Spoken Word no. 179
Worked up Phony Religion
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
July 25th, 2010
2 Timothy 3:1 But understand this, that in the last days
will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal
with and hard to bear]. 2For people will be lovers of self and [utterly]
self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for
wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive
(blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and
profane. 3[They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and
inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be]
slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and
conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. 4[They will be]
treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be]
lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than
lovers of God. 5For [although] they hold a form of piety (true
religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their
conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people
[turn away from them]. 6For among them are those who worm their way into
homes and captivate silly and weak-natured and spiritually dwarfed women,
loaded down with [the burden of their] sins [and easily] swayed and led away by
various evil desires and seductive impulses. 7[These weak women will
listen to anybody who will teach them]; they are forever inquiring and getting
information, but are never able to arrive at a recognition and knowledge of the
Truth. 8Now just as [a]Jannes and Jambres
were hostile to and resisted Moses, so these men also are hostile to and oppose
the Truth. They have depraved and distorted minds, and are reprobate and
counterfeit and to be rejected as far as the faith is concerned.(A) 9But
they will not get very far, for their rash folly will become obvious to
everybody, as was that of those [magicians mentioned].
So we are looking at a picture of the end-time that
doesn’t look to good. And in Paragraph 32 of the afternoon session of the Spoken Word is the original seed, brother
Branham said,
Now, Adam's bride could not wait,
but she went forward first. That's the way today, the bride today. She wants to manufacture something.
"Glory to God," she's got
to work it up on the platform.
She's got to have everything. See? What is she doing? Manufacturing
something. Look where it's
going. You can see there's
nothing to it; it's ah phony. Exactly right. If it wasn't, this world would be aflame
with the power of God; the church would be on fire; oh, what... Dead would be raised and all kinds of
things would be taking place. But what did she get sowed up with before
Christ could get to her, before He got to her to plant His Own seed? What did
she have? Weed seeds, the world,
denominational seeds. That's the
reason why she's reaping her harvest right now. I hope you don't, make you
upset, but I hope it gets right down to a place where I'll trust that God has
given it to you. See?
So we see that the church
today is nothing but a worked up manufactured phony religion. And it is
motivated more by money than by the word of God. Now, Brother Branham called it
phony, and that word phony
means: 1. a. Not genuine or real; counterfeit: a phony credit card. b. False;
spurious: a phony name. 2. Not honest or truthful; deceptive: a
phony excuse. 3. a. Insincere or hypocritical. b. Giving a false impression of truth or
authenticity; specious.
And so we see an insincere people, motivated by thins
other than truth. Motivated by other things than the desire to be an obedient
son or daughter of God. Totally moved by money and their love for it. And the
power it brings to them.
From his sermon, Does God change His mind 65-0418E P: 69 Brother Branham tells us what motivated Balaam. He
says, “Balaam,
for a better position he thought...
Now, look, when that better group come back, Balaam here took a phony text. See? He said... The
better group come back; he ought to have said, "Get out of my presence. I've told you the Word of God. Get
going. This is THUS SAITH THE LORD." But
you see, the gifts, and to be a more
popular man...Oh, how they like to do it. "We'll send you all over the
world. We'll give you a special plane. We'll sponsor your meetings everywhere
if you'll just..." Oh, no. See? We know what the Word says. We know what
God said. We're going to stay with that by God's help. See? No matter what kind
of a promise, and how much more you can pay, and how many this, that, or the
other you can--you can produce, we want the THUS SAITH THE LORD and what He
said here first. Well, the church said, "That's secondarily." We want
what the--God said at the beginning, and anything added to it or taken away
from it, even your name will be taken off the Book of Life, to add one word to
It or take one word away from It... We want what He said, not what the church
said, what Dr. Jones said, what somebody else said; we want what THUS SAITH THE
LORD said, what the Word said. 70But now we find Balaam, a
servant of God... And many of those men start out, and are ordained of God, and
does speak God's Word in many things, but when it comes to the full truth, they
won't do it. Notice here, as a prophet of God, he should not been caught in
such a group as that to begin with. He shouldn't have went with them. But
watch. For popularity sake (See?), for his conscience' sake, he said,
"Well, stay all night, and I'll try again." See, "I'll try again."
What do you want to try again for? God already told him what to say. God said,
"Tell them you're not going." That's His original Word: "I'm not
going." "And don't you go; don't you curse what I bless." Now,
watch how it backfired on him after while. See? And it will every time. When
God says anything, He means it. He don't change His mind about it. He stays
right with His Word. No matter what anyone else says, He stays right with that
Word. 71 Now, Balaam should've known better. He should've dismissed
himself from such company, but all them nice gifts and the promise that this
king said, "You know, I can do it; I'm the bishop. I can do just whatever
I want to, and I'll promote you if you'll come do it for me." And God done
told him, "Don't do it," but yet Balaam said, "You--you stay all
night, and I'll--I'll try again." See? He had the Word. You don't have to
argue anymore about it; God's done said so. With a group like that, they always
talk you out of the will of God if you'll let them.
Does God change His mind 65-0418E P:72 There's
one group to come to a prophet, one time, named Job. They couldn't talk him out.
He saw the vision; he knew what was right. Balaam saw the vision and still
didn't stay with it. No matter how much these church groups said, "Oh,
Job, you ought to do this, you ought to do that"...Even his wife... He
said, "You talk like a foolish person. (See?) I know what the Lord said; I
know what He required, and that's what I done." See, he stayed with what
God told him. Notice, Balaam using this phony text for his conscience... See?
He said, "Well, I'll--I'll find out. I'll try again." Now, there's
where you come secondarily. How many Balaams have we got tonight that likes to
use that phony text of Matthew 28:19
just for their conscience' sake? How many wants to use Malachi 4
for their conscience' sake? How many wants to use Luke 17:30 just
for conscience' sake? How many wants to use these things, yet, "Well,
I tell you, I believe they're all mixed up on that"? P:73 And then here was Balaam trying to
say, "Perhaps maybe God's got mixed up; I'll
try again, (See?) see what He says." Now, He knows your
heart. Notice, Balaam used this phony
text for his own conscience' sake, because actually he wanted that money.
He wanted that dignitary; he wanted that job. He wanted that position to be
looked up to as Dr. So-and-so. So he said, "I'll
try again." Oh, the Balaams in the world
tonight: promised positions, popularity (my, oh, my.), they numb their conscience by them. Because of their denominations,
they say, "If you do that, out you go. I know you're a good man, and we
love you (and he is a good man), we love you, but you can't preach that. Our
doctrine says you can't do that. Dr. So-and-so said this is the way it is. Now,
you've got to believe it this way if you
stay with us. Now, if you want to, I know you had a hard time, well, I'll
see if I can't get you promoted, maybe change churches." Oh, you Balaam. When you know the will of God, you do
it. God ain't going to change His mind. No. P:74 Something that He could pass by, the truth, for His
commission... He said, "Well, I'll try again." Notice the Balaams
there is. So now remember, when he come the second night with this great
celebrity, already had his conscience dull and numb, God let him go. Now, God never changed His mind, but He give him
His permissive will. "Go
ahead then." But he found out it'll not work. God
knew what was in Balaam's heart. Though he was a prophet, He knew he hated them
holy-rollers, and he just, he was going to want to curse them anyhow, and God
done told him not to do it, but yet he come, wanted to do it again, so God let
him go ahead. God said, "Go
ahead." Now, remember, He never changed His
mind. P:92 Just look at it in the field today. As Balaam married a
harlot into God's church, so is these false teachers today trying to tell you.
They're going to marry every one of these organizations and these people into
the old harlot of Revelation 17. They're
Balaam doctrine, going around today and say, "We're
just the same; we're all Christians." And priests and popes
and what ever more are all compromising and doing this. The preacher said...
Even I know a Pentecostal preacher... All of them started now giving a round
kosher, which means Ashtoreth, the moon god, a kosher wafer, say, "Shut
your eyes and take it if it hurts your conscience." Shut your eyes? A
round wafer? What does it mean? We are taking a broken body, Jesus Christ
broken, not a round moon god, Ashtoreth, who Mary took the place of (and the
Roman kosher's still round)... For the moon goddess. We have a broken Kosher.
Certainly. Oh.
In the Book of Jude we are warned at the end-time
there will be those who depart from "The Faith" and who go in "the way of Cain".
Cain was the first on earth to depart from "The Presence of the Lord", and
those that depart from the presence of the Lord will be religious just like
Cain was and they will make great sacrifice to God like Cain did but their
sacrifice will be considered evil just like Cain's was.
Notice further, that Jude describes these
men as not only following the way of Cain, But notice also that Jude warns us
these men shall also follow after the "error of Balaam" and they will
do it for money just like Balaam did.
Jude 1: 11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way
of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, (Notice that they run greedily. In other words, these
are greedy men. And they run after the error of Balaam because of their greed.
So what was the error of Balaam that men will run after it because of greed?
The error of Balaam is a message of unity. Bring everyone together for after
all are we not all the same? And perished in the gainsaying of Core.
What was the
gainsaying of Koreh? Korah led a rebellion against Moses and said, we are holy
too, and all the people are holy, and why do you take it upon yourself to rule
over us. There's plenty of room for more than one to rule. We are holy too. You
see it was the gainsaying of Koreh. There was something in it for him to gain
from what he said. They didn't want a One Man Message from a One Man ministry.
So they rebelled using the multitudes of people to stand with them against the
movement of God. And they are doing that same thing today, saying "we are
five fold ministry, we got something to say as well, "God doesn't speak
through one just one man!" And right there they separate themselves from
the true Five Fold ministry who will only say what the vindicated prophet has
told them to say.
Notice how Jude continues to describe these
false ministers at the end-time. 12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast
with you, feeding themselves without fear (Notice he says when they
feast with you, so these are those who come right into this message and start
eating with us from the Spiritual Food in Due season that was laid up for us.
But the message did not go out to them, they came into the Message. And then
notice that Jude further describes these men by saying,) clouds they are without water.
Now a cloud
without water is one without rain. And Paul calls witnesses of what took place
clouds. He calls them "clouds of witnesses". So Clouds represent
people who have witnessed this end-time ministry but those without water are
those who are witnesses with the doctrine.
Paul spoke in Hebrews 12: 1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a
cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so
easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Yet Jude speaks of these clouds as having
no water. These clouds are without water, Therefore clouds without rain. Now,
why is this so significant? Because God said in
Deuteronomy
32:1-2 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. 2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my
speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as
the showers upon the grass:) carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without
fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering
stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
So if these are
clouds, which are witnesses, think it not strange that there are so many
witnesses to the ministry of William Branham who haven't a clue to the doctrine
he taught? We are warned here in scripture and in 2 Peter of the same, as well
as the Apostle Paul. Notice here that Jude said clouds, not cloud. Now, this
brings us to the fact that there are two doctrines which are predominant in
this hour. The Doctrine of Christ for which if you do not have that Doctrine,
you do not even have God. And then there is the Doctrine of Balaam which we are
warned about that will come in among us. And notice we are warned that men will
run after the Doctrine of Balaam because of their greed.
Now, the doctrine of Balaam is not that
he went for money, but the doctrine of Balaam is that he tried to unite the
people of God with those people who are not of God. And in order to do that
they must forsake the right way, which is God's way.
2 Peter 2: 15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray,
following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of
unrighteousness; Notice he loved not the wages, but the wages of
un-right-wise-ness. In other words the wrong understanding pays. In other
words, there's more money in preaching error than truth.
Now, the doctrine of Balaam is explained
further in the book of revelations. Revelation 2: 14 But I have a few things against thee, because
thou hast there (Thou hast there where? Right in the Message that's
where. Right in the end-time Church of the Living God, there are those who
regard the Doctrine of Balaam because of their greed.) them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who
taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of
Now, how is it possible that the Doctrine of Balaam
could come right into this message? Just the same way it came into the
Pentecostal movement.
From Brother
Branham's sermon called, WHO DO YOU SAY THIS IS? 64-1227 80 See, that's what he
done to the Pentecostals. They said a few years ago, when you all start up,
"You wouldn't go nowhere. There wasn't nothing to you. You'd burn out. You
just a bunch of fanaticism." But every time they tried to curse you, you
come right on back again. God kept revealing His Message. Down from the old
Assembly, way back in the beginning, the General Council. Then He brought in
when they received the Name of Jesus Christ for water baptism. Then one jumped
this way, and one the other, and one went off organized this and that. God kept
blessing. Now, when he seen he couldn't curse you (See?), so what's he going to
do? He's going to organize you. Bring you, "Oh, we're all one anyhow.
(See?) We all believe in the same God." So that's just what Balaam did.
And didn't Jude warn us of this? They erred in the doctrine of Balaam and
perished in the gainsaying of Korah. Doesn't Jude, the foster brother of Jesus,
warn us of this in the Bible? They're like Cain, from the beginning, the
hireling, the one that went to church and built churches and built a altar and
sacrificed. They err in the way of Cain. They run in the way of Balaam, and
perished in the gainsaying of Korah. Jude lays the whole thing out just like
we're doing it this morning here before you, like we've been doing it. The
whole thing lays there. 81 They perished in the gainsaying of Korah. Just think of
that, how bad that was. Just to think of what that Korah... See, he said,
"Now, we'll all go up to a feast. We're all one." The Moabites
believed in God. That was
Twenty four
years ago brother Vayle warned me that false teachers had come into this
message to take the people away from The Faith. He told me to read 2 Peter 2:1 But as there were
false prophets among the people, even so shall there be false teachers among
you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that
bought them, (that's the Son) and by doing so, shall bring upon themselves swift
destruction. 2 And many (not a few, but many) shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason
of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. (In other words, by what they
do and teach shall bring the real truth which is the message into disrepute or
a bad reputation.) 3 And through covetousness (we all know what that
is. It's the greed that Jude said was the motive behind the doctrine of Balaam.
So for money) shall they with feigned words (those are words
that they just make up, which are nothing but lies, and so with their lies
shall they ) make
merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their
damnation slumbereth not. Now notice
verse 12 But these, as
natural brute beasts,(in other words they are not born again. They have not God.
Therefore they have not the doctrine of Christ. And they are made to be taken and destroyed,(and
it is these men who will) speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall
utterly perish in their own corruption;
Now, remember, at the end time there will
be a vast influx of these evil men. They shall wax worse and worse as Paul
warns us in 2
Timothy 3: 13 But evil men ("Poneros" men. Now, if the
devil Himself is called "poneros", then these are his children or
offspring.) But
evil men and seducers (and isn't seduction the method that the
serpent used on Eve. Now, seduction is not rape. It is not a forced thing. It
is a very cleverly disguised way to get what they want, and it is called
seduction. And
these evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being
deceived. (Or able to deceive because they too have been deceived
themselves so they appear to be very sincere in what they believe, and they are
very convincing to others to come together and the larger the group the better
for they believe that safety is in numbers.) We can be
thankful because as God's seed we have been given an ability to be able to
understand according to John 1:12 & 1 Corinthians 2:1-10. That is why
the apostle Paul can say in Hebrews 5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even
those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and
evil.
And we see the same thing in Malachi 3;16-18. 16 Then they that
feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard
it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the
LORD, and that thought upon his name. 17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD
of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels,(In that day when I
come to assemble my people Lamsa translation); and I will spare them, as a man spares his own
son that serves him.(so we are looking at a relationship between father and
sons here.
And because we are sons we know as we are known, and
we will know the difference between righteousness (Right-wise-ness) and that
which is error.) Then shall ye
return,(return where? To where you began at. The starting point. And where was
that? When we were in Christ before the foundations of the world. In other
words, we will return to the Original Word. And you can not return unless you
were there to begin with. And when we have returned to the Original Word, we
shall) discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serve God
and him that serves not God. And that is
where we are at this evening.
Ephesians
4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro,
and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and
cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; And just
remember, it is not of your doing, but His doing that counts. For the Apostle
Paul said in 2
Thessalonians 3: 3 But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and keep
you from evil. The Lord shall keep you from all "poneros".
He shall keep you
from being influenced by the wicked one and his devises. Philippians 1: 6 Being confident of this
very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ: