Christ is
the Mystery of God Revealed. We will begin at paragraph 220. And we
have a whole lot of reading to do today and very little commenting, so please
bear with me as we read.
220 When
I think of it makes me shiver. Oh, to live with Him: going home with
Him to live with Him, going home with Him to live with Him forever, having
Eternal Life...This is God's great mystery of love expressed, that God
and man became one. See? The whole thing is God and man one. God and man
was one there, and God and man is one here.
See? What is it? Being filled with His Spirit, Him
having the preeminences. (in
other words, Him receiving preeminence in your heart, your life, your soul) That
was God's achievement. That's God purpose to do that, that He might be in
Christ and Christ in us,
and all of us together one. The Holy Spirit, same thing that revealed it
to Christ reveals it here, the supernatural, creative power. Oh, my.
Notice that he is talking about Jesus prayer here in John chapter 17:20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
also which shall believe on me through their word; 21 That they all may be one; as thou,
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as
we are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in
one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them,
as thou hast loved me. 24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me
where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have
known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast
loved me may be in them, and I in them.
221 The
same God that could say to Moses, "Let there come frogs,"
the same One could said there, "Let water be turned to wine."
See? Amen. Is that right? He's the same God, the same One; He just don't change. It's God in man. That's His
manifestation. That's what He's revealing. That's what He's trying
to do. And God's own Word revealed and shows that man cannot create
(God's the Creator); and it ain't man no more; it's God the Creator in man,
which is His Church now (Amen!), going home to heaven, live with Him ever,
God expressing eternal love to the Church.
222 Listen.
Listen close now. I want you not to fail to get this. No other church,
no other sign, no other fellowship, no other government, no other testimony, no
other creed, no denomination is accepted outside of this. (Look, basically what he is
saying is none of your religion or religious acts are accepted outside of the
one thing and that is you truly being born again of the Spirit of God) God
accepts nothing else but that. Christ in you, the hope of
glory the only thing that God recognizes.
No fellowship, no church, no creed, no denomination, no nothing; everything
else is dead. Its fragments that has to be cut off, pruned off away from
the thing that Christ might live with pre-eminences in you. Not
referring back... I got one laying here that says, "It's my
organization..." That's got to be cut off too. "I got my so-and-so
here; this says this." "My mother will tell me I'm a
holy-roller." That's got to be cut off too. See? "Well, I know my
husband wants me to wear these shorts." That's got to be cut off too.
See? It's got to be cut off and pruned till there's just you and Christ
alone. See? Um. Think.
Oh, brothers and sisters, if I can do one thing as
your pastor, and that is to help you get to the place
where it is just Christ and you alone. Then I will know that you have come to
know Him in the power of His resurrection, Then I will
hear those most beautiful words, "well done my good and faithful servant.
223 By
the living Presence of the living Christ by the living Word...
Oh, living Christ, living Presence, living Word... Watch. By His Own personal
a-vindication proves His Church, not members. He never
done it in the days of Moses. He never done it
in the days of anybody else at the end of the world when it come to the place
where it was the destruction. In the days of
Now, listen, he's not talking about himself here although he is
included, but he is talking about the Bride of Christ. God in
His children.
224 Remember.
Think of it, that people borned of His Spirit in a day like this, in
this great denominational age that we live, and the living God takes His living
Word and vindicates It personally. This Life that's in the
Word, the germ that's in the Seed (and the Word is the Seed
that a sower went forth to sow), and the Life is
Christ in the Word personally in you, vindicating something that you
cannot do, proving Himself that it's not you, but it's Him. And
you become one, a love slave to Him to be a Bride.
225 Thanks
be to the living God Who created the heavens and the
earth and all that's in the midst. No wonder He's Alpha and Omega, the Beginning
and the Ending, He that Was, which Is, and shall Come, the Root and Offspring
of David, the bright and the Morning Star; He's All in all.
226 His
Presence in the individual with a personal a-vindication of Himself
expressing Himself--the living Word that's promised for the day, expressing
Itself through you, a- vindication of the great
revelation of God... Look, only in an individual, never in a group: an
individual, not in a group, His identification is with an individual.
You get that? Not with the Methodists, not with the Baptists, not the
Presbyterian, not the Lutheran, not the Pentecostal, but as an individual.
"I'll take one and leave one.
I'll separate them." That's right. "There'll
be two in the field; I'll take one and leave one. There'll be two in bed, and
I'll take one and leave one." It's not a group. It is a
personal vindication of a pregnated child of God filled with the Holy
Ghost, so surrendered to God that he don't care about anything else, and the
Holy Spirit living Its Life, pulsating through him, showing the personal, personal
vindication of the Word Itself expressing Itself to the people and to the
world.
227 How
can the world blindly walk by something like that? Just as the same as the
Catholics walked by St. Patrick and didn't recognize him till after he
was dead. Same thing they done to
228 It
goes right by them, and they don't recognize it till it's gone. It only
picks up the predestinated seed that God predestinated before the foundation of
the earth. The same thing come through in the days of Noah.
Same thing come through in the days of Moses, days of Elijah,
days of the prophets, days of Jesus, on down through and to this very
hour. The pregnated person with the seed of God, the Word in there
manifesting Itself, so surrendered to the will of God that the Word and
the Word alone manifests Itself and this person's a prisoner, to an individual.
229 Not
say, "My church done..." My church has nothing to do with it. It's
an individual, one person. All hell is against this teaching. All
hell's against this truth, but it is the truth. Jesus never said, "Now,
Peter, you, and John, and all the rest of the people, you've got the
revelation, now the whole church is saved." No, it was to him
personally. "I say unto thee ('thee,' not to them,) to
thee, thou art Peter, upon this rock I'll build My Church." And the
word "Peter," means "a stone"; "stone" means
"the confessed one, or the separated one." Upon a certain stone, upon
a certain thing (See?), a called out, the Church called out, upon this
stone, upon this revelation. "Flesh and blood never revealed it to
you, but upon this revelations (called out
group) I'll build My Church in them, and all the gates of hell will never be
able to withstand it. Not one hair of your head shall perish. You are Mine;
I'll raise you up in the last day, give unto him Eternal Life and raise him up
at the last days." There it is, the revelation.
Not them, but him, an individual: not a group, an individual. All
hell's against it.
230 But
His mystery is only revealed to His beloved Bride. That's the only
one could see it. He said, "Well did Isaiah speak of you,
you hypocrites, you snake in the grass. You go out
here and say, 'Oh, the great holy prophets, we mark
their tombs; we polish them.'" He said, "You're
the one that put them in there." Did He say it? Same thing they'd
say to the Catholic churches in their days. When they were sent the prophets of
the Old Testament before they had Nicaea, Rome, up there and let them old
prophets come out of there eating grubs and things out of the ground with, not
even with clothes on, with sheepskin wrapped around them and tried to stand for
that truth of the Bible... But the Catholic church wanted
their intellectual conception. Then they brought out... There come St. Irenaeus,
Polycarp, Martin, all the rest of them. And what did they do?
They put them in the tomb: Joan of Arc, St. Patrick and the rest
of them. They put them in there, and now come back and whiten the walls like
they did in Joan of Arc. What did they do? They put them in there.
231 May I say this. His Spirit calls unto
you, "whited walls, you hypocrites, calling
yourself something when you take the intellectual conception of men and leave
the Word go instead of come pregnated with the Seed of God, the Word in you.
You've taken every other hybrid..."No wonder she set as a whore, because
she commits spiritual fornications, teaching the people things of man and
not things of the God. But He said, "Fear
not, little flock, it's your Father's good will to give you the Kingdom."
That's right. Certainly. There we have it.
232 The
Bible in Revelations said this great city reigned over all the kings of the
earth, said she was a whore. What is that? A woman that
claims to be a lady and commits fornication. She had a cup in her hand
of toast to the world filled with the filthiness of the abominations of her
fornications. And she had daughters: the Protestant churches. They every
one come out of her with her same false doctrines, same baptisms, and by
shaking hands instead of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and their false
doctrine of Father, Son, Holy Ghost and all of that instead of taking the Name
of the Bridegroom and so forth... You say, "It don't
make any difference." It does. If I put my
name on a check and say, "the Reverend," "the Minister," or
so forth, that won't cash nothing. That's right. It's turned down at the
bank.
233 Notice,
All right. But all this mystery is revealed only as He promised to His Bride.
Hell is against this truth of the revelation of this mystery. But the
Bride is standing on it. That's Her stand. Why do
you hunger, Church? Why do you thirst? It's the Father trying to reveal this
hidden secret to you, but you let so many things get it out of you. You let
your job, you let your wife, you let your husband, you let your children, you
let the cares of the world, you let some pastor, you let somebody else
get that out of you, when you know that way down in your heart you're
a-thirsting, hungry. It's God trying to reveal it to you (See?), the
revelation. The last day is here.
234 Notice,
now, Let's look back again; I can't pass all of this.
See? I just want you to look here just a minute now, and we'll close just in a
few minutes. If you just give me your undivided attention for a minute.
235 Notice, Colossians
the 18th verse here, in the Book of Colossians,
18th verse. Now... he
is the head of the church, the body,... who is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the
preeminence. He is the Head of the Church which is His
Body, and He wants the preeminences. Listen
now. Listen close while we're going.
236 Watch. He is to be the Head of the Body, His
Bride's body, which is taken from Him, flesh and bone like in Adam (See?),
Bride, born from the dead (See?) that's born from the dead, sin of unbelief.
What killed Eve? Unbelief. Is that right? The unbelief in what? What? For the
unbelief in God? No, she had faith in God. Sure. Did she say,
"There is no God"? No, sir, she wasn't an infidel. "Well,"
she said, "you know, I don't believe His Word at all." Oh, no, she
believed all but one little thing. See?
237 Now,
didn't the Bible say over in the Book of Revelation--Jesus said Hisself, "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify these things unto you. Whosoever shall
take one word from It or add one word to It..."
And if all this heartache and sorrow had to come because a woman doubted one
Word of God, will He let you back doubting one Word? He'd be unjust.
See? See, that wouldn't be right. Condemned... Here's one man standing: he caused
all of his heartache because of one Word doubted, then he goes ahead and
takes years of experience and everything in the Bible and so forth and the
others who's give their lives for it and then say, "Oh, you can go
ahead and eat it. That's all right. I'll let you back anyhow." Oh, God
is no respecter of persons. But...?... all. See, see? God
is no respecter of persons.
238 Now, notice. Notice
now. He is the Head of the Body,
that's borned from the sin of unbelief in God's Word (That excuses every
denomination, every creed... See?), unbelief in the Word, which is Himself, the
Word of Life. See? The Word only has Life. Any other word is a hybrid.
No matter how much it looks like it, it isn't the Word. The Word produces
Its own Life that Eve swapped for personal knowledge (see how the
church has today?) through some man's understanding. Moses had a great
understanding of God till he met the burning bush, then he saw his failure. The
burning bush had what Moses lacked. The Word's got what the denomination
lacks.
239 He,
the Head, is the First-fruits of the resurrection. (We'll go off this
revelation. Just a little while longer, if you say so.
All right, all right; just a little bit now.) He is the Firstfruits
of the resurrection. Is that right? What? Then what is He? He's the Head
of the Body, which is His Church, Bride. Uh-huh. Then the Bride-body
must follow the Head, for it is part of His resurrection and part of the
mystery. It's impossible for it not to go. Oh, my. It's part of God's mystery.
How God revealed Himself here and raised it up by the Word, so He reveals
the Church and raises it up by the same Word. It's a part of His threefold
mystery.
240 As the Head was took from the grave, so must the Body follow
Him back to
In Romans seven Paul speaks to
us about this headship that brother Branham is also speaking of here in this
sermon, So let's read what Paul said.
Romans 7:1 Know ye not,
brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath
dominion over a man as long as he liveth? (notice
he speaks of the law having dominion which is headship, then he uses the analogy
of a wife. )
2 For the woman
which hath an husband (that's a wife) is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the
law of her husband. (So as long as the husband lives he is still her
head, until he dies. So Paul is using this analogy of a wife to her husband to help us to
see how the law had dominion, or headship over us until the husband, ie: the law died.)3 So then if, while
her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she
shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free
from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to
another man. 4 Wherefore, my brethren,
ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should
be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should
bring forth fruit unto God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions
of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth
fruit unto death. 6 But now we are
delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held;
that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
Now, the law he's talking
about is the law of life in Genesis 1:11.
Every seed must bring forth after its kind. So all men "are
born in sin, shaped in iniquity, and come to the world speaking lies," and thus while in
the flesh are bound to their flesh.
But Paul tells us that if
we could die to self, to our flesh, then we may be permitted to be married to
another that will have dominion over us, and be our head, and that is Christ
the Word. So let me read Romans 7 for you from the Message translation, because
I think it will help you to better understand what Paul is saying here.
7 1-3 You shouldn’t have any trouble understanding
this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law—how it works and
how its power touches only the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied
to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she’s free. If she lives
with another man while her husband is living, she’s obviously an adulteress.
But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with
no one’s disapproval.
4-6 So, my friends, this is something like what
has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire
rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving
you free to “marry” a resurrection life and bear “offspring” of faith for God. For
as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could
get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us
in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show
for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we’re no longer
shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those
oppressive regulations and fine print, we’re free to live a new life in the
freedom of God.
7 But I can hear you say, “If the law code was as
bad as all that, it’s no better than sin itself.” That’s certainly not true.
The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines
for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the
succinct, surgical command, “You shall not covet,” I could have dressed
covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.
8-12 Don’t you remember how it was? I do, perfectly
well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened,
though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation,
making a piece of “forbidden fruit” out of it. The law code, instead of
being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the
paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went
along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the
law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for
it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly
used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I
was stone dead. But the law code itself is God’s good and common sense, each
command sane and holy counsel.
13 I can already
hear your next question: “Does that mean I can’t even trust what is good [that
is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?” No again! Sin simply did
what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me
to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God’s good
commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on
its own.
14-16 I can
anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are
spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of
myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t
understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing
things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is
best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious
that God’s command is necessary.
17-20 But I
need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if
the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I
obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I
can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good,
but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My
decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone
wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable.
The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip
me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all
of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly
rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
24 I’ve tried
everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who
can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
25 The answer,
thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in
this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and
mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do
something totally different.
Therefore we have two laws,
the law of Life which is the law that follows all seed life. So what seed life
we were born in this flesh with is in opposition to the law of the spirit of
Life in Christ Jesus. This is also the law of Life but speaks of the Spirit of
Life in Christ Jesus. It is guided by the same principle that every seed will
bring forth after its kind, but this seed is the Spoken Word which is the
original Seed. And that is what Paul calls the new husband in Romans chapter 7
which can only be once the old husband, the law of Life that governed our flesh
by our natural birth has died.
And that is why Paul tells
us in Romans 7 about the necessity to die to self, that the Law of the Spirit
of Life in Christ Jesus might now have the dominion, or headship.
Now, in getting back to
brother Branham's next paragraph, he says in paragraph 241 Now, show me where somebody was baptized in the Body in the
name of Father, Son, Holy Ghost? And what you recognize? See, I realize I'm
talking to thousands on tape, you know. We got tape ministry around the world.
What name are you baptized in? For there's not another name given under
heaven (said the Word) whereby man can be saved. And
if you're baptized to show your belief in Christ and then take on a creed name,
then you're a hybrid.
242 If you're
not exactly like that church and exactly like their teaching, then you Catholic
people (See?), how can you go under the jurisdiction of a pope now, saying that
he is a successor by apostolic succession from Peter; and this pope and this
church teaches so contrary to this first Word, which God recognized by signs
and wonders to be His Church, and to see that same Word being brought forth
today in its purity, showing the same resurrection that He had there, God
living among His people doing the same things, then you can recognize the
headship in Rome? Our Headship is in heaven. I'm not going to
243 And the Body
must follow the Head, as the wife follows the husband. Being that
Adam was not deceived, he walked out with Eve. Eve was deceived. She was in the
transgression, or the entire resurrection of the whole body would've come forth
at the day of the Lord Jesus, when He come forth from the grave, but He had
to redeem Her, which is His Body. She has to be redeemed in order to
come to Him. Do you see it? Oh, my. See? It couldn't have happen then. The
redemption is going on.
244 Now,
you see the Seals when He was in His mediatorial work
back there redeeming? But someday He comes forth to get this Book that He's
redeemed, and all that's in this Book would be Him, for that's the believer,
the Words in the Book, and the Word is Him, and all that's in It. He come forth for this Book of Redemption, whose
names are written on the Book before the foundation of the world when He was
slain as a Lamb. And here He is today in His Word,
manifesting the same thing He did there. She can't recognize another
headship. No, sir. There's no bishop, no
nothing. She recognizes one Headship; that's Christ; and Christ is the Word.
Oh, my. Whew. I love that. Um. Yes, sir.
245 As the Head was took up from the grave, so must His Body
follow Him into
246 He,
the Word... How do you know it's right? He, the
Word is vindicated. See? He, the Word properly vindicated, is the
Headship, the Head of the Church. He is the Word, the Headship. He's
properly identified, vindicated by His own Spirit being in the Church itself (the
person), showing forth Himself in vindication is the direct proof to the
entire Body. You don't need creeds then. Denominations
has perished, but the Headship Itself, recognized in the Body by
personal identifications (See, identifying Himself) proves the Headship to the
Body. Then we are united under One vindicated
Headship; that is Christ, the Word of God, not under any church. Then our
Headship is a Kingdom.
247 "The
Let us
pray