Follow Me #3
(False Shepherds and the Spirit of Destruction)
Sunday morning
Rev Brian Kocourek
Last Sunday we continued looking
into Brother Branham’s Message (Follow Me), and we read paragraph 10-11
where Brother Branham said, “I want to
take for a text, "Follow
Me," and I want to take for a subject: "Leadership." Follow, and
someone to lead; "Leadership,"
and "Follow Me." The young
people, Remember that the first step
that any of us ever made, somebody led us. You mothers remember the first
steps that junior and the little girl made, and they don't remember it no more.
But somebody led you to your first step....He
continued by saying, We have to be led. You know, God
likened us unto sheep. And did you know
a sheep can't lead itself? He'll wander away and stray away, and he just can't
lead himself. And he has to have somebody to lead him. And
sometime... The shepherd's
supposed to lead the sheep.
We focused our message around these
thoughts of Brother Branham and [Romans
I.
God Created man to follow. Therefore it is in the nature of every man to
follow.
II. We
follow because we have confidence and trust in the one who is leading. That is why Jesus Himself
came as an example for us that we might learn to follow the leadership of the
Holy Spirit as He did. He said, The Son can of Himself do nothing, but
whatsoever He seeth the Father do, that the Son doeth likewise.
III. We
follow because we are asked to follow. And by thus following the Word of God,
we show forth an evidence in our life of subjection to
the Father in all things. The Scripture teaches us that even Jesus learned
obedience by the things which He suffered. Therefore, obedience to our Father
is the Supreme desire that our Father has for each one of us. Samuel the
Prophet said, “To Obey, is better than sacrifice, and to hearken tot he Word of
the Lord is better than the fat of rams.” Meaning this, no matter how good your
sacrifice may be, without obedience it doesn’t mean a thing to God.
Now, this morning I want to continue
with reading this Message of Brother Branham if we might, let’s continue at paragraph 24 We have to be led. You know, God likened us unto sheep. And did you know a sheep can't lead itself?
He'll wander away and stray away, and he--he just
can't lead himself. And he has to have somebody to lead him. And
sometime... The shepherd's
supposed to lead the sheep. Now, that was back in the days of the Lord
Jesus; He was the good Shepherd that led the sheep. But today (You see?), we're living in another day; everything's changed and perverted. You
know what man has to lead sheep today? A goat. And you
know where that goat leads them? Right into the slaughter.
The little sheep don't know where they're going, so the goat goes up a--a pen,
up at the slaughter, and the sheep don't know no more than to follow a leader,
so it leads them right up into this slaughter. And then the goat jumps over the
track, and the sheep goes in and gets killed. See, the goat, a wrong
leader... But Jesus, the Good Shepherd Who led the sheep, He led them to Life and held their hand.
See, but somebody has to lead the sheep.
Did you notice that Brother Branham
said that We have to be led. Then if we have to be
led, we can not get away from this fact. We are made that we will follow
someone, and where you end up is all dependent upon who you are following. He
went on to say, The shepherd's supposed to lead the
sheep. Now, that was back in the
days of the Lord Jesus; He was the good Shepherd that led the sheep. But today
(You see?), we're living in another day;
everything's changed and perverted.
You know what man has to lead sheep today? A goat. And
you know where that goat leads them? Right into the slaughter.
The little sheep don't know where they're going, so the goat goes up a--a pen,
up at the slaughter, and the sheep don't know no more than to follow a leader,
so it leads them right up into this slaughter.
Now, I would like to address these
thoughts here before we go any further in this message. We shall take for our
subject this morning the notion of False leaders leading to slaughter,
and we will subtitle this message, “False shepherds and the Spirit of
Destruction. Now, if you will notice, Brother Branham is speaking of
people being likened to sheep and that isn’t so unusual to hear because it is
very scriptural. David in the Psalms said, “All we like sheep have gone astray.”
Follow Me #3 (False Shepherds and the Spirit of
Destruction)
[Isaiah 53:6] Let’s read it for ourselves to see what else is said
about the behavior of man.
[Psalm 100:3] And I want you to understand that the scripture refers
to false shepherds as goats.
[Zech 10:3]
[Jer 25:34]
Now, what we are talking about is
the fact that we as sons of God are made to follow. God placed it in our nature
to follow, and therefore we have got to follow someone. Therefore, God placed
over His people shepherds, spiritual shepherds just as sheep need a shepherd in
the natural so to we as people need spiritual shepherds to lead and guide us
into the right pasture. Now, where we have our problem is when we have a
shepherd who is not a genuine true Five-Fold shepherd, but rather a goat like
brother Branham is telling us here. And notice what he said the false shepherds
will do. They will lead the sheep to the slaughter which is to destruction.
Now, we should never pretend that
everything is so wonderful that there does not exist
men of such a nature that would purposely lead people to the slaughter. Jesus
was very plain when he spoke of wolves in sheep’s clothing. But He also told us
how to watch out for these false shepherds. [Matt 7:15-20] Now here we find Jesus speaking of false prophets who
have the nature of wolves in sheep’s clothing.[Act
[2 Peter 2:1-3] Here we have false teachers who bring in among the
true a false doctrine from the outside. Now, I would like to ask you, where did
this female holy Ghost stuff come from? It did not
originate in this message. I have shown you full page articles in the Dayton
Daily News where the Methodist church has re-written their song books to change
the masculine form of God so there would be a feminized form as well. This doctrine
came from the outside, and that ought to be clue enough of that it is wrong.
[Jer 23:20-32] Again we see that these men are completely out of the
will of God. God never sent them, but they go forth with a message anyway. Now
you know from many times having heard the words from this pulpit that the Word
is a seed. And not only the Word of God is a Seed but all words are seeds. The
Word of God happens to be an incorruptible seed, but there is also a
corruptible seed. [1 Peter 1: 23] Now,
ifg there is a corruptible seed it has to be something other than the True Word
of God. Therefore it is corruptible of perverted. And every seed when planted
will bring forth children of that seed. In other words every seed will produce
a product of the seed nature or seed life that is in that seed. [Gen 1:11] & [Matt
Now, we know by having heard Brother
Branham tell us in the Message “Preparation”
he said, “God can not send destruction before the people are in the spirit for destruction. God
never did destroy anything. Man always destroys himself.” Therefore we
see that if man is created to follow, then someone has to lead them to this destruction
or this spirit for destruction. someone has to lead
man into this condition, and remember, judgment begins where? At the House of the Lord. Right?
Now, we found brother Branham speaking
of this end-time where shepherds used to lead, now
goats are leading. he said, “we're living in another day; everything's
changed and perverted. You know what man has to lead sheep today? A goat. And you know where that goat
leads them? Right into
the slaughter. The little
sheep don't know where they're going, so the goat goes up a pen, up at the
slaughter, and the sheep don't know no more than to follow a leader, so it
leads them right up into this slaughter.
Now, 2 other things I want you to notice that he is saying here. 1) He said that everything is changed
and perverted in this day, and number 2)
he tells us that the sheep or people don’t even know where they are headed.
They are just following. And that is the saddest thing of all. The people have
become like dumb driven sheep and don’t even know that they are following one
who is leading them to the slaughter which is the great tribulation.
Now, in focusing our thoughts here
on these two things, I want you to notice as we combine them together into one
thought and that is this, The ones who are leading the people to the slaughter
are false shepherds who are leading by changing the true leadership of the Holy
Spirit and by substituting another Gospel they have perverted the True leadership of the Holy
Spirit and the people are just blindly following this wrong leadership and do
not perceive what is going on and the people are therefore being set up for the
great tribulation. But before they can receive this great tribulation, they
must have a spirit to receive it.
Follow Me #3 (False Shepherds and the Spirit of
Destruction)
Now, look. In each age we see God
send forth a certain spirit among the people and when the people entered into
that spirit, they were given every thing needed for their day. During the dark
ages they received the spirit of the ox, which helped them go through the great
inquisition. They became like the sacrificial ox. Slain on
the altar of the Catholic system. During the age of the reformation they
received the spirit of a man, and the age of Wisdom prevailed and great things
happened where the mind of man began to speak great words which brought about
great enlightenment. And we know this is the age of the eagle. And the thing
about the Spirit of the eagle is that He is a loner and he can rise above all the storms and see way past the present and
with such great eye sight the eagle is likened to a prophet. Now, what if this
Spirit of the eagle is given to only the elect? Then what about those who are
not in that election? What Spirit will they receive?
[II Thess 2: 10-12] Now, notice in verse 10. The scripture here speaks
of those who are to perish. This word literally means destruction. So we see
here a group of
people who are ordained to perish, or be destroyed. The WUEST Translation says,
“this
wicked deception is geared to the gullibility of those who are perishing, and
this gullibility is caused by the fact that they did not accept the love for
the Truth to the end that they might be saved.
And therefore God will send them a deluding influence resulting in their
believing the Lie in order that they might all be judged who did not believe
the truth but took delight in wicked understanding.”
Now we know that by Preaching a
wrong Gospel, they are in fact leading the people to another Jesus other than
the Real Jesus. And by opening up to this other Jesus they are receiving
another Spirit, other than Spirit of Truth. [2 Cor 11: 2-4] & [Gal 1: 6-7] And
notice that this other Gospel is a perverted on.
Now, I would like to present to you with
this thought, this morning. Is it possible that this Spirit for destruction
that Brother Branham said the people would have to be in is this other spirit?
Well, if it is then there has to be scripture for this, right? Remember in [Romans
Now, I believe that a man becomes his
revelation or what is revealed to him. A
man becomes what is revealed to Him. Remember, “ As a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” Right? Then what you think, what has been revealed to
you is what you become. That is why Abel offered unto God a bleeding dying lamb.
Why? Because he became that bleeding dying lamb, even though you could say that
his Revelation was a foreshadow of the Coming Lamb of God, yet it was God’s
Seed in him that was reflecting that Revelation to Abel, and that is what Abel
offered back to God, and that is what He became, when Cain slew him and His blood
was spilt to the ground.
Enochs revelation translated him,
but Noahs revelation took him through the flood. Many
men dies by giving their flesh and were martyred for
their testimony but that was not Martin Luthers revelation. The Just shall LIVE
by faith. His revelation was to live, and not to perish. Yet we know that
during the dark ages the spirit of the ox was upon the people and many were
slaughtered like sacrificial oxen. The beast of burden.
I believe that the Elect have a True
revelation of what the Rapture of the Bride is all about, and the Elect truly
believe that they will be caught up from this dimension into that other
dimension at the time of the Voice because they know that they are forgiven and
they have been laying in the Presence of the Son to Ripen. But what about the foolish
virgin? Brother Branham told us that they will have to go through the
tribulation and shed their own blood because they did not believe that the
blood of Jesus Christ was strong enough for their sins.
Now, Brother Branham said the people
had to be in the spirit for destruction before God could bring destruction. We
know that the people are fitted for destruction which means they are joined
perfectly together for it. and yet how do they get
into this spirit? They are anointed to it by receiving another Gospel first,
another Jesus, and finally they are anointed with another spirit. The spirit for destruction.
Now we find in [2 Thess 2: 11] That God will send them a strong delusion, and that
word delusion is a Greek word plane (plan ay) and it is the feminine version of
planos.
Follow Me #3 (False Shepherds and the Spirit of
Destruction)
Now, it is a strange thing that this
word has a feminine quality to it because we see it spoken of in a perverted
form of the feminine act according to Paul in [Romans 1:27] Now, if you were to follow this word (plan ay) through
you would find that it is a spirit of error upon the people and brings forth
lust. Therefore it is an unclean spirit as we see in [2
Pet 2:18] & [Jude 1:11] And what was the error of Balaam? It had to do
with sex and women.
Then how does this spirit for
destruction come? By wrestling with the Scriptures to make them say what they
want them to say. Like the Holy Spirit is the feminine part of God. Or The Holy
Spirit is
feminine in nature. And why do they go after these false deluding doctrines? Because they don’t have an
understanding of the Scriptures to begin with. [2
Peter 3: 15-17]
The word plane (plan-ay) means “a
wandering or straying about, whereby one being led away from the
right way roams hither and thither. The word has to do with a mental straying, error
or wrong opinion which
leads to wrong actions, fraud and deceit.
[1 Tim 4:1] And the trouble is the little sheep don’t know where these seducing spirits and doctrines of devils is leading
them to. But Brother Branham told us where they are leading them. He said, “Right
into the slaughter. The little
sheep don't know where they're going, so the goat goes up a pen, up at the
slaughter, and the sheep don't know no more than to follow a leader, so it
leads them right up into this slaughter. [2 Tim 4: 3-4] The Wuest translation says, “For the time will come when they
will not endure our wholesome doctrine in that they will hold themselves firmly
against it, but, dominated by their own personal cravings, they having ears
that desire merely to be gratified, shall gather themselves together an accumulation
of teachers. In fact from the truth they also will avert their ears, and as a
result, they shall receive a moral twist which will cause them to believe that
which is fictitious.
The Weymouth Translation says, “For a
time is coming when they will no longer tolerate wholesome instruction, but
wanting to have their ears tickled, they will turn away from listening tot he
truth and will turn aside to fables.
And the Amplified version says, For
the time is coming when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and wholesome
instruction, but having ears itching for something pleasing and gratifying,
they will gather to themselves, one teacher after another to a considerable
number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors that they
hold.
[Hosea 4:9] And there shall be like people
, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them
their doings.
The scripture plainly tells us here
that God will allow to be raised up a ministry that will speak to the people
the things they like to hear. You know, that is everywhere you look today. And
yet while the people are hearing what they want to hear they are swiftly headed
for destruction. [Jer 23:1-4]
[Ezek
34:1-15] Notice this is at the time when the Lord Himself will get involved
and will cause us to lay in His Presence and ripen.
[Isaiah
56:10-12]
[John 10:1-16] Jesus speaks of the Good Shepherd versus the hireling
[Jer 33:11-12] The good shepherds cause their sheep to lie down
[1 Pet 5:4] when the Chief shepherd shall appear