Masterpiece 39

The Light of the World 

December 25th, 2005

Pastor, Brian Kocourek

 

1.  This morning we will continue in our study of the Masterpiece and we will pick up at Paragraph 50 and read through Paragraph 53.

 

2.  THE MASTERPIECE PP. 50 And now, to make the two one, He put them, like any great sculptor, in a place that's beautiful. A sculptor wouldn't make a great masterpiece and then take it and set it in a alley somewhere or hide it behind buildings. As our Lord told us, "A man doesn't light a candle and put it under a bushel." When we become God's masterpieces, we're not hid in a alley somewhere; we must give light.

 

3.    51 So we see that after He made this masterpiece. He placed it up here on the earth and put it in the most beautiful place there was, in the garden of Eden. He placed His masterpiece (the two being one) in the garden of Eden. How it must've pleased Him that He saw this masterpiece was well. After that we find out that He rested; He was so well pleased with His work.

 

4.  52  Now remember, that my opinion the masterpiece is the stroke that marred San Angelo's Moses masterpiece in the monument. And it was a stroke that cut the side of His masterpiece that brought out the bride. And now, we see them as a masterpiece family in the garden of Eden. How beautiful it was. And it so pleased Him, till He took rest then; He said, "I'll rest."

 

5.  Now as you may recall last week we brought out this point that the flaw is what produced a Bride in the Alpha, and thus as it was in the Alpha it must be in the Omega.

 

6.  We all think it a wonderful thing when we see the Life of the Son of God and we watch His life and how obedient He was to the Father. We see His complete surrender to the Will of the Father even to the point that it cost Him his Life. We saw in Scripture how that God indwelt that Body that was completely and totally without abandon subject to the Father, and we can say without reservation that the Son of God was God’s great Masterpiece of all ages.

 

7.  But let’s not stop there when we speak of the Masterpiece of God. For brother Branham said that the flaw is what really produced the Masterpiece in that statue of Moses. Therefore the flaw is what truly reflects the Masterpiece of God. And Just as God took from the side of Adam part of Adam to bring forth a Bride, so to God took the blood from the side of His Son when He hung there on the cross, and brought forth a Bride for His Son.

 

8.  And in this hour, God took another man, another son, and this one was born in sin, shaped in iniquity, and came to the world speaking lies. And God molded this son, and shaped this son so much like his first born Son, that we can say of this other son, that “He too “learned obedience by the things that he suffered”. 

 

9.  Now, this other son I am talking about is William Branham. We all know how God molded and shaped him by the things that he suffered, until you could see God living out His own Life and reflecting Himself through the very life that William Branham lived. And what is so remarkable about this son, William Branham is that God could take a person who was born into such a lowly and miserable existence and raise him up to reflect so purely the Divine Nature of God, that people even mistook Him for being God incarnate.

 

10.  Now, this morning I want to focus more on that flaw brother Branham was speaking of which made the Masterpiece truly a Masterpiece in its own right.

 

11.  In paragraph 50 of THE MASTERPIECE brother Branham said, A sculptor wouldn't make a great masterpiece and then take it and set it in a alley somewhere or hide it behind buildings. As our Lord told us, "A man doesn't light a candle and put it under a bushel." When we become God's masterpieces, we're not hid in a alley somewhere; we must give light.

 

12. 51 So we see that after He made this masterpiece. He placed it up here on the earth and put it in the most beautiful place there was, in the garden of Eden. He placed His masterpiece (the two being one) in the garden of Eden. How it must've pleased Him that He saw this masterpiece was well. After that we find out that He rested; He was so well pleased with His work.

 

13.  I really like this thought that brother Branham is saying about a masterpiece and where you would place it.  He said you wouldn’t take your best art work and place it on the wall of an alley, nor would you take it out to the forest and tack it on a tree where no one could appreciate it.

 

14.  Well, you might say, the Baby Jesus was born in a humble place, a manger. Yes, and you are correct, but the young baby Jesus was not God’s Masterpiece. That was the beginning of His work. Just like Michelangelo’s chunk of marble was not his masterpiece, either, but the masterpiece was cut out of the stone, just as God cut out a Masterpiece in His Son Jesus.

 

15.  Hebrews 5: 8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;

 

16.  And remember, that Jesus did not come forth teaching what he thought he should teach, he came forth teaching what the Father commanded Him to teach.

 

17.  John   14: 31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. Jesus was an obedient Son, and He knew that He was not sovereign, but that all the Father commanded of Him He was willing to do.

 

18.  Why, Because He said, John   12: 50 And I know that his (Father’s) commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.  

 

19.  And again we find in John   12: 49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.

 

20.  John   10: 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. (now, the oneness take this verse in conjunction with another that says all power was given unto Him as though there were no more power left but what was given unto Him. Which in their theology says that the Father ceased to be because the Son had all Power, and therefore the Father became the Son and then went back to being Father again. But they exclude in their teaching the last part of this verse where Jesus said,) This commandment have I received of my Father.

 

21.  So Jesus properly understood the sovereignty of God and that as a Son His Role was to be obedient, even to the point of death.

 

22.  Hebrews 5: 8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;

 

23.  After he suffered much publicly for teaching only what God told Him to teach, and remember we read in John 7:16 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

 

24.  And we also see in John 5: 19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

 

25.  And again in John 5: 30 Jesus said,  I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

 

26.  So we see that the will of the Father was the ultimate goal in the life of this obedient Son, God’s eternal Masterpiece.  

 

27.  John 4: 34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat (That means his food, or that which gives Him energy and sustains His very life) is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

 

28.  Luke 22: 42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

 

29.  And we have a promise that if we are obedient to the Father, that can only mean that we also are sons. Matthew 12: 50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

 

30.  Matthew 7: 21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

 

31.  So when Jesus had proved himself to the Father, to be an obedient Son in all things, to do only what God told Him to do, and to say only what God commanded Him to say, and to teach no other Doctrine that the doctrine God gave him to teach, and therefore giving up entirely his own will to the will of the Father, then God took him up to the top of the mountain and transfigured him before three witnesses, and declared openly, “This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him!”

 

32. Then, after declaring His masterpiece at this private celebration, God took His Masterpiece down from the mountain so that he could be shown to all mankind, for Jesus said in John 12: 32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

 

33.  So God brought His only Begotten Son down from that Mountain and presented Him to mankind as His Masterpiece, and he was brought up to the highest hill overlooking the most Holy city and displayed before the most holy people, on the most noted hill high above the city of Jerusalem for all to see. And there by God’s will he was set before a massive audience, and there God placed His Masterpiece on display in such a way that the entire city of Jerusalem, might view the Most Holy person, God’s Masterpiece.

 

34.  And so there they crucified Him, they nailed Him to e tree just like you would tack up a piece of art to display before all. Not in come back street alley, but before all the city to see. And that is what God has for us to do in this hour. He wants His Masterpiece to be seen, not hid under a bushel.

 

35.  In paragraph 50 of THE MASTERPIECE brother Branham said, A sculptor wouldn't make a great masterpiece and then take it and set it in a alley somewhere or hide it behind buildings. As our Lord told us, "A man doesn't light a candle and put it under a bushel." When we become God's masterpieces, we're not hid in a alley somewhere; we must give light.

 

36.  Jesus said in Matthew  5: 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

 

37.  And Paul told us in 2 Corinthians   4: 6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts,(why did God do this? So we can hide it from the rest of the world? No!! Paul continues) to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

 

38.  For Jesus said in Luke 11: 36 If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

                       

39.  Philippians  2: 15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and per: nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

 

40.  And that is why God has given us such great Light in this hour, By His Own Light that he came down in the form of the Pillar of Fire, and His Own Glorious Epiphanaea, His own Glorious Light shown forth in such a way that the Message and the Message Doctrine is known in every country on earth. And it must come to that because when we are gone from the earth, drawn up to heaven in the rapture, the Light of the world will cease for a period and then gross darkness shall cover the earth.

 

41.  The Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians   4: 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

 

42.  And thus when the Bride Groom has taken up His Bride the world will lay in darkness and the prophecy of Revelation 18: 23 will have been fulfilled.  And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

 

43.  Let us bow our heads in prayer. Dear Father we know that it all began when Your Glorious Light came to earth when Your first Born Son Jesus, was born and we know that, that same Light has come in this hour when other sons and daughters have been born into Thy Kingdom. Thy First Light and Thy Last Light are the same Light, which is the Light of Thy Glorious Appearing. Therefore, Father we are ever so careful to hear Thy Words of instruction to us. May we so reflect Thee and the Light of thy glorious Presence that we may shine as lights to this dying and dismal world.  As we see the world imploding upon itself, and the nations arising against nations, help us Father to stand as lights of Thy Glorious Presence ever reflecting thy Truth of this Message for we ask it in Jesus Christ’s name thy only Begotten full of Grace and Truth. Amen!