God’s Only Provided Place of Worship # 59

Brian Kocourek, June 25, 1995

Falling Away from Doctrine

 

Deuteronomy 13: 13  32: 15 - 20

 

Wednesday night  we focused our attention on Paragraph  202 again,  where brother Branham said,  "nothing in the Bible types the denominations but Babylon. And Babylon was founded by Nimrod, and Nimrod was a renegade. and we found that according to Webster a renegade is a person who abandons his religion for another. An Apostate.

 

Matthew 24: 8 => 13  offended = skandalizo to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one that he ought to  trust and obey; to cause to fall away.

 

John 6: 63 => 7:1 esp (6:66)        (read)    note 666   John 6:66    From that [time] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

 

Hebrews 3: 7 => 4: 2  esp 3: 12   (read)

Hebrews 10: 35 - 39 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

 

Hebrews 12: 25 See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused Him that Spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him  Who speaketh  from Heaven.

 

Acts 13: 41  Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.

 

2 Peter 3: 17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.

 

1 John 3: 11 - 12  For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked ( poneros) one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil [wicked]  ( same word  poneros) and his brothers righteous.

 

2 Thes 2: 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there be a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. 10 - 11 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness  in them that perish; because they received not the love of  the Truth, that they might be saved.  And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie. That they might be damned who believed not the Truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

 

1 Timothy 4: 1 => 4 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from The Faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy,; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

 

2 Timothy 3: 1 => 9 (read)

2 Timothy 4: 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to  themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the Truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

 

Hebrews 6: 4   For it is impossible for those who have been once for all enlightened, and have tasted  of the heavenly Gift, and were  made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the Good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall deviate from the truth, it is impossible for them to once again come to repentance ( which is a change of the mind) seeing that they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, or as brother Branham put it, they crucify themselves by rejecting This Word.

 

Hebrews 10: 26  For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the Truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for our unbelief.

 

2 Peter 2: 1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring I damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon them swift destruction...15 which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 17 these are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. 20 For if after they have escaped the pollution's of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the True proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her own wallowing in the mire.

 

1 Timothy 6: 3 => 8  If any man teach otherwise and consent no to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the Truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

 

2 Timothy 2: 12 => 19  4: 10 Demas totally abandoned Paul.

Luke 9: 62  And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.

 

Acts 7: 39  Whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust Him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt saying unto Aaron, make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

 

Punishment of renegades.

 

1 Chronicles 28:9  if thou forsake Him He will cast thee off for ever.

Isaiah 1: 28  The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed.

Jeremiah 17:5 Cursed be the man whose heart departeth from the Lord.

Ezekiel 3: 20 When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die:

Ezekiel 18: 24 But when  the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and commiteth iniquity, and doth according to all the abominations that wicked man doeth, shall he live?

Ezekiel 18: 26 When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and commiteth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.

Matthew 13: 20 But he that receiveth the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the Word, and anon with joy receiveth it. Yet hath no root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the Word, by and by he is (offended). skandalizo

John 15: 6  If a man abideth not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered: and men gather them into the fire, and they are burned.  

 

Brother Branham said Christ is the Doctrine. And he also said, any church without doctrine is not a church at all.  So a church must have doctrine and that is what these men have turned away from.

 

2 Timothy 4: 1 - 4  They shall turn away from strong doctrine.

 

I )  So what then is Doctrine?

John 7: 14 - 18  It is instruction and teaching.                             

 2 Timothy 3: 16

Titus 2: 1 - 15                               

Deut 32: 1- 2 Notice God’s Doctrine is the Rain                          

Acts 2: 42 doctrine 1st.

 

II) What does doctrine do for you?

Brother Branham said in His message "ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH" Now we have to come to full doctrine.... Then he said, I like good old meetings where the people are shouting and having a good time and the power of God is moving , but wait until the showdown comes and you don't know where you are standing. That is why the doctrine is so important.   From ENTICING SPIRITS he said "We preach doctrine to keep the people lined up.'

 

From " 3 KINDS OF BELIEVERS" he said, As long as he was healing the sick, everything was OK, but when he began to preach his doctrine, well...the doctrine is what separated the chaff from the wheat.

 

And finally he said, men who have the scriptures and know the teachings and doctrine but only know it by a mental conception rather than by revelation, that is the doctrine of Cain.

 

1 Timothy 4: 1 - 6   nourishes you             1 Timothy 4: 13 - 16  Saves you

Romans 6: 17 - 18 Sets you free               1 Corinthians 14: 6 it is to profit you

 

III )  Not just any doctrine will do. It must be God's own doctrine, His own teaching.

 

John 6: 44 - 45                          

2 John 9 - 10                                  

Hebrews 13: 1- 9

Ephesians 4: 14                    

1 Timothy 1: 1 - 7                                 

Romans 16: 17

Matthew 16: 6 - 12                

2 Timothy 4: 1 - 4

 

IV) That is why it is so important to mark those who are preaching true doctrine and those who are not.

 

Martin Luther's  "BONDAGE OF THE WILL" PAGE 43   Erasmus vs Martin Luther's understanding of free will.

 

Erasmus was a humanist and contemporary of Martin Luther. He was considered the greatest intellect in Europe in his day. And yet listen to what he said in his article against Luther called "the Diatribe". "The churchman should be wise not to bother his head about problems of doctrinal definition, but to concern himself simply with guiding his life by the moral law of Christ."   He sounds to me like so many of the ministers in this message. But that is only a humanist's thinking and not that of a Holy Ghost filled man.

 

On the other hand, Martin Luther's attitude was very different. To him, Christianity was a matter of doctrine first and foremost, because true religion was first and foremost a matter of faith ( which we know to be revelation); and Faith is correlative to Truth. In other words, it is dependent on Truth. Faith is trust in God through Jesus Christ as He stands revealed in the Gospel... Luther's first concern as theologian and reformer was with doctrine. He said, " I am not concerned with the life, but with the doctrines. And he distinguished himself as different from the other reformers because they focused only on the evil of the pope's scandalous life while he focused on the evil of the popes doctrine. Luther felt Revelation is not a mere hit or miss rationalization but a definitive knowledge and understanding about the God we serve.

 

2 Timothy 3: 10                                        

1 Timothy 5: 17                                     

Titus 1: 6 - 11

Isaiah 28: 8 - 13                                    

Matthew 7: 15 - 28                                   

Luke 4: 31 - 32

Job 11: 1 =>.