LOOK
#25
How
can you believe if you accept praise from another
Brian
Kocourek
JOHN
5:(1-6) DO YOU WANT TO GET WELL? (7-9A) , and vs. 44
(NIV)
" How
can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet
make no effort to obtain the Praise that comes from GOD
only?"
<you
may be seated>
" How (CAN you believe) if you accept praise from another, yet
make no effort to obtain the Praise that comes from
God only?"
What a
condition these people were in. On the one hand you
had
the people who waited by the well
who were BLIND, HALT, and
WITHERED in their bodies. But these people knew their condition.
They knew that they needed some sort of Spiritual Dynamics. Some
sort of Supernatural visitation to bring
hope of health and a
normal life. But on the other hand the Jews that had
their health
naturally were in worse shape spiritually. Brother
Branham always
said the natural types the Spiritual. And by the Grace
of God we
shall examine this scripture this morning in light of
the Message
LOOK that brother Branham preached and we have been studying.
This
morning I want to examine these people and let you see
that
this same type of people still exist today, and their
may be some
of them in this building this morning, needing the
same Hope that
they sought at the Pool of Bethesda which was by the
sheep gate.
I hope and trust we are all sheep here this morning and have come
through the front doors of this building (through the
sheep gate)
and we have come to watch and wait
for the troubling of the
waters and to witness the Resurrection
Power of Jesus Christ
among us in the form of His Holy Spirit, manifesting
Himself once
again to us through His Word as we wait upon Him.
Now
let's just bow our heads and our hearts for a moment as we go
to the Author of this Great Book which we just read
from.
- PRAYER -
" How
can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet
make no effort to obtain the Praise that comes from
GOD only?"
What
a condition of the people. Looking for the praise of man and
the very one they claimed to be worshiping
and serving was in
their very midst and they accepted the praises of man
rather than
the praises of God. As brother Branham so often
stated,
" THEY ALWAYS MISS IT. MAN IS FOREVER PRAISING GOD FOR
WHAT HE
DID DO, LOOKING FORWARD FOR WHAT HE WILL BE, AND IGNORING WHAT HE
IS DOING. THAT'S JUST THE NATURE OF MAN. AND HE HASN'T CHANGED
HIS NATURE, THE MAN OF THE WORLD."
He
said man's nature just doesn't change. What they did back them
they still do today. Jesus said in JOHN
PRAISE MEN MORE THAN THE PRAISE OF GOD."
Now we
are promised in I PETER 1:7 that we are to come into a
condition of PRAISE, HONOR and GLORY at The APPEARING
of Christ.
Not only are we to be giving God PRAISE which
according to HE
BREWS
His name," but God Himself is wanting to give us
PRAISE.
You
see, if we are to come into a condition where we offer
PRAISE
unto God which is to give Him back a perfect
reflection of His
Word which HE has given to us, and if the scripture tells us that
PRAISE is the sacrifice of
our lips, then we become our sacri
fice. Abel had a revelation that he needed a sacrificial LAmb to
atone for him, so he then offered up to God a living
sacrifice
and slew a lamb and offered it's life as an atonement
back to
God. This was a type
of Christ the Lamb slain from before the
foundations of the world. So after Abel offered up His sacrifice
to God, and slew the lamb, he then became his sacrifice
when Cain
slew him. Now you can't give a sacrifice unto you have a revela
tion of what is to be sacrificed. Then you take that revelation
and act it out and thus you have a
sacrifice. Well, then your
sacrifice is nothing more than your revelation made manifest.
And
Abel became His revelation made manifest.
So as
you can see if we are to
come into this condition of
PRAISE in which we offer back to GOD the fruit
offering of our
lips giving thanks to his name, then we are not only
offering to
God our PRAISE, but we must become the
PRAISE that we are offer
ing since this is our revelation we are offering, we then
must
become that revelation. For "AS A MAN
THINKETH IN HIS HEART, SO
IS HE."
I COR 4: 5 <read> When? Until He is Present.
EPH
1: 6 - 12 <read>
NIV
EPH 1:12
IN ORDER THAT WE, WHO WERE THE FIST TO HOPE IN CHRIST, MIGHT BE
FOR THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY.
DIAGLOTT
EPH 1:12
IN
ORDER THAT WE MIGHT BE FOR A PRAISE OF HIS GLORY;
Now here is the question to each and every one of you. Where
is
your praise coming from. The saints or the
haints. You
young
people, what is your ultimate accomplishment. To chug
a few beers
to try and prove your manhood, or to live forever. To become the
most popular person in school, or to be thought of highly
by the
very creator of the whole earth. To be the best dressed
kid on
the block or to have the best kept spirit among your
peers. To be
the leader among men, or to be lead like a lamb. To be on
top of
the world now, or to be on top of the world in the new
Jerusalem.
To surrender your virtue to someone who you only hope will
love
you, or to surrender your hearts and minds and
will to the God
who alone can love you with perfect love.
I'll
tell you how you will know your own condition and where
you
stand with God this morning. Do you love the praises
of man more
than the praises of God?
Or is
He the first thing on your mind when you get up in the
morning and the last thing on your mind when you go to
bed at
night.
Now
I know that many of you are still striving to be somebody
in
this world. But let me tell you this. I know it is hard for many
of you to identify and understand what I'm trying to
tell you
this morning, and some of you don't even care, but I'm going
to
tell you any way. Your looking for fulfillment in the wrong
places. You are looking for the praises of man and you may
get it
but what you also will get is more heart-ache than you
know is
possible. People are fickle. They love you one moment and cast
you aside the next. I know! I've been there.
Let me
just tell you little bit about the pain and suffering I
went through. Back when I was a child, I knew, I had been called
by God to the ministry. I didn't just have a feeling or a simple
desire because I thought it would be a neat thing. I Knew deep in
my soul that He had called me. As early in my life that I can
remember, I knew My calling was to be a servant of The Most
High
God. And I loved Him so. I loved Him so much that I just
couldn't
get Him off my mind. I became an alter boy thinking I
could serve
Him more. I dreamed about Him. I made up songs to sing to Him.
I
loved him so much that I just couldn't get away from it.
But
when I got about 6th grade, I was presented with a red
light
that I didn't bother to stop for. There was a school dance that
some of the neighbor kids were going to and I had never been
to
one because up to that point I had never even cared about
those
things. Well, I went just because my parents were assured that
the neighbor would be there as a chaperone. That was the begin
ning. Soon the Beatles had become popular, even
though I really
didn't like their looks, or their music at first, with
their long
bangs hanging down their foreheads, yet in the
7th grade I was
becoming aware of what is called peer pressure. The girls all
seemed to talk about the guys who had the "inlook", so I asked
dad to let me have bangs. He said, "
no way is one of my kids
going to look like one of them perverts." And
instead of believ
ing my dad, I thought I would outsmart him. So I asked to just
have my hair a bit longer so that I could comb it. He consented
and thus, I got what I thought was my way, but
later found out
that it was the devils way.
My
hair grew out and when I would get out of dads sight, I
would
comb it down in order to have some bangs. Oh, not real long
bangs, and not half as much as I see on some of
you boys here
this morning. But I can look back on my life and see, that right
then and there, the Holy Ghost went out on a limb in my
life.
I'm sure He must have thought, "Well, If my son wants to go the
way of the world, I'll just step back and give him a good
dose of
his own medicine.
I guess I just wanted to be noticed. I began to look
around at
the guys who were getting the attention and I saw this
guy named
Tom Ruud, who I thought was the most popular kid in
school.
I
wanted to be popular too. But how could I. I was only 4 ft. 11"
in the 8th grade and oh how I wanted to be at least 5 ft.
6" so
that I could be at least as tall as the girls. I remember even
praying about my height and within the next year I
soared from 4'
11" to
5' 7". I also began to become
more popular. But along
with becoming more popular I was also becoming more
perverted and
twisted in the way of the world. In order to stay in with the
"in"
crowd I compromised my morals. I was a good student and
got
mostly A's and some B's and one day, in ninth grade,
this Tom
Ruud asked me if he could copy my test. He was the most popular
guy on campus so I thought, Hey I'm finally being
noticed. I let
Him not only copy my test but I did one
of his papers for Him and
slowly but surely another moral fiber went out the
door.
The next thing that happened as I had become one of the
more
popular guys in school was that I had a neighbor who
was what we
call today a sort of "BOOKWORM". His name was
John and another By
named Tom Weber were talking about who they thought were
the best
looking girls in school. They said a certain girls name and I
then bet them that I could get her to be my steady.
You know, 59
cent ring stuff. Well it worked and my pride got elevated to the
place where I was now in charge of my own
destiny, or so I
thought. On into high school I became a very popular guy. I
guess
I was brought up to compete, and so it was a kind of competition.
Ron knows what I'm talking about. Well, through high
school I
accomplished just about everything my heart was desiring. Nation
al honor society, One of the team captains in soccer,
home coming
king, v.p. of the concert choir.
etc. etc. You know the type. Big
guy on campus. But you know, I really never thought of myself as
that. But I could see where I was getting my hearts desire and
what I thought were blessings were just increasing all
the time.
As I
went to Junior college, I changed sports and in my first
year even after missing the first two games of the
season, I
still ended up 8th in the nation in scoring. Our team was 4th in
the nation and went to a bowl game. Here I was,
it was my last
quarter field goal that had propelled my team into the
national
rankings when we had defeated the third rated team. The scouts
had all come from the major schools to watch and I was
kicking
60+ yard field goals in warmups
before the game. Then boom. We
lost. I had been asked to kick a 64 yard field goal and it was
run back for the winning touchdown. People who had been
my great
est
booster club, always praising me, telling me I could do
no
wrong now were cursing me.
One of
my coaches looked at me after the game and instead of
saying, "well too bad kid, but there'll be another time
in anoth
er game next year." He
looked me in the eye and said, "you're no
kicker."
That
hurt but didn't deter me. I practiced harder than ever. The
next year although our team did not go to a bowl game I
still
finished tied for 4th nationally and was awarded a
scholarship to
the
I finally made it to the big time. But you know, just as
I had
finally made it I also had begun to realize I had neglected
my
salvation. I began to turn back to God. It seemed that the more
I
was turning to Him, the more my world around me that I
thought I
had a part in creating, was falling apart. The very year I went
forward and publicly accepted the Lord as My saviour,
the girl
who I had won because of a bet left me for someone
else. My world
was starting to fall apart. That same year I got benched for
sassing the coach because I had gotten cocky and thought that
I
had the world by the tail. After that rough year, I went on to
have much success at
demics and set school records for scoring. I led the team in
scoring my senior year and had many interviews in the paper
and
on television. But still, I could not gain any
satisfaction.
People
on campus would call me by name and I didn't know who they
were and instead of it puffing me up, it was tearing me
apart. I
was lonely. On top of the world and
lonely. Ron knows because we
were both in the pits of despair then. He had been
robbed of His
prime in athletics due to a bone disease and that is
understand
able. But I wasn't robbed of anything and yet I was so
lonely and
miserable that at the age of 21 I began to even drink beer.
It
only lasted for a little over a year, but I look back
at some of
the characters we hung out with, working buddies I
met on a
summer job and in my better judgment I would never have even
had
any thing to do with these guys, but somehow my world was
upside
down. And yet I was at the peak of popularity on
campus and in
the Mpls. area.
In My
senior year, I would go out to churches, usually Baptist,
and testify about our loving Lord Jesus and yet I was
depressed
because I knew I was missing something. My life
I knew was not
right. everything I had
accomplished really didn't mean anything
to me. I was longing and thirsting for something that I
could not
get in any church I had met. But one night I went to a house
meeting with an old elementary school friend. That
night, I heard
baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and I was baptized and
given
the Church Age book and the Seals. I began to read them and when
I did, the Words in them began to deal with me in
a way that
nothing ever had.
I left
the dubious characters I had been hanging out with. I
began to find others to associate with who were Christians.
The
pulls of the world began to ebb away and all the
accomplishments
became of no importance to me. I had been thirsting and now was
drinking from the fountain of Living waters. My life has not
been
the same since. I still thirst but I am drinking freely and I
know my Redeemer liveth, and is here with me.
Now
in looking back at the condition of these people who were
at
the pool of
the condition of verse 44, let's read again JOHN 5: 1-9a
<read>.
Read
again verse 3. It says they were impotent, not important.
But
I think that is the way with our thinking in this world. The
more important we think we become, the more impotent we
actually
become in God's eyes.
ROMANS 1: 21 - 32. <read and expound>
The further from God you get, the more sickening your behavior
will become. Flee youthful lusts while you still have
opportunity
to do so.
It also said in JOHN 5: 3 that these people were impotent. They
were without strength. How many of you filling these chairs in
here today are in this condition. Without
out strength. No inner
strength. Just going along with the crowd.
Oh, the Jones do it so
I guess my kids should too. Impotent, not
only with out strength,
nut sick. Weak, sickly.
PP. 138A <read>.
JOHN
5: 3 <read> BLIND
EPH
4: 17 - 20 <read> There's your key. But ye have
not so
learned
Christ.
condition.
Just don't sit there, The water
is
troubled. He's here to heal every need.
II
COR 4: 1 - 7 <read>
JOHN
5: 2- 3 <read> HALT: This word not only means to walk with a
crippled
gait to hobble or limp, but it
also
means to be uncertain and to waver,
or
hesitate.
PP.
138b - 139 <read>
I
" AND
ELIJAH CAME UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE, AND SAID, HOW LONG HALT YE
BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS? IF THE LORD BE GOD, FOLLOW HIM: BUT IF
BAAL, THEN FOLLOW HIM. AND THE PEOPLE
ANSWERED HIM NOT A WORD."
JAMES
1: 2 - 7 <read> you can't have it your way and God's way.
And your way will only
insure you death and
loneliness
and despair and frustration and
unfulfilled.
LUKE
16: 13 <read>
You can't do it. You'll have to love one and
hate
the other. There's no getting around it.
That is thus, "saith
The Word of God".
HEBREWS
4: 1- 3, 9 - 11 <read>
JOHN
5: 2 - 3 <read>
WITHERED = implies a drying up, decaying,
wilting,
fading, as from a loss of natural
juices.
MATT
25: 6 - 8 <READ>
MARK
4: 1 - 6, 10 - 17 <read>
LUKE
8:17
" THEY ON THE ROCK ARE THEY, WHICH, WHEN THEY HEAR, RECEIVE THE
WORD WITH JOY; AND THESE HAVE NO ROOT IN
THEMSELVES, WHICH FOR A
WHILE BELIEVE, AND IN TIME OF TEMPTATION
FALL AWAY.
I challenge you this morning to take inventory. If your soul
is
longing to be fulfilled, and you aren't sure come into
Christ.
JOHN
5: 5 - 6 <read> do you really want to be healed?
This
poor man, all he could answer is Yes, but there is no
man
to help
me. JOHN 5:7 <read>.
But
notice what then happened. Jesus did not scold the man to get
off his duff and into the water. He said, if you really want
healing, I am here to not only heal you but to save you.
AND
JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER.
The
fountain is open tonight. He's Here. The waters are troubled.
won't you come in and be made whole.
Let's
just bow our heads in prayer.