Preparation #30 (Dating, Who and What?)
Sunday,
August1, 1999
Brian Kocourek
Last Sunday We examined Dating or rather courtship as
it is more biblically know, and we looked at the first and most important
question concerning this topic, and that is WHO. Who Should I date and WHO
should I not date. This morning I would like to focus our thoughts on the WHAT
question. What should I look for in my mate and if I do date, what should we do
on this date?
First of all, last week we found our answer to the WHO
question in God’s Word, II CORINTHIANS
Therefore we established that you should never even
consider an unbeliever. Don’t think that
they will change, 99% of the time they won’t.
The problem is that you look only skin deep and you don’t see into the
soul. You look at her outward beauty or his good looks and you think, they must
be beautiful inside as well, and you are so mistaken. Unless they have God in
their life, there is no inward beauty. But you say to your self, I know I can
change them. But you are only fooling yourself, and talking yourself into a
life-long heartache and sorrow. They marry miss Beauty queen or Mr. Hunk a
doodle, and then they wonder why they
have problems in their marriage. You think you can change them, but you
are wrong. If God can’t get a hold of them and straighten out their life, what
good do you think your efforts will do?
JEREMIAH
Why does God tell us to train them up when they are
young? Because when they get old they will not depart from what training they
had as youngsters. Here’s another thing
to remember? Genesis 1: 11, every seed will bring forth after it’s kind,
after it’s nature. Now, take that
into consideration and it will tell you a lot about that person you are
planning to date. What is the mother like, How does she treat her husband? Doe
she respect her husband or does she not. If you want to know how the girl will
respect you as her head, watch how she treats her father, watch how her mother
treats her husband.
EZEKIEL
And if you want to see how he will treat you, watch
how he treats his mother and sisters. Does he use restraint in his speech, is
he polite? Or does he say whatever he feels
like saying. And look at her? How does
she treat her mother? Does she treat your mother and her mother the same? If
not, she’s putting on the dog. Is she polite? Does she have manners? Or does
she just say whatever comes to her mind. You might say, well I don’t care about
manners because she’s so beautiful. But let me tell you one thing, those looks
last but for a few years, without the assistance of something false. False lips, false eyelashes,
false teeth, false this and false that.
And when that happens, there is one thing that
remains, and that is her character. And if her character is not that of someone
who is constantly trying to do good, and who is living for others, then if you
go any further in that relationship, you have just entered the twilight
zone.
HEAR YE HIM 57-0519A It's your character, your conduct that gives
God confidence in you.
BELIEVE FROM
THE HEART 57-0623
013 Now, if you notice a man is known by his
character and his character is known by his works. If we would think of how God
shows His character by His works... He's got His own character, and He made His
works, and if you look at His works, how great they are.
IDENTIFICATION 63-0123 070 In
the days of Elijah what side would you have took? Or in the days of Moses, when
there was a message of God thoroughly a vindicated (Now, listen.), in your
present character... You say, "I'm a Christian." All right. I'm just
going to ask you. Your present character, what stand would you have took when
Dathan raised up and said, "Now, wait just a minute. There's more holy men
around here besides you, Moses. We'll just get a group of men and make us a big
affair here. And the first thing you know we'll have bishops, and archbishops,
and everything else around here. And God's in His people the whole thing. Don't
think that you're the only pebble on the beach."
Now, then, how do we develop the right character? How
do we train ourselves? Is there anything we can do to change our character? Yes
there is… And brother Branham came to tell us how.
IDENTIFICATION 64-0216
039 Now, if you find your place,
sister, don't let me hurt you, brother, but you'll find your place in the Word
as a Christian. Not what the creed said, that's down here in this lower cannon
fodder that's going to be destroyed. See? You find your place as a Christian,
because your character is molded as Christ. You're Zoe,
the same as He was Zoe. Then if the Bible said for a
woman not to cut her hair, how can you do it? It says a man's the ruler of the
house. How can you women be? What's the matter with you men as sons of God?
See? See, you don't find your place. See?
Watch now. You're invited to come and take His character. By having His character
in you, it molds you into the same mind that He was. And His mind was always to do what the Father
had ordained Him to do. He said, "Search the Scripture. They testify
of Me." In other words, "If I don't do exactly what the Scripture
said I'm to do, then show Me where."
040 Now, what if God stood on the platform today
and said, "What's required of a Christian?" Then where would we all
be. See? The character isn't expressing itself. His mind was to stay with the Father's Word. Their mind was to... The same mind was in them, was to be in us.
And if His mind is in us, we'll do like
He did. If His character's in us, we'll be as He was. Is that right?
WHAT WOULD
JESUS DO? That is a popular saying
today among the evangelicals, and yet they really don'’ understand what that
really means.
And WHAT DID
JESUS SAY? “The Son can of Himself do
nothing, what He seeth the Father do, that the Son
doeth likewise” John
If we want the same character that Jesus had, then we
have got to learn to be obedient to God’s Word.
Because that is the greatest Attribute of Son-ship that Jesus displayed.
Obedience to the Father. And if we are to receive in us this same character, we
must come the way Jesus came, by the Word of God.
You say, “Well, Jesus had the character of God!” But
how did Jesus come by this character? Was He born with it? NO! Paul said, HEBREWS 5:8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things
which he suffered; 9 And being made perfect, he became the
author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
For it is the Word that will mold our character to be
fashioned to His glorious nature. II
TIMOTHY
117-1
SMYRAEAN CHURCH AGE - CHPTR 4
In Romans 8:17-18, "And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him,
that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of
this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be
revealed in us." Unless we suffer
with Him we cannot reign with Him. You have to suffer to reign. The reason
for this is that character simply is
never made without suffering. Character is a VICTORY, not a gift. A man
without character can't reign because power apart from character is Satanic.
But power with character is fit to rule. And since He wants us to share even
His throne on the same basis that He overcame and is set down in His Father's
throne, then we have to overcome to sit with Him. And the little temporary
suffering we go through now is not worthy to be compared to the tremendous
glory that will be revealed in us when He comes. Oh, what treasures are laid up
for those who are willing to enter into His kingdom through much
tribulation. "Think it not strange
concerning the fiery trials that are to try you." That is what Peter said.
Is it strange that God wants us to
develop a Christ-like character that comes through suffering? No sir. And
we all have trials. We are all tried and chastened as sons. Not one but goes
through that. The church that is not
suffering, and is not being tried, hasn't got it--it isn't of God. Heb.
12:6, "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every
son whom He receiveth. But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are
partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."
PROVERBS
3:11 My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of
his correction: 12 For
whom the LORD loveth he correcteth;
even as a father the son [in whom] he delighteth.
PROVERBS
22:1 ¶ Foolishness [is] bound in the heart of a
child; [but] the rod of correction shall
drive it far from him.
PROVERBS
23:12 ¶ Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine
ears to the words of knowledge. 13 Withhold
not correction from the child: for [if] thou beatest
him with the rod, he shall not die.
14 Thou shalt beat him with the
rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
JEREMIAH 5:3 O LORD, [are] not thine eyes upon the truth?
thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them,
[but] they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces
harder than a rock; they have refused to return. 4 Therefore I said, Surely
these [are] poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD,
[nor] the judgment of their God. 5 I will get me unto the great men, and will
speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, [and] the judgment of
their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, [and] burst the bonds.
And what we look for in a mate should never be looks
which are fleeting, we should look for character. You boys, look at the girls
hands, if they are soft and perfumy, stay away from that
one, she hasn’t cut her weight, she’ll never make a help-mate. She’ll be a
noose around your neck.
Kindman Redeemer 47 60-1002 "Hatred had a beginning so it has
to have an end. Love had no beginning, so it has no end. Hatred is forever.
Love is eternal. Hatred begins and hatred will end. Love never did begin and it
never will end (See?); it's eternal. And when a man loves a woman and marries
her because she's just pretty, there'll be an end to that. But when a man finds
a woman that he loves, he don't know why, but he loves her... And she finds the
man that she loves, no matter what he looks like... He loves her. She loves
him. That's an eternal mate in glory.
They'll... Death nor nothing else can ever separate them. Because they are from
eternity, and they stepped out into space of time, and will return back to
eternity. Eternity has dropped down in a body called time, then it goes right
back up into eternity again. It cannot perish.
When you love, not because of looks, then you know you
have something that is eternal. LIFE
STORY 50-0200 031
Now, now, I guess you wonder how I ever got married. Well, when I met my
wife, she was a Christian girl, very lovely Christian girl. And I was then
about twenty-three, twenty-four years old. She very sweet humble character. And
I met her. And I--I'd take her to church, and she went to church. And she was a
very fine lovely woman. All these people here, my friends from
And you girls, what about the man? Brother Branham
said, LIFE 58-0512 “Man's
not measured by muscles; that's beast, brute. Man's measured by character. And
if you're a son of God, you're measured by your character.”
LAMB AND
DOVE 60-0805 Man's
measured by character. There never was a man like Jesus Christ, never measured
up to Him. And the Bible said, "There's no beauty we should desire
Him." Didn't look like a King; He was a little, bitty Fellow, probably
stooped, little small in statue, but there never was a man like Him. Man is
measured by character, not by brutal strength.
CHOOSING OF
A BRIDE 65-0429E
027
So you must make the right choice. Again, the kind of a woman that a man
would choose will reflect his ambition and his character. If a man chooses the
wrong woman, it reflects his character. And what he ties himself to shows truly
what's in him. A woman reflects what's in the man when he chooses her for wife.
It shows what's down in him. No matter what he says outside, watch what he
marries. I go to a man's office and he says he's a Christian, pinups all around
on the walls, that old boogie-woogie music going on, I don't care what he says;
I don't believe his testimony; because his spirit's feeding on them things of
the world. What say if he would marry a chorus girl, or what if he'd marry a
sex queen, or just a pretty modern Ricketta? It
reflects; it shows what he has in his mind of what his future home's going to
be, because he took her to raise his children by, and whatever she is, that's
the way she'll raise those children. So it reflects what's in the man. A man
that takes a woman like that shows just what he is thinking of the future.
Could you imagine a Christian doing a thing like that? No, sir, I could not. A
true Christian will not look for such beauty queens, and chorus girls, and sex
queens. He'll look for Christian character.
028
Now, you can't have all things. There might be one girl that's real
pretty, and the other girl maybe she's a--her statue looks better than this
one. And you might have to sacrifice one for the other. But if she's not the
statue of a lady, of a woman, and she's... I don't care whether she's pretty or
not, you'd better look at her character, whether she's pretty or not pretty.
Now... For it is becoming if a Christian would choose a wife, he ought to
choose a genuine borned again woman. Regardless of
what she looks like, it's what she is what makes her. And then again, that
reflects his own godly character and reflects what's in his mind and what's
going to be in the future, for his family will be raised by such a woman, for
the future plans for his home. If he marries one of these little modern Rickettas, sex queens, what could he expect? What kind of
home could a man expect to have? If he marries a girl that ain't got enough
moral about her to stay home and take care of a house and wants to work out in
somebody's office, what kind of a housekeeper will she be? You'll have
baby-setters and everything else. It's true.
029
Now, I'm not much of this modernistic taste of women working. When I
seen these women with these uniforms on riding around in this city on
motorcycles as police, it's a disgrace to the--any city that'd let a woman do
that as many men that's without work. It shows the modern thinking of our city;
it shows the degrading. We don't have to have them women out there like that.
They ain't got no business out there like that. When God gave a man a wife, He
gave him the best thing He could give him outside of salvation; but when one
goes to trying to take a man's place, then she's about the worse thing that he
could get ahold of. Now, that's right. Now, we can
see the spiritual application. I--I know that's bad. You think it's bad, but
it's the truth. We don't care how bad it is; we've got to face up to the facts.
That's what the Bible teaches. See?
030
Now, we here see plainly the spiritual plan of God's planning for His
future home with His future Bride comes into view now. If a man marries a sex
queen, you see what he's looking for for the future.
If a man marries a woman that won't stay home, you see what he's looking for in
the future.
You watch the women and see how they act around their
husbands. See how they treat their husbands, and I’ll tell you if they have
been out in the workforce or not. Let me see how a woman treats her husband,
let me see what level of respect she has for him, and I’ll tell you what kind
of job she’s had and who she’s mingled with on her job. I watch these things,
God didn’t set me over this church for no reason. He set me here as a watchman
to look out for your souls. I’ve been pastoring for 18 years now, and preaching this message in
one fashion or another for 25 years, and
during that time, I’ve seen sisters who I’ve admired for their sweetness and
charity towards others go out and get themselves a job, and the next thing you
know, they start treating others rudely, they lose the common decency and
courtesies and politeness they once had,
and become rude and quick with their comments. And when this happens, they
begin to distance themselves, and when that happens, spiritual death starts
setting in. we’ve proven that by this Word. They become neurotics, and like
cancer, it creeps in and takes on a strangle hold.
Now, what causes that. It’s your associations, the
people you talk to the things you say, it creates an atmosphere. There’s an old expression, “If you sleep with the dogs you’ll wake up
with ticks.”
UNCERTAIN
SOUND 61-0429E 010 Traveling around from nation to nation, I
find that everyone seems to be nervous. And the psychic wards are filling up.
And the people are... Down the street, there seems to be so much anxiety, and
rush just as hard as they can, till they don't have courtesy even, one for the
other. And I've noticed it amongst all people. Here recently, I was having a
meeting in a certain place, where there was a parking ground. And I noticed
amongst our Pentecostal people, pulling their cars sideways, this a way. If
they'd just pulled it in straight, it would give somebody else a chance. And
they have some Pentecostal cursing. I don't know whether you ever heard of it
or not. 011 They go down the road at night, and the man
will dim his lights, and the next man won't even dim his lights, just go on,
pay no attention to it. Let him go, and blind him as necessary. That's
Pentecostal cursing. You see? "Let him alone, he ought..." We
shouldn't do that, no matter what the other fellow does. Let's--let's show what
we're made out of. If... Let's get something down in here to show love and
respects. And respect the next man and--and love him, whether he's right or
wrong. If you can just love those who love you, why, the sinners do the same
thing. But we're different. When Christ has come into our heart, we love those
who do not love us. Love the unlovable. And we were unlovable one time too, you
know. And Christ loved us until we came to Him. And then if we be of Christ and
Christ is in us, we have that same Spirit of fellowship, and cooperation, and
helping to try to move the great load, and make life a little easier for our
fellow man.
IT IS I 61-0517 All servants of Christ are kind. You believe
that? They like to show courtesy to those who are needy: helps the blind across
the street, bring them to the meeting. Do things kind. When the neighbor's
sick, go help them, never expect money. Do good to others. All Christ's
servants are like that. They like to help those who are run down and tramped
over.
You want to know what a person thinks of you, watch
how they treat your children. Brother Branham said, “If you love me, you’ll love my children, if
you want to do something nice for me, do it for my children.” Well, I’ve seen them throw their wash water
in the face of my kids, and laugh while doing it. I’ve seen them grab my child and shake them
until it looked like their little head was going to fall off, and then come out
among the crowd just as spiritual and pious as can be. But I’ve also seen some treat my children
wonderfully, and I know this is because of their respect for me, and I
appreciate that more than you will ever know.
BLIND
BARTIMAEUS 61-0124 We're
taught as Christians, His disciples, to honor and be kind and true. That's...
All Christians do that, show courtesy.
You can say all you want about it, but the way you
treat others shows your character, and shows whether you are Christian or not.
BE NOT
AFRAID 61-0311 You know,
anybody that serves the Lord Jesus is a gentleman (See?), courteous.
BE.NOT
AFRAID IT IS I 61-0414 057 And I want to say something here. His
followers always show courtesy to everybody in their life. You see? They're
ready to help somebody, ready to do something for somebody else, His true
followers.
HEAR YE HIM
57-0519A It's your character, your conduct that
gives God confidence in you.
Therefore, in finding a spouse, don’t just look for a
good provider, you girls, look for character. Look for the person who you love
to be around, through richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death
do you part, and remember, if you find that kind of person, you never will part
for you are eternal mates, as brother Branham put it.
EXPLAINING
HEALING AND JAIRUS 54-0216 E-37
037 You are now. Now, we're sons
of God. Now, we're seated together in heavenly places. Now, we have all powers
in heavens and the earth. See? Now, we have it. Not in the millennium, we won't
need it then. We got it now. Right now
we are the sons of God. "It does not appear what we shall be, but we know
we'll be like Him." What you are
here is a reflection of what you are somewhere else. "Those who He
called, He justifies." Is that right? "Those who He justified, He has
glorified." Already in the Presence
of the Father, we have a glorified body. Whew! Wasn't that deep? All right.
We'll find out whether it's right or not. "If this earthly tabernacle be
dissolved, we have one already waiting." Is that right? That's right. So
right now, and what we are here, is a
reflection of what we are somewhere else. So if your deeds are evil, you
know where it comes from. You know where your other body's a waiting.