The Law having a shadow

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Thank you, Brother Smith. Good evening, friends. It's a privilege to be here in Binghamton tonight representing our Lord Jesus Christ and His love to all mankind. It's an odd thing of me being here. I was fixing to go somewhere else, and just in the spur of a moment something happened that I come to Binghamton. And I don't understand it yet.
We just come back from overseas, from India, my son and I. Then I'd had a little meeting down at Owensboro, Kentucky, with the Assemblies of God. And we were down there a few nights, come from there and was many places, as you know how it is, so many of God's children are sick and needy.
And I'd kind of purposed in my heart to just preach the Gospel awhile and let the healing go for a little bit. Not saying I'd let it go, but ... relax, so I can talk to people. Usually under that terrific anointing of the Holy Spirit... There's many of you, probably's all, been in the meetings. It kind of has an awful effect upon me, weakening me and so forth.
And I've never had the chance to get to shake hands with ministers, and get acquainted, and so forth. I was just going to take a little time around just kind of get acquainted with everyone. We might as well get acquainted here; we have to know each other up there a long time, don't we? So, we just might as well get used to each other here.

2 And usually in that type of meeting, they keep me fastened in a room. You know how it is. And come and knock at the door, and you're by yourself all day long, and all night long, and into the meeting. And, of course, everybody you meet, you start talking to them, and there starts the vision, you see. So, then it just tears you up for the meeting that's coming in the evening.
So, we've taken this time just to go around and visit our brethren; many of them calling from different parts of the nation.
And Mr. Boze, in Chicago... They have the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, and then they had the inside sports arena there for the service. And Mr. Boze had just come down. I was just about ready to go over and tell him, "All right"; and he was at the airport. And I put on my coat and started to walk out the door, when I did, the phone rang at the house. And so we got four phones we can answer on, so I just stepped back and picked up the phone, and it was Mr. Gardner of the city here, one of the Christian Business Men. And so I knew him well, and he said, "Come up and have a meeting for us, Brother Branham."

3 And I said, "Well, Brother Gardner, you know," I said, "just going over to the airport to meet Mr. Boze for a meeting in Chicago, or something." I said, "I don't know what they'd do. I've kind of been moody for the last few days, not knowing which way to turn."
And he said, "Well, our church has been fasting and praying." And Something said to me, "You'd better go up there." So, here I am. So, I'm just kind of on your hands now. I don't know just what to do. And I come up to minister, to speak of the Word of the Lord. Our Brother Smith here: I've met him, your pastor, a lovely brother. I don't say it because I'm standing in his pulpit, but he is. And then the brother from New York, who was our singer, I've met him before; and meeting many of the different Christian Businessmen today. And it's been a great time since I've been in Binghamton the last two days.
And I've always been a little partial of New York. I like New York. It's one of my favorite states in the union. And I thought some day I would like to live up here at one of these lakes.

4 When I was a little boy... I like to hunt, and my conversion never took it out of me. I still like to hunt. So, New York is one of my favorite states, up around Lake Placid and up in the Adirondack, you know. And I think it's just one of the garden spots of the world, to my opinion. And I like good cold weather. And I'm initiated right tonight. So, we just... I like it real well, better than I do the hot weather of the south. And your people here are nice, and I have always been treated so nice in New York. My uncle lives Plattsburgh up here and my wife's sister lives at White Plains, and so I have many things in common in New York.

5 So it's a great privilege tonight to be here in this lovely church with this lovely group of people, to minister to you in the name of our Lord Jesus. And I don't sit and make itineraries, because my meetings are just a little ... sometimes a little different; not ... I don't mean for it to be that way, but just ... God deals with individuals different ways. And sometimes I've been right in meetings where ten thousand people gathered and He'd pull me away to one person somewhere. And so I just have to kind of follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. I'm sure that we all understand that, as Christians, don't we? To follow the leading of the Spirit.
So, we don't know just what will take place. So, I'm just here, that's all; and whatever He leads, well, that's the way it'll go on, I suppose.

6 Thank you for your kindness of coming out tonight. The opening night, the first time in this country probably... You know, we may be just a little curious and so forth. Let's shake that away from us tonight, and just let the Lord speak to us and tell us what He wants us to do. And if He wants me to stay more than these two or three nights, that's all right. I just want to stay till He says, "I want you to go over somewhere else, to Macedonia." And so that's the way I like it; and I'm sure we all do that, by loving our Lord Jesus, and being His servants.
And now... We have just returned from India, to a wonderful, successful trip. Coming up a few moments ago, when they started singing that song: Only Believe. Oh, I just think of how many times that's called me to the platform the last few years---thousands of times.

7 And in India, we had a great meeting and we preached and had a divine healing service right in the shadows of the Vatican, in Rome. And in Portugal, went on into from Lisbon, on down into Egypt and then over into India. Where I think our greatest audience was in India, that we ever had. We couldn't even see them. It was estimated around five hundred thousand people at the meeting. So, it was much larger than the African meeting where there was about... Oh, we could put about fifty or seventy-five thousand inside the racetracks, then you couldn't see down the streets. Nothing down what was... The people were there. Our Lord Jesus was great to us there.
And the thing that thrilled my heart more than the thousands of healings and the miracles that our Lord Jesus done, was to see thirty-thousand raw heathens come to Jesus Christ, at one altar call. Thirty-thousand people who had never accepted Christ before, worshipped idols and so forth, come to the Lord Jesus at one time. Now, you just about imagine how you felt. You just felt like you could cry, or, well, you felt kind of religious, you know. Kind of like you would just ... real good. Missionaries weeping, laying on the ground; and so it was really a marvelous time.

8 God might not give us that many converts, but He will be with us here at Binghamton. Don't you think so? Right here. He loves us just as well as He loves those people over there and in denominations. Of course, we don't represent any denomination---perfectly interdenominational.
My people before me were Irish, which were Catholic. I was converted and joined a Baptist church, which I was licensed and ordained under the Missionary Baptist church, in the Southern Baptist convention. And then, after that, well, the Lord appeared to me to pray for His children; and it was a little misunderstood with the Baptist church. And so, I thought surely if God wanted me to pray for His children, He'd have somebody who believed it. So I got over with the Pentecostal people and it was just like putting a glove on your hand. It was just ... fit right in, because they believed in such, so I was just right at home.

9 And I was always kind of misunderstood as a boy. You've read my life story perhaps, how He appeared to me and said, "Don't never drink or smoke and so forth." Now, some of you here might smoke and still say you're Chri... That's up to you, see. I'm not saying those things. He told me not to. So, I'm not to smoke or anything and defile myself in the way of immoral living, that there's a work for me to do when I got older.
And among my brothers, my associates, I was kind of a misfit. And then when I joined the Baptist church, they thought I had a little too much religion, I guess. So, I was kind of a misfit. So, you know they say, "Birds of a feather..." (Ha, ha.) So when I got over here, I was just right at home then. So, I've been feeling good about it ever since. And I love to have this time of fellowship.

10 Now, I think that the Bible is the Word of God. And I believe that all ... everything must be based on the Bible---any subjects, whatever it may be. And people many times differ with me (my!), but that doesn't bother me. I love them just the same, you see. And they're still my brothers and sisters, and I don't fall out with any one. And I just had a entertainment in India where seventeen different religions, anti-Christians, met with me in the Sikh... in the Jains Temple, and they're seventeen different religions---antichrist. Well, I never fussed with them. I just let them express theirs, and then the Lord vindicated what I was talking about that night. So, thousands times thousands and thousands of them came to Jesus Christ that one meeting, you see. So, it's the thing...

11 A man can make a statement; he can be wrong, because he's just a man. We're all subject to mistakes, but when God makes a statement, that's truth. That's truth.
And now, until we get acquainted, and see what the Lord wants us to do, I feel if we just read some of His Word and talk about that tonight... We don't want to keep you too long in the meetings at night. The Lord may give us a great service of evangelism. He may give us a healing service. We don't know. Whatever He does we'll say, "Amen, dear Lord." That's right.
Now, there's many ... any of us that is able to hold a Bible, could open it like this, but there's nobody really can open it but the Lord, see. For, remember in the vision in Revelations, He saw One sitting on the throne? And He had the book in His hand and no man in Heaven, or in earth, or beneath the earth was worthy to take the book, or to even look on it, or open the seals of it. And a Lamb that had been slain from the foundation of the world, came and took the book out of the right hand of Him that sits upon the throne, and opened and loosed the seals, for He was worthy. And that's the Lamb of God, the Author of this book. So, before we try to open it, shall we speak to the Author of this book while we bow our heads.

12 Our kind, loving Father, we come to Thee tonight in the humility of Spirit, and ask forgiveness of our sins, as Thou through Thy mercy will be gracious to us to forgive us of all of our sins and our trespasses. And now, Heavenly Father, we ask this through an approach through the name of the Lord Jesus, for we have no other way of assurance. But He has told us: "Whatever you ask the Father in My name that will I do." Then we are sure of having a little time with You, if we will only ask in His name, we know that You will hear.
So, Father, we pray now that in His name You will forgive every one of us of our sins and trespasses against Thee. And if there be any sin in our lives, take it out, Father. We don't want it to be there, for it would just corrupt our journey here on earth and we'd fail at the end. So, we pray that You will forgive us of every short coming, and let the blood of Thy Son the Lord Jesus cleanse us tonight from all unrighteousness.
Bless this little church, Father, the members, the pastor, all of its workers, and the churches that's represented here. Bless the cities, Father, here and the surrounding about.

13 And we pray that You will send the Holy Spirit, and may He go through these cities and comb out, and put a mark upon the people. Grant it, Father. May this be a marking and a separating time among Thy people, that men that has got a desire in their heart to serve Thee may come close to Thee. May the hearts of the saints be filled with the Holy Spirit. Grant it. And may sinners find pardoning grace at the altar of their hearts. Grant it, Lord.
Now, if it be Thy will for us to have services, the healing of the sick, or anything that Thou would have for us to do, manifest it to us Lord; give us the witness of it: appear and show us. We're just here, Father, moving slowly and waiting to see what You will do.
Now we commit all these things, these blessings into Thy hands. And now come, Lord Jesus, and take the Word; may the Holy Spirit carry it to every heart just as we have need of tonight. And when we leave, may we say it like them of old who came from Emmaus, "Did not our hearts burn within us because of the Lord Jesus speaking to us?" For we ask it in His name and for His glory. Amen.

14 This is a brand new thing for me, to start teaching in the Word. Now years ago as the pastor at the tabernacle as a Baptist minister, we used to have great classes. And we would run them maybe a series of subjects for a complete year. Start in the book of Genesis and just tie the Bible together; and start in the book of Exodus and run it, and the book of Daniel, wherever, and maybe the book of Revelations. And just take the entire book from place to place.
And all of God's Word is written by inspiration. There's not a contradiction in the entire Bible; if there is, I want to seek it. It's nothing in there that's written that cannot be straightened out by the Word of God, if it's rightly put in its place. But we'll never do it by man's understanding. The Holy Spirit wrote the Bible, and the Holy Spirit is the only One who can interpret the Bible. And He would give it to us as we have need.

15 Now, in the Scripture tonight that I was thinking of, coming down here, was to read some out and teach a little, if the Lord willing, out of the book of Hebrews. One of my favorite places in the Scripture is this great book because it's a separating.
And now, in the tenth chapter, we'll begin and read just awhile, and see what the Holy Spirit has for us; trusting that He will bless every heart of every believer, and if there be any unbeliever that they will become believers tonight.
Now, this great book of the book of Hebrews. Of course, scholars are in difference of it, who wrote it. Myself, it sounds to me like it was Saint Paul's writing. It sounds like his technique, the way he approached the Gospel. Now, in here he's writing to the Hebrews. And in here... Being the Hebrews lived under the law... It's a good thing to begin right here for it starts:
... the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of those things, can never with those sacrifices which were offered year by year continually make the comer unto perfect.

16 Now, the law having a shadow... Many times you've heard people refer to the Twenty-third Psalm saying, "Yea, though I walk through the dark shadows," or, "The valley of the dark." We always use a dark in there, it's not, see. The valley of the shadow, not the dark shadows, or the dark valley; it's the valley of the shadow of death. Now showing that if it's ... got a shadow there has to be a certain percent of it light or it wouldn't make a shadow. So, death, itself, is just a shadow. In other words it's a scarecrow to the believer, trying to scare him when there's enough light mixed into it to show that there's light somewhere. And now the law having a shadow of things to come...

17 In the twelfth chapter of Revelations we would read where the woman appeared in the sky, and she was in travail to give birth to a child, and the moon was under her feet, and the sun was at her head. Now that represented the law. The church, of course was... The woman was the church, and the moon under her feet represented the law, and the sun at her head represented the dispensation of grace. And the moon is a shadow of the sun. The moon and the sun represent Christ and the church. In other words, the moon and the sun is husband and wife. That when the moon, only is reflecting the shadow of the sun; the sun is shining on the moon; it reflects the light to the earth, when it's dark.

18 Now, as Christ went away, like the sun when it sets, the moon comes up to give a light until the sun returns. But when the sun returns, the moon just fades out and the sun makes the light. And that's the same thing it is with law and grace. Law was to reflect, or shadow, of the light until the light came, and the light was the Lord Jesus. And law faded out, see, when the light taken its place. Now, but the moon in there... There was enough in the reflection to reflect the light, showing that there was a hope, and a blessed place to go to after life was over, for the law reflected that in the light of the Gospel. Now the moon is to give light while it's dark, in the absence of the sun.

19 And now the church is to give the light, a lesser light, in the absence of the Lord. And then when the light of the moon is shining, and the sun comes into the moon, they both blend together, and it makes one light, so will it be when the Lord Jesus returns. The light that the church has reflected... And the same Jesus, the same works, the same light, the same thing that He did here when He was here on earth is reflected by His church, showing that He is living somewhere.
When I look out tonight and can see the moon a shining, the stars shining, the lesser light, when I can see that, it's a guarantee of one thing, that the sun's shining somewhere. That's right.

20 Not long ago, a few years ago, I used to pastor the Milltown Baptist church. And I would go home at night out to some friends I stayed with, way out in the country. And we'd pass by an old cedar bush; come up over the hill. And way down in southern Indiana there's a lot of rolling country like you have here. And there used to be a nightingale (I guess you have them here.), and he would sing all night long; and I just love to hear that bird. And as I would pass by at night, I'd hear him. He would sing all night. And I notice on a cloudy night he would sing awhile then he would stop awhile. Then he'd sing awhile and then he'd stop awhile. And after awhile, he'd cut loose and sing again.
So I got to studying the nature of the nightingale. And he sits at night looking heavenward. And as he looked up that way, he watched for the stars; and when he could see nothing, he'd sing not; but when he could see one star shining, he'd look straight to that star and begin singing. I thought, What a lesson. There you are.

21 Oh, if I could walk out tonight and ask the stars, "Little star, what makes you shine?"
If that little star could speak back to me, he'd say, "Brother Branham, it isn't me shining; it's the sun shining on me that's making me shine."
That's the way it is with any born-again Christian, when they are giving a life of testimony or doing something like that---giving their testimony, living a life for Christ---it is not the individual; it's the Holy Spirit reflecting back His light on the individual, making him a light to shine.
And as long as that nightingale could see one star shining, he'll sing. Excuse this expression, but as long as I can hear a good hardy "Amen" once in awhile, I know Christ still lives and reigns in His church---when you can hear something that reflects something about the Gospel, a reflection back, coming back.
Oh, how you can watch God if you just watch the elements of nature.

22 Here sometime ago, I was up in the mountains, and I went by an old spring that I always drink from, when I go up there. And this was the happiest spring I ever seen in my life. It just bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble all the time. And I thought, Little spring what makes you so happy? Why are you bubbling and jumping all the time? I thought, Maybe because deers drink from you is what makes you bubble and jump.
If he could speak, he'd say, "No, Brother Branham, that isn't why I'm jumping."
I'd say, "Well now, maybe because bear come by once in awhile and drink from you; maybe that's what's makes you bubble and jump."
He'd just speak back, he'd say, "No, Brother Branham."
I'd say, "Well, maybe it's because I'm drinking out of you, what's make you bubble and jump."
He'd say, "No, that isn't it."
I'd say, "Well, what makes you so happy and jumping all the time?"
If he could speak, he'd say, "Brother Branham, the reason I'm a jumping, it's not me; it's something behind me pushing me, making me jump." And that's the force of the water spraying up.

23 And so is every man and woman that's borned of the Spirit of God, the instant you've become changed, there's something about you that something has moved in, made you a different person. You look on life different, you look at things different. It isn't you that's a bubbling. It's something within you pushing it out. It's Christ pushing out the testimony and the life. And it all comes back to Christ.
The law having a shadow of things to come could not make the comer perfect. What's the subject called speaking of this? Perfection. God requires perfection. No one could ever come to Heaven outside of these perfect [unclear words]. Perfect. You must be perfect. And yet the Scripture says, "None is perfect." So if you must be perfect to come to Heaven, and the Scripture says none is perfect, and we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God, how are we ever going to enter God's living place and dwelling place, when He requires perfection? Jesus said, I believe in the ... in Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." Think of the perfection that God requires of the person---of perfection.

24 We seen the first, given in the Garden of Eden... The man was in a perfect state. After awhile he fell, and then he marred his perfection. He marred his heritage with God, lost his fellowship and was cut off away from God. When I think of perfection, then how could we ever be perfect? Now, the writer here said, "These sacrifices which was offered every year continually could never make the comer unto perfect." The requirement is perfection, and the sacrifice of animal life could never make the comer perfect.
Animal life, the blood of animals, goats, and heifers, and sheep, so forth was animal blood, and in the bloodstream lays life. Life is in the blood cell. Life lays in blood.

25 Here a few weeks ago, when the Sikhs, or the Jains, rather, with something over their mouth so they'd never breathe a gnat. They thought if they breathed a gnat, killed it, it might be some of their relations that was coming back in the form of insects. And it's just the way that they went to be sure they wasn't sitting on an ant, or something.
I said, "How could that people ever accept the blood sacrifice?" And would not even kill an ant, or wouldn't even sterilize a knife when they'd cut one of their fingers off in a operation, because they was afraid they'd kill a germ that was on the knife. Could you imagine? I said, "Where does the basis of your religion lay?"

26 He said, "On man." All on goodness, all on works; no grace, you see. All on goodness, what a man can do. If a man lives good enough, he'll be God himself---if he could live good enough.
I said, "Look. Life lays in the blood cell. And without the shedding of blood there's no remission of sin, innocent substitute has to take a guilty sinner's place." Oh, I want you to get this now. Notice. An innocent substitute must take the guilty one's place, and it happened in Eden that same way; that when Adam sinned, he cut off his fellowship with God the Father. And when he had sinned, before he could stand before God, God had to kill some sheep, perhaps, whatever it was, and make a covering. Blood had to be offered in substance because the blood ... where life laid, and God required life at sin.

27 Sin's judgment is to take life. Notice how people now can look and see that's how we believe so supremely in the blood of the Lord Jesus. Jesus, I used to think was a Jew, or He was Jewish blood. He was born of a Jewish mother, but He wasn't Jewish blood. Neither was He Gentile blood. He was the blood of God, see. God the Father overshadowed the virgin Mary, and created a blood cell in the womb, that brought forth the Son, Christ Jesus. You see what I mean? Every male... The blood cell comes out of the male.
Like, the hen can lay the egg but it isn't fertile unless she has been with the male bird. And I've often said this, not for a joke, because I don't believe in it the platform, but as an expression: You take an old mother bird can lay a nest full of eggs, and she can hover them; she can turn them; she can be so loyal with them until she sat on that nest till she gets so poor, she can't fly off the nest---so loyal to those eggs. But unless that mother bird has been with the male bird, they'll never hatch. They're not fertile.
That's the way it is with a lot of churches today. You can get a bunch of people, you can baby them, and this, and that, and the other and whatever you want to, but if they haven't been with Christ Jesus and born again, you just got a nest full of rotten eggs, that's all. That's right.

28 It's time to clean out and get a hold of something, or somebody who has been in contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, and been born again. You will never be able to get them believing the supernatural, 'cause there's nothing in them to believe with. Amen. Now that's not skim milk. Look. That's right. A man must be borned-again by the Spirit of God, and then the Spirit of the Creator Himself comes into the individual, and claims relationship as sonship. You see it? Then that person is an offspring of God, and God who spoke the worlds into existence, and this man's an offspring off Him. He can believe anything. All things are possible unto him, for he believes he's a part of God. He's a son of God, or a daughter of God.
Say, "You believe in divine healing?"
"Certainly, God said so. Yes, sir."
"Do you believe in being borned...?"
"Sure. Yes, sir. God said so." They believe anything. Anything God says, that's all right, because God's Word will be made...

29 Any divine promise in this Bible will come to pass, if you'll believe it will. The right mental attitude towards any divine promise will bring it to pass. Notice. Then how are we ever going to get to Heaven?
I want to ask you tonight: If you only belong to church here, if you've never really been born again, I want to ask you how're you going to Heaven and the Bible said you must be perfect? And the law testified of perfection. The law having a shadow could never make the believer perfect. Then how're you going to be perfect?

30 Notice. In the Old Testament the believer when he come, he went out---John Doe---and maybe committed adultery, told a lie or something. He came with a lamb. How the great Lamb testified, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The first thing, the lamb must be perfect. The lamb must be without a blemish for the sin offering. Could you imagine that? A lot of people think, I know there's people in this city, Well, I could be a Christian if I'd just could quit this. If I could just be a better man. If I could be a better woman. You'll never be better in that estate. You can never get better until something comes in you to make you better, and then you're born again, see. You can't do it.

31 Just like under the old law, if a little ... say, the mother horse gave birth to a little baby mule down there, and the little fellow was borned with his ears broke down, cross-eyed, knock-kneed. What a horrible-looking creature. Anyone here ever plowed knows what a broken-eared mule is, see. Oh, he's no good for nothing. And you would look at him, you'd say... Well, if the little fellow could see and understand, he'd look and say, "Well, it won't be long; he'll never feed me. When he come out... The master of the place here comes out finds me he'll just knock me in the head and throw me over in the ditch, because I'll never be no use. Look at me; I'm no good at all. Look at my ears are broken down, my eyes are crossed, my knees are knocked together, I can't even walk straight. I'm a horrible person."

32 But if the old mother was rightly instructed, she would say, "But wait a minute, son; let me tell you something. The priest will never see you, but the man of the house, when he comes out this morning and sees you were born under a birthright; you're the first one, you have a birthright. So the master will have to go and get a lamb that will have to be examined by the priest without a blemish, and he'll have to die in your place so you can live. Why, the little fellow could, my, kick up his heels and run and have a big time, why, he's never going to see him. The priest isn't going to see him. The priest is going to examine the lamb, to see if there's any fault in the lamb---not the mule; the lamb---because the mule was born with a birthright. Oh, my! I begin to feel religious, see.

33 God never examines the believer till you're dead, and your life is hid in God through Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit. God looks at the Lamb. Christ died in your stead. The Lamb, without a blemish. Notice. This little mule, then, he could have a good time.
Here sometime ago, just a little farmer, he was a good farmer. He didn't have much of a barn, and he didn't have much to work with, but he was an industrious man. Reminds me of some of the pastors, maybe: might not have a very big church, or very much this way, but they're industrious. They like to work and bring some spiritual food to the church, preach the whole Word.

34 So the farmer, he raised a good crop. His neighbor got some tractors, and so forth. And he had a nice big barn and almost fourteen carats on the door knob of the barns. And he had a wonderful barn, but he was too lazy to work. So, that year all the farm growed up in weeds. And so when it come harvest time the only thing the farmer with the great beautiful barn and everything could do was cut his weeds and put it up there to feed his stock. But he had a beautiful barn; oh, it was pretty. So, with the other farmer, he was an industrious man. He didn't have much of a barn, but he'd raised some good alfalfa. So, he put it up in the barn loft to feed his stock.

35 In each barn there's a little calf born that year. So, the next spring when they let them out, the first thing you know, they let the little calf out up there, and it didn't have very much of a corral to run in. So, he went out there. And he was a little old fellow, he got out there, and he's all round and fat. And, my! He begin to kick up his heels in that nice warm spring wind. And he was having him a big time, just kicking up his heels and running and kicking and having a big time. All fat and round, you know, eat good hay all winter long. He was all right.
And the other fellow turned his calf out, poor little fellow that had weeds. He was so skinny, the wind nearly blowed him down. He come out. He couldn't hardly walk around like this, you know. And he peeped his little eye through the... He had a beautiful church ... or, barn (excuse me). He looked all around to see how pretty his barn was, but he's so skinny, he couldn't stand up under the pressure of the wind.
You know what kind of wind I'm talking about. That wind---like come on the day of Pentecost, come sweeping down through there. The wind begin to blow. It was staggering him, he couldn't stand it.
The other little fellow was fat and round---better he liked it. Made him feel good. You know what I'm talking about, surely. All right.
You know what that little skinny calf did? He peeped down through the crack and looked over there at that other little fat calf jumping up and down. He said, "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Such fanaticism. My, my, such fanaticism." The poor little fellow hadn't been fed.
That's the way it is in a lot of places today, brother. What we need today is a good old-fashioned, Holy-Ghost revival sweep the country to fill the people full of the vitamins of God's Word---where they'll know where they're standing, and know.
Taking the fear out of the church. Now, the people ... where we know that by grace we are saved and filled with the Holy Spirit and sealed to the day of redemption. Yes, sir. Takes all the fear out. How God bless...
Notice. Then when the man come to sin, he had to make a sin-offering. He brought the lamb. He knew he must die, because God had done said, "The day you eat thereof, that day, you die." So, she seen something had to die in his place. [Gap in the audio.] [ Unclear words.]
He confessed his sins.
Then, there was a note made of that and put in the book. So he took the little lamb up to the priest, laid it down, confessed his sins upon its head. He pulled the knife, the priest did, cut its throat. Did you ever hear a lamb die? It's the most horrible thing you ever heard. The little fellow there kicking, jumping, his blood going out of him and his little white wool being bathed as the blood sprinkled all over him. And this sinner sitting there with his hands on the lamb, confessing, "That ought to be me dying, Lord, but the lamb has taken my place." So, as he felt the little fellow quivering, and jerking, and his little muscles and his wool bathed and his hands bloody... As the little fellow died, he confessed his sins.

36 Then there was a note made of that and put in the book. And if that man sinned the second time, he'd die without mercy, under two or three witnesses. But he had to know that that lamb died for him, then an innocent substitute. The man went right back out of the church with the same desire in his heart he had when he come in, because the blood cell of the lamb was a animal life and not a human life. So it could not atone for sin. It was only substitutionary; it was only a covering. The law only made a covering, but the blood of Jesus Christ divorced sin, put it away, see.
Notice. Then that man ... even the dying of the lamb, he felt the results of it there on his hands as he looked up and confessed his sins, and he was sprinkled with the blood of the lamb. He went back out with the same desire in his heart. For, the offering of sheep and goats could not make the comer unto perfect.
But... (Oh my! Here you are.) But a believer, not emotionally worked up, not upon because of some relative that's gone on, but with a sane sensible look at it, knowing that he's guilty of sin, walks to the altar of the Lord Jesus Christ, places his hands upon the dying Lamb in the respects of Calvary, and pulls down into his heart knowing that Christ was nailed there to the cross for him and died in his stead.

37 The worshipper once purged with the blood of Jesus Christ has no more consciousness of sin. Sin has gone. Looky here, in the 10th verse:
By ... which ... we are sanctified through the offering of the blood of Jesus ... once for all. (Not every year continually.)
And every priest standing daily and ministering the same offerings ... oftentimes, rather, the same sacrifice, which can never take away sins:
But (Look.) this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sets down at the right hand of God;

38 You believe it? Watch. All right, Christians. This gets you now; this seals it; watch it.
From henceforth expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. (And the last one is death.)
For by one offering he hath (What?) perfected (That's right.) perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness unto us: for after that had he said before,
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

39 Notice. But one lamb every year, they come and made another offering. Every year come back and make another offering. Every year make a remembrance of sin. But this Man after one time offering up His blood sat down at the right hand of God and the Majesty on High and has perfected forever every believer that has come and been borned-again of the Spirit of God. God has protected forever them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus. Amen. Oh, my. What we scared about? What you worried about? Don't listen what the devil has got to say; believe what God said.
Now, how could I be perfect? I couldn't be perfect. You can't be perfect. But God don't look at us... When we are born-again into the body of Christ, God looks at Christ. He took my place; He took your place. And He is the One that's perfect and we stand in Him perfected tonight before God the Father through the offering of His blood. Amen.

40 Oh, how I like that. That's good vitamins, spiritually speaking; you know it fattens you up.
Notice. Oh, Christ: that all emphasis should be laid on Him, not upon the Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal churches; it should be laid on Christ. He was the One who died.
Notice. Now, in the blood cell that God the Father when He brought forth Christ Jesus from the womb of Mary... Look. He created a blood cell. And now that blood cell ... in that was the life: God Himself. How that He formed Himself into this...
Look at a germ; look at your own body. You can see divine healing easy if you'd look at this, see where cancer tumors and so forth come from. It's devils. I can prove that by God's Word. Look at you. One time, you was just a tiny little germ; look to it through a microscope glasses, which I've had the privilege in sanatoriums, and clinics, and things where I've been interviewed. And looked at the germ in the sperm, of human sperm, just millions of them, little teeny germs, so teeny that they can't see it with the natural eye. That was every individual in here one time.

41 Now, that little germ then cold, the mother is the incubator. When it comes in there it begins to develop that one cell, spreads out, and develops another cell, another cell, another cell. And every seed will bring its kind: dog, a dog; bird, a bird; man, a man---same thing.
Now, that's where you come from, but where did the cancer come from? It's a ... it's a big growth too; it's developing cells, started from a germ. Where did that germ come from? From the devil. That's what it is. That's where tumor, cataract any other germ disease is: demons. That's exactly. Jesus said He give power to cast out devils in His name. That's exactly the Gospel, brother. The Gospel come through demonstration of the Holy Spirit.

42 Notice. Now in the germ... But when God, when Christ was in the womb of Mary... You're just a little teeny germ. Before it was a germ... What's after that germ? is a life. Then you're in the supernatural, you're in the sixth dimension, you're plumb out of human reasoning, you're into spirit life. Every little germ has a life; that life come from somewhere. The life of the cancer come from the devil. Your life come from God. That's the difference.
And God, being manifested in the flesh was Christ Jesus the anointed, wrapped Himself in a blood cell (Oh, my!) in the womb of Mary, brought forth His life. He lived a man, He died a man to give His blood that through His body and the shedding of His blood that every believer could be wrapped in that blood cell with Him. Which is a born-again Spirit of a man is wrapped in the blood cell of the Son of God, and God can no more deny you than He could deny Himself. For by one Spirit we're all baptized into one body, and become partakers of the same Spirit that's in this blood cell.
And the church is wrapped into the blood cell of the life of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! Then we are sons of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ in the kingdom.

43 Oh, my! You say, "Brother Branham, the devil got me." No, the devil didn't. You went out to the devil. The devil can't get you, for you are dead. Dead people won't argue and fuss and backbite. You're dead and your life is hid in God through Christ, and you're sealed there by the Holy Ghost. How can the devil get you? Can't do it. That's right. You get inside one time. By one Spirit, not by one letter we're all joined into one body, not by one denomination are we all brought into the body, but by one Spirit. We're all baptized by Holy Spirit baptism into one body. Whether we're Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostals or whatever we are, one Spirit has baptized us into one body of believers. Do you believe it?

44 Jesus said in Saint John 5:24 (Be sure to read it; think about handful and two dozen eggs: 5:24, John 5:24): " He" (personal pronoun, individually not the groups of whatever), " He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath," (present tense) " everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." Amen.
On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other grounds is sinking sand. You can say you have to be a Methodist, Baptist if you want to, but He said, "He that heareth My words, and believeth on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life and shall not come unto condemnation; but's passed from death unto life." That's His Word.

45 I tell you, brother, the devil can whip you around the stumps on how you felt when you got it. Somebody said, "I feel good, the reason I know I got it." That's not the reason I know I got it. The reason I know I've met God's condition and the devil can't tramp on the Word of God, it's "Thus saith the Lord." That's it. Upon the basis of the promise of God, I've met God's conditions and know I have eternal life. That's the way every believer does it: 'cause he has met God's conditions and the requirements that was laid down to him. Oh, my!
Some time ago... It's just so easy to condemn and condemn others. Some time ago we was having a meeting up here somewhere in, I believe it was, Pennsylvania; I believe around Erie, or somewhere there. No, it was over in Ohio. Toledo, I believe it was. And we were having a great meeting in some arena---thousands were there---and we couldn't get in and out, hardly. And they keep me way out in the country, in a motel. There's a little place across the street there that we were eating at; it was a lovely little place; it was Dunkards. You know, Amish or Dunkards, whatever they are. And the little ladies that worked in there were such clean, nice-acting little ladies. And we were having a wonderful time just eating there ---had such a dandy time. Well, come Sunday they all closed up and went to church. So, that's the thing to do.

46 Well, I was left out there. And Mr. Baxter, the manager, some of them going on in to speak. And so Billy, and them, had gone in to give out prayer cards. And I was there. And I thought, Well, I'm just a bit hungry. I haven't eaten now for two days. I believe I'll go get a sandwich, because I'm going to speak this afternoon. It was on Sunday. And usually on Sunday afternoons I usually tell the life story, or speak to them. Then I thought, Well, I'll find... I looked across there, and I said, "That's a place that's a restaurant"---just an ordinary place. And I walked across there, and this is shocking.

47 Brother, as soon as I walked in the door, there was a policeman standing there with his arm around a woman, playing a slot machine. Gambling is illegal in Ohio, and there was the law that's supposed to uphold righteousness, gambling himself. And he was a man as old as I am. So he must have been married and had a wife somewhere else. What a disgrace!
I looked back there and there was a young lady at the table waiting on some boys, and they was all drunk. And the way that young lady was acting ... letting them boys act to her, it was a disgrace. And I thought, Looky there, if it isn't from a ... from Paradise into a rat den, almost.

48 Listen. Let me tell you: Don't you worry about Russia coming over here and whipping the United States. Don't you worry about some nation coming over and whipping us. We're whipping ourselves. All morals is a breaking down. Yes, it isn't the robin that pecks on the apple that hurts it; it's the worm at the core that kills the apple. That's what gets the apple. So it isn't some other nation; it's our own self.
Communism is not Russia. Communism is a spirit. That's right. And it's sweeping this place and honeycombing it. You know that to be true. All right. May have more to say about that some other time.

49 But notice, this woman when she was sitting over there at that table, that young woman, I thought, Oh, my! And I looked over here and seen an old fellow sitting there, and there sat two fellows drunk, one with a great big long army overcoat on, and a dear old mother sitting there, old enough to be my grandmother. And the clothes that the woman had on, little bitty short clothes, and poor old wrinkled arms and flesh. And she had on this here manicure, ever what you call it on her lips, you know. With that... I know that's not the right stuff. I can't ... ever what it is; it's paint. And she had it all over her lips like this. It was blue, blue-looking, you know. And she had her... And I looked at the poor old thing, she was sitting there with a cigarette, smoking it.

50 And I looked, I thought, Oh, my! And two old men... I said, "God, why don't You just strike this thing off, just wipe it off the map. If me, a sinner, could look and despise such as that, how can Your great holiness look at such a thing as that and stand it?" I thought, O God, my little Rebekah and Sarah are going to have to come up here, one eight, and the other one three." I thought, "How're they going to come up here and see such as that? What will it be in their day? God, why don't You just clean the thing up?
And then God taught me a lesson. That's right. The two men got up, went to the rest room. And I was standing there looking around. And I thought, O God, looky here. What is it? Nobody that waited on me; I was just standing at the door looking around. It was kind of dark back towards the door.

51 And the Holy Spirit said to me, "Come over here." And I went over. And as I sat down, I looked, and I saw like the world and it was revolving around. And around this world was a rainbow. It looked like a streak of red, like a rainbow going around and around the world.
Then I went right into that, and when I was standing there in that, I looked and I seen somebody standing just above it with His arms out like this. It was our Lord. And I noticed myself, and every time I'd go do something wrong, just then according to grace ... according to the Word, the Father would have took my life right there. But Christ... Every time I would do a sin, then it would hit Him like that. He'd shake His head like that. In other words, His blood was acting like a bumper on the automobile. It was protecting me from death. And I thought, Oh, I see.
And I seen it come again, and there was an old book laying out there; my name written at the top. And it was a sinners' book smutted up. And my name was at the top. And I'd sin, it'd be recorded against me. God would have took my life, but the blood of Christ protected me. Every time it would hit, I'd see it like that. And I'd see those scars on His face, from them thorns, and the blood run down His ... bat His weary eyes.
He looked back at me, said, "Father, forgive him." And then, I'd go along I'd do something else, and there it would come again like that. He'd say, "Father, forgive him."

52 I thought, Oh, I see. If that's the reason God can't take the life of those people---sinners---because they are yet protected. They have a chance yet. The blood of Jesus is still protecting them. It's like a bumper to the world. I said, "Oh, I see. I see, Lord, what You mean."
Yeah, the blood of Jesus Christ covered the world like this, and every man while you're here, you're still a free-moral agent. If you reject it and reject it, and then you die and your soul goes beyond that, then you've judged yourself, God don't have to judge you, see. If you die without the blood of Christ, you're a sinner and you're lost. If you accept the blood, then you're in Christ, protected.

53 And then I'd seen Him there, as my sins kept beating Him. I got so broken-hearted, I come crawling up to Him. I laid down like this; I said, "Lord, look at my name up there!" I said, "Is that my name?"
He said, "Yes, that's your name."
I said, "God, forgive me. I didn't mean to make You suffer like that. I didn't know my sins were hurting You so bad like that. When I did things, You protected me with Your own life. Please forgive me."
He took His hand in His side, like that, and wrote across there, "Pardoned!" And put it back behind Him like that to remember it no more. And He looked down at me. He said, "Now, I forgive you, but you want to condemn her."

54 Then that made things different. I come out of the vision. I looked over there, that poor old woman sitting there, toddling, trying to smoke this cigarette and couldn't even get it to her mouth, toddling like that. I said, "Lord, God, please forgive me. I'll not be critical anymore."
I walked over to where she was, and I said, "How do you do?"
She looked up and she said, "Oh, how do you do?"
And I said, "Could I sit down a minute?"
She said, "You may."
And I sat down and looked at her. I thought, Somebody's mother no doubt. I thought, Something is behind that life; I don't know what it is. And I said, "Lady, excuse..."

55 She said, "Do you want a smoke?"
And I said, "No, ma'am, thank you."
She said, "Would you have a drink?"
And I said, "No, ma'am, thank you." I said, "I am a minister of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ." And I said, "I was standing there condemning you, and asking God why He didn't take your life." And I told her what had just happened, right there.
She said, "Oh, I know who you are." Said, "You're that preacher down there."
I said, "That's right." And I said, "What's behind your life?"
And that poor old thing begin to tell me of how she'd been mistreated and run out like that. How she had belonged to church one time, and went astray.
I said, "Have you got children?"
She said, "I've got two daughters, married, both of them are Christians."
And I said, "And you sitting out here. Aren't you kind of ashamed of yourself?"
She said, "I am, sir."
And I said, "Don't you want to accept Christ?"

56 I begin to talk to her, and took her by her poor old feeble hands, and the tears running down... She throwed that cigarette on the floor and knelt down there and humbly come to the Lord Jesus Christ. What a difference when you look at yourself one time. Who are we? Where'd we come from? There she got up wiping the tears from her eyes. She said, "I'm ashamed of myself, sir."
I said, "Now, mother, go put on your clothes. Go to church. Get some good church, and get yourself affiliated with it, and be a loyal member of Christ's body." I said, "For this day there's hundreds sitting yonder wanted to come into a prayer line or so forth, and here the Holy Spirit deals with me, to you, and me standing here criticizing you."
And God... And me, as a minister, let me know, where am I? Who'd I... Who am I? Where did I come from? What about me? I may not have done that, I may not have done them kind of immoral things, but I, still a sinner in the sight of God, and the blood of Jesus Christ had to protect me. And I accepted it, and she accepted it.

57 My brother, one of the horriblest pictures I can paint in my mind is the Garden of Eden, when God made His beautiful couple there, and put them in the garden. Little Eve, when God woke Adam up that morning and he looked... I was standing in Greece here not long ago, and seen where some Greek artist painted a picture of Eve and Adam; is the most horrible, oh, the horriblest thing I ever seen. What a discredit to the Bible or to even civilization, that such a thing could become famous as a painting like that. Adam with one shoulder up and the other one down, the hairs hanging out of his nose like that; and Eve the most horrible-looking brute you ever seen to Eve. All common sense would say that was wrong.

58 Look at the strain, look at man today when he sins. Instead of coming out before God and saying, "Father, I've done wrong; here I am." Look at the strain in the Garden of Eden, when Adam done wrong. And instead of him running up and down the garden saying, "Father, Father, where are You," it was Adam hiding behind the bushes, and God crying, "Adam, Adam where art thou?" That strain still stays in man. Instead of coming out and confessing his sins and saying he's wrong, he'll try everything in the world. He will join this church because it don't teach very strict. He'll go over and if it's a little too strict for him, he'll fall out with this church and go for the other one, trying to make himself a religion like Adam did. It's in him; that's his strain.

59 Looky here. If Eve was that sort of a looking brute, every man in the world would admire a woman that looked dirty and ungodly like that. But there's not a man, I don't care who he is, but what admires a woman that keeps her place and is clean and acts nice. If he's got any speck of man about at all, he does. So it shows the very strain that Eve was the most beautiful thing that ever set on the earth. That's right. She didn't need any Max Factor to fix herself up. She had it from God. Them beautiful teeth would never turn yellow or fall out, and that... I see her sitting there and her hair hanging down her back, and her eyes as bright as the stars of heaven. When Adam looked at her, it put such a shock; it still lives in mankind. That's right. I believe it.

60 There she was, a beautiful species. And he picked her up in his arms, and he looked at her. And said, "Well, she's flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone." As sweethearts... Almighty God squared them off there, and performed the marriage ceremony. And he took her by the arm, and down through Eden they went. Perfect: God's children.
And I believe that every woman and man that's born-again in this building, tonight, will turn back to that someday.
Oh, brother, when you see the Gospel light, what difference does sickness, death or anything else mean? Nothing can separate us from God's eternal purpose.
The other day, I was telling the brother today: I was standing to a glass combing what few hair I had left. My wife said, "Billy, you're getting bald-headed."
I said, "But praise God, honey, not one of them has perished." Here a few years ago I had real thick black hair.
She said, "Well, where are they, honey? Tell me."
I said, "Where was they before I got them? Ever where they was that's where they are again. And God will give them back to me." Hallelujah! Yes, sir!

61 Death has set in on this old mortal body here. It's creeping it, and turning me gray, and taking it down, but bless God, every atom and every light and every light meter that was ever in this body will return at the resurrection to its perfection. Hallelujah! Death has no reign over righteous. Hallelujah! The soul of man never dies. When my spirit's turned loose yonder with the King of spirits at the resurrection, it will scream. And every atom that ever made this body, when it was as strong and the best as ever, will set to its place again. Hallelujah! Yes, sir.

62 Death don't bother me; it don't bother any believer. No wonder David saw it and said, "Death, where is your sting?" ... or, Paul, "Grave, where is your victory?" Yes, sir.
There when Adam sinned then... The most horrible thing I can see is that day when them children sinned. And God called them out behind the bushes, and throwed them old bloody aprons in there. There stood His heritage, His own children standing there. Look at Eve. Around that beautiful body of hers is wrapped an old bloody sheepskin, the blood running down off of her like that, and dripping down her perfect shaped body. There's Adam standing there not a brute; a perfect-made man. His muscles in his arms, the muscles in his big legs, his shaggy hair around his shoulders, his dark beard hanging: a perfect man.

63 Look at that now. I see his shoulders stooping, around his big body here comes an old bloody sheepskin; running down those big manly legs, comes blood, tears is dripping off of his cheeks, patting on the top of Eve's head as she leans over on his bosom. And little Eve crying, the tears patting down as it mixes with blood running down her bosom. What's the matter? Something is happening. They can cry now. They're mortal now. They're dying now! There you are.
I can see God say, "Depart out of My presence." Couldn't stand it. I can see Adam start walking away and he said, "Yeah, I can hear something going [Brother Branham claps slowly.]. What it is? An old bloody sheepskin flopping against his legs as he was going out. Oh, I can see God who covers space and time, who has no beginning or ending. I can see it all bottled down like a funnel coming down like this to one four-little-lettered word: l-o-v-e. He couldn't see His children depart from Him. What? He'd made the covenant conditional with Adam, but now He makes it unconditional. He said, "I will put enmity between the woman's seed," and He'll bruise the serpent's head, and so forth: promising the Saviour.

64 Let's turn our camera to another picture. Four thousand years later we're in Jerusalem, we're at a window. I hear a noise. What is it? A screaming mob, hollering. Some poor man has come against it. We raise up the shade and look out the window. Coming down through the streets comes an old rugged cross bouncing over the cobblestones, bearing ... rubbing out the bloody footprints of the bearer. He's going to Calvary. His back beaten till His ribs is showing through nearly. There He starts up the road, walking along as He's going. Look at Him. I look all over His back. The little red spots over that little old garment was wove throughout without a seam.

65 Look at those little red spots. What are they? Directly they get bigger, bigger, bigger. First thing they all run into one big spot. Now I hear something again. [Brother Branham claps slowly.] What is it? There goes the second Adam. One brought death. Here goes the One bringing life. There's the one who took life out of the world. Here's the One who's bringing life in the world. The second Adam with His own blood hitting against His legs like that, the Son of God going to Calvary to bear away our sins yonder, that through the shedding of blood to perfect a man or woman unconditionally.
Oh, "No man can come to Me, except the Father draws Him: and all that comes, I will give him everlasting life and raise him up at the last day."

66 Oh, my! There it is. As He goes up there, I can see a little old ... a little old something stinging around him. Oh, my! Death! Buzzing at him like a bee as He goes yonder to be crucified. A bee springing around Him saying, "Oh, I got You now; I got You now," as He went moving on, moving on. The bee of death was going to sting Him. God, Himself, made flesh in order to take away sin. God the Father, and the Spirit, could not take death, of course---He was supernatural---but He had to be made flesh. And there He was dragging the cross on, and that bee stinging around Him: Death.
But you know what? Insect bees, you all know them here; you raise a lot of honey in this country. If a bee once stings, it leaves its stinger. It cannot sting no more. And God Himself coming unfolding Himself out of Heaven was made flesh in the form of man, took upon Him the form of man, and was going yonder to Calvary to anchor the sting of death, and death stung the Son of God on the way to Calvary. He anchored, pulled the stinger out of death, and today death has no sting for the believer.
For we are perfected in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah! There's the blood of Christ, what it does. The sting of death... Paul, when they was going to chop his head off, and that old bee buzzing around him, he said, "Death where is your sting? Grave where is your victory?" But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

67 Oh, my! There's God's Lamb that pulled the stinger out of death. There's the One that was perfect when the Father said, "This is My beloved Son; hear ye Him." There's the perfection. That's what the law could not do. But what the law was a shadow back yonder under the offering of sheep and goats, was a shadow of the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. When He come and was made flesh, and anchored the stinger of death, and pulled it out where you and I can walk in the face of it. Death can't bother us. Hallelujah! It hasn't got any stinger. It can buzz and hum and threaten, make a bluff, but that's all it can do. Death has no more stinger. For every believer that's in Christ Jesus is perfected forever. Praise God!

68 Not when you're at church doing a novena, not when you're saying a "Hail Mary," but when Christ give you the baptism of the Holy Ghost accepted you into the beloved. He sealed you there until the day of your redemption. If you're riding on an airplane, wherever it is, you are perfected until the day of your redemption. And every man and woman that's born of the Spirit of God has no more desire of sin. Sin has passed from him, and his whole motive is to do the will of God. If you have any more motive besides that, brother it's time for you to find a place at the altar and pray through, 'cause you're only ... the devil is bluffing you.

69 For a grain of corn cannot produce cockleburs, neither can cockleburs produce corn. And if you're sowed with the incorruptible seed of God, borned again of the Spirit of God, you're whole motive, everything in your whole life, goes towards God.
And the day when God turned the ... or, Noah turned the crow loose... He was a bird set right on the ark, set in the ark right on the same floor with the dove. He could fly just as far as the dove. He could squawk and make a noise like the dove. But when they turned them loose... The crow was a scavenger. He could fly from one dead body to the other one and satisfy himself. But the dove could not satisfy herself. She flew back to the ark and pecked on the window, until father Noah opened the window. She was a dove. A dove is a bird that doesn't have any gall. It cannot digest rotten things.

70 And every man that's ever borned of the Spirit of God takes on a nature that it can't digest the world no more. "For if you love the world or the things of the world, the love of God's not even in you." And, brother, if you still love the world, and professing to be God's child, for the sake of your own soul, find a place at the altar and pray through until God takes the world out of you. For He has perfected forever those that are sanctified (or cleaned) by the Holy Spirit, then we are in perfection.
The law having a shadow of things, not even the real things, to come. With them sacrifices can never make the believer perfect, but a believer once coming into Christ, and by one Spirit baptized into that body He has perfected forever those that are in Christ Jesus.
Then the things of the world... See? And he, the worshipper, once purged has no more conscience (or, the right interpretation of that: has no more desire) of sin. For the worshipper once purged has no more desire (or conscience) of sin. He doesn't even want to sin. He will do things wrong. And as soon as he does it, he'll confess his sins right there and say, "God, forgive me. I didn't mean to do that. You know it, Father." God never sees it, but He has an advocate. He has a confession and he makes it.
But the man who goes ahead and sins and says, "Well, I belong to a church; don't make any difference." It shows that right in him proves that he hasn't got what he says he's got. No, sir. You can't draw bitter and sweet water from the same fountain. That's right.

71 For God has made a sacrifice to perfect every believer that's in Christ Jesus that when we stand in His presence, we'll not have to stand in our own self; we're standing, and Christ stood in our place, to take our place, and He has judged Christ and not you and I. We have accepted it. We've accepted it. And if you haven't accepted tonight, my brother, sister, when you see the agony and the price it cost Almighty God to get your soul saved, could you turn Him down upon those kind of a basis? Certainly not. Sure, you couldn't.
God willing, tomorrow night I want to speak on the unpardonable sin. What it to sin against the Holy Ghost and never be forgiven.
Now, may the Lord bless you while we bow our heads just a moment. If the organist or pianist will come a moment. Now shall we bow our heads just a moment.

72 Our kind Heavenly Father, seeing that clock on the wall moving around so swiftly, just beginning to speak on the things of eternal life. And seeing the people, Lord, knowing that they have need. We all have need, Father, of knowing more about Thee and Thy love.
I pray Thee, God, to be merciful to every person here. I do not know this people; Thou does know them. And now I pray that You will send the Holy Spirit up and down the aisle just now. Look through the audience and if there be someone who really knows that in their heart they've never met this condition, to fully surrender, to die out to everything of the world, and let the Holy Spirit take complete control enough to kill all the desires of the world, and the things of the world. God grant that that person will now accept Thy beloved Son and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

73 While we have our heads bowed... I wonder: In the audience, the people, (everyone with your head bowed), if there would be a person here that would say, "Brother Branham, I for one, I know that I have never re'ched that place yet ... or never reached it, rather. I have never come to the place to where I had myself completely under control. I still, in my heart I'm wavering. I'd like to be anchored, Brother Branham, by the Holy Spirit with Christ, so the things of the world would be dead to me. There's little things that I just seem like I can't give up. Pray for me, brother."
Would you, man or woman, boy or girl raise your hand? say by doing this... Don't nobody look. Just let me and the Holy Spirit do this.) Just raise your hand.

74 God bless you, sir. Someone else? God bless you, sir. Someone else, someone else around just boy or girl, that not really knows. Now you're before God. God bless you, brother. God bless you, sir. God bless you, lady. That's all right. That's right. Now someone else just raise... God bless you, lady. That's honest. We want to be hon... God bless you, lady. God bless you, sir. That's right.
Say, "I want to, Brother Branham. I'd really ... my soul, I know that I'm going... These little brittle threads of life I'm walking on is going to break one of these days and I'm going to plunge out into eternity, yonder. God knows at that hour. Say, I'll want to go to Heaven. I don't want to be lost and condemned. And I've tried for a long time, but I just yet haven't done it. Pray for me that I will accept Him." And you who want Christ to remember you and you signify the same as you raise your hand.

75 Would there be somebody else now that hasn't raised their hand, would want to? This doesn't save you, certainly not; but it answers your conscience towards God who knows you.
In the morning you may not be on this earth; you may be gone. As an evangelist, and three times around the world, and watching the millions of people, seeing things in the contact with God by vision and Spirit, realizing that I wouldn't say this for nothing in the world unless I knew what I was talking about. Would you just raise your hand, not to me now, but to God? Say, "God remember me. I want to be right when I die. Remember me, God."
Is their another one in the building would raise your hand, anywhere? Raise your hand. There's about a dozen, I guess. God bless you; I see your hand, sister. Would someone else raise your hand? Say, "Remember me, God." You're not saying, "Remember me, Brother Branham." You're saying, "Remember me, God," as you raise your hand. Saying, "I want to be remembered in a word of prayer at the close of this service, Brother Branham. I realize that I'm a long ways from having the nature of sin killed in my life. I want it so I can only be a servant of the Lord Jesus."

76 Is there another one, would just raise your hand so God can see? I'm going to ask prayer for you just in a moment. All right. Remain with your heads bowed.
Now kind Heavenly Father, realizing that every word that we say will meet us in judgment. You've seen those people raise up their hand. It's written in the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ that, "No man can come to Me accept My Father draws him." Then that's a sure sign that You're out there in the audience dealing with these people. Something has touched their heart.
Father, "No man can come except My Father draws him," showing that Your Spirit is moving upon hearts. "And all that comes to Me I will in nowise cast out." That's Your Word, Father. And here they are. They've raised up their hand. You seen them.

77 Now, if Thy poor unworthy servant has found grace in Thy sight, I pray You forgive them, Father. And from this very hour where they're sitting right there in their seat now, may they go from this church tonight a new person. May the Holy Spirit just move upon them, just now, and take away all guilt and condemnation of sin, all doubtings and may they become Thy servant. Grant it, Lord. Thou knowest all things. I pray that You will grant it now, through Jesus' name. Amen.
Jesus paid it all.
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain:
He washed it white as snow.

78 You feel tonight... This little altar here is open. If there's someone here while we sing another verse of that hymn, if you would like to come down here, have prayer, why we'd be glad to pray with you. I love you, my friends; that's from my heart. If there's anything I never want to meet God... I'd rather meet Him a sinner than a hypocrite, for I'd be lost either way. But I don't want to stand outside of being a sinner, and then be a hypocrite with it. I'd rather get out of the way. I want to be sincere. And I love humanity; that's why I've gone the way I have, is because I love mankind. I want to see people right with God.

79 And, brother, what have we got in this world? Why, it won't do us any good. What if we have to leave it tonight, see? And all this just putting off, putting off, you may just do it one time too much. And remember now, as your brother...
This altar is open. I come right down here. Surely if He will hear my prayer to open the eyes of the blind, the deaf, and the dumb... And you heard about it around the world. You will see it a little later on so just... If He'll hear my prayer for that, surely He'll hear for your soul. Don't you believe that? Certainly He will. These other ministers here that loves the Lord and they're God's servants...

80 While we sing Jesus Paid It All once more, would you want to come down, just stand around the altar praying. You want to get closer to God. You want ... you want salvation, you want to be saved, or seeking the Holy Spirit to be born-again, you're invited tonight, while we sing once more. All right.
Jesus paid it all;
All to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain;
He washed it white as snow.
How many love Him with all of your heart? Raise your hands to Him like this: I love You, Lord. That's wonderful, almost a hundred percent of people who love Him.

81 I so appreciate you, my brother, sister, so much. I just love you with all my heart and expect to spend an endless eternity with you.
Now, tomorrow night, God willing, I want to talk on the unpardonable sin, if it's God's will. Just a little farther down the chapter. I looked at it tonight there. And it's just a little farther down. So, we'll speak it tomorrow night, if God willing, not knowing just what He's going to do. I'm waiting on Him.
Now, is there any sick here raise up your hand, any sick and needy?
Now shall we bow our heads for those.

82 Our kind loving Father, we pray that You will heal the sick and the needy here in the meeting tonight. Thinking of the days, and seeing Your great Spirit move on the people and heal the sick, and give the blind sight, and take them from the stretchers, cots, and wheelchairs around the world. And the kings, potentates and monarchs, the world shaking and quivering tonight under the impact of a great revival sweeping the land.
And the people is letting it pass right by, and not receiving it. Just like they let the Son of God go by the gates, and the palace temples, and so forth and they didn't recognize that it was Him. And, oh, if they could come back to earth tonight for another trial. But while He's passing by tonight condemning sin in the flesh, people raising their hands and recognizing that they're not just where they should be in Thee, I pray, God, that You will heal every sick person here. May Thy Spirit be upon them, and may they be perfectly normal and well.

83 And now, Father, for a healing service, we commit to Your hands. Let Thy Spirit move, Lord, in any way that It so desire. We're waiting on Thee, Lord, seeing what You will say. Not knowing what minute, or what hour, what time the Spirit of God break in upon us here, Lord, and just shake the whole valley. We pray that He will do it, God. Grant it. May it be done for Your glory. Get glory out of your servants. Bless every stranger in our gate, Father, in Jesus' name.
Now, the Lord bless each one of you now. And now expect tomorrow night... Get somebody, get on the phone right quick, and get somebody. We want to get them in here. Bring out those who are needy and ... cots, and stretchers, and so forth; put them in here and see what the Holy Spirit says, you see. We're calling for sinners, now.
While we bow our heads just a moment, and for our dismissal prayer, I'll turn the service then to the brother here, while you bow your heads, and the brother...

The Law having a shadow

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 All things are possible, only believe.
Only believe, only believe,
All things are possible, only believe.
Good evening friends. And shall we just bow our heads while we're standing to speak to our Lord. Our heavenly Father, we're so grateful to Thee tonight, for this privilege that we have of gathering here in this lovely, big, Philadelphian church to meet a group of worshipers and our dear, beloved pastor, Brother Boze, and many... [Gap in the audio.]
And good evening, great Philadelphia church, and all of its members, and staff workers. And it's certainly a privilege for me to be here tonight, to speak to you in this service. Very warm, but that's what we like: a warm meeting, nothing like one.
Thanks to our dear, beloved brother for the token of welcome here, also: for the flowers that was given to brother and I. You know, flowers preach sermons, did you know that? That's right. It's an expression of love, what flowers is. But they preach a sermon, too, because they're something that God has made and they're beautiful.

2 Now, I was at Indianapolis last week, and the Lord met with us there with a wonderful meeting. And your dear pastor, who is always such a close bosom friend to me... You know he loves me when he knows I'm wrong. That's what makes him such a good friend. No matter... A lot of times I say, "Joseph, I wished I could do that, my brother, but I just can't do it."
And some things that's really legitimate, and don't make any difference what you have to do, Joseph don't care. He's just all right anyhow. You know, anybody could be your friend when you're in the right. But when you're in the wrong, he's still your friend; that's a real friend.
I remember we used to have a little poem in school. Many of you my age can remember it, I suppose. I don't get, just the last part of something about:
A man of words and not of deeds,
Is like a garden full of weeds.
Something on that order. And dry weather friends is very many, but real friends that stick as close as a brother, they're appreciated, and very, very fine. We appreciate it; I appreciate it.

3 Now, we're on our road tonight, to leave in the morning real early, about the break of day, if we got some of the hot weather to Minneapolis. The Christian Businessmen's breakfast is Saturday morning at the Legion Hotel. There we're to meet several delegations. Some from down in the place where Brother Joseph's been wanting me to go for a long time. They got a delegation coming there from Egypt to find out about meetings in Egypt.
And then from the... I believe another group of... Got the YMCA to have a delegation meet there, from Non-Pentecostal Ministers of Greater Minneapolis, and many other different things. And the meeting is going to be a very strange one. As far as advertisement, no one's advertised to speak. Well, I have the breakfast. But all the rest of it is just to be the way the Holy Spirit leads. And it's supposed to be Mr. Roberts, Tommy Hicks, and many of the other wonderful brethren that's on the field. Just to sit in the meeting, and what the Holy Ghost says, "Do," go do it.
I believe that ought to be pretty good, don't you? I just think that's right. Get the formal out of it, and let God have a chance one time, to say what He wants to say. We preachers always saying what we got to say, then let the Lord have a chance to say ... [Someone from the audience says something.]

4 And our good friends from South Africa, they say, will be there also. I understand they may be here in the meeting tonight. [Someone says something again.] Tomorrow night... They're to be here tomorrow night. These men, I met one of them which set up, I believe, the Johannesburg meeting, or the Dur... I believe the Durban meeting; a very fine brother. And so I understand one of their greatest among the influential speakers. And if they're to speak here tomorrow night, it would behoove all of Chicago, that can pack this little place in, to be here tomorrow night, to hear...
They got pictures; I don't know whether they'll be showing those or not. They got the pictures of some of the Zulu tribes and The Heathen Rage, and many of those things which would be very interesting in meeting these brethren. And that's tomorrow night, is it, Brother Joseph? My, I'm sorry... [Brother Boze introduces the Masarino family.] Well, that's very fine. Well, Brother, Sister Masarino and family, we're certainly glad, I am, to have you here, I know, along with this congregation.

5 I was a little late getting in tonight, but some minister introduced me to United Brethren Church the other night and said, "Friends, the late Mr. Branham."
I said, "That's right." I said, "I was even about two hours late for my wedding. Now, if I can just be a few years late for my funeral, well, it'll be all right."
So, I had to hurry, but I got to hurry up and hear one of their songs, I believe---the door was part of the way open when I was in the pastor's study---of "Onward Christian Soldiers." And I tell you; that was really wonderful. I've heard much of them; I'm sure you'd be enjoying their music.

6 Everybody knows what I told you, "Look for me up in heaven," didn't I? You know, the river of Life comes out from under the throne of God. It comes down, and turns a bend, and goes down this a way, towards Glory Avenue, just where it turns. Well, all the angelic choir and the musicians will all be over on that hill, a singing and playing their harps. And over on this side of the hill, I hope there's a little tree so I can just lean back against it and soak it in till I can really get enough of it.
I really love singing and music. I know we all do. How many knows what the order of battle is for the Lord? You know what the first thing went before the battle? Singers and musicians went forth singing, not weeping and wailing. They went forth singing; then after that come the ark of the covenant. So they went before the ark. And then after that come the fighters. So that's a good thing. It's a very Scriptural order for a religious service. The first thing the music, then the Word, then the battle. So it's all ordered of the Lord.

7 Hear these brethren. And now, pray for me much, if you will. I've got some real vital decisions to make at Minneapolis, of the future plans for meetings. And I certainly ask... Say, I believe I'm kind of secondarily associate pastor here, is that right? And so I ask my church to pray for me.
I believe John Wesley said that the whole world was his parish, is that right? So, that's the way it is. I feel that you're my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I certainly appreciate the time of fellowship with each and every one of you.
Now, I love the Word so well. I just love to talk on it. And tonight I thought maybe it would be appropriate, for just a little while, being hot, that we just have a good old-fashioned, Sunday school lesson on Thursday night. Wouldn't you like that, just to teach a little from the Word? I like Sunday school, and I like the teaching of the Word.

8 And coming fast, and had to hurry, I didn't get a chance to look over anything; so when I went in the study, I happened to come over to this Scripture. And all that you have Bibles, let's turn over now to the book of Hebrews, and the 10th chapter, to begin with: very beautiful setting here for great teachings of the Lord.
The book of Hebrews was to the Jews, separating law from grace, as Paul wrote to them here. There'd been many disputes in the church whether they should eat meat, or whether they should associate with the Gentiles. And I think Paul, writing this epistle here to the Hebrews, is one of the most outstanding letters in the book. It's... To me it's great, because it's showing the law and grace. It's separating the two.
And now, may the Lord add His blessings to His Word, and come and visit with us. And now, be much in prayer as we go to try to teach. I'm not a teacher. And my gift in the church is praying for the sick.

9 And say, by the way, we're talking of that: how many was over at the Indianapolis meetings? You remember the ... I believe they said the last night, a mute girl or something another... How many remembers little Rosella ... What is her last name? The alcoholic with... Griffith ... Griffith. Is she here tonight---Rosella? She's from Joliet. And Rosella, she called me a couple nights after that, and I believe she either taken the girl from a mute school there or was with her while she was there.
The girl was born deaf and dumb, never heard or spoke a sound in her life, and the Lord Jesus gave her a perfect hearing and speech right at the platform before most ten thousand people. Isn't He wonderful? And now, the... [Brother Mattsson-Boze asks to speak.] Yes, Brother. [Brother Mattsson-Boze gives a testimony of a man healed of cancer.] Uh-huh. I got a letter of that in my office; that was right. [Brother Mattsson-Boze gives a testimony of a lady healed, having a tumor.] Isn't He wonderful?

10 I really believe that the people are just now beginning to understand what I've been trying to tell them for many years about this, of healing. The man (I picked up one of the letters as I passed the office) and he was sitting there, he had a paralyzed arm, and his hands had growed down until his fingers ... he couldn't even move them up to trim the nails from them anymore. And they was turning into his hand. He'd have to have surgery to cut them out.
And he said that while he was sitting there, he said, "I'll send you a picture, Brother Branham, both before and after." And said, "I just caught the idea." Something happened in Indianapolis that had never happened before. After going through a long prayer line and just weak enough till I could hardly move, then all of the sudden, something picked up. And I looked up here, and here was a vision of people kind of streaming down the line.
And you who were in Indianapolis know there's hundreds times hundreds circled down to that altar and gave their life to Christ. He said he was sitting there like that. He said, "You know, I now understand what the man's talking about." And he begin to feel something tingling and a burning in his hands. And it was his fingers just coming open like that and open went his hand; he was healed. "And see, on the road..."

11 The man said, that had the cancer on his back, and it just went away, see. The idea ... the people just now beginning to see. They've been used to laying on of hands, and putting water, holy water, or something on, you know, or something... Them's all right, but that's secondarily. The initial way, and the right way is just like you receive the Holy Ghost.
"While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on them that heard it." They were ready. And it's massive healings; it's not great long worn-out prayer lines. It's right while the presence of the angels of God and the Holy Ghost to bring perfect deliverance for anything.
The world's got to be evangelized all at once. We got to go. Two thirds of the world never even heard of Christ. And we've got to hurry and do it. You don't have time just to bring up a hundred tonight and tomorrow night all wore out. It's just right now the whole group see it in massive. And in Africa there was twenty-five thousand healings in one prayer. Think of it.

12 And the other night on the platform... I don't want to start this testimony, so I better switch to the Word quickly. But that you might know why on my heart... These brethren's coming tomorrow night, very strange. I've been feeling to go to Africa. Difficulties has rose, not because of myself, but others that's connected with me, as Brother Boze understands.
And I was coming, dedicating a church, and some of them come up, said, "Brother Branham won't you have a little prayer line?"
I said, "Well, brother, I sure will." I said, "I can pray for the sick; there isn't many." A little church seat about two hundred people. A little brother just come out of great tribulations and a drunkard's life and got saved, and went away to the Church of God and was dedicating a wonderful little church---the name of Cash, Junior Cash, at Charlestown, Indiana.

13 Someone come out, said, "What do you mean?" A minister, he said, "I got a church that seats nearly fifteen hundred people, and I heard by telephone that... And here you are back here and you didn't come to my church. And here you are back here in the swamp, to a little brick structure ... or, concrete and it's sticking sideways."
Then I said, "You don't need help; he does." That's the one that needs help.
And in the line, coming down, (just praying for the sick), I seen a girl, a colored girl. And we know the dark race of people, the colored people, comes ... their native home is Africa. Just like the yellow man is from China, the Anglo-Saxon from Ireland, England, so forth, Swedish. When they separated from Eden ... or, from Babylon, some of them went down into hot countries, and some went in neutral countries, and some went to way up in the north. And some was bleached white, and some got brown, and some yellow, some black, but they're all of one blood, and that was Adam's.
God of one blood made all nations. Each man, the black man, the yellow man, the brown man, the white man, you put the plasma from the blood, it's all the same, just the same. It's just the way the climate's colored the people.

14 And in seeing the time coming close when... I got a vision wrote in the back of my Bible of going to Africa. They brought this young Ethiopian girl. And as she was coming up, I noticed she was swinging her leg. And she was kind of a ... what we call kind of a slim, thin girl, about fifteen, real skinny, well dressed little lady. But I noticed her working her mouth, just like that, and the tears running down her cheeks.
Well, I wondered what's the matter with that child. Well, when Mr. Cash come to the platform, her mother was behind her; he said, "Brother Branham, the girl has a severed nerve from an automobile accident, that bursted (or something another) the nerve from her hearing and speech. She will never speak or hear again." And said, "It was an automobile accident." And said, "In doing so, it also done some other nerve that the doctor had to tie off which makes her ... with her leg like that; it's stiff in her side."
Well, I said, "That's sure too bad; poor kid. My heart goes out for her." And I said, "Bring her here and let me pray for it."

15 So, as she was coming, I looked up over top of that girl's head (no visions had come), there was that tall grass, little mounds of ant hills and things like typical of South Africa. The grass a waving... I could hear the wind blowing even. I knowed something had taken place. That left me; I didn't know what to say. I stood there a few moments. I said, "Now, friends, I want to make this clear. I just saw come before me a vision for Africa."
I said, "Perhaps maybe somebody's on their road here, or maybe He wants me to go over; it's time for the vision to be fulfilled, which will be exceedingly greater than the other one was." And so then I said, "Heavenly Father, we don't seek signs." How many knows what seeks after signs? "A weak and adulterous generation." Is that right? We don't want to be classed like that.

16 But I said, "We're not, but yet You give signs. And I'm asking You to do it. I prayed and wanted to know what about going and so forth, when to go and so forth. But now, if this girl standing here and that vision has broke, if You want me to be ready to prepare for Africa, will You give this little child, poor little thing here, and a Christian... Although the doctor says the nerves was severed---it has to be a work of creation---would You just give her back her perfect soundness? And that'll be a sign between You and I, that I must make ready for Africa."
Not knowing that sailing right then was these brethren that'll be here tomorrow night, to make arrangements for the African campaign, knowing nothing of it. And when I took my hand from the little girl, she screamed, "Mother, looky!" And she was as perfect and normal as she ever was in her life.
And there was some people there from very formal churches, denies the very existence of the Holy Spirit. Great denomination in the world today would argue with you at the drop of your hat or fight either one, that there was no such a thing as miracles. A great group of those people walked up there, one by one, husband and wife, and shook my hand, said, "Brother Branham, we have believed in miracles, but this confirms it that God is. Because this girl's from our neighborhood." There you are. That's right. So, God still rules and reigns. Amen. Oh, how we love Him.

17 "The law, having a shadow of good things to come..." Listen to that, "The law having a shadow of good things to come..." Now, if we would have to type, which I do do much typology. So then the law was a shadow, so all the law could not have been darkness. There has to be a certain percent of light in the darkness to make a shadow. Is that right?
So many people, in quoting the 23rd Psalm, they misquote it by saying, "I go through the dark valley of the shadow of death." Now, if it was a dark valley, it wouldn't have any shadow. So you see, death itself's under the law... To David, death now only is a shadow. There's a lot of light in death. Now, if it was all darkness, my, that would be horrible, but death is just a shadow. So there has to be light mixed with the darkness to reflect the shadow. Isn't it wonderful, knows what the struggles in our [unclear words].

18 How many knows Brother Bosworth? Oh, how the meeting he had in Chicago. While in Indianapolis, his wife called me, said, "Brother Branham, your old friend is dying." Said, "He's got death rattles in his throat all day. And we've tried to locate you everywhere. He's under a oxygen tent, unconscious. And he's rattled in his throat all day. I believe he'll be gone before morning. And, Brother Branham, we want you to preach his funeral."
I said, "Sister Bosworth, don't speak of that. Let's speak of something else." And we went over and fell on our knees before God, and announced it to the church that night of thousands of people. And the next night Brother Bosworth called me up and talked to me on the phone. Yes, sir.
He said, "Brother Branham, I'd like to be with you in the Cadle Tabernacle, in a revival." Said, "Maybe we can go in the next couple of years sometime."
Oh, I love that courage. No shadow, no negative; it's all positive with that old teacher. He knows right where he's standing. And every reader of the Bible knows that all that death can do is to put a shadow or a spook before you. But it cannot hold you. Christ burst forth all those thunders of darkness and freed those that were in paradise in the shadows, and they're in the positive now in the presence of God our Father. What a thought, not only a thought, but a truth, that God has made manifest through His Word.

19 All the law did was foreshadow Jesus Christ. For in Him is perfection. And if I was going from the sun and there was a sun at my back, it would cast a shadow. I could look at that shadow and pretty well guess what I would look like. Whether I was a flying fowl, or four-footed beast, or whatever it would be, it would cast a shadow.
And the law only casts a shadow of the coming of the Lord Jesus. On over here in the next chapter of Hebrews---the 11th chapter---how Paul speaking there, told about the great heroes of faith, how they escaped the edge of the sword and was... And the mouths of the lions were closed, and great wonderful things was done as the people lived under the shadow. And to do all of that by faith, how much more ought we to be able to do today when the ante-shadow is here, when Christ has come, and fulfilled all the law, and has become a real, living, resurrected, glorified Christ in our midst? What kind of a people ought we to be?

20 Why, I believe the time will soon arrive, that when healing will be ... a miracle healing will be such a common thing. We've got to get some rapturing faith in the church to go away from here one of these days.
"Law having a shadow..." how it foreshadowed all things. We could go back, if time would only permit, and get the great things back all through the coming of the ark at the flood, how Moses down in Egypt, and many of the great characters in the changing of the dispensation, how the law, by the word of the law had supremacy, and how that everything else give away when God's law stretched over laws.

21 Now, if God's Word through the law spoke and taken the initiative, how much more ought the Holy Ghost in a human being that's been born again by grace and called of God, how it ought to be the power that was behind that Word when it was pushed forward by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. What it ought to be today. The Word having such a great effect, knowing that, "Heavens and earth will pass away, but God's Word will never pass away." And the law was God's spoken, written Word. Watch! It was kept at a sacred place. It was sprinkled on top with blood, had a crown laying on top of there to show that it was the King's Word. And all those shadows, as today ... the blood being sprinkled on the believer where the Word of God goes forth come the believer.
And what an affect it ought to have today, when that sprinkled by a lamb's blood and this sprinkled by the blood of Jesus Christ, our own conscience from sin and defilement. What a forceful thing the law ought to be! That's where I find the weakness of the Full Gospel church, is not having faith in this wonderful Word that they have received.

22 Let's stop here just a moment, go back, listen for a few minutes, what that Word was. This Word that we're reading from this Bible tonight was not only in its existence from the pen of Saint Paul, and Luke, Mark, and John; this Word that we're reading out of this Bible was spoken before the world ever come into existence. Amen. Only thing they did, was just write down what God had already spoke. The Bible said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Now, let's take a little imaginary trip, before the world ever began. Do you know Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world? Now, just take away the curtains, and let's look into it just a moment. Then that'll give you courage for anything you have need of. As long as you find it written here, just take a hold of it, God will make it right.

23 Think of it, the world as it turns in a cycle: eternity. Just eternity is like a perfect circle; it has no corners or no end. If I started with a perfect circle here tonight going around and around on this desk, it might cut through the desk, through the floor, through the earth, the billions of years and eons of time to come, it would still be going on, a perfect circle, endless. That's the way that God was in eternity at the beginning.
Now, we can't credit Satan to be a creator; he just perverts what God has already created. God created you to be perfect, and Satan perverted you to imperfect. God allowed you to be to your wife a sweetheart, legally married. But to love someone else is to pervert that true love, that you should have for your own wife. Satan does that.

24 Your love ought to be to Christ, undefiled. But Satan perverts that love to something of the world. He perverts it. So then when he perverted good to wrong, and taken the angels with him, a little block fell out of a perfect circle of eternity, and dropped down to a place called time. It come in right here, goes around, and goes out right over here. Time... Eternity exists right on down through time.
Now, when Christ saw what Satan had done, when God saw it back here at the beginning of time... Notice now, while God at the beginning was no wiser, or no less wiser than He is tonight... God is infinite. You believe it? God is infinite. Then He can never change.
Now, we get a little smarter as we get older. The whole world gets a little smarter. You used to go to church in a model-T Ford. Tonight you can have a V-8 in the same thing. Used to be the only way you could get across the ocean was an old ship with sails on it. Tonight a jet plane will take you across. See, we get smarter. But not God! God was perfect at the beginning, and He'll be just as perfect at the end.

25 Now, here's what I love. Listen at it now. If God is infinite, and perfect, and cannot make a mistake (Are you following me?), if He cannot make a mistake, then the way God acted in the beginning when a crisis arose, He's got to act the same way when the same crisis arises, or He acted wrong when He acted back there. You see it?
Then if God said something, He's got to stay with that, in order to be God. Amen. That would make a Methodist religious, wouldn't it? Look at it. God's got to stay with His Word. You believe it, say, "Amen." He's got to keep it. Then if a crisis arose on earth, like the people dying in the wilderness, and God erected a brass serpent for their healing, because the doctors and so forth was with them, if they had any... None of their remedies of Egypt could not cure their sickness, so God had to act.

26 And if a crisis has rose today, where we got more sickness than the world's ever knowed, diseases like cancer, heart trouble, that the doctors can't touch, then God's duty bound to act the same way He did then, or He acted wrong when He acted that time. Certainly, common sense would prove that if it wasn't even written in the Word. He has to be the same.
So when God speaks a word, forever it's part of Him. It can no more fail than God can fail. If one word of God can fail, then God's not infinite, neither is He omnipotent. If He has to take it back, then He becomes a mortal like I am. That's right. But when He speaks, it's perfect. Amen. Oh, that's what I like: perfect. And we are perfect with the Word.

27 The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the thing... Those sacrifices which were offered year by year never made the comer unto perfect. Jesus in Saint Matthew's Gospel said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." How you going to do it? How can you do it? How can you be as perfect as God is perfect? But that was a commission ... or, a commandment by Jesus Christ, to be as perfect as God is in heaven, perfect.
Then you say, "Who can be saved?" Hold it just a moment. Let's find out how that perfection is made. Now, God, back there in the beginning, when He foresaw down through this streak of time, and He knew they would have to have a remedy to save those which was desiring to be saved... Those who hungered to be up there in that realm, He had to make a way to redeem those people back again.

28 If He was infinite at the beginning, there never was a flea, frog, fly, or anything else ever come on the earth but what He knowed it before the world was ever formed. Amen. Think of it. He knew you; He knew me. In order... Knowing that our hearts would hunger and thirst after Him, He had to make a remedy. His great love, and His great power, and His great law constrained Him to do so. He couldn't do nothing else in order to be God, but to make a way.
So when He looked down through the stream of time, from this end of the fall here, up to this end of the fall, you know what God did? God did nothing else but speak right then of Jesus Christ's coming, His own Son, which He was tabernacled with on earth, came down out of the heavens, was made flesh and dwelt among us, redeemed us, went right back up, and standing up here on the other end. And all that great highway that Isaiah saw, across the place, across the span of time; Christ is standing at the other end, the receiving end.

29 Here I was illustrating a little something for the kiddies the other night, and was telling about the father of Moses and the mother, and how they was giving the little baby back ... committing it back to God Who gave it to them. I said, "Now, if you save your soul, keep it, you're going to lose it. If you give it back to God, you'll keep it." And it's spoke five times in the Bible. Now, and I said, "If the father and mother of Moses kept him, they would lose it; if they'd give him back to God, they'd keep him."

30 And how that that day when they pushed him out in the flags and bulrushes, how God rose from His throne, great robe drop around Him, walked out there, and He said, "Come here, Gabriel, all you angels, come out here. Look down here; I've got somebody believes Me. I give it to them, and they're giving it back. They can't keep it, because the witches of hell will get it." Them old women going around busting their little heads, and throwing them, and fattening up the crocodiles on them...
Said, "We'll... If we keep it, they'll kill it; we'll lose it. But if we give it back to God, we'll keep it." And in this little bark that you're sailing in tonight, you've got a precious thing in there; it's a soul. If you keep it, you'll lose it. Go on keep it, go on out to the world and act like the rest of them; you'll lose it. But if you'll give it back to the One who gave it to you, you'll keep it. Amen. Just believe Him.

31 And they put this little baby in the ark and pushed him out. I can hear God say, "Gabriel, come here a minute." Call ten thousand angels on marching orders, and line them all up and down the Nile. "You see that not any crocodile comes near that. And when he gets into a whirlpool, see that it gets out all right." You're going to hit many whirl-pools in this life, my brother, but if God has called angels on marching orders to take care of it, don't worry; He'll get you out of it. Amen.
Notice, and the little ark was pitched. I can imagine why they put that tar on it, you know, like that on the street. Old crocodile starts to stick his nose up there; what a smell! He backed off. And we watch him; all at once, he becomes flusterated, and away he goes. Why? Gabriel's sitting up on top of that ark, floating down the river. That's the reason they couldn't touch it. It had been give back to the One that gave it.

32 And that's the way it is tonight; God lets His angels have watch over us. "The angels of God are encamped about." They don't go back and forth; they stay here. I like that. "The angels of God are encamped about those who fear Him."
I can hear Gabriel say, "But, Lord, where are You going to be at all this time?"
"I'm going to be on the receiving end, down at the other end." He'll be down there to receive it when it gets there. There's where He's standing tonight: on the receiving end. He is standing on the portals of glory, on the receiving end, to receive His children. And someday, when life is over, He'll reach down and wind the end of that highway of holiness around His hand, give it a big pull. And when He does, where she's broke here, He'll lift every saint right back up into that realm of eternity again, and she'll roll on through the ages. He's on the receiving end.
What you scared about? Afraid He won't do it? Yes, He will. As sure as there's a God in heaven, He'll do it. And He's on the receiving end. Oh, my. Look at it.

33 There when God stood there, and He said, "Here's My program." And now, a word... "In the beginning was the Word..." Now, a word is a thought expressed. Now, God was thinking about it. Now, it was just a thought. But when He expressed it, it became a word. And when it's once expressed, He can't take it back. He's got to stay with it.
So therefore, the Bible plainly says that Jesus was the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. For the moment God spoke it, He was slain in heaven at that time. The only thing He had to do was materialize. Only thing He had to do was come out to a head. Four thousand years later before He was ever slain actually. But when God spoke it, it was so perfect, it had to be, and it could be recorded as a document in heaven, because God said so: had to be.

34 No wonder He said, "Thy seed shall bruise the serpent's head." Now, you say, "That was Jesus." Let me tell you something. How many Christians here, raise up your hand, born again Christians? Sure that's just all of you. All right, did you know that the same time He was slain, you was accepted? Did you know that?
Oh, you say, "Brother Branham, I got saved about a week ago. Glory to God, new name written down in glory."
Wait a minute! Don't want to be different, but the Bible makes it different. The Bible said over in the book of Revelations that in the last days, that the antichrist would be very religious. And he'd go around just like a religious person. And he would deceive all upon the face of the earth whose names were not written in the Lamb's book of life from ... where? The revival? From the foundation of the world.
The same time the Lamb was spoke to be slain, and the blood stain was appropriated then, your name was associated with it at that very time, and put in the Lamb's book of life. The only thing you had to do, is run out to the time that God called you by the Holy Ghost, and, "No man can come to Me except My Father calls him. And all comes to Me, I will give him everlasting life and raise him up at the last day." Whew.

35 Wish I was twice my size, maybe I could tell twice as much. Think of it: that before the world ever was formed, when the Lamb's book of life was spoke back there, your name was associated with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Whew! What you scared about? He's up there on the receiving end; He's got His angels here watching over us. Ha ha! [Unclear words] stick his nose up and say he's going to do something.
If you want to jump out of the ark, go ahead. But I like to stay right with it. "Lord, You said so; this is Your Word. When You spoke it back there, when You spoke my association with it, I'm staying in the Word; He said so. What is the Word? The prophets said... The Holy Spirit come down, and just spoke the Word through the prophets as they wrote it on the book that God spoke before the foundation of the world. "In the beginning was the Word." Amen.

36 [Gap in the audio.] ... redeem at Calvary everything that He ever possessed, Christ took it back to the church and give it to His church. All that God was He poured out in Christ, and all Christ was He poured out in the church. "And I'm with you, even in you to the end of the world: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever."
Oh, church of the living God, how can you "moof" over little old things that's so insignificant? Why don't you put your faith in the Word of the living God? And look at men back there of old---the shadows---like Abraham and them: "Call those things which were not as though they were." God said so.

37 When Abraham back there under the law was probably asked, "Man, what's the matter with you, a hundred years old and your wife ninety and say you're going to have a baby?"
"Glory to God, yes, sir."
"Well, man, you're crazy! Must be something wrong in your head. You better go to the doctor. There's something wrong with you, Abraham."
"No, there's not. I just got a change of heart."
What if a man a hundred years old and his wife ninety today would walk up to doctor office and say, "Doc, we want to get the maternity room all fixed up. My wife's going to have a baby."
Doctor'd say, "Well, I tell you, sir, if you'd just walk out in the room a few minutes..." He'd ring the bell, "Psychiatrist, come here quickly, bring your handcuffs."
Sure, because the wisdom of God is foolish to the world, and the wisdom of the world is foolish to God. But those who could ever get anywhere with God's got to take God's Word and say it was so. Hey, brother, that'll defeat the devil anywhere. That'll heal every sick person that's in this building. That'll give everybody here the baptism of the Holy Ghost; it's your promise.

38 Why are you here? If you're here as a real believer, you're sitting here wanting to serve the Lord, God's obligated. You could not have that desire in your heart, unless God created it in there. You used to didn't do that, but God created it Himself. Each one of you... Maybe there's sick people here, say, "I wished I could be healed, Brother Branham. I been suffering with a stomach trouble for years, or headaches, or something like that."
God's here to do that. See, it's not God; it's you. See, He's here to do it. His Word is real, if you could just lay hold of it and say, "That's truth." The reason it is... See, the reason that you was saved easier sometimes than you are healed, is because you was elected before the foundation of the world.
Your name was put in the Lamb's book of life, and that strain as a son and daughter of God, still hold on you. Oh, you was out in sin, you just scratched your head and wondering, "You know I ought to do that. There's something I... Well, I'll do it a little later." Finally it rolled around; there you was.
Now, healing is included in this. You believe in healing or you wouldn't come to hear about it. Now, if you could lay a hold on it just the same way you did for your salvation, you'd get the same results. Got to.

39 Now, the law, having a shadow of good things to come, can never make the worshiper perfect. Now, why couldn't it? Because there was nothing there to perfect him with. The law was a shadow. In the Old Testament when they went to make an offering, the man brought a lamb. He took it up there, and he confessed his sins, put his hands upon the head of the lamb, and told God that he was sorry for what he done.
The priest cut the lamb's throat, the jugular vein here, and the little fellow begin kicking, bleeding, dying, his hands was bathed all over with blood, and he felt the quivering and pain of that little lamb, laying there suffering. He kept his eye on it; it'd shake and suffer, and shake and suffer, like that. And he'd think, "That ought to be me. What a horrible fellow I am!"

40 Now watch. Then the man went right out of there, not perfect; he couldn't be. Because when he did, he went out of there with the same desire in his heart to go do the same thing that he did when he went in there. Still had the same... Why did he have the same desire? Because, why? The blood cell had been broke in the lamb, which was a shadow of the Lamb of God.
Now, when that blood cell was broke and bursted open, the life that was in that blood cell, or in the lamb, which consisted... Coming from one blood cell, it all come back to one master blood cell, that was from the germ, which was the pollen from the fe... from the male. And when that blood cell was broken, this life was separated here. The life that was in that blood cell could not come back on the worshiper. No, sir.
Because how could a animal without a soul ... how could the spirit of a brute come back and coincide with a human spirit? It couldn't do it, because it didn't have no soul; it was an animal. Now, but when a worshiper...

41 Watch here. In the next chapter over here in Hebrews, it said (the next couple of verses below here), " For if the worshiper once purged, would have no more conscience of sin. And He by His own sacrifice has perfected forever those that are sanctified."
Perfected for how long? Forever. Then what is the Holy Ghost, friend? We've allotted it to too many things. You Lutherans, oh, my, you think because you join the Lutheran church, "The just shall live by faith," Luther says, "We got it." But they found out they didn't. You Methodists, when you got sanctified, and shouted, you clapped your hands, and run up-and-down the aisle, you thought you had it. But come to find out, you didn't.
The Pentecostals, when they could speak in tongues or dance in the Spirit, they thought they had it. But they found out they didn't. That's right. All those things are all right, but that ain't it. It's the Person, the Holy Spirit Himself, the resurrected Christ.

42 And when you lay your hands by faith upon God's accepted and provided sacrifice, which was absolutely perfect... There's the body of Christ. And out of Adam's side come a rib that made his bride. And out of the side of Christ came the blood, water, Spirit for His bride.
And how do we get into that body? "By one Spirit we're all baptized into one body." And Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." They're like Abraham; they call those things which were not as though they were, because they are dead to the things of the world and alive again in Christ Jesus by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

43 That might've had hay seeds on it and sassafras, but it'll save you as sure I stand in the pulpit. Amen. Notice, "The worshiper once purged has no more desire of sin." No more conscience; the word conscience is "desire." Look and see if that ain't right. Conscience is what's in it, in there making your desires. Your conscience is to do it, and your conscience is not to do it; it's your desire.
So then, if the worshiper, under the law, could not be purged, because that the lamb was only a shadow, and he went away with the same desire, yet it was speaking correctly to the right Lamb coming. And then, when God sent His Lamb, and He died, and the worshiper then coming, putting his hands by faith upon the bleeding locks of the Lord Jesus, and can in your heart appreciate that He was the only thing that could ever come and redeem you, and you'd be lost and gone to hell...
And then to appreciate His love for you when you were unlovable, appreciate His foreknowledge of you, that you'd have the heart to do it, and appreciate His leading of the Holy Spirit to bring you to that place He puts it. And you lay your hands upon Him by faith, and renounce your own life as a sinner, and accept His life instead, the blood of Jesus Christ then cleanses you. And the life that was in the blood cell of Christ, which was none other than God Himself, the Holy Spirit, comes back into your life, and coincides with your body, and you act and walk a Christian life till the day you leave the world. And the devil couldn't touch you if he had to. Amen.

44 Every promise in the Book is yours then. He can't do it. Why?
The blood cell. Where did it originate? Where did it originate in the lamb, the little sheep? Where did it originate? From the male sheep. It was a sexual desire. It was sinful. After God had pronounced this, He made it permissive, but never the perfect. "God made man out of the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into him, and he became a living soul."
But then, tampering: Women become that instrument to bring life, and that's the reason it has to go back, the body. The soul then must be taken care of first to originate the beginning of a new life. Did you realize that? Now, the lamb---when its life broke at the place where it was sacrificed, the worshiper with his hands bloody and realizing he was a sinner---was a shadow yonder of Calvary.
But the worshiper could not be made perfect, because by the life that come out of the lamb, he could not be taken back in the lamb's body, because he was a human. The lamb had a different nature. It's nature was different. Now, if the lamb's life could come back to the worshiper, he'd go back out and eat grass and act like a lamb, because he was a brute. So he could not be made perfect.

45 But in this place, where the worshiper is once purged from his sins, the very life that was in that body comes back and baptizes this individual into the Holy Spirit. And this Lamb was not born by sexual desire, where that original blood cell started. God Almighty created it in the womb of Mary. No man had nothing to do with it.
And that one blood cell where God brought Himself down, and come into this blood cell, and growed out a body called Christ, and come in the fullness of the Spirit and lived in Him... Then when that blood cell was broke there for sin, every man coming to Christ and purged by that blood has no more conscience of sin, and is perfectly anchored in Christ until the day of your redemption.
Ephesians 4:30 says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed until the day of your redemption." Amen. Oh, that makes the devil go, when a believer realizes where he is, what he is. "Oh, there's no good in me, Brother Branham." That's right. I never was any good and neither was you. There's nothing we could do about it; that's the good part of it. But when you can just recognize that, that you're no good, then you'll not trust in your own goodness.

46 If there's one thing you could do to merit it, you'd have something to brag about it. "Lord, I've sought You day and night." But you can't say that to Him. He said, "No man can come to Me except My Father draws him." And God seeks man and not man seeking God. So you don't have one thing to say, but, "God, it was Your grace that did it." And then as long you're accepted in the Beloved, how can God bring you into judgment, when He's already judged Christ in your stead?
How could you have to suffer for your sins, when Christ has already done it? God would be a two-timer and a awful person (That's right.) when it was thoroughly paid by Jesus Christ and you accepted it. And as long as God accepted Christ, He accepted you with Christ. And when did He do it? Before the foundation of the world, when He spoke it into existence, He spoke you redeemed with Him.
And your names was written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world. And then you're scared. Whew! "Oh, if I could just keep holding on." I quit that a long time ago. I never did even try it in the first place. I just turned loose and let Him do the holding.
Someone said when I was sick that time, when I got over it, said, "Brother Branham, did you keep your religion during your sick spell?"
I said, "No, sir, it kept me." That's the difference. And that's what happened.

47 When God brought an Israelite in... Abraham believed God. Talking to a very outstanding, one of the great Christian leaders in the world today, one of the greatest, Pastor Boze and I in his room the other day speaking on that... See, it's not what we did; it's what Christ did. It isn't what I'm going to do; it's what He's already done.
I know I'm no good, never was, never will be. But then in the presence of God I'm absolutely perfect, because it's not me. He never sees me; He sees Christ. I'm in Christ. And my name was associated with Him at the foundation of the world. I'm just waiting for the cord to be drawed up. And we'll go, some of these blessed days, to meet Him in the air.
Someone said, "Brother Branham, ain't you afraid?" You know many times, way back when I was a little boy preacher, oh, the people use to come ask me, "Brother Branham, why if that be so, well then I can just do anything I want to."
I said, "That's right, sure.

48 Do anything you want to. If evil's in your heart, then you've never been to Calvary." That's one thing sure.
I always do what I want to. God lets me do what I want to, and I'm so glad of it. If I did what the devil wanted me to do, it's hard to tell what I would; but if I do what I wanted to do like I did before I was saved... But now, there's a new Spirit in there. And it's not the spirit of a lamb, neither the spirit of William Branham; it's the Spirit of Jesus Christ that makes me love the unlovable and makes me do things that I thought I never would do. It's Him.
Why, if it was me, you know what I'd say tonight? I'd have called up Mr. Boze and said, "Say, boy, look, I've been up for two nights; I haven't had a bit of sleep." I ain't slept but about two hours in the last two nights, going, coming, and people at the door and everything else. And way in the night, and try to lay down a few minutes, and get you up again, and it's broke, and then that goes away; here's another one. Sure, I'd stayed home.
But there was something in me that wasn't me, said, "You're supposed to be in Chicago tonight." And it was twelve-thirty at home. About two hundred and eighty miles to drive through that traffic. I said, "Lord, I'm going. You help me." And He did. I got just in time. I was here.
See, it's something in you. "There is therefore now no condemnation (can't be) for those that are in Christ, for they don't walk after the lust of the flesh; they walk after the Spirit." And if you love the Lord, you want to do everything you can to please Him.

49 Why, let's take it this way so that the unlearned would understand. If you love your wife right... I love my wife real good. My! Well, what if there was such a thing: if some other woman would come up and say, "Billy, I love you too." And she'd be a real pretty girl and say, "I love you." Well, she won't do it, but if she would, see.
You know what I'd tell her? I'd say, "Look, Sister, kneel down here a minute; I'll pray with you a little about it," see. Why?
Well, you say, "Bill, you're in Africa, Asia, somewhere; your wife would never know it." That might be true. And if she never did know it, I'd know it, see. I would know it.
And another thing, if I love her the right way... You say, "Well, she loves you so much she'd forgive you." That may be so, too. But I love her too much to do it, see. That's grace. Not nothing I done, but it's just my love for her. And that's the way our love is to Christ when we been born again and realize that we are sons and daughters of God; it ain't me have to this and have to... Paul said, "All things to me are lawful, but not all expedient."

50 So it isn't some law that I have to preach the Gospel; isn't some law that I have to do this; it's because I love Him so much. I just love to do it. And if you love Him like that... As long as I love my wife like that, she don't have to never worry. And as long as she loves me like that, she don't have to worry.
We don't go around to one another, "Now," she'd say, "now listen here, Mr. Branham, tell you something right now. You're going away on this trip. Ahem! I'm going to lay the law right down to you. Don't you run around on me, young man. Hunh-uh. Don't you do that."
Well, after she gets done laying down the law, then I turn back and I say, "Now, my fair lady, let me tell you something. While I'm gone, don't you have no other husbands. Don't you do this and don't you do that." Well, we don't say that. Sure, I just love her so much, my trust is in her. And she just loves me so much, she's the same way. So I say, "Goodbye sweetheart; keep praying for me."
"All right, dear, I will be praying for you all the time. Hurry back."
"All right."
That's all of it, see. She ain't got no big, "Well, you have to come and be this way, sprinkled, and confirmed, and brought to this, and that, and these, and that, and all these different orders, and things like that. If you don't dance with your feet crossed this way, it ain't right; you have to dance with your feet crossed this way.

51 A young lady come to me here some time ago when women wore those skirts that they call "scandal skirts." And she come to me, and she said, "Brother Branham, I want to ask you something."
I said, "Yes ma'am, sister."
She said, "Do think it's wrong for a Christian girl to wear a scandal skirt?" Said, "Do you think I..."
I said, "What in the world does a Christian girl need with a scandal skirt?" If she's a Christian, she'll be so far away from that thing, until, why, it'll be as dead to her as... Her love is for Christ and not to be a "scandaler." That's right. That scorches the shorts, don't it? That's right.

52 If you love the Lord, you'd be doing something else besides that. Now, you can preach all the liberation of women or men, what you want to, but that'll never change the Bible. God's Word is true, and that's to you Pentecostal people too. Yes, sir. Oh, you let down the bars some way, something happened.
Used to be it wasn't the way it is now. It's just because the weakness of the pulpit and just because you got mixed up in things. If the Holy Ghost taught you better back then, your mammy, and everything, and then you start doing this today... The Holy Ghost don't change. It's just the same every time, every time, every time.
You know what I'm beginning to think: that a lot of times people get one another's ghost, instead of the Holy Ghost. You watch them the way they act. You go into a church where the pastor is kind of a flighty, wild fired up Moabite, watch the congregation be the same thing.
Brother, I'm telling you it behooves you to get down and pray to God until that real Christian spirit moves into your heart and it settles all problems. You know the Bible said, "There'd be a famine in the last days, not for bread and water alone, but for hearing of the Word of God." That's right. And that's as true as it can be, friend. It's a shame.

53 For it never makes the worshiper... For then they would not have ceased to been offered. But because that the worshiper once purged, he'll have no more conscience of sin. It's all gone.
Now, the worshiper once purged... How does it do? When the life of the sacrifice comes back to the worshiper, then it's meekness, patience, gentleness, long-suffering, goodness, faith. See what I mean? Now, what did we Methodists do? We wanted to shout and get it. What do we Pentecost, we want to do? We want to speak in tongues and get it. But that's not it. That's not the fruit of the Spirit.
No, no, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, patience, meekness. There's not one visible evidence of it, not one fleshly; it's all in the supernatural realm. That's right. It's the hidden force that's in you. The life of Jesus Christ coming back on you, the worshiper, as you laid your hands upon His head and confessed that you was wrong.

54 Now look, a good Baptist brother said the other day, said, "Brother Branham." Not the other day; it's been a couple years ago. He said, "What, didn't Abraham believe God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness?"
I said, "That's right."
Said, "What more can any man do but believe God? What more can he do but to have faith?"
I said, "That's all he can do. That's all Abraham done. But God give Abraham the seal of circumcision as a confirmation that He had received his faith." And I said, "Then when all the old things pass away, everything becomes new, when you make your confession, and believe, and accept the Lord Jesus, and you become meekness, patience, gentle, and faith, to believe God, believe divine healing, believe the whole Bible, believe everything that God said, then that's the evidence that you've been saved. God has circumcised your heart, and taken away all your unbelief, and you believe in God then."

55 What is the word "sin"? Sin is "unbelief." Jesus said in Saint John the 4th chapter, "He that believeth not is condemned already." You don't have to do anything; you're condemned already. Now, drinking, committing adultery, and that, that's not sin. You do that because you're an unbeliever. You're an unbeliever to begin with. That's the reason you do those things.
Now, if you once get right with Christ, those things will just ... they're circumcised at the altar. When you confess it, God just takes it away, and puts the life of Himself in you. And then you're in Christ and you can't come to judgment.
Jesus said in Saint John 5:24, "He that heareth My words and believeth on Him that sent Me has everlasting life, and shall never come into judgment, but has already passed from death unto life." He can't bring you to judgment; you're already judged. And when the Holy Spirit comes back to make you live this different life, with God's seal of His circumcision on your heart to prove that you've stopped your drinking, smoking, gambling, cursing, unbelieving, and not believing in divine healing, the works of God, and has received God. And it's a seal that everybody knows about it from now on.

56 You once come in the house like ... oh, my, angry and kick over something, and oh, my, how you carry on. Like the old man that got converted one time, they said he got saved. I ain't saying this for a joke; I'm just saying it so you... I don't believe in joking, but you might see what I mean. He come up the road, and he was singing; he used to curse, and carry on, and hoop, and holler. He went to a little old meeting and got really saved; he come back up the road singing, "Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross."
When he got close to the door, said, the old hound looked over there and said to the old cat near the corner, said, "Listen to that, would you." He always kicked them off the porch and everything said, "I'll bet he hasn't got it." Said the cat, "You lay here, and I'll lay here; we'll see if he's got it or not."
When he got so close, they couldn't stand it any more. So under the house went the dog and around the house went the old cat. He went back out and went down to the barn. He'd always knocked the chickens around, beat everything up: mean, just the devil in him. So, the old rooster said, "He used to get so mad at me when I crowed to get him up in the morning, I'll try him out."
So, he let out a great big crowing, and flew; he couldn't stand it no more. The old cow said, "Now, I'm in a awful fix. He's got me with a halter on me, tied me around a post, and I have to stand it." All the fowls and things gathered around said, "Try him out." Said, "The only thing you have to do is switch him with your tail right across his face and watch what happens." Said, "We'll see if he's got religion or not."
Old cow thought it was hard to do. But as he started singing, "Jesus keep me near the cross," just a milking away. The old cow took her tail like this, and she swatted him in the face like that. He patted her on the back and said, "Bossy dear, your old soul." He said, "Bless the Lord, you didn't mean to do that."
They all said, "He's really got it." Now, that's right.

57 That's what the evidence is, brother; you've passed from death unto life. And all the things that you once done, passed away, because the life of Jesus Christ has put the Holy Spirit into ... controlling you a new creature. And once purged has no more desire of sin as long as you live on earth.
So, if you're constantly weak and falling up-and-down, remember, you might have a mental acception of it, but never an experience of being born again, when meekness, gentleness and patience takes the place of this mental theology... Oh, you say, "Look here, Mr. Branham, I study the Bible. Our pastor and so forth... I took Bible lessons."
Yes, the devil has too. He knows more about it than you'll ever know. That's right. But there's one thing: he can't get the Holy Ghost. You can. That's right. So as long as ... if he can't get to you... For you are dead, your life is hid in God and sealed by the Holy Ghost. Umm. How could he ever get you? The first thing, you're dead. Did you ever hear a dead man tell a lie? Did you ever hear a dead man fuss back at you? Stand at the casket and fuss at him all night, he'll never say a word. Why? He's dead.

58 And you reckon yourself dead, and your life is hid in God through Christ, and sealed by the Holy Ghost. The only way the devil could ever get you, he'd have come through the same washings that you came through, and receive the same Spirit you did, and then he'd be your brother, see. So he can't get you. It's you that's never come to Christ right in the first place. You get to a place, say, "Well, I still... Brother Branham, you know the Lord never did sanctify me from this."
If He sanctified you from one thing, He sanctified you from all of it. He takes your whole soul, body, and spirit. That's right. Don't be deceived, brother. "The man who despised Moses' law, died without mercy under one or two witnesses. How much more sorer punishment ... thought worthy, who's trod the blood of Jesus Christ under His feet, and called the covenant wherewith he was sanctified with an unholy thing, and done despite to the works of grace..." There you are.
The Bible said, it's impossible for that man to do that; said, "If a man's once been enlightened and made partakers of the Holy Ghost and tasted of the powers of the world to come, it's impossible for him to fall away, to renew himself again unto repentance." So if you're constantly on the up-and-down, remember brother, you have never correctly ever come to Jesus Christ yet.

59 The Bible says, "Love not the world, neither the things of the world." And if you love the world, the love of God's not even in you [unclear words]. You're only emotionally, mentally worked up for some kind of a churchanity, some kind of a theology that's been taught you, and never in your life have you ever come face to face, and met Jesus Christ, and been born again. For if you once fall in love with Christ, the world dies right then for eternity.
For you're sealed by the Holy Ghost until the day of your redemption, and you're dead, and your life is hid in God through Christ, and sealed there by the Holy Ghost. Your destination is determined right then, when you're sealed by the Holy Ghost.

60 Take an old freight car: When they load it, after this has been just put in it and that put in it... Well, the car might---if it could've been human, then it could do it---would jump up-and-down on the track say, "Oh, look where I am." You're not born yet, boy.
Before the Holy Ghost is ever put up here on you, before the seal's ever sealed that car, till its destination, the inspector comes by. He looks the whole thing over; he examines and sees everything's fitly tight. The trouble of it is today: We've had in our Pentecostal churches too much overhet religion. That's right. That's right. Instead of coming back to the old-fashioned, blood-washed Gospel of Christ (That's right.), we have too much emotions, too much mental into it, and psychic emotions, instead of being really settled down and saved. 'Cause you can watch it when the Holy Spirit comes in a meetings and presses the Word, the people don't know how to receive it. If that channel was open, the Holy Ghost would run right to it just as quick; it's like water seeping its way through a crack in the dirt. Amen. You believe that?

61 What we need today is a good old-fashioned breaking up. Watch that prophet going down to the potter's house to be broke up and remolded. That's what the Pentecostal, Full Gospel church needs today is a good old-fashioned breaking up, coming back to be remolded again. Do you believe that? Let us pray then as we bow our heads.
Our heavenly Father, just seems so good to stand here in the Philadelphian church and feel the response of the Spirit and know that the Word is sinking deep into the peoples hearts, to realize that they're receiving it, and it's life to them. Oh, how they love it. And it just feeds my soul to see the people respond to this Word, though I have not the ability to put it out the way that it should be.
But, Father, I pray that it'll help somebody. That the person who's weak-kneed, just stumbling along, lift up those weak and feeble knees, straighten up those hands that hung down; may they be lifted up and rejoice, because there's no need of us living a defeated life, going along...