Spoken Word no 44
“No Contradictions in God’s Word”
Brian Kocourek
Deuteronomy
29:29 The secret things belong unto
the LORD our God: but those things which are
revealed belong unto us and to our children for
ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Romans 16:
25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my
gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the
mystery, which was kept secret since the
world began,
Amos 3: 7
Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret
unto his servants the prophets.
Let us pray… Dear Father we see by your Word that
those things which are hidden belong unto you and when you choose to reveal
them, you will do so by your prophets, which you personally vindicate by Your
Personal Presence with them backing up the Words which you commanded them to
speak. Thus by Your presence you have established for us that only Your
Vindicated Word is our Absolute, and we can place our full confidence in “Thus Saith the Lord”
because of that vindication. Help us then Father to look only unto Thee for the
promises that we have need of, and help us to become like your son Jesus that
said, “Not my
will but Thy will be done.” And we ask this in Jesus Christ’s name,
amen.
Now, this morning I would like to continue in our
study of brother Branham’s sermon The Spoken Word is the Original Seed, and in
paragraph 35 we
will begin our reading. “Jesus said the
Scriptures must be fulfilled. That is, that all that's written in the Scriptures... Now bear this in mind,
'cause you who are getting the tape now; at the end of these tapes you'll find
I come back to that again, that all
that's in the Scriptures must be fulfilled. Now, let that soak just a minute, class. See? All that's in the Scriptures has got to be fulfilled. Then if God said anything, there you are; It's got to be fulfilled. Or if it
isn't, that's not the Word of God. Then if that isn't the Word of God, then
where are we at? Let's get something that looks like God or anything we want to
do: as the Bible said, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."
See?
Now, notice that He said, “all that God spoke must be fulfilled”.
Not all that you speak or all that I speak, or all that anyone else speaks, but
this vindicated prophet says, “all that God speaks must be fulfilled”.
Now, there is a book called “The
Secret ” and it has sold many millions of copies around the
world and although this book has some interesting things to say about positive
thinking, the book however is based on “New Age” positive thinking, and the false
Christian prosperity movement de-Christianized. In other words they take the
same theme and white wash it and make it available for the 6 billion plus
people in the Word who are not Christian. The book is successful because there
are billions of people in this world who are struggling for answers to their
problems and it gives them hope, and yet this hope is a very dangerous hope and
opens them to the occult.
You see, most people want to be in charge of their destinies,
so they cling to this book, looking for hope in a hopeless world. But remember,
Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ and His Righteousness.
They invent new words to make over old ones, and the
book basically tell its audience that you can have whatever you want, and all
you have to do is think it, and then feel it. This concept is so anti-Christ
and anti Scripture, and leaves out suffering as God’s way of working His own
Character into your life.
The apostle James 4: 3 “Ye
ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your
lusts.”
So much then for willing yourself to have whatever
your heart desires.
The Apostle Paul said in Romans 9: 16 “So
then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
sheweth mercy.”
So if it is not him
that “willeth”, then this Books entire premise is off the Scriptures.
But they ascertain that you must not
just changes your thinking which in itself it a correct thing to say, because
we know that too many people are negative thinkers and the reason they never
move forward is that they are thinking incorrect or negative thoughts. But that
is not the message this book gives. It gives the message that you alone are in
control of your destiny which throws out predestination, and the foreknowledge
of God in election.
In the book of Psalms 25: 14 David
said, The secret of the LORD is
with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.
Therefore, any secret worth having will not come from
some fly by night author, who is out to make themselves wealthy off the backs
of the gullible, but any secret that comes from God must come God’s only
provided way.
And the fact of this book is that this author throws
out God and makes the world religions of Buddha and Confucius who taught that
the secret of Life is to think no evil. And of course there are others they
quote on a level with the Scriptures who were and still are nobodies in the
eyes of God. Therefore, this book is nothing short of Gnosticism and teaching
that man is the author and finisher of his destiny, and he has control over his
universe to make it the way he wishes it to be made and shaped for his own
purposes and his own desires. In other words, Man becomes his own God according
to this book.
And
the same heresies are as old as the ages. Irenaeus said in his 1st book
entitled, “Irenaeus Against Heresies Book I”,
concerning the Gnostics in his day, … In as
much (1) as certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in
lying words and vain genealogies, which, as the apostle says, (2)
"minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith,"
and by means of their craftily-constructed plausibility’s draw away the
minds of the inexperienced and take them captive, [I have felt constrained, my
dear friend, to compose the following treatise in order to expose and
counteract their machinations.] These men falsify the oracles of God, and
prove themselves evil interpreters of the good word of revelation. They
also overthrow the faith of many, by drawing them away, under a pretense of
[superior] knowledge, from Him who rounded and adorned the universe; as if,
in truth, they had something more excellent and sublime to reveal, than that
God who created the heaven and the earth, and all things that are therein.
Therefore, by means of specious and plausible words, they cunningly allure the
simple-minded to inquire into their system; but they nevertheless clumsily
destroy them, while they initiate them into their blasphemous and impious
opinions respecting the Creation; (3) and these simple ones are unable,
even in such a matter, to distinguish falsehood from truth.
2. Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity,
lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily
decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it
appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous, as the expression may seem) more
true than the truth itself. "A clever imitation in glass casts
contempt, as it were, on that precious jewel the emerald (which is most highly
esteemed by some), unless it come under the eye of one able to test and
expose the counterfeit. Or, again, what inexperienced person can with ease
detect the presence of brass when it has been mixed up with silver?" Lest,
therefore, through my neglect, some should be carried off, even as sheep are by
wolves, while they perceive not the true character of these men, because they
outwardly are covered with sheep's clothing (against whom the Lord has warned
us to be on our guard), and because their language resembles ours, while their
sentiments are very different, --I have deemed it my duty (after reading some
of the Commentaries, as they call them, of the disciples of Valentinus, and
after making myself acquainted with their tenets through personal intercourse
with some of them) to unfold to thee, my friend, these portentous and profound
mysteries, which do not fall within the range of every intellect, because
all have not sufficiently purged(6) their brains. I do this, in order that
thou, obtaining an acquaintance with these things, mayest in turn explain them
to all those with whom thou art connected, and exhort them to avoid such an
abyss of madness and of blasphemy against Christ. I intend, then, to the best
of my ability, with brevity and clearness to set forth the opinions of those
who are now promulgating heresy. I refer especially to the disciples of
Ptolemaeus, whose school may be described as a bud from that of Valentinus. I
shall also endeavour, according to my moderate ability, to furnish the means of
overthrowing them, by showing how absurd and inconsistent with the truth are
their statements. Not that I am practiced either in composition or eloquence;
but my feeling of affection prompts me to make known to thee and all thy companions
those doctrines which have been kept in concealment until now, but which
are at last, through the goodness of God, brought to light. "For there
is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed, nor secret that shall not be
made known."(1)
Again
from Chapter VIII. --[How the Valentinians pervert the Scriptures to support their own
pious opinions.]
1. Such, then, is their system, which neither the
prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of
which they boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures;
and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while
they endeavor to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar
assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words
of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without
support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the
connection of the Scriptures, and
so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By
transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of
another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their
opinions. Their manner of acting is just as if one,
when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skillful artist
out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to
pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them
into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and
should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king
which the skillful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been
admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king,
but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a
dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no
conception what a king's form was like, and persuade them that that
miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king. In
like manner do these persons patch together old wives' fables, and then endeavor, by violently drawing
away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and parables whenever
found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions. We have already stated how
far they proceed in this way with respect to the interior of the Fullness.
And thus we can sum up this book and many who would
use the Word of God for gain, by showing how they are deluding the masses of
humanity into their schemes to make themselves money.
They leave God out of the picture entirely, and they
replace Him with the Universe, and they give Life to the Universe as though it
is some living breathing thing that is waiting for you to call upon it like
some fairy tale “Jeanie in a bottle” that lives only for you to tell is your
desires, so that it can fulfill all your wishes. They leave out the Laws that God established in
the earth of “Sowing
and Reaping” and “The Law of Life”, or “The Law of Reproduction” that says “every seed must
bring forth after its kind”. They do not use Bible terms of “planting and
watering”, but they say, “you must first think it and then in order to
make it come from invisible to visible you must feel it”. So this is
a touchy feely new religion which is really not so new, but a bundling together
of many of the false religions of the world that deal with such positive
thinking motifs and speak nothing of salvation, or letting go of your own will
and receiving God’s will. It speaks nothing of obedience and service, but only
of satisfying your own lusts, and those lusts become your absolute.
Now, I am not saying that there are not some interesting
things said in this book, but what truths are in there are re-dressed into new
Age mysticism, and theology of the get rich quick schemes that try to base
themselves on some basic Bible truism but as brother Branham said, their motive
is not of God, nor is it Christ centered. And Brother Branham taught us to
always look at the motive.
Therefore, what we need to do as Christians is to
never deviate from God’s Word. Why would we settle for some half baked falsity when
the Word of God is full real promises that are as sure as God Himself is the
Supreme and Sovereign Judge.
But the Book was not written for the Christian, but
for the New Age person, and like any movie that is successful these days, they borrow
themes from the Scripture, pervert them and sell the perverted version for millions
of dollars while offering them to people who are looking for change in their
lives.
Look how successful the Steven Spielberg movies are
because in stead of the Holy Spirit they have “the Force”. And by telling fairy
tales they destroy to the children the integrity of God’s Word being real.
In this book “The Secret”, the author and co-authors
have humanized “the
law of reproduction” and “sowing and reaping”,
and call it “the law of attraction” and
they say that anything and everything you think will come into materialization,
if you think it enough and enter into your thinking by feeling it as well. That
is only a perversion of the real law of “sowing and reaping” where instead of feeling what
you have sown, you water what you have sown. Sure it is true that all a man
does in life he must first think it. But then if he is to become successful, he
must water what he has sown. He must work the ground, till it, and then plant
it and water it according to God’s Law. You see, it is not all things you think
that will become materialized but those things that you plant and water.
Now, it is true that we were made in the image of God
and being made in God’s image we are little Messiahettes. But Brother Branham
defined that as being able to create an atmosphere around us that can change
the way we perceive the world, and how others will react in our presence. He
did not say that if you want a Cadillac you can wish for it and poof, it will
be their. That is the prosperity theology of the radical few who teach such in churches today. But just
because brother Branham taught us how to change the atmosphere in which we
live, that does not mean that he taught that everything we wish for will come to pass. Nor does it
mean that if we wish for it hard enough we can have what we wish for. That is a
perversion of what Jesus said when he spoke on Faith the size of a mustard
seed.
The Scripture teaches, Luke 8: 17 For nothing is secret,
that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known
and come abroad. But the one who
manifests what is done in secret is God Himself. Not some impersonal Universe
which you have learned how to control. But of course these people who teach
such are those who sell the ignorant on get rich quick schemes. They write a
book and say I will tell you how to get rich
quick and so people buy the book because its cover is filled with
promises of prosperity and then when they open and read the book, there is a
short sentence in it that says, “this book was written to show you how to get
rich quick. All you have to do is write a book like this one with nothing in it
but promises that you cannot guarantee and if enough suckers read it you will
get rich also. So on and on the get rich quick schemes are played out to a
people who never learn that we must work and we shall increase by the sweat of
our brow because that is what God said how it will be done.
Matthew 6:
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou
hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret; and thy Father
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Our rewards them do not come by our willing them but by submitting our
will to our Fathers will and asking him for the things you have need of.
And all these people who think they have the Secret will be surprised one day when they will have
to give an account to Jesus Christ for all their actions and their desires.
In Romans 2: 16 Paul said, In
the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my
gospel.
Therefore, the only secret I am interested in is the secret that David
speaks of in Psalms 27: 5 For
in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.
And there are only one will that I am interested in
and that is God’s will. My own will would cause me to go down the wrong road,
but His will alone is perfect. And His will alone is perfect for my life and I
know that if I am walking in His Will, then all things shall work together for
me to them who are the called according to His Word and His Will. For God’s purpose and plan stand in election,
and in that I shall not be moved.
Now, brother Branham continues in paragraph, 36 Now,
if that is not the Word of God, then we're all lost; and if it is the Word of
God, God is absolutely honor-bound.
The God Who is the fountain of all honor, Who is the beginning of all honor,
Who is the source of all honor, Who's the source of all Truth, has got to stand
by what He said. And if this isn't God's Word, then who is God? Where is God?
or is there a God?
37 "Oh,"
you say, "Brother Branham, I feel
it." Oh, the heathen can tell you the same thing on his idol.
Traveling does something to you, when you see it yourself.
"So I believe I could look and see this." Yes. "I believe, if I believe
because I was changed like this, because..." I do that too, but remember heathens do the same thing. Why, the
morals of
38
Now, let's take the Lutheran claims. They fail. Let's take the Catholic claims.
They fail. Let's take the Baptist claims, Pentecostals. They fail. So you can't put no confidence in them.
But there's not one thing written in this Bible but what God has proved by
somebody that it's the Truth. It's the Truth. As I've often said, "Maybe
my faith won't climb where Enoch climbed, but I certainly wouldn't stand in
anybody's way that could climb there." Great faith...
39
Now, getting this background that the
reasons why I believe the Bible, and that's where I take my text. Now, next
thing I want to say, that I do not believe the Bible contradicts Itself, and I
have offered a challenge world around for any persons who claims such to come,
prove it to me. Come, prove it. The Bible doesn't contradict Itself; it's you contradicting the Bible. God
cannot contradict Himself. If He does, then He isn't God. And if this Word is
God then, and It's contradictory, then you make God contradicting Himself; then
where is your God then? Kind of gets thick, doesn't it, complicated?
40
If God contradicts Himself, He's not no
more than I am or no more than you are, for He can contradict Himself. The
Word's there, but It's hid from
the eyes of the wise and prudent. (and I would like to add, that God’s word which is
hidden to the world is “Our Secret”. The workld has there secret which is phony
and nothing but made over positive thinking theology, but we have the Absolute
which is God’s Hidden Secret that has been revealed to us in this hour. Because
God Himself has come down with a Shout, A Message, and we know that soon we
will be going home. Hallelujah. )That's why someone says that Matthew 28:19, where: "Go
ye, teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, Holy
Ghost"; Acts 2:38 said, "Repent and be baptized in the Name of
Jesus."...?... they're contradictory... It isn't a contradictory.
Possessing
gate of the enemy 64-0322 P:20 "He that believeth on Me, the works
that I do shall he also," His Life returning upon the sacrifice as we lay our hands upon it, and
identifying ourselves dead to our own thoughts. Then how can we let
denominations push us into creeds and things, and say we believe it? We are dead to those things. Paul said,
"None of these things bother me," for he was tied to an Absolute, Christ. And every true achievement is tied to an absolute, and my Absolute is the
Word. And everybody else that's
really born of the Spirit, their Absolute is God's Word. I'm tied to It. I
laid my hands upon It, and It took my place. I've identified myself with Him.
We knew that He promised to identify Himself with us. That brings genuine
faith, not your own faith, but His faith, something that you don't control. He
does it. Now, notice. Then, and then only, when the promise is made to you.
Church
order COD 63-1226 P:4 Now, I'm not trying to usurp authority or
something like that, but (You see?), a man or anything with two heads to it, it
doesn't know how to go. God never did have two heads to His church; He never
did; it's one head. He always dealt in every generation... As we've studied
through the Scriptures, there's always one individual that He deals with.
Because you get two men, you got two opinions. It's got to come to one final
absolute, and my absolute is the Word,
the Bible. And as a pastor here of
the church, my absolute is the Word, and I want... I know you are brothers,
you kind of look to me to be your absolute to what... As long as I follow God
as Paul said in the Scripture, "You follow me, as I follow
Christ."...
Lee
Vayle Godhead The Known God P:27 Without vindication, you're nowhere, and
I'm nowhere either. That's why I preach so strong, because I stand right on a
vindicated Word. I'm adamant, and without it I wouldn't give you two bits today
for any of it, because we're in that place where there are going to be people
ditching everything until only eight people make the ark. And I don't want to
be one of those that ditches it. This holds me steady. This is all my hope and
stay-my tie post-my absolute-my ultimate.
Pardoned 63-1028 P:81 Our
heavenly Father, knowing that the sun is swiftly going down, time shall be no
more, one day the great Archangel will step out on the scene of time, from out
of eternity. And the trumpet of God shall sound and every man and woman will
answer to what we know to be the Truth, the Word of God. There's got to be some
standard that God has to have here on earth that we're to be judged by. And if
we took the standard of our church, our denomination, how far would we miss it?
And which denomination would be right? Therefore, we'd be confused. We wouldn't
know what to do. But there is a Standard and that is Your Word. And Your Word
said, "Except a man be born again he cannot even see the
Proving His Word 64-0816 P:35 Now,
we see another one, then you no doubt have heard them say, "Seeing is
believing." That's another old proverb we have here, but that doesn't work either. It doesn't work,
'cause man can set and look right straight at anything and they'll not see it.
The word "see," the English word "see" has so many
different meanings to it. Sea might mean "a body of water." And see
might mean "to understand." See might mean "to look at it."
And, oh, there's just all kinds of words you can use. But when you say,
"seeing is believing," you're mistaken. When you understand it, you
believe it. Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
Kingdom," in other words, "understand the Kingdom," because the
Kingdom is the Holy Spirit in you. So you have to understand what this is in
you. And the only way you'll understand it, is compare what it makes you do
with what the Bible said it would make you do. Then your problem's solved. See?
And then He is that Holy Spirit.
Broken
cisterns 65-0123 P:39 Any manmade system will keep him right in
that; he'll blind the thing from the intellectual, the intellectual eyes, that
they think, "I belong to church; my name is on the book. I have did this. My father was this and
so forth." That sounds all right; which it is, nothing to say against it.
But still, friend, Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot even
see." "See" there doesn't mean that he sees with his eyes, but,
"understand the Kingdom of heaven." Until you're born into...How
would this Baptist evangelist, how would that man who stood there and
criticized and made fun of It? See, there's nothing in him that could even
receive It; but God had to do it. See? God gave him the Holy Spirit. He
manifested that this was not hypocrisy; this is the Word. He only hears it from
a school idea, and they try to take all the--the blessings of God and place it on
a day gone by.