Romans 130
Why
is there Fanaticism among the Church?
Brian Kocourek
2
weeks ago before I left for
ROMANS
Here
we spoke on The Evidence of the New Birth, which is to receive an understanding
the manifested Word for the hour. From the sermon Discerning the body of Lord 59-0812 P:16 Brother Branham said, Jesus said once,
"That except a man be born again, he cannot see the
The evidence of being born again is the Word coming alive to you and you receive an ability to understand the Word and to see it unfolding in your day.
Three Kinds of Believers 63-1124 E-21-1 He said, "what is it? The Flesh you're talking about profit nothing, it's the Spirit that quickens." There you are, The Spirit quickens The Word. It's a Spirit, not a creed. The Spirit of the Holy Ghost quickens The Word to you and becomes alive and there you are. You see it. By Faith you see it. You know it's so, because The Word said so, and The Spirit quickens The Word to you. There you are.
JOHN
Therefore if a man is left up to his own choosing, he
will go in the ways of death. But God has given him, or has granted, given him
a grant, the ability to know and to understand. And this ability to make a
right decision concerning the acceptance of Christ is not for everyone. For
Jesus tells Nicodemus, these … 13 Which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So
He is talking about the new birth and the importance of that new birth is that
God gives him an ability to know and to understand the
Why against organized
religion 62-1111E P:63 But
if he's born the same way that I'm born, then he'll know the things that I
know. Amen. Oh, my. Yes, sir. You can't tell a knot on the tree how we move
about and be active, it would have to receive our kind of life to understand
it. Same with the Spirit. The same thing is with the
Spirit, or you can't understand It. There's no
need of trying to figure It all out; just come to
Him first. For, "Except a man be
born again, he can't even see the Kingdom," He said, that's understand it. You've got to be born again in order to
know It.
That is why I answered the brothers in
But the real question is how many do you think are
preaching the Truth of the Message anyway? And if they can not take the
Doctrine brother Branham taught, then how can they be born again? If we say
that 10% of the ministers are preaching the Truth and understanding what they
are preaching, you would have 2,000-3,000 ministers preaching the truth and
there just isn’t those numbers out there.
So instead of telling me I am being negative, on the contrary, I think I
am actually being very conservative concerning the actual figures if God would
make them know. Is God telling Noah that only he and his wife and sons and
their wives are going to be saved being negative? I think that is just being
truthful.
If the pastors truly were born again, they would not
have any trouble seeing the truth, and would not go off into fanaticism. Jesus
said the Elect can not be deceived, and yet most of the Pastors in this message
just based on shear percentages, would have to be deceived. Why do they preach
as though this Message is some sort of Pentecostal extension, when Br. Branham
said it is a million miles beyond Pentecost? And many are still awaiting some
kind of Bride’s revival when it has already come and they have missed it.
Brother Branham said we have seen our last revival.
JEHOVAH JIREH PART 2 62-0706 5
The Church, perhaps the Bride is done chosen. It's
get Her ready now. The getting Her... The revival's
over. We know that. There's no more revival spirit. Two hours of service,
everybody's complaining. In a revival it's day and night, all the time, never
breaks. The revival's done. And so we are just gleaning.
Oh, there may be a local revival here and there, but
if there’s no more revival spirit, then how are you going to have a major
revival. And then what do they term a revival anyway. They get a few more
people and they think they have some great revival going. That’s not a revival,
that’s just adding some more people. A revival doesn’t add more people. A
revival means to come alive. You were dead and now have been made alive. That’s
to revive see? And all I see out there among the nominal message churches is
more of the same old denominational thinking. And that is death in the pot. If
there could be anything considered a revival going on among the Bride today, it
would have to be what is happening concerning the Bride’s coming awake to the
fact that God is Here, and she is beginning to understand what this Message is
all about after so many years in darkness about it. But that’s not a revival.
That is an awakening out of sleep. The sleeping virgin is now awake and hearing
the
But, how can you expect the people to live any
higher than the one who is teaching them? Brother Branham said the people can’t
live any higher than their pastor, and he said what he meant, and he meant what
he said. Why can’t the people figure that out? Not that you can’t be a better
person. He didn’t say that. That is not what he was saying there. But he was
letting you know that you can not live any higher because you can not live
higher than what is feeding your soul. Like with computers. If you put junk,
you can only expect junk out. In other words, if you take spiritual junk food
into your soul, you will become a spiritual junk food addict. And just like in
the natural, if you try to live on junk food, your body suffers and begins to
rot. If that is the case, then how much more so would it affect your soul?
HEAR HIS VOICE 58-1005M E-41 I'm kinda in the notion of
saying this; if I'm wrong, God forgive me. And I'm persuaded that a lot of
them don't know God. And the congregation will never live any higher
than its pastor. No wonder the Scripture says, "These shepherds,
how they have scattered the flock, woe unto them." They are the branches that bares not fruit, which will be plucked off and
burned. E-42 So
many things to dull the senses of the people today. Oh, but in the
midst of all that, in spite of every dulling and every voice that's in the
world today, some of them pleasure voices... Some of them are sinful voices to
lure the people. But in the spite of every bit of that, the truth of God still
remains. "He that will hear My voice and come
after Me..." Men
and women who will hear the voice of God, God still waits to speak to every
individual that'll open their ears to hear God's voice. E-43
If a man who isn't pastor... Many
times people say, "Couldn't you do this? Couldn't you run over
here? Couldn't you do this?" Oh, I love to do
it. But I've got to stay in the Presence of God if I'm going to do the thing
right. Then people say, "Oh, Brother Branham is one of
these isolationists." That's not it. I love people. But there's
just thousands of them. But I must stay with Him to find out what He'd have
me tell them. Somewhere, just listen, He will have something for you that
He wants you to know about. Pastor, don't you never get
too busy but what you can stay in the Presence and listen for His voice. God always keeps His Word. And no matter how bad
the times may be, how much your church may teach against it, Jesus Christ is
still willing to speak that still small voice to anybody that'll listen for Him.
He's still ready to do it if we'd just quieten
ourself.
Now, in getting back to our main thought here,
brother Branham said from, Contending for the faith
55-0220E P:66 Jesus said, "Except a man be born
again, he cannot see the Kingdom." You
can't understand it. It's a mystic, mythical thing until you're born again.
There the very Life of God comes in you.
Everlasting, Eternal Life, Zoe, God's own Life comes
in you, and then you're a part of God. You're a Son of God or a daughter of
God. And then you see as God sees. You believe as God believes. Then
you'll be a new creature in Christ Jesus....
And
that is why they have so much trouble with the Doctrine of the Message, and
that is why they avoid it, is because they don’t understand, because they have
not truly been born again. And brother Branham said a minister has no right to
go behind that pulpit until they have come face to face with the Pillar of
Fire, and they know without a shadow of doubt God called them to the ministry.
It’s not a meal ticket, Paul is the pattern as we read last week, and he called
himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And we saw in his ministry the pattern that
every true ordained and called of God will possess.
Paul’s
manner of ministering set the pattern for every true minister
of God, though not the prophetic realm as Paul. But Paul's ministry had a
threefold quality and was as follows:
74-3 First of all, Paul was absolutely
true to the Word. He never deviated
from it no matter what the cost. 75-1 Paul
was unorganized, but Spirit-led,
no council of men never sent Paul out, nor did it have
any power or jurisdiction over him. God, and God alone, did the sending and the
leading. Paul was not of men, but of God.
75-2 Secondly, his ministry was in the power of the
Spirit, thereby demonstrating the spoken and written Word. 76-1Thirdly, he had the
evident fruit of his God-given ministry. Paul had sheep; he fed
them, and cared for them, until they brought forth righteous fruit and were prepared to meet the Lord as a part of the Gentile
bride.
Now,
this morning I would like to continue with Romans 15 and we shall pick up at
verse 22.
Romans
Paul
was a minister of the Gospel not by the will of man, but of God. The problem we
have in the message today though is that not everyone who claims to be called
by God is called by God. And that has opened the door for all sorts of carnal
impersonations to bring the truth into disrepute. In South America as I have
seen here in North America, there arose certain men that have been so far off
the line of Scripture that I do not know how they could even get anyone to
follow.
Some
men rose up to become pastors, and they conducted weddings with their entire
church people, exchanging rings with each member of their congregation because
after all, the pastor is the spiritual husband of the church, or so they quote.
Others
preached some kind of a panty hose doctrine, and if you sisters wore them you
were wearing men’s pants.
Still
others cam with their six inch pick and by playing a guitar they were going to
lead you into the rapture.
While
yet others came with their 1977 rapture doctrines and caused all sorts of chaos
and ruined all sorts of lives.
156-2
In every age we have exactly the same
pattern. That is why the light comes
through some God-given messenger in a certain area, and then from that
messenger there spreads the light through the ministry of others who have been
faithfully taught. But of course all those who go out don't always learn
how necessary it is to speak ONLY what the messenger has spoken. (Remember,
Paul warned the people to say only what he said, I Corinthians
Paul warned them to say what he said, even
as Peter did likewise. He warned them that EVEN HE (PAUL) could not change one
word of what he had given by revelation. Oh, how important it is to hear the
voice of God by way of His messengers, and then say what has been given them to
say to the churches.
In
2 Peter 2: 1 we read, II PETER 2:1 ¶ But there were false prophets also among
the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the
Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many
shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom
the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 3 ¶ And through covetousness shall they
with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth
not.
We
see it is these same type of men who come in to feast with you on the Living
Word of God who are the same one's who bring in alongside of True doctrine,
heresies that are called destructive. And what Doctrine taught wrong will bring
forth destruction? Godhead, as we saw in
Deuteronomy, Malachi and Acts as well as various other scriptures. Then in [2
Peter 2: 1] we are told that these men through their destructive
doctrine even deny the Lord that bought them. And we know Jesus was the price
paid, but He is not the One who bought us. The Father bought us using the blood
of His Only Begotten Son as the Price for the payment of our sin. Jesus was the
purchased Price, but God is the One Who paid the debt. And it is this One,
The Lord Who is rejected, thus bringing on destruction as God has
promised. Now, I hope by this you can
see the importance of understanding and worshipping God correctly. Malachi said, the Purpose of Elijah coming was to prevent destruction
for all. So there will be a group who will heed the message of One God and He had
a Son. All others will take up other doctrine that will bring on destruction.