E-1 Thank you, Brother Neville. [Brother Neville says, "Bless you, brother."--Ed.] God bless you, Brother Neville. Thank you very much. Good morning, friends. It's a privilege to be here at the Tabernacle again this morning to serve the Lord in the way of preaching the Word and praying for the sick. And I am very grateful for this day.
And I was amazed just as I come in. A brother walked up and said, "I don't want to be like the unworthy leper that was healed." It's Brother Wright. I prayed for him, and the Lord has healed him completely. And he come up weeping to shake my hand and say that--that he would--wanted to thank the Lord for--for being healed. He wanted to return and give thanks. It's all gone. He--he's perfectly well now. We are grateful for those testimonies.
E-4 And Charlie, you and Brother Jeffries, if you wish to, come up here and take these seats up here. And you're more than welcome, so you won't have to stand. The other brother there, Brother Wood, just come up here and you're--here's a little couple of places here on the bench, so you won't have to stand up. I believe a couple of places here. And... If you could be more than welcome to come and take these places.
We are glad to... I believe it was said one time, "I was happy when they said unto me... God bless you Brother. [Brother says, "Always like to be closer to the preacher."--Ed.] Thank you, thanks, thank you. I was happy when they said unto me, 'Let us go into the house of the Lord.'" That's the Christian's privilege and joy to go to the house of the Lord.
E-6 Looking around and seeing so many of my friends in this morning, I am highly elated over this. I'm glad to see Brother and Sister Dauch here from Ohio. I see Brother and Sister Armstrong, back there, all the way from Ohio. God bless you all too. And oh, just looking around you see so many, it'd be kind of hard to get all their names. Sister Hoover, we're glad to see you in this morning from down in Kentucky. And Charlie and Nellie, Brother Jeffries and his family, and just so many in from out of the city... So we're expecting a great time in the Lord this morning. Expecting God to meet us in a way to bless our souls and minister to us the things that we have need of.
And as I view around over the place, if I go to calling all of my friends around here, I'd take most of the morning saying different ones. It makes me feel good to get back to church to see all the people in, get to meet...
E-9 What will it be when we get to heaven, and we meet there for that great time of everlasting, eternal fellowship together around the throne of God, and the very blessings that we have all cherished... We there will be made unto His likeness, and in His image, and with His Spirit upon us to worship and serve Him for all eternity, never to grow tired.
Just think; there's not anything that you can think of, that you like to do, but what once in a while you tire in doing it. Charlie, I guess you and I have squirrel hunted more than anything that we like to do in the way of that, but you know you get tired doing it. And I--I like to hike, get into the mountains and just hike, but I get tired sometimes and want to do something else. And I like to drive.
Sometimes I get feeling kind of tired, and wore out, and nerves on edge; I'll just jump in my car, and take out, and hold to the steering wheel going down the road singing, "I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them," or something, just gripping that wheel and singing and stomping my foot and shouting. And well I... After while I get tired, and then I return back home and start something else. But when we get to worshipping God in that new Kingdom, there'll never be a tired moment, just--just... We'll always be a blessing just on and on. But 'course we'll be changed then; we'll not be like we are now. We--we'd be different--different creatures than we are at this time. So we are happy.
E-14 I was just thinking. I don't know whether I ever did quoted this or not. Brother Charlie... Sometime ago I was down in Kentucky with him, and he said, "Brother Branham, do you think in the Millennium you and I will squirrel hunt?"
I said, "I don't think so, Charlie."
He said, "Well, we liked it so well," said, "do you--you think we will when we get in the Millennium?"
I said, "No, won't be nothing killed in the Millennium."
And he said, "Well, we just like it."
I said, "Charlie, what if I could convince you that one time you were a hog, and you'd raised to a higher being, to being a human being. Would you ever go--want to go back and enjoy the pleasures of a hog?"
Said, "No."
I said, "See, you'd be so much higher than the hog now, you're human, you'd never want to be a hog any more." I said, "Now, multiply that by ten thousand, and that's what you'll be when you are changed from here to what you will be. You'll never want to be human again." That's right. It'll be something different. I'm so glad just for the thoughts of it, knowing that someday we will climb higher.
E-19 Well, now if the Lord is willing, next Sunday which will be about... Then I'm going to leave to go out into Wyoming with a good friend, or out into Idaho with a good friend of mine, Brother Miner Arganbright, Brother Clayton Sonmore, the Christian Business Men.
Next week, week after next is now the seventh; I'm to be in--in Dallas, Texas, at the Voice of Healing Convention, and my speaking night is the seventh. And then I return back to go over into Idaho with Brother Arganbright and the Christian Business Men, and maybe have one night at Minneapolis before we leave, and then one Christian Business Men's breakfast.
If the Lord is willing, next Sunday morning, I want to be back here at the Tabernacle again; and if that's permissible and be the will of the Lord, and I want to speak on the subject of the "Whirlwind in the Wind"; if the Lord is willing.
E-22 It seemed to be on my heart all week; and the other morning, real early about four o'clock in the morning, I waked up and I got this thought: "That Day on Calvary." And I want to speak on that this morning. "That Day on Calvary."
And now, for this reading let's turn now in our Bibles, in the Scripture to the Gospel of St. Matthew at the 27th chapter, and we'll begin with the 27th verse and read a portion of this Scripture to get our background. And then we'll start right away, and after the preaching service, then we're going to have prayer for the sick.
E-24 And all since the last time here, just bringing back in patterning of my new type of ministry, I had more return testimonies from that meeting than I have in any for a long time. There's something about that you must contact the person regardless of how much supernatural is shown. But, see, healing has to lay upon the individual's faith.
Now, if the individual has faith, and they see like the Holy Spirit go over the audience and say, certain-certain things happen: and that "You're such and such a name, and you come from such a place, and a certain thing that you've done, and it will be this way," and see all of it happen just that way, yet the individual setting there should look up and say, "That has to be God. I accept my healing." But instead of that the individual says, "Lay hands on me and pray for me: so I'll be healed."
E-28 But that's the way we're taught here in America--and so to believe that, and that's certainly Scriptural. But now we find in Africa and different places, just let something like that happen, the whole audience reaches right up at one time, accepts their healing, because they haven't been taught nothing. See? They haven't even been taught healing. And then when they see that, they know that there's a God that lives; and if He lives, He's--He's supreme and He--He heals, and that's it. Because the basis is already laid the foundations that He is a Healer and heals the people. Then when they see His Presence working through His church, then they say, "That settles it. That's all we need." But we've been taught laying hands on the sick and things like that. That's the reason it doesn't work so good in America.
Now, remember, next Sunday morning, the Lord willing... Brother Neville will announce it, of course, if it's... The--A Whirlwind in the Wind.
E-32 Now, I've given you a little time to turn in your Scriptures to Matthew 27. Let's begin reading at the--the 27th verse of--of St. Matthew's Gospel. Now, let's listen close to the reading.
And the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers.
And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe,
And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it on his head, and a reed in his hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!
And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
After that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put on his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.
And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross...
And when they were gone up--gone unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,
They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.
And they crucified him, and parted his garments, and cast lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.
... sitting down they watched him there;
And set over his head an accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Then there were two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
And they--they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,
And saying, Thou that destroyed the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.
Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,
He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.
He trusted in God; let Him deliver him now, if he will save him: for he said, I am the Son of God.
The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in their teeth... in his teeth.
Now, from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calls for Elias.
And straightway one ran and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come and save him.
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
... the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints that slept arose,
And came out of the grave after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Now, when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God."
E-33 Let us bow our heads just a moment for prayer. Lord, we know that Thou art God, and after reading this sacred and holy Word, we can still see that Your nature has not changed. You are always God. And it seem like that Jesus was not going to have any help, that He was taken by wicked hands, and was hacked to pieces, and spit upon, and mocked, and hanging on the cross, bleeding, dying; and seemed like there was no help nowhere, till even He cried Himself, "My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?" But You act in the moment that when nothing else can act.
We are given to know, Lord, that if we have any rivers that we cannot cross, if we have any mountains we cannot go through, God specializes in doing things that others cannot do. You are a specialist on the job. For You know the reason of that day on Calvary. You, being God, the infinite One, knew this hour must come. But when it was fulfilled, then You showed You were God. You showed Who was Boss.
E-36 You shook the earth, and the saints that slept in the ground come out. You blackened the sun in the night, as the darkness of night, showing that You were God, but You seemed to be silent so long. Let us from this draw this conclusion: that as long as we are walking in the Spirit, led by the hand of God, no matter what seems to be wrong, yet we are facing Calvary, God will speak in the right hour at the right time.
Now, Father God, we would ask forgiveness of our sins and our trespasses. We would ask for Your Spirit to lead us. Lead us as the Dove led the Lamb. Let us be obedient to whatever may befall us, knowing this, that God works all things well, and know that it'll be all right.
Be with us today in this service. We pray that You'll save those who are in condition to be saved and are seeking for salvation. Fill those with Eternal Life who are seeking such. We pray that You'll heal those that are sick and afflicted that have come seeking healing. And we'll praise Thee for it. We ask it in the Name of Your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
E-40 Now, in the speaking this morning, we wish to call your attention to the text that I've chosen to speak from, "That Day On Calvary." It seems like it would be a little out of season. This should be on Good Friday. Calvary should be remembered every day. And we've heard so much about it, read so much about it. Preachers has preached on it since the beginning of time. Singers have sang of it through the ages. Prophets foretold it four thousand years before it ever happened, and the prophets of this day point back to when it did happen. It's such an important day.\
E-42 It's one of the most important days of all the days that God ever let dawn on the earth. And if it's so important to the human race, Calvary, I think it's good for us to go back and examine it and see just what it means to us. For I'm sure at this late hour that we're living, we are seeking every importance of God that we can know; and all that we can find out, we are here to learn of it: to see what is for us, and what God has done for us, and see what He's promised to do for us. And that's what we come to church for. That's why the preacher preaches. That's why he studies and meditates in the Scripture and seeks for inspiration, is because he is a public servant to God's people, and he's trying to find something that will--that God would have to say to His people, something that would help them. Maybe it might be condemn them in their sins, but would be a help to raise them up; that they might forsake their sins and then raise up to serve the Lord. And ministers should seek these things.
E-43 If this day being so important, one of the greatest days, let us look at three different things that day meant to us. We could take hundreds. But this morning I have just chosen three different vital things that we want to look at for the next few moments, that Calvary meant to us. And I pray that it'll condemn every sinner that's present, it'll make every saint go on to his knees, that'll make every sick person raise his faith to God and walk away healed, every sinner saved, every backslider come back and be ashamed of himself, and every saint rejoice and take new hold and new hope.
E-44 The one great important thing that Calvary means to us and the world is it settled the sin question once for all. Man was found guilty of sin, and sin was a penalty that no man could pay. The penalty was so great until there wasn't anyone that could pay the penalty. I truly believe that God ordained it that way, that the penalty would be so great that no man could pay it, so He could do it Himself.
Now, the penalty of sin was death. And we were all borned in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies. Therefore, there wasn't none of us that was worthy, or they could find no one on earth that was worthy.
E-45 And sin did not start on the earth. Sin started in heaven. Lucir--Lucifer, the devil, was a condemned creature for his disobedience before he ever struck the earth. Sin began in heaven, where God put the angels and so forth upon the same basis that He put human beings on. Knowledge, the tree of knowledge... The Tree of Life, and the tree of knowledge, where man could take his choice. And when Lucifer was given the preeminences to make his choice, he wanted something better than God had. That started the trouble.
E-46 And there was a requirement for sin. The requirement was death. Death was the penalty, and that is... We could go into great details of this, because I do not believe that there is but one death. There is one life. And I believe a man that has Eternal Life can never die, and I believe there is a complete annihilation of that soul that sins, for the Bible said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall surely die," not the man, the soul that sinneth. So Satan must surely die to be completely destroyed.
How I disagree with the universalist that say that Satan will be saved. He sinned, and he's the originator of sin. And his soul sinned and he was a spirit. That spirit shall be totally annihilated to be nothing left of it.
E-47 And when sin struck the earth back in the beginning like a sheet of blackness falling from the heaven, it literally paralyzed the earth. It throwed every creature on the earth, and all of God's creation, in bondage. Man was under bondage of death, sickness, troubles, sorrows. All nature fell with it. Sin was an anesthetic that actually paralyzed the earth. And then we was set here hopeless, 'cause every creature on earth was subject to it, and everyone born on earth was subject to it. So it had to come from some place where there was no sin. It could not come from the earth.
One of us could not redeem the other. It had to come from another. Therefore, when man realized that he was separated from his God, he become a wanderer. They wept; they cried; they toiled; they wandered about through the mountains and through the deserts seeking a city whose Builder and Maker was God. For he knew that if he ever got back in the Presence of God, he could talk it over with Him. But there was no way back. He become lost. He didn't know which way to turn, so he just took out wandering, trying to find somewhere that he could find a way back to that place. Something on the inside of him told him that he come from a--a place that was perfect.
E-50 There is not a person here in this visible audience this morning, or in the audience of the magnetic tape, where it'll go around the world; there's no one here or anywhere, but what seeks for that perfection. You get your bills paid; you think that'll settle it. When you got your bills paid, then there's somebody sick in your family. When the sickness gets all right, then you got more bills to pay. The first thing you know your hair's turning gray, and then you want to be back young. And there's something all the time, constantly, because of that wave of sin. But in your heart, because that you seek for that, it shows that there is a perfection somewhere. Somewhere there's something.
E-51 That's the reason many times today that a sinner is still wandering about. A beautiful young girl will cut off the locks of her hair to be popular, paint up her face to make her look pretty, put on clothes to show the form of her being, because it's the only thing that she can find, finding somewhere, to try to find something to come back to her; when she can cause men to whistle at her, wave at her, flirt with her. Young men will do the same thing to the woman: try to make hisself attractive to her. Neighbors will build a house and fix it a certain way because it'll look a little better than his neighbor's place. It's all the time. We are seeking for something, and something keeps going just a little above it.
E-52 The young lady will find another young lady's more popular than she. The neighbor will find a house that looks better than his. The woman will find another woman dressed a certain way that looks better than she does. It's something in us that's seeking out for something, and it shows that we are lost. We want to find that something that'll bring us to that satisfaction, that'll fill that spot of hunger in there; but seems like we can't find it.
Human beings tried it through the ages. They wept for it. They cried. They done everything that they know how to do, but still they didn't find it, wandering about through the world.
E-53 Finally one day, that's that day at Calvary, there was One came down from glory, One by the Name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God Who came from glory, and Calvary was formed. That was the day that the price was paid, and sin question was settled forever, and it opened up the way unto this thing that we're hungering and thirsting for. It brought a place of satisfaction.
There's no man that's ever visit Calvary and seen it the way it was, that can ever be the same. Everything that he ever desired or longed for is met when he reaches that place. It was such an important day and such an important thing, it shook the world. It shook the world like it was never shook before when Jesus died at Calvary and paid the sin question.
E-55 This sinful world had a blackout. The sun went down in the middle of the day; it had a nervous prostration. The rocks shook, the mountains rent, and the dead bodies bursted from the grave. What did it do? God zeroed in on Calvary. He wounded that animal called Satan forever.
Now, he's been more vicious since then, because it brought Light to the human race; and anyone knows that a wounded animal is its most vicious, crawling around with his back broke.
Now, Satan was knocked out at Calvary. The earth proved that it was. The greatest price that was ever paid, and the only One that could pay it, come and done it at Calvary. That's where the great price was paid. That's one of the things.
E-56 God had required it. No man was worthy. No man was able. No man could do it. And God came Himself, and was made human, and lived a human life under human desires, and was crucified at Calvary and there, when Satan thought He wouldn't do it, He wouldn't go through it... He went to Gethsemane, and every temptation that any man ever stood; He went through it just like all men; but He paid the price; that's what blacked the earth out like an anesthetic for an operation.
When a doctor gives a man an anesthetic, he first knocks him out before he can do it. And when God gave the--the operation for the church, the world got an anesthetic. Nature had a convulsion.
No wonder, God in human flesh was dying. It was the hour that the world had looked for, yet many of them did not know it. Like it is today, many look for these things and yet they don't recognize them. They don't realize the way out. They're still trying to seek pleasures and things of the world, trying to find their way out.
E-59 There was been many signposts that pointed to that day, many great foreshadows. It had been foreshadowed by the lamb, by the bullock, by the turtledove, and all these things; but yet it could not break it. It could not break that death hold. For Satan had the earth, the very rocks that he once walked up and down on the earth, burning brimstones. Lucifer was the son of the morning, and he walked on the earth when it was a burning volcanic. Those same rocks that had cooled off, when Jesus died at Calvary, belched forth out of the earth. The price that was paid, and the bondage of Satan was broke.
E-61 God put back into the hands of man a way back to what he was looking for. He had to weep no more. Yet, when He broke the backbone of Satan there at Calvary, the back bone of sin, of sickness... And it brings every mortal being on the earth back into the Presence of God with sins forgiven.
Hallelujah. Our sins are forgiven. No more can Satan black us off from God. There's a highway made. There's a telephone setting there. There's a line to glory. It brings every person in reach of that line.
If a man is full of sin, it connected him in "old central." He can be forgiven of that sin. Not only that, but that sin is paid for. Glory. You don't have to say, "I'm not worthy." Sure you're not. You never could be. But a worthy One took your place. You are free. You don't have to wonder any more. You don't have to be a pleasure seeking man out here on the earth. For,
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
Where sinners plunged beneath the flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
You don't have to be lost; there is a highway and a way, and it's called the way of holiness. The unclean don't pass over it, for he comes to the fountain first; then he enters the highway.
E-64 He broke the powers of Satan. He opened the prison doors of hell. To every man that was shut up in this earth in the prisons, fearing that when he died, what death would be to him; on Calvary He opened those cell doors, let every captive go free. You don't have to no longer be torn down by sin. You don't have to no longer yield your members to sin: drinking, smoking, gambling, telling lies.
You can be honest, just, and upright; and Satan can do nothing about it; because you got a hold of a line, a lifeline. It's anchored in the Rock of Ages. Nothing can shake you from it. No winds can shake you from it. No nothing, not even death itself can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus.
E-65 That's what Calvary meant. Men that were in bondage were set free. Men that were once under fear of death can no longer fear death. A man who longs for a city whose Builder and Maker is God, he can step on the highway and set his face towards heaven, because he's free. Hallelujah. He's redeemed. He don't need to wander no more, for there's a way of knowing whether you are right or not. God gives us Life. Our sins are gone. That day at Calvary paid the price. When we see all of that, no wonder the poet wrote,
Mid rendering rocks and darkening skies,
My Saviour bowed His head and died.
The opening veil revealed the way,
To heavens joys and endless day.
E-66 Abraham don't have to wander no more across the country seeking a city. The sinner don't have to wonder any more whether he can be saved or not. The sick man doesn't have to wonder whether he can be healed or not. The opening veil on that day at Calvary revealed the way to the total victory. God give us the powers of His Spirit to live triumphantly over all these things; asks us only to believe it. That happened on that day at Calvary.
There never was a day like it. There never will be one like it. It's not necessary no more. The price is paid, and we are redeemed. Thanks be to God; we are redeemed.
There's no way you have to wonder about; there's no more guessing about it. It's all took away. The veil pulled back the curtain and we're set on a highway, not to wonder any more, but to believe and just walk right on. We walk right into God's very Presence.
E-67 Abraham knew, and others knew that while they were seeking the city, they knowed they were from somewhere. Something had happened. They were living in a paralyzed earth. Earthquakes came; storms come, wars and killings. The wolf and the lamb fed on one another, or the wolf fed on the lamb, and the lion eat the ox. It don't look right. There's something wrong. He knew there was something wrong. Man, and brother kill brother. Father killed son; son killed father. There's something wrong. He's getting old. He's dying. He's withering away. Sickness is on him. He's in bondage. The trees grow but not immortal; they die. The mountains change. The seas dry up. The waters fail. There's something wrong, and he sought a place, a city where that didn't happen no more; He knew if he could ever get back into the Presence of the One that made it right, he could talk it over with Him.
E-68 Oh, what a privilege, sinner, it is this morning to know that you got the way now. That day at Calvary opened up the way. For all those patriarchs hunted for and sought for, Calvary gave it to you free. How would you turn it down? How would you turn it down to join a denomination? How would you turn it down to substitute something for it, the pleasures of the world. Why not accept it?
The opening veil brings a man right back into the Presence of God without sin on him of any kind, and sets a road before him to the thing that he's seeking for: heaven, glory, peace, Eternal Life, everything right before him.
E-69 That day was the--the death blow to Satan's power. It ended everything. And I can see Him there. He was Eden's Lamb from the very first shadow that come of It, when Abel by faith offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
He must have tied a--a grapevine around a lamb's neck, drug him up to the rock, took a rock in his hand for a lance, and pulled his little head back, and chopped and hacked him until he died and his wool bathed with his own blood. He wallowed in his blood.
It was a shadow. But on that day at Calvary, there wasn't a Lamb of this earth, but it was a Lamb of God that was dying, wallowing in His own Blood. He was hacked and chopped and beat and spit on and slammed and smacked and everything by the world and the Blood dropping off of his locks...
E-73 When Abel's lamb died, it died speaking in a language that Abel could not understand. It was bleating. And when God's Lamb died, that day at Calvary, He spoke in a language that no one understood Him, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me." It was God's Lamb, hacked to pieces, chopped up.
He was the very Lamb that Abel had in mind when he seen the promised seed of the woman. He was the Lamb that Daniel saw that was hewed out of the mountain without hands. He was the wheel in the middle of the wheel for the prophet. All they had foresaw was met on that day, that day at Calvary. That brought the great thing in. That broke the back of Satan.
E-76 First, we should seek what that day meant. Second, we should see what that day has done for us. Now, what it did for us... Now, third, let's look at what we ought to do for that day, what ought we to do.
First, we should look into it, for it's a great day, greatest of all the days. Sin price was settled. Satan's power was broken. And now, we want to see what we should do in return.
Now, in return, is when Jesus died at Calvary, on Calvary that day He not only paid the price for our sins, but He also paid the price and made a way that we could follow Him. For we, as the fallen Adam that's been redeemed, as the Spirit led Adam, the first Adam, by the Spirit that had control of all nature... Then we--the second Adam--or the man of the earth has been redeemed by Christ from the day at Calvary, can follow Him.
Now, when He died at Calvary, He made a way. He gave up the Spirit, the Holy Spirit that sent it back to the earth for you and I to live by. That's what Calvary means to us to follow Him.
First, look into it. See what it did for us, and now what must we do in regards to it. What must you and I do? Now, we say, "Well, I--I appreciate that. That's very fine." But we've got to accept it. And to accept it is to accept His Person, Christ, in our heart. Then we are free from sin. Therefore, there's no sin shackles hanging on us at all. God... Just like we had never sinned...
The perfect sacrifice made us perfect. For Jesus said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." Then there is no more to be done, but we are made perfect in the Presence of God.
E-82 Now, there's where we lose our position. If we don't watch, we try to look back to what we was; and as long as we look back to what we was, the sacrifice means nothing to us. Oh, can't you see it, church? I would no... I would not try the job; I can't, and neither can you. There's no need of trying. You're lost to begin with, as long as you look to what you've done. But don't look to what you've done, look what that day on Calvary did to you.
It paid your price. It settled the question. Your sins be as scarlet, they're as white as snow: red like crimson, white like wool. Then you have no sin. You are perfectly sinless. No matter what you done or what you do, you're still sinless. As long as you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your sins are forgiven. Anything that's forgiven is remitted and forgot about.
Then what does it do? It gives you, after that condition, His Spirit to follow Him and to do as He did, for others who is following on.
E-84 He was just one Man, the perfect Man. He gave His Life, and He made an example for you.
Now, what must we do? Now, the first thing I want to say is: Jesus never lived for Himself. His Life was spent for others. That's perfectly Eternal Life. When you say you go to church and you do good things, that's fine. But when you live your life to yourself, you haven't Eternal Life. Eternal Life is living for others.
It proved it when It come in the Lamb of God. He lived and had Eternal Life, because He did not live for Himself. He lived for others. And you receive Eternal Life by receiving that day, and you don't live for yourself no more. You live for others.
E-86 Someone said, "How can you stand and let anybody call you such bad names?" You don't live for yourself. You live for others that you might redeem that man. You become sons. And the trouble of it is, the church has forgot they were sons. You are sons. You're taking Christ's place. You are sons; so don't live for yourself; live for others.
"Well, Brother Branham, I can live for this brother because he sure is a nice man." That's not it. Live for that man who hates you. Live for that person who'd kill you if they could. That's what they done to Him. They killed Him, and He died that He might save them. That's Eternal Life. When you get, that's in your bosom, you're facing heaven then. But you sacrifice your own things, give them up like the sheep gives its wool. You look on towards Calvary.
E-89 I hope this helps you to get in a place... That's what the Tabernacle, that's what all people has got to do, is find out what you are and what's the purpose.
Church isn't going to church just to play music, sing songs. Church is a place where correction... Judgment begins at the house of God. We must reckon ourselves dead and alive to Christ. Then He made the way that we could sacrifice ourselves to His service to follow Him. If we follow Him, we lead the life that He led. That's wonderful. Jesus said, and spoke of it. Let me just give you a few quotations on it. Listen close. Don't miss it.
E-91 Jesus said at that day He would separate the people like the sheep and the goats, and He would say to the goats, "Stand on the left side," and to the sheep, "Stand on the right side." And He said to the goats, "Depart from Me, because I was hungry and you didn't feed Me. I was in prison, and you did not visit Me. I was naked, and you clothed Me not. I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink. I was sick, and you didn't visit Me. So depart from Me." And on the sheep, He said, "I was hungry and you fed Me. I was naked and you give Me clothing. I was sick and you ministered to Me." And notice, don't fail to get this, church. Keep this in your heart forever. It was so unconsciously done. The people don't do it for a line of duty. A man that gives you something or other because he ought to do it, a man that feeds you because he ought to do it, he's got a selfish idea. It should be your very life, your very action.
E-95 It was so surprising to these sheep that they said, "Lord, when were You hungry and we wouldn't feed You? When were You hungry, and we fed You? When were You naked, and we give You clothes? When were You thirsty, and we give You drink? When were You sick, and we ministered to You?" It was so automatically, out of love, it's just their life lived in them.
God, let the people see what Calvary did for us. So automatically, "When were You, Lord. We never knew that."
Look what Jesus turned and said, "Insomuch as you have done unto these, you did it unto Me." Unselfish life, not the second thought, not to think about it; but you are so dead to the things of this world, and so alive in Christ, and so walking on the highway, that these things are just an automatic thing. You just do it.
E-99 Now, I say, "When the Lord would--the Lord want me to do that." It's not that. You're just part of Him. His Spirit's in you, and you act the way He acted. Do get it. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the way of death. Not all that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter in, but they that do the will of My Father," just from their hearts, just freely.
Now, that day at Calvary paid that price so we could be that way. Not say, "You know, widow Jones one time was... She was out of coal, and I went and bought her some coal. Uh, I tell you, I seen a brother that needed a suit of clothes, and I went and got him a suit of clothes. Bless God, I'm a Christian." Oh, my, you selfish, poor, miserable person, you are hypocrites. Don't let the right hand know what the left's a-doing, nor the left know what the right's a-doing.
Just so automatically dead in Christ till you do it anyhow. It's your nature; it's your makeup. You do it anyhow. It's just the life that lives in you. You're completely yielded to that Spirit, and It just lives Itself in you.
E-104 Oh, you feel that blessed Spirit, that life, "Not me that liveth," said Paul, "but Christ liveth in me." Just so automatic...
"Well, I tell you, Brother Branham. We are Christians here. We help these people. We help them people." Oh, my, shame on you. That's not Christianity. Christianity is just automatically got a--it's to be done. And you just forget about, all about... Go do it.
Christ just completely surrendered His Life to God. He gave Hisself as a public Servant to the people. He gave His Life freely. He didn't have to do it. He didn't begrudgingly do it. He didn't say, "Now, brother, you all ought to think a whole lot of Me, because I come to die for you." He never said a word about it. He died anyhow, because it was God in Him. It's God in you. It's God in me that makes us look at others.
E-108 Sheep on one side. One of them will say, "Well, Lord, I did this, and, Lord, I did that."
He said, "Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity, I never even knew you."
If the church can ever come to those fundamental facts, that it's not something you try to do, you work yourself up to do; it's something that's born in you.
E-111 Forgive me, my Pentecostal friends. I am Pentecostal, but my Pentecostal friends has got to a spot to where there has to be a lot of fast music, beating of some bands, or clapping hands, or tambourines to bring up a shout. That's only emotions. They play the bands before they go to battle to get people in the emotion of battle. I believe in music. I believe in clapping of hands, but I believe in these things. That's exactly true. We ought to have that, but you have left the great things undone, is that self-sacrifice Life that God lives in you, automatically doing that which is right, because it's right: just going on, don't even think nothing about it, just living it. Then watch... You see what's going on, you just--you don't--you're on the highway. That's what Calvary meant to you: on the highway--opened up that day for you.
E-113 Now, now remember, you cannot be half goat and half sheep. They won't mix. Now, there's a lot of people who say, "Yes, you know what? We got a organization in our group. We--we help the poor. We do this." That's all right, but you're tooting your own horn about it. You don't do that. You do your alms in secret; Jesus said. Just automatically something to you; it's no more than going and getting a drink of water. You're thirsty. If the next man's thirsty, you think about him too. The next man's need, you think about him the same as your own need, and don't pay no attention to it, just live on.
E-116 Now, you can't be half sheep and half goat. So if you say, "Well, our church has got an organization. We give to the poor. We do this, and do that, and do the other." If you had that without that other, the life of Christ in you, you're just absolutely doing it in vain. Jesus...
Paul said, I Corinthians 13, "Though I give all my goods to feed the poor, and have my body burned as a sacrifice, it profit me nothing." Now, this is hard but it's truth. You got to come to that fact. Recognize what Calvary did for you.
E-118 We look at it and say, "Oh, yes that's fine." That ain't it. If that Son of God had to go to Calvary for crucifixion, every son that comes must go to a Calvary. He must also have a Calvary. You must have that day of Calvary. I've got to have that day of Calvary. That settles the sin question. Not shake hands with the preacher, not be shook into the church, not come in by letter, not come in by profession, but come in by a birth.
He never gave a letter. He never gave a profession. He gave a birth. That's how we come in. Then from that automatically we're living Christian lives.
E-119 Now, another remark... Half goat, half sheep, they don't have such a thing. You're not half goat and half sheep, you're either goat or sheep. Now, if you're just doing good things, and think you can get in by that, then there wouldn't have to be a day of Calvary. The law provided that. But being it taken the day of Calvary was to bring that in, that we could not be just church members, but be sons and daughters of God.
That's what the day at Calvary was. That's what it meant to you. That you might do, and follow, and act like Jesus...
Now, the river doesn't run up and down at the same time. The river only runs one way, and the Spirit of God just runs one way. It doesn't mix things with it, runs the same way.
E-122 Watch Jesus, in closing. Jesus said, "The works that I do shall you do also, and greater than this shall you do, for I go to My Father." I'm not saying this so much to the church here; you understand; but these messages are taped. Tens of thousands hear them around the world. I'm going to answer that question for the critic right now.
I've often been said--told, they said, "Why, you believe the Bible?"
Jesus said, "These works that I do shall you do also, and greater than this shall you do, for I go to My Father."
E-125 How bad can you get, mister? How far away from discernment can you wander with your intellectual theologies, with your mental conception of anything? My gracious and lost friend, can you not understand that this Bible is spiritually interpreted? Jesus thanked the Father He'd hid it from the educated, and shrewd, wise, and prudent, and would reveal it to babes such as would come to Calvary.
E-127 Now, watch, Jesus said... Watch how He stated it. "The works that I do (He's doing them right now.)--the works that I'm doing now, healing the sick, raising the dead, opening the eyes of the blind, these works shall you do also. You'll do these if you believe in Me. You do these works, and then a greater than this shall you do, for I go to My Father. A little while and the world won't see Me no more. Yet you'll see Me. I'll be with you, even in you to the end of the world. I will not leave you comfortless. I'll pray the Father. He'll send you another Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, Whom the world cannot receive, yet you can receive Him."
Now, notice, the greater works was to have the power in the church, not only to heal the sick by prayer, cast out devils by prayer, but to impart Eternal Life to believers. The Holy Ghost was coming and given into the hands of the church to impart life. Oh, that's what Calvary meant.
It took stooped, degraded men and women and lifted them into a place to be sons and daughters of God to heal the sick and to impart Eternal Life. By giving the Holy Ghost to obedient believers, men who were once unbelievers be made believers and impart spiritual Eternal Life.
E-130 How much greater is it to say to this sick woman laying here, "I can pray a prayer of faith," and she'll be healed. That's a great thing. That's what He was doing then, but said, "Greater than this shall you do. I'm going to give you power, not only to raise him up for a while, but to give him Eternal Life, which will be eternal forever."
Poor, blind, wretched people, how do you miss that? Don't you see what the greater thing is? That's the greatest thing that could ever happen was to impart Eternal Life to people.
E-132 What is Eternal Life? The Life that He lived, the Life that was in Him: impart that to others. Can a man do that? A Son of God can. Jesus said, "Whosoever sins you remit to them they are remitted. Whosoever sins you retain, to them they are retained."
Now, here's where the Catholic church and many of the others made their big mistake. They go out and say, "I forgive your sins." That wasn't it.
How did they get sins forgiven in the Bible? Peter answered that question on the day of Pentecost. They said, "What can we do to be saved? How can we get this that you all got?"
He laid down the prescription. He told them what to do. He said, "Repent, every one of you towards God, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ." What for? "The remission of your sins." There's the greater works.
E-136 How many of you preachers this morning, how many of you listening to my word on magnetic tape, are willing to go to Calvary this morning and look what God did there for you, and forsake your denominational creeds, and preach the Gospel? Hallelujah. It's in your lap now. What are you going to do with it? Why? Repentance and remission of sins must be preached in His Name to all the world beginning at Jerusalem. Hallelujah, there you are.
What does Calvary mean to you? What'd that day do to you? Did it stuff you out with some theology? Did it make you a stuffed shirt, or did it make you a Christian, sold out (Hallelujah.), sins remitted? Greater works than this shall you do. You see where the ye's are, don't you? Greater works than this, remitting sins in the Name of Jesus Christ. But through creeds, and denominations, and so forth, it's bound you down to a place you're still serving the world.
E-140 Tell me any man, tell me, any women can come to Calvary, and try to be a big somebody because somebody said something. Tell me where you can look in the face of Calvary in its right light, that day in Calvary...
How can you have your day on Calvary and come out a stuffed shirt? How can you come out a puppet for some organization and preach some man-made doctrine? Why don't it humble you to the Word of God? If you ever go there, you'll come out humble. How can you want to be some big something in your organization with a feather in your hat, when Jesus Christ the Son of God humbled Himself to a hacked-up body to a spitted face, until shame and disgrace, and they stripped His clothes off, and crucified Him before the world, despising the shame? How can you go to Calvary and come away anything different than what He was: a disgrace, a shame?
Oh, you say, "They'll kick me out." Let them kick. Have your day at Calvary. God will have His way with you. Let me quote that again. Have your day at Calvary; God will have His way with you. Let us pray.
E-142 Lord, O God, take us all up to Calvary just now. Let us get away from self, Lord, the fear of man, the fear of what somebody else is going to say. Why, the whole world laughed at Him, made fun of Him. But He was obedient to death; He was obedient to disgrace. He was obedient even under the federal government. We realize that when Satan smote this earth, he became the ruler and authority in this earth. He witnessed the same before our Lord and said, "These kingdoms are mine. I'll do with them what I will." And we realize that from that day to this, this world, under the curse, has been ruled by the one that cursed it. But God, O God, we serve a Kingdom that's uncursed.
Father God, how marvelous it is that You've done some great things in the--in the picture world today, letting these great pictures like "Ten Commandments," and so forth, come out, to let men and women see, that wouldn't even darken a church door, but let them see what it is. God's way is a rejected way by the world, because we're like we going to Russia under Communism...
We are in this world, but we're not of this world. We have went to Calvary. We've crucified ourselves, with the Kingdom of God, to be one of His. No matter what the world says, we take the way with the Lord's despised few. We go on to the resurrection, and we believe that that's soon at hand, Lord, to when we will be resurrected into a Kingdom that will take over this world as Daniel foresaw it, and it broke all the world up into little chaff, and the wind blew it off of the summer threshing floors. But the Mountain, the Stone, growed into a great Mountain that covered the earth. That Stone shall come. O God, we want to be a part of it. Let us deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and live for Christ, live for others. Grant it, Lord.
E-146 If there be some here this morning that doesn't know Him as Saviour and would like to be remembered in the closing prayer, and would like for this to be your day at Calvary, would you raise your hands, and say, "Pray for me, Brother Branham. I want to know Him as my Saviour." God bless you, young fellow. Someone else? God bless you, my brother, back there. Would there be someone else say, "I want to know Him. I want this to be a day at Calvary for me. I'm sick and tired. What's the use of me trifling around here with the very thing that I was born to do? I was born, born to be a son of God, and here I am holding on to the things of the world. God, let me be crucified today. Let me crucify today myself and my ideas, that I might live with Christ and live for others. No matter what they do to me, if they make fun of me, and persecute me, and say all evil against me, and things, let me just humbly walk along, meek like a lamb, like He did. Someday He's promised to raise me up again at the last days. I'm looking for that day."
Would there be some more hands go up? God bless you back there, and you. All right, some more, just would... God bless you, God bless you. Some more that before we pray...
E-148 Our heavenly Father, it was said when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, "As many as believed was added unto the church." They truly believe with all their hearts, these people that just raised their hand. I believe that they have believed with all their hearts. And if they have, there's a pool of water waiting here. They want those sins forgiven; there's somebody here that can baptize them in that Name, and the only Name that there is under heaven given among men, that we must be saved. For as I quoted the Scripture a few moments ago, that repentance and remission of sin must be preached in His Name to all the world, beginning at Jerusalem... And at Jerusalem, when repentance and remission of sin was preached, the apostle told them of the Scriptures and said they must repent first and then be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. That was the preacher's business to do. For them to repent, and him to baptize them for the remission of their sins, "Whosoever sins you remit, to them they are remitted. Whosoever sins you retain, to them they are retained."
E-150 Father, how did the world ever get off on a tantrum like they have? Why not believe the simple Gospel? And they even bring in for that to substitute false names, false baptisms, false Holy Spirit baptisms, shaking hands with ministers, using the titles of Father, Son, Holy Ghost which is never in the Scriptures, a document made by Roman men, not a Christian teaching nowhere in the Bible. Remission of sins cannot be remitted through titles, but through the Name of Jesus Christ.
Now, Father, we know it's very unpopular. Your ways has always been that way; but let men and women this morning come to that day, that day at Calvary, where Jesus despising that day, that shame to be stripped off, to be hacked to pieces, to be spit on, and made fun of by the whole world, by the church, by the people who should've loved Him; and yet in all of that, He opened not His mouth and went and died for those people that were making fun of Him.
E-152 God, take us to Calvary this morning, and if they say we're crazy, they say we got the Scriptures wrong, whatever they want to say, God, they cannot stand in the Presence of God and say it's wrong.
They cannot cover their sins by the Bible. The Bible uncovers their sins, their unbelief to be popular to do like the rest of the crowd. Let them come to Calvary this morning and begin at Jerusalem, that repentance and remission of sins must be preached in His Name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Let them take that same crucified step to be hacked, and spit upon, and made fun of, and called everything that can be called in the line of religious renegades, tearer-up of churches, all they want to call.
May we, Lord, this morning take our way with the Lord's despised few. May we walk like the apostles did, neither turning right or left, and from the goodness of our hearts serve God. Grant it, Father.
Now, heal the sick and the afflicted that's coming into the prayer line. May these who raise their hands, in their hearts repent right now. May they who have stood back so long, quickly move to the water and have their sins remitted upon the Name of the sacrifice, Jesus Christ the Son of God. Amen.