Preparation #17 (Godhood )

Sunday, May  22th, 1999

Brian Kocourek

 

This morning we shall again examine the words which brother Branham spoke  from his sermon Preparation  in  PP.  017.  Here he said,    In the garden of Eden there were two trees: one was Life, one was knowledge. Man left the Tree of Life to eat off the tree of knowledge.

 

Now, what or who were those two trees.  We need to know this in order to really understand what took place in the garden. What or who were those two trees.

 

In the Christian world of  pseudo-theology, they want you to believe that those two trees were an apple tree, and some other fruit tree. But let's get down to viewing exactly what or shall we say who those trees really were, and what was this act that took place that has ever since caused death for man.

 

Now, to better understand all of what took place in the very beginning, let's go back to the book of beginnings, Genesis, and begin reading at the beginning.

 

GENESIS 1:1      In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  2    And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  3       And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  4    And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.  5    And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 

 

Now, here we have the first seen which deals specifically with the earth, and the creation, and we see the first time that God speaks, He brings forth light. Then notice what happens,… Separation takes place. and God divided the light from the darkness.  That word divided is a Hebrew word, Badal which means to separate, or sever, in order to make a distinction between the two. 

 

So here we see a distinguishing characteristic of God's Word coming forth from the very first time that He speaks, and that is this, "God's Word calls for separation." 

 

Now, let's see what happens next as we go back and view this opening scene in Genesis again.

 

GENESIS 1:6      And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.  (I want you to notice that first God speaks, and then He does)  7    And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.   8    And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.  9       And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.  10    And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.

 

Notice here that the second time God speaks, it brings forth the waters and then separates them. God speaks, then separation, and then each time this happens, it is recorded,  ": and God saw that [it was] good." God perceived or saw to it that it was good. 

 

Notice that God divided the waters above from the waters below, which allowed the land to appear.  Science has proven today that there are several major rivers of water that encircle the earth up in the ionosphere. These rivers have been estimated at being thousands of miles long and hundreds of miles wide, and several miles deep.  Science tells us that there is enough water up there to pour forth hundreds of millions of tons of water per minute. During the great flood of 1937 which brother Branham had prophesied would happen, science tells us 168 billion tons of water fell during the month of January. And I believe that is what God allowed to happen at the flood of Noah. Now, we don’t have time to get into that, but man is once again tampering with the ionosphere like he did back them, only this time all that hydrogen and oxygen will turn to fire.

 

Now, so far we have seen a principle take place here which we will also see concerning God's Word throughout the rest of the Bible. "When God speaks, separation follows." And God calls this good.

 

II CORINTHIANS 6:14  Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?   15    And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 16    And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in [them]; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.   17    Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean [thing]; and I will receive you,   18    And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

 

Now, we know that before anything existed, there was God alone with His Word. JOHN 1:1   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God.  3   All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.   4    In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

 

Now, what I want you to see here is that if we go way, way back to the very beginning, we find that God dwelt alone. Now, the Scripture tells us here that at the beginning God existed alone with His Word. But let's go back even before there was His Word, and we find that the Scripture refers to him as Elohim. (The self existent one). GENESIS 1:1      In the beginning God, Elohim, the self existent One.

 

So we find that before the beginning, which the word beginning means the first, and when we read this account in Genesis , we find that it is speaking of the creation account. GENESIS 1:1      In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth

 

Therefore, we want to look at this thought here to lay out the order of all things. #1) If we are dealing with the beginning here of all things, and we are told at the beginning, there was one Thing and it was God, then we must also conclude that this God was self existing, and thus the Hebrew word Elohim which means the self existent One.

 

#2)  The first record we have of God speaking is at the time of the beginning of the creation. JOHN 1:1   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God  And then in the Genesis account we see the Word of God being spoken and then creation taking place as He spoke it.

 

Therefore, we see that the Word and Creation were at the beginning, but before this beginning, there was just the God who was self-existent and dwelt alone.

 

Now, before you can have a word, you must first have a thought. Therefore we can conclude that God dwelt alone before the beginning, as a great fountain of thought. Let's read about his in John's account of the beginning. JOHN 1:1   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God.  3   All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.   4    In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

 

So before anything was made there was the word which was with God, and in this word was Life. And this Life was also called the Light of men.

 

Now, let's go back to this great fountain of Life and look at it.  PSALMS 36:9    For with thee [is] the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.

 

Notice the two attributes that David and John both characterize this great fountain is Life and Light. And we see the first expression of this fountain come forth when God begins to speak. What takes place first? Light is spoken, and then what does that Light bring forth? Life..

 

GENESIS 1:11   And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.   12    And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

 

I want you to notice that the first time God expressed His Word the first manifestation of that Word was Light, then the next time God spoke there came forth water. These are the two main ingredients to bring forth Life. You don't need soil, although God provided the soil when he separated the waters above from the waters below.   But we have proven today with hydro farming that all you need is light and water for life to grow. And so we see in verse 11, that God spoke all life forms into existence at this time. This great fountain of God contained Life and when God began to open forth this great fountain it issued forth all life seeds that will ever be. Notice, the seeds of life were brought forth in Genesis 1:11 and placed upon the earth at this time.

 

Then as we read on in the Genesis account God made lesser lights, the sun, moon and stars. But what was this  light that was separated from darkness at the beginning?

 

GENESIS 1:14      And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:  15    And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.  16    And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.  17    And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth  18    And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.  19    And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

 

Now, most people assume that the first light that is spoken of is the SUN, but it is not. It speaks of the SON. For here we see an account of the SUN and MOON in Genesis 14 though 19. These lights were placed here to regulate the seed life that God placed in the earth.

 

But what of this first Light we see in Genesis.  From the Message "Questions and answer on Genesis," Brother Branham said,

 

QA ON GENESIS 53-0729  010   The first creation was God Himself; then out of God came the Logos, which was the Son of God; then out of the Logos, which was the Word ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."), out of the Logos came forth the man.   011   Oh, I got a beautiful picture in my mind now, if you could take a little trip with me. I believe I've talked on it before, but to get this to the place where you'll be sure to see it. Now, let's take a little trip and go back for a little while. Now, don't think about how hot it is; let's get our minds right on what we're going to talk about and think now. Let's go back a hundred million years before there ever was a star, moon, or anything in the world. Now, there was a time when there wasn't nothing here; it was just all forever and eternity. And all of ever and eternity was God; He was there in the beginning. Now, let's go out here on the edge of this banister and look over and see these things happen. 15-26   012   Now, "No man has seen the Father at anytime." No man can see God in the bodily form, because God is not in body form; God is a Spirit. See? All right. "No man has seen the Father, but the only begotten of the Father hath declared Him," I John... See? Now, but notice now, there's nothing; there's just space. There's no light; there's no dark; there's no nothing; it's just seems nothing. But in there is a great supernatural Being, Jehovah God, Who covered all space of all places at all times. He was from everlasting from everlasting; He is the beginning of creation. That's God. Can't see nothing, can't hear nothing, not a move of an atom in the air, not nothing, not no air, no nothing, but yet God was there. That was God. (Now, let's watch for a few minutes, and after a while...) No man has seen That, now; that's the Father. That's God, the Father.

      15-28   013   Now, notice. Then after while I begin to see a little sacred Light begin to form, like a little halo or something; you could only see it by spiritual eyes to look now, while we're looking, the whole church now. We're standing on a great big banister, watching what God's doing. And we'll get right down to this question here and you'll see how He brings it in. Now, no one has seen God. And now, the next thing we begin to see, by eyes of supernatural looking, we see a little white Light forming out there. What is that? That was called, by Bible readers, "Logos," or "the anointed," or "the anointing," or the--as I was going to say, the part of God begin to develop into something so human beings could have some type of an idea what It was: it was a little, a little Light moving. That was the Word of God. Now, God gave Himself birth to this Son which was before there was even an atom in the, or air to make an atom. That was... See, Jesus said, "Glorify Me, Father, with the glory that We had before the foundation of the world." See, way back in yonder...

       15-32   014   Now, in St. John 1 He said, "In the beginning was the Word." When the first... "And the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." God unfolding Himself down to a human being, now, watch how He did it. Now, back there, then, when this little halo comes... Now, we can't see nothing yet, but just by eyes of just supernatural we see a halo standing there. Now, that's the Son of God, the Logos, Now, I can see Him playing around like a little child before the Father's door, with all eternity. See? And now, then in His imaginary make-up He begin to think of what things would be, and I can hear Him say, "Let there be light." And when He did, an atom bursted and the sun came into existence. She whirled for hundreds of millions of years, forming clinkers, and burning, and forming like it is today: still burning, still breaking atoms. If the atomic bomb would ever get let loose, the atomic chain would take--this earth would be like the sun, yonder, just bursting and blowing. And if you could stand over on another continent and look off at this, it would look like another sun, where the atoms was a-burning this earth, if that chain would ever get let loose and it just start turning, whirling like that. Millions and millions of miles reach these big flames of billions of Fahrenheit, of--of--of heat that goes off that sun.

           16-35   015   Now, watch this now. Beautiful.... Now, He made the sun. Then the first thing you know, a big clinker fell off of it, weighed about, just about like this earth, went "Spew..." Then this Logos here now, the Son of God, is watching it. He lets it fall for a hundred million years and He stops it. Then another one flies off, and He let's it flew off--fall for millions of years, then He stops it. Now, we're standing, watching it come into existence. Now, He's got something in His mind. And what's He doing? He's writing His first Bible. The first Bible that man ever looked to was the stars, the zodiac. And it's a perfect... just... It dovetailed with this Bible here. It starts off, the first of the zodiac is the virgin. Is that right? The last of the zodiac is what? Leo, the lion. That's the first coming of Jesus; He came through a virgin; the second, He comes as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. See? He write it on up, the cancer age, and everything down through. Now, He put that all in the sky and placed it out, all these meteors, pieces of earth, or sun, hanging off here. Now, when science goes to looking for those missiles that fall, that don't disprove God; that just proves it to me. See, that just makes it more real. Now, now notice, all these missiles hanging out there away from that hot sun, and going out through the air, 'course, they've collected. And first thing you know, it began just a iceberg.

       17-38   016   Now, that was this earth come into existence, just a big old piece of cinder flew off out yonder. Down beneath it now is nothing but a turning, burning volcano, completely; the eruptions come everywhere, volcanic. And science claims that--that this world is, the crust on top of it, where we live, is just about like the peeling on an apple. And all the... Now, there's twenty-five thousand miles around, it's probably eight thousand miles that'd be approximately eight thousand miles thick. And just think, of in there, it's a burning volcanic.  And two thirds of the earth, better than two thirds of it, is in water; and one third of it is in land, about one third. And just look at this crust that we're living on; it's full of dangerous explosives, gas, gasoline, oil, everything. Is that right? And the two thirds of it, better than two thirds of it, water. What is the formula of water? Two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen: explosives. There's enough electricity in every room to separate the heat from the cold, and it'll make enough electricity to burst a room. You can put enough atoms in a golf ball to blow New York off the face of the earth. And then man, setting on a pot of hell, hits hisself in the chest and defies God's Word, and says, "There's no such a place as hell." (I got that down here in a little bit; we're going to get to that. See?) You're setting on a big pot of it every day. And while you're here you're setting right on it, and hell's just beneath you.

      17-41   017   And now, notice, but now when this was first found, when Jesus... Now, watch the little halo yonder. Now, I can see It move out to this earth and get over the top of it and begin to move it over here close to the sun. It's nothing but a big ball of ice. And when it begins to get melting, then great big glaciers begin to cut through up in the northlands and come down. And when it did, it cut out Kansas and Texas and all them places there, and went on into the Gulf of Mexico. And the first thing you know, the whole thing was covered with water. Then, now we get in Genesis 1, we get to the Bible now, and out of our picture at the Bible: Genesis 1, "The world was without form, and void; and water was upon the face of the deep." Is that right? "And the Spirit of God moved upon the water." Now, He separated the water, brought up the hills and the lands and so forth, dried it off. Vegetation and everything, He made it. And He made the moon. And set its boundaries of the sea, so it could not pass.

            18-43   018   He got all those things together, and made...?... made all the other things, all the animal life, the birds, the bees, the monkeys, and whatever it was, put them all here on earth. And then He asked this question now. "Let us (Who? Father and Son) make man in Our own image." Now, if a man was made something like that little sacred Light yonder, or something like that, It could not be seen (which is a spiritual Being). He manifested or unfolded Himself a little more to make a trinity of Himself by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And here was God, unfolded Himself now, down into "let us make man (which was His son, an offspring from Him) man in Our own image (He was a supernatural being.), and let him have dominion over the cattles of the field, and so forth." Now, the man led the man--led the--the cattle and everything, just like the Holy Spirit leads a real true believer today. The Voice of God out there... The voice of man, rather, would speak and say... call the cattle this way, call the sheep over to this pasture, call the fishes to this water. See, he had dominion; everything obeyed him.

  18-46   019   Now, but then there was no man to till the soil (Genesis 2), no man to till the soil. "And then God formed man (Genesis 2:7) out of the dust of the earth." Now, we follow it; He formed man out of the dust of the earth, and put this supernatural Spirit...Now, he was laying there. I can have many pictures of it. I can see Adam standing... Let's take this way, see him standing like a tree. God had made him. He was dead as he could be, his toes, like the roots sticking in the ground. And God said, "Let there be," or breathed the breath of life into him, and he jumped, came to himself. See, He was a... Breathed the breath of life into him, he became a living soul. Now, and he begin to move on, move on.

 

129 HEBREWS.CHAPTER.1 -- JEFF.IN -- HEB 1-32 -- 57-0821  Now, here's what happened. Oh! (excuse me),  This just gets me right where I love it. See? The Logos, and this Great Fountain; this Great Fountain of Spirit which had no beginning or no end. This Great Spirit began to form in the creation, and the Logos that went out from It was the Son of God. It was the only visible form that the Spirit had. And It was a theophany, which means a body, and the body was like a man.

 

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;    4       Being 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?    The expressed image... The outraying or etching of God.

 

Now , we have looked at this first light that God brought forth and as we see, it was the Logos which was part of God coming forth into an expression which God called His Son, and then through this expression, or expressed Word, or Manifested Word God brought forth all of creation.

 

REVELATION 3:14       And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 

 

ROMANS 11:36  For of him, and through him, and to him, [are] all things: to whom [be] glory for ever. Amen.

 

EPHESIANS 3:9  And to make all [men] see what [is] the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

 

COLOSSIANS 1:15   Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:   17    And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

 

Now, we began today by examining these words of brother Branham's from his message, Preparation, and I would like to look more closely at these words, that we might rightly divide them according to the Scripture and our understanding we now have of that scripture. 

 

In Paragraph 17 he said,    In the garden of Eden there were two trees: one was Life, one was knowledge. Man left the Tree of Life to eat off the tree of knowledge.

 

Now, as I stated earlier in this study, we must know what or who those trees were in order for us to fully understand this passage of scripture.

 

Two trees. One was the tree of Life and the other, was a tree full of wisdom and knowledge.

 

Now, the first question we must ask is what these two trees represent, or who are these trees, and how did they get here in this garden.

 

We have already established in Genesis 1:11 that God placed all seed life that will ever be and scattered it upon the earth in the beginning by His Word.

 

GENESIS 1:26       And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.   27  So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.  28    And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.  29       And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

 

Now, before we can address these two trees, we have to understand that so far when we see this creation of man in God's image, we are seeing the creation of man in a spirit form as were quoted brother Branham earlier. Now, let's see how these two trees interplay with man in the garden.

 

GENESIS 2:4       These [are] the generations (this word here is a Hebrew word, to-led-aw, which means genealogies or lineage)  of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,   5    And every plant of the field before it was in the earth,( Notice we are hearing here that the seeds existed before they were in the earth, and how was this? They were first a seed in God in His thoughts, and then they became spoken word seeds, and then they received a material covering)  and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground.  6    But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.   7    And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.   8       And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. ( Now, notice here that God now took these seeds which up to this point were not in the earth, but only upon the earth, and He now plants them IN the earth).   9    And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food;( But notice here as we continue that he speaks of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge and distinguishes them as being different. These two trees are not said to be planted, but they are placed in the garden along with man whom God whom God put there.  the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

 

Now, we know that Genesis One is the creation in spirit form and in genesis two we see God clothing His Word, and bringing it into manifestation. These are not two different renditions of the same creation, but in genesis One we see the Word of God bringing forth man in the Image of God, and Jesus told us that God is Spirit and they that worship Him must do so in spirit and truth. So we see then that man was created in Spirit form in Genesis One and in Genesis two we see God forming a body for that Spirit man to dwell.

 

Now, those trees God planted he said are good for the sight and good for eating, but notice what he said to Adam concerning the Tree of Knowledge? GENESIS 2:15   And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16       And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:   17    But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

 

Now, if this tree would cause death then it was not one of those which God had planted, for the trees He planted were good to look upon and good for food. And  a tree that would cause death is not good for food.

 

Then what was this tree if it was not a planted tree, and how did it get there.