LOOK #7

Election is based on God’s Choice

FEB 16, 92

Brian Kocourek

 

Last week we read again from pp. 42-43. We continued to look   at this   dynamic  statement  brother Branham  made  concerning  The PRESENCE of our Lord Jesus Christ. he said that " Christ is  here to direct our thoughts." Now, we know that Romans 12 says we  are transformed  by the renewing of our mind, so we can see the  need and the importance of His great PRESENCE here among us to  direct our thoughts correctly into His Word.

 

Brother Branham continued with saying, "He is here to FOCUS  down His  Word to the One True and Living God." We found in our  study last week how essential it is that the focus of His Word and  the
focus of our life should be in Him. The Christian world today, is "focused  on the family", but that will never get us  ready  for the  Rapture.  That can not bring on the change  needed.  Brother Branham said, " Christ is here to focus down His Word to One True and  Living God." This focus will also focus on down to  His  one purpose  and achievement. Not His Purpose and my purpose but  his purpose only. One Purpose. And His purpose stands in His Election according to Romans nine (9).

 

Now,  remember,  You've been taught that God can not  change  His mind.  His first thought had to be His best thought or  He  isn't God.  If He can better Himself then He is not Eternal  and  Infi­nite. He can not have a vacillating mind like we do, or He  would not be God. His first thought had to be His best thought.

 

(Mal 3:6) (Heb 13:8)

 

Now  let's turn to Romans 9 and read verse 11.  (read)...  Before the  children were even born God hated Esau and He  loved  Jacob. Notice in verse 11 it says, "NOT OF WORKS".

 

 WEYMOUTH: BEFORE THE CHILDREN WERE EVEN BORN AND HAD NOT AS  YET DONE  ANYTHING EITHER GOOD OR EVIL, IN ORDER THAT GOD'S  ELECTING PURPOSE  MIGHT  NOT BE FRUSTRATED, BASED ON, AS IT WERE,  NOT  ON THEIR ACTIONS BUT ON THE WILL OF HIM WHO CALLED THEM."

 

 So,  you see that His election was not based upon  anything  you could ever do that was (good or evil) but merely upon His choice. If we were in His thoughts before the world was framed, and if His thoughts  never  change because He is incapable  of  have  better thoughts,  if He is the unchanging God, then His  thoughts  about you  and me can never change no matter what we do that  would  be good or bad.

 

 David  is a classic illustration of this point.  Although  David committed  adultery,  he  stole another man's wife  and  lied  to protect  himself  and even had the man killed and was  guilty  of innocent  blood, and yet through out all of this  God's  thoughts toward  Him  never changed. He still was a man  after  God's  own  heart. No matter what you ever did, or ever will do, that  cannot change God's thoughts about you even one iota.

 

Now, I realize many people can not accept this but that's the way it  is. People believe that somehow even though they are   rotten their  whole life that when they come to the end of the road  and they  make a confession of faith on their death bed that this  is all that is needed. Likewise others believe that you could  serve him  all your life and if you back slide and are killed  in  your backslid condition that you are surely lost. This is nothing  but nonsense.

 

That  would throw out predestination all together and leave  your salvation  completely  in the hands of your own self  based  upon merit.

 

In  Romans  (9) it says that it had nothing to do with  the  boys actions, (good or bad). God does the Choosing, not we who  choose Him.

 

EPH 1:3-5

 

We see here then, that God's first thoughts are his best thoughts and  if  you were in His thinking, his thoughts  toward  you  can never change. His thoughts are not based upon emotion like  ours. One  minute we smother our children with Love and  affection  and the  next we're ready to smother them with a pillow to hold  down the racket. We vacillate constantly from spoiling to boiling  but God remains constant, unwavering.

 

He  states in Romans (9) that He does not want to  frustrate  His Purpose in election so His choosing us in Him before the  founda­tion of the world had nothing to do with our conduct, our actions or  anything else we might be able to do to try and sway Him.  He can't be swayed. He's interested only in His will.

 

If  He is not interested in our conduct from the aspect  that  it can not sway his thoughts one way or the other about us, then  it is  not  conduct that He is targeting for us but  something  much higher.  That is this, he wants us to have His very  mindset.  To accept  what He says about us which is His Predestined will.  And the only way we can receive this mindset is by revelation of  His word. For He is the Word.

 

Now, you may ask yourself this question. "If God is incapable  of changing His Mind about how He thinks about me, then, I'm  really going  to live it up and as the world would say, Let's  make  hay while the sun is yet shining."

 

If  you  really think in this line, you still do  not  understand anything  about God or His nature. He has placed certain laws  to govern all nature and one of them is that you will reap what  you sow. You are going to pay the piper one way or the other. Sin  is costly. It costs you.

 

That  is  why we don't have a television set. I'm not  afraid  of losing  my salvation by watching it. But I know that the  Prophet of  God was only echoing God's voice when he said get it  out  of your  house.  There's a purpose behind those words you  know.  He said during the tribulation period peoples minds would see  great hideous things that television had prepared their minds for  this blast.  It'll cost you then, it is costing you now. Look  at  how far  apart the families are. No altar for Christ in the home  but there's one for Satan. He said it brings Satan right in the home.

 

Now,  as  we examine brother Branham's message "LOOK",  today,  I want  this whole thought we are laying out before you this  morn­ing.

 

If you were in His thinking He can not change His thoughts  about you  no matter what you do or don't do. Now, if this is so,  then how  is God going to bring about His fulfillment and  yours  into the  image  that He had of you before the world began.  In  other words, if He is here to bring you into His image but He will  not produce  His image by using fear, then by what means does He  use to get your attention. How does He correct you. He's been working on your minds to transform you for years now and we don't seem to be  budging very much forward. How will He bring about our  ulti­mate  destination. How will He bring us into a  complete  oneness with Himself. 

 

To find out let's examine further in this message. pp. 43-44A.

 

Matthew  21:21,  John 15:7 (now this is not a  frivolous  promise here) You can't fake it and get what you want. Notice John 15:5-8

 

pp. 44A ) Now here is the great thing. We are to come into focus. This  pinpoint focal point  of the One True and Living  God.  To­gether with Him. His mind will be our mind. The greatest thing is what brother Branham says in pp. (44b - 45) (read).

 

Why  did  I say that this is the great part? Because  what  Glory would  it be for God to have created a bunch of people  who  were only  zombies and had no mind of their own. That always  did  His will  not from their own choice but from His , and His  only.  It would  be like loving up to a manikin. But He allowed us  a  mind that  we had power over to keep for Him or allow ourselves to  be seduced  like Eve was. To allow us this kind of  personal  choice and  yet give us a seed that can receive His word and  understand it and come to it and be changed by it. We fell by sin, by disbe­lief  in the garden, we walked away from Him, but now  our  minds are being changed. We realize our error, and we are coming  back, we  are being drawn back to Him by who He is and who we are.   He is  not using pressure, nor is He coercing us by force, but by  a passion to please Him as our true Father. Our Heavenly Father.

 

That's  why  I am so against so many of these ministers  and  you hear  me lash out about them. I hate that Nicolatian spirit  that uses  coercion on the people and manipulate actions out  of  fear and some sort of reprisal for negligence.

 

They  subdue the minds of the people through fear and the  people through  fear  act out their religion and show forth  a  form  of godliness but deny the power thereof. And the power of God is His Word.

 

According to the Masoretic text Isa 28:8-14a "ALL THE TABLES  ARE COVERED WITH VOMIT. AND THERE IS NOT A SPOT WITHOUT FILTH. WHO IS HE  TRYING  TO TEACH? TO WHOM IS HE EXPLAINING  HIS  MESSAGE?  TO CHILDREN  WEANED  FROM THEIR MILK, TO THOSE JUST TAKEN  FROM  THEBREAST?  FOR IT IS: DO AND DO, DO AND DO, RULE ON RULE,  RULE  ON RULE; A LITTLE HERE, A LITTLE THERE. VERY WELL THEN, WITH FOREIGN LIPS  AND STRANGE TONGUES GOD WILL SPEAK TO THIS PEOPLE, TO  WHOM HE SAID,

 

THIS  IS  MY RESTING PLACE, LET THE WEARY REST; AND THIS  IS  THE PLACE OF REPOSE- BUT THEY WOULD NOT LISTEN. SO THEN, THE WORD  OF THE LORD TO THEM WILL BECOME: DO AND DO, DO AND DO, RULE ON RULE, RULE ON RULE; A LITTLE HERE, A LITTLE THERE- SO THAT THEY WILL GO AND FALL BACKWARD, BE INJURED AND SNARED AND CAPTURED.  THEREFORE HEAR THE WORD OF THE LORD YOU SCOFFERS WHO RULE THIS PEOPLE...

 

Then in pp. 19 THE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS MESSAGE WILL BRING SHEER TERROR.

 

Now  notice how the scripture says that they will  go  backwards. When  the gospel net is cast out it will bring in some  fish  but also  turtles  and  snakes etc. Only the fish are  kept  but  the others are all cast back into the same water they were in before. They go backwards. Now this should clue you into what we will see here next in this message.

 

Brother  Branham says that Christ is here to direct our  thoughts and to give us His mind if we'll let Him. We were in His thoughts from  before the foundations of the world. EPH 1:4 tells us  thatwhile  in his thoughts he said we would be in His presence  as  a Holy People, blameless. In verse 5 he tells us how he has predes­tinated or predetermined how we would reach this goal.

 

This  is what we want to know today. pp. 45-47 (read)  Notice  he says  here  that the Word is the anointing. Then  he  illustrates this point. pp. 48-49 (read). Just prior to this illustration  he said  the  Word was the anointing. Then he  illustrates  how  his mother  would  anoint her dirty spotted  clothes  with  different compounds  such  as black coffee or turpentine to  take  out  the stain.  He's  typing that stain with our sin and  unbelief.  What will clean us from all doubts.

 

(PS 119:9)  (EPH 5:26)  (1 JN 1:7)We see that the Word cleanses us but how does this bring us  back to  our original condition that we had in Christ, like br.  Bran­ham's illustration?  (pp. 50) notice how the same ink can be used for judgment or for pardon. DEUT 26: BLESSING & CURSING.

 

PP 51-54 (read)

 

Notice this illustration. The ink keeps breaking down until there is  nothing  left. From ink to gases, to molecules  to  atoms  to electrons.  All  the  way back to it's original  state.  Then  he illustrates the palm tree and the eucalyptus plant and the  rose. All are made up of varying degrees of the same chemicals but each is  colored so different and smell so different and feel so  dif­ferent  yet from the same ground. He said, It's the life in  them that is different.

 

It's  not  the chemistry that's important, but the  life  in  the chemistry.   That's why the blood of bulls and goats could  never free us from sin. The blood of a Jew couldn't either, It took the blood of God. Why? So that the Life in that blood could be  freed from the chemistry to come back upon us.

 

Now  why  would brother Branham use this illustration  about  the Clorox  bleach. He's letting you know that God's  revealed  Word will  take you plum back to your roots, to your source,  to  your beginning.

 

In  John  chapter 8 and 9 we see Jesus tell  the  Pharisees  that because they have not their source in God they can not hear  Gods Word. They can not understand it. But in John 4 we see the  woman at  the well who was living in prostitution receive a  change  by the  very  same word that the Pharisees rejected. To her  it  was life  and she was changed from a vile wretch into a  daughter  of God  that she was ordained to be. But the Pharisees  rejected  the very  same Word and showed who he had his source in. He tried  to
kill  Jesus  just as His roots did before him. Just the  same  as
Cain slew Abel.

 

What  is it? The great Clorox Bleach of God's Word  washes  away the outward facade and exposes the real you on the inside. We are washed by the washing of water by the Word. (EPH 5:13) (read).

 

The  Word is that bridge back to our original condition. It  will restore  us  back as He saw us in Him before the world  ever  was framed.  You can't do it on your own. Your actions good  or  evil can not produce this original condition. The chemistry doesn't do anything. (EPH 1:3-12, 13-14, 15-17)

 

(pp.  55-57 ) That's why I say, It's not a program. If  you  want salvation  and you want your kids saved. It's got to be  by  this Word.  Nothing else will do. Everything else is  only  chemistry. It's  this Word or nothing. And He's here to direct our  thoughts to  focus down upon His Word to One True  and Living God to  pro­duce His one purpose which stands by His Elect.

 

Let's bow our heads and Pray…