Masterpiece 56
God smote IN
the image
April 1st, 2006
Pastor, Brian Kocourek
2. THE MASTERPIECE 64-0705 78 So God, in
order to be smitten Himself, because to pay His own penalty, God and Christ
became One, so God could be smote in
the image, He could be scarred.
3. Now, the great
debate in Christianity is whether God died on the cross or not. The
Trinitarians worked out a comfortable explanation for themselves by making
three “who’s” in one “what”. They say there are three “persons” or entities that make up the One God. God then to them is
the “what”, and the three “who’s” that make up this One “what”, are the Father,
the Son and Holy Ghost. Then when they are cornered using the term person, they
switch the concept to three separate individualities of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, as distinguished from the essence of the Godhead that unites them.
4. But no matter which
way they want to slice it, they worship God in a way which is strictly pagan
because there God is three persons no matter how you try to dilute it. And to
worship three beings as gods means you are worshipping three god’s, not one.
They refuse the believe that God is only One and not three. They claim He is
One God but this one God apparently is a committee. That is the only way you
can explain three who’s and one what. It has to be a committee. Then God is not
one, he is three.
5. Now, brother Branham said in his sermon called, UNCERTAIN SOUND
62-0714 PP 71 Intellectual, they don't want somebody to really stand up
and pull the Scripture out and show it. They want somebody that's trained to
bypass It. They don't want to know that.
Oh, they just can't stand that. Fish and loaves is fine. But Jesus done the same thing. What
a wonderful prophet. The little prophet of
6. So you see they are
trained in their schools to learn how to get around the Scripture so they can
hold to their false Babylonian Triad as their Deity and they justify in their
own minds that they are worshipping the true Deity when they are in no way,
shape or form worshipping the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
7. Yet if you tell
them that those entities are three manifestations of the one true God they will
call you a heretic because you do not believe in three persons in the trinity.
And they will say you are teaching Modalism which is what the Oneness or
Unitarians believe.
8. Then when you show
them that the word trinity is nowhere to be found in Scripture they will “hem”
and “haw” but finally they must admit to that, but then begin treading into
another excuse and will try to show you the word trinity is only a concept that
was given to explain how there are three persons in one Godhead.
9. Now when you get
down to the definitions of what makes up a person, “That there must be an
individual soul and Spirit, they wiggle away from that and admit that although
the word trinity is not even used in the Scriptures, yet it is all through the
scriptures and will try to tell you that there are over 700 verses of scripture
where the essence of Trinity is found. Yet there is not even one verse of
scripture where the essence of trinity is found, because trinity is a pagan
concept.
10. The same
Scriptures you use to show that there is one Father and He had a Son are the
same Scriptures where they say, See, there is a difference between the Father and
the Son, “THEREFORE they say, there are more than one person in the Godhead”. Yet the Bible in no
place says that. It says the fullness of the Godhead was IN, came into the Son.
But we have the same battle with the Oneness in this Message because they will
also take the quotes and say, “see Jesus is His own Father”, but they have
trained themselves to throw out all quotes contrary to that, where William
Branham said, “How can he be his own Father?”
11. Therefore no
matter how it is read, the Scriptures take revelation to understand them. But the Trinitarian will say it takes
revelation to understand the Godhead their way, how that there can be one God
and yet three persons. Next, the Oneness come along and they will tell you that
it takes revelation to understand the Godhead as well, and they will tell you
that Jesus was His own Father and that God died on the cross. Then they will
say that takes revelation to understand. But Jesus said it is hidden from the
wise and prudent and revealed to babes such as will learn.
12. Luke 10:21 In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank
thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for
so it seemed good in thy sight.
13. So herein is the
case made simple. All three groups, the Trinitarians, the Oneness and those who
believe Jesus say it takes revelation. We all agree that it takes revelation.
14. So which revelation?
The Trinitarians say it take revelation to believe the Godhead their way, and
the Oneness say it takes revelation to believe the Godhead their way, and both
claim it is a mystery. Yet Jesus said Himself that it was hidden from all but
revealed only to babes such as will learn. Therefore it is not to be revealed
to any except babes such as are willing to learn. Those willing to learn are
the only ones that will come to the Truth, and those unwilling to learn will
miss it altogether.
15. Jesus said in John 6:45 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.
16. So unless you
learn or are willing to learn God will continue to hide the mysteries of His
word from you.
17. Now, we know the
scripture tells us there is One Lord, and One Faith, and we know that Faith is a Revelation,
something that has been revealed, or it wouldn’t be Faith. That is what brother
Branham said in the Rapture sermon. He said, “Faith is a Revelation, something that has
been revealed.”
18. But all three camps claim to understand the Godhead correctly because
all three claim to have received it by revelation. Now, if all three have a
revelation concerning this One Lord, and yet their revelations all disagree
with each other, then how can the ones that are wrong have a true revelation?
You see, just because you claim it has been revealed to you, doesn’t make it
so. It is obvious that the Trinitarian’s claim that they have the true
understanding of the Godhead, and yet what they believe originated in
Babylonian polytheism, and the Babylonian Triad of Anu the Father of the Gods,
Anu the son god and Ea the Wind god. Therefore Trinitarian belief is stooped in
idolatry.
19. But then the Oneness or Unitarian’s also claim to have the truth
concerning the Doctrine of Christ and yet they do not believe the doctrine of
Christ as the Apostle John described it, because the Apostle John said, “He that hath the
doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son”. And yet the
Oneness do not believe that God had a
son that was distinct from Himself, so they do not believe the Doctrine of
Christ, nor do they believe the record that God gave of His Son.
20. So then who has the correct revelation? Well, revelation comes from
the root word to reveal. Revelation then, is something that has been revealed.
Now, Revelation is not a dumb guess, nor is it an educated guess. Revelation is
not a think so, nor a hope so. Revelation is something that is revealed. Then
if Revelation is something that is revealed it is expedient that the one who
has the right source revealing is the one who will get the right understanding.
21. So you see, revelation outside
of vindication is not revelation at all. Many people read books for hidden
meanings and like puzzles they look for words, and for sayings and try to find
hidden messages in them. That is what the Bible code is all about. I am sure
God does have hidden mysteries in His word because He told us so.
22. The Apostle Paul said, 1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God
in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto
our glory:
23. So we know that
God has a hidden wisdom because we just read it, but then if that be so, and we
know that it is so, then how did God say He would reveal it to us? Although God has hidden
mysteries in His Word, He also has said that he has given us a way to let us
know what those hidden mysteries or hidden messages are.
18. He told us there is a way for you to know the hidden truth. And it
must come by God’s vindicated channel or way or else how do you know that what
you are getting isn’t some piece of fiction or not.
24. Now, there are those who believe God has given them the computer to
find all the hidden things. Some look for a Bible code using computers to find
it while others think that if they can get all of the Bible or all the message
on a computer searchable format then they will be able to look up everything
and then they will have access to understanding all the mysteries. But the reality is that God never said he
would send forth a computer to reveal His Word. He said He would send us a
prophet to reveal the word.
25. Amos Chapter 3 Verse 7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he
revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
26. So, therefore, if what you have received is not what the truth is, then
it is not revealed to you. If there is something that is hidden and you think
you have it and don’t, then that what you have is not what is actually hidden
and revealed.
27. Jesus said in Matthew 13: 12 For whosoever hath, to him
shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Now, this means that if you do not
have it then you only think you have it. And there’s a difference between
thinking you have something and actually having it.
28. Luke 8: 18 Take
heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and
whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have. It didn’t say they had it, it said they only thought
they had it. It seemed that that had it. Now, the word seem, means to appear to
ones own mind. So you see these people were living in some sort of delusion,
because what they thought they had they didn’t really have. It only seemed to
them that they had it but in reality they did not.
29. You’ve got to be certain of God. And what I am
certain of is that William Branham was vindicated by the Very Presence of God
Himself, and this one that was vindicated said, THE MASTERPIECE 64-0705 78 So God, in order to be smitten Himself, because
to pay His own penalty, God and Christ
became One, so God could be smote in
the image, He could be scarred.
30. Now first we must
know how that God and Christ could become One. And we know that “God was in Christ reconciling
the world unto Himself”. We know that God was pleased to dwell in His Son.
We know “at the
river Jordan God entered into His Son” in His Fullness. We know that
when Jesus told Philip I and My Father are one, He added, “My Father dwelleth
in me”.
So we know how that God and Christ could become one, and then if we know
how that God and Christ could be one, then surely we must understand that the
body now was the body of Two individuals. That body was the body of God just as
much as it was the body of His only Begotten Son. And that is how that God
could be smote IN the Image, for the Son was the very Image of His Father.
The Bible expressly devalares Jesus the Son of God to be the very image
of God Himself.
Hebrews
1: 3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all
things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; 4Being made so much
better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent
name than they. 5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten
thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
We also find 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.
And again in Colossians 1: 15 Who
is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of every creature:
So we see that the very image of God is His Son. But what if God has
other sons? Then what? Then the law of reproduction in Genesis 1:11 tells us that “every seed must bring forth after its kind”, is that right? The all sons will have to come forth into the
image of their father. And if God is truly our Father then the image we must
come forth into is a reflection of His very image in which the firstborn Son
came into.
Romans 8:
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn (that mean the eldest brother) among
many brethren.
And again we see in 1 Corinthians 15: 49 And
as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
And also in Colossians 3: 10 we
read, And
have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
And finally in 2 Corinthians 3: 18 But
we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory
to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
So we are here this communion
night to stand in the presence of the Spirit of God and to become transformed
by the renewing of our minds. Let us pray.