ONENESS # 59
Going Astray from the Word
Brian Kocourek
Wednesday night we
studied pps. 217 to 224 and we saw how brother Branham
emphasized that the devil and basically those who are not in God's Election
will use God's Word and even 99.99 % of it but there
will always be some thing or some place in the scripture that
they just can't accept. And when that happens,
then down they go.
Quite often I
contemplate just what I have experienced in this message, and
as I look out around, not just what has transpired here locally, but as I
look out yonder at all the churches that I have had contact
with I realize that there has been quite a shaking off
since 1983. Many brother's that had appeared to be so solid have since
bitten the dust and have gone into fornication with women or with
God's Word chasing after a female Holy Ghost or angelic visitations or
just going after strange doctrine.
Good
people.
People who had a desire to hear
and wanted to believe
the prophet. In fact, I think, wanting to believe so much that they do not know how to sit back and watch. They
see something the prophet said,
and instead of taking it back to the Word of God, they
take a shoe horn and try to make it fit, thinking they have uncovered some great deep hidden
secret. Now, I'm not talking about denominational, I'm
talking about brothers and sisters in this message. People just don't
seem to be able to sit
back and watch and wait. They're in too much of a hurry to be doing something. And what happens? The Devil set's
them up real good. Brother Branham said if
you are leaning in one direction too much, the Devil will get behind you and
give you a push.
How
many
have ever Indian arm wrestled. You grab
each others right hand
and stand side to side. The object is to
push the other guy over. You
get the person pushing so hard, and when you can
feel him pushing fully you then quickly change from pushing to a
quick pull and off he goes down on his face.
Now
if
those who are falling away would land on their face in humility
before God that wouldn't be so bad, but that isn't what is
happening. They go out all puffed up and yet the way
up is down with God.
Wednesday night we saw
how brother Branham let us know that Satan uses the
Word very much but just can't take all of it. He even got
into a theological debate with Jesus in the desert, And even the first
preacher off the Word was the serpent in the garden.
He came to Eve with quoting the Word of God. It's
always been that way yet it never rings true to the Message of the
hour.
Brother
Branham
said, "How far off the Word they stray!" Now
to stray, means that they once were in the way but they've left
it. We see many scriptures where the Word
of God tells us that the end-time setting in the last days is
to be this way. Many will forsake the way
of truth and because they love not the truth, God turns them over to believe a
lie.
Brother
Branham
told us that the revival has died down and what we are experiencing is
the lull before the storm. He said in the last
days those spirit's would be so close that only the
very Elected would not be deceived. We even know that in 2 Thes 2 the scripture tells
us that there will be 2 parousia's. God will have one
and so will Satan. So let's just pick up at pp. 224.
PP. 224 <read> "How
far off the word they stray!" Now, to stray is to wander.
Webster: To wander from
a given place or from a direct course. To roam aimlessly.
To go wrong or be in error, to deviate from what is right. Now, notice this last one here...to
fail to concentrate, be inattentive or digress...
Isn't that exactly what
brother Branham is saying in this pp?
He
says,
"have you noticed in the last days
that these things would come to pass?" Then
he says, "Have you been noticing recently how the
Word of God is being manifested?" And
right after that he says, "have
you been denoting these things?"
Now to denote something
is to take notice, or mark out. to search out the real
meaning behind something. Not just observe passively but to enter into and
study closely to find the real true meaning behind it.
That's
what
brother Branham says we should be doing. Then
he says, it will be so close. So we ask ourselves, what will
be so close.
He says, "Have you
compared the Word of Jesus that He said, that the
Devil in the last days...it'd be so close, like the
real thing, till if it was possible he would deceive everyone
except the Elected, the Elected One."
Now
I
hope you caught this how brother Branham said it. He
said it would deceive everyone except the Elected One,
singular, not plural. And let's face it, without this message of Thus
saith the Lord, we would have all been
completely confused as to what was happening when we saw men like Oral
Roberts and Billy Graham. But the elected "One," was not deceived
because God Himself came and step by step showed him the truth that
he might tell us. That's AMOS 3: 7 "surely the Lord God will do
nothing lest He reveal it unto His servants the
Prophets."
Now, notice as he
continues here in pp. 224..."Jesus said that it would
be so close in the last days, just like the real
thing, that scriptural teaching is going to be so close!"
What scriptural
teaching, "We believe the Holy Ghost, we got the
Holy Ghost, we got evidences." Yet he said they even deny the Word of God.
Now,
I would like to know how they can deny the Word and
still have the Holy Ghost when the Holy Ghost wrote the Word?
Tim 3: 16 - 17 <read>
So, as you can
see, we are living in a time as he
said, where the people will be straying from the Word,
yet all the while thinking everything is ok.
2 TIM 3: 1 - 14
<read>
Knowing from whom you
have learned them. yet notice
the condition of these people, "having a form...having
a form of Godliness, having a form of God-like-ness yet
denying, ...
Remember, that word DENYING is a Greek
word A.r.n.e.o.m.a.i Ar-ne-o-ma-hee. and it means to say "NOT". Just exactly what the Serpent
said to Eve.
Having
a
form but denying the power thereof. Having a form
of God-like-ness but denying, saying "not"...saying it doesn't
mean what it says, and then giving their own interpretation to it.
Having a form but
denying the power, the Word of God.
Romans 1: 16
<read> Having a form of God-like-ness but
denying the Word He brought.
Didn't He come down with
a shout. And Isn't that shout
a Message. And didn't Jesus say "My Words shall Judge in the last
days". Is it the last days? Did He
come with a Message, a Word to gather His
Elect. Did not Paul in 2 Timothy 3 tell us the condition that would prevail in the last days? Did he not
warn us that the people would be
God-like or have a form of God-like-ness?
Well do the Pentecostals
have a form of God-like-ness? Now the word Paul used
here in 2 Tim 3:5 is a Greek word EUSEBEIA, "EU"
which means "well" and "SEBOMAI" which means "To be
devout". So we see it is word
that expresses that "piety which is characterized
by a God-ward attitude and means to do that which is well pleasing to
Him."
These are not renegade
blasphemous people. And certainly not the Pentecostals
of today. Neither could it be said of the Baptist's
or any other denominational group. So where can we find a group of
people who are devoted to piety and yet denying His Shout?
Who among the Christain world goes forth with,
..."Lord bless you my precious brother"... And has such a form
of piety?
It's
right
among us in this message. Having a form...a what?
A form... "Lord bless you my precious brother"...and all the while denying the very Message sent to deliver
them.
A
form...MORPHOSIS
a form or outline, an outward semblance or resemblance...
Strictly artificial though because it is an
outward work and not one of the heart.
Pentecostal pussy cats,
stroke them with words they long to hear and
they will purr, but stroke them contrary to their way
of thinking and the hairs will stand on end. And you had better watch out because you
didn't say it in a way that pleases them.
That's why brother
Branham could say in pp. 200 that the people were so head strong they couldn't
receive the truth when it's vindicated before them.
I've never seen anything
like it. How a people could be so caught up with
themselves and yet so far off the beaten path of God's Word.
But
tell
them anything and you better watch out or those claws will try and
rip you apart. And they call that the Spirit of God?
I'd rather be destitute
of religion altogether than to have that type of
a spirit. Yet right among us in this message.
You say, "The
Message of this hour? Look ... brother Branham said "My
ministry is to declare Him, that He is here." And yet they will say, "NOT!"
That
my
brother and sister is to deny the Message of the Hour. They will
tell you, God sent a prophet and then when you ask them what that means they
will give you the message that was given to the last church age of
Pentecostal restoration of the gifts and the manifestations of the gifts
of the Spirit in the body of this flesh. Yet that
is not justification,
neither is it sanctification. And what we
understand of the baptism of the Holy Ghost that will not do either. For one
could be baptized with the Holy Ghost in this
hour of the latter rain every hour of their life and still go
to hell. It's that Word that counts. And yet
they have the form of piety and devotion yet they deny the only thing
that can bring on a change of the body and deliver us from the body
of this death. Christ Himself, The Word. For we are transformed by the renewing of our
minds and He's got to do it.
2 Peter 2: 1
<read>
Wherever
you
have a True Prophet bringing the Word of God, you will always see
false teachers following close behind. And so it
shall continue. Paul is saying
here, Therefore since you have God's
Word you should take heed to yourselves that you do not
have in addition false teachers. For where the Word of God is preached in it's purity-close upon it
false teachers will arise. The reason is that
not everyone lays hold of the Word and believes
it, although it is preached to all.
They who
believe it follow it and hold fast to it, but
the greater part - they who do not believe
- receive a false understanding of it. Therefore they
become false teachers.
MATT 13: 18 - 19, 23
<read>
Martin
Luther
said, "We have not seriously considered, nor have we attended
to this warning. Instead, we have gone astray,
and whatever has been preached we have done. There we have stumbled and fallen and been led away
by delusions, as though the pope with his priests and monks could
not err. Thus, those that should have been on their guard against such things
have been the first to urge them upon us.
So we are not free from blame, though we have
a wrong belief and follow false teachers. It will not
help us that we have not known, since we
were warned beforehand.
Besides, God has bidden us that we should each judge what this or that one preaches and give account of it. If we do
not, then we are lost. Therefore it concerns everyone's
own soul's salvation to know what God's Word is
and what false doctrines are."
Matt 24: 23 - 24
<read>
1 TIM 4: 1 <read> "As
forcefully as such admonitions have gone forth, so careful should we have been;
yet they have been to no avail. The admonitions
have been kept silent, and thus we have wandered and
suffered ourselves to be led astray.
Now
notice
in 2 PETER 2: 1> He calls them destructive heresies because
whosoever is persuaded into them is already lost. Notice he says,
"There they shall secretly bring in"... They would never out right
say that the Gospels and the scriptures or the Words of the Prophet is false. No that would cut off their meal ticket.
But
"they
secretly bring in" let's you know they are preaching the
Truth and yet they will add other than the Scripture to it. To bring in suggests that these are right in the
midst of the Truth.
So,
what we see is this; right in the midst of the truth
these men bring in something that is contrary to it. "There is nothing said against the pure Christian
doctrine directly, nor is faith or baptism denied, nor that
Christ is the Savior. But they privately introduce such doctrines
along with these as to lead men away from the right path, and they
build upon themselves and their works, and hold nothing more in regard to
Christ than these words: "We believe that Christ is the Son of God
and the Son of Man; we believe that He died and rose again and that
He is the Savior of the World." But if you'll just
sit back and watch, you'll see that although they confess Him
outwardly to be their Savior, yet they really show no trust and
confidence in Him, for if they did so, then they would no longer
rest upon there own efforts,
nor try to convince so many of their greatness, but His.
So we find them
preaching among the people this; "You are indeed
Christians and His Bride, but that is not enough. You must do such and such works,...and they hold
down the people in bondage."
And
each
church or each group follows their own special set of laws that
means something more special to them than the next guy across the
street.
It doesn't matter
what he calls himself, whether it's Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal,
Jew, monk, Muslim, Buddhist or Message Believer.
There is really no difference between them except the difference of
place, rites, religions, works and worshiping, for each contends
that they and they alone have the correct way of sacrifice
before God and worship, but as they all have this one thing
in common, it is that they know not Christ. Each
group holds more dear one rule over the next, yet in one thing they all agree, and this is the way they
think: "If I do this work and obey this rule, then God will
have mercy upon me, but if I do it not He will be angry."
And
therefore
every man that thinks like that, is only thinking with His own opinion
but not with God's. And therefore they
are actually rebelling against the knowledge of Christ and
therefore fall into idolatry and conceive such notions of God
as is not even agreeable to His Character nor His Divine Nature. God never said, He will save and justify men for
their religions, nor for their observations or ceremonies, or
ordinances or the keeping of certain laws devised by man. God
abhors nothing more than this. They
that trust to their own strength and righteousness do
serve a god, but such a god is only an idol of their heart
and their own imaginations, but not the True God.
For God regards no man
for his religion, nor for his charity, nor for his
virtues, nor for their newness of life but for Christ's sake only.
"No man can come through His religion, his
ceremonies or his creeds, because He said, "no man can come
unto the Father except through me. "And He is "the way, the Truth and the
light".
And He is
"the Word."
The priests and monks of all world religions
only know God after a natural knowledge in that He is the
creator of the world and He will punish the wicked and reward the
righteous. And that being about the extent of their knowledge of Him they
conceive vain and wicked imaginations of
Him which are without and against His Word, and so dream that God is such a one
as by nature He is not. They imagine Him to be a God that forgives sins, and gives Grace and everlasting life, for the keeping of
His rules. But this god is nowhere to be found
in the Scripture or anywhere else for that matter. Therefore they serve not the
True God but only that which by nature is
no God, which is the imagination of their own hearts.
GAL 4: 8 - 11
<read>
What is righteousness?
Is it not right-wise-ness? Then we do not receive
right wise ness by the doing of the law but by receiving the Faith
of The Son of God. Outward
virtues and honest conversation is not the
Look, He gave them the
law because they didn't want Him, and the same
One Who gave them the law came down and that law condemned Him and
found Him guilty and He became sin and had to suffer the penalty of the
law which is death. Now, if the law chastised and condemned to
death the very Creator of all things, the very fountain
of Life Himself, then how do you think you will ever stand
before it. Therefore flee it my brother and sister, empty the
very thoughts from your twisted minds that have never been set
free to be a Son or Daughter of God and cleave unto Him who pulled
out the stinger of the law which is death. Your own brother
caim down and layed His
life down for you. He'll not let you
down. Your His very Elect and precious jewel for His crown.
Now, had the ministers
in this message preached and taught that: That you are Christians indeed,
and the very righteousness of God through Faith and nothing short of
that, then those who live a
hundred miles away would have the same revelation of Christ,
and then we would all have one Christ, One Baptism, and one Faith
and we would all believe that God has personally come down to bring
forth His message of Grace to tell us that He is here to gather us
into His Garner not based upon our own merit but strictly upon His love,
His Mercy and His Grace to us. Then the people
would have come together into a common faith. There would have been no difference before God but we would be
all striving for that one goal and that is to be delivered from the body
of this death in a rapture. And helping
each other through our struggles with a singleness of heart.
But rather
than bring the people into this unity, they have Killed
any semblance of unity in that they say: yes, you
are Christians , but you must do certain works in order to be
saved, and thus they lead the people away from Faith into works. And the works seem to differ in preeminence from one local
to another, and groups are formed around certain efforts of
men and certain desires to do certain types of works.
Peter
said,
"They deny the Lord that Bought them". Though
they indeed believe that He is Lord and Master and has
purchased the whole world by His blood, yet they do not believe
that they are
bought, and that
He is their master; and so they say, "He has indeed bought and
ransomed the people, but this is not enough, we must 1st by our efforts
eradicate sin and make atonement for it.
But if you can yourself
take away and blot out your own sin, then what has Christ done? You certainly
can never make 2 Christ's who take away sin. How can I say he does it if I must
do it? How can I call Him the Savior of my soul
if I'm left to myself to do it.
There
can
not be 2 Christ's! I can not be Christ
and He be another. If I can do away with my own sin
then I can not say He does it. And that is
what's called denying Christ, for although they hold Christ to be their
master, they through their actions deny that Christ has Truly
bought them. Thus they leave to Him nothing
more than a name and title. They are actually in
heart calling themselves
Christ for they have seized upon His office and have become their
own mediator of their own sin.
Titus 1: 10 - 16
<read>
They
say
they Know Him, Ginosko Him. They say they
have this great personal relationship with Him, but they
don't even know Him, and He says to them in Matt 7 "depart
from me for I never even knew you" although every thing
they did was in His name". Lord, Lord, I cast out devils in
your name and did many marvelous works. And He answers them ,
"I don't even Know you." For if they really knew Him they would make
no boast of their efforts before God
knowing that He doesn't look upon anything we do in
this flesh. Not the good or the evil when it comes
to Justification and placement in Him. Either He did it all
or we are lost.
"
They
profess that they know Him but in works they deny him". It doesn't say
that they say one thing and actually do another. Now, you may have thought
that's what it said, But it actually
says, "they profess that they know Him but because
they are works oriented, it shows they haven't got a
clue".
Looking
at
the flesh has always been the peoples fatal mistake. To
look at yours or any one else. And that is what is causing the great
falling away. It is the same thing in Paul's day.
They had to push
circumcision of the flesh instead of the heart. And
Alpha has become Omega.
JUDE 3 - 4
These are ordained to go
the way they go. Notice verse 12 - 13.
They
feast
with you. That's 2 Peter 2: 1 those who
bring in alongside of true doctrine false. They are wandering stars. Wandering, like brother Branham said, They wonder this and
they wonder about that. To wonder is to wander. And
noticed. They are carried about
by every wind of doctrine. Unstable souls.
Why? Because they deny the One who bought
them. There is no rest for the wicked.
Why? Because they have rejected the only
hope of rest. Christ Jesus our Lord who paid the debt in full. You don't have to pay interest. You have no
principal to pay. It's a free gift. Jesus
said, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are
heavy laden and I will give you rest."
MATT 11: 28 - 30
<read>
Learn of me and you will
find rest for your souls. The trouble is that many
say they know Him but because they don't they end up following
another Jesus, another Spirit, another Gospel, and they find themselves under
tremendous weights of guilt and despair.
But the Word of God is
so refreshing, so life giving, so free of guilt.
So edifying and uplifting to know that we are part of
Him to the place that we are flesh of His flesh and bone of His
bone.
2 Thes 1: 7, 10 <read>
And
to
you who are troubled, rest with us. When? The The
Lord Jesus comes with His mighty angels. He's Here.
UNRECOGNIZED PRESENCE
"Working for this
one thing, for you to recognize the presence of Jesus
Christ. See? If He is present, then,
why everything is settled. He made the Word, He's here to confirm it."
YOU MUST BE BORN
AGAIN" pg. 19
"The
sin questions over for you when you're standing
in His Presence. "
Isaiah 55: 1 - 13
<read>
"It's yours. And
He's here to give it to you. Just believe, only believe.
All things are possible to them that believe."
PROVING HIS WORD
"We are and believe
that we are in the presence of Jesus Christ, but
it's your attitude that brings the results. The Mechanics
is here and so is the Dynamics; if you can just get
started, God will do the rest."
UNRECOGNIZED PRESENCE
"If we could
realize that He is appearing to us in these meetings for one Purpose and that's
to release our desires that we have in Him to us. But we've got to recognize
His presence."
ONENESS pp. 225 - 229
<read>
Let's just bow our heads
in prayer.