MASTERPIECE No. 2
The Inexhaustible
Fountain of Life
Sunday,
April 17, 2005
Rev.
Brian Kocourek
This morning we will
continue from where we left off last Sunday concerning br. Branham’s message The
Masterpiece.
Last week we began our
study of this sermon where we began to look at Brother Branham’s prayer as he
opened up this sermon.
From his sermon, THE MASTERPIECE
64-0705 pp 2. Br. Branham began his prayer by saying “Lord Jesus, Thou the Fountain, inexhaustible Fountain of Life, and
then he continued with his prayer.
Now, this morning we want
to continue our study of this thought on this Inexhaustible Fountain of Life Last week we began this series by
examining this Great Fountain of Life and we began by going all the way back to
the beginning In Genesis 1:1 where we read, “In the Beginning God”…And we know that the word
for God here was taken from the Hebrew word “elohim” which means “the
self existent one”. So we see
then that there was a time that God dwelt all alone. In fact for an eternity in
the past God dwelt alone in a solitary existence. But in God was a great
fountain of Life. For God is Life. And in fact as brother Branham pointed out
here this Great Fountain of Life is inexhaustible.
Therefore
before we go any further lets talk about this word inexhaustible. What does it
mean, and why did he use this word to describe this Great Fountain of Life?
Webster
tells us the word inexhaustible means: that which can not be exhausted, more
explicitly, that which can not be used up or emptied, that which can not be
tired out.
Now,
that reminds me of what brother Branham would say concerning our asking God too
much for help.
He
was to pass this way 57-0727 P:7 Could you imagine, I've had people to tell me, "Brother
Branham, I would ask God to heal me, but I know He's busy." My, could you imagine a little fish about that
long, out in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, saying, "I'd better drink
of this water sparingly; I may run out someday." Ha-ha-ha. That's just
as intelligent of thinking that you could ever exhaust God's goodness to you. Could
you imagine a little mouse about that long under the great garners of Egypt
saying, "I'd just better eat two grains a day; it may not last through the
winter." Oh, my, you can't... He
wants you to ask abundant, so that your joys could be full. Don't be afraid to ask God for anything,
for He's willing, more willing to give it, then you are to receive it. If
we just get that little shadow wiped away to know that He's willing to do it.
You're His children; He loves you and He...You know how you like to minister
and to do good things to your children, how much... That very strain of fatherhood, of parent to your children comes from
God (That's right.), 'cause He's the Father of us all; and He loves us, and
He wants to do for us. If He can just get us lined up with the blessings and so
forth, He can trust us, then there's just... The heavens is open to all of us.
Now,
that is the key and notice how Brother Branham tied this into the Fatherhood of
God.
He
said, That very strain of fatherhood, of parent to your
children comes from God (That's right.), 'cause He's the Father of us all; and He loves
us, and He wants to do for us.
Now,
this is what I would like to talk about this morning. Brother Branham called it
the very strain of Fatherhood that was
in God to begin with and comes down to us.
Now,
we all now that a strain is something that is rightly divided or selectively
bred until it is in its purest form. The dictionary defines strain as a verb meaning: To draw off or remove by
filtration, but
when we use it as a noun we speak of
begetting, offspring, lineage, or breed. Thus this word speaks of a line of
individuals of a certain species or race
, that are differentiated from the main group by certain, generally superior
qualities as the result of selective breeding.
So
when brother Braham tells us “That very
strain of fatherhood, of parent to your children comes from God (That's
right.), 'cause He's the Father of us all;” he’s
telling us that God has filtered down His Life to certain individuals that cannot
help but to manifest His attributes.
Therefore
this morning I want to examine this process whereby God has taught us to
rightly divide His word because if the Word is not rightly divided, the Life
that is in it will not produce the results it was intended to produce.
So
we are looking at this inexhaustible Fountain of Life, and therefore we know
that all God-Life came from God, and the only source of eternal Life was in God
to begin with.
Last
week we found in JOHN 5:26 "For as the
Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in
himself;"
And
we saw that David described God as the Great Fountain of Life. PSALMS 36:9 "For with thee [is] the fountain of life: in
thy light shall we see light.'
And we found William Branham tell us from his sermon
series on 21-129
Hebrews 57-0821 "This
Great Fountain of Spirit which had no beginning or no end. This Great
Spirit began to form in the creation, and the Logos that went out from It
was the Son of God. It was the only visible form that the Spirit had. And
It was a theophany, which means a body, and the body was like a man.
Now, we know
that in Genesis 1:11 we are given the law of reproduction which says, every
seed will bring forth after its kind or nature. And then a few verses later we
find God saying to the Son of God “let us make man after our image”.
So we see that
man was made a spirit being. But God did not intend for man to remain a spirit
being, so in Genesis chapter 2 we see God clothing man with the dust of the
earth, and then God does something to that body to spark it off to life. We are
told in Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul.
Now, I want you to notice that when God
breathed into Adam, He breathed into Him the Breath of Life. Now, the original
does not say life as in a single life, but was given in the masculine plural
form which speaks of lives. Other wise
the life would have ceased to be after Adam. But in fact God placed in Adam all
the lives that he intended to come forth in His image.
So you see,
God was the great fountain of Life or lives, and we were in Him before he even
created the world. We were in Him in seed form which we were attributes of his
thinking.
EPHESIANS 1:3 ¶ Blessed
[be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly [places] in Christ: 4 According as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
without blame before him in love:
So we see that
we were first in God, and then when God breathed into Adam the breath of Lives,
and in Him was now the seed of every son or daughter of God that will ever come
forth.
I CORINTHIANS 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a
living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 46 Howbeit that was not
first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which
is spiritual. 47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the
Lord from heaven. 48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and
as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 49 And as we have
borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now, notice that
the life that God placed in Adam can only come forth by a rightly dividing of
the cells within that seed germ. Every seed
when it begins to reproduce itself, must
divide its cells and then as those cells divide they begin to multiply.
GENESIS 5:1 ¶ This is the book of the generations of Adam. (Now,
the Hebrew word for generations is a word that speaks of lineage, or genealogy,
thus the generations of Adam.) In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made
he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their
name Adam, in the day when they were created. 3 And Adam lived an hundred and
thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called
his name Seth:
Now, Adam had
in Him the breath of Lives, and when he begat Seth, that breath of Lives went
into Seth. Now, notice that Adam begat other children after Seth but there is
nothing said of them in the great lineage.
GENESIS 5:4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth
were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
Then Seth had
the lineage of God in Him, and as he began to bring forth the lineage of
God-Seed, he begat Enos, and in Enos was the breath of lives. GENESIS 5:7 And Seth lived
after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and
daughters:
And then Enos
begat Cainan and Cainan begat Mahaleleel begat Jared, and Enoch and we could
follow this lineage of the breath of Lives all the way to Jesus Christ if we
would turn to the book of Matthew where we are given this lineage of the breath
of God Life from Abraham up to Jesus.
Now, back in
the beginning we understand that the Serpent interjected his own life into the
life stream of God which is called the “River of Life” that had begun to flow
from the thrown of God down through Adam and into the lineage of sons, but
notice during the days of Noah that strain or God race had been interrupted and
now, the strain of life had become polluted, and the Lamb’s Book now became the
Book of Life.
Now, we are
still talking about this inexhaustible fountain of Life, but I want you to see
how that this fountain was in God, then placed in Adam as a steward, and then
into Seth and thus on down through the generations throughout time as we know
it, until our Blessed Saviour came on the scene.
Now, notice
that there came a time when there was no longer a pure stream of God-Life
coming forth, and thus we saw a certain development begin to take place. Out of
the same fountain came forth bitter and sweet. Out of the same loins came forth
a Jacob who Loved God’s word and Esau who could have cared less.
From the
message It wasn't so from the beginning 61-0411
P:50 Brother Branham said, “In the Old
Testament a child that was hybrid, borned out of holy wedlock could not even
come in the congregation of the Lord for ten generations: took ten generations
to breed it out. That's four hundred years to breed out a illegitimate child;
could not even come into the congregation of the Lord; hybreeding: a woman
vowed to her husband and live with another man and have a baby by him: a
horrible thing.”
Now, you might
be thinking in your heart, “and what does that have to do with us in
this day?” well, what I am trying to say this morning is this: These
men were entrusted with the Seed of God as each generation passed from one to
the next. The God seed of every child of God ever born was placed into Adam by
God himself, when he breathed into him the breath of Lives. Then when Adam
placed that seed into the bedding ground of his wife Eve, the God-Life was
passed from Him into the Seed that came forth from Him which was Seth. Now Seth
became the steward of the God-Life strain. Then from Him it was passed onto
Enos and on down through the ages from one son of God to another. We can see
how that each son of God had been entrusted with the God-Seed and yet we also
saw that others were also born from these same men and while some of the
offspring showed true attributes of God-Life, yet others born from the same vessel
that had been entrusted with the God-Life came forth and did not show the
attributes of God-Life.
Now, Jesus
told us in Matthew
13 that the Son of Man went forth sowing seed, and we know that
those seed are called the children of obedience and they were also called the
children of the Kingdom. We know those are God’s seed or god’s children.
In Mark 4 we are told by Jesus that the good seed that
was sewn is the Word of God. Now, I want
you to understand that those children were God-Breathed and thus the God-Strain
that came forth on down from the great Fountain of Life.
Blasphemous
names 62-1104M P:83 The Church is the mystical Body of Christ, borned of the breath of God. Did you get it? The Church of God is born of the breath of God. God breathed breath
into the nostrils, spiritually, of Adam, and he became a living soul. Did you
know the Pentecostals, or the true
Hear
ye Him 56-0930 P:14 Now, when a man is inspired and he reads the inspired Word, the two
inspirations together gives a result. Now, you can never... No matter how well
you study the Word, It'll never do you no good till you're inspired yourself.
It takes your inspiration with... The Word's already inspired. So what we need
today is an inspiration over us, God sweeping down with a new inspiration and
breathing over us His power, and His love, and Himself, that it might inspire
us to quicken us and waken us to His Word. And then the Word being brought into
that spirit of inspiration, then you'll see miracles happen, and things take
place, because the two just comes together.
Paul told us
in II TIMOTHY
3:16 that
the Word of God is God Breathed. He said, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, (that
word inspiration comes from the word inspire which means to breath) and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That
the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
II TIMOTHY 3:17 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful
for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. 17 so that the man of God
may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Now, we
also saw another man went forth sowing a different kind of seed, and he is
called the enemy (which we know is satan), and he went forth sowing seed also
and his seed that he sowed are his offspring and they are known as the children
of disobedience.
Now, what I am
driving at this morning is this: The Breath of Lives is God’s Word. We have
been given a stewardship of that Word. when we go back to the great Fountain
all that was there was the thoughts of God and when those thoughts began to
express themselves they expressed themselves as Word. in the Beginning was the
Word and the Word was God. And Jesus told us his Words were Spirit and Life.
John called them the Word of Life in 1 John 1, and in 2 Peter1:3 we are told
his divine Word hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and God-likeness,
through the knowledge of him.
So we see that
we have been entrusted with the very Seed of God, and as a good steward we are
to rightly divide it or it will not produce the Life it was intended to
produce.
Therefore as
you have be taught, when you recognize the word Christ is being used in a
sentence you are to look first at the context it is being used before you
determine what usage of that word is to be placed in your mind. If the context
speaks of the Father then we se Christ as the Anointer. If it refers to the Son
of God, or to others who are recipients of the anointing, then we look at the
word as Christ the anointed one. And if it speaks of the anointing, then we
simply see it as the anointing coming forth from the anointer to the
anointed.
The Septuagint
tells us that when Cain became angry because God turned down his sacrifice, God
said unto him, “You offered well, but you did not rightly divide” and thus
because of a wrong division the serpent was able to seduce eve and thus
injected a wrong life into the stream of Life.
With a wrong
division of the Word you make Jesus the Word in John 1:1 and then you have two
Gods.
Brother Branham
said, CHRIST
REVEALED IN HIS OWN WORD 65-0822M 74
To misinterpret Jesus Christ being the
Word, you'd make Him one god out of three, or you'd make Him the second person
in a godhead.
Now, we know
the word misinterpret means to interpret wrongly, so to interpret wrongly that
Jesus Christ is the Word would make him another God. We have a vindicated
prophet of God in this hour who very clearly defined the Godhead to us. He
said, God and Jesus are not one like your finger are one. He told us that Jesus
and God were one because God’s Word was abiding in Jesus and God Himself was in
Him. He told us the body was not deity but deity dwelt in the body. He told us
that Jesus was a dual being. He told us that there was a difference between the
Father and the Son, he told us God entered into Jesus in the river
Now, does it
make a difference? Yes it makes a difference. John said he that hath not the
doctrine of Christ hath not God, and then he told us what the doctrine of Christ
was. John told us in 2 John 8 that in order for you to have the Doctrine of
Christ you must have both the Father and the Son. And he said if any come to
you that doesn’t have this doctrine, don’t even let them into your house. Now
that is tough words. But then we must ask ourselves why he spoke with such
authority concerning this doctrine of Christ.
In 2 Corinthians
11 and Galatians 1 Paul was worried about the early church because they were
listening to those that were preaching another Jesus which he said was not
another as though they were preaching about some other man called Jesus, but
what they were preaching was a perverted understanding of the true Jesus and
thus the people were receiving another spirit which was not the Holy Spirit.,
but an unholy spirit
And unless you
understand the doctrine you will not rightly divide the Word of Truth. And if
you do not rightly divide the Word of Truth then it becomes a twisted word and
will bring forth a spirit of another nature. And if you let your children listen to that
kind of spirit then what kind of a steward of the Breathe of Life are you? He said, come out from among them and be ye
separate and then I will be you r God and a
Father unto you.
Look, because
of all the translation work I am involved with, I have found that when you have
a word, there are often various applicable words that can be used in the course
of the translation. If I say, “do you see what I am saying” the word see has
many different contexts that it can be used in. The word see can be used to
speak of physically looking with your eyes, or it can be used as a form of perception
of the mind. But in order to rightly divide the word you must be able to see
what context the word is used in and thus know what word you can use to get
that thought across.
Now, what if
you do not understand the doctrine? Then your translation will not be right? it
might be close by pure coincidence, but to be right on the money, it takes an
understanding of what is being said.
That is why if
I say, “Do you see what I mean?” One could translate that as do
you perceive in your mind what I am saying? and although they might be using
a different word altogether yet they are actually saying the right thoughts.
What if I
said, do you see the sea? You would have to translate that as a word for to see
with the eyes the sea.
Anyway, unless
you understand the doctrine and the context in which the word is used, to try
to take a scripture and just read it like a book can take you completely off
the straight and narrow, and you could easily pick up a spirit in doing so.
A week ago we
had a We had a discussion about Hebrews 1:8 which says, But unto the Son [he saith], Thy throne, O God,
[is] for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness [is] the scepter of thy
kingdom. 9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God,
[even] thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Now, if you do
not understand the doctrine of Christ you will make the same mistake as the men
who translated this verse of Scripture from the original manuscripts. Now, you
must understand that the men who wrote the different translations were doing
just that. They were translating what the original had said. But to translate
correctly we must understand the doctrine and to do so infallibly we must have
“thus saith the Lord” from a vindicated prophet.
That is why no
matter what translation you have there are what seems to be apparent errors.
And some translations have more than others. But when you go back to the
original understanding the errors are not there. Now, does that mean that we
should then just throw away our translations and say who needs it then? Not in
any way, shape or form. But that is why we needed a vindicated prophet to be
sent by God to straighten up the mess.
Now, let’s
loot Hebrews 1:8 for our example.
The King James
version says, Hebrews
1:8 But
unto the Son [he saith], (and unless you understand the doctrine of
Christ you will not know who is saying what. In fact in several other
translation they do not even use the words he saith because they are not found
in the original although they are implied.) So in reading from the KJV we read,
But unto the Son
[he saith], Thy throne, O God, [is] for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness
[is] the scepter of thy kingdom. 9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated
iniquity; therefore God, [even] thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of
gladness above thy fellows.
Now, it would
appear to the casual reader that God is talking to the Son of God and calling
Him God, but then we find in Verse 9 the other one is God, so which one is God?
You see how
the translation that is not accurate to the doctrine of Christ can throw the
reading off? Now, Scripture does not fight Scripture if it indeed is God
breathed. But that does not say that men’s interpretations can’t be off here
and there. Thus the whole of Scripture tells you that there is only One God,
and yet this apparent reading would make you think there are
more than one. For it reads as though One God is talking to another God.
In fact there
are several translations that actually say just that. (The Contemporary English
Version says) Hebrews 1:8 But God says
about his Son, "You are God, and you will rule as King
forever! And also we see (Worldwide English (New Testament
translation says,)
Hebrews
1:8 But here is what God says about
his Son: `O God, you will sit and rule for ever. You will rule in the right way.
Now, the
problem with most translations is that they used the previous translations to
translate from and used only the original as a dictionary. And on top of that
all the translations were done by Trinitarians, and no translation of the
original scriptures were done until men were thoroughly entrenched in the
doctrine of the trinity. So please do not tell me that your understanding does
not play a part in how you translate. It has all to do with your ability to
translate correctly.
Now, the
problem with this Scripture we are using for our example is the word unto that
was translated in the King James version was translated from the Greek word
Pros πρός, which
was used 73 times in the Scriptures and has 21 different English equivalent
word that were used by the translators. The most often word translated was the
word against which was used 21 different times. Then the word before used 9
times and the word toward used 9 times and then after that the other 18 were
used quite evenly.
|
NAS Word Usage -
Total:
73 |
|
about 1, accord 1, according 1, across 1,
against 21, among 5,
around 2, because 2, before 9, beside 1, end 1,
near 4, order 1, pertaining 4, promote 1, regard 1,
so 5, terms 1, together* 1, toward 9, whispered* 1 |
The problem is that the
main three equivalent words that are used by the Bible dictionaries are unto,
according to, and about.. But The Greek
word Pros:
is a preposition which denotes direction: In grammar, a preposition is a word
usually placed before another to express some relation or quality, action or
motion to or from the thing
specified: In this case the Greek word
pros is translated in Scripture as the following words: about, according to,
against, among, because of, before,
between but the main translations from the ancient Greek dictionaries use it in reference
to space or time but in reference to another being the word according is used.
Now to explain
what I mean by being able to use the right word in the right context let’s just
plug the three main words given by the Bible dictionary.
Let’s try the
one the King James used. But unto
the Son he saith.
Now, this shows direction towards the son, and leads on to think that someone
is going to say something about the son.
Now, the NIV
and several other translations use the word about instead of unto. But about
the Son he saith…Again
we see the direction is towards the son as though someone is going to say
something about the Son. And in both cases we know the one talking is God and
thus we find God calling the Son of God, God, making two Gods.
But let’s now take the third leading usage of the
word and insert it into the same equation. But according to
the Son he saith. Now, the insertion of these words makes the
sentence fit the entire rest of the Bible, and we are now expecting to hear
what the Son has to say. For if I say according to Ron he saith, I am not
saying, According to Ron and then say what Miguel is saying. If I say “Thus
saith the Lord,” then I had better follow up with what the Lord has already
said, or I will be guilty of injecting my own words into the mouth of the Lord
making Him a liar because He did not say it. And then actually we can not make
God a liar, but those who would say “thus saith the Lord when the Lord did not
say it, are only showing themselves to be the liars.
So I hope you
can see the importance of knowing the doctrine of Christ and I hope you can see
how easy it is to bring forth a totally wrong understanding simply by not understanding
the context of Scripture. And as Paul warned a wrong word can bring wrong
results and a wrong spirit.