Questions and Answers #30
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
November 7, 2007
This evening I would like to look at certain things brother Branham spoke
concerning the persecution of the church. Some believe that it will take the
persecution of the church to drive the believers back together. I do not know
if I can see it that way based on certain things brother Branham has said
concerning the persecution.
For instance in the sermon Feast of the trumpets 64-0719M P:75 brother
Branham said, In
the cunningness, as He said, he'd come in like flatteries. And what has he
done? He's bringing the Protestant ecumenical council of the world churches,
the spirit of antichrist, upon both of them, bringing them to the slaughter,
just like they did the other in a hour to call the Bride. How? Loosed in the
ecclesiastical church, spirit. Loosed upon what? Not upon the denominations, upon the Bride. But here you'd get it; the Bride will not go through that time.
The Bible says not. The church will, but
not the Bride. Can't you see? Ministers, can't you see that, brethren? You say the Church has to go through
the persecution for the perfection of it. The Blood of Jesus Christ perfects
the Bride. A man who chooses a wife don't put her through a lot of
punishment; he's already found grace with her; she's found grace with him. He
engages to her. And if there's anything, he'll keep her from every place to
turn her hand. His grace is so great upon them, and so will it be upon the
Bride, and so is it on the Bride.
So here we have a very definitive statement from God’s prophet that the
Bride will not go through the persecution. Let’s read another.
From His sermon Questions and answers COD 64-0823M P:154 276.preached well after the Seven Seals were revealed,
Brother Branham reads a very definitive question concerning the Bride and the
tribulation, “Brother Branham, will the Bride go through the persecution as the early apostolic
church did? No, I just
explained that a few minutes ago. No,
next thing is a rapture now.
Remember, we're at the promised land; we're at the border. You understand the
march of
The Paradox 64-0418B P:62 preached a few months
earlier. We got to stay together. We're all believers in God. The
Holy Ghost takes us all in. It'll be a paradox if God ever gets us together.
But He will; just trust Him. The virgin birth... He knows how to send the
persecution. It'll run us together. Now, some might take this statement and believe by it
that God will run us all in together. I do not believe God will use the
persecution to drive the Bride together, because the bride will not be here for
the Persecution which is also known as the Great Tribulation. So we
see here a quote where brother Branham said the persecution will run us all
together. But what does he mean here by persecution, and when he is speaking of
all coming together who is he talking about?
Court trial 64-0412 P:54 All
the Pentecostal groups come together then. It'll
take a persecution to run you people together. You'll never believe
it. But when that time comes...
Notice that he is speaking to the Pentecostal people, the Church, because
we have already found him to say that the Bride will not go through the
persecution. The Bride are coming together all around the world by the
Revelation of Jesus Christ, which is the Doctrine of Christ. And everywhere I
have been I see the brothers that are getting the revelation begin to teach it
just as wonderfully as I have seen those who sat under Brother Vayle doing so.
And when they see the relationship Jesus had with His Father, and that He has
with us as our Eldest Brother in a vast family of brethren, they can see the
real brotherhood of Christ and that revelation has really begun to tie the
Message Believers together as nothing has been able to do so before.
Great commission 58-0301B P:28 But
I believe, my brethren, that there is
coming an hour that when a real rank persecution will run us together. Then we
will be one, the Church will come together.
What we have to be careful about concerning the use of the word
persecution is that just Like the word Christ can mean, the Anointer or the One
Who anoints. It can also mean the One who is anointed, and it can also mean the
anointing itself. So when we hear brother Branham use the word persecution we
must understand in what context he is using that word.
In this next quote we find brother Branham use the word persecution as a
tool that God uses to train and discipline His children. That is not the same
as the persecution that speaks of the Great tribulation.
We have seen His star 63-1216 P:25 God
is the great Refiner's Furnace, that where He has to put these things upon us,
and trials, and persecutions and things to mold it together to make our
testimony ring for a certain time, and a certain note that He wants rang out in
a certain day. We're made different. We're all made different. We see
different. But we all see one thing; that's Jesus Christ. Let's look at Him.
And the only way you can see Him... If He looks contrary to this Word, you're
not looking at Him, for That is Him. So if you see a creed or see some certain
denomination that you just think, "I belong to that, and that's
enough." If it doesn't look at that Word, then look away from it. Look to
that Word. And that's what we're looking for: Christ, the manifestation of
God's Word. He is the a-vindication of God's Word.
Again we see that God allows certain influences in our lives to mold us
into the Image of His first born son. But the persecutions here are but the
trials of our faith that God uses to mold His very nature into us, by His Word.
The trials drive us to His Word, and if we are to be driven together by trials
it will be driven to the Word, not to a certain group here and a certain group
there. God never drives people to other people. He drives us to His Word.
Fifth seal the 63-0322 P:154 The
ones that the Lord showed me, the Bride, she was not under the martyrs' block,
no, the sacrifice altar of the martyrs, but had received white robes by
accepting the pardoning grace of the living Word. Christ had give them a white
robe.
Feast of the trumpets 64-0719M P:99 There
was three stages of it, as I said: the martyrs, age the martyr for it, and then
the stage of the reformers, and now the calling-out time. When finished, the
Laodicean age, according to Revelations 10, the mystery of all the Bible would
be knowed to the Bride. Is that right? Revelations 10... Listen close now.
Bride called out by the Word, Christ Himself calling out the Bride, making
plain Hebrews 13:8 (that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, does the
same, is the same; "He that believeth on Me the works that I do shall he
do also." See?), Luke 22--or Luke 17:30, and also Malachi 4, Hebrews 4,
all these Scriptures that's promised, this is to be between the Sixth and the
Seventh Seal and the Sixth and the Seventh Trumpet.
So we see that brother
Branham is plainly speaking that the age of the church had three segments to
it. The days of the martyrs, the days of the reformers, and the days of the
called out by the Revelation of Jesus Christ among the Bride. Now, this by itself
does not lay the ground work to say there will be no martyrdom or persecution
of the Bride, but let’s look further on this subject if we might.
Ephesian church age 60-1205 P:13 We're
so glad as we read of the martyrs of the
days gone by, how they sealed their testimony with their own blood; then,
Father, it makes us feel that we're doing so little in this day. And I pray
Thee, Lord, that Thou will forgive our negligence, as we are, about Thy
business. And we pray that You'll anoint us afresh as we read of Thy Word, and see the suffering that has been brought
about in the days gone by to make up the canon of this great ransomed
church of the living God.
Now, again this proves nothing of the present or future, but let’s us see
that the ages gone by made were made up by martyrs etc.
So you see here brother Branham points out that it will be the foolish
virgin that will go through the persecution or Great Tribulation as he also
calls it.
The next quote we read is from Questions and Answers where brother
Branham is asked a question whether the foolish virgin will be saved o not.
Questions and answers COD 64-0823E P:88 Now,
just a minute. "Will the foolish virgin be saved."(Now, listen to brother Branham’s answer.) No!!! Whatever happens, happens
now. After that time she's in the state... Now, she will have to go through the tribulation period. And the reason
of it is, is because she has rejected
the Atonement in Its fullness. She is a believer, a professed believer, but
she will have to go through the
tribulation period. The Bible said, "And the rest of them, the dragon
spurted water out of his mouth to go and make war..." And what an hour
that is. There's never been a time in history where that the nominal churches
has become so hungry to find the baptism of the Holy Ghost. I speak for the
Christian Business Men. Constantly, it's Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, and
all, Baptists by the hundreds, Church of Christ, Nazarenes, Pilgrim Holiness,
Seventh Day Adventists, every one of them flocking in trying to find... See?
So the answer is very plain. The Foolish virgin have rejected the
Atonement which is the Word in It’s fullness. They have rejected the Doctrine
of Christ, and have not God.
They have not the Holy Ghost, but are trying to get it some other way
than what we are told in the scriptures to get it.
God hiding Himself in simplicity 63-0412E
P:116 Something happened the other day. You heard
the tape, the seven thunders, "What Time Is It, Sir?" See? It
happened the other day. You know these things... The time is at hand, church.
The time is at hand. Don't--don't--don't wait any longer. See, how do you know
the rapture's not going on all the time? First thing you know it'll be past,
one disappearing here, and there. It'll be gone the first thing you know, and judgment
will strike the world. You say, "Well, I thought this...""It's
too late now." You remember, they didn't know it until the day they
entered into the ark, and then it was too late. The foolish virgin didn't know until she come back and found the wise
virgin gone. Then she was left for the tribulation period.
So we see the types are all there. Noah’s day, and the foolish virgin not
having the Holy Ghost and by the time they come back to find out how to get it,
it will be too late then. That is why I am afraid that this great awakening
that is happening all around the world is one last sweep by God to get those in
that are ordained to come in. Remember, when brother Vayle first begin to
preach on the Parousia they all mocked him, but now many of those that mocked are
now preaching it in one fashion or another.
Patmos vision 60-1204E P:4 So
then the foolish virgin was the one who did not have oil in their lamps, that I
believe that was cast out into outer darkness where there'd be weeping,
wailing, and gnashing of teeth. If you'll compare that on your footnotes, it'll
run it right back again to the great tribulation. And I think they're the ones that stays back and goes through the great
tribulation. Quite a lesson there, if we had time to go into it. If you...
QA God being misunderstood COD 61-0723E
P:26 140. Now, were the five of the virgins
lost? I presume that they are asking the question, "the five
virgins," the five wise and the five foolish. Now, if you were with us in
the last teachings in Revelation, you find out there that those virgins, the five foolish virgins were not lost; but
they were not permitted to go into the wedding supper, but they suffered
persecution, and was martyred, and raised again at the general resurrection in
the last day. Those are the people where He separated the sheep from the
goats (See?); they stood before judgment. You say, "Well, Brother Branham,
don't we stand, the Church?" No, sir. We
do not stand before the judgment. We are now standing before the Judgment. God
put our sins upon Christ, and "He that heareth My Word (
Now, in this next quote brother Branham had just finished talking about a
trip to
Handwriting on the wall 58-0618 P:22 Persecution
makes the church strong. And God will strengthen this American church someday,
hiding in a bomb shelter somewhere. Now,
if we believe the Bride doesn’t go through the Persecution then this is
speaking of those left behind.
Questions and answers COD 64-0823E P:116 Now,
the people say, "What about the early saints?" That was the changing
of the dispensations. That was under
persecution, which if you was here to hear this church ages, and to see how
they went out into that darkness and had to do that, then that shows where they had to take that persecution, because each one
of the church ages and everything begin to show that they went darker and
darker, till they finally went to a complete place that they denied His Name
and picked up another name that they lived and were dead: Sardis. And then it
come on out, Thyatira and Sardis, and then come out, then it begin to come out
to Philadelphia and so forth, and then
come to the time of the calling out of the Bride which was to escape all the
damnation. It counted worthy to escape all this damnation
and wrath that's to come upon the earth, that you might be counted worthy to
escape it, not
go through it,
escape it. See? Do you understand now, everybody? See?
Feast of the trumpets 64-0719M P:94 At
the Sixth Seal when it opened, the
persecution struck the Jews in a literal standpoint, and here comes the persecution to the Church in
the ecclesiastical standpoint, because the Bride is already called. The
sabbaths are over and ready for the Jews to be called. Where to? The Feast of
Atonement. Oh, church, don't you see that? So the persecution to the Jews under Hitler and Stalin is followed by
the persecution to the church after the Bride is gone to Glory.
Now, for those who believe that Alpha must repeat in Omega, and thus
there must be a persecution before we go in the Rapture, let’s look what
brother Branham says about the Alpha persecution. From his sermon, Testimony of William Branham 60-0210 P:28 He
says, “Do you believe that?
Scripture says that? After His
death, burial, and resurrection, persecution
set upon the church. So if the
persecution set in on the church after His resurrection, then I believe it will
repeat in Omega as well. After the resurrection and rapture of the church.
What Holy Ghost was given for 59-1217 P:12 When
men makes fun of you, they're not making fun of you; they're making fun of Him
that sent you. So Jesus said, "Blessed are ye when men shall
say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for My Name sake. Blessed are you."
And again, "All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall
suffer persecution." For when God made Hisself known in
Christ, they hated Him. Who hated Him
worse? The church. The church hated Him worse. They
hated Him worse than the drunkard. They hated Him worse than all the other
people. It was the church that hated
Him. So therefore, when you see Kosmos, the world order... "The world knowed Him not" means the
"church (so-called) knew Him not." "He
came to His own and His own received Him not. But as many as did receive Him,
to them gave He the power to become sons of God, to them that believed on His
Name." Oh, how we should love Him and worship Him. The
purpose of God, wanting to become in fellowship...
Now, that is a beautiful quote because it shows that the church hated the
manifestation of God in the man Jesus and it will hate you today as well when
it sees Christ in you the Hope of Glory. Now, that does not mean that we are to
go about and speak evil all the time about the church people. No, if they
reject you, just shut your mouth like Christ did. That does not mean you have
go out of your way to get together with them. How can two walk together lest
they be agreed. But you should be gentlemanly and lady like enough to
acknowledge them when you cross their path, no matter how ill they treated you.
Don’t be their equal. Show that you have something they don’t have. Christ in
you, the hope of Glory. Even while hanging on the cross in His last breath he
said, “Father
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And that should be
our attitude as well. I have never told this church or my family to snub anyone
or treat anyone with disdain. I have said, just leave it alone, because that is
best, and that way you can forget about it. The Bible says how to treat a
heretic. It says, reject them, but the word reject does not mean to speak evil
of them, nor does it mean to snub them, but simply it means to just leave them
alone, and let them be. And if you can’t do that with grace in your heart you
need another trip to
Smyrnaean church age 60-1206 P:63 I
want you to notice something here in this Scripture. And I think it was one of
the biggest puzzles to me for so long until I found out. Now, let's read that
real close now. See? He that has an ear,... (in other words, "has a ear to
hear"; see, that's open to the
Spirit)... let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches;... (Now,
see, this same thing, this persecution and everything comes. Every part of it laps over in every
church, the churches.)... Spirit says to the churches; He that overcometh... (In what church? Ephesian? Yeah. All right.
So this plainly says that the tings we must overcome in this hour are
things to do with the world and how the church is controlled. Is it controlled
by God or man. And if it is controlled by man, then blessed is he that
overcomes that.
Adoption or placing 60-0522E P:17 When
we were down here beginning at the early age of the church, after the
reformation in Luther's time, just a man to say he was a Christian, either
meant his life or death. They kill him for even saying he was a Christian.
Therefore to go through persecution... Every
age, through every time, there's been persecution. "All
that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."
But that is not the Persecution which speaks
of the Great Tribulation. Let me show you some quotes that tell us what sort of
persecution we are to face and are facing in this hour.
Christ outside the door 58-0330E P:11 You
know, any famous picture has to go through the hall of critics before it can go
in the hall of fame. That's the way the church is. The church, first, has to go through the hall of critics, before it can
be taken in the rapture and put in the hall of God's fame. All that lives
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. So you see, you've got to be
criticized; you've got to be made fun of. There's no other way around it.
Return and Jubilee 62-1122 P:25 We
need to go back to a power of God, and a something that can do the same thing
today. Although in our numbers... Persecution
always gives strength to the church. We've had it too easy. We get
slothful. We get to a place where we don't want to move on, because
everything's just handed to us. It takes
sorrow, and tears, and sweat, and prayer, and faith, and promise to move
forward in the power of the Holy Spirit. That zeal and power that they had
in those days has long time vanished from our assemblies. I'm afraid if the
windows would be shot out tonight, people'd run every way and never come back
again.
Feast of the trumpets 64-0719M P:69 You
remember the vision the other day? Remember the preview of it? How many
remembers Sunday 'fore last? How there it was exactly come by; we seen it
exactly, seen that dirty, filthy thing come up called the church (vulgarity is
to the extreme), and that little Bride of every nation, each one of them
dressed like their nation they come from, just perfectly, walking before the
Lord. You notice, there'll be a time some time when they'll say, "Well, I thought the Church was to go before the
persecution. I thought there's a rapture." "It's already passed and
you knew it not." That's what He said about John one time, you know.
Said, "How--why say the prophets that a--the scribes that Elias must first
come?" He said, "He's already come." And even the disciples
didn't know it. "They done to him what they listed." The rapture will
be the same way. In a hour... He's promised to do that. He didn't promise to
show Elias like that, but He promised to
take the Bride like that--in a hour that you think not, just a change in a
moment of a twinkling of an eye be caught away; then you're left. Then that's
the time.
Wisdom verses faith 62-0401 P:120 Now,
the Protestants got choked out. It choked the Spirit right out of them, when
they began to take wisdom instead of faith in the Word--the wisdom in the
organization, the organizational wisdom, instead of faith in the Word. (All
that understand that say, "Amen." [Congregation replies,
"Amen!"--Ed.] See?) Faith in what the--what the group of man of the
Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Evangelicals, and all got
together... And soon they're to form up a confederation of church, which will
be the image to the beast. And he will have the same power in this nation
(Revelations 13:11) that they had over there, and will cause a persecution upon the saints, just like they did at the
beginning of the Roman church. See? That's where it's heading right up now.
And that's why the Word's being sowed right now everywhere: Stay away from it!
Get out of it! See?
But remember he is talking about the church and not the Bride here. Let
us pray. Dear father we are thankful that you have come down to deliver your
saints in this hour, and we know that there are many reasons why you have come,
and one is to save the Elect from your wrath and the wrath of man. To save Your
Elect from perishing and for this we are grateful, and ever so thankful. Help
us to keep our focus on Your promises for us in this hour and to keep our eyes
off the circumstances that are ever so apparent to the natural man. May we
leave this earth when you take your presence up from here, in Jesus name we
pray, Amen.