Christ is the Mystery no 181
Review no 4
Christ Identifying himself in You
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
This evening we will review sermons no 33 through 43
in our series on Christ is the Mystery no 33 To be Christ like and we took our text from
paragraph 74 of Christ is the Mystery where brother Branham said, 74 But the only way that you can actually be a
Christian is for Christ to identify Himself in you. How...
We got some a stinger there. I hope everybody on the tape gets that too. See,
see? You say, "I'm Pentecostal." That don't
mean a thing. It's Christ identified in you; that's when He has
recognized you.
What Brother Branham says here is very
Scriptural even though the Fundamentalist and Pentecostal will deny this. But
Paul tells us the same thing very plainly in Romans 8:16 The Spirit
itself (and there is only One
"The Spirit" and that is God's Spirit. So he says here) The Spirit itself (God's Spirit) beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
Notice he tells us that “The Spirit Itself" which is God Himself who bears
witness with our spirit. And brother Branham tells us very plainly and straight
forward the only way that you can actually be a Christian is for Christ Himself to identify Himself in you…. It's
Christ identified in you; that's when He has recognized you.
Notice He
recognizes you, This is not speaking about you recognizing
Him, but Him recognizing you. The whole world recognizes that God is God, but
they will not make Him the Lord of their life? We even have that problem right
in this Message. People living no higher than denominational
Baptists.
People claiming to be right in this
Message, yet "lovers of pleasure more than
lovers of God."
Wisdom verses faith 62-0401 P:144 How can the true Word of God grow on these bobbed-hair,
short-wearing, cigarette-smoking, bowling alley-hangers, church-joiners? How
can it do, when such pleasure-loving, seeking crowds as that, hang out, and
love such things as that, and loving of the world, how can the love of God
come in? How can the seed of God grow in such a ground as that? It'll
never take root; it'll never bring any life to it. It'll lay there on them
old dusty denominational rocks and rot away, but it'll never bring life. Yes,
sir. Yes, sir. Pleasure-seekers, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of
God--terrible, yet they're smart. They're twice as smart as the other class.
See? Sure. Smart, educated, wisdom-seekers just like Eve was,
and they got the same dose she got, just exactly. It's the truth.
Jesus
said in John
So we have
a right to ask the question, by whom are you living by and for?
Galatians
The early church were
called Christians because they were so much like Christ in the way they acted
and talked and conducted their lives.
QA Image of the beast 54-0515 P:32 There's only one way to be a Christian.
The word "Christian" means "Christ-like." And you
can't do it; you can't work it in yourself; there's no way at all you
can do it. You have to forget yourself, die out to yourself, and let Christ
come in and live the Life of Christ in you.
And that brings us to the next sermon in this series on
Christ is the Mystery no 34 The Image of Christ. And
in this sermon we took our thoughts from what brother Branham said in Paragraph
75 where he said, "But
when Christ is identified in you, identifying Himself, then you are
Christ-like; which the word Christian means to be Christ-like. There's your
identification."
Notice he said "But when Christ is identified in you" which is speaking in past tense,
then he stops, and corrects himself and makes it present tense by saying "identifying Himself, then you are
Christ-like".
So we are looking at a present tense identification
which he also said "there's no way at all you can do it. You have to forget
yourself, die out to yourself, and let Christ come in and live
the Life of Christ in you.
Now,
this statement right here separates us from all other wanna
be Christians, because they look back 2,000 years ago, 200 years ago, or 50
years ago at what Christ did in a historical sense, and we look at what He is
currently, presently doing in us now, each day.
Brother Branham said in his sermon,
Leadership
65-1207 P:113 "Now, just examine yourself by the Word,
by the Message. Examine what a real Christian should be: rugged,
loving, not one of this modern Christianity. Why, it's soft, flexible, half
dead, rotten, interbred. See? It's not the real Christianity; live any kind
of a way, and belong to church. Don't you want that sweet fellowship with
Christ, the Holy Spirit, that you're, the conformity of your own heart to
the Word?"
To be a Christian means to be conformed
to the image of Christ, and in Romans 8 we are told that we are predestinated to
be "conformed to the image of Christ", Who is the First Born Son in a vast family
of brothers.
And in his sermon, Messiah the 61-0117 P:62 Brother Branham said, “They look like him. They act like him. They are his flesh,
his blood, his spirit. Amen. That's the way God's church is, His Eaglets, His
Messiahettes. They look like Him; they act like Him; they preach like Him;
they do the works that He did. "The
things that I do shall he also. More than this
shall he do, 'cause I go to the Father." Amen.
"These signs shall follow My eaglets." Amen
"They'll do just as I do. If My Spirit's in
them, then they'll do the works that I do. If
they don't do the works I do, it's because that My Spirit's not in them."
Again from God in
His people 50-0227 P:22 brother
Branham said, “Now,
if I told you I was John Dillinger, or the spirit of John Dillinger was on me,
you'd look for me to have guns, act like John Dillinger. If I told you I was an
artist, the spirit of a great artist was on me, you'd expect me to paint the
pictures of an artist. Is that right? If I told you I was an expert mechanic,
and the mechanic's spirit was on me, you'd expect me to know what was wrong
with your car. If I said to you that I was born of the Spirit of God and the
Spirit of Jesus Christ was on me, you'd expect me to do what He did, act
like He did. That's His Spirit working through a human being.”
That is the problem we have in our
churches. Men don’t want to die to self, they like who they are and the
position they have attained. But God will not accept what you have to
offer him. He will only accept the life of His son. So if the Life of
His Son is in you, then God will accept you. But if you have not died to self,
that Life will never enter into you and take over because you are in the way.
And with no Christ Life you are none of His, that is what the Bible tells us.
Never
ever forget, Paul said in Romans 8:5 For they that live for self do mind the things
of self; but they that live by the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit. 6
For to be carnally minded or self absorbed is death; but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind (the mind that is focused
on self) is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are living for self cannot please
God. 9 But ye are not self focused, but in the Spirit,
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.
Brother Branham said in his sermon,
Position in
Christ 60-0522M P:79 What am I talking about? Hear It, Branham
Tabernacle. You've had your chance. When a man once is anointed with the Holy
Ghost, to be adopted into the family of God, to be positionally placed by the
Father, and set into a service out here, into his purpose of life, or what
God has called him for, his walk must be holy, holy, holy unto the
Lord.
The Scripture is replete with the assurance
that obedience is the only sure manifestation that a child is truly a son of
God. Just look at the evidence in the Son of God. Look at what he said is
evidence that he loved His Father.
John 14: 31 But that the world may know that I
love the Father; as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.
John 12: 49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father
which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should
speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I
speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
So you see that Jesus did nothing, and
said nothing until god showed him what to do and what to say.
Hear ye Him 57-0519A P:40 Now, watch. God never did anything 'less He
asked man to do, but what He did Himself. His Son, when He was born here on
earth, He was an obedient Son. Every step was for the Father. Everything
He done was to glorify God. And we seen God in
Christ. Is that right? "No man has seen the Father at any time, but the only begotten of the
Son has declared Him."
The very move, the very action, everything that Christ did was
God working in Him. You get it now? Now, watch what takes place. Then God
takes His Son after a long life, just before
Therefore we can see that the most
important attribute a son can manifest is his obedience to his Father.
Super sign 59-1227M P:49 Someone, as I have said before, wants to
make Him a little short God. He was man; God was using a man. God was using a
flesh that He created Himself in order to create through Him and to "Bring
through Him many sons," says the Scripture, "through that obedient
Son. Through one son all fell; through an obedient Son all shall live that
believe." God with us, a sign, said that would be a sign. Jesus so loved
to refer to Himself as Son of man, man Himself, just a man, "I am nothing; the Son can do nothing in
Himself." But
it's the Father was in Him, the Immanuel, that God, the baby, God, Jehovah
God, that little baby cried, that was Jehovah. Did you see it? God living in a baby. God living in a
teenage. What type of a teenager was He? He set the example. When He was
lost by His father and His mother, they looked about to find Him, and they
found Him in the temple, What did He say, as a
teenager? "Know you not? Wist thou not that I must be about My Father's business?" Example for teenagers.
And that takes us up to
Christ is the Mystery no 35 through 38 where we focused on what brother Branham called the Three fold purpose of God. And we looked at this Three fold purpose for three sermons, from no 35, 36 and no 37
in our series.
And we took our thoughts on this three fold purpose of
God from paragraphs 76 and 77 of brother Branham's sermon Christ is the
Mystery of God Revealed. where he said, 76 Notice,
God has had a threefold purpose in this great mystery secret. God, in His great
mystery secret that He had before the world began, He's got a threefold purpose
in it. And now, what we want to go upon this morning is: What is that threefold
purpose? See? Now, I believe by the help of God, Who's present, and He'll show
it to us. 77 “Now, if He had this threefold purpose... We want to find
out what is this threefold purpose. “The first thing was that God wanted to reveal Himself to
the people. He couldn't do it as a great Jehovah God Who
covered all space, time, and eternity. He could not. He's too great to ever be
revealed to people, because it would be too mysterious. How could that great
Being that never did begin, that after you went beyond the cycle of a hundreds
of billions and trillions and trillions of years of light space, and on out
into the infinite, into the eternity, and a great Creature that was all that,
and still is...78 But what He wanted to do, He loved Fatherhood, for He
was a Father. And the only way that He could express it was to become a Son of
man. That's the reason Jesus kept saying, "The Son of man." See, they
didn't know what He was talking about, many of them. But now you get it? He
wanted to express Himself. That was His, one of His great threefold purposes, was to express Himself, identify Himself with
human beings, to reveal Himself in Christ.
79 Secondly: to have the preeminence in His body of
believers, that is, His Bride, that He might live in people.
Now, that is the only way that God
could live in His Bride is for her to die to self, and give him the total
preeminence as brother Branham's says here. And that is what Paul said in
Romans 8 that if we live by the Spirit we are sons. And he said we do not live
for self, for if we live for self we can not live for God.
These three sermons we took on the
threefold purpose of God led us perfectly into no 38 Her pre-eminence in Him
brings her justification. No 39 Pre-eminence in Him brings
Holiness. No 40 Glorified in His Saints. and
No 41 To Live in His People.
We found this word preeminence means: “the state or
position of outstanding power or importance: eminence, distinction, or glory”. And we all know God’s glory is His values, His opinions and His judgments. So what
we see here is that Brother Branham believed that the second-fold purpose of
God’s plan was for God to
have a people, His own children, who would not only hold preeminently to His
values, his opinions, and His judgments, but those very opinions, values and
judgments would be reflected in their very lives as part of their nature.
And that is exactly what Jesus
Prayer was in John
Jesus tells us we become One with God through the same Word, and the same Glory that
He became one with His Father through.
Therefore it
is very apparent that we become one with God by receiving the very same Word that
Jesus received and reflected in his life and that brings us into the same Glory
or the same mind as the Father. And the glory which thou gavest me (remember glory is doxa
and it is the opinion, values and judgment, so "the opinion thou gavest me" ) I have given them; that
they may be one, even as we are one: And the
values thou hast given me I have given them that they may be one, and the judgments thou hast given me I
have given them that they may be one even as or in the same way I and you are
one Father.
That is why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory
of the Lord, (the doxa of the Lord) are
changed into the same image from glory to glory, (from opinion to opinion, from
values to values, and from judgment to judgment) even as by the Spirit of the
Lord.
Because after all what
man can understand the things of God except the spirit of God be in him. That’s 1 Corinthians 2.
And the
apostle Paul said in 2 Thessalonians
Notice here that the scripture tells us
that He comes to be Glorified
IN His saints. Now this word glorified is a the Greek
word en-doxazo which comes from the root word doxa. Doxa is word which means Judgment, value or assessment, specifically an opinion which does all three. And an opinion is the culmination
of an assessment, the value placed upon the assessment
and your judgment of the assessment. And it is interesting to
note that the reference work which lists this word also says that the word is
used in the New Testament as a good opinion that always results in Praise,
Honor and finally Glory itself.
And the
Apostle Paul told us that the Gospel is to produce this glory in us. 2 Thessalonians
And we are told also that is what the
Appearing of Christ is to produce in us as well. Colossians 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. In His values, his opinions, and his judgments.
You see, that
is what the Great Mysterious secret of God is all about. 1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
It’s all about His children having the same mind as the Father.
Romans
In closing let’s turn to Colossians 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory
of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
In no 42
we spoke from paragraph 91 where we showed the opposite of having the pre-eminence in Him is to have a life that is centered
on any other than Him, which leads to spiritual adultery or spiritual
fornication. Brother Branham said in PP 91, " Any word in the Bible that's rejected or if any
self-interpretation put to It, it's absolutely rejecting and committing
adultery against the God that is your Husband. An adulteress never enters the Kingdom of heaven; we know
that. See?
And we hear
brother Branham in his sermon, Spoken Word is the Original Seed 88-3 define Spiritual adultery as
follows: "That's
how adultery is committed spiritually. When you, knowing better by the Word
of God, by the intercourse of the mind, take in a lie of the devil against the
Word of God: that's exactly what Eve done. With a spiritual intercourse
first that come by believing Satan's lie into the womb of her mind, that
polluted her soul, set death in the soul; then the natural act taken place.
And that's the only way that a woman ever can commit adultery against her
husband, is to first let some man talk her into it and then receive another
man that's not her husband. Then she's committed adultery. And when
the Bride of Jesus Christ lets man-made creeds and dogmas take the place of the
Word of God, she is committing adultery.
Now, as I have spoken on Romans 8:5 through 12
so many times showing you that the word flesh speaks of self, and therefore when we see in Galatians 5:19 the fruits of the flesh, we can most assuredly say they are
the acts one commits within oneself first before the act can be committed by
the body.
Notice Paul says in Galatians
The inner spiritual man is like the
good tree that bears good fruit, and the flesh or self centered person is like
the corrupt tree which brings forth evil fruit as we see in Matthew 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth
evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring
forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore
by their fruits ye shall know them. 21 Not
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name
have cast out devils? and in thy name done many
wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
24 Therefore whosoever heareth these
sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built
his house upon a rock: 25 And the rain descended, and the floods
came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was
founded upon a rock. 26 And every one that heareth
these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man,
which built his house upon the sand: 27 And the rain descended, and
the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and
great was the fall of it. 28 And it came to
pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his
doctrine: 29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as
the scribes.
Finally in closing we found in sermon No 43 that we spoke on what it means to be in Christ. we
took our text from paragraphs 92 through 94 where brother Branham said, He took kinship with the man that was lost (Amen.) and
become a man, God made flesh. Hallelujah. Think I'm excited, but I'm not.
Something inside...
93 God became from God and become me, to
take my sin upon Him, that He might make me Him (Amen.), back to His great
purpose of sons and daughters of God, for He is a
eternal Father. That attribute was in Him (See?), so that had to be displayed. Now, see the whole threefold purpose? See? To express Himself. He wants to become... Now, the world is
lost. Now, He has to express Himself in a Man to become a Saviour through the
reconciliation of the Blood from His cross. Now, He had to become that to die,
in order to save and to bring Himself back into the Church to have the preeminences in His Church. 94 Now, remember, it
cannot and will not, and never will be, and never has
been a denomination. He has to have the preeminences
and He is the Word. Amen. How can any creed be injected in there? It turns the
church into a prostitute to take any man's words, or any creed, or any
denomination;
Now, listen, every camp is based on
a certain doctrine or creed, right? And when you cut off the rest of the Word
in favor of your pet doctrine, you are actually prostituting yourself to that
camp. Then to have a
camp mentality is to prostitute yourself against the Word of God, and when you
do that you are gearing yourself to the gullibility of them who are perishing.
2 Thessalonians
In closing let me read that from the Wuest Translation verse 10 every
kind of wicked deception geared to the gullibility of those who are perishing,
this gullibility being caused by the fact that they did not accept the love for
the Truth to the end that they might be saved, and for this cause God will
send them a deluding influence resulting in their believing the Lie, in
order that they all might be judged who did not believe the truth but took
delight in wickedness.
Let us pray