ONENESS # 51

To whom shall He make to know the Message

May 2, 1993

Brian Kocourek

 

ONENESS PP. 188 - 189 <read>

Now, this is a tremendous thing He is telling us here and I think we  can hardly grasp what he is saying, it is so sublime, yet  so simple. How many believe His Word, every bit of it?

 

Now  this morning I am going to do some washing by the  water  of the  Word, and you may get a little scalded, but don't  draw  any conclusions  until after your scrub down, and if you wait until  the end of this cleansing, I'm sure you will walk away and know  that God,  Our Father, has given us a good cleansing today. Now, as  I said,  don't get out of the water just because it might  seem  to hot  for you. The best bath is one where it may take you a  while to  slide into the water. If it's just lukewarm, it  won't  clean under  the nails and hard to get places. we've got to get  beyond feelings,  so let's just step into the washing of waters  by  the Word this morning as we go to prayer.

                  

Hebrews 12: 1 - 15 <read>

 

Let's bow our hearts and heads in Prayer before we go to the Word

                    

John 6: 63 <read>

My Words are Spirit and they are Life. Do you believe that?

                   

ONENESS PP. 189

"I'm  persuaded that many of us, friends, have received the  Holy Ghost, but we just received enough Holy Ghost in us to make us to a  place where we don't want to lie, we don't want to  steal,  we don't want to do anything."

 

You know I am afraid that that is the case just about  everywhere in this message. When I was in a church down south and the brother  took me  to visit a brother just over the border in another state. Now, as God is my witness, I am not  telling you this to just add filler. This brother has over two hundred people in his  church he  is super frustrated. And he's not the only pastor I have  met that  is frustrated. And do you know why? Because a pastor  wants to  think  the  best  of the sheep that God  has  given  him  the oversight  to care for and to feed the Word to. But as God is  my witness,  I tell you the truth and I lie not, for I will have  to give account of my Words on the day of Judgment. Every Pastor  I know  and  have met is going through the  same  thing.  They  have  people  sitting in their congregations who are lovely people  but who  are  so content to just nibble a little here  and  a  little their  that these men are craving fellowship around the  meat  of the Word. They have all said to me one time or other, "If I  only had  a  few  brothers in my church  who  really  understood  this message I would be thrilled."

 

Now  you might think that is cruel, but I have heard it from  the best  to  the least. Look, even the Apostle Paul  said  the  same thing.

 

HEBREWS.5:12 - 13

"For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one  teach  you  again which [be] the  first  principles  of  the  oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk [is]  unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe."

 

Now  milk is ok if you are a babe in the Lord and in the  Message of  this hour. That is expected that you begin with  milk  first. And  maybe we as Pastor's expect to much from our flocks, and  so we give you meat too soon. You know, a babe that is given meat to soon,  may  choke on it and die. So there is in nature  a  timing where one must have milk, but for how long do we maintain a  milk diet? That is the question.

                   

I PETER 2:2

As  newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word,  that  ye may grow thereby:

 

I CORINTHIANS 3:2

I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [to bear it], neither yet now are ye able.

 

You  see, it is also in the nature of a five - fold  ministry  to want  to  see you through to maturity. In fact the Word of God tells  us  that  we are to see you through, to  maturity. And  I suppose  that is why it is so hard on the ministry when they  see the people not progressing in the Word at the speed that we  feel is appropriate.

 

EPH 4: 8, 11 - 15 <read>

Our ministry is to see you through to adulthood. To the point  of adoption. And that is why it is so frustrating to see people  who still have need of milk.

 

 ISAIAH.28:9

"Whom  shall  he  teach  knowledge? and whom  shall  he  make  to understand doctrine? [them that are] weaned from the milk,  [and] drawn from the breasts?"

 

That's  a question mark! Could He explain His Message  to  breast fed babies? I don't think so.

 

Isaiah 28:9 NIV

"Who is He trying to teach? To whom is He explaining His message? To children weaned from their milk? To those just taken from  the breasts?"

         

I like what the way the Amplified puts it.  Isaiah 28:9 "Whom  will  He  teach knowledge? And to whom will He  make  to  understand  the Message? Those who are babies? Just  weaned  from the  milk and drawn from the breasts? Is that what He  thinks  of us?"       

 

Is  that what you think of yourselves? I want to level  with  you this morning. I think there is far too many childish things going on  here.  When we had ought to be teachers, we are  still  mired
down in feelings and being hurt over little petty  indifferences. Will  God ever have a bride who's old enough to get  married.  He isn't here for a child bride you know.

                  

HEBREWS 5: 14 <read> He  is here to exercise our senses, and our feelings are part  of our senses. And we must bring them under control or He can  never use  us. Look, so many people are still getting their  feelings hurt over the littlest things.

 

1 COR 14:20

 

None of you have had your hide taken off like I have. I've  stood side  by side brother Vayle in some of his darkest hours when  he thought the entire world was coming against him and he's lit into me at times when I didn't think I deserved it, but you know what. It  only made me a tougher person in battle. I've  become  harder and  firmer in my faith knowing that one day I may have to  stand alone,  but  Live, die, sink or drown, I don't even  worry  about that at all. I'll rejoice in the fact that my Father has found me worthy enough to suffer for His Word sake.

 

Now,  you can't even begin to understand what I am  saying  until you've  walked in my moccasins. None of you have opened up  your homes  like LaVonne and I have. None of you have been put to  the same  sort  of testing and put understand the same  pressures  we have  been  subjected too. You say "no" to a request  and  people think  you have ulterior motives. You don't shake their hand  and they  think you don't like them any more. And Don't tell  me  you don't  have  those thoughts. But, I can't help  what  you  think. Satan   will put those thoughts in your head and you  think  they are  your  own. Children tossed to and fro. Martin  Luther  said, "Satan will fly over your head like a little bird but just  don't let him make a nest."

 

Listen,  I know where I stand with God. And I would like  to  ask you the same question. Do you know where you stand this  morning? Are  you  sure of your position in Christ? If you  are  then  you become  hard as brass and tougher than nails. Not exactly  super-man,  but pretty close to it. Maybe unnerving is a  better  word. Willing to stand for your convictions, live die sink or swim?

 

Now,  as I was saying earlier, This brother in Missouri  told  me something I want to share with you. He said, "my mother has  been sending  me  this  publication, sort of a  newspaper, a  Baptist publication  called  the "Sword of the Lord". He  said,  I  don't usually read it, in fact I don't think in the 15 years she's  had it sent to me, that I have read it twice all the way through. But The other night I read a sermon in it and I told my wife, "Honey! "Tomorrow  we are going to have a revival!" And she  didn't  know what  I  meant, so I told her I am going to preach  this  Baptist Sermon".

 

Now this brother has been trying to preach the Presence of Christ since 1983. I met him in Jack Bells living room back then. He has received Lee's tapes and has preached it to his people, but  they haven't  really received it. You know how he knows that?  Because they get just as excited by all the other tripe that is  preached in  the name of this message. So he preached this Baptist  sermon word for word, scripture by scripture and he said, his people had a  good old time. They really got into it. And he said,  after  I did  that  I came home and told my wife, "Honey, I  came  to  the conclusion  today, that I got a bunch of Baptist's here." And  he told me, "At least I know where they are coming from now."

 

Now,  you might think that is funny, but let me say  that  almost every Pastor I have met has a similar story to tell. Why? When we should  all be teachers, why do we still desire the sincere  milk of the word and can not seem to grasp the meat?

 

You  know  I  was tempted to do the same to find  out  where  you stand, but I couldn't just walk away and say "Honey, they're  all Baptist's." I would let you know in no uncertain terms what I had done and  I'd  let  you know that you  need  a  mind  change.  A cleansing  by  God's Holy Word. And that's why I don't  have  200 people in here either.

 

Talking to brother Vayle, he has often said to me, "Just give  me 6  men and I'll be satisfied." And so one day, a few months  ago, after  working with a few brothers so hard and to see  them  jus twalk out like that,  I said, "You know Lee? I understand what you mean  when you said, just give me 6 men and I'll  be  satisfied." And he said, "not any more. That's to many, Four is plenty". Now, you  might think that he wasn't too nice to say that, but let  me show you how scriptural that is.

                   

1 KINGS 19: 1 - 18 <read>

It  always  seems to each one of us that we stand alone  in  this word  because  no one else can possibly understand  what  we  are going through. But, alas, we are not alone.

                  

PROVERBS 14: 4a <read>

But notice, we still need the ox. Read the second half.

 

 171 SUPER.SIGN -- SHP.LA -- V-17 N-7 -- 63-1129

  "It's  on your hands, tonight, throwed right back in your  lap! Hebrews 13:8, regardless of how many Council of Churches we have, still  remains  as "Jesus Christ the same yesterday,  today,  and forever." "The works that I do!" If--if His Life is in you, it'll manifest Jesus Christ. Amen.

  Now  you all can't be that one, but you can be a part of  that, with your faith.  All of them couldn't be a Jesus, when they  was on  earth,  but they could believe Him and  accept  the  message. There  was one Moses, one Elijah, one Noah, on down, always  been that, but the rest of them could accept it. And they would a--had no ministry unless there had been somebody believe it." "Jesus would a--had no ministry unless somebody believed it. Paul would a--had no ministry unless somebody believed it."

 

We  need  each  other more than we realize. But we  have  got  to realize we are in a battle and that we wrestle not against  flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. It is a  warfare
on  spiritual  grounds and it is taking place in  the  mind.  And unless  we begin to deal with our minds, we haven't got a  chance to finish the race. Even, Paul said, "Who has cut in on you".

                 

PP. 189 <read>

 

You  see, here is the problem. God wants to fill our every  fiber with His thoughts but in order to do so we have got to die out to ourselves. And that is where we fall so short. You get kicked and you kick back. But you can kick a dead corpse all day long and it will never kick back.

 

It's  a  good thing that you are alive, but the  wrong  thing  is alive in us. We've got to die out to our way of doing things.  We say  Amen to that but do we really practice it. Do we  read  into
every  situation, Do we keep the flames fanned or do we just  let it drop and die out.                    

                   

LUKE 6: 22 - 49 <read>

You've got to become like that house builded upon a rock. As Paul said, "Not as children who are tossed to and fro by every wind."

                   

1 COR 3: 1 - 3 <read>

                   

PHIL 4: 8 - 9 <read>

Do you see me getting all excited when something comes up.  "Just let  Go  and let God." "Shall not the judge of all the  earth  do right?"

                   

PP. 189 <read>

 

                   

COL 3: 1 - 4: 6 <read>