“Doctrine no 5”
The Voice of the Sign
Brian Kocourek
So far in our study of
Doctrine, we have looked at three very most important points of focus concerning
Doctrine, and they are no. 1 There must be the One
who reveals. in other words the Doctrine of
Christ is about Christ, it is not about peripheral things.
No. 2 There must be the one
in whom or through whom we receive the doctrine. In other words, the
one in whom God makes known His revelation of Himself.
No. 3 there must be ones
to whom the Doctrine is revealed. A special kind of person, a chosen
people.
This morning I would
like to focus on one other thought concerning Doctrine, especially the Doctrine
of Christ and what I want to show you is that there is
always a build up to the doctrine. In other words, God never just sends a man
with Doctrine. Teachers teach doctrine, and they may come and teach doctrine,
but the Word of the Lord doesn't come to the teachers. It comes to and through
God's Prophets. And God never sent a prophet to declare His doctrine without
sending signs and wonders first to attract the people to the vessel he is used
to bring forth His doctrine through.
If you recall in our
sermon Doctrine no 2 The One in whom He reveals, we showed you how that God promised in
Deuteronomy 13 and 18 that the one he chose to reveal His Word
through would come with signs and wonders and with
Thus Saith the Lord.
But man has not always
accepted the Word of the Lord, or the teaching or Doctrine that is brought by
the vessel of God's choosing. Even Jesus Christ, the son of God had a great deal of
difficulty getting the people to believe the doctrine He came with. And he told
them the doctrine was not his own, but the Father who had sent Him.
John
17 If any man will do his
will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. 18 He that speaketh of himself seeketh
his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that
sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.
Then we find Jesus in
contention with the people in John
Now, Wednesday night we will cover this
thought here in more detail, but for now, I want to focus on the order in which
the doctrine always comes. And you will also notice that the people not only
fussed with Jesus and then Paul, but they fussed with Moses as well. Now, they
did not fuss concerning the signs and wonders, but they fussed with the
teaching they brought, the doctrine they taught.
Now, we know that God will do nothing lest he
reveals it through his prophets first. That is Amos 3:7. And in Psalms
103:7 we read, "He made known his
ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of
Notice how the people were capable of seeing the acts of God, but Moses
Knew God's ways. That's the doctrine. So then Moses had to teach the doctrine
to the people, so they also might know God's ways.
Because God said, Psalms 95:10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and
said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and
In fact God said in Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts.
So God used signs to attract the peoples attention as we see in Numbers
And as brother Bosworth often said,
"God uses signs, wonders and healing to get the attention of the people to
receive the Bread of Life. It's like the wrappings on a loaf of bread. You
don't eat the wrappings, but the wrappings gets your
attention to the bread."
And in the Book of Numbers we see that Moses given two signs by God to
get the peoples attention. Now, if the sign has one purpose and that is to get
your attention so you can be taught, then the doctrine,
or the teaching is much more important than the sign God uses to get your
attention.
Exodus 4: 8 And it shall come to pass, if they
will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign,
that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. 9 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe
also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou
shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon
the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of
the river shall become blood upon the dry land.
Brother Branham said in
his sermon Who Is This Melchisedec 65-0221E 160 “the church has got
it's last sign before the whole world's going to be destroyed.” And
he also said, “But
then where's that Royal Seed of Abraham? Where is their sign,” and he
went on… “the last
sign before the Gentile world was destroyed by fire?”
Now, in order to
understand what he is talking about concerning this last sign to the Gentile
world, we must first ask ourselves, what is a sign.
And so we find our answer in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
SIGN: from Latin signum meaning
a: mark, a token, a sign, an image, a seal; something by which a thought or command can be expressed.
Therefore, the sign is
not the thing itself, but the expression of a thought or
message behind the sign that we are to look for, and that
expression of the sign is called “the voice of the sign.”
Brother Branham spoke
about the importance of the voice behind the sign, and even preached a message
less than a year after preaching the Seals called The Voice of the Sign,
From his sermon Go Tell 60-0417M
pp. 112 Brother Branham
said, “we can
see signs and wonders, but we watch what voice the sign has.”
And again from Go Tell 60-0417M
pp. 113 he said, “Oh, hallelujah,
the voice of the sign... God told Moses, "If
they won't hear the voice of the first sign, then they'll hear the voice of the
second sign." Not so much the sign, but the voice went with it.
So we see that brother
Branham placed the emphasis not on the sign, but on the message the sign
pointed to. The voice of the sign then i more
important than the actual sign itself, because after all, the voice behind the
sign is what the very sign is given for. The voice is the very purpose for the
sign in the first place.
In Exodus 4:1 we read ¶And Moses answered
and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will
say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee. 2 And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A
rod. 3 And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it
became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. 4 And the LORD said unto
Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his
hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: 5 That they may believe
that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee. 6 And the LORD said furthermore unto
him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and
when he took it out, behold, his hand [was] leprous as
snow. 7 And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom
again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his
bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his [other] flesh. 8 And it shall
come to pass, if they will not
believe thee, neither hearken to the
voice of the first sign, that
they will believe the voice of the latter
sign.
So we see this
scriptural term “The Voice of the Sign” is not
some term that Brother Branham just made up, but rather it is something that
God Himself is the author of. Therefore we are examining in this study the
scriptural principle of “the Voice of the Sign”
and what it means to the Elect in their day.
From his sermon, Queen of
Notice brother Branham
is letting us know that the emphasis is not to be placed on the sign itself,
but rather the Voice behind that sign, that is what is
important to watch.
From his sermon called Voice of the Sign
64-0214 45
brother Branham said, “Now, we find out
here the burning bush was a sign. It was
given to attract the attention of Moses. Now, that's what God gives a sign for, is to attract the attention of the
people. That's what a sign is for: to attract attention. And when we go
down through the Scripture here, as we teach it now for a few minutes, and find
out if that isn't so, that He gives
these signs to attract attention. And then, when He gets the attention of the people, then the voice of the sign
begins to speak. Jesus healed the sick to attract attention. See? Then,
when He begin
to preach... See, always it
attracts attention. 47 The burning bush
was given to Moses to attract the runaway prophet's attention, and he
turned aside to see what it was. Then
the sign gave a voice. The sign
itself gave a voice. Now, these voices and signs are to alert the people of
God's Word is just about ready to be vindicated. Always the sign is to attract the attention of people.
Then the emphasis is not
and should never be on the sign itself, because the sign is only to
attract the attention. But once the attention has been attracted, “The Voice of the Sign” takes over. Then what
about the Epiphanaea
that took place on the
The sign pointed the
people to a Message. And what about the Cloud over
What good did the
Parousia of Christ do for those who did not know He is here? So God gave us a
sign to attract the attention of the people to His Parousia. That was His Eiphany, or Epiphanaea. It means
a shining forth. An illumination and the purpose of the illumination, the
Light, the Pillar of Fire coming down, was to get the
attention of the people. Why, Because the sign has a
Voice.
Therefore, every sign
has a voice behind it, because the purpose of a sign is two fold.
No. 1) It is to get the attention of the people.
No. 2) Once the attention is held, then there is a voice which is a
Message that the sign declares. That’s the whole purpose of the sign.
Let’s look at a "stop-sign"
for an example. It is shaped a certain
way so that it will stand out as different from all other signs. We see its
coloring. It is Red with a white outside stripe around its perimeter, so when
you see it you are attracted to it. And notice it has a Voice, which is a
message, and that message is for you to "STOP".
We have many signs on
the road. Signs to yield, signs to watch for train crossings, or deer
crossings, or signs to be cautious, or road condition signs like slippery when
wet, or signs telling you how far to a certain place, or speed signs or exit
signs. I have listed many signs we see every day on our highways, and if you'll
notice each one has a message, or a voice declaring a certain thought that it
wants to express.
So we should be able to
recognize that every sign has a voice, and the purpose of the sign is to get
you to listen to that voice.
Brother Branham preached
the message Voice
Of The Sign several times. In the one
preached 64-0214 pp 55 he
was talking about Moses being attracted to the sign of the burning bush, and he said, “There, watch real close now. He is going to
speak, so He has to attract the attention
by a sign. And the sign's voice is
what He's going to say. His Word... His promised Word's going to be
vindicated now. See? "I made a promise that I would take them out by a
strong hand, I'd show My power in that land" and
whatever He's going to do. Now, He made the promise to Abraham. Here He is
ready to do it, so He gives a sign, a
Pillar of Fire laying back in a burning bush. And He tells Moses,
"Now, you're going to be My mouthpiece. Go on
down there and I'll be with you." And when he got down there, then the promised
Word that He had promised was vindicated.
That was the voice of the sign. You get it now? Notice, "I have heard
their groans. I remember My promise."
57 God
never changes. He always does it in the same way. The coming of a prophet is a sign that God is ready to speak. Now,
search the Scriptures. See? The Bible says, God said Himself He did nothing
until He revealed it to His prophets. That's right. He does it through them,
because it comes to them; that's His servants, you know. All
right. The coming of a prophet is a sign that's overlooked by the people
every time. They overlook it. They never
get it somehow, 'less it's those who got their eyes open to see it. Those
who are elected to see it, does see it. But
the coming of a prophet was the sign that God is ready to speak, 'cause if God ain't going to speak, the prophet
wouldn't be on earth. Now, remember
that. He wouldn't be on earth,
unless God was ready to speak. And that's the way He speaks is through
those channels. The unchanging God never did do it any other way.
In 1982 Brother Vayle
held a convention in
59 Notice. This is always God's way of making His
voice known to His people. He sends His prophet and gives a sign, and then
takes His voice that's been spoken before on His Word, and vindicates it by
this man; and they know that it's His voice, because it's a promised Word of
the day. Oh, if people could only see
that. If they could only stop just a moment and realize
that... You see, there's no way to make them believe it. There's not
a way a man... God himself can't do it, make the people believe it. They've got
to believe it. And if there's nothing there to believe with, how can they
believe? See? No matter what you do... The Bible said, "Though He had done
so many miracles, yet they could not believe," because Isaiah foresaw it,
and said, "They got ears and they can't hear, eyes and can't see."
And yet He was perfectly the Messiah, done exactly what the Messiah said. And
they said, "This man just breaks up churches, and he... We don't know from
whence he comes." See? Isn't that strange, that they would do that? But
the Bible said they would do it.
61 And the Bible also said in this day they'd do
the same thing: "Heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than of God,
false accusers, incontinent, despisers of those that are good; having a form of
godliness, but would deny the vindicated Word, the power thereof, the baptism
of the Holy Ghost, and so forth. From such turn away.
For this is the kind that organizes women's societies, and goes house-to-house,
and leads silly women, lade away with divers lusts, and never able to come to
the knowledge of the truth." See? Now, that's prophesied. And that's got
to come to pass because it's THUS SAITH THE LORD. Notice.
"But their folly would be showed up as Jambres
and Jannes in the last days."
62 Now, always making known His voice to His
people by His prophet sign... Now, I'm talking about Moses. That's where I'm
banking back, and then see where we're at. God's Word is manifested by the
voice of the sign. Now, the sign that is promised for the day is done before
the people. And then the written Scripture comes forth is the voice of that
sign. If it doesn't give a Scriptural
voice, then stay away from it. See? It's not God, 'cause God can't promise
this for today, and say, "Well, this is it." See? God cannot do that.
God cannot promise something for one day and say, "No, no. It won't do
that. That was for another day." What He promises, He must stay with it. And
the real Scriptural sign is the Scriptural voice.
Voice of The Sign 64-0214 89
Notice, the Pillar of Fire sign,
and then the voice of the sign spoke. See? The Pillar... Sign of the voice
was there, ready to speak. The sign only
showed that the voice was ready to speak. Get the idea? The sign
shows God's voice is ready to speak.
Now, notice this is the
case every time the Pillar of Fire came. First it was scene in a bush by Moses,
and then when Moses was attracted to it, he heard the Voice of the sign and it
was the voice of God, who is the Word. The same with Paul. He saw the Pillar of Fire and then he
heard the Voice of the Sign speak unto him. The same in this day when the Pillar
of Fire came down on the
Voice of The Sign
64-0214 154 Now, notice, Jesus' first
ministry... Oh, they all--everybody wanted Him in their church. Oh, my. He's a
great Fellow. Sure, He went in all the synagogues, read the scrolls, and set
down. Everybody, "Young rabbi..."But
one day He begin to talk to them in another way. The voice of the sign begin to speak. And when the voice of the sign begin to speak, nobody wanted Him. One
of them said, "This man's crazy. He's a cannibal, trying to make cannibal
out of all of us." See? He never explained it. Let them go.
Notice here that Brother
Branham is telling us something else about this Voice of the Sign. He is
telling us that not everyone can receive it. It is not for everyone. And so it
must be rejected by those who do not want the voice of the sign.
Voice of The Sign 64-0321E E-33
Notice, sign. What does a sign do? The sign is to attract the attention, and
get the elected ready and out of the way before judgment strikes. That's
what Noah did, got the elected ready. The rest of them... And what does it do?
The sign and the voice of the sign condemns the unbeliever and gets him ready for judgment. It gets the elected ready for the escape.
That's what sign is. That's what signs are given for, for the coming
judgment. E-34 To
the elected, they see it, like the little woman with a pure heart in a defiled
body, and the Pharisee with a pure body and a defiled heart. It condemned one
and saved the other one. And the very judgment that saved Moses,
condemned the world, his preaching. It gets the elected ready. What's the
elected ready for? When they see a God sent sign, they look back in the
Scripture and see if that's supposed to be there. "Yeah, here it is. What
is it? Pending judgment." Then the elected listens to the voice. But the unelected ignores and says, "Nonsense. Go on. We'll take
the same old school." That's the way they did in the days of Luther.
That's the way they did in the days of Wesley. That's the way they do now, way
they've always done. But it is a sign,
and it has a voice that follows the sign. And the voice is identified as a
Scriptural voice. Now, don't forget that. I keep that going in,
because I may never see you again. I wished I had a way that I could come down
here somewhere, and get all my brethren when they had no revivals going on, put
a tent up, and just set day after day, and teach it till it really soaked in.
But He wouldn't permit that, I don't think. See, we're too close to the end.
Now, this is important
that we see here what brother Branham is saying. He tells us that all will see
the sign, but only the elected will be open to the voice of that sign. And
because they believe the Voice of the Sign it is salvation to them, but those
who turn it down, judgment is all that is left for them. Therefore, the Voice
of the Sign is for our benefit to rescue us and get us ready for deliverance.
That’s what it was for in Moses day, and that’s what it was for in Paul’s day.
Then if God does not change, why do we think it would be any different in our
day when the same Pillar of Fire has come with the same sign as He did with
Moses and Paul.
God Who is Rich in Mercy 65-0119 191 Moses was given two signs, and each sign had a
voice. That's right. I preached on it
here sometime ago, somewhere, on "The Voice Of
The Sign." It must have a Voice of the sign. It's a changing. Always
it's that way. If it isn't, then it
didn't come from God. If a man comes out with an odd peculiar
ministry, that's found in the Bible to be the Truth, and that man stays right
in that same old denominational doctrine, forget it. Nothing
to it. God don't do a thing like that. That thing, that's rotten manna that's got
termites in it, or wiggle tails, or whatever you want to call it, from forty,
fifty years ago, still trying to eat that old manna that fell way back years
ago. And the children of
Then why do men keep
preaching the same old denominational doctrines and claim to believe the sign.
They see the prophet, so they see the sign, but why do they keep preaching the
same old watered down doctrine that they held back in Pentecost?
The Token 64-0308 77
He displayed His sign as Messiah, and so forth. And they, many of them, said,
"Yes, I could go for that." Well, now, if that was a sign, there's got to be a voice of that sign.
What was the voice behind it? When He begin to teach
His doctrine and call them a bunch of snakes in the grass, He wasn't
popular from then on (See?) when the voice came with the sign. The sign went
first.
Notice what Brother
Branham just said here. The voice behind
the sign is the doctrine. But they do not want the doctrine, and if they
refuse the doctrine then they are refusing to accept the Voice of the sign. They claim they want the Word of God but
they do not want God's doctrine.
A certain big name
minister in this message was talking to a Joe Keller years ago and he said,
"why don’t you Lee Vayle guys believe in doing mission work",
and the young man replied, "well, brother Brian Kocourek does, and we
support what he is doing, what about that?" And the big shot said, “Oh
he doesn’t go to teach the Message, he only goes to teach Doctrine.”. And the Young man told me, he said, “I thought
to myself, What is the message if it isn’t the
doctrine? But you can’t argue with people who do not believe the voice of
the sign.
Lean not unto Thy own Understanding 65-0120 190 Lean not to your own understanding. And after
the sign went forth, and the Voice
following, and the churches begin to turn me down and close their doors upon
doctrine, that any of them is daresn't to stand
before me to say it's right or wrong. I challenge any of them. Uh-huh. Not to
be smart, but I know where I'm at. See? That's right. What did they do? What
did they do? They shut every door. "Now, what are you going to do?"
Notice again that
brother Branham tells us that the church turned down the voice which is the
doctrine.
Meanest Man in Town 62-0127 E-21 Oh, I would've loved to have been there to
listen to that. No doubt, I believe that every person here would've longed to
be there, to hear what He had to say, listen
to His doctrine, what His doctrine was, how He expressed Himself, and what
type of a voice He had; and look upon His face and to see Him performing His
works, and discerning the thoughts of the people, and telling them of different
things and diseases they had, and pronouncing them healed. I would've loved to
have been there. Oh, my. I would like to have seen that.
You know, these churches
claim to believe the Word of God, yet they turn down the doctrine which is the
voice of the Sign. Did you know what the definition of the word Logos is? It is the word that is used in John 1:1 in
the Beginning was the WORD, (the Logos) and the Word, (the Logos) was with God and the
Word, (the Logos) was God.
Now, the word logos means -- Word or speech, a word uttered by a living voice, which
embodies a conception or idea It also means 1b) a decree, a mandate an order -- what is
declared, a thought, declaration, aphorism, a weighty saying, a dictum, a
maxim, and it also means 1c)
discourse – instruction, Doctrine, and Teaching.
Therefore, we can say of
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Doctrine and the
Doctrine was with God and the Doctrine was God.”
And this same John wrote
also in 1 John
1:1¶That
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Doctrine of life; 2 For the life
was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that
eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us; 3
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have
fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship [is] with the Father, and with his
Son Jesus Christ.
That is why God said, Deuteronomy 32:1 ¶ Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will
speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. 2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the
dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: Because the rain gives life to the
herbs of the field.
Proverbs 16:15 In the light of the king's countenance is life; and his favor is as a
cloud of the latter rain.
377-2 Resume of the
Ages -
Church age Book cpt.10 “the latter
rain can come only after the former rain which is the spring or TEACHING rain.
The latter rain, then, is the HARVEST rain.”
Therefore
you had to have the Prophet of God come with teaching, and then another rain would
follow, with is the Harvest rain. And since the Teaching rain and Harvest rain
are both rain, and God said His Doctrine is as the
Rain, then both must be the Doctrine going forth. One to
teach and the other for harvest purposes. Notice he said, "When
that last elect Seed is in
Hebrews 6:1
¶Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto
perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and
of faith toward God, 2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands,
and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3 And this will we do, if God permit.
4 For [it is] impossible for those who
were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made
partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the
powers of the world to come, 6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again
unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and
put [him] to an open shame. 7 For the
earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon
it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth
blessing from God: 8 But that which beareth thorns and briers [is]
rejected, and [is] nigh unto cursing; whose end [is] to be burned.
Abraham's Grace Covenant 61-0317 E-11 You're either a believer or not a believer. Now, listen to Scripture. The man or
woman that comes to a fact of the Bible, comes up
against the Scriptural doctrine...
Ministers, whoever you are, I say this with Godly love, and you see it, and know it is the truth, and turn away from it,
"there remaineth no more sacrifice
for sin, but a fearful looking for the judgment, the fiery indignation which
shall devour the adversaries.
Jude 1:12 These
are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding
themselves without fear: clouds they are
without water (No
rain, no doctrine), carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without
fruit (and remember the fruit is the teaching of the season,
therefore these are they without a teaching of the season, because they have no
rain, no doctrine), twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13 Raging waves of the
sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the
blackness of darkness for ever.