Christ is the Mystery no 179
Review number 2
Christian Maturity
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
Tonight we will review sermons 11 through 15 of our
series Christ is the Mystery of God Revealed and our main focus seemed to
placed on Christian maturity and the rest and peace that comes with our
personal relationship with God as our Father. And we know that it is our being
filled with His Life, His Peace, and His rest that we receive by entering into
this Holy Union.
In Paragraphs 48 through 50 we find brother Branham
warning is that as Paul had to warn the early church that wolves would enter in
trying to upset the church, even so they would do so
in the end time church as well. Then he prayed to God that this church would
mature into a great tree of Eternal life filled with the love of God and stand
as a symbol that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
We then spoke in No 11 in this series, that The
church is built up one the Revelation of Jesus Christ. And we know that
the revelation is more than just a mental understanding, because revelation
means a manifestation of Divine truth. And a church without the manifestation
of the living Christ in their midst is only a lodge and not the mature church
brother Branham spoke about.
In No. 11 in our study we heard brother Branham tell
us from The Masterpiece 64-0705 170 The Alpha has become Omega. The first become last; and the
last is the first. The Seed that went in has come through a process and become
the Seed again. The seed that fell in the garden of
Eden and died there, come back from that imperfect seed that died there, come
back to the perfect Seed--the Second Adam. 172 The first Eve that fell, and was
used in the second reformation--second coming, as bringing forth a child, now
has become true Bride again, the Seed, right back with the original Word again.
The Alpha and Omega is the same. He said, "I am Alpha and Omega. "He never said anything in between, "I'm Alpha
and Omega, the First and the Last." That's it. The first ministry and the
last ministry is the same. The first Message and the last Message is the same
thing. "I was in Alpha; I'm in Omega." "There'll be a day that
won't be called day nor night, but in the evening time
it shall be Light." See? Alpha and Omega; it's become the first and the
last. Oh, my, brethren, we could stay hours on that.
We showed if
the ministries are the same, and he said that they are, then the ministry of
the Holy Spirit in that first church age was supposed to repeat again in this
hour. Then if the Apostolic teaching in the first age produced the Book of ACTS
in the first age, should not it also produce the same in this church age?
From the Beginning it wasn't so 59-1125 P:3 Jesus said at the beginning, "The works that I do, shall you do also." That's the way it was at the
beginning. What kind of a works did He do at the beginning? The same works that
He's doing now. What kind of a church did He have at the beginning? A
church that was filled with the Spirit, that healed
the sick, and prophesied, and great signs and wonders. And it wasn't ashamed
of the religion. They shouted and danced under the Spirit like drunk men, and had cloven tongues like fire set upon them.
And they done signs and wonders, and exploits followed them. That's the kind
it was at the beginning. That's the kind it'll be in the middle. That'll be the
kind it'll be at the last. You say, "My church don't
teach that." Well, it wasn't so from the beginning. You say, "I'm a
Methodist." It wasn't so from the beginning. "I'm a Baptist." It
wasn't so from the beginning." I'm a Lutheran." It wasn't so from the
beginning. They were baptized saints of God with the Holy Ghost. That's what
the beginning was: signs and wonders. You say "My church don't believe in
it." It wasn't so from the beginning. "My church
don't believe in seeing visions." It wasn't so from the beginning.
Luke 12:34-48 For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord,
when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocks, they may
open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he
cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself,
and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if
he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them
so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the Goodman of the house
had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have
suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the
Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. Then Peter said unto him, Lord,
speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all?
And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise
steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give [them
their] portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord
when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will
make him ruler over all that he hath. But and if that servant say in his heart,
My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat
the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord
of that servant will come in a day when he looketh
not for [him], and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder,
and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, which
knew his lord's will, and prepared not [himself], neither did according to his
will, shall be beaten with many [stripes]. But he that knew not, and did commit
things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few [stripes]. For unto
whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have
committed much, of him they will ask the more.
Now,
notice, to whomsoever much is given, much will be required. So for those who
believe they have the revelation of Jesus Christ and the life of Jesus Christ
is not living and abiding in them? They will be found wanting.
From his
message, Return and Jubilee 62-1122 P:39 Brother Branham said, “But in order to be a son of God you've got
to be born of the Spirit of God, then you become Christ-like and do the works
of Christ; then you're not funny to them people. A human acting like a human's
not funny. And a Christian acting like a Christian, born of
the same Spirit... You see the Pentecostal group at the beginning, that
same Pentecostal group acts the same way if it's born of the same Spirit,
'cause it's born. That's why, today, that people doesn't understand the church.
And the church has begin to grow cold and formal,
getting after creeds and things and leaving off the following of the Holy
Spirit.
And again from the message, Stature of a
perfect man 62-1014M P:60 brother Branham said, “And now, we're supposed to do His work. He said, "He that believeth on Me..." (
This is where
I've been trying to direct the church towards this for the past 8 years. I
began trying to get the church to see that it's not enough to have the right doctrine, you must have the life that goes with the
doctrine. It’s not enough to know about Christ, you’ve got to know Him in the
power of His resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering. It’s not enough
to know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you’ve got to have it, and apply
it.
Brother Branham said,
this is the hour that
the Token must be applied. And so we have a token which is the baptism of the holy Spirit and The Token which is Christ Himself, and He's
here. But what good does it do to know He's here if you haven’t applied that
knowledge to your daily living. What good does it do to say you have been born
again and are filled with the Spirit of Christ if there is no evidence in your
life that you are filled with His Spirit. Jesus said by their fruits you shall know them.
In No 12. we spoke concerning the Knowledge
of the Son of Godand to do so we followed
brother Branham's thought process where he took us to Colossians 1:15 Who
is the image of the invisible God,... Now listen to these words, He’s speaking about Jesus
here, and he calls him the image of the
invisible God. Now that
tells us that there are two involved here, one “Who is the invisible
God” and the other “Who
is the very image of that invisible God”.
Now, an image is not the original. And
the definition of an image is: 1.
A reproduction of the form of a person or an object,
especially a sculptured likeness.
So we can see
here that the Scripture is speaking of Two persons,
one Who is the invisible God and the other Who bears the image or is a
reproduction of the form of the invisible God.
Therefore by
definition Paul is telling us that God is the unseen Life and Jesus Christ is
the image or the visible expression of that unseen Life.
In the Book
of Hebrews Paul tells us the same thing.
Hebrews
1:1 God, The invisible One, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers through the prophets, (The invisible one using the bodies of
His visible prophets to speak through) 2 Hath in these
last days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things,
by whom also he made the worlds; So we see here the Great Invisible God entered
into the Body of His Son to speak through and manifest Himself to the world,
that the world might know the Invisible One. 3 Who (the son of God, the visible one) being the brightness (being the illumination) of His (God the invisible one, being the
illumination of His) glory, (His Doxa, His values, His opinions, His judgments) and the express image of his person, (not just image of God’s person but the
expressed Image of the invisible One. In other words, “The Image” that has been
set forth, “The Image” that completely manifested or that completely
communicated the essence of the invisible one. And when it speaks of complete
manifestation or complete communication, it speaks of fullness and nothing short
of fullness.) and upholding all things (and Paul said in other verses, that we
are “all things” in Christ. So he upholds us,) by the word of his power, when he had by
himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (so it wasn’t about Him, it was about
us. He didn’t come into this world to manifest the invisible One for Himself, He came into this world to express, to manifest, to
communicate the invisible one for us.) 4 Being made so much better than the angels,
as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. 5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art
my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father,
and he shall be to me a Son?
So we are
looking at this visible one who came into this world not for himself, but for
us. He expressed the invisible one not for self, but for us.
Oh, if we could only see that eternal
Life is living for others. Remember what I read to you from the Transliteration
called the Message a few weeks ago from Romans 8.
Let me read it again for you so that you might see what Paul is speaking of
here in the book of Colossians and why Brother Branham read this Scripture for
his opening text to this masterpiece of a sermon.
Romans 8: 5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own
end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to
exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that
God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these
matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a
spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God.
Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about
self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God
isn't pleased at being ignored. 9-11But if God himself has taken up residence
in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone,
of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the
Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome
him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of
sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't
it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into
your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you
alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as
he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living
in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's! 12-14So don't you see that we
don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for
us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on
with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to
go! 15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid,
grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike
"What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms
who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and
children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable
inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through
the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good
times with him!
Therefore in reading this
from the King James version we will do so with the
exception that when you read the word flesh, insert into your thinking the word
self. Because when you read the word flesh you automatically think this speaks
of others, and not yourself. But when you substitute the word self for flesh
you can not hide behind words, you must face up to them.
Romans
8:5 For they that live for self do mind the things of self; but they
that are led by the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace.7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for
it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that
are self focused cannot please God. 9 But ye are not self focused, but Spirit
focused if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.10 And
if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life
because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him
that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from
the dead shall make alive your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in
you. 12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to self, to live for self, 13
For if ye live for self, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit bring under
submission the deeds of your body, ye shall live. 14 For as many as are led by
the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 15 For ye
have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children
of God: 17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified
together. 18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Therefore in getting back to Colossians, 1 and reading from paragraph 15: Who
is the image of the invisible God, Now notice His Life, it was not about Himself, His
Life was about expressing His Father, the firstborn of every creature: Not
about Him, but firstborn means the first along with others. For by him were all things created,
that are in heaven, and that are in the earth, visible... invisible, whether
they be thrones,... dominions,... principalities,... powers: all things were
created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him “all
things” (that’s
you and I) consist. And he is the head of the body (not
alone, but the head of the body suggesting His role as a leader of the body, so
he was made for the body), the
church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; (The
first born from the dead, therefore the first to taste death for the other born
ones.) that in all things he might have preeminence.
Now, these words here don’t mean that he might be the
big shot. The word pre-eminence means the focus. He was the firstborn of
creation that others might follow his footsteps. He was the firstborn from
among the dead so others will know how to die and rise again. You see, he was
the trail blazer, the one who had to cut the path through life and death so
that others might follow in his footsteps.
Now, listen, the hardest job is to be first, because
you are the one who has to do the trailblazing, the hacking down a path, for
others simply to follow. His whole being was about living for others. For it pleased the Father that in him should be all fullness
dwell;--should all fullness dwell;...
Then knowing that He is the same yesterday today and
forever, and knowing Heis the God of Love, then we
are set free by His Love. And so No 14. in our series was entitled, Bound
by fear set free by love and No 15. we
also dealt with this same thought of being Bound
either by fear or being set free by love.
Brother Branham said in his sermon,
Jehovah of
miracles 59-1126 P:33 Mary didn't stop to think about criticism; she
didn't care about criticism. When a man comes to get the Holy Ghost, you
don't care what the neighbors is going to say; you don't care if you shout, you
speak with tongues, or whatever you do, it's a past that; you took God at His
Word; you don't care for criticism. You've lost all your devil made, homemade,
intellectual society called prestige. The thing that you want is favor with
God. You don't care what the Holy Spirit causes you to do: to shout,
scream, or cry, or bawl, or anything you want to do. Anything the Holy Spirit
puts on you, you do it because you don't care. You've lost all that manmade
stuff. You're free in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God has set you free.
And you're free in the power of God, bathing in His beauty, worshipping Him in
the Spirit and truth. You're a free person. You've took the Word of God; it
took a hold in your heart. You don't care; you're throwing yourself...You say,
"Well, if I be standing on my job someday and the boss said, 'Say, I heard
you was over there at that holy-roller meeting and got healed.' I'm
afraid." No, you're not. Brother, if you're the seed of Abraham, you
count it a joy to stand and testify of the power of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Certainly, you do. "My people shall not be ashamed. If you're ashamed of Me before men, I'll be ashamed of you before My Father and
the holy Angels,"
said the Lord Jesus. So they're not ashamed; they're not afraid.
Remember
the promises concerning the believer?
John
Romans
Romans
1 Peter 2:6 Wherefore also it is contained in the
scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and “he
that believeth” (ὁ πιστεύων)
on him shall not be confounded.
So what do we have to be afraid of?
Romans
Brother Branham said in Christ is the mystery 63-0728 P:120 “Look, Christ in you makes Him the
center of Life of the revelation. See? Christ's Life in you makes Him
the center of the revelation. Christ in the Bible,
makes the Bible a complete revelation of Christ. Christ in you makes you the
complete revelation of the whole thing. See, what God's trying to do? What
is the new birth then? You say, "Well, Brother Branham, what is the new
birth?" It is the revelation of Jesus Christ personally to you.
Amen. See? Not you joined a church, you shook a hand; you done something
different; you said a creed; you promised to live by a code of rules; but Christ,
the Bible... He is the Word that was revealed to you. And no matter what
anybody says, what takes place, it's Christ. Pastor, priest, whatever it might
be... It's Christ in you. That is the revelation
that the Church was built upon.
From his message Position in Christ 60-0522M 88 83 For ye haven't received the spirit of bondage again to
fear; but ye have received the Spirit of a... [Congregation says "adoption"--Ed.]Now, after you're adopted, all
right, after you're adopted, you're placed; then you understand, after
the ceremony's said and you've been put into the Body
correctly. You're a son, sure, a daughter; when you're born again you're...
that's your birth. But now you're positionally placed. We've not received the spirit of fear...;
but we have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. (Which means, "my
God." All right.) The Spirit itself bears witness with our
spirit, that we're children of God: How does it do it? You say, "Glory to God. Hallelujah. It
don't bother me; I'm a child of God," and go out and do the things you do?
The Spirit of God will do the works of God. Jesus said, "He that believeth on Me,
the works that I do shall he do also." See, see?
Water of separation 55-0121 P:15 I used to often time wonder what's the
matter with the Christian church, they're so scared of things. Why, you've
got nothing to be scared about. The first word nearly Jesus said after the
resurrection, "Fear
not." See, don't
fear. Don't get scared. There ain't nothing going to
happen. Nothing can happen. Nothing can bother a Christian. Amen.
Not even death itself can even touch the Christian. "He that heareth My words, and believeth on him that sent Me, hath
Everlasting Life, and shall not come into condemnation; but has passed from
death to Life."
Amen. Death itself has no reign over a Christian. Christ died in our stead.
Amen. What a marvelous... What a faith that ought to build up in the people, something
that'll toe the mark. You'll never get nothing
by being a little jellyfish Christian. No, sir.
Did you ever see a jellyfish? You just hit him, he splatters all over
everything. See? A jellyfish, you know what usually eats them? The crabs and
things along the side of the seashore, comes up with his pincher and cuts him
in two and takes him down, 'cause the jellyfish just lays there.
Brother, we need some Christians, not jellyfish, but with a backbone (That's
right.) that'll stand. Oh, I don't mean to fuss with people, but
stand for your God given rights that Christ died for. Certainly.
Not pushed around, we don't have to be. No, sir. We
got an inheritance. Amen. And our inheritance belongs to us. It's your
privilege to have anything that you inherited, through accepting Jesus Christ
and dying to yourself. How marvelous. Yes, sir. Satan said,
"Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do." "No, you ain't going
to do nothing." That's the way to talk back to him. Say, "I know
my position in Christ, and you just might as well get away. I ain't listening
to you no more. I got an inheritance."
Romans
Luke 12:2 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to
give you the kingdom.
Luke 12:4-7 4 And I say unto you my friends, Be not
afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they
can do. 5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear:
Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say
unto you, Fear him. 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one
of them is forgotten before God? 7 But even the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many
sparrows.
Let us pray...