LOOK 17

Take Heed How You hear

APRIL 26, 1992

Brian Kocourek

 

Now, there are a few things I want you all to be able to see this morning  before  we move further into Brother  Branham's  Message entitled "LOOK". Now, before we read further, I just want you  to understand  one principle, and that is this: What You hear,   all depends on what mindset you have. Let me explain by going to  the scripture:

 

LUKE 8:18 <read>

TAKE HEED HOW YOU HEAR.< HEED = BLEPO = to be aware of; to watch;  to perceive; to contemplate earnestly.>

 

LUKE 8:18 <read again>TAKE  HEED  THEREFORE HOW YOU HEAR; or BE AWARE OF  HOW  YOU  ARE
HEARING; or WATCH CAREFULLY HOW YOU HEAR;  CONTEMPLATE  EARNESTLYHOW YOU HERE.

 

Now let's examine this thing that Jesus is telling the  disciples a little further.

 

Notice:  TAKE HEED HOW YOU HEAR. HOW YOU HEAR.  Now notice this word: HOW (POS= POCE) < in what way >

 

TAKE  HEED or BE CAREFUL TO WATCH THEREFORE IN WHAT WAY  YOU  ARE HEARING. 

 

Now this is where I believe that many people that have heard this message  have made their fatal mistake in their understanding  of this  Word.  Now,  I am not only speaking  of  those  Pentecostal People that attended brother Branham's meetings and thought  that he  was telling them to go on and do what they were doing, but  I am  also speaking of  those people in general who even now  claim to  believe every word He said. Most people who follow this  mes­sage are hearing this Message through a filter other than the one by  which he spoke. But it is not the filter of God's  Vindicated Word.

 

LUKE 8:18 < WUEST> THEREFORE, BE EVER EXERCISING WATCHFUL CARE HOW YOU ARE HEARING.

 

Now,  why would Jesus warn His Disciples of this? Let's  look  at some  examples of how they heard what He was saying  but  becausetheir mindset was not His mindset, they did not perceive what  He was saying.

 

MATT 16:1-12 <read>Now,  notice, that their minds were on one thing, food,  or  more directly,  BREAD,  and  when Jesus spoke, the  first  thing  they thought  of was exactly in line of their own thinking, which  had to do with bread. Bread and leaven do go together if your mind is on  bread. But, what Jesus told them had nothing to do  with  the bread that you eat, but the Word.

 

Let's  look at another example of people missing what  Jesus  was telling them because their mindset was not tuned to His mindset.

 

JOHN 5:30 <read>Here's the key. Jesus says He has completely let His own thinking go, and has received the Father's thinking for Him

 

JOHN 5:31 - 35 <READ>Now,  just another thought here, but is not Alpha  become  Omega. What  happened in the first church age does it not repeat?  These men  followed John's Message and rejoiced in it, but when  Jesus, or shall we say, the Son of Man took over, (The Father in another role through the Son), they rejected Him. Did not the HOLY SPIRIT say  while  giving brother Branham his commission:  AS  JOHN  THE BAPTIST FORERAN MY FIRST COMING SO SHALL YOUR MESSAGE FORERUN  MY SECOND COMING. So, if he said it would be "AS", then it would  be just the same.

 

JOHN 5:35 <read>There's  your  reason for the people not accepting  THE  PRESENCE teaching, they did not accept His presence then either. It's  got to be the same.

 

But just so we don't get off our subject, we were looking at  the thought  of how two people being in two different states of  mind or having their minds on two different things could hear the same thing and yet hear two different things, depending on what  mind­¨set they had.

 

JOHN 5:36 - 47 <read>The pharisees had read Moses just as Jesus had and yet they  both got  something  different out of it. Why do you think  there  are over 2,000 different denominations. Because each has believed the Word of God in their own way.

 

PROVERBS 16: 2 < read>Man  does not intentionally want to be deceived. In His own  eyes He thinks he is doing what is correct.

 

PROVERBS 16: 25 <read>But  no  matter what his intentions, his ways will end  in  death unless the Lord intercedes.

 

Now, let me use one more illustration from scripture to nail this point down before we read from Brother Branham’s Message.

 

JOHN 21:18 - 23 <read>Now  this  is a classic example of two people  hearing  the  same thing  and  yet  look at how these Words of Jesus  got  taken  so twisted  up until the rumor or doctrine went out through out  the message  of that day that John would not die until the  Lord  re­turned.

 

And  you  know  what is funny, He lived the longest  of  all  the Apostles, and though they tried to kill him by boiling him  alive in oil, that did not take his life he was banished to the isle of Patmos,  where He actually saw the Great Appearing and Coming  of Jesus Christ and the ages to come all the way into the New  Jeru­salem.

 

Now  I want to read from one more Scripture before we read  again from the Message Look... See, what I'm doing, what I'm confessing to  you, is that I'm trying to prepare your minds  for  something brother Branham says in these next few paragraphs. Because if you are not thinking with the mindset of God you will pick up what he says  as  something so completely opposite of what he  is  saying here.

 

MARK 4: 24 - 25: <read>WUEST:  KEEP EVER A WATCHFUL EYE ON WHAT WAY YOU ARE HEARING.  IN THE  MEASURE BY WHICH YOU ARE MEASURING, IT WILL BE  MEASURED  TO YOU <back to you>, NOT ONLY ACCORDING TO THAT MEASURE, BUT  THERE WILL BE SOME ADDED ON TOP OF THAT.

 

Didn't Jesus tell His disciples IN JOHN 6: that, " EXCEPT YE  EAT THE  FLESH OF THE SON OF MAN AND DRINK HIS BLOOD YE HAVE NO  LIFE IN YOU?" Lets turn and see what there response was.

 

JOHN 6:60 - 71 <read> Notice how he kept egging them on yet the True seed could not go, as Peter said those notable words: "TO WHOM SHALL WE GO"

 

Notice  here in pp. 102, he says, " THE PEOPLE TODAY,  NO  MATTER WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT IT, THE PEOPLE GO RIGHT AHEAD BELIEVING IT. THEY CAN'T EXPLAIN IT. THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS. THEY KNOW THEY GOT AN IDEA OF WHAT IT IS."

 

Now  I  believe that this is exactly where the people are  at  in this  Message. You can go across this country and even  into  the four corners of the earth and you will find amongst the believers no  matter  where you go,  Good, Godly, God fearing  people.  The cream  of the crop. And the thing that holds us all  together  is that  we have an absolute. We are like no other people  on  earth for  we  know we have "THUS SAITH THE LORD." Others  might  think that they have it, but we know that we have it.

 

And  yet we are exactly in the condition that brother Branham  is speaking  of in this message entitled Look, when he  says,  "THEY DON'T  KNOW WHAT IT IS...YET THEY KNOW THEY HAVE SOMETHING!"  But what  is it that we have? This is why you find the cry going  out throughout  this  Message,  where people are  still  longing  for something  else. They do not know what to do with what  they  al­ready  have. They know that they got something, but because  they do  not know what that something is, they do not know what to  do with it

 

The  greatest  danger we have is not knowing what it is  that  we already have. Without knowing what IT IS THAT WE ALREADY HAVE, we are in danger of looking for something else. That is exactly what happened in the garden, and that is exactly what causes a man  to go to his own understanding.

 

PROVERBS 3:1 - 13 <read>We must not lean to our own understanding. Every thing we know we have learned from someone or some book that someone wrote or some institution  of learning where we learned from someone.  But  God wants us to forget all we ever learned and come follow Him.

 

MATT 11:28 COME UNTO ME, ALL YE THAT ARE WEARY AND ARE BURDENED, AND I  WILL GIVE YOU REST. TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU, AND LEARN FROM ME: FOR I AM GENTLE  AND  HUMBLE  IN HEART: AND YE SHALL FIND  REST  FOR  YOUR SOULS.

 

He  is  telling  us we must learn from Him or we  shall  keep  on struggling in our own ways. His way is a way of rest and peace.
 

ISA 64: 6 - 9 <read> VINES:  RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE CHARACTERISTIC OR QUALITY  OF  BEING RIGHT.  IT  WAS FORMERLY  SPELLED  AS  R.I.G.H.T.W.I.S.E.N.E.S.S. WHICH CLEARLY EXPRESSES THE MEANING.

 

So  we see our own right.wise.ness is no good at all. It must  be His thinking that we cling to.

 

PROVERBS 15:26 THE LORD DETESTS THE THOUGHT OF THE WICKED, BUT THOSE OF THE PURE ARE PLEASING TO HIM.

 

PROVERBS 15:9THE  LORD  DETESTS THE WAY OF THE WICKED BUT HE LOVES  THOSE  WHO PURSUE RIGHT-WISE-NESS.

 

PROVERBS 13:20HE  WHO WALKS WITH THE WISE GROWS WISE, BUT A COMPANION OF  FOOLS SUFFERS HARM.

 

I  don't care who you are, if you have sat under  false  teaching you will lean the wrong way. AS A TREE LEANETH SO SHALL IT  FALL. Either  you  will go into strong self  righteousness  and  always condemning  others, or you will go the other extreme and go  into disgrace  and always excusing others. When you come out from  any church or influence other than THUS SAITH THE LORD, you have  sat under  a way that seemeth right but the end thereof are the  ways of death.

 

What must you do then. You must do as we Paul did, forget it  all start over. I believe that is why Jim and Linda have been  so blessed. When they came this truth, they said, they had to forget everything and start over.

 

Look,  I had to start over when I left that Cult like  church  in Minnesota. Those people just let that pastor up there become  God to  them and i couldn't stomach it. Yet I still felt that  influ­ence upon me and it had me twisted up in knots and legalistic  in my  approach.  It was hard to get free from that  spell.  Because that's  what false teaching is, a spell. And it will always  lead to  the  worship  of some man other than Christ.  Whether  it  is another person or yourself. Most people worship themselves.

 

The word worship according to Websters is from 2 words: WORTH  and  SHIP. Worth is the value you place and  SHIP  is  the state or condition of that exalted opinion. And most people  take their  own opinion over the opinion of God. Otherwise, why  don't they just flee from their own thinking and receive His Vindicated Word.

 

Also,  it  never fails to amaze me how people can  feel  so  good about  being so  legalistic. And yet they're the  most  miserable people on earth. Because we all know that unless the Lord  build­ing the house, they that build buildeth but in vain. And that  is where  the  balance is so hard to come to. But if we  would  only learn from Him, the things that are pleasing to Him would not  be so difficult. He only wants the best for us, that is why He is so willing  to  give us His own mind so that we will have  the  same opinion He has.

 

Lets see what Paul had to say about this.

 

PHIL 3: 1 - 10 < read carefully >

 

That  is  why  the Father had to come down in this  hour  as  the Spirit  of Wisdom & Revelation. To make known to us the Power  of His Resurrection. To teach us to just, "LET GO AND LET GOD"  

 

JOHN 6:44 - 45 <read>You must hear and learn. There is nothing worse in Gods eyes than one who hears but does not learn.

 

Now  that  we have given you this extended intro to  our  message today, let's just continue to read from pp. 103 - 106 < read >.

 

Now  you  will  notice that if we read this  with  a  Pentecostal eyeglasses on we would think that he is telling us that we are to go  around  waiting  to feel God move and then go  where  we  are feeling the Spirit move us. And that is what so many are  looking for  today.  But if you noticed carefully he is not saying  that. He is saying that we will know by the blueprint, the Word of God.

 

Although  he  keeps saying we are waiting for the moving  of  the water,  yet he keeps coming back and saying  things  like,   "  I FOCUSSED IN ON THE WORD AND KNOW THAT TRUTH." And "AS LONG AS GOD HOLDS MY HEART RIGHT STRAIGHT ON THAT WORD, I'LL STAY THERE." And

"THEY  KNOW THEY GOT THEHOLY GHOST. BECAUSE THEY ZEROED IT  WITH THE WORD OF GOD."

 

How  do I know  I have the HOLY GHOST?  I've zeroed it  with  the Word!

 

Then, if we are not to be looking for great and mighty things  to be  taking  place, what are we to be doing? He  says,  EXPRESSING OURSELVES DAILY TO HIM". If we could only realize what the scrip­ture tells us.

 

ISA 40:21"BUT  THEY  THAT WAIT UPON THE LORD SHALL RENEW  THEIR  STRENGTH; THEY SHALL MOUNT UP WITH WINGS AS EAGLES; THEY SHALL RUN AND  NOT BE WEARY; THEY SHALL WALK, AND NOT FAINT."

 

JAMES 1: 2 -4 < read >

 

ROMANS 5:1 - 8 < read >

 

We  are awaiting for the moving of the waters, but while  we  are waiting  for our change and for the Resurrection of the  Sleeping saints, we are to be expressing ourselves daily to Him.

 

HEBREWS 6:10 - 12 < read >

 

LETS JUST BOW OUR HEADS AND OUR HEARTS TO HIM IN PRAYER.