MASTERPIECE No. 14
What are you being pointed to?
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Rev. Brian Kocourek
This morning I would like
to continue in our study of Br. Branham’s sermon on The Masterpiece. This will be number 14 in our series
and we will pick up at paragraph number 14 as well.
The Masterpiece pp. 14. So I know no denomination or other to take you to.
There's only one thing I have my faith
in (if you believe me, follow what I tell you, because I believe the Bible), that's the Word of God. Other things fail. He is Life. He is the Word.
Now, this statement to me is major
because we have so many that will not take the people to the Bible. Instead
they will take many books of the prophet himself and read from a quote here and
then a quote there, and yet the very one they are quoting said the only place
he would take the people to is the Bible which is God’s word and therefore
God’s Life.
And these same people will point the
people to the Bride instead of to Christ the Groom. I just can’t understand how
they think. They talk in riddles to where one that has the mind of Christ can
not make out what they are saying. It is as though a spirit of darkness has
covered their eyes, to the prophets Message.
They take a few quotes from some of
brother Branham’s last sermons where he mentions you can’t go back to Luther’s
day or Wesley’s day or Pentecost because we are in the bride age, and they
focus on “The Bride Age” as though the Bride is the pre-eminent one in this
hour and not the Groom. They speak of having two souls where the first soul has
to die and then you receive another soul, but they deny scripture to do so.
They talk in mysteries surrounding the seven thunders, and their talk just goes
on and on in a circular argument that is flawed to begin with, and it just
makes me dizzy trying to figure out what they are driving at until I just
realize that they just don’t have a clue.
And they try to work themselves up into
some form of stimulation from revelation as though that proves they are right. Now,
just because you get stimulated does not mean that you have been revelated
correctly. The devil got Eve all stimulated and she thought she was revelated,
but false revelation can give you stimulation just as easy as true revelation
can. So don’t place your focus on the
stimulation you get from a wrong Word, you better place your focus on rightly
dividing the Word of Truth.
Now, the reason I feel led to focus on
this thought from paragraph 14 of the Masterpiece this morning is because we
have so many false doctrine right amongst us in this message because we have
people who have forsaken the word of God and have clung to their own ideas and
thus will clip out a quote here and one from there until they have the cow
eating grass up in the tree.
Irenaeus who was the
Now, I would like to add here that he is
about to tell us how they pervert the scriptures.
They gather
their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and, to use a
common proverb, they strive to weave
ropes of sand,
Now, before we move ahead, I would like
to ask, how can you weave ropes of sand? You can’t. By it’s very nature when
you pick up sand it falls apart. And if it were possible to make a rope of sane
by pressing it together in some was, you still could not bend it, because the
moment you tried it would disintegrate. And so Irenaeus has painted a picture
in our minds of the futility of these people endeavoring to make something work
and fit that has not possibility of working or fitting. And then he adds,
while they endeavor to adapt
with an air of probability to their own
peculiar assertions And I want you to get what
he is saying here. “while they endeavor to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions”,
and that is the key. It is their own
peculiar assertions that they are stating. They are no more interested in
proving God’s Word, but they are using God’s Word to declare their own notions.
The dictionary defines the word assertion
as: Something
declared or stated positively, often with no support or attempt at proof.
In other words, they don’t care what
God’s word really says, they’re more interested in what they think it should
say. But they know they must use the Word in order to give an air of
vindication to their own thoughts. But, they just use the Scriptures not caring
about order or connection, as long as it seems to fit their own notion, that is
what they aim for. Like so many who will read one or two verses of scripture
and then just talk, talk. Irenaeus said they are not interested in God’s
opinion, but their own, and so they use God’s word to try and fit it to what
they think instead of repenting which is a change of the mind and changing
their thoughts to what God’s opinion is.
So let’s read on what Irenaeus had to
say…while they
endeavor to adapt with an air of
probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the
sayings of the prophets,
(the same thing they do today) and the words of the
apostles, (Now, I want you to notice what he is driving at here.
He says they do it for a certain purpose,) in order that their
scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, and
now we have the motive for what they are doing.
They know they must have some sort of
credibility, and so they will use the Scriptures wherever it seems to them that
it might fit their scheme. And the word scheme is a secret or devious plan;
as Paul warns us in Ephesians chapter 4.
Ephesians 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and
carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
You can’t tell me that these men are just
simply ignorant and don’t really have bad intentions. The Bible speaks contrary
to that kind of thinking. Paul said they lie in wait to deceive. Now, to lie in
wait gives us a mental image of a lion, or some form of animal that would lie
along a path waiting for some person or animal that is helpless, and they lie
there and wait in order to spring upon them suddenly to over take them. As Peter said the devil is like a roaring
lion seeking whom he may devour.
And the Apostle
Paul also said in, Hebrews 10: 26 For if we sin
willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there
remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, and
that is like the guy I caught years ago deliberately misreading a quote from
Brother Branham so that he could get some people to believe his notion that you
had to have a vision of Jesus to receive the Holy Ghost.
He deliberately changed the words of brother
Branham when Brother Branham said you must have revelation. The man instead of quoting verbatim the word
revelation, instead inserted the word vision, as thought brother Branham was
saying you had to have a vision in order to receive the Holy Ghost. inserted
the word “vision”, thus using the sentence of the prophet but changing
the key word in order that his scheme may not seem altogether without support.
And where is that guy today? He’s messed up worse than Hogan’s goat and his
wife turned to drugs and adultery. And that’s what happens when you haven’t any
respect for God and try to use His word in any other way than what He meant it
to be used for.
He said, My thoughts are not your
thoughts for my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. And he also told us
that no man can know the mind of the God unless the Spirit of God is in Him. So
you see when they are not born again they will just punch away at the message
at this quote and that quote until they find themselves out on a limb that
there is now way they can come back.
And notice what Irenaeus says next
because he was speaking of what happened
in the first church age after Paul had left the scene, and of those things
which carried over into the age he was living in, after the people in the first
age had left their first love. And we see the same thing taking place even in
this hour. And notice the way they use the Word of God and the Prophet’s own
words, but take them out of context and twist them so as to make their own
doctrines seem vindicated.
Irenaeus continued, “however, they disregard the order and the
connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy
the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one
thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in
adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions.
Now, The Apostle Peter warned us about
this in 2 Peter 2. ¶ But there were false prophets also among the
people, even as there shall be
(That’s future tense) false teachers among you, who privily (that means
not openly but in a subtle manner, they) shall bring in
damnable heresies, (so the
question is bring into where? The Wuest Translation tells us that these false teachers
are of such a nature that they will bring in along side of the truth
destructive heresies) even denying the Lord that bought them, (that word
deny means to “say no to” or to disregard or refuse) and (in doing so they will ) bring upon
themselves swift destruction. 2 And many
shall follow their pernicious ways; (and brother Vayle told us years
ago that this word pernicious means bloodless, so they turn down the blood in
turning down the one that bought them) by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. (Notice
that what these men do is bring the way of Truth into disrepute. In other words
they become a stain on the true revelation of Jesus Christ and those who stand
for the Truth and are identified with the Messenger of Truth, but because they
have come in along side of the truth and preach their heresy, they bring the
rest of us who are doing all we can do to stand, and by association, the entire
message is looked down upon and the reputation of God’s Servant William Branham
is brought into question.)
Now, notice verse 3 ¶ And through covetousness (so we see their motive is greed) through their greedy desires to have more shall
they with feigned words (feigned words To give a false appearance or to represent
falsely or words that are made up with the
motive to deceive, or
to imitate so as to deceive: so you can see their entire motive is deception,
and that is for the purpose to) make merchandise of you: So we see
the real motive is money, money, money. Then these men are just peddlers of the
Message. Mere Hirelings.
“whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their
damnation slumbereth not.
Irenaeus continues, Their manner of acting is just as if one, when
a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skillful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this
likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them
together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly
executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful
image of the king which the skillful
artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted
together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter
one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive
the ignorant who had no conception what a king's form was like, and persuade
them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image
of the king.
Now, notice today we have The Masterpiece
which is King of Glory Himself presented
to the people by the Words of a Vindicated Prophet, and he crafted His words so
carefully and in such a way, as to present to us what He saw, when he said, “My
ministry is to declare Him, that He is here.” And “ He is “the Supreme Deity”
who has come down in our midst. And in
doing so revealed and unveiled “the Mighty God Unveiled” to us, but since that
prophet is no longer on the scene to protect The image of this Masterpiece,
others have come along, and have taken his quotes that presented to us the
Mighty King of Glory, those jewels that Irenaeus spoke of, and they have
disassembled the Message into sound bites, and quick quotes, and have
reassembled them or rearranged them into the image of a dog or a fox and they
have canvassed the world presenting their own opinions as the Image of “The
King”.
And Irenaeus continued, “In like manner do
these persons patch together old wives' fables, and then endeavor, by violently
drawing away from their proper
connection, words, expressions, and parables whenever found, to
adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions. We have already stated
how far they proceed in this way with respect to the Fullness.”
JOHN 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of
him that sent me. 39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that
of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up
again at the last day. 40 And this is
the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth
on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. 41
The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down
from heaven. 42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose
father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from
heaven? 43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among
yourselves. 44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw
him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets,
And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and
hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. 46 Not that any man hath seen the
Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. 47 Verily, verily, I
say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. 48 I am that bread
of life. 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This
is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not
die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of
this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh,
which I will give for the life of the world. 52 The Jews therefore strove among
themselves, saying, How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat? 53 Then Jesus
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is
drink indeed. 56 He that eateth my
flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. 57 As the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me. 58 This is that bread
which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead:
he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. 59 These things said he in
the synagogue, as he taught in
And that is what Brother
Branham is telling us here when he says in PP 14 of The Masterpiece, “So I know no denomination or other to take you
to. There's only one thing I have my
faith in (if you believe me, follow what I tell you, because I believe the Bible), that's the Word
of God. Other things fail. He is
Life. He is the Word.
Where can we go? Right to the Word every time, for
in Him was Life and the Life was the light of man.
John 8: 12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the
light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall
have the light of life.
So you see He
is the light and in Him is no darkness at all. In Him there is no confusion, in
Him there is no uncertainty, 1 John 1: 1 That which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 2 (For the life
was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that
eternal life, which was with the Father,
and was manifested unto us;)
And finally in 1 John 5:11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us
eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. (Notice in the Gospel of John we are told
that the Life was in the Father and it was given unto His Son John 5:26 For as the Father
hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
)
Now, let’s go back to 1 John 5:11 And this is the
record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.12 He that hath the Son
hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. 13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name
of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may
believe on the name of the Son of God.
Now, if God is
the Word and He is life, then to receive His word will bring His very Life into
you.
Court trial 64-0412 P:75 How many
believes that the Spirit of Christ is the Holy Ghost? Of course it is. There's
no three or four gods. There's only one God. There's three attributes of God: Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, but they're not three gods. That's heathen. See, there's
only one God, and that's attributes. God, the Father, was in the wilderness as a Pillar of Fire. All right. God, the Father,
created a body which was God, the Son,
and lived in the Son. See? God was
in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. You believe that? If you're a
Christian you believe it.
Spoken word original seed
62-0318E P:13 God the Father was a God
that lived in the Pillar of Fire. He was trying to draw
Invisible union of the
bride 65-1125 P:33 And so was God manifested in the beginning. And finally He would
appear as Jehovah, God the Father. Then He
appeared as God the Son in Jesus Christ. Now, He's appeared as God the Holy
Ghost, the same God all the time, three manifestations of the same God.