God’s Only Provided Place of Worship # 40

Brian Kocourek, April 16, 1995

Losing the Vision

 

This is a beautiful Easter morning, and all throughout this nation, today, on this Easter day,  millions  of people are gathered to­gether, in their churches, to worship God, in the same old way, that they have always worshipped Him. Millions, times millions of people, will come to church today.  People, who do not do so, each Sunday. But because it is Easter, they will come,  and, they will partake, in services, across the nation, and (we'll be nice today, and say, that their purpose, is to Honor the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.)

 

Across this nation, today, many a history lesson, will be taught, about the lowly Nazarene, named Jesus, who lived almost 2 thou­sand years ago. They will talk, about the suffering Jesus, the One,  who had to die, and  the agony that he went through on Calvary. They will talk, about the doom, and the despair he felt, in those waning moments before he was crucified. They will talk about the rejection he felt, even by those who were closest to Him.

 

And yet do they really know what this resurrection is all about? Do they really believe, what they hear, year in and year out. Or is it, as we said earlier,  just a history lesson. Is it just, some sort, of ancient right, that we speak about once a year, and then we go about our business as usual, the rest of the year. Is Easter just a religious duty, just an obligation, or is there something here, that the world has missed, altogether, year in and year out.

 

Is it just a tale, that we hear, or perhaps could there be more, much more, about this event, that has shaped the history of man, more than all  other events, put together, in the history of man.

 

To be more blunt, or more crass, perhaps, Let me use, that good old American expression, that says:  WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME!

 

Because really, that is what it's all about, isn't it. I don't want to sound disrespectful, but that is why Easter is only a tradition and not a reality to the people. "Because it is some­thing, that happened, nearly  2 thousand years ago, to a man, called Jesus. And the world contends, that if you live a good life, then just maybe, perhaps maybe, after you die, you may also have a possibility, of being raised one day, back to life. But who knows if that is true, It isn't in the immediate future, so why think about it."

 

That is exactly, how the world thinks, and that is why Easter, and not only Easter, but every Sunday, has become, just a tradi­tion to keep, for the sake of the kids. And the world is lost, and it is dying, in this sinful condition of unbelief, and the sad thing is, that they don't even know it.

 

People don't go to church to be evil, but to become a better people. But what do they walk away with?

1)      Perhaps a lecture on how to be a nice person,

2)      Perhaps a discourse on how to get along with unfriendly people, or people who are hard to get along

       with.

3)    Maybe they will even leave with a nice warm feeling that perhaps someone really does love them.

 

What a sad condition the church is in today. They have lost the Vision. They are so unaware of what God is doing today, that Christianity has just become a tradition that conservatives do, and those who want their children to be brought up right.

 

REV 3:14-22 (READ)

What a sad commentary about the church in these last days. She is wretched, ( deeply distressed or unhappy)    She's miserable (why? because she see's her hopeless condition.   She's poor (oh, not in material things, but the church is spirit­ually lacking),

 

She's blind ( the word actually implies that she's smoked up, unclear in her thinking)   and She is naked, (she is stripped completely from any clothing of His righteousness.) She is altogether laid bare and empty lying in her shame before all the world to see. And yet she doesn't even realize it.

 

Notice vs 18 ( anoint your eyes with eye-salve. (to see what?) The answer is in vs 20. He is at the door while she is in this condition.  Brother and sister, our only hope is a Resurrection. Our only hope is the One who is the Resurrection and the Life.  Now to get a better picture of this condition we see here and our need for Him who is the Resurrection and The Life, let's turn to:

 

JOHN 11: 1-44 (READ) Let's read again VS 39-40, 43-44

Look at Lazarus condition, He was dead four days already. And the church has been asleep or spiritually dead for 2,000 years now, but something is fixing to awake her out of here sleep. Notice in vs (40) The very Doxa of God was manifested. And what did it produce? LIFE. resurrection power and resurrection LIFE.

 

Paul said in Ephesians 5  "AWAKE THOU THAT SLEEPEST, AND ARISE FROM THE DEAD, AND CHRIST SHALL GIVE THEE LIGHT."   It was prophesied in the book of Isaiah 700 years before Christ's 1st coming and 2700 years ago these words:

 

ISA 60:1-3A "ARISE AND SHINE FOR THY LIGHT IS COME, AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD IS RISEN UPON THEE. FOR, BEHOLD, THE  DARKNESS SHALL COVER THE EARTH, AND GROSS DARKNESS SHALL COVER THE PEOPLE: BUT THE LORD SHALL ARISE UPON THEE, AND HIS GLORY SHALL BE SEEN UPON THEE. AND THE GENTILES SHALL COME TO THY LIGHT.

 

We see this setting again in MATT 25 when speaking of the condi­tion of both the wise and foolish virgins who had drifted off to sleep while awaiting the coming of the Lord.

 

MATT 25: 1-13 (read) Notice the similarity that we see here and in REV 3. The Message that goes forth is "BEHOLD, HERE I AM". But the ones who had no oil also had smoked up lamps that could give no light and there­fore they could not see whether they had any oil or not and therefore were not ready when The One standing at the door was ready.  Now let's go back to REV 3 and examine this further. Now, remem­ber the condition of the church at the time of the PRESENCE of this ONE Who is at the door. She is wretched, Miserable, Poor, blind, and naked. And because of her wealth in material things she is not even aware of her condition that stinks unto death.

 

But in JOEL we see the promise as we saw on ISAIAH that says:  AND I WILL RESTORE TO YOU THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN, THE CANKERWORM, AND THE CATERPILLAR, AND THE PALMERWORM,...AND YE SHALL EAT IN PLENTY, AND BE SATISFIED... Oh brother, dead men can't eat! But look at Lazarus. The next time you here of him in the scripture he was sitting and eating with Jesus.

 

JOHN 12:1-2 (read) Remember the other person Jesus raised from the dead, the little girl in Mark 5 and Luke 8, let's see what Jesus did right after she was raised awaked or raised from the dead.

 

MARK 5: 21-24, skip up to 35-43. He commanded them to give her something to eat. And it wasn't to be just milk either for in Luke 8 it says, "AND HER SPIRIT CAME AGAIN, AND SHE AROSE STRAIGHT AWAY: AND HE COMMANDED TO GIVE HER MEAT.

 

JOEL 2:25, 26 (read) AND MY PEOPLE SHALL NEVER BE ASHAMED. AND YE SHALL KNOW THAT I AM IN THE MIDST OF THEE, AND THAT I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND NONE ELSE: AND MY PEOPLE SHALL NEVER BE ASHAMED.   WHY? Because He says, YOU WILL KNOW THAT I AM IN THE MIDST OF THEE."

 

REV 3:18 (Read) what does it mean to be clothed? What is our clothing ? what is this garment?

 

PSALM 132:9  LET THY PRIESTS BE CLOTHED WITH RIGHTEOUSNESS (RIGHT WISE NESS); AND LET THY SAINTS SHOUT FOR JOY.

 

I PETER 2:9 tells us  YE ARE A CHOSEN GENERATION, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, PECULIAR PEOPLE THAT YE SHOULD SHOW FORTH THE PRAISES OF HIM WHO HATH CALLED YOU OUT OF DARKNESS INTO HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT:

 

REV 3: 18 To be clothed in HIS RIGHT-WISE-NESS that the shame of our naked­ness, our complete destitution, does not manifest. This tells us that the bride as the body of Christ had to receive something from Him to hide what was so evident, and that is our own help­lessness. What the canker worm didn't eat the Locust did, and what the locust left the palmerworm finished off until the bride tree was just down to the roots. But I SHALL RESTORE SAITH THE LORD"

 

Lazarus was a type of the bride tree who lay in the grave four days and the body worms had already began to do their damage and his eyes had already begun to sink in and his flesh had begun to rot and smell, yet "I WILL RESTORE SAITH THE LORD" for "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, AND HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME THOUGH HE WERE DEAD YET SHALL HE LIVE."

 

REV 3:18  "AND ANOINT THINE EYES WITH EYE SALVE, THAT THOU MAYEST SEE."  "That thou mayest see," see what? Verse 20 (read)

 

THE RESURRECTED ONE HIMSELF. HE'S HERE!

 

Now what is this eye-salve that will give her the hope of seeing Him. Remember, He is the Word. In James 5 it tells us who this one is at the Door. BEHOLD THE JUDGE STANDETH AT THE DOOR. And in John 12:48 Jesus tells us that the Word will be the Judge in the last days. So it is the Word at the Door. Now isn't it strange that the word of God is likened to the manna that fell. And also the meal offering is a type of the Word. And the meal barrel in the days of Elijah that never went empty during the famine?

 

The word used in REV 3 for eye salve is KOLLOURION which according to VINES denotes a coarse bread roll or an eye salve shaped like a bread roll.  In REV 3 he is telling the church to place the Word up to their eyes so that they can not see anything but the one Who is stand­ing at the door. And that is Christ the Word.

 

I COR 13:12   FOR NOW WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, BUT THEN FACE TO FACE. 

                        When? At the time HE is standing at the door.

II COR 3: 18 (read)   We began this morning by looking at what the world sees and how they view this Easter with historical eyesight, but as you can see, we are beholding Him in plain view, LO HE IS THE MIGHTY CONQUEROR, SINCE HE RENT THE VAIL IN TWO. And we are being changed into His Image.

 

Now this bring us to our Message this morning. What is Easter all about? And what is the Resurrection of Christ all about.  .....   It is about Life!  Eternal Life.  And yet there is something about this great Message of Life that we all fail to see. And that is that this Great Truth about His Resurrection is more than just a happy thought, or something to look forward to. The Resurrection of Christ was and still is today  a tremendous confrontation.  And  that is what I want you to understand this morning.  The Message that He is not dead but He is alive brings confrontation. It has always been very controversial. It was back then, in the Alpha of His ministry and so is it again in this Omega age where we are today. The greatest Revelation we can have is that The very God of Heaven has come down in this hour in the form of His Son, not the body but the Logos, the very Word itself in our midst, the Great Shekinah Light, the Pillar of Fire actually in the very midst of God's children and yet this Revelation has caused more conflict and confrontation in this Message than any other thing. Why? Because the Resurrection is a confrontation between Life and death.

 

1 Corinthians 15: 53 - 58 (read)  God gives us the victory through Christ Jesus the Lord. And what is a victory?  This word victory here comes from a Greek word NIKOS which  means to utterly vanquish.  Webster said, Victory is the winning a struggle, or  overcoming  an obstacle or conquering an opponent. 

 

So we see that we can not have victory without conflict or confrontation. And therefore Resurrection is a confrontation with death itself, but overcoming and being victorious.   So we see our corruptible bodies must put on incorruptible and when we do we become victorious. The battle is over. The great conflict is ended. And so the process of Life, Eternal Life is therefore a great confrontation with Nature itself. Because on the one hand, our bodies were "born in sin, shaped in iniquity and we came to the world speaking lies."   But through the process of Life, Eternal Life it has overcome the death in these bodies that are given over to sin, and we are made new in the spirit of our minds, and  "our inner man is being renewed daily while our outer man is perishing."

 

1 Timothy 6: 3 - 12  Jesus Said, I come not to bring peace but a sword. Any man who would love his life  must be willing to lose it in order to save it.

2 Timothy 4: 1 - 8   You've got to be willing to fight the good fight to inherit the crown.

1 Corinthians 9: 24 - 27  so run that ye may obtain. So enter into the conflict, the confrontation, that ye might come out the victor.

 

PP. 130 One day, down Jordan, after that Masterpiece had been formed and made, there He come sending down  on the wings of a Dove, and said, "This is Him!" He was so enthused with this Masterpiece until He struck Him on Calvary, that He would die, for the rest of us was imperfect; that through the shedding of His Blood, He might bring many masterpieces (being a Bride) to His Son. Masterpiece is scarred because the enthusiasm of God to see such a Masterpiece, He struck Him for us all. See? There He died, to perfect we who are imperfect. The Masterpiece    PP. 131  Notice in here, He said: ... seven days shall you eat this unleavened bread...    PP.  132  Now, bread is typed. Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word." Not just a Word here and there as denominations would have you believe It. But the Word of God is perfect!

 

It's God Himself in letter form, called a "Seed." And the right kind of unadulterated faith in that Word will bring that Seed to its Life.  PP. 133  That's exactly what you see at night in the discernment's, and all these other things, because it's a promise that God made. And He stood by me and told me that, and told me these "fakers would rise up, but hold steady." I believe It. And no selfish motive to hurt anybody, but to be reverent to God and to do the work that He called me to do, that's why I say these things. And God confirms it back, and receives the offer and the sacrifice, by vindicating it to be the Truth. No question to It! Now watch that Word!

 

134 GOD'S.PROVIDED.PLACE.WORSHIP - SHP.LA - V-7 N-4 - 65-1128.1M

  Now, we notice here, "Seven days," that's for every church age. Now, as that Masterpiece had to die, in order to be resurrected to redeem us all. Then He had a church set in order at Pentecost, but that Church had to go through a sacrifice; and the Roman world killed it, put them in the ground.   PP. 135   As this author of this book, I can't think of it now, made so much fun of me, and said, "Of all of the devils, it's William Branham." See, that's what the Devil tries to think. He said, "Visions and things," said, "that's of the Devil." He said, "Oh, he's some kind of a hypnotist, or working in super sensory perception." The intellectual world always trying to figure It out.   PP. 136   That's where they tried to figure out Jesus. "How do You do these things? What done it?"  He said, "I will ask you a question. Was the ministry of John the Baptist... Was it of God or was it of man?" See?  Said, "We can't say."  Said, "Neither do I tell you." That's right, and went on with it. From henceforth no man asked Him anything. See? He just cut them off, He didn't tell them nothing about It; none of their business. He had a work to do and He finished it.

 

Oh, if we could just do the same...Don't even look at people's response, just say it like He said it period

 

 140 GOD'S.PROVIDED.PLACE.WORSHIP - SHP.LA - V-7 N-4 - 65-1128.1M

  God help us to do the same thing. We don't have to answer the Devil's questions. That's right. "If thou be, do so-and-so." You're responsible for that Gospel, a preacher is, and that's all; not how It's written, it's just responsible for saying It.     PP. 141  And as a servant, if you're a prophet, you're responsible to God. And if the visions that come to lightens this Scripture and shows what It is, you're responsible for every Word that's in that Bible, 'cause It was all wrote by the same kind of people you are. "God of old moved, by the prophets, and wrote the Holy Bible." See?  And no genuine prophet of God could deny one Word of It, but believe every Word and preach the same. And then God's obligated out of that channel to make that Word come to pass just exactly the way It's promised, the Seed will grow.   PP. 142  Now notice again, quickly, we find here that all seven days that this bread was to be eat, through Seven Church Ages. Now, when it had to die and go into the ground.

 

John 3: 16 - 21 ( they don't want to be reproved by the Light) They don't want the confrontation that the Word of God brings. That's why they just walk away from the Truth, the Light. Why do roaches and creatures ot the night flee from the light? They don't want to be confronted.

 

1 John 5: 4 (read) Notice our Faith, Revelation is our victory that overcomes the confrontation. That is  why Revelation is so important. If you only have a mental understanding of it, this you will  always have a confrontation and no victory. But Once you have completely surrendered yourself   to It, then This Word takes over, the Revelation takes over. Then you are in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Not will be, but are now.

 

Luke 11: 20 - 23  Explain

 

2 Peter 2: 10 - 22  explain

HEBREWS 6: 1 - 12 (read)

AMPLIFIED...  from verse 3=>.... Indeed if God permits, we shall now proceed to advanced teaching. 4 => For it is impossible to restore and bring again to repentance those who have been once for all enlightened, who have consciously tasted the heavenly gift, and have become sharers or (Companions) of the Holy Spirit, 5 => and have felt how good the Word of God is and the mighty powers of the age and world to come, 6 => if they then deviate  from the Faith and turn away from their allegiance; It is impossible to bring them back to repentance, for (because, while, as long as ) they nail up on the cross the Son of God afresh, as far as they are concerned, and are holding  Him up to contempt and shame and public disgrace. 7 => For the soil which has drunk the rain that repeatedly  falls upon it, and produces a crop that is useful to those whose benefit it is cultivated, partakes of a blessing from God. 8 => But if that same soil persistently bears thorns and thistles, it is considered worthless and fit only to be cursed, whose end then is to be burned. 9 => Even though we speak this way, yet in your case, beloved, we are now firmly convinced of better things that are near to salvation and accompany it. 10 => For God is not unrighteous to forget or overlook your labor and the Love you have shown for His name’s sake in ministering to the needs of the saints - His own consecrated people - as you still do.  11 => But we do strongly and earnestly desire for each of you to show the same diligence and sincerity all the way through in realizing and enjoying the full assurance and development of your hope until the end. 12 => In order that you may not grow disinterested and become spiritual sluggards but imitators, behaving as do those who through faith, (that is by their learning of the entire personality of God in Christ in absolute trust and confidence in His Power, Wisdom and Goodness,) and by practice and patient endurance and waiting are now inheriting the promises. 

 

Now we find here that in Hebrews 6 it speaks of a people who have been once for all enlightened. That is this hour and could be know other. For there could not be a once for all enlightenment until REVELATIONS 10 : 1 - 7 takes place and the Seals are opened.

 

Now notice further that this scripture speaks of a people who have consciously tasted of the Heavenly Gift, which we know is Christ Himself.  4 => For it is impossible to restore and bring again to repentance those who have been once for all enlightened, who have consciously tasted the heavenly gift,

 

In fact if you will notice, it says they consciously have tasted of the heavenly gift and then says they have shared in or have become companions of  the Holy Ghost.    Hebrews 6 : 4 who have consciously tasted the heavenly gift, and have become sharers or (Companions) of the Holy Spirit, 5 => and have felt how good the Word of God is and the mighty powers of the age and world to come. Yet we might ask ourselves how is it that they could be consciously aware of His presence and still deny Him and even want to crucify Him all over again. Well, our answer is in verse 6, where the scripture tells us that they deviate from the Truth.  Hebrews 6:6 => if they then deviate  from the Faith and turn away from their allegiance; It is impossible to bring them back to repentance, for (because, while, as long as ) they nail up on the cross the Son of God afresh, as far as they are concerned, and are holding  Him up to contempt and shame and public disgrace.

 

So we see then a falling away or a deviating from the Word of God.  Now this falling away is actually a willful  thing that takes place on the part of the one falling, because the one falling  actually first is found to have rejected the One who has come in the way He has come.

 

ROMANS 1: 18  - 21 AMPLIFIED (read) For  God’s Holy wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the Truth and make it inoperative.     

 

( Remember, Jesus could not do many mighty works because of the people’s own unbelief. So it is their own unbelief that suppresses the Truth and  Keeps it back from others.) Read MATTHEW 23: 13   19 For that which is know about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God Himself has shown it to them. 20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His Eternal power and Divinity have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through  the things that have been made - His handiwork’s. So men are without excuse - altogether without any defense or justification. 21 Because when they knew and recognized Him as The God, they did not honor and Glorify Him even as God, or give Him thanks, But instead they became futile and “godless in their thinking” with vain imaginations,  foolish reasoning and stupid speculations - and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools - professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves. 23 And by them the Glory and majesty and excellence of  The Immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images resembling mortal men...

 

Now this is what I want to speak on this morning.  God has shown Himself to these people. Through many various ways God has expressed His Divine Nature and manifested openly His Attributes to them, yet they have reject What God has shown them, thus rejecting what God is.  “For as a man thinketh in His heart, so is He and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Yet they have rejected His Word that He has come down with His Shout, His Message.  But yet still, there are those who even claim to believe His Appearing yet burn in their hearts with wanton sexual desire and are willing to twist scripture and brother Branham’s Word’s  in order to justify their adultery.  And all this in the presence of the Judge Himself. As Hebrews 6 brings out, they are very conscious of  and are aware of His Presence, for they even claim to be sharers and companions of Him yet they hate the real Him and therefore they actually glory in their re-crucifying of Him. Therefore they are “Conscious but they are without a conscience.” Why? Because their consciences have become seared with a hot iron. How? By accepting their own conscience over His Word.  Using the Word to justify their sin.  Bringing the Word into a reproach and shame.

 

Now, we read in Romans that even though God has shown them and displayed openly to them His Presence by exhibiting His Divine Nature to them and expressing His Divine Attributes before them, yet they reject it and make  God only something which is palatable in their own mind and conscience. There for God actually turns them over to their own desires. And their own desire is to do what they want to do.

 

ROMANS 1: 24   - 32  AMPLIFIED   Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their own hearts to sexual impurity. To the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, abandoning them to the degrading power of sin. Because they exchanged the Truth of God for a lie and worshipped the creature more than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen.- so be it. For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions, for their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one; And the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze with lust for one another, men committing shameful acts with  men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of  their wrong doing and going astray, which was their fitting retribution.  And so, they did not see fit to acknowledge God or even approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, ( ‘at least not in the way God wants it to be’)so God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome. ...Until they were filled, permeated and saturated with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed and malice. They become full of envy and jealousy, becoming murderers, full of strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. They are secret backbiters and gossips. Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance and boasting; inventors of new forms of evil , disobedient and undutiful to parents. These are without understanding, conscienceless, and faithless, heartless, loveless and merciless.  Though they are fully aware of God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them. 

 

These men are fully aware of God’s Decree. What Decree?, His righteousness. His (Right-wise-ness). Now you can’t know His right-wise-ness unless you have been taught it. These men have rejected the Truth. They have turned away from it. Oh, maybe not outwardly, but they say, “oh, we believe in a God” but the God they believe comes forth from their own thinking and they have totally rejected God’s thinking and therefore God.  So they worship the creature, more than the Creator. Now remember, in our study of Brother Branham’s Message on Satan’s Eden, we saw that WEBSTER said the word worship comes from two words, “WORTH” meaning an ascribed value and “SHIP” which is “the state or condition of”. In other words, these men have turned down the real Message, the real Decree and have substituted their own version of what they think it should be based on their own lusts and desires.  And they value more their own opinion of what God and His Word  or Message are than what God  Himself says that it is.

 

1 TIMOTHY 4: 1 - 2  (read)    When ?   The latter times, the end time...that’s this hour.

    1)  These depart form the faith :   to depart means they had to be in it to begin with and then they leave it. From what? The Faith...There is  only One Lord and One Faith. These then must be those

 who depart from the Message of the Hour.

 

    2)  Why do they leave the Message, the Truth? Because they give heed, they pay attention to seducing  spirit’s and Doctrines of Devils.

 

    3)  The ones who brandish the seductive spirit’s and doctrines of devils  are also those whom the

          scripture calls “liars and pretentious hypocrites”.  So they willingly deceive. They know

           better.

 

NIV 1 TIMOTHY 4: 1 - 2

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

 

These men are “Conscious but without a conscience”.  “Children of disobedience”.

 

2 THESSALONIANS 2: 10 -12  AMPLIFIED & WUEST

And by unlimited seduction to evil and with all wicked deception geared to the gullibility of those who are in the act of perishing, this gullibility being caused by the fact that they did not welcome and accept the  Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a strong delusion to make them believe what is false.

 

JUDE 16  AMPLIFIED These men revile (scoff and sneer at)  anything they do not happen to be acquainted with and  do not understand ;  Notice 2 things here: They are not acquainted with,  therefore they do not understand, so instead of searching to find the Truth, they can only do what they are destined to do and that is to mock it.

 

What I am trying to show you is that these men reject the REVELATION of JESUS CHRIST the way that God has brought it.  Remember, there is “one Lord and one Faith” and since Faith is a Revelation, then there is but one revelation and that is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Who He is! and What He is doing,  why He is here! But they are so ingrained in their own way of thinking, they reject the very God they claim to serve and they do not realize it is He Himself that has brought this Revelation to us.

 

Brother Branham said in His message entitled 'A DECEIVED CHURCH' "But as Israel was bound by their Kings that they could not follow the real King; and the real King, when He came, they didn't recognize Him. So is it today, oh, Lord. The King of Glory has appeared in the form of the Holy Ghost and Lord, They don't know it. They don't recognize it. They're so organized so tight, that they do not understand it, because It's not in their  organization. Lord this is a work of the devil that's done this to the people. May the Samson of God, may the True in heart, Those who are longing and crying and pleading and holding on, may they stay with It, Lord, until this new crop grows out. Until there comes forth a joy in Zion, and there comes forth a group that can  recognize and understand. That can see the Messiah and the hidden power that's hid from the world, that they will not understand now. Grant, Lord, that they'll see this, for we ask It in Jesus name, a-man." .

 

What we are showing you this morning is the pattern in which rejection takes place. They first Reject this Revelation, His Godhood and therefore God turns them over to believe just about anything that comes along. And how do they reject this One Lord and One Revelation? By rejecting the way in which he brings it and clinging to their own understanding which is error and death. “There is a way that seems right but it is death.”

 

So then God sends them a deluding influence. An influence that deludes. Now delude means to mix or as brother Branham said to Hybridize. So they delude what ? Their understanding of  Godhead or Godhood in which comes forth all Life. These men mix Truth with error, life with death and they bring forth a hybrid understanding that has no Life. Thus they prevent the people from seeing and thus understanding the True Nature, the True Life and True Character of God. and thus His True plan of redemption which is finalized by His Own Divine purpose as we see in EPHESIANS 1: 17 - 20. This hybrid truth snuffs out the Life that is in the real kernel of the genuine Word. Jesus said, “My Words are Spirit and Truth.” I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” In Him is Life and the Life is the light of men.” But what if that Life has been tampered with? What if it has been altered. Then it could only bring forth an altered reproduction.

 

You see, God has set even His own Character in a certain fashion or pattern or order. And by getting the people focused on a wrong Nature, it must follow that their expectations will look for a wrong pattern and order. And since Life and Truth came by the True Jesus Christ, then it only follows that a substitute Jesus will produce a substitute life and order. The God of their own imaginations will allow what is already in their own minds to be worshipped. Thus the Order is broken and chaos must follow. Since the Truth will set us free from our own thinking, then a false “truth” will have just the opposite effect, and will only bind us further in what we already are bound by the body of this death and the hybrid nature handed down since the days of Noah when man become a hybrid man.

 

Hebrews 6: 1-12 Amp... 3 Indeed if God permits, we shall now proceed to advanced teaching. 4 => For it is impossible to restore and bring again to repentance those who have been once for all enlightened, who have consciously tasted the heavenly gift, and have become sharers or (Companions) of the Holy Spirit, 5 => and have felt how good the Word of God is and the mighty powers of the age and world to come, 6 => if they then deviate  from the Faith and turn away from their allegiance; It is impossible to bring them back to repentance, for (because, while, as long as ) they nail up on the cross the Son of God afresh, as far as they are concerned, and are holding  Him up to contempt and shame and public disgrace. 7 => For the soil which has drunk the rain that repeatedly  falls upon it, and produces a crop that is useful to those whose benefit it is cultivated, partakes of a blessing from God. 8 => But if that same soil persistently bears thorns and thistles, it is considered worthless and fit only to be cursed, whose end then is to be burned. 9 => Even though we speak this way, yet in your case, beloved, we are now firmly convinced of better things that are near to salvation and accompany it. 10 => For God is not unrighteous to forget or overlook your labor and the Love you have shown for His name’s sake in ministering to the needs of the saints - His own consecrated people - as you still do.  11 => But we do strongly and earnestly desire for each of you to show the same diligence and sincerity all the way through in realizing and enjoying the full assurance and development of your hope until the end. 12 => In order that you may not grow disinterested and become spiritual sluggards but imitators, behaving as do those who through faith, (that is by their learning of the entire personality of God in Christ in absolute trust and confidence in His Power, Wisdom and Goodness,) and by practice and patient endurance and waiting are now inheriting the promises.