Token
no 12
The
Token is your guarantee
August
14, 2015
Brian
Kocourek, pastor
Colossians 3:3-4 For ye
are dead, and your life is hid with
Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, (shall
phaneroo, shall manifest in His true Characteristics) then shall ye also appear with him (Then shall you also manifest with Him) in glory. (In the opinions and
values of God.)
And
then let's turn in our Bibles to Galatians 2:20 I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I am alive; yet it is not I that is living,
but Christ is living in me: and the life which I am now living in this flesh of
mine, I am living by the faith (the Revelation) of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself
for me.
Let us pray...
This morning we will pick up where we left off Wednesday night at
paragraph 53 of brother Branham's sermon, The Token preached September 1st,
1963.
53 Then
he asked how was they was a baptized. They hadn't been baptized in the Name of
Jesus Christ, the sacrificed Lamb. They wasn't identified with Him
at all. They just believed it, like the
medicine setting there and hadn't took it. Paul
commanded them to be baptized over again in the Name of Jesus Christ. And when he did this, then the Token came upon them.
They were identified by the works and signs of the Holy
Ghost, speaking in tongues through them, and prophesying and
magnifying God. They were identified as with their sacrifice.
Now, notice what he said here. What identified the people that they had
the Token was by the works of Christ and the signs and wonders following their lives.
Now, I know men like to talk about the evidence of being filled with
the Holy Ghost is believing the Message for the hour that you live. And so men
who believe "two souls" believe that is the Message of the hour, and
then there are those who believe that "seven thunders" is the message
of the hour. And then there are those who believe that brother Branham will
have a return ministry and will go to all the world all over again, and they
believe that is the Message of the hour, And of course there are those who
believe that the Message of the Hour is God sent a prophet, and some believe
that it is God sent a teacher, and you have to listen to him to make it. And
that belief is in many camps with many teachers.
But brother Branham never said any of that stuff. What he said was
this: "And the Holy Ghost is
our identification. It's what identifies us as
Christians, not our membership in churches, not our understanding of the Bible, not how much you know about the Bible; it's how much you know about the Author
See?, or how much the Author is living in you.
So he says it is how much the author is
living in you.
Now, Br. Branham makes it very evident
that there is a difference between having the experience of receiving the Holy
Ghost and the actual evidence that your experience was genuine. You see
experience and evidence are two different words and they mean two different
things. The word experience means an: Active participation in events or
activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge. An event or a series of
events participated in or lived through. Whereas the word Evidence
means: A thing or things helpful in forming a
conclusion or judgment: To indicate clearly; exemplify or prove.
The word evidence comes from the root word “evident”
which means: Easily
seen or easily understood; in other words, it's "obvious".
Therefore
the evidence of receiving the Holy Ghost would have to be something that makes
it very obvious that you have it, a proof and there is no greater proof
than to hear and recognize and understand the Word for the day in which you live.
Now, that does not imply a mental understanding though. I know a lot of people
who think they have ot because they had a certain teacher they listened too.
And that goes across many camps.
But a true evidence implies a knowledge
based on experiencing the reality of the living God and what His Word says
about Him. As Paul said, “How
can you know the things of God unless the Spirit of God is in you.” So the evidence is not the experience, but evidence rather is that which
looks back with proof that you have God’s Spirit in you because you have His
mind in you. But that doesn't do away with the fact that there is an experience in a new birth and that is exactly what
brother Branham said about children raised up in this Message. He said they
must have that experience just like you did, because God has children, not
grandchildren.
In Questions and answers COD 64-0823E P:19 281. Dear Brother Branham, I have been baptized
in Jesus' Name. The Word says you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Does this mean the baptism, the Holy Spirit, or does it
mean I should receive the gift, definite, I should receive a definite experience with the baptism? I am anxious to
be filled with the Spirit. Please excuse the long note as I have been wanting to ask you this question for
a long time. Thank you. And the person has their names signed. They're
out-of-town people. Now, there's a good question. Now, the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite experience that a person
must receive. Now let me kinda clear that up just for a minute. See? Now, many people have the
idea... I believe it's twisted.
And maybe right here to the church and to
the church that's listening, there might be a question. Now, when I
speak of not believing the initial evidence of the Holy Ghost is speaking with
tongues (I do not accept that) I
believe with God's help I can prove it in the Bible that that's wrong (See?),
'cause the speaking in tongues is a gift of the Holy Ghost. How many knows
that? Divine healing is a gift of the Holy Ghost, and here Beatles are doing
it. See? Satan can impersonate any of
those gifts. Witches, wizards can speak in tongues and interpret it. The
jungle lands, many times a wizard will speak in tongues, drink blood out of a
human skull, and interpret unknown tongues.
Now, that's no evidence of the Holy Ghost.
See? You can't rely upon that. You can't rely upon the fruit of the Spirit,
because the first fruit of the Spirit is love. And the Christian Science
exercise more love than anybody I know of, and they even deny Jesus Christ
being Divine. See? There's only one
evidence of the Holy Spirit that I know of, and "that is a genuine faith in the promised Word of the hour".
Now, for
all who quote that, let me ask you the question. What does that mean, a
genuine Faith in the promised Word for the hour?
Listen to
what brother Branham says next. "Now, those Jews come; they had more religion than the
disciples had. They were better trained
men in the Scriptures than the disciples was, because they were fishermen,
tax collectors, and so forth. And they
had real faith and genuine faith in what they were doing. Now, listen closely now; don't miss this.
See? When it come to being fruits of the Spirit, kind and gentle, I guess there
wasn't a one of those priest but what could outshine Jesus Christ in it. He went to the temple, plaited ropes,
looked upon them with anger, and turned over their tables, and run them out of
the place. Is that right? The Bible said He
looked upon them with anger. The Bible said
that. That's exactly right.
So we hear God's vindicated
prophet say that the evidence of being filled with the holy Ghost is to have a
genuine Faith in the Word for the Hour. Then in the next breath he tells us
that the Pharisees and those Christ rejecting ministries back 2000 years ago
had a genuine faith in what they were doing.
So Genuine Faith is what we
need to know about, because you can have a genuine Faith in a plurality of isms
that run inside the so called Message churches, but that isn't the same as
having a genuine
faith in the Message itself.
I wonder sometimes if
people don't get a pet doctrine and believe that to be the Message of the Hour.
And then they think they can rest in their own understanding of what the
Message is or is not.
Notice
what brother Branham says next... "So see, those priest were gentle, meek, understanding men. When it come to the fruits of the Spirit,
they could show more fruits of the Spirit than Jesus ever could. When it comes to theology, they
didn't have a school that He come out of.
So we can
see it is not the fruits of the Spirit, and it is not
your theology, which is your interpretation of the Message. Then
brother Branham goes on to explain how it isn't your theology or your way of
explaining the Message.
Now, when
a man receives Christ in the manner that He is in, you can't accept it as
being... See? Now, some of them say, "Well, I'm a Lutheran." Well,
there's nothing against that, but the Eagles don't feed on that. See? That was
as far as it was; that was fresh food of that day." I'm a Wesleyan."
That's all right, but you're living in the past. See? Now, those people said,
"Why, we have Abraham unto our father." That prophet said,
"God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham." See?"
We belong to this. We belong to that." That had nothing... He said,
"You generation of snakes, who's warned you to flee from the wrath? Don't
begin to say, 'We have Abraham to our father,' 'cause God's able of these
stones to rise children to Abraham." See? So being a well trained theologian had nothing to do with it. Being meek and gentle had nothing to do
with it. What made Him different? He was the Word made flesh, not the Word
for the day of Moses; Moses was that day Word; not the Word for the days of
Noah, Noah was the Word for that day; not the Word for the day of Elijah,
Elijah was that Word for that day; but He
was the present tense Word, and they were living in the back.
The same thing
repeats. That's the evidence of the Holy
Ghost, when God reveals to you and you see it, THUS SAITH THE LORD and accept
it. Not what you are, what you
was, or nothing about it, it's what God has done for you now. There's the evidence. Jesus said... He
give us the evidence of the Holy Ghost, John 14.
He said, "I have
many things to tell you. I haven't got time to do it, but when the Holy Ghost comes, He will tell you, bring to your memory the
things that I told you about, and will also show you things that is to come." Don't you see? There's
the evidence. That's forth-telling and having the Divine interpretation of the
written Word. Now, isn't that the
evidence of a prophet? A seer in the Bible was a man that could forth-tell
and it'd be perfectly, exactly, not somebody laid hands on him, that's a gift.
A prophet is predestinated and born to be a prophet. See? All the whole life it
was a prophet; that's a office. That's where the people...?...
So we are not talking about an
intellectual experience but a genuine supernatural experience from a
supernatural God. In fact from his sermon, Queen of Sheba 60-0401E P:50 “when Christ reveals Himself
to you, not in a
intellectual form, but in a new birth form...” So we are
not talking about intellect, but a genuine experience from God. It's something that
takes place between you and God alone. Not you setting under a certain
ministry, and therefore you got it. It's something personal that God does for
you and you know it's him because no man could have done that thing for you
except God.
COD 64-0823M P:121 257 Dear, Brother Branham: Do you believe that signs should follow all who have the Holy Spirit?
(Jesus said so, Mark 16.) If so, what about the people who believe the Message with all that is in them,
yet they have not these signs? Are they unbelievers or do they need the
Holy Spirit? If so, please instruct us today, how to receive the Holy Ghost. We
believe you are God's mouthpiece for our day. Your brother. Thank you, my
brother, for regarding me as your brother, and I think that that's a very good
question. Friends, yes, it is a little slack. I'd like to deal a little bit
longer on that if I could. See? It is slack. Look. Some of you... See? You cannot receive the baptism of the
Holy Ghost without having an experience when it happens... Now, if you
believe "every speck of the Word," You say you believe every speck of
It, then the Word is laying in there
waiting for the Holy Spirit to put It to work; but it takes the
lighting of the candle. Here's the candle with the wick in it, and with all the
tallow, and everything it has to have in that candle; but until the fire comes
on it, it will not shine any light. No matter how perfect the candle is, and
how perfect it'll burn and everything, it's
got to be lit, and then it burns. And when you believe and are made up of
the instructions of what the Holy Spirit is, love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
goodness, the fruits that It bears out, until the Holy Spirit with a fiery
experience comes down and lights that candle, then you haven't received the
Holy Ghost. See? You've got to have the
experience to have the Holy Ghost.
Queen of Sheba 60-0710 P:40 The Bible said that "No man can call Jesus the Christ only by the
Holy Ghost." If you've never received the Holy Ghost,
you don't know that He's the Christ yet. Remember that. You're only walking
towards that light. You can say, "My pastor said so." That's true.
"My Bible said so." That's true. "My mother said so."
That's truth. "My church believes it's the Holy Ghost." That's true, but what about you? As an individual, you don't know until
you've received It. And when you receive the Holy Ghost, then you are a witness that He's
alive forever more. Now, the Holy
Ghost is within you; now, and then
you watch Him as He works.
Notice,
brother Branham is saying that until he comes into you, you
have no experiential knowledge that He is even the Christ, which is the
Anointer, but when He comes into you, and anoint you, then you experience that
He is the anointer, and you watch Him work in your Life using your own body.)
Then he
says, "If the Life of Christ is in you, it will
produce His Life in you."
Now, the
logical question would be then, OK, brother Branham, but how do we know that it
is His life in us and not our own life that we are seeing? And notice how he
answers that. Notice he says, If the Life of Christ is in you it will
produce His Life in you, and then he tells us how it
will produce His life in you, and he quotes Scripture in telling us how the
Life of Christ in us will produce His Life in us
... Here's what he says...He quotes
Jesus in John
14:12. "The works that I do shall you do also." And then brother Branham says, ..."The same works,
because it's the same life. If the life
in a watermelon vine produces a watermelon, well, The next branch that comes
out, it'll produce another watermelon; every time it'll be a watermelon. And if the church is really anchored in Christ,
every church will write a book of Acts behind it. That's exactly right,
because the first one wrote a book of Acts behind it. So, there we are.
This day this scripture 65-0219 P:25 So no man has a right to call himself thus,
until he's talked face to face with God on a back side of a desert somewhere,
where he met God Himself. And all the atheists in the world could not explain
it away from him; he was there, and he know it happened. Every Christian should have that experience before they say anything
about being a Christian: your own experience.
Well, what if you claim your experience is listening to a certain
brothers sermons on tape? I would say you haven't had an experience with God
yet, and you are not born again.
Conference with God 60-0108 P:27 A lot of people that's half-born, part of
the way born... Grandsons, as David DuPlessis said the other night, "God
don't have grandchildren. He only has sons and daughters." But when it
comes to a place that a grandchild, that just brought in by a, 'cause his
mother was Pentecostal or his daddy was Pentecostal he becomes part of the
church... No, sir. He's got to be born
just like his daddy was, 'cause God doesn't have grandchildren. He's got to have the experience. He
can't go in on papa's experience or mama's experience; you got to have your own
experience. That was their birth. You know, you have to have a birth, too. God don't recognize grandchildren;
He doesn't have any. They're all sons and daughters. You say, "Well, I was
born... And my mother and father was Methodist, and I was took into the Methodist
church." That's all right. But you're a grandchild until you're born of
the Spirit of God; then you're not a grandchild.
Therefore, you can't go in on the coat tails of someone else.
Many people think, all I got to do to make it is to listen to brother so and
so's tapes. Good luck, because that is what youa re going to need, and God
doesn't deal with luck so you are out. Better try something else. get some
diece out, shake a little and throw those dice, maybe you will have a better
chance that way. Haha, yet they think all they have to do is to listen to some
preachers tapes and they will get their experience by that. all I can say is
grow up and quit being stupid.
Brother
Branham said in his sermon, Be not afraid 63-0607 P:72 You can make deacons out of them and
everything else. But it'll never do no
good. Pat them on the back, and call them brother, but until they are born again of the Spirit of God, they're just a nest
full of rotten eggs. That's all. They'll never hatch. We need the baptism
of the Holy Ghost. I don't mean some dry handshake. Said, "Have you... Did
you get the Holy Ghost?" "Yeah, when I shook hands with the pastor,
when I accepted Jesus as my Saviour." Brother, that ain't Bible doctrine. Paul found a bunch of good thoroughbred
Baptists up there, and he said, "Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?" Not when you believed, but after you believed have you received the
Holy Ghost. It's a personal
experience that comes. And when that great unchangeable God sent His
message down, it never changes. Amen.
Therefore, my question to you this
morning is this. What does Receiving the Token mean to you? Is it an
intellectual affair where you can give reasons why you believe the Token is
this that or the other? Or is The Token a reality in you because it is producing
an effect in your life, the same effect it had in the Life of Jesus Christ
Himself.
After all, did not we read for our text
earlier what the apostle Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ, yet it is not I that is living in this
flesh, but it is Christ living in Me, and the life I am now living in this body
of this death, is not my own life, but Christ’s Life who is living in me, and
the life I now live in this flesh, I am living by the faith, by the revelation
of the Son of God,
So it is not even my own revelation that
is producing this life change in me but rather Christ’s own revelation is living
in me just the same as it lived in Him.
I had some brother send me an email
yesterday, from Tasmania. He said he would like to share his revelation of the
little room in the tent. Then he proceeded to say how he attended a church
years ago where they had church in a cows stall that was boarded up to have
church in. And he said that stall was the same dimensions that brother Branham
described for the little room in the tent.
I didn't read any further, I just placed
it is the trash bin, because I am not interested in my thoughts on this word,
much less what thoughts anyone is going to come up with. I am only interested
in God's Thoughts and what He said about it through his Prophets. In other
words, we either have what the Lord said Thus, "thus Saith the Lord",
or we will keep still.
Did not Paul say in Colossians 3 “when Christ who is our Life shall
appear, shall manifest openly, so shall we manifest openly with him in the same
Doxa, the same values, the same opinions?”
Therefore, I ask you “What is the Token
producing in you”. What is your purpose, what is your motive, and what is
your objective in teaching the Message? Is it to get the people filled with
God-Life and to express that God-Life in them? Or is it to just get the people
to your church, to your organization, so you can have more income and more name
recognition?
Listen to what Brother Branham said in
his sermon, Easter seal 65-0410 P:23 I'm wondering today just what's happening.
Are we really getting the people to God, or are we just getting them to church?
We must get them to Christ, where this quickening power. It's good to go to
church, sure. If that's as far as we go, it's not far enough. When you come to
church, that's good; but go on to Christ
from the church; because we must receive
this quickening power if we ever expect to be in that general resurrection,
because it's the only thing that will ever bring us from the dead. "For if this spirit that raised up Jesus from
the dead dwell in you, it'll also quicken, make, bring to life your mortal
bodies." What a promise to us.
You see, brother Branham said in his
sermon Satan's Eden
65-0829 P:55 If Eve lusted for knowledge, it was sin.
And when we lust for knowledge (want a Ph.D., LL.D.) it's sin to do so. That's
a strong statements, but that's the Truth. No matter how strong it is, it's
still the Truth. See? To lust for knowledge, understanding...The thing of it is, is today we don't try
to establish the Word of God in the people's hearts. We're trying to establish
ourselves. Churches are trying to establish the doctrine of the church in a
person's heart. We are commanded to establish the Word of God. Paul said,
"I didn't come to
you with enticing words of man that your faith might rest up in the knowledge
of men, but I come to you in power, in manifestations of the Holy Ghost that
your faith might rest in God.
P:56 There you are. Man mustn't establish
them self. We find it amongst... Let God do something for a person, send him
out, you find every man trying to impersonate it. See, they're trying to establish themselves. Every man, "I
did this, me, I, mine, my denomination, me this," establish themselves. What are we preaching about, ourselves, or
the Kingdom of God? Establish the Word of God. Take out the unbelief and
establish the Kingdom of God in a man's heart. And the Kingdom of God cannot be established in a man's heart, 'less
God made that man thus. He cannot be established in a... And remember, the
deceitful part, that men think that it's right. See? "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man." Every intellectual being seems
right.
And how does God prove that His Life is
in You? By your doing the same things Jesus did when God was in Him? That's what brother Branham said in the quote
we read earlier.
Spoken word original seed 62-0318M P:89 The works that Jesus did, if
a man has the Seed of God in him with the Spirit of God watering that Seed, the
same works that Jesus, was manifested in
Jesus, Him being the original Seed of God, His death brings you back to the original Seed of God,
and if the same Spirit that was within
Him is in you, then the same works will be manifested. You don't believe
that? All right, let's turn over to Saint John 14:12.You
say, "I'm a believer, Brother
Branham. I sure am a believer." All right, I'm going to see if Jesus
would call you one, see if the Word of God calls you one...Verily, verily,...
(absolutely, absolutely)... I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the
works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go to the Father.
90
What is it? Same seed. ...
Then in paragraph 91 Brother Branham says, "Then the works will be manifested in Him
are the same, for it is the same Seed Word of God. God's Son was His example Seed. And what His Life was when the Spirit poured upon Him after His baptism and
the Holy Ghost come upon Him, the very Life that He produced will--that same
watering Spirit of the Holy Ghost will bring forth the same kind of a Life,
doing the same thing that He did; if it's the same Seed. Son of God Seed will bring forth a Son of God Seed.
92
See where it's at? See? That's why I
believe the Word. It's a Seed. And if the rain falls upon the Seed, it'll bring
forth of its kind. Now, what's the matter with these revivals? What do we
do? Make a million more in '44: Baptists, Presbyterians, and what evermore,
Pentecostals. But where is that
manifestation of the works of Jesus Christ. "I
do nothing till first the Father shows Me." Where is that kind
of a Seed coming from? The Holy Spirit will water and bring forth that Seed.
It's the Water to the Seed. If the
Seed's been planted, that's exactly what the Water's for. If the Water
falls on you, you say, "Bless God, let me tell you something, preacher.
I'm So-and-so, and I don't believe in that stuff." You're the
denominational. You're just an old hypocrite to start with. That's what kind of
seed was planted.
But in every age after every revival,
once the people move away from the Light God sent to them, and move backwards
into works programs, the Life leave s them and God moves on with His Light.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:18 tells us that when they lose what understanding they
have of the Word, the Life of God leaves them as well. "Having the understanding darkened, they
become alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because
of the blindness of their heart:"
John
told us in 1 John 5: “He
that echoes the son echoes Life.”
Now, in closing let's read further in the Token
Message, and we will read from paragraph. 54
It's yourself gone. You're no more... You reckon
yourself dead, and the Token is what lives in you,
and it's not your life; it's Him. Paul said,
"The life that I now live..."
He lived a different life from what he
once did. "It's
not me, but Christ liveth in me." There is the
identified Token that God required. Identified with our, identification
with our sacrifice. The Life of our
Savior in us, the Holy Spirit... Oh what a... A positive Token. There can
not be any more Token. Oh, my, if you'd only could catch the thought of it. If
I had the power this morning with words to express and place into your soul
that's not your ears, but your soul. If you could see the guarantee of it.
It takes... It makes you so relaxed.