God’s Only Provided Place of Worship # 101

Brian Kocourek, December 13, 1995

End-Time error no. 2

As we pick up our study of the two major false doctrines concerning the Godhead, I first want to go back to where we left off on Sunday. We said that we would systematically look at these doctrines, their source and the reasoning behind them. In order to do this we must first understand how these men who profess such things think and teach.

As you know, Jesus warned us in [ Mark 4: 24 ] about being careful how we hear. To paraphrase His words so that you might understand it better, what He is saying is this... "Take heed how you hear: for with what measuring instrument you use to portion it out, it will come back to your understanding by that same measuring instrument."

Remember, as a tree leaneth, so shall it fall. And so we are warned to be ever so careful how we approach the Word of God. Paul said, he had to lay every thing he thought he had known aside when He had come face to face with the Pillar of Fire. And so must we forget everything we know and understand, even our approach to the Word of God itself in the light of a vindicated Prophet. Further more even Jesus said to the Pharisees in [ John 8: 38] " I speak that which I have seen with My Father: and you do that which you have seen with your father." In other words, He said, I only speak what I understand My Father to have said, but you do that which you understand from your father. Now if you are to read on, it is very clear that they didn't like this rebuke and that He was referring to their father as Cain who was Serpent seed and a child of the Devil. But that is exactly what He said. "I understand what My Father has said, and therefore I speak only what He said. But you guys do not understand what I am saying because we have definitely come from different fathers. And so you can only do what you have been taught to do and you can only respond in a way that suites your lineage, and therefore you reject Me even as you reject My Father."

We see the same thing in [ 1 John 3: 1] " The Father hast bestowed upon us to be called sons of God, and Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not."

So in [ Matthew 23: 31-33]we read, "Wherefore you be witnesses unto yourselves, that you are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you lineage of vipers, how can you think to escape the damnation's of hell?"

And so we see an important principle here. These men are identified by Jesus to be one with their fathers which He claims are serpent seed. So if these men are serpent seed then they will think like serpent seed. And if you are the seed of God you will have to think like the Seed of God, Jesus Himself thought, therefore as Paul said, "let this mind which was in Christ be in you." And if His mind is in you, you will think the same thoughts as Jesus and you will only say what The Father has said. .

Now the way in which these men think does not run in continuity with the way we have been taught to think by Moses, Paul and William Branham, the three Prophets who came with the Revelation of Jesus Christ and were vindicated by the Pillar of Fire.

These men want you to believe that God was both Masculo-feminine in nature and that the Masculine part was that of the Father, but that there was another part of the Father which was feminine by nature and that part is the Bride of Jesus Christ. This doctrine has been taken to the point of actually placing the fulness of the God head to be now in the Bride, and therefore the Position and office of the Father has been done away with. Now they will not directly say so but by their manner of discourse and the illustrations they use and their mode of teaching all indicate that this is part of their thinking.

So now we must ask ourselves, what is their mindset and why do they think and teach such things? And to answer this we must look at what Jesus did and then we shall find our answer as He most certainly did.

As we said before, Jesus pointed to their fathers as the source of their understanding. The Scripture teaches us that " train up a child in the way he shall go and he shall not depart." That goes for good and bad. In essence, that is the law of sowing and reaping. And so is Biological and Spiritual seed planting. If serpent Seed has children, then the child will be serpent seed. If God has children then the Children will be God seed. But the question is how do we identify whether a person is one or the other. And again the Scripture teaches, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he". And "Out from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." And that is why Jesus called these men serpent seed for that which came out from their mouths identified who they were and who their father was.

Now we know that we are living in the day that the Son of Man was to be revealed, and we know that during this time the Son of Man went forth sowing and after He sowed other men went into the same field sowing their own seeds until both of the Seeds which were sown began to come forth into manifestation. The Two vines would be so intertwined until you could hardly recognize one from the other. But brother Branham taught us that you would know them by their fruits, and as he said the Fruit is the teaching of the season. So the teaching of the season is what identifies Who you are by what you teach or what teaching you identify with. But in Matthew 24: 24 we are told that the two will be so close that it would fool all except the very Elect. And how is this made possible? Because these men will be using the same words, that the correct teachers use, but with a twist. In [ 2 Peter 2: 1] W e are told they will bring in alongside of the True doctrines, destructive heresies, and so they do. In [ 2 Tim 4: 1 ] We see how this actually will call others to fall away from the Truth.

And so, then we must ask ourselves, what is the thinking of their father. What were his thoughts and why did it cause such an uproar and warfare in heaven to begin with where he was eventually cast out of heaven with a third of the angels that followed him. Why did Jesus and John the Baptist and Paul and Peter and Jude and John and so many of the early church fathers constantly blast the opinions of his children in their day? Why? Because of the effect it was having among the people. A falling away had occurred in the Alpha and is sure to repeat itself in the Omega ministry of Christ.

Why did Lucifer fall? Why was he cast out from among the brethren in heaven? Because He tried to make Himself to be equal with God when he wasn't.

[ Isaiah 14: 12-17] How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, [and] consider thee, [saying, Is] this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; [That] made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; [that] opened not the house of his prisoners? This is the guy who made angels to fall for him and people to think that he was God? This twerp?

And now what was it about him that caused this high opinion of Himself? What was there in this fella that he would so exalt himself to think that he could be God? Well, let's go to the book of Ezekiel to find out for ourselves.

[ Ezekiel 28:12- ] say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone [was] thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou [art] the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee [so]: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou [wast] perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane ( polluted or perverted ) out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never [shalt] thou [be] any more.

God describes him here as a Cherub that covereth and we know according to [ Hebrews 8:5] that when Moses was commanded to make the ark of the covenant, He was to design it after the Pattern that God showed Him in the mountain, and so we see the Pattern as was established before the framing of the world, back in the beginning when there were two cherubs, (twins) who were leading the angels in worship, and according to brother Branham, One was Christ and the other was Lucifer. So we see that because he was made a priest he became puffed up, to the place where it got to him and he exalted Himself to be equal with the One he was ordained to lead the angels to worship. And so has it repeated itself throughout the ages. Dathan and Korah were Levitical priests as well, and they became puffed up the same and wanted their opinions to be heard as well as that of Moses, the One God vindicated. And in Paul's day we see the same thing repeat. In fact it has repeated throughout all the church ages because wherever there have been twins, there has been this exaltation to think they can worship God apart from God's only provided place of worship which is by Vindicated Revelation.

So by now we should be able to see how they think and why they think like they do and thus why their doctrines point to themselves and away from the Truth of the Godhead. As I said before, A friend of mine was talking to a member of a church who believed this Blasphemous doctrine that says, "the fulness of the Godhead is now in the Bride", and my friend asked the person, "if this is so, then who is the Bride?" and they answered, "The Bride is God!". Now, I know that these men who teach this are too smart to come right out and say they are God, but they do so by misquoting scriptures and taking Brother Branham's sermons out of context and so they teach this to the people without coming right out and saying so. But the result of the pudding is in the eating thereof, and as Paul said, "We don't need a written word of commendation because the people are a manifestation of what we are preaching." Now, I will grant the concession that there are mixed multitudes in this message and that some people are going to take the Truth and twist it up no matter how carefully you try to present it. But when people begin to make themselves God and to make God To people, Masculo and Feminine, then we would have to say we have come full circle because that is exactly what Irenaeus blasted the Gnostics about at the end of the first church age.

Since Brother Branham taught us that all false teaching had there source back in Genesis, it is evident therefore that this is the place where we shall begin tonight. Now, concerning the doctrine of the Female Holy Spirit, those who teach it, begin by taking you back to the very beginning when the Spirit of God moved across the face of earth.

[ Genesis 1: 1- 2 ] In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now what they are doing here with this scripture is they are looking at this scene and in doing so we see the first time God begins to move out into some sort of manifestation. Here, they use a quote from Brother Branham to verify that this is indeed the metaphor in which God manifested Himself before the creations of the world in the form of a Dove.

E-54 THE.IMPERSONATION.OF.CHRISTIANITY -- LIMA.OH -- 57-0127.1A

Way back yonder in the beginning when God sent the Logos, which was the Son of God from the bosom of the Father, He begin to brood over the earth the Bible said. What is the word "brood"? What does it mean? Like mothering, like the hen, her brood is called her chickens, her offspring. And the Holy Spirit, as it was, with His arms or His wings brooding over a bleak earth, where there never had been life... And as He begin to brood, the waters begin to separate, and the land came up.

Now they continue with this thought of the Holy Spirit like a dove and they try to establish that the dove is always looked upon as a female. [ Genesis 8: 8-9] Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters [were] on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And finally they take you to Jesus Himself in order to make this seem as though it has a scriptural foundation in [ Luke 13:34] where He is definitely engaged in a metaphor which is a play on words that is used in order to present something in a sort of illustration or story format. He said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen [doth gather] her brood under [her] wings, and ye would not!

Now, we know better than to think that a parable or an illustration is actually literally to be taken as stated. If this is true, then why did Jesus say in [Matthew 13: 10-17] that the very reason He used Parables or metaphors was so that only the Elect would understand and all others would actually be thrown off by them. Now, liberal theology will take the parables or metaphors verbatim as He said them And if we are as liberal in our doctrine as these men must be, then we would find Jesus literally declaring to all that He is actually a she, and in fact some sort of a large mother chicken. There can be no wonder why Rush Limbaugh feels he can take on the Liberals with half of his brain tied behind his back. That is about the most stupid thing I ever heard of. Jesus did not say He was a mother chicken, He said, AS a mother Hen would gather so would He have liked to so in the same manner.

Nut with their doctrine established by these simple metaphors taken literally, they then proceed to look at other times this She Dove appears. And actually they feel by this time that they have nailed down the point that a dove represents female attributes. And so we then see them begin to declare that in fact the dove represents female attributes and also the dove represents the Holy Spirit. Again they go to the scripture and twist it in a manner as to assert this theory. [ Matt 3:16-4:1] And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Now here we see how far they go to stretch the Truth. The scripture plainly says that the Holy Spirit came like a dove would come down. It does not say it was a dove but that it's descent was in the same manner of fashion that a dove would descend. In other words, it came down very gently and slowing lighting upon Him. And even if it had a shape that would be similar to that of a dove, so what. But it is also strange that these same men will concur that it was the voice of the Father that stated "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And so they at this point conclude that this is where the spirit of God was rent in two and the female attributes of God came down. But if that is so then Why do they believe this voice that spake is that of the Father, for He definitely said, This is my beloved Son, In WHOM I am well pleased, or as brother Branham so often quoted, "This is my beloved Son, In WHOM I am pleased to dwell in." So then if this is indeed the voice of the Father, then it is at this point that the Father has come down to incarnate His Son. Not mother, but Father. Now to me this is shear evidence enough that these men do not understand the Godhead.

Now to this point we see that these men use the dove as a central point to declare that God has some how sent forth the female part of Himself represented to earth in the form of a dove, but called the Holy Spirit.

From pp. 264 from God’s Only Provided Place of Worship Brother Branham said, "No leaven among you, that brings the entire fullness of the Godhead bodily among you." So we can see from this statement that it is among those who do not consort to leaven where the Fulness of God will dwell. But those that must consort to such leaven as these blasphemous doctrines, can not in no wise understand this fulness which is among the people.

Now in viewing this leaven which they project forth as a dove and female attributes of God, let's just go back in history to see where this originated.

From page 79 - 80 of [Hyslops Two Babylon's] , we read...{ "Juno,"--the name of the Roman "queen of heaven," which has the very same meaning; and under the form of a dove as well as her own, she was worshipped by the Babylonians. The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified queen, is commonly represented with an olive branch in her mouth (Fig. 25), as she herself in her human form also is seen bearing the olive branch in her hand; * and from this form of representing her, it is highly probably that she has derived the name by which she is commonly known, for "Z'emir-amit' means "The branch-bearer." * When the goddess was thus represented as the Dove with the olive branch, there can be no doubt that the symbol had partly reference to the story of the flood; but there was much more in the symbol than a mere memorial of that great event. "A branch," as had been already proved, was the symbol of the deified son, and when the deified mother was represented as a Dove, what could the meaning of this representation be but just to identify her with the Spirit of all grace, that brooded, dove-like, over the deep at the creation; for in the sculptures at Nineveh, as we have seen, the wings and tail of the dove represented the third member of the idolatrous Assyrian trinity. * In confirmation of this view, it must be stated that the Assyrian "Juno," or "The Virgin Venus," * as she was called, was identified with the air. Thus Julius Firmicus says:--"The Assyrians and part of the Africans wish the air to have the supremacy of the elements, for they have consecrated this same [element] under the name of Juno, or the Virgin Venus." Why was air thus identified with Juno, whose symbol was that of the third person of the Assyrian trinity? Why, but because in Chaldee the same word which signifies the air signifies also the "Holy Ghost." The knowledge of this entirely accounts for the PAGE 80 statement of Proclus, that "Juno imports the generation of soul." * Whence could the soul--the spirit of man--be supposed to have its origin, but from the Spirit of God. In accordance with this character of Juno as the incarnation of the Divine Spirit, the source of life, and also as the goddess of the air, thus is she invoked in the "Orphic Hymns":-- the wife of Ninus or Nimrod, when exalted to divinity under the Name of the Queen of Heaven, came, as we have seen, to be worshipped as Juno, the "Dove"--in other words, the Holy Spirit incarnate.}

And what is the So called Bride doing today? Trying to become worshipped as the So called Holy Spirit incarnate. I hope you can see where this is all coming from and where it is going. From Pg 303 of Hyslops Two Babylon's we again read ... { The bearing of all this upon the question of the identification of Cybele and Astarte, or Venus, is important. Fundamentally, there was but one goddess--the Holy Spirit, represented as female, when the distinction of sex was wickedly ascribed in the Godhead, through a perversion of the great Scripture idea, that all the children of God are at once begotten of the Father, and born of the Spirit; and under this idea, the Spirit of God, as Mother, was represented under the form of a dove, in memory of the fact that that Spirit, at the creation, "fluttered"--for so, as I have observed, is the exact meaning of the term in Gen. i. 2--"on the face of the waters." This goddess, then, was called Ops, "the flutterer," or Juno, "The Dove," or Khubele, "The binder with cords," which last title had reference to "the bands of love, the cords of a man" (called in Hosea xi. 4, "Khubeli Adam"), with which not only does God continually, by His providential goodness, draw men unto Himself, but with which our first parent Adam, through the Spirit's indwelling, while the covenant of Eden was unbroken, was sweetly bound to God. This theme is minutely dwelt on in Pagan story, and the evidence is very abundant; but I cannot enter upon it here. Let this only be noticed, however, that the Romans joined the two terms Juno and Khubele-or, as it is commonly pronounced, Cybele--together; and on certain occasions invoked their supreme goddess, under the name of Juno and of course eventually called Mary.}

Now, in the first church age they left their first love which according to the Church Age Book was their Love for the Name of God and all that goes with that name, namely God Himself, therefore, Godhead.

So we see that in leaving their first love, men left the true understanding of One God Who had a Son and had Himself come into that Son and therefore Vindicated the Revelation of that Son, which is the Revelation OF Jesus Christ. Paul had said they were worshipping another Jesus and using the same Gospel but presenting it in a perverted manner and thus the people heard a Gospel of a different nature and were receiving a Spirit of a different nature as well. This was all the beginnings of the Great deception.

In the next church Age Irenaeus came along and nailed it down sure enough that the people had gone back into Idolatry and pagan worship but all the while trying to prove their doctrine using the scriptures along with their old wives tails. In His First Book against the Heresies, He wrote of their beliefs as this, "Out from Bythus who is the Propator and Ennoea also known as Sige ( Silence )they teach that Nous also called (Monogenes) the Father of allcame forth his female counterpart Alethieia,And from their union came forth Logos and Zoe and from their union came forth Theletos ( which is derived from the Greek Word Theios which means divne or God) and Ecclesia ( which means to preach or the preacher). And of course the Propator created separately a Christ and Spiritus another male and female couple which represents Christ and the Holy Spirit. And so Irenaeus declared, " For there is a necessity in their opinion, that a female AEon should exist side by side with a male one, inasmuch as she is, so to speak, [the forthputting of] his affection." Irenaeus continues, "while, at the same time, they endow Him with human affections and passions. But if they had known the Scriptures, and been taught by the truth, they would have known, beyond doubt, that God is not as men are; and that His thoughts are not like the thoughts of men.(2) For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men.

1. They maintain, then, that in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a certain perfect, pre-existent AEon,(4) whom they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythus, and describe as being invisible and incomprehensible. Eternal and unbegotten, he remained throughout innumerable cycles of ages in profound serenity and quiescence. There existed along with him Ennoea, whom they also call Charis and Sige.(5) At last this Bythus determined to send forth from himself the beginning of all things, and deposited this production (which he had resolved to bring forth) in his contemporary Sige, even as seed is deposited in the womb. She then, having received this seed, and becoming pregnant, gave birth to Nous, who was both similar and equal to him who had produced him, and was alone capable of comprehending his father's greatness. This Nous they call also Monogenes, and Father, and the Beginning of all Things. Along with him was also produced Aletheia; and these four constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad, which they also denominate the root of all things. For there are first Bythus and Sige, and then Nous and Aletheia. And Monogenes, perceiving for what purpose he had been produced, also himself sent forth Logos and Zoe, being the father of all those who were to come after him, and the beginning and fashioning of the entire Pleroma. By the conjunction of Logos and Zoe were brought forth Anthropos and Ecclesia; and thus was formed the first-begotten Ogdoad, the root and substance of all things, called among them by four names, viz., Bythus, and Nous, and Logos, and Anthropos. For each of these is masculo-feminine, as follows: Propator was united by a conjunction with his Ennoea; then Monogenes, that is Nous, with Aletheia; Logos with Zoe, and Anthropos with Ecclesia.

4. The Father afterwards produces, in his own image, by means of Monogenes, the above-mentioned Horos, without conjunction,(2) masculo-feminine. For they maintain that sometimes the Father acts in conjunction with Sige, but that at other times he shows himself independent both of male and female. They term this Horos both Stauros and Lytrotes, and Carpistes, and Horothetes, and Metagoges.

(3) And by this Horos they declare that Sophia was purified and established, while she was also restored to her proper conjunction. For her enthymesis (or inborn idea) having been taken away from her, along with its supervening passion, she herself certainly remained within the Pleroma; but her enthymesis, with its passion, was separated from her by Horos, fenced(4) off, and expelled from that circle. This enthymesis was, no doubt, a spiritual substance, possessing some of the natural tendencies of an AEon, but at the same time shapeless and without form, because it had received nothing.(5) And on this account they say that it was an imbecile and feminine production.(6)

5. After this substance had been placed outside of the Pleroma of the AEons, and its mother restored to her proper conjunction, they tell us that Monogenes, acting in accordance with the prudent forethought of the Father, gave origin to another conjugal pair, namely Christ and the Holy Spirit (lest any of the AEons should fall into a calamity similar to that of Sophia), for the purpose of fortifying and strengthening the Pleroma, and who at the same time completed the number of the AEons. Christ then instructed them as to the nature of their conjunction, and taught them that those who possessed a comprehension of the Unbegotten were sufficient for themselves.(7) He also announced among them what related to the knowledge of the Father,--namely, that he cannot be understood or comprehended, nor so much as seen or heard, except in so far as he is known by Monogenes only. And the reason why the rest of the AEons possess perpetual existence is found in that part of the Father's nature which is incomprehensible; but the reason of their origin and formation was situated in that which may be comprehended regarding him, that is, in the Son.(8) Christ, then, who had just been produced, effected these things among them.

6. But the Holy Spirit(9) taught them to give thanks on being all rendered equal among themselves, and led them to a state of true repose. Thus, then, they tell us that the AEons were constituted equal to each other in form and sentiment, so that all became as Nous, and Logos, and Anthropos, and Christus. The female AEons, too, became all as Aletheia, and Zoe, and Spiritus, and Ecclesia. Everything, then, being thus established, and brought into a state of perfect rest, they next tell us that these beings sang praises with great joy to the Propator, who himself shared in the abounding exaltation. Then, out of gratitude for the great benefit which had been conferred on them, the whole Pleroma of the AEons, with one design and desire, and with the concurrence of Christ and the Holy Spirit, their Father also setting the seal of His approval on their conduct, brought together whatever each one had in himself of the greatest beauty and preciousness; and uniting all these contributions so as skilfully to blend the whole, they produced, to the honour and glory of Bythus, a being of most perfect beauty, the very star of the Pleroma, and the perfect fruit [of it], namely Jesus. Him they also speak of under the name of Saviour, and Christ, and patronymically, Logos, and Everything, because He was formed from the contributions of all. And then we are told that, by way of honour, angels of the same nature as Himself were simultaneously produced, to act as His body-guard.