Token no 19

Unless you detest yourself you'll never be born again

September 15, 2015

Brian Kocourek, pastor

Matthew 10: 34-36 Think not that I came to bring peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, a daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law; And a man's foes shall be they of his house .."

John 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

Let us pray...

This word "hateth" that was translated from the Greek word "Miseo" means not only to "hate", but also to "detest", which means "to loathe and abhor."

Therefore the actual translation should be John 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that destests his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

In fact Jesus says in, Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not (detests not) his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

That is why we hear brother Branham tell us "there is an approach to this birth", and we need to follow the instructions to the New Birth or we will never be born again. So we need to know what that approach is and we must know if we have come God's provided way. And that way is the way of death. You must die, and not only die, but you must die so bad that you rot to your own self.

The problem with Christianity today is most people are not willing to die and rot to their own self, and thus have never been truly born again.

Brother Branham said in his sermon, Why 62-0622E P:41 you "say, "Well, other people do this." Well, you're not like the other people. You are dead, and your life is hid in God through Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit. See, you didn't try the toxin. It's just because the people don't want to try it. Now, you've got to die. You've got to rot. That's the trouble of people, instead going up to the altar and get some kind of sensation, jump up, and shake hands with the preacher, go out and get some kind of a dogma or creed and recite it, and say, "I belong to So-and-so. I belong to So-and-so.""Are you a Christian?" "I'm So-and-so."A Christian is to be Christ-like. Christ-like is to believe the Word. If you don't believe the Word, then he can't be Christ-like. How can you say you're a Christian and deny half of the Word? If the Holy Spirit wrote the Word, the Holy Spirit confirms the Word. And the Holy Spirit is the Word. And the Word abiding in you brings God's promises to every believer. Amen, the word means "so be it." I believe it with all my heart. It's the Word of the living God. Amen.

And from his sermon, You must be born again 61-1231M P:73 brother Branham said, "And if you still love the things of the world, you're deceived; your sacrifice hasn't been accepted yet; your nature hasn't been changed. Now, do you know what it means to be born again? See, your nature's changed; you become a new creature. You got to die first and then be born again.

Birth pains 65-0124 P:27 We know the old seed must, before the new seed can come out of the old seed, it must rot, absolutely, not die only, but rot after it's dead. We know that to be true. That's the same thing in new birth. We never go back, but we go forward when you're born again. And that's why I think today we have so many--not so many rather, genuine new births, is because the seed is, maybe will sympathize with the Word or the person, but they don't want to rot away from the old system that they were in. They don't want to come out of it. They want to stay in the old system and claim the new birth or the message of the age. We found that under the Luther, Wesley, Pentecostals, and all other ages. They still try to hold on to the old system and claim this, but the old system age must die, rot, in order to bring forth the new one. They still want to cling. Notice, they know the old system is dead, but they just don't want to rot out of it. Now, rot is when it's really done away with. 28 When a claim is made that they are newborn... But a claim is only a begotten sign; rotting brings forth the new birth. You got to rot away from it just as we did in all ages, through the Wesleyan and the all forth... But the thing of it is, after that new birth is born... Wesley--or Luther came forth with one word: "The just shall live by faith." Well, he could not no longer cling on to the old system. He had to come out of it. And then when the Calvinists got the Anglican church in such a condition (under the Calvinistic doctrine) until God raised up an Arminian doctrine (which was John Wesley)... The old system had to die in order for the new to come on. And when Wesley's age ceased and all the little ages or blades that come out on the stalk of the tassel in Wesley's time... See, when Pentecost come out with the restoration of the gifts, they had to come out of Baptists, Presbyterian, Pilgrim Holiness, Nazarene, Church of Christ (so-called), and all that; they had to come out of it, rot away from it, to accept the new birth. 29   You're always called crazy, but it's is like Paul said when he rotted out of what he once claimed; he said, "In the way that's called heresy, that's the way I worship the God of our fathers," in the way that's called heresy. See, he'd accepted the new Life that the Old Testament had give birth to the New, and he had to rot away from the Old (just make it a shadow) in order to be...That's just where we are at now. Now, bear with me, but that's my idea. The churches has got so systematically till you can't get into one 'less you belong to one. You've got to have a fellowship card or some kind of a identification. And by believing this, the only door I nearly have open is these Business Men. And as long as they're not a organization, I can go in with them, and get to bring the Message that I feel that's on my heart to the people. But it's got so systematically. And I love you Pentecostal people. And Pentecost is not an organization anyhow. You just call yourself that. Pentecost is an experience and not a denomination. But, you see, the thing of it is that's so hard for many man, when they look at it and believe it, and see it so identified by God in the Word, yet it's so hard to rot away from that thing you've been in. "What would I do? Where would I get my meal? What... " God is your meal. God is the thing for you to hold on. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." I'll leave it lay at that; you know what I'm talking about.

And now from the next paragraph in our study of The Token, pp. 73 brother Branham said, "When the Jewish church faded out, the Gentiles taken it over in that perversion like that, now she's come out to get that remnant of the Gentile for His Namesake: the Bride. See, what I mean? See what the Scripture's speaking of here? If the Token was not displayed, then the covenant was not effective. See? It must be; because if you say you believe, and you don't follow the instructions of the Word, then you don't believe. See? Though you be circumcised, though you join, though you're baptized, you've done all these things like that, that still isn't the Token. The Holy Ghost...

And the problem they have in following the instructions, is that the very first instruction is you must die first to be born again. Remember, brother Branham told us there is an order, there is a process in order to be born again.

And in his sermon, You must be born again 61-1231M P:54 He tells us what that process is. "Yes, to be born again you must go through a process of death; everything does. You take a grain of corn; if that corn ever expects to live again, it's got to die first. If a grain of wheat ever expects to live again, it's totally impossible for... That corn, that wheat, that flower, that tree, that grass, that vegetable, everything that expects to live again must die first. Then how you going to escape it? You got to die first. You got to die. Die how? To yourself, die to everything, so that you can be born again. You've got to do that. If you don't die, you can never live again.

Why do you think we've had so many leave this church. They don't want to hear this kind of preaching, but let me tell you something. without this kind of preaching you will never make the rapture, I am certain of that. If you love yourself you are lost. If you detest yourself, then you are ready to be filled with His Spirit because you are willing to die to yourself. And YOu can not ever be born again until you first die to yourself. That is "Thus Saith the Voice of God to this generation".

For God's Voice to this generation said in his sermon, You must be born again 61-1231M P:51 Now, the approach to this birth, there is approach to it. And to approach this birth, you have to go through a process, just like anything that lives. Anything that lives again's got to die first. And you cannot keep your same spirit. You cannot keep your same habits. You cannot keep your same thoughts. You got to die. You've got to die like He died. You got to die on His altar, like Abel did with his lamb. You got to die with your Lamb. You got to die, die to your own thinking to be born to His thinking. Let the mind that was in Christ be in you. You got to think His thoughts. And now, brother, sister, let me say this as intelligent as I know how to say it. How can you think His thoughts and deny His Word, and yet claim you're born again? Just ask yourself that question. How can you do it? You can't. If you're born again, you got His thoughts. If the mind of Christ is in you, then you are a new creature. The Bible teaches that. And if any brother would like to, where you find that creature, look that word "creature" up in the--the Lexicon, and you'll find out that the word "creature" there is interpreted or translated, "a new creation," because you are a one creation, a human being born in sexual desire here on earth, and now you're a new creation born by Spirit. Your own thoughts are dead. They're so dead until they're crystal like the brass serpent, or like He died when the heavens and earth and everything witnessed He was dead.

Again from his sermon, You must be born again 61-1231M P:56 The Voice of God to this generation said, "Now, it must die. Now, that don't mean turn a new page now, this new year. You say, "Brother Branham, I've been coming here for a long time. I've been a member of the church. This New Year's I'm going to turn a new page and start new. That don't mean that. Not turn a new page, but actually die and be born again. See? You've got to feel so guilty when you stand in His Presence. Whether you go the Methodist way, or the Baptist way, or whatever way you go, you've got to be so guilty and feel so guilty till you... It'll kill you. That's right. You, it'll kill you. Your worldly life will die right there. You've got to reckon yourself so guilty in the Presence of God until your worldly life dies right there. The sin question's over for you when you're standing in His Presence. When you look like that, you're sure to live, because you die. And the only way you can live again is to die first so you can live again. Now, you see what I'm coming to, don't you (See that?), what the birth is, the new birth. First, to die, in order to be born again... And if you still got the things of the world in you, you're not born again. And how you going to claim to be born again and still with the things of the world hanging on you? See? How can you do it?

Sirs we would see Jesus 61-1224 P:96 If he's a true disciple of Christ, he'll lead you to the cross. "Oh, Brother Branham, I went out and spoke in tongues." That don't mean nothing; a mule did that one day. Yes, sir. That's... Yeah, I don't mean to make fun of God's holy Word. I believe in speaking in tongues, but devils speak with tongues. A people can speak in tongues and live any kind of a life. But I mean that the devil's got a copy of everything that God did. And he can copy everything but the genuine birth of Christ; and he can't do that, 'cause you have to die first, then the Word raises you up. How do you know when you're alive? When that Word, every word of It's made flesh in you; everything that the Bible says, you say the same thing, and it comes to pass, just exactly like He said it. That's when it is. When your spirit agrees with Him (He is the Word.), when your spirit agrees with what He said and the Spirit makes Itself manifest through His Word, then you're living. See? You're through shopping then, and swapping, and all the rest of it. It's all settled.

Why 60-0309 P:73 Oh, in the hour of your death, in the hour of your death, how you long to hear that. Let the water and the blood, from Thy flowing wounds supply, be for sin a double cure, safe from wrath and make me pure. You're here to die now. The only way you can be borned again is to die first, so that you can be borned again.

Now, there is no other way to be born again. Therefore if you have not died to yourself and rotted to yourself, you have never been born again.

Now, look, too many of you still love yourself. You won't even admit when you have totally messed up. You look for excuses to put it back on the preacher.

I know, because I have had to deal with so much unbelief in not only people who left this church, and unbelievers I have met all over the world, but even some of you who are still here.

You get your feelings hurt by something I say, when I am just quoting the Word of God or God's Voice to this generation, and the first thing is you run off and ask people why they left. Right there you put yourself outside the word of God. The Bible says, "they went out from among us because they were not of us". "Ooh, the poor fellow he got his feelings hurt". Must be that mean old pastor, he doesn't consider our feelings. Let me tell you something, If what I tell you is from God's Word or His prophet, then you have no right to have your feelings hurt. And the only reason you have your feelings hurt is because you have not died to self.

The Holy Ghost says amen to every Word of God.

Well, let me just tell you something you may not know. Hell is filled with a whole lot of people who left the Word of God and their post of duty to be gathered around that Word because they got their feelings hurt. Brother Branham called them hothouse plants.

Be not afraid 63-0607 P:72 You know what? A genuine original plant, you don't have to spray it. No, sir. Bugs won't even get on it. It's that hothouse plant that you have to spray. That's what's the matter. You have to spray, and baby, and pet around with so-called Christians. Tell them, "You can't do this, and..." "Oh, well, now. I just tell you, I got a right..."There you are. See? That's a hothouse plant. They can't stand nothing in the beginning. You see? That's right. What you need's an original, old digging out, and tearing down, and as I said last night, clean out the nest and start over again. That's right. 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 borned 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.

Perseverant 64-0305 P:43 That woman wasn't that type. She wasn't no hybrid plant. She'd got ahold of something. You didn't have to baby her and spray her, and say, "Now, darling, please, now let me beg you. You should come down." No, sir. Nobody... Everything trying to hinder her. A real Christian fights for his position. He has to stand alone, him and God, and he fights every inch of ground, so you don't have to baby them around. That's what's the matter with the Pentecostal church today, we got Pentecostal babies that's just been sprinkled and sprayed with this, and that, and the other, till it's run out to a bunch of hybrids. What we need today is a housecleaning, from the pulpit all the way to the janitor, and a starting over again, and get some genuine faith born into people. Yeah.

Perseverance 63-0113E P:59 They ain't no good. Everything now's hybrid, hybrid. Even they got hybrid churches, hybrid Christians took in by shaking of hands. Oh, they can dress better, and maybe use better English, and so forth like that. Ain't got no life in it. You take a big fine ear of corn hybrid, maybe it's twice as pretty as the other one. Plant it, it'll die. Ain't got no life in it. That's right. We don't want nothing hybrid. We want the genuine thing. If you haven't got it, stay there till it comes. Why accept a substitute when the Pentecostal skies are full of the real? See? Nothing hybrid, it won't stand. You have to always spray a hybrid plant, keep the bugs off of it. That's the way with some of these hybrid Christians. You have to baby them, and pet them, and promise them they'll be deacon or something else. Keep some of the worldly bugs from them of unbelief. "They'll get out of the church." Kick them out anyhow. That's right. They never was in.

In the Gospel of Mark and Matthew we hear Jesus rebuke a woman who came to ask for healing. Mark 7:27 But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.

Matthew 15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

And today this younger generation has been so indoctrinated into political correctness, that they get offended so easily, but not this lady, she wasn't a hybrid Christian, she was a real genuine article of God, and look at her reply: Mark 7:28 And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. 29  And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. 30  And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.

Look what God's Voice to this generation told us about this woman. Perseverant 62-0729 P:66 If Jesus would have said, "I'm not sent to you Anglicans. I'm not sent to you Pentecostals. Your bunch... You're Assembly of God, you Church of God, you... whatever you are. I wasn't sent to you. You're nothing but a bunch of dogs." Oh, my. I'd have seen that disappointed look and saying, "Well, I won't have nothing to do with Him at all. Wasn't right to begin with. I'll just go back over to my own church."But not her. She had faith. She wasn't a hotbed plant, a hybrid, like some of them today that call themselves believers, can't set still a minute to the Gospel. That's what we got today, a bunch of hotbed plants. You have to baby them all the time, keep them sprayed, the bugs off of them. That's right. Baby them like a kitten, rubbing his fur one way, he will purr; but rub it back once, and it shows what's in him. That's right. That certainly is true. She wasn't a hot--a hybrid. Anything that's hybrid is disgraceful.

Meanest man I know 62-0127 P:23 And a hybrid product can never stand the roughness and the treatment that the original can stand. Why, an old longhorn would starve one of your Herefords to death out on the prairie in the wintertime. She can make her own way like a deer. But your hybrid Hereford, your hybrid Brahma-Angus, it'd die out there. You have to baby them. And He... If He was standing today, I believe He'd say something like it to us. Not only have we hybreeded fruit, animals, but we've hybrid religion: has to be babied and petted. It's not the original. We try to take the Word of God and breed It into something else, and breed It over here, and It becomes a bunch of delicate babies that we have to baby, and they can't take the real Word. He might've been saying something like that. Then He might've said, "You see, really your lives are hybrid. Father said, 'Don't touch the tree.' But Satan said, 'It won't hurt you.' So therefore, your life now is in a hybrid condition." And that life cannot go back to itself, because, breed back.

You see why so many who claim to believe this message are nothing but hothouse plants? It's because they are afraid to die totally to themselves. They're still holding onto things in their life that they don't want to let go of them.

Why? 59-0813 P:30 But as long as there's any hopes for it not to rot, new Life won't come. That's why we get up from the altar so many times without the Holy Spirit, because we don't rot enough to our own ideas. We got to meet God on His level. I like to meet Him there, because that He never has failed me. The new birth is no different from any other birth; it's a mess. You ought to seen what mess I was in when I got It. And every once in a while when It comes upon me again, I get messy again with It. I cry, and boo-hoo, and carry on till I guess I don't look very good to look at, but it... I got something on the inside of me that's taking me on and on and on and on and on. It's new Life. I don't care what It looks like; I want to know what It is. That's the main thing.

Way back the 62-1123 P:40 You know the reason they do it? They're afraid of that new birth, I mean the real new birth. Oh, everybody say, "Sure, I believe you must be born again. Yes, sir." Yes. But when it comes to the real birth... They believe the new birth by shaking hands, saying a bunch of creeds, or something another. They call that the new birth. That ain't the new birth. They're afraid of the new birth. Listen. Any birth is a mess. I don't care whether it's in a pigpen, or where it's at, it's a mess, any birth. And so is the new birth. It'll make you do things that you didn't think you'd ever do. But it brings life. And before you can have life, you have to have death. Before a seed can reproduce itself, it's got to die in order... And not only die, but it's got to rot. In order to get new life out of it, it's got to die and rot in itself. And so does every sinner. And every man, no matter how highly he's educated, and how much he's polished, how many degrees he has in the church, or so forth, how many of these things, how many colleges he's educated out of; he's got to die to his own theory. He's got to die to himself. He's got to die to everything to be reborned again by the Holy Ghost. It'll make him cry, and "boo hoo," and speak in tongues, and jump up and down, and carry on like a maniac. But he's got new life. That's what it takes to do it. He's got to have new life. They're afraid of the new birth. The new birth is a mess.

It is I be not afraid 62-0726 P:89 Now, if that Light doesn't do the same works that It did when It was in the Son of God, then It isn't the same one. It isn't. But if It does do the same works... Just like I said, if you could take all the life out of a apple tree, every bit of the life, and transfer the life of a pear tree in an apple tree, it would bring forth pears (See?), because the life's in it. That's what it bears. The fruit is in the life, of course. And that's the same thing here. If you put the Life of Christ, and take the life of a sinner out, he has to die first. And then when the Life of Christ comes into him, then he will produce the Life of Christ because that's what's living in him. See? If... "He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also," 'cause His Life is in him.

Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

Water of separation - 55-0121 You've got to absolutely accept the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only that, but you've got to die yourself. you've got to die to every thought of the flesh so that you can receive the mind of Christ and walk from henceforth, not of your own, but of His mind: the mind of Christ in you. That's the only way you can stay alive. That's the only way I can stay alive. That's all I live by, is by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. 12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to self, to live after self. 13 For if ye live after self, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

God's wrapped gift 60-1225 P:56 There's another pathetic thing. I think one of the most pathetic Words that Jesus ever said, was when He said, "Father, I sanctify Myself, that they might be sanctified." In other words, He had a right; He was a man. He had a right to a home; He had a right to a family. He was man, as much man as you are or I am, as much human in His manhood as we were. He had a right to it. But He was training twelve men that was going to take the Gospel to all the world, so He sanctified Himself for their sake. "I sanctify Myself for their sake": a Gift of God, keeping Hisself sanctified. Oh, gifts of God, you people who claim that you've received His Spirit, keep yourself sanctified (Yes, sir.); keep away from the things of the world; be sanctified. Oh.

Lamb and dove 60-0805 P:49 Dove and Lamb... While you're listening, the most outstanding Scriptures, one of them, that I can think of, when Jesus said, "Father (think of it), Father, for their sake I sanctify Myself." Think of it. "Father, for their sake I sanctify Myself." What was He doing? Setting the example; He was a Lamb. What did He do? He had a right to a home; He was a Man. He had a right to be married; He was a Man. He had a right to good clothes; He was a Man. But He sanctified Himself; He forfeited. He could've come down the corridors of glory, a full statued man, with an Angelic band. Sure. But He sanctified Himself. He could've at least been born in a nice clean bed somewhere, but He was born in a manger over a manure pile, in a borrowed manger. But He sanctified Himself. Why? He was the Lamb. See, friends, we got to back to assembly line religions and so forth, and all these things we're getting away from the real things. Humble yourself. Keep humble: "Lord, sanctify me."

let us pray