Growing in Grace
II PETER 3:10-18
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (We are in this event of Christ’s “coming as a thief” right now.
His second coming event begins with the shout of the message of the hour sounding forth, and ends with the last trump, and as believers of this message we are participants of the fulfilment of these things that are being fulfilled in this hour just like the believers who were associated with the events of Christ’s first coming – this is the greatest thing that you could ever be a part of in this hour)
11 ¶ Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, (We are to be sober about these things in our conversations – these things are no joke)
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? (Peter is speaking of what follows this second coming of the Lord that the earth is burnt up like what is also spoken of in Malachi 4)
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (Paul’s writings were often hard to understand, and so were easily misinterpreted by those who were immature in their knowledge of the word to the point of their own destruction – we have also seen people of this last day’s ministry destroyed by their own misinterpretation of the message)
17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. (Stedfastness is to be firm and unwavering – don’t be led away by the error of others. We are not to be shaken away from the truth of what we have received – we are to be steadfast. But a false concept of the word of getting out of balance with the scriptures can cause us to fall from that stedfastness)
18 But grow in grace (we are to grow in our understanding of the grace of God to us), and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (not in the knowledge of a denominational concept of Jesus in this hour, but in the knowledge of the thoughts of God of what His knowledge is – in other words, His knowledge is to become our knowledge, His thoughts are to become our thoughts of all the truth that he has revealed in these last day of how that in the back part of God’s mind He had a great plan to express himself right down to this hour that we live in now, and many other things – this is the knowledge that we are to grow in). To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
Growing in Grace
**We want to grow in the grace of God along with the growth of our knowledge in the Lord – it is very important that these two things go in partnership together so that our knowledge is always accompanied by grace, because behind every law of God is a mystery of grace – the very purpose of the law was only given to reveal grace.
**This is Easter weekend – and it is the time that we think of the resurrection of Christ that took place at that first great Easter morning.
**Brother Branham tells us that there was a duel sun rise on that first Easter morning.
There was the rising of the SUN, and also at the same time there was the rising of the SON.
*So the resurrection of Christ was already written in nature in the mystery form of the sunrise, waiting for an even greater expression to be revealed in its true form of rising of the SON.
*And in this day we have seen another resurrection of the SON light of the word raising up a people out of denominational tombs by the full maturity of the revealed word of this day.
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97 …What a resurrection that that was! And what a resurrection this is, to be quickened from the dead, "to be made alive in Christ Jesus," by God's quickening Power.
* The resurrection and appearing of Christ that followed 3 days after His crucifixion showed us that Jesus was accepted by God as our great high priest – but that was not the end of the story, because we know by the Old Testament how that on the day of atonement that the same high priest had to go back the second time into the holy place to now intercede on behalf of the people.
**The first time he went into the holist of holies was to intercede for his own acceptance by the offering of the blood, and if he was accepted by God, then he would come out and appear before the people, but then directly after that he had to go in again the second time to intercede for the acceptance of the people for their sin, and so this is why Jesus was caught up in the cloud 40 days after his resurrection, because he was going back into the presence of God the second time to intercede for us as our high priest for 2000 years of seven gentile church ages of his mediatorial work, but then of necessity there must come a time at the end of this 2000 year intercessory period when he would have to return back and appear again the second time to a people in a similar way that he did at his first resurrection.
*And so for all these past 2000 years, Christ has been doing his mediatorial work for the entirety of the 7 gentile church ages, but when he appears the second time at the end of the gentile church ages, he appears in the like manner that he was taken up in a cloud, and we have been witnesses to this cloud appearance in our day of his second appearing as a thief a thief in the night to steal away his bride.
HEBREWS 9:28
28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
We are witnesses to these things – these things are real, and so because of this second appearing of Christ in our day, we know that this is the evidence for sure that our sins have been completely removed by God forever – then how can there be a sin question in our minds anymore. The sin question is over for eternity – and so that is why the headstone is crying Grace, grace.
ZECHARIAH 4:7
7 Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
The headstone is made up of an end time bride who is crying grace, grace.
**The appearing of Christ the second time at this end time age is showing us that God has fully accepted the sacrifice of His blood on our behalf, our judgement of sin has been fully paid for, and so our sins have been removed from us as far as the east is from the west so that God doesn’t even remember them anymore so that you are just as if you never even did it in the first place – this is the real mystery of Justification fully revealed in this day, this is the full gospel of the good news of the revelation of this end time age.
**And so because we have been witnesses to this great event of the appearing of Christ in this day by the revealing of the son of man and the opening of the seven seals, we know for sure that it can only have come to us by the grace of God.
*This great appearing of Christ the second time after 7 church ages has usured in the events of the cycle of His secret coming as a thief in the night to steal away His gentile bride.
This is powerful truth.
This word “grace” means “unmerited favour” – it is to receive favour that you didn’t even deserve, or earn by your merit – God’s grace is His unmerited favour that he has shown toward us.
*The thief on the cross may have lived his whole life as a very wicked person, and yet we see that the unmerited favour of God was displayed upon him in the last few hours of his life – this is showing us the grace of God.
*The apostle Paul who took part in the murder of Stephen said in
I CORINTHIANS 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am,
You must never fail to see the grace of God in your life. God’s grace was greater than Paul’s sin of murder. And God’s grace was sufficient even when Paul was afflicted with a thorn in the flesh, and God wouldn’t take that thorn away because there was a purpose for that.
Sometimes God will leave certain things in your life that are thorns to your flesh that will seem to hinder your walk as a believer, but God has a purpose for that and His grace is sufficient.
**John Newton, the man who wrote the song “Amazing Grace,” was an African slave trader for many years until the Lord revealed himself to him and he became a follower of Christ. We are told that he got older he began to lose his memory, but he said that there were two things that he would never forget, “That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.”
**The understand of true grace was one of the mysteries that would be straightened out in this end time age because many people down through the ages had all kinds of ideas about grace all the way from extreme Calvinism (Extreme grace) to extreme Arminianism (Extreme Holiness).
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31-2 That's some of the mysteries that this angel is supposed to wind up, all the mystery--all the mysteries of God... And the other one... May I say this with reverence, and not referring to myself, but referring to the Angel of God.
The serpent's seed, that's been a hidden mystery all through the years.
The grace straightened out, not disgrace, but real true grace.
***So he is telling us here that real true grace was one of the mysteries that would be straightened out and understood in this last age. And so we are to grow in our revelation and understanding of what true grace is.
It is not a grace that becomes a disgrace by living a worldly life while claiming to be Christians, because that is what causes some of the biggest stumbling blocks for others.
*The nature of this grace of God can leave itself wide open for all sorts of misunderstanding and abuse, because if you know that you are completely forgiven for every past, present, and future sin, then why couldn’t you just indulge in the so called pleasures of the flesh of worldly living if you have already been forgiven for it before you even do it.
**The Catholics came up with that idea with the concept of indulgences which were the granting of full or at least partial remission of the punishment of sin in purgatory, so the purchaser of the indulgence could effectively be free to commit sins knowing that he would not get punished for them in purgatory. The Catholics do their best to try to say that that wasn’t what indulgences were for, but none the less, that was the underlying idea behind an indulgence of how the people would think about it.
*The person who brought the indulgent could effectively carry out some evil deed with the knowledge that their time in purgatory would either be reduced or (depending on the quality of the indulgent and how much you paid for it), even fully removed in relation to their sin so that in reality the idea was that you could commit sin knowing that you would not be judged for it. But this is not bible teaching.
ROMANS 6:1
1 ¶ What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
ROMANS 6:15
15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
ABRAHAM_ BROOKLYN.NY SATURDAY_ 56-1208
E-20 Say, "Brother Branham, why are you hitting on those things at night?" Is the reason of this. If you can ever get the scare out of the church and let them realize who they are and what they are positionally, healing will be the simplest message to be preached, or anything else. But you're scared. You're afraid. You don't realize that you're sons and daughters of God; and now, not we will be. We are now sons and daughters of God, not way off in the future. And we won't sometime in the future set in heavenly places; now we're seated in heavenly places, right now. And now we are the sons and daughters of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be in the end, but we know we'll see Him, for we'll have a body like His. We'll see Him as He is.
But now we are the sons and daughters of God, and the covenant is made to Abraham and to his seed after him. Now, notice. Now, God didn't tell Abraham, "If you'll do this, or if you'll do that." He said, "I have." So the whole covenant is grace altogether and no works about it at all.
E-21 Now, you say, "That has an awful Calvinistic swing to it, Brother Branham."
That's right. It does, and Calvinism is all right as long as it stays true to the Bible; but when it gets off on the wrong limb, then it's no good. Arminianism, holiness is correct as long as it stays in Bible holiness, not your holiness but His Holiness. See? Then it's not my holiness. It's... I'm not depending on my holiness. I have none, but I'm wholly trusting in His holiness. See? It's He's the One Who did it. Not my works, but His finished works that I rest assured that I was received into the Beloved and when the Beloved was received by God, God received me in Christ; that settles it.
*It is quite common for a new believer of Christ to begin their Christian journey with an uncomplicated knowledge of the grace of God, but then as they grow in their Christian knowledge of the word, their understanding of the grace of God can get out of balance and fail to keep up with their knowledge of the word, and this is because of the tendency of the human nature to lean onto the side of the law of the do’s and the don’ts, because often the do’s and the don’ts are easier to understand, you can measure them more easily wherein the grace of God is harder to measure – and also you can see your mistakes easier that you can see the grace of God.
*So because of this, many young Christians at some point of their walk with the Lord find themselves going through a stage of legalism of trying to live the Christian life by doing their best to follow a set of moral rules – and this is what we call a legalistic approach which is an Arminianism idea of holy living.
*Brother Branham said that Ruth had to work her way through the stage of legalism in the field of Boaz before she came into the rest of the field of Boaz’s grace.
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E-14 What you are, what Calvinism is, what grace is, is what God did for you. But what works is, is what you do for God in appreciation of what He did for you through grace. That's the whole answer.
**Some people get caught up into the concept of thinking that “If I keep all the rules, then God will be pleased with me because I have been a good person - but if I fail to cope with the rules, then God will be angry with me and I may even go to hell”
**This way of thinking is destabilizing to a person’s faith – your motivation is coming from the wrong source – a source of fear.
**That is why you have to grow in the grace of God to know that your salvation is a finished work of Christ, and that it has nothing to do with how good you are – we are saved by grace through faith and not of works.
*And so this problem of leaning to the legalistic side in our thinking from time to time is quite common for most believers – we can sometimes go through cycles of this.
And so this is why that when our knowledge of the word increases, then it is very important that we also grow in the knowledge of the grace of God in knowing that behind every law of God there is a mystery of His grace. Because as we see more of the word, we want to see our lives live up to that new level, and when we fail then we can become despondent.
*So that is why we need to grow equally in our revelation of the grace of God along with our knowledge of the word knowing that His grace is sufficient for all those struggles in our lives that the Lord by his grace leaves in our lives for the purpose of mounding and shaping us.
EPHESIANS 2:8-9
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
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277 … you're going to the Wedding in the sky. And you are wearing the wedding band of predestinated, unmerited grace, a wedding band of grace unmerited of your own. God did it, Himself. He knew you before the foundation of the world, so He slipped the wedding band on you There, put your name on a Book.
The first time we find the word “grace” in the bible is in GENESIS 6:8
8 ¶ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
The first time in the New Testament that the word grace is used is in LUKE 1:30
30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. This word favour is the word grace.
*The angel came to Mary at the first coming of Christ because of the grace of God to her, and this same grace has been shown to us in this day by an angel appearing to us also with a message of his second coming.
*If you have seen these things in this day, then you can only see it and recognise it by the grace of God.
ZECHARIAH 4:7
7 Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
The headstone is Christ in bride form at the end of the seven church ages, and it has come with the shoutings of a message, and that shout is the message of grace to a people.
***So we see that this headstone of Christ is connected to a people just like it was the grace of God that came to Noah in his day, and the grace of God that came by an angle to Mary in her day. And so it is the grace of God that has revealed a message to a people in this day.
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12 …Before the meeting closes today, may there be something happen, Lord, that would bring Your Presence so close to the people, that they would know that that same Jesus that walked in Galilee stands in the midst of His people, they might go away from here today with the same assurance that those who came from Emmaus that time. When they were on their road back, after walking with Him all day long, talking to Him, and Him talking to them, and yet they had little idea that it was Him.
O God, so many times we are like that. You speak to us in the setting of the sun, in the singing of the birds, in the rustling of the leaves, in the blooming of the flowers, in the hymns of the church, and we so little recognize that it's You. In the sick rooms in the hospital, many other places You speak to us and we so little realize that it's You.
***God has mysteries sealed up in everything that He made.
There is a mystery in the eagle of his great wings and his great eagle eye sight. There is a mystery sealed up in the Lion and in the Ox and in the Lamb and in the dove and in the great whale of the ocean, and in every animal and insect from the ant to the elephant.
*King Solomon told us to go to the ant and consider her ways because there is a mystery sealed up in the ants.
There is a mystery of God in every flower and in every tree because all the creation of God came from the thoughts of God so that every single one of his created works is showing us a portion of his great thoughts of who he is, and of the millions and millions of different insects and animals and bird life and fish life and trees and flowers, each one individually shows a different portion of a characteristic of the one great God.