Questions and Answers #18
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
September 23, 2007
This morning I would like to speak on the new birth, to answer the
question, what is the new birth, and how do I know that I am born again. And
for our text let’s go to our Bibles and read from
John 3:3 Jesus
answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the
1 Peter 1: 23 Being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God,
which liveth and abideth for ever.
Let us pray, Dear gracious Father we humbly approach Thee this morning
with the question of the new birth because there are still so many following
this Message that do not know for certain that they are truly born again.
Because we have said that the new birth is believing the Message for the hour,
we have raised up a second and third generation of children following this
Message that have never known you in the power of your resurrection. Therefore,
Father, we pray that you will help those who are not sure that they are born
again to come to know whether they are or not. As your prophet said, the new birth
is an experience, something that takes place. And
we know it’s not the experience that brings the new birth, but the new birth is
experienced. We know when we have been born again.
So we see two things from our text concerning the new birth.
1: Without the new birth you will never see or understand the
2: You are born again by the Word of God which lives and abides forever.
Therefore the life commensurate with this birth would have to attest to the
Word of God.
Now, concerning point number 1, to be able to understand the Kingdom, of
God and point number 2, the Life of the new birth will have to bear record to
the Word of God, William Branham said the following.
Mary's belief 61-0121 P:30 Now,
listen, friends. Don't take a substitute. Don't just shake a man's hand and put
your name on the book. That's... as far as it goes, that's all right. It might
help you to get out of the saloon and get in a decent place and try to live
right. That won't do it though. "Except a man be born again he cannot even
see the
IT SHALL BE EVEN AS IT WAS TOLD ME 50-0818
23 Anyhow, "to see" doesn't mean "to look at." The word "see" means "to
understand." Jesus said, "Except a man be born of water and
Spirit, he cannot see the
Notice what Jesus
tells us here. They hear but are not capable of understanding. Then what are
they hearing? Not what is being said! But what they want to hear. Notice in the
following quote that Brother Branham tells us the same thing. To hear means to understand,
and to see means to understand, but just because you look with your eyes does
not mean that you understand what you are looking at.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS COD 59-1223 60
Now, Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again
he cannot see the
Now, what I am bringing to you thins morning is very important because if
you are not born again you will not go in the rapture. So you had better know
that you are born again.
Super
sign 62-0624 P:78 Now, let me tell you. Anything outside of being born again will never reach the rapture. Unless there is a germ of life inside you,
you'll perish. You cannot rise up again.
Questions
and answers COD 64-0823E P:106 317. Will
all born again believers go in the rapture? No, just the remnant, just the
remnant, not all born again believers. The Bible said, "And the rest
of the dead lived not for a thousand years," and then they was raised up
and separated, the sheep from the goats. Not
all born again will go in the... according to the Scripture. 1040-Q-318
318. What is the evidence that a person is really filled with the Holy
Ghost? John 14:26:
He will... "When the Holy Ghost is come (See?), He will
show you things to come." See? He'll be a... He'll perfect it;
man made won't do it; and He is the Word. When
He the Holy Ghost is come, He will identify Himself in you with the
Scripture. And that is the true
sign that the Holy Spirit is in you, because It is the Word.
HEAR RECOGNIZE ACT ON WORD 60-0221 30
First, faith cometh by hearing, hearing of the Word of God. Then
the believer hears It, recognizes It, and acts on It. The carnal man will hear
It, the sound of It, but never... "Hear" means to "understand
It". Look at, is looking at something; but to see it, is to
"understand it". "Except a man be born again, he cannot see or
understand the
Now, what I am concerned for is the generation of children that have come
up in Message churches and they have never been taught anything but the
message, and yet what Message they have been taught in most cases has been
wrong because they have been taught a oneness doctrine concerning the Godhead.
But there parents say, well you believe therefore you are born again. Listen,
they believe because that is all they have been taught. So they have been
indoctrinated to a creed or a movement, but that does not mean they have been
born again.
To believe God has sent a prophet in our day does not get you into the
family of God. A new Birth brings the very Life into you of God Himself.
Christ
is the mystery 63-0728 P:120 Look, Christ
in you makes Him the center of Life of the revelation. See? Christ's Life in you makes Him the center
of the revelation. Christ in the Bible, makes the Bible a complete
revelation of Christ. Christ in you
makes you the complete revelation of the whole thing. See, what God's
trying to do? What is the new birth then? You say, "Well, Brother Branham,
what is the new birth?" It is the revelation of Jesus Christ
personally to you. Amen. See? Not you joined a church, you shook a hand;
you done something different; you said a creed; you promised to live by a code
of rules; but Christ, the Bible... He is
the Word that was revealed to you. And no matter what anybody says, what
takes place, it's Christ. Pastor, priest, whatever it might be... It's Christ
in you. That is the revelation that the Church was built upon.
Second coming 55-0220A P:28 Now,
you can have a intellectual faith by hearing the Word, and perceiving it in
your mind, and accepting it upon those basis, which is intellectual faith. But
the faith that Jesus was speaking of in
From Christ is the mystery 63-0728 P:128 brother
Branham tells us But
the only way that you're saved is by knowing Him by revelation.
And there is a big difference between knowing something as a creed and
then having it revealed to you down in your soul. Too many people have seen their
children come up in this message and either just be good church people or go
out from the church all together. That is because they are not born again, and
I wonder sometimes if the parents had no experience with God either.
Christ
is the mystery 63-0728 P:130 Paul knew Him by revelation. That's how we know Him today, is the only
way you could know Him. Not say, "I'm Methodist." That means
nothing. "I'm Baptist." That means nothing. "I'm Catholic."
That means nothing. But by the revelation that God has revealed the Word to
you. He is the Word, and the Word, how you know It's revealed, It lives Itself and expresses Itself
through you.
Now, brother Branham said if you have received the Life of Christ in your
it will express itself out from you. It has to. We are not called to become Branhamites? God never called us for that purpose. He has
called us to become what we were meant to be, and that is sons.
I will never forget a young man came to me years ago and said, I always
believed that I’m God’s elect, and I said you can believe what you want to but
unless you are born again what good will it do you. There are seeds planted
that never came to fruit, they fell among the thorns.
So don’t think, praise God I was born into a Message Church so I am ok,
because unless you have received a new birth you are dead while you yet live.
Christ
is the mystery 63-0728 P:121 It's Christ being revealed, and He is the
Word. And when the Word is revealed, It
expresses Itself. See? That's God's purpose for Jesus Christ, was to
express Himself, to take His own laws and live by His laws, and fulfill His law
by death. Christ, God died in flesh in order to condemn sin in the flesh that
He might bring to Himself a glorious Bride, redeemed back, that will believe
only in the Word of God and not swap It, like Eve did, for intellectual
conceptions of men. You see it?
And that is the problem that I see even
among those who claim to have the doctrine right. If they have it by revelation
and not just an intellectual conception, then it has a life to it, and it must
live itself out in their lives, or it isn’t revealed to them. Faith is a
revelation and if it is truly revealed it must build up an energy and that
energy must manifest itself in an action. That is what Life is all about. Dead
horse don’t kick, and dead people spiritually do not manifest that energy of
God concerning the revelation of Christ. They are just preoccupied with the
cares of this life like the rest of the world, and except for the church they
attend or the ministry they ascribe to they are no different than the rest of
the world.
Christ is the mystery 63-0728 P:124 The new birth is Christ, is a revelation.
God has revealed to you this great mystery, and that's the new birth. Now, what
are you going to do when you get all that group together, where the revelation
is perfectly in harmony, and God expressing it through His Word by the same actions,
the same things that He did, making the Word manifest? Oh, if the Church only knew its position.
It will one day. Then, the rapture will go when it knows what it is.
By the same actions he did. That’s what he said here. Now, the new birth
is a real event. Many people look at it as though it just sort of happened and
they are not sure when it happened but they presume they have it because they
attend the right church. That is hogwash, and the person that thinks that has
not been born again. Many say, well we have brother Branham, we believe he is a
prophet of God. We have Br. Vayle we believe he is a teacher. And that sort of
thinking is carnal. You won’t make the rapture based on Br. Branham’s life or
Br. Vayle’s Life. You will make the rapture based on being a Born again Son or
daughter of God period. And to be born again is a life altering experience. And
if you Life ha not been altered, to serve the Living God, then I wonder if you
have been truly born again.
Oh, you might talk the talk and walk the walk, but are you alive to
Christ and what he is doing in this hour? There is a world wide revival taking
place among the bride right now, and yet most Americans who claim to believe
the Message are not even aware of what God is doing, and not only is He doing
it, but he is confirming it with signs and wonders.
Is your life worthy 63-0630E P:80 I
was telling someone this afternoon in a little meeting; I said, "Every son
that's born of God has to be tried first, chastened." And I remember when
I had mine. On my greatest hour... When
a man's born again, there's a little spot like the size of his fingernail that
God injects into his system, and it falls into his heart and there anchors.
Then Satan makes him prove it. And if that ain't there, you're gone.
Jesus said in Matthew 13: 23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth
the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold,
some sixty, some thirty. And William
Branham taught us that to “see” means to understand.
Now, notice
how brother Branham tells us that the Holy Spirit comes and anoints our mental
Faith and then it becomes a spiritual revelation that builds upon Word upon
Word upon Word. that brother Branham says when these streams of Grace pour in
upon our mental faith. Then he says When them streams of grace has poured into
that mental faith that you've got, then upon this, a spiritual revelation. Now,
Peter. The one who Jesus praised for receiving the Revelation of the Godhead,
that there is One God and He had a Son, and Jesus was that Son of God. In 1
Peter 1:13 he tells us Wherefore
gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace
that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; Notice he says at the end time there will
be a certain Grace that will be brought to you at the time of the Revelation of
Jesus Christ. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 we read, 1
Corinthians 1; 3 - 10 Grace
be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I
thank My God always on your behalf, for the [Grace] of God which is given you
by Jesus Christ; that in every thing you are to be enriched [this Grace brings on a maturity like
fertilizer] by Him, in all utterance [Logos] and in all knowledge; Even as
the testimony of Jesus Christ was confirmed in you: [This is the same as in 2
Thessalonians 1: 10 when
God comes to be glorified in His saints. When the very mind of God comes into
His elect seed.] And the reason for this is so that you will not come behind
in no gift [Charisma
which is a spiritual endowment]; waiting for the Apokalupsis [ Revealing or unveiling] of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be
blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 4: 7 - 8 “Saying,
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” So we find then, the identifiable
characteristic of the new birth is that the people will be caught up into the
Revelation of Jesus Christ as spoken in 1
Peter 1: 13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be
sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ;
And as
this Revelation breaks, we'll understand the Grace that comes with it, bringing
us into the same mindset so that we might all cry out in One accord, "
Grace, Grace, unto It!" which we find in the following scripture...
1 Thessalonians 3: 13 To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable
in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
with all his saints.
1 Corinthians 1: 10 God
is faithful, by Whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ
our Lord. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but
that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment."
So you
see, if we have the mind of the Father and we know to have His mind we must have
His spirit, and we know that by One spirit we are all baptized into one body,
the body of Christ. So it's already a done deal. So as we see from 1
Peter 1: 13 and 1
Corinthians 1: 4-10, God
has given us the spirit of Grace in this hour to have the mind of Christ. And
He said, "let the mind that was in Christ be in you", so it is
possible for you to have God's own thoughts within your very mind, and that is
what brother Branham was talking about, in that last quotation we read from The
Spoken word is the Original Seed. Notice how He begins quoting from John 5:19
where Jesus said, "the son can of Himself do nothing, but whatsoever He
seeth the Father do, that the Son doeth likewise."
That is
what Ephesians 1: is
all about, that we were in His mind before the world began ordained to come
forth to the adoption of Children by coming into the very mind of the Father.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen
us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
without blame before him in love:
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he
hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7 In whom we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the
riches of his grace; 8 Wherein he hath abounded toward
us in all wisdom and prudence; 9 Having made known
unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath
purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of
the fulness of times he might gather together in one
all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: 11 In whom
also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: 12 That we should be to the praise of his glory,
who first trusted in Christ. 13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed
with that holy Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the
earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession,
unto the praise of his glory. 15 Wherefore I also,
after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, 16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making
mention of you in my prayers; 17 That the God of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18 The
eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope
of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the
saints, 19 And what is
the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the
working of his mighty power, 20 Which he wrought in
Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him
at his own right hand in the heavenly places,