Masterpiece 69

Discipleship and Discipline

June 18^th, 2006

Pastor, Brian Kocourek

This morning in our study of the Sermon Masterpiece preached by William Branham, we will look again at paragraph 119 where Brother Branham speaks of Polycarp being a disciple of John. I thought perhaps that we could stop for a moment this morning and look at what it means to be a disciple. And so to begin let’s turn in our booklets of Brother Branham’s sermon on the masterpiece that we passed out at the beginning of this series to paragraph 119.

THE MASTERPIECE 64-0705 119 When we see St. Paul, Peter, James, John, all those who wrote the Word, and the Word they wrote become alive and lived. And It lived. And when we find after it begin to get ripe, John begin to write in epistles. He was thrown on the Isle of Patmos after being burnt in oil for twenty-four hours. But the Word must come forth. It's got to be wrote. They couldn't boil the Holy Ghost out of him with oil, so he come forth. His work wasn't finished. He died a natural death. Polycarp, which was a disciple of John, carried the Word on. And from Polycarp came Irenaeus. And Irenaeus, the great man of God who believed the very same Gospel that we believe, "The Word is right," the church trying to squeeze It out.

Now, the fact of the matter is that not only was Polycarp a disciple of John, but John was a disciple of Jesus as was Peter, and James, and Paul was a disciple of Jesus in another realm, because he followed that Pillar of Fire and was disciplined by that Pillar of Fire, and of course we know that Pillar of Fire was the same God that indwelt Jesus Christ the Son of God.

That’s what Brother Branham said. He said it was Jesus in Jesus. SIR WE WOULD SEE JESUS 54-1205 E-12 Now, here comes Jesus, God Himself, incarnate in His Son, Christ Jesus, tabernacled to take away sin. Notice what Brother Branham said, here. He said here comes Jesus which is God Himself incarnated in His Son Christ Jesus. Then what we have is Jesus in Jesus. That’s what William Branham said in Sir We would see Jesus 58-0612 P:55 he said, “Look. When He was here on earth, how many knows that that was the Pillar of Fire that followed the children of Israel in the wilderness, that It was Christ, the Angel of the covenant? All right. And how many knows that that was Jesus in Jesus, that same Spirit?”

So Paul was a disciple of Jesus then, because the same God that was in Christ is the same God that appeared to Him on his road to Damascus. So then, what does the word disciple mean, and what does it mean to be a disciple of another? The English definition was drawn from the French and Latin, and means “One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another.”

So you say, if God came down Himself, and Appeared to us in the same Pillar of Fire that He appeared to Paul in, and this same God, which was the same Jesus that was in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and this same Jesus came to us in this hour with a Shout which is the Message, and if we have embraced that message an are assisting in spreading the Teachings of God that He came down to give us, and we know that teaching is doctrine, then those who have embraced and are assisting in the spreading of the doctrine of Christ can truly say they are disciples of Jesus Christ.

So we see the word disciple means to assist in spreading the teaching of doctrine of another. And an Apostle is one who is sent to do so. That means the man that is an apostle must first be a disciple, and then when he is sent he fulfills his role as an apostle. Other wise, if he travels from church to church teaching the doctrine of Christ he would be an evangelist, and if He merely teaches it to his own church he is called a pastor, and if His teaching is very deep and thorough then he is called a Teacher. So You see all five fold ministry roles must first be a disciple of Christ to do so.

Now to be a disciple, means you are first willing to learn yourself, because how can you teach others if you do not understand it yourself. And unless you understand what the other taught, you can not assist in the spreading of that teaching. Now, there are many ministers who claim to believe what brother Branham taught but because they do not understand what he taught, they are not assisting the spreading of what was taught but rather are more of a hindrance to what was taught. Because if they are not teaching what He taught but claim to be then any that hear them are not hearing at all what was really and truly taught, but when the man says he is teaching the message and is not teaching the doctrine, then he is not teaching, but he is perverting what was truly taught.

Then he is more of a hindrance than a help. But most ministers are too proud to admit that they need help in understanding the Message, at least here in America and Canada. But in Africa it is very different. They admit that they have taught wrong, some admit they have taught the message wrong for 20 years. But when God showed them the truth, they turned around and began teaching it right. Now that takes humility to do that. And that is a sign of a true disciple. Because in order to be a disciple, you must be willing to subject yourself to the one who is teaching you, and that takes disciple. And that is not evident much here in the America’s, both North and South, because there is too much pride involved, and that shows there is a wrong motive in the ministry today.

So we see in order to be a disciple you must admit that there is another who knows what you want to know, and that one understands what you would like to understand. And in any leadership position one must be willing to follow before they are fit to lead. You get these young men who want to be their own man, and are not willing to follow, and they will never amount to a hill of beans in God’s economy. Because if you can’t walk humbly before God, then you will never be exalted by Him.

I think you all Remember the story of the young minister who walked up proudly to the pulpit and then bombed out in front of his audience. As he hung his head in shame and walked down the platform an old man turned to his wife and said, “If he had gone up the way he came down, then he would have come down the way he went up.” For we know that the Scripture teaches that Pride cometh before a fall. And let me tell you young people, when you begin to talk full of pride, you must know for sure that you have a fall coming. I’ve seen it too many times, and God knows best how to humble you.

So we are looking at what it means to be a disciple, for Polycarp was a disciple of John, brother Branham told us. And a disciple does not get puffed up against the one who is mentoring him. He keeps his humility in tact.

Too many times we see a young man being taught and for a while he seems truly humble, but then when he begins to assist in the spreading of the teaching they get puffed up and then think of themselves as equals to the one who taught them. I do not think that is a good thing to do, because when you do that you begin to elevate yourself, and if you elevate your own self, then God will not elevate you, and why should He?

Matthew 23:12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

Who is this Melchisedec 65-0221E P:1 Now, bless us tonight, Lord, as we speak of Thy Word. And the promises that's given to us, may we nurture them in our heart, cherish them with reverence, and obey them with real godly discipline. For we ask it in Jesus' Name. Amen.

So what is discipline? Our dictionary tells us it is 1) Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, 2. Controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control. 3. a. Control obtained by enforcing compliance or order. b. A systematic method to obtain obedience: a military discipline. c. A state of order based on submission to rules and authority: a teacher who demanded discipline in the classroom. 4. Punishment intended to correct or train. 5. A set of rules or methods, as those regulating the practice of a church or monastic order. 6. A branch of knowledge or teaching. Verb: 1. To train by instruction and practice, especially to teach self-control to. 2. To teach to obey rules or accept authority. 3. To punish in order to gain control or enforce obedience. 4. To impose order on: needed to discipline their study habits.

So you see a disciple is one who has undergone a disciplined training in order to assist in the spreading of the doctrine. And discipline speaks of instruction in obedience, it speaks of controlled behavior, it speaks of governance, and it speaks of a state of order.

From his sermon Man running from presence 65-0217 P:22Brother Branham began to pray and he said in his prayer, “May all the great mysteries that we are supposed to know at this age, Lord, be unveiled to us and we'll see the plainness of God, so that we'll know how to behave ourselves and act, correcting ourselves and bringing the members of our body into discipline to the Word, that we might know how to live in this present day at the approaching of the Lord Jesus.

So you see if we are to come to an adoption, we must become obedient sons, and even Jesus “learned obedience by the things that he suffered”. And we know when God disciplines us to His word it is not easy on us, and we do suffer during our times of child training, but the result is good because it produces in us an obedience to God’s Word.

Shalom 64-0119 P:98 Love is chastening. Love is rebuke. Love is discipline. O God, may I throw myself with this people this week and may You discipline us, Lord, to Your Word.

In John 14: 23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

And again in John 14: 15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. So we see that to love is to obey. And since this is Father’s Day, I think that is the best gift any child could give his Father is to obey Him. That is all God wants from us, is obedience. And that is what discipline is all about, training you to obey. And when you obey the Truth you purify your souls and make them ready for the adoption.

1 Peter 1: 22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

Hebrews 5: 9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

And Paul tells us that if we are running in this race and then begin to veer off, then someone or something has cut in on us causing not to obey the truth. Galatians 5: 7 Ye did run well; who did hinder you (who did cut in on you) that ye should not obey the truth?

And look, when two people love each other and then the marriage begins to turn sour, the reason is because one or more of the marriage partners has allowed others to cut in on the marriage union. Galatians 3:1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? Now, bewitched means to become fascinated by false representations. So Paul is saying here, O foolish Galatians, who hath given you false representations, that ye should not obey the truth…

So we see as disciples we are to obey the doctrine that is taught to us. Paul said in Romans the same thing.

Romans 6: 16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

And in fact if you wish to receive the Holy Ghost you must obey Him to receive it. For you can not receive the Holy Ghost if you are disobedient to God.

Acts 5: 32 And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.

Now, without discipline you can not even conduct a proper church worship service. From the message Church order brother Branham said, …

Church order COD 63-1226 P:47 Others will not listen to anything we say, especially the children. The children are supposed to know discipline; they should get it at home. But even if it's mine, my kids get in here at anytime, they get disorderly, I don't want you to draw one string; Sarah, Rebekah, Joseph, Billy, or whoever it might be. You tell me; I'll see to it. If they can't behave, then they'll stay away from church till they do learn to behave. This is not an arena; this is a house of God. This is not a place to play, and skate, and write notes, and laugh, and cut up; this is the house of God, and is to be carried out godly. You come here to worship, not even to visit. This is not a picnic ground; this is not a visitation place; this is the visitation place of the Holy Spirit, listen to what He has to say, not to one another. We don't come here to fellowship with one another; we come here to fellowship with Christ. This is the house of worship. And children must be disciplined, and if they are of their parents. Let it be known, that if these deacons... If these parents of the children will not listen to what these deacons said, then this parent should be corrected themselves.

So you see our whole walk as a disciple of Christ is concerned with self discipline and church discipline while conforming to the Image of the eldest brother in a vast family of brothers.

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 among many brethren.

Romans 12: 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Christ is the mystery 63-0728 P:45 You've got tapes on what we believe. You got tapes on discipline in the church: how we behave ourself in the church of God, how we got to come here together and set together in heavenly places. Don't stay home. If God is in your heart, you can't hardly wait for them doors to open out yonder to get in here to fellowship with your brothers. If you don't feel that way, then I tell you, it's time you got to praying, 'cause we're in the last days where the Bible exhorted us to much more as we see that day approaching, to love one another with Christian love and Divine love, to assemble ourselves together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and love one another. "This will all men know you're My disciples when you have love one for the other."

In the message, Paul a prisoner of Christ 63-0717 P:2 Brother Branham is again praying and he says, Chasten us, Lord, with Thy Spirit and Thy Word, that we might discipline ourselves as obedient servants to the will of God. Let us remember and try to think in our hearts what the early Christians done, what type of people would we meet if we met those who had personally been in contact with You. How their faces must've lit up with faith and joy. How their lives must've been the living Word of God, just written epistles read of all men, as they walked in among people. God grant it once more.

Paul a prisoner of Christ 63-0717 P:1 And we ask You, Lord, to give us Your Word tonight. Speak to us, Lord, and warm our heartstrings that we would know how to discipline ourselves for the great time that lays ahead; as we believe that we're nearing the coming of the Lord.

And in the message The Indictment 63-0707M P:23 Brother Branham tells us that anyone who does not live true to the discipline that God expects from His Bride is nothing but a whore. “Brings it back to the original organization of the Catholic church, which the Catholic church believes that God is in His church, and the Word has nothing to do with it, and God is in His church. And we Protestants, as we find in Revelations 17, that all of them heaped up together, and that the Catholic church was the mother of all organizations. And we see that the Protestant organization, yet blindly, blindly, has the same nature of the Catholic church. The Bible calls the Catholic church a whore and calls the Protestant church harlots: said that the whore was the mother of harlots. And that is, people, that's a ill-famed woman, who doesn't live true to her marriage vows. And we all claim to be the Bride of Christ, and yet so untrue. What would make the untrueness? By living contrary to the discipline that God has laid out for His Bride to live by (That's my own opinion.), the Bible. And It is the infallible Word of God, I believe. And therefore, we find out that the Protestant church, in order to have an organization, separates itself even from the Scriptures to make its organization.

Look, God is an all or nothing person. He said Laodicea was luke warm, and because they were not hot or cold he would spew them out of His mouth. God does not want half baked efforts, He demands discipline from His children, an so should you. Jesus told us the kingdom of God does not come by observation. So if you are just a church goer and are sitting here just observing you will never get into the Kingdom of God that way. You’ve got to come the way God ordained to come, and that takes discipline. He wants obedient sons, Sons who have been child trained to obey His every Word.

Investments 62-1124B P:23 After you have received this policy that I am speaking of this morning, the assurance, the assurance of salvation, you're always tried. The Kingdom of God doesn't come by observation, and we know that you're tried. Every son that cometh to God must be child-trained. I think that's what's the matter with a bunch of our little Elvises and Rickys today. They didn't have the right kind of child training. Papa used to take me to the woodshed, and I got a good education of how to behave myself. He had a hickory limb with all the ten commandments on the end of it. It certainly brought discipline to me. It's too bad we don't have fathers and mothers, more of them today that would do the same thing, instead of hot rodding, and out all night, and their daughters twisted up in some... Oh, you know what I mean.

So you see that brother Branham attributes hi great discipline to that ten commandments stick his father used on his back side. Now, that is genuine child-training.

Concerned and convinced 62-0610E P:30 And now, many people might misunderstand it. Love is discipline. You must discipline people, if you love them. If your little girl was setting out in the road (as I said this morning) making mud cakes, if you really love her, you'd get her off that road. What if your wife said, "John somebody " You just let her run out with some other man, because you said, "Bless her little heart, she wants to do it, and I just love her so much; I'm going to let her do it." You'd be a poor excuse of a husband. She ought to get rid of you and get somebody that loves her, that'll take care of her. I didn't mean it that way, 'cause you can't do that.

Rejected king 60-0610 P:38 When the enemy comes in to a church, he puts their eyes out to the real facts that the Holy Spirit is the One Who rules and governs the church. All discipline is brought by the Holy Spirit. Amen. Oh, I wished I could say the words that would make it go home to the right place (See?), that it never would leave, clinch in there. God gave the Holy Spirit to rule and govern the church: the Holy Spirit.

Jesus at the door 58-0529 P:38 Now, you say, "Brother Branham, you're really beating us women." All right. Here you men are. Any man that'll let his wife smoke cigarettes and wear clothes like that, it shows what he's made out of. He's not much man to him, a man that would do that. God give us old fashion, born again, sainted, godly homes. Juvenile delinquency will be no more. It isn't juvenile delinquency; it's parent delinquency. They had the old wood shed and the big hickory limb laying over the door. That's discipline in our home. All right. You say, "Now, Brother Branham, I... We shouldn't hear that kind of stuff." You should hear it. That's right. You don't let God in that private life. You won't let Him in that little cell of yours on the inside.

John said, “If you love the world or the things of the world, the love of God is not even in you.”

God will never bring a rebellious children to power, nor will he ever bring a rebellious child to an inheritance. That is just not in God’s nature, and so I have been criss crossing the world trying to get the brethren to understand their roles as sons, obedient sons of God, because until we become obedient sons we will not have an adoption, nor an inheritance from God our Father.

Remember, the seed that went into stony ground had no root to begin with so when the trial came because of the Word they got offended and left, but the ones brother Branham worried about the most was those that the word fell into thorny ground, and the cares of this life choked off the word and the Word did not bear any fruit in that vessel.

In Matthew 13: 22 Jesus said, “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.”

And again in Mark 4: 19 we hear Jesus say again, “And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.”

Now, in closing I want to leave you with these words of Brother Branham’s, so you will remember them as long as you have left to live here on earth. Now, listen to these words carefully here.

From His Message Hear ye Him 60-0712 P:62 Brother Branham said, “How can the church, the Pentecostal church, and the Methodist and Baptist churches be adopted until they come to discipline? We've got to be disciplined first. God could not trust this power with the church. It's hard to tell what you would do. How could a father trust his business with a boy that might simply pollute his whole inheritance? He couldn't do it. The church has got to come to a place to where it's disciplined. God's on that work right now: discipline.

And no man was more disciplined in this hour than William Branham. Let’s bow our heads before God in prayer.

Dear Father God, we know by these words which we have heard today that you demand a disciplined life from us, and we ask you to help us in this discipline that you have called us to do. It is not easy creating a altar in our home but we must do it. It is not easy getting up to pray in the morning and having family devotions at night but we must do it, for the family that prays together des stay together, and we are looking for an eternal staying together in the New Jerusalem. So we ask Father that with the new building which you have so graciously given us that we might enter that building as disciplined children of yours, and that this building may help us in our efforts to become more disciplined in our walk with thee. I know that you will grant this request Father for it has already began, and those of us who drop by to pray there are already seeing the fruits of the disciplined life you have called us to. And now we would ask that you bring us to the place where we are conformed to the image of your Dear son, Jesus for we ask it in that name which you gave Him by inheritance, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!