Romans 51
Brian Kocourek
ROMANS.9:1 ¶ I say the truth in
Christ, I lie not, my conscience also
bearing me witness in the
Holy Ghost, … What does the Apostle Paul
mean here when He says, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,… What is
this word conscience mean? And why does
He say, In Christ and in The Holy Ghost?
Well, first of all who is
Christ? The Word Right? And who is the Holy Ghost? The Word Right? Then when he
is speaking of the Truth in Christ, then He is speaking of the Truth not just
in a man called Jesus, but the Truth as evidenced by the anointed One, the
Truth as evidenced or manifested in Christ the anointed One, and then he says, my
conscience also…
Therefore, Paul is tying
together what is taking place in his conscience with that which took place in
the conscience of Christ, the Anointed One. ,
my conscience also bearing me witness
in the Holy Ghost, By
saying My conscience is also tell us that he is saying, that his conscience is
doing just like what happened when the truth bore witness in Christ, by showing
forth it’s evident control over Him, in the same way my conscience is bearing
witness, or telling me that the Holy Ghost is in full control.
In other words, our
conscience then is something that God placed within us to tell us if we are
lined up with His Word of not. The word
conscience comes from a Greek word, Suneidesis which is translated as – conscience and – comes from a
compound Greek Word, sun which simply means with,
and oida
which means to know, hence suneido
means to know with. In other
words, your conscience is “a co-knowledge within yourself, a witness within yourself, placed there by
God to show you whether your conduct is in line with His Word or not.
Brother Branham named the
conscience as one of the inner 5 senses that fall in the realm of our
spirit. These five inner senses make up
the attributes within your spirit just as you have five outer senses that make
up the attributes of your body. These five outer senses God placed within you
to contact your earthly home. If you did not have these five senses of see,
taste, feel smell and hear, your presence on earth would be without meaning and
significance. Therefore, these outer senses are attributes of life, needed to
contact our earthly home and to enjoy and appreciate life. You may get by in
life without a few of these but certainly your life would have no meaning
without any of these. In fact you would be considered just a vegetable without
these senses.
Can you image not having
taste? Oh, you may get by without taste, but what if you could not feel, how
would you even swallow. How would you even know if you were drinking or eating.
You would drown trying to take a drink of water. And what if you could not see,
nor hear nor smell, nor feel, how could you communicate. If you were blind, you
might be able to hear and communicate. If you were blind and deaf it makes it
more difficult, but you could learn to feel things, like the shapes of the
objects or faces. You could learn Braille and still communicate. But what if you were blind, and deaf and had
no feeling at all. You would not be able to walk, nor eat, nor drink, nor get
up or sit down. You could not stand or walk… You would be totally helpless, and
with no way to communicate, you would die quickly.
Now, what if Satan didn’t want you to see? How do
you think he would cause you to go blind? BY an accident? Maybe! When I was in
Australia, there was a sister who had been in a bad accident 25 years ago who
the doctors told her she was deaf. Her hearing had become muffled for years and
years, she could not hear well. After we prayed for a little boy who was deaf
in both ears, she received her healing and suddenly could hear things clearly
for the first time in 25 years. Now, what happened that she could not hear
right, and simply by prayer her hearing was made whole again?
I’ll tell you what happened.
The accident was caused by Satan to cause this woman injury. After the accident
she could not hear well. Her hearing was muffled. But something happened
through simple prayer that unstopped her ear and allowed her body, her sense of
hearing to function once again… A devil was cast out, and when it left the
nerves in her ears were no longer blocked and muffled and her body was once
again able to function as God had made her to function. The doctors could only
look at the nerve damage, or the loss of hearing which is the attribute shown
in her body just like a tumor is only an attribute that manifests itself in the
body. But The tumor is not the sickness, it is only a manifestation of the sickness.
And so was her hearing loss
only a manifestation of something else impairing her free expression of life.
It was a demon. An evil spirit that was inflicting her that way. And when I
told that demon that was in the boy to come out, I did not say, “Thou demon in
this little boy, I adjure thee to come out”… No, I said, thou deaf spirit come
out , and it did from her, … that demon was told to come out, and the demon in
the woman responded, obeyed and came out. Now, I would like for you to hear
what brother Branham said about a woman who was blind… Now, why is it then that some people are
healed and others are not?
MARK 9:23 Jesus said unto him, If
thou canst believe, all things [are]
possible to him that believeth. 24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with
tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine
unbelief. 25 When Jesus saw that
the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, [Thou] dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and
enter no more into him. 26 And
[the spirit] cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as
one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.
27 But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.
28 And when he was come
into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him
out? 29 And he said unto them,
This kind can come forth by nothing, but
by prayer and fasting.
MESSIAH THE 61-0117 E-18
018 Now, for instances when a man
gets saved, he's just about like... The
Light that comes into him is about like this little white button on my shirt.
That's when God comes into the inner part of a man. In the inner part of a man
or... A man is made up in the system of a tabernacle: in the outer courts, then
holy place, and the holiest of holies; the Shekinah glory on the inside, the
veil. Now, on the outside gates of a
man is his five senses that enters to his body. On the inside, which is his
soul, or the... The soul is the nature
of the spirit that's on the inside of his heart; produces his soul, which makes the atmosphere around him. He has
also five entrances. Then on the inside he has only one gate, one entrance to
go into the Shekinah glory, where God can enter into him and take over in the
control tower. And that way is through
self-will. Whether you will to or
not, that's up to you. But that's
the only avenue that's open to the man that God can come into his heart, is by
self-will. Puts him right back like Adam and Eve on free moral agency
again. You can choose right or wrong, either one you want to.
E-19 019
Now, self-will... Then God comes into the man, into the heart, which is
the spirit. Then the spirit makes the soul, and then the soul dwells in the
body. Now, when a man is converted, say,
just like that little white button starts in his heart. Now, that part is God. God... When he's
born again with the Spirit of God, God's Spirit dwells in him. Now, as... He can let that Spirit grow and take
out all the roots of bitterness, and press God's way through him again; he can
become back in the same condition that he was when he was in the garden of
Eden. Jesus said in Mark 11:24:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, if you say to this mountain, 'Be moved,'
and don't doubt in your heart, but believe that what you have said will come to
pass, you can have what you said." That puts him right back supreme again.
It puts him right back in the condition.
E-20 020
Now, we're made up of light
meters. Inside of us is cosmic light. Now, that cosmic light is a light
that they can take an x-ray with. The x-ray doesn't come from the x-ray light;
it comes from your own light. And then
if that cosmic light, say, could be pushed to a place to where not cosmic light
but Eternal Light... God could dwell supremely, to do our thinking, do our walking, do our talking, then it's no
longer the man; it's God in the man. Now,
he's got Light, Life. Eternal Life is
the Light of God that dwells in the man. And if he will yield to the
Spirit, more he becomes unman-sinner-like, and becomes more God-like.
E-21 021
Here not long ago they took an x-ray of a man praying for a sick man
("Reader's Digest" wrote it up), and found out a ray of light coming
from one of the men (not all of them), but one of the man's hands reflected a
ray of light when they put a piece of lead foil beneath the man's hand. I guess
you read it yourself. In England they
turned "the healers" (they called them) loose to all the hospitals,
and there was eighty percent more healing done by Divine healing than medical
cures had performed. "Reader's Digest" picked it up over here. That
was in "Newsweek," and "Reader's Digest" picked it up and
tried it. And they find that there is a ray of light. When this man sincerely,
not knowing they were doing it, put his hands upon a man and prayed an earnest
prayer, they was putting the x-ray down, and found out a light coming from his
hand. God knew what He talked about when He said, "Lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." He knows what He was speaking of. Oh, I
want to see the church press into that place where it can come like God wants
it to be.
E-22 022
Then when God was made flesh and became the Messiah, then if we can yield ourselves to be the
anointed like He was, we become Messiahettes, little Lights. That's what the church is supposed to be: lights, little anointed ones. That's
God's church. His standing Light is the Light of Messiah, risen Christ in His
people, the anointed ones, carrying forth His Light into all the church ages.
Sometimes It almost goes completely out; then It comes back again. God's
anointed One, God's Messiahic church... If Messiah means "the anointed
One," and means "King," then if the church is anointed by the
Messiah Spirit, it becomes a lesser but still a Messiah; because it has His Light, reflecting His power,
reflecting His glory, reflecting His dominion. So it is Messiah. Oh, how it
reflects Him in His Kingdom in His domain.
The trouble today, we've organized the church to death, and we got
organization instead of Messiah Light. We've got Russellite, proselyte, and all
other kinds of light. But we need
Messiah Light, what the church needs today: the Light of the Messiah. Oh, I
love Him for His goodness.
Now, I want you to notice
that Jesus was declaring that the deafness in this man was caused by a spirit.
He said, [Thou] dumb and deaf spirit,
I charge thee, come out of him, and
enter no more into him. 26 And
[the spirit] cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him…
I also want you to notice
what did this…Jesus said to the man who wanted healing for his child, “If thou canst believe, all things [are] possible to him that believeth”… all things [are] possible to him that
believeth… He said, ALL things. If you just believe… The word he used
was a Greek word, Pisteuo – believe - commit unto - commit to (one's)
trust - be committed unto - to think to be true; to be persuaded of; to credit,
place confidence in – “if you will just believe and commit this
thing whatsoever it would be, just commit it unto God then all things are
possible…”
Believe it to be true, and
just commit it unto God for the results, and you will be healed…
In the Message, “WHO IS THIS MELCHISEDEC 65-0221E” brother
Branham said in his opening statement, “Let us bow our heads for prayer. Dear
heavenly Father, we hear this song of "Only Believe"; it makes us to know that that's all we have to do to inherit any of God's promises, just believe
them. For it is written, "All
things are possible to them that believe." As we cry as the man who
had the epileptic child, "Lord, I
believe, help thou my unbelief!"...
Therefore, our believe is all that stands in the way
of every divine promise of God being made manifest to us in this hour.
MY COMMISSION 51-0505 E-68 068
Howdy do, sister. Come forward. You want to be healed of your eyes also,
don't you. Do you believe God? If He could make that woman who was almost plumb
blind, and that one last night totally blind, can He give you your sight,
sister? Now, what I want you to do, is to believe that This which is near now
is to bless you. Now, if you will believe with all your heart that God will do
it, He will flow right down to you and heal you, and bless you, and take that
away from you. Your eyes are--are going bad. They're getting worse constantly.
Isn't that right? That same thing. It's a power of the devil, sister, that's
shutting off... Doctors can do no more about it, because (See?), it's--it's
over; he's even said so. Now, when that... It's just shutting off the nerve
there, the optical nerve. The energy
won't flow through it no more. Now, the
nerve's not shut off in your hand, or not nowhere else. It's in your eye. If it was in your ears, then you couldn't hear. Now, the doctor
would say the nerve is dead. Course, he just works on the five senses. But
Jesus said, "When the deaf spirit went out of the man"--the deaf
spirit. "When the blind spirit went out of the man." See? He... It's
a spirit, supernatural. Now, do you believe, that upon the authority of God's
Word, that I have been sent here to pray a prayer of faith for you that'll cast
that spirit away from you, and you'll get well? Come forward, my sister.
E-69 069
O God, think, a white cane in her hand on the street. This is the hour.
O God, seeing a vision there that they'd turned her down and nothing can be
done. But Thou can heal her. Satan, leave the woman. Thou blind spirit, come out of her in the Name of Jesus Christ.
Amen. You believe now? Why, remove your glasses and go on. Uh, huh. There she
goes without her glasses. And she was... All right. Everyone come forward now.
Everyone believe with all your heart.
Therefore, these five senses
are given to us not only to contact our earthly home, but they are given to us
to express the life that is within us. They then are manifestations or
attributes of life.
Then what about the inner
senses that God gave us? Brother
Branham told us we have five inner senses.
And what if they are not functioning right. What if they are not
channeling the energy to the right place? What causes that? I believe it is the
same thing. Something has stopped up the channel as well and has stopped the
energies of God from working properly in the inner man.
GREATEST BATTLE EVER FOUGHT 62-0311 058
Well, that's what's the matter with our Pentecostal faith today. We've let too many things hinder it, the
faith that we've been taught, the Holy Spirit that's been living in us.
We've let too many things: looking at somebody else. And the devil's always trying to point you to somebody's failure,
but he tries to keep you away from the real testimony that's genuine. He will
point you to a hypocrite sometime, who went out impersonating something. He
didn't do it, because he was impersonating. But if it come from the true source
of the Word of God, "Heavens and earth will pass away but My Word cannot
pass away." It's got to stay. You see it, sis?
059 It must be accepted in the
mind; then it's believed with the
heart; then the Word of God becomes a reality; then every senses of soul and body is just scoured out with the Holy
Spirit. Then you're sense of God;
you're conscience of God; everything
that's godly flows through you. There's
not a doubt anywhere. There's nothing can rise up. There's nothing can come
up in the memory and say, "Well, I remember Miss Jones tried to trust God.
Miss So-and-so, Miss Doe tried to trust God for healing one time, and she
failed." See? But if that channel
has been cleared out, and been purged, and been filled on the inside with the
Holy Spirit, that don't even come in memory. No matter about Miss Jones and
what she did; it's you and God together, and nobody else but you two. There you
are; there's your battle.
060 Kill him at the beginning; stop him dead in
his tracks. It ain't how long you can
make the war linger; it's stop it right now. If you'll come, and you'll
keep them memories, and conscience, and everything thinking about, "Well,
I might fail, It might not be right."
Don't you do that at all. You
throw aside everything and open up the channel and say, "God, Your Word is
eternally true, and It's for me. If the whole church fails, if the whole
world fails, yet I can't fail, because
I'm taking Your Word."
061 There's the battle; that's the thing. Why
would Almighty God remove a cancer from a woman's breast without a scar and let
a child lay and die? No, sir.
062 A little girl come here not long ago from
the high school. Her mother called me up, said, "Brother Branham, my girl's
got Hodgkin's disease." (That's cancer that forms in lumps.) And the
doctors took a piece from a break on her throat, sent it away, and it was
perfectly Hodgkin's disease. So he said, "The next one breaks may break
over her heart; when it does, she's gone." Said, "She hasn't got...
The way they're breaking, she's got anywhere about three months to live."
The mother said, "What shall I do, send her back to school?" Said,
"Let her go because she'll go probably suddenly." And said,
"Just let her go and live a normal life as she can. Don't tell her nothing
about it." So the lady said to me, "What must I do?" I said,
"Bring her up and put her in the prayer line." And I said, "You
come with her." (I felt a little funny feeling.)
063 And when the little girl come by that morning with blue-looking
lips from makeup, and as the school has them, and the little thing come by (I didn't know who she'd be, was going
to call me on the phone.) I took a hold of her hand; I said, "Good
morning, sister." There she was; that was her. Just in a few moments
looked down to her mother and seen both of them without God, without Christ. I
said, "How can you expect healing on these grounds? Will you accept Jesus
Christ as your personal Saviour?" I said, "Will you come to this pool here and be baptized in the Name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins?" They said, "We will
do that." Oh, you know what happened. The woman may be setting here this
morning. Many of you know the case. Brother Mike Egan, one of the trustees here,
watched the case; that's been about four, five years ago. The little girl was
took back to the doctor; not even one trace of Hodgkin's disease was found in
her.
064 What was the matter? You
had to open the channel first. You've got to get the Soldier, the Holy
Spirit, placed at the battle front to take God's Word. He is the Word, and He
stands there; and there's nothing going to stop it then. There's nothing can...
Every one of the other channels is
cleared out. Just like on old boiler with the flue stopped up; you put a
fire, and it'll blow your thing up. That's
what's the matter with so many blowed up Christians is because that they don't
clean the channels out; they don't go down to the inside. You've got to clean it: conscience, memory,
thoughts, laying aside everything and coming from the inside out with that
unadulterated Word of God, that It's the Truth. No matter if ten thousand
died on this side today trusting, ten thousand died on that side tomorrow
trusting, that has nothing to do with me. I'm the individual; I'm the one that's trusting; I'm the one
that believes it.
065 And we see back yonder, if we want to open up our channels then,
if we can and see, we find this one and that one, and this one and that one,
thousands of them testifying, but the devil will try to come right back. See,
if he could get in there at all, he's got your army routed right then. If
you've got your senses, see, taste, feel, smell, and hear, they're all right, but don't trust them unless they agree with
the Word. They're all right, but if
they disagree with the Word, don't you listen to them. Now, imaginations, conscience, memories,
reasons, and affection, they're all right, if they agree with the Word. But if
your affection doesn't agree with the Word, get rid of it; you blow a flue
right quick. See? If your reason
disagrees with the Word get away from it. That's right. The engine... If
your memory, if your imaginations, if your conscience, anything disagrees with
that, what's on the inside, get rid of it.
066 What you got then? You've got a solar system. Hallelujah. God
set the stars in order and said, "Hang there till I call you." They
stay there. Nothing's going to move them. When
God can get a man in His hands, till he can get senses, conscience, everything
cleaned out, until it stands with God behind it in the Spirit, there's not a
devil in the world can poke a doubt in there. That's right.
067 If he come around and say, "You don't
feel any better," your conscience
is even gone to that. The flue's so clear it shouts, "Hallelujah."
The outlet blows a whistle; "Glory to God," it sounds out, certainly,
just as clean and clear for the Word of God to work through, the power of God.
See? That's the main thing; there's your battleground. Your battleground is
back here at the beginning, back here in the soul, back in your mind, that
opens. The mind is the gate to the soul, the gate to the spirit, rather. Your mind opens up and accepts the Spirit or it rejects the Spirit.
068 You can have little consciences, and little
feelings, and little sensations, all these things; that has nothing to do with
it. That's just little sensations and things. But when it comes to reality,
your mind opens it up. Your mind either accepts it or rejects it. That's it,
friends. God, let none of them miss it. See? It's your mind that opens up the
door, or closes the door, and listens to your conscience, listens to your
memory, listens to your affections. But when your mind closes itself to these
things and let God, the Spirit of His
Word, come in, It blows the rest of the stuff out. Every doubt is gone; every fear is gone; every sensation of doubt is
gone; every feeling is gone. There's nothing standing there but the Word of
God, and Satan cannot battle against That. No, sir! He cannot battle
against It. Now, we know that's Truth.
069
These battles has raged since the day of the garden of Eden, the battle in the human mind. Satan started
it. What did he do when he met Eve? He didn't deny God's Word, but he whitewashed It. He stopped up some
little channels here somewhere. He said, "But surely God... (Genesis
3:1. See?) Surely God... All these things that he promised..." He knowed the Word was right, but he knowed he
couldn't just come right out and blast It out blarry like that, but he sugar
coated It.
But Paul said, ¶ I say the
truth in Christ, I lie not, my
conscience also bearing me witness in
the Holy Ghost, … His
conscience was so filled with God’s Word, that it bore record within Him in his
own spirit and in his conscience.
And our conscience was given
to us to be a conduit of God’s Word in order to keep us in the path of his
Glorious light. The way our conscience is to work is that when something that
comes up that is not of God, the conscience is to light up and tell us so that
we do not go that wrong way. But as we have seen this morning how satan works,
what if our conscience has been stopped up. What if satan has blocked off the
free flow of light in our conscience. Then how will we know when we are leaving
the word of not? How will we know if it is right or wrong that which we are
about to do? We saw today how satan
comes in a will press a nerve to the point that the energies will not flow
freely to the eyes or the ears, or the hand as Brother Branham said. That is
caused by a demonic presence. But what about the conscience?
What causes the coscience to
be shut off from the operational flow of light, of Truth? Paul said, , my conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost,… That
is the way Paul always conducted himself…
In ACTS 24:16 And herein do I exercise myself, to have
always a conscience void of offence toward God, and [toward] men. But what would cause the conscience to not
bear witness to the Word of God?
Now, in the medical
profession, sometimes they intentially will cut a nerve to stop pain, or in
cancer treatment they are testing a new way of killing growth to tumors by
cutting of the supply of blood tot he tumor itself. In order to do this they
cut the veins that supply the tumor with blood. If they were to just cut the
vein you would bleed to death so they cauterize it. They can do this through
laser which is a high intense light. It cuts and seals off the flow of blood
this way. Therefore, the flue can be
blocked. And Paul said satan blocks off our conscience using the same
method.
I TIMOTHY 4:1 ¶ Now the Spirit
speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and
doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy;
having their conscience seared with a
hot iron; So we see that opening
ourselves to these lies by these seducing spirits will cauterize the
conscience, searing it shut.
TITUS 1:15 Unto the pure all things [are] pure: but unto them that are
defiled and unbelieving [is] nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience
is defiled. 16 They profess that they know
God; but in works they deny [him], being abominable, and disobedient, and unto
every good work reprobate.
HEBREWS 9:13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an
heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God? Hebrews 10:21-26
Let’s wing that song, what
can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus…