Follow Me #8
(Choice#2)
Wednesday Evening
Rev Brian Kocourek
To begin again, we need to take the picture
of rich young ruler off the wall and place in front of the pulpit or on the
easel while you preach.
[Joshua 24 : vs 14 sincerity = complete, whole, entire, unimpaired, with integrity and innocence
vs 15 evil = displeasing,
sad, injurious, to do you hurt,
In vs 15 Joshua is telling us that you will serve a god, whether it be the gods ofd the ammonites or the gods that the people
had before the flood, but they will serve some god who will direct their life.
And He is telling the people that they have to make that choice of who they are
going to serve, and who is going to direct their life... Therefore, when we are
dealing with this Message of brother Branham’s called Leadership-Follow Me, we
are dealing with the fact that we are made to follow,
only who or what we follow is the all important question. And As we hear Joshua bring the choice of who we will follow
right down to the people themselves, and then he tells us his choice is to
Follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now, let’s read this morning from
brother Branham’s message and see how He points out this same thing to us as
well.
61 Follow Me: And you girls that's just getting out of school, you graduate probably,
some of you, pretty soon, and you young boys; the greatest leadership there is
Jesus Christ, 'cause that's the leadership to Eternal Life. Now, this leadership confronts every human
being; they are given the opportunity to (1)choose. And that's one great thing we have in life,
is to (2)choose.
Someday... You know, papa and mama, they(3) chose to have a nice little boy and girl like you
all are. Then, you have the right, after
while, to (4)choose whether you want to learn from the teacher
or not. The teacher can teach you, but you can just be a little bad boy, you
just won't learn; a little, bad girl, won't listen at all. See, you have a (5)choice to
do that, yet you're little. And mother say, "Did you get A's on your report
card?" "No, I got very
poor." See, now you can... Mother say,
"Now, you have to study." And you have to do that then, keep studying
like mother told you, like daddy told you. See, you have to study. But you have a (6)choice, you can do it or not do it. You can say,
"I don't want to." See? You
have a (7)choice. You
know, Daniel had a choice too? When he was young he chose to learn all he could
and it set him in a place where One day God could use him in a mighty way
before the King to save God’s people.
Illustrate Daniel as a young man,
and Moses and Jesus.
66 After while, you'll have a (8)choice of what girl you are going to marry, what
boy you're going to marry. You have a
(9)choice
everywhere in life. [And what about Ruth? She had to make a choice between Boaz
and Tabor. And do you see how her choice was actually God’s choice?] And then you've got a (10)choice
again to whether you want to live after this life, or just be a good popular person, a movie star, or a dancer, or
something another.[Look at Moses, He chose as a young man the things of God
rather than the riches of Egypt. And what if he had chosen the riches of
69
Brother Leo here, your brother (See?) now he had a talent to come and
lead people. Now, what's he going to do with it? Is he going into business and make hisself
a millionaire; or should he come out here and make a home where people that
wants to come together and get all you little children? See, you have to (12)choose what
you're going to do. Each one of us has to make a (13)choice. And
it's confronted to us. But we're all confronted with this one thing: "What
are we going to do about Eternal Life? We going to
live hereafter or not?" Then we have to come to Jesus to get That. The opportunity of (14)choosing, that's one thing God gave us. He don't force nothing
on us. He just lets us make our
own (15)choice. So you have to not be forced, but
just make your own (16)choice.
71
Now, let's just follow this, adults and
all now, for a few minutes, and the children, all together. Let's follow this
young man, and the (17)choice that
he made, and see where it led him. Now, these girls with that
pretty voices, these young boys... Now, maybe you come up and be you'd have a voice to sing. I'll just take that one
thing: music. My, you might someday think about it.
You know this boy called Elvis
Presley? You've heard my tapes. You've heard how I don't degrade the boy,
but that boy was had the opportunity that you all got. See? And
what he... He found out he could sing. And watch what he did, just the
same thing Judas did, Judas Iscariot, he
sold out Jesus. Jesus gave that boy
that good voice. And what does he do? Turn around and sell it out to the Devil.
See? he's got to come to the end of the road. See? He
refused to walk with Jesus.
74
Now, this young fellow here, this rich young ruler, he did the same
thing. Let's follow and see what he done. No doubt, with the great man that
he was, probably a handsome young man, dark hair combed down on the side, nice
clothes. The young ladies thought, "Boy, that's a handsome young
man." Oh, they'd... He'd maybe wave at them, and they'd flirt back with
him, and things. And he thought he was a
great fellow, person (See?), because he was handsome, he was young. He wasn't
looking down there at the end of the road. He was just looking here. "I'm
young. I'm handsome. I'm rich. I can buy anything I want to. I can take these
girls, and, boy, they all like me. And they know I'm a great man." And,
see, he had all that. He had followed the instructions of his father and
everything. "And I'm very religious. I go to church." And now he
could follow that (See?), very popular, rich, and famous.
76 Just like today, like you had the opportunity
to become a movie star (See?) or something like that. Most young kids today,
you talk to them, they know more about these movie stars than they know about
Jesus. You see? And, see, you children are learning about Jesus. Where they set down, and some play come on a movie, or something
another, they know the actors and all there, all about it. They know all
that better than that. You tell them about the Bible; they don't know nothing about the Bible. See? It's making the wrong choice.
Now, some singer selling their God-given talent for fame...
77 Then we see him at life's end. Let's follow him a little further. You know
what the Bible says about this young fellow? He become
more successful. So
sometimes success don't mean that you've made the right choice. You
know what he did? He went out and he had all big times, and throwed big
parties, and spent lots of money and everything on the
girls and everything. And then he got
married and maybe had a family. And he just increased so much till he had
to build new barns and things. And he said, “You see, I didn't follow Jesus,
and look what I got." See? You may
hear people say that, and I have, "Well, look, He's blessed me." That don't mean it all. See? And after while his barns swelled till even
he said, why, even, "Soul, take your rest. I've got so much money and so
much success. And I'm such a great man. I belong to all the clubs. And I have
the riches of the world in my hands. I own great sums of land and sums of
money, and, why, my, there everybody likes me, a very fine person to
be." But you know, the Bible said
that that night, God said to him,
"I'm going to require your soul."
81 Then what did happened?
Now, there was a beggar, a poor old Christian that laid out there by his gates.
And just when they... Up in
86 Well, you know, after while,
this rich man, when he thought he had money to buy all kinds of medicine if he
got sick; he had all kinds of doctors. But, you know, sometimes doctors can't
help us; medicine won't help us; nothing can help us; we're at the mercy of
God. And he come down to the end of his road; the
doctors couldn't help him, and the nurses couldn't help him, the medicine
couldn't help him, and he died. And then when his soul left his body (See?), it
left all of his money, all of his education, everything that he had, all of his
popularity. They give him a great big funeral, maybe a half-mast the flag,
and--and the--the mayor of the city come, and they, and the preacher come and
said,
Follow Me #8 (Choice#2)
"Our brother now has gone to glory,"
and all like that. But the Bible said
that, "He lifted up his eyes in hell, in torment, and looked way across
that great gulf there, and seen that beggar that had been laying there in his
sore, over in heaven. And he cried, 'Send Lazarus down here with a little
water. These flames are tormenting.' Said, 'Oh, no.'"
88
See, he took the wrong choice in life.
See? When he come to the end of the road to step out
of life, he had been led by religion. He'd been led by education. He'd been led
by the influence of his--of his success. But, you see,
he had nothing to hold his hand; those things end there. You understand, little
fellow? You adults do what I'm... See? He had nothing to hold him. His money
couldn't hold him. His friends with the doctors couldn't hold him. Medicine
couldn't hold him. His priest, his religion, couldn't hold him. So was only one
thing for him to do. He'd--he had refused to accept Jesus, Eternal Life. So
what did he have to do? Sink down into death, into hell. What a fatal mistake
that young man had when he refused to walk with Jesus, be led by Jesus. He
refused to do it. So many young people
are making that mistake today, refusing to be led by the--by the Lord Jesus.
Now, we see what a fatal thing it is to refuse Eternal Life and be led by
Jesus, a leadership, when He said, "Come, follow Me."
90 See what this handsome little man said this
afternoon? When you get out of school, when you get away from, you need another
leader, but let that be Jesus. And Jesus
is the Bible. Do you believe that? This is Jesus' Life and His commandments
to us in letter form. So we have to look into This to
see. This is the blueprint. This is the map that He told is to follow to--to
begin Eternal Life. Now, we find out that this young man was lost.