What the Holy Ghost was Given
for no 5
The Shadow of His Coming
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
Hebrews 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things
to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those
sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers
thereunto perfect.
Hebrews 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of
heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make
the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to
the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
Colossians 2:17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but
the body is of Christ.
Let us pray,...
Now, this morning we will
continue in our study of brother Branham's sermon, "What the Holy Ghost
was Given for" and we will read from paragraphs6
and 7.
6 And we too know at the end of the road we got that long,
shadowy valley called death to walk through. O Lord, who would hold our hands
then? We want to know You now, Lord. We want
to know that You've got our hands and we got Your hand, that we can have that
anchored assurance that when we come to that last great moment of our life,
that, enter into that door called death, that we can say with the saint of old,
"I know Him in the power of His
resurrection, and I know that when He calls,
I'll come out from among the dead." Now,
Father God, we would pray that You'll bless our
requests and our gathering. Bless Thy words; and if I should say
anything that would be contrary to Your Word or Your will, Thou still has the
power to close the mouth as You did in the den of lions when Daniel was
present. And we pray, Lord, that You would open ears
and hearts tonight, and create in them a hunger and thirst. May they be
so thirsty that they cannot sleep or rest nowhere until the Comforter has come.
7 We believe that we are living in
the last days, in the shadow of His coming. And that's what these
messages are directed to, Lord. It's for the people to take heed, take
warning. And may tonight we just pull off the shelf right now, lay it over
on the side of the bench, say, "Lord God, I am a receptacle to You. Let Your
Spirit surge through me, mold me and make me after Thy will. I'll yield my
heart, my strength, my all to Thy cause." Hear us, Lord. We're not
here to be seen on this rainy night. We are not here just for no place else to
go. We are here for one solemn, sacred, holy purpose in our hearts; that is to
draw nigh unto You, knowing that You've promised if we would draw nigh unto You, You'd draw nigh
unto us. And that's why
we are here. He that comes in hungry will not go out hungry. "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst
for righteousness,"
said Jesus, "for
they shall be filled."
And if we ask for bread,
we will not receive a stone; we have that assurance. And if we ask for fish, we will not receive a serpent; but God our Father will feed us with the
Manna of heaven, His Word and His Spirit that bear record of Him. Answer
our prayers, Lord, and our requests, as we further wait on Thee. In Jesus
Christ's Name we pray. Amen.
Now, this morning I would like to study this thought
of Brother Branham's where he says, 7 "We believe that we are living in
the last days, in the shadow of His coming. And that's what these
messages are directed to, Lord. It's for the people to take heed, take
warning."
And that is exactly what we wish to do. we have come too far along this road to even think of
turning back, because there would be no purpose in turning back for as he said
we are in the shadows of His Coming. And I would like to look at this
statement, "The shadows of His coming"
and focus our thoughts on this, and what exactly that means to us this morning.
Now first of all we will have to understand what a
shadow is in order for us to understand what brother Branham meant when he
said, "We
believe that we are living in the last days, in the shadow of His coming".
Shadow: 1:"a dark
shape that appears on a surface when someone or something moves between the
surface and a source of light". 2: a
reflected image 3: an imperfect and faint representation
We see all three of these definitions come alive in
the next quote from brother Branham, from his sermon Who is this...
Who is this 59-1004M P:29
Why, it's a foretaste
of glory Divine. It's a power. It's the Holy Spirit that's here on earth representing Christ, just a shadow of His coming.
All these
things was prophesied would take place just before He come again.
And we know it. That's why we're excited about it. That's why we're enthused
about it. Makes any difference what the other people say, that doesn't
matter a bit. The people say today, "Who is that?" Them days,
they said, "We don't know who He is, Jesus of
And again we see all three of the above definitions of
shadow also identified in the following quote from Br. Branham's sermon, ...
Looking at the unseen 58-1003 P:56 Now,
do you believe that that God is still the living God? Do you believe that we
are living in the last days of the Gentile dispensation, and the churches are
looking for Him to come? And do you believe He's getting them ready for His coming? The shadows of
His coming is cast upon the earth: trouble, distress, perplexed of
times. And the
shadow of His coming is placed over His church. And these things
that we do in His Name are just a shadow of what He will do when He comes. When we see a child laying there dying with leukemia, straighten back to life in
five minutes, that's a shadow of when He comes. The dust that's in
the earth shall rise into beauty of youth again. This is just a shadow, but it's to make you know that
He's coming.
And let's take one more quote from His
sermon, There is a Man here that can turn on the
light 64-0125 P:43 Like my hand here in a shadow. It's a shadow, only
it's darker as my hand becomes more... It's a negative here, a positive here.
As a negative and positive, it gets denser, and darker, darker, darker, and
finally it claps together, and negative and positive
becomes one. That's
when Church and Christ unites together as a Bride, with the same Spirit that
was in Him will be upon Her, when that Church comes from justification, sanctification,
baptism of the Holy Ghost, into the last days, and honing her down now for the
coming of the Lord. Oh, don't be the rough part on It, Pentecostal
brother. Shine up with the Word and believe every bit of It. Don't get out into these ism's and things, as we see going
on today. Don't be astonished at that, because the Headstone's coming, crying,
"Abba, Father," pretty soon, "My God. My
God." Yes, I believe that with all my heart. Do you see it? You
know what I mean? It's Christ now taking the rags of yesterday, the Lutheran,
Methodist, Presbyterian, and so forth, and He's putting it through a
process. What kind of a process? A process of the Holy Spirit: what
they had plus, making it till He is pressing His Own image, when the Church
and Christ becomes one in union. God, grant it. I trust that you see it. If you do see it...
And one more quote, and we will hone in on the real
meaning and purpose of that statement.
Evening messenger 63-0116 P:5 We
must serve God every minute. We don't know what time... And we don't know what
time that those things could happen. Maybe we think it won't be us, but, you
know, it can be, you know. So I believe Jesus said, "Be prepared, for we don't know what minute
or hour that we may be called on." And then we'll go to a place where they don't have accidents
and no troubles. We're so glad there's a place like that in promise. You know,
the very thought tonight, of seeing that we would long for a place like that, that shows there is a place like
that. See? And we know that all negatives, all shadows, there has to be something to
make a shadow. A shadow is a reflection. So if there's a
life like this, it proves that it's a shadow, then there's a real life somewhere it's reflecting of.
See? You notice a tree, how beautiful a tree is. And you know what that is?
It's the negative type of the shadow of the Tree of Life in heaven.
Perfection 56-0610 P:44
God speaking... Let
come go what may. Your heart's still centered. It's a shadow. The shadow is before you. That's what makes the
shadow. The law having a shadow of the baptism of the Holy Spirit... The law having a shadow, that's the reason He said in the Bible you have to take and compare
Scriptures with Scriptures and make it come through, and if it comes
a nick in it, remember you're out of line. Stay in that line of Scripture.
So that is exactly what we are going to
do this morning, we are going to compare Scripture with Scripture.
Therefore please turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 13:9 For we know in part and we prophecy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then
that which is in part shall be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a
child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see
through a glass, darkly; (That
means we see like in an inigma, we see like a shadow,
we can make out the form, we can make out that presence coming,)but then (when? When He actually Appears, we shall then see him) face
to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
Now, our study this morning
will follow this thought that the Apostle Paul has given us as well as the same
thought expressed in quite different words that William Branham spoke on in the
various sermons we've read from this morning.
Now, brother
Branham gives us more clarity on what he means by a shadow, in his sermon, The Masterpiece 64-0705 11 "So we realize that we're here in a negative form. And as
long as there is a negative, there has to be a positive. There cannot be a
negative without a positive (See?), because it's the positive that makes the
negative. Like you had a negative picture of some object. There has to be
an object somewhere to strike that lens or there wouldn't be any negative. So
when we see that our life here is in the negative and knowing that we're in the
image of some life somewhere, then we know that there is a positive somewhere that the light
has struck, and it's reflected something here on earth. And we are only that reflection.
The genuine object is somewhere. If that isn't, I'm the worst deceived man in
the world; I've spent my life in vain. But I know beyond a shadow of doubt that
it's there. That's why we're here.
Now, notice how he brings us to the
understanding that as a shadow we are only a reflection of the positive one,
which is Christ Himself. And as His positive image begins to move closer and
closer into this dimension, we are also being affected by His light, and we are
only reflecting what He is. That is no different than He said, "the Son
can do only what He seeth the Father do." But brother Branham is using the
illustration here of a negative and positive. And He's talking about an image that is in the
positive that is also identifiable by what can be seen in the negative.
Notice he said, we realize that we're here in a negative form.
And as long as there is a
negative, there has to be a positive. There cannot be a negative without a
positive (See?), because it's the positive that makes the negative. Like you had
a negative picture of some object. There has to be an object somewhere to
strike that lens or there wouldn't be any negative.
That is why John
Always a shadow when it is far away from
the positive, you have a hard time distinguishing what form it actually has.
But as it comes closer and closer to the original, the shadow casts a perfect
image or reflection of the original.
Now, this is important to understand
because it has to do with whom we are and why we act as we do, and why we have
an inner drawing to do what is right and good and just. The Apostle John told
us about this negative being drawn to the positive in 1 John 3.
He said, 1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we
the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be:
So John is telling us that we are sons
right now, but what we see is not clear to us. In other words, we are sons but
it really doesn't look like it. Yet we know according to the law of
reproduction that every seed must bring forth after its own kind or nature we
have got to come to the place where we are identical to the original seed life.
Notice this is like a shadow. A shadow
shows you the shape of the object that it is reflecting, but it is not very
clear. But the closer the positive object comes to the shadow, the clearer the
shadow becomes and the more definitive the shadow shows the detail of the
positive. Let's say you look at your hand and its shadow for an example. As the
hand comes closer and closer to the shadow, the more like the shadow it will
appear to be. And John said, Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it
doth not yet appear what we shall be. So you see, he is talking in a type here, and he is saying that
although we are now sons, yet it will take the glorious light of Christ's Appearing to truly make known what we already
are.
Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 23 "fill up the measure of their fathers", which means to complete the
portion or pedigree of their fathers. And then he told them, their father was a
murderer and liar to begin with. So in fact he said they must bring forth the
nature that was in the seed for every seed must bring forth after its kind.
And in 1 John 3 we are told that we will manifest the nature of sons of God because
that is what we already are. And we are told that will not happen until we know who He is.
And so we are told that when Christ Appears or Phaneroos, which means: to manifest in one's true character.
So the Scripture reads, "when Christ manifests to us in His true
character, then we shall also manifest in our true character as well, and that is a promise. So I hope you
can see the importance of the Promise of the Appearing of Christ to us. Because
the Appearing is to do something to us that will change the way we look
at ourselves, because we will change the way we look at Christ.) But we know that, when he shall appear, we
shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
Now if you are a
Oneness or a Trinitarian you are not seeing Him as He really is. So this tells
us that the understanding of the Godhead is essential to seeing Him as He truly
is because if you do not see Him as He truly is you will never know truly who
you are. And I ask the question, how can you
understand your relationship to God as Your Father if you do not understand
that the Son of God is your older brother. If you believe that Jesus was His
own Father, then you've got a wrong understanding of the family, because I do
not know nor can I even perceive how a father could be his own son and visa
versa. And if you can not understand the relationship that Jesus had with His own
Father, then how are you ever going to understand your relationship to that
same Father.
3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Now this tells you that when you see
the Revelation of Christ and you come to understand Who He is and why he's
here, then you will come to fully understand who you are and you will begin to
act different and talk different and live different and think different when
you know who you really are.
Remember how brother Branham told us the
story of the slave who acted so different from all the other slaves. So they
thought, perhaps they treated him different from the others, and they were
told, no that's not it. And so they thought perhaps they fed the man better
food, and they were told, no that's not it. And as it
turned out he acted different because he knew who his father was.
He was the son of the king
back home and so he acted like the son of a king. He acted different and held
his head up high and did not act like a slave because he knew who His Father
was. And that is what Paul was telling us in our opening text.
1 Corinthians 13:9 for we know in part and we prophecy in
part. 10 But when that
which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a
child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see
through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part;
but then shall I know even as also I am known.
From his sermon, Explaining healing and Jairus 54-0216 37 William Branham said, "The devil's just trying to scare you
out of something. He's trying to put something off somewhere else, say, "Some
of these days you'll be this." You are now. Now, we're sons of God. Now, we're seated together in heavenly places. Now, we have all powers in heavens and
the earth. See? Now, we have it. Not in the millennium, we won't need it
then. We got it now. We're... Right now we are the sons of God. "It does not appear what we shall be, but we
know we'll be like Him." What you are here is a reflection of what you are
somewhere else. "Those who He called, He justifies." Is that right? "Those who He justified, He has glorified." Already in the Presence of the
Father, we have a glorified body. Whew! Wasn't that deep? All
right. We'll find out whether it's right or not. "If this earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we
have one already waiting."
Is that right? That's right. So right now, what we are here, is a reflection
of what we are somewhere else. So if your deeds are evil, you know where it
comes from. You know where your other body's a waiting.
And the Apostle Paul told us in Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Now, the NIV says "which
is your spiritual act of worship." And why is that? Because your sacrifice is what you
offer back to God what He has revealed to you. Therefore, if he
has revealed to you that you are sons, and you will receive your transformation
by the renewing of your mind, then you begin to act in accordance with the
change of your mind. If you say your mind has changed but your actions
have not, then you are only fooling yourself because you are not fooling anyone
else. Paul goes on to say, 2
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of
your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,
will of God. So you see
when the mind is renewed, it brings with it an outward conformance as
well as an inner change of the desires.
Questions and Answers 54-0103E 143-191 What you are here... Get this in your mind now. I'm going to
close. But what you are here is a sign that you are something else somewhere.
You've always wanted to be in perfection, you Christians. There is a perfection, and that perfection is not in this life.
But every man and woman
here that is a Christian, every person that is a Christian here now is already
glorified in the Presence of Jesus Christ. And you've got another
body. You won't have some other time; you have right now. Right now there's another body
waiting for you if this one should perish. Could you think of that.
Study that just a minute.
Notice in the Book of Ezekiel 36: 26 we read, "A new heart also will I give you, (Now, if he promised "a" new
heart then there is only one New Heart we all shall receive.) and a new spirit will I put within you: and I
will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart
of flesh. 27 And I will put
my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall
keep my judgments, and do them.
In Ezekiel 11:19 we read, "And I will give them one heart, (Notice here God is being more specific in this verse, he says One
Heart) and I will put a new spirit within you;
and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart
of flesh: 20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances,
and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God."
So we need to know what
this "One heart" is because, He said He would give
us "One heart" and then a new Spirit. And we
find William Branham taught us what this new heart and new spirit are.
From His sermon Impersonation of Christianity 57-0120M 42 Br. Branham said, So God had to give you a new heart, not a
patched up one, a new heart, that's your intellects that you think
with, a new way of thinking.
That is why Paul told us "let the mind that was in Christ be in You that was in Christ", we must receive the mind of Christ if we
are to receive just one heart or one way of thinking.
And again from Impersonation of Christianity 57-0120M 3a Br. Branham said, "Then I'll give you a new spirit. "What's that? A new desire, "I
want to do right."..
So you see if you receive
the mind of Christ you can't help but to have right desires.
Again from Impersonation of Christianity 57-0120M 43b He said, Then notice the order of the Scripture.
After you get a new heart and a new spirit, He said, "Then I'll put My Spirit..." See? Oh, what? That's the what the Scripture says here. That's the order, the pneumatics
and numerical order of the Scripture: a new heart, a new spirit, and then My
Spirit.
So you see, if God promised to give us
One heart or One mind, it has to be the mind of Christ for he said in, Isaiah 55: 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. 10
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth
not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it
bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower,
and bread to the eater: 11 So
shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper
in the thing whereto I sent it.
So we see that it is
necessary to have the mind of Christ if we are to understand the thoughts of
the Father. Now, in getting back to this thought of the negative to the
positive, and actually that is what we have been talking about because the more
we see Him the more we become like Him, The closer we come into his glorious
presence, makes us more like Him.
From His sermon There is a man here that can Turn on the
light 64-0125 43 Br. Branham said, "Like my hand here in a shadow. It's
a shadow, only it's darker as my hand becomes more... It's a negative here,
a positive here. As a negative and positive, it gets denser, and darker,
darker, darker, and finally it claps together, and
negative and positive becomes one. That's when Church and Christ unites together as a Bride,
with the same Spirit that was in Him will be upon Her, when that Church
comes from justification, sanctification, baptism of the Holy Ghost, into the
last days, and honing
her down now for the coming of the Lord. Oh, don't be the rough part
on It, Pentecostal brother. Shine up with the Word and believe every bit of It.
Don't get out into these ism's
and things, as we see going on today. Don't be astonished at that, because the
Headstone's coming, crying, "Abba, Father,"
pretty soon, "My
God. My God." Yes, I believe that with all my heart. Do
you see it? You know what I mean? It's Christ now taking the rags of yesterday,
the Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and so forth, and He's putting it
through a process. What kind of a process? A process of the Holy Spirit: what
they had plus, making it till He is pressing His Own image, when the Church and
Christ becomes one in union. God, grant it. I trust that you see it. If you do see it...
Notice Paul tells us the same thing in Colossians 2: 17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but
the body is of Christ.
And we also see a glimpse
of this in Matthew
And in Romans
And in Philippians
And again in 2 Corinthians 3: 18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of
the Lord.
God's chosen place worship 65-0220 21 Now,
when a shadow comes across the floor, you can tell whether it's man, woman, or beast, or whatever it might be, because
it casts a shadow upon the floor. And as that shadow gets shorter, the
shadow being the negative... And there cannot be a negative without a
positive; therefore, when the positive becomes closer to the negative, the negative is swallowed up in
the positive. The shadow and the positive comes
together, and that's what makes it then a positive. And if all the old things
the Bible said in the Old Testament was shadows of the
things to come, then therefore, Christ was the shadow of things to come. So we can see by
the Old Testament types where He chose to put His Name and to where now. Now,
as the shadow crosses the floor, I said, is the negative, being a type, so we,
the worshippers also can see the shadows of the Old Testament fading into the
positive of the New.
Hebrews 10:1 For the law
having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can
never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make
the comers thereunto perfect.
You see, as long as it is still a
shadow, it is not yet in the image. It takes for
the Presence of the positive to unite with the shadow in order for the two to
be one flesh.
Sign of His coming 62-0407 121 This
stump's grown from Luther, to Wesley, to Pentecost; and now is honing out those
Pentecostals, and those that's got the baptism of the Holy Ghost. And shall
come someday the headstone, Christ Jesus, in these last days... And we'll
have to have a ministry just exactly like His whole Spirit as it gets closer,
closer, closer, closer. The negative becomes so positive that after while the negative and
positive blends together, 106 Church and Christ to make one: for we're flesh of His
flesh and bone of His bone. Amen. You believe it? "It shall
be Light in the evening time." Amen. We're here today. You believe it?
Brother Branham told Br. Vayle about one
week before the car accident, he said, "Now brother Lee, I have come to the
place that all my thoughts are of God." That
means he had become so Christ centered that he had received the mind of Christ.
And we know that the Doxa of Christ is the very opinion, judgment and assessment of Christ.
1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that
ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
In closing we will read from paragraph
11 again from The Masterpiece, where brother Branham said, From The Masterpiece 64-0705
11 "So we realize that we're here in a
negative form. And as long as there is a negative, there has to be a
positive. There cannot be a negative without a positive (See?), because it's
the positive that makes the negative. Like you had a negative picture of
some object. There has to be an object somewhere to strike that lens or
there wouldn't be any negative. So when we see that our life here is in the negative and
knowing that we're in the image of some life somewhere, then we know that there is a positive somewhere that the light has
struck, and it's reflected something here on earth. And we are only that reflection.
The genuine object is somewhere. If that isn't, I'm the worst deceived man in
the world; I've spent my life in vain. But I know beyond a shadow of doubt that
it's there. That's why we're here.
So what I believe brother Branham is
telling us is that The Great Appearing of Christ to Us in this hour is for the
purpose of bringing us into conformity with the Mind of God and the image of
His Son. Just as the shadow shows the image of the real object,
so too the closer we come into the Presence of that Light which is Christ, the
more glory shall be revealed in us, for we have the mind of Christ and we know
what to do with His Word.
From The Spoken Word is
the Original Seed 62-0318E
175 Br. Branham said, "Notice, what harmony. Jesus never did anything until
seen of the Father or the Father showed Him first: (Harmony between God and
Christ. See? John 5:19) So
will the Bride, and He shows Her His Word of Life (He
shows Her), and she receives It. She never doubts it. Nothing can
harm her, not even death; for if the Seed be planted, the water will raise it
up again. Amen. (Now, I got a great big "Hallelujah.") Here is the
secret: the Word is
in the Bride and the mind of Christ to know what He wants done with the Word,
and She does it in His Name. She has THUS SAITH THE
LORD. Then it is germitized; so the Holy
Spirit waters it until it is grown and serves its purpose. They do only His will.
(Amen. I'll believe that.) No one can persuade them different. They have THUS
SAITH THE LORD, or they keep still. Then they will do the works of God. For
it is Himself in them, continuing His Word to
fulfill as He did complete in His day. All things when He was here--He did not complete all when He was
here, for it was not time yet.
Let's bow our heads in prayer.