... 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.
Watch. Perfect's what we're talking about.
For then they should not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipper once purged would have no more conscience of sin.
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What do you mean? The word "conscience" there, and right interpretation, is "desire." And if a man comes, the worshipper correctly, before Christ, seeing His suffering, and he offers himself to Christ, and says, "O Lord God, there's nothing in me that can atone, but I'm wholly depending on You," then that Holy Spirit comes into the human heart, the very sin question's settled forever, for every desire of sin has been taken from you. For if the law could've done that, them sacrifices would not have had to cease; but being that it could not do it, Christ had to die to make us perfect. Friends, there is so many things that we could say tonight about the perfection. We are always trying to gouge the eyes out of somebody else to make ourself just a little holier than the are--they are. But if we only looked at the picture, it's only God's grace that we are what we are.
Here some time ago in Ohio, I learned a lesson the hard way. I was having a meeting down in Ohio, and I was staying out in the country. Because of the masses, I could not stay in the city.
We'd been eating at a little Dunkard restaurant. And such lovely little waitresses, and decently dressed, and clean as they could be, very ladylike, waited on us. It was a little spot of heaven to eat in such a place. Their kitchen was spic-and-span. And on Sunday they closed up and they went to their church. I got a little hungry; I was going to preach Sunday afternoon.
And I went over to an ordinary little, just a common little American restaurant to get something to eat. And when I walked in the door, what did I hear but a slot machine going. And was standing there a man of my age, which perhaps was a married man, with his arm around a woman, playing a slot machine. Our very law, the protection of our righteousness, of our goods, was standing there violating a thing that he was supposed to be protecting. Because it's illegal to gamble in Ohio, playing a slot machine.
And I turned and looked towards the back of the building, there was a bunch of teen-age boys, and an old rock-and-roll records on the machine, playing. A young lady of about eighteen years old, very neatly and in her anatomy as a woman. But she was standing there with her dress hanging low in the front, and one of those boys with his hands on the girl, where they did not belong, and they were smoking and drinking... And I thought, "O God, how can You stand it?"
And I looked over to my right, when I heard someone make out a big groan. And there set an aged woman, probably sixty years, or seventy years old. She had on those little old vulgar clothes, just about half-way up her limbs, and her poor old wrinkled flesh was just as flabby as it could be. And she had on this here lip makeup, and a great big purple thing on the side of her face, painted: a little pair of shoes on, sandals, with purple toenails, painted; purple fingernails, painted. And her hair was cut real short, and curled up, and dyed blue. And I looked at her.
And across the table set two men, drunk. One of them (It was summertime.) with a big old army overcoat on, with a gray scarf wrapped around his neck, and the whiskers all over his face, a-belching and going on. And they excused theirself, the men did, from her, and started walking out like this to the restrooms.
I stood there. And I said, "God, why don't You destroy the whole thing? Why don't You just sink it beneath the earth?" I said, "Is my little Sarah and Rebekah going to have to grow up under such stuff as that?" I said, "How can You, God, in Your great holiness, ever stand to look at such a thing like that and not send an earthquake and sink it?"
And as I was standing there condemning the woman, as I was, I stepped back behind the door. I felt the Spirit of God come to me, and I stepped behind the door.
And I seen like something whirling. And when it was, in the vision it was the world turning around and around. And as I noticed, around the world was a scarlet streak, around the world. And as I got to the world, I seen myself, just a little boy, doing things that I ought not to do; maybe not like that, but it was sin. And every time I did anything, I seen that great black shadow go towards heaven. Which God would've killed me at that minute.
Then I seen standing between me and God, stood that perfect Sacrifice. I seen Him standing there with the thorns on His head, and the spit hanging on His face. And every time my sins would start towards God, He'd reach out and catch it like the bumper on the car. He was protecting me from death. And every time I'd do anything wrong, God would've killed me. Certainly, His holiness requires it. His law requires it. And every time I'd do anything, or you do anything, the Blood of Jesus Christ acts like a bumper. And I seen that scarlet streak meant that then, that the Blood still holds the earth.
And as I stood looking, I got a little closer to Him as I noticed Him. And I could hear Him say, "Father, forgive him, he doesn't know what he's doing." And I looked down, and there laid a book. And there's a recording Angel there, and standing by His side. And every time I sinned, it was put down on the book. And my name was on it. And I realized that someday, I--that Blood streak would be lifted and I'd have to stand in the Presence of God with my sinful life. But I seen by His mercy He was holding off my judgment.
I went to Him, humbly. I knelt on my knees, and I said, "O Jesus, Thou Son of God, I am unworthy to come in Your Presence. But will You please forgive me for what I have done?"
He touched His side with His hand, took the old book and wrote "pardoned" on it, throwed it back behind Him, and my sins were gone. Then He looked me stern in the face; He said, "Now I have forgiven you, but you want to condemn her." Then I seen what it meant.
As I come out of the vision, I walked over to her. I said, "How do you do?"
She was drinking. She looked up at me and she said, "Oh, hello."
I said, "Could I set down?"
She said, "I have company."
I said, "I don't mean it in that way, lady. I just want to speak to you a minute."
She said, "Be seated."
And I said, "Lady, just a few minutes ago, standing yonder behind that door..." I begin to tell her. And as I begin to look, the tears begin to run down her cheeks. And she told me... I said, "Lady, you don't mean to do these things. Jesus died, and the judgments of God is held off by His Blood. You don't mean to do this."
And she said, "No, sir." She said, "My father was a deacon in church. I was raised in a Christian home. My husband and I were charter members and lived a Christian life. She begin to tell me, after his death... She had two young girls, and she went astray. And how the girls had left her, and she'd throwed her life away. And she thought there was no more hope for her.
But I said, "God, be merciful. Those who He has foreknew, He has called."
The said, "Are you Reverend Branham, from down there?"
I said, "I am."
She said, "I'm ashamed of myself to be setting here like this." She said, "Do you think there would be a chance for me?"
I said, "Jesus has His arms stretched out, waiting for you to come, lady." And the other people begin to take up. And I said, "Would you walk out here in this floor with me?" She said, "I will, sir."
I took her by the hand, I said, "You're about the age of my mother. Would you kneel here with me in the floor?" And there in the floor we broke up that place that afternoon to an old fashion meeting. And God saved that woman by His grace. She dressed herself and come to the meeting, and, as far as I know, living a Christian life tonight.
What is it? Oh, God requires perfection. He requires your repentance. He requires your loyalty to Him. But He's looking tonight. No matter how much you've sinned, how little or how much, you are still a sinner, and cannot get in no other way but by Jesus Christ, God's all-sufficient Sacrifice. And in Him you are perfected forever. Think of it.
It's not nothing you do. It's not new pages you turn. It's not a new life you start. It's a confession of your wrong, and God's grace to you. That brings you to perfection, and then you are perfected in Jesus Christ.
I trust tonight, friend of mine, while we are here at this great crucial moment now, when decisions must be made. After hearing this story, you might have never heard it before. But you can't go out one of those doors the same person you come in; you must go out better or worse.
And while we bow our heads just a moment, I want you to think mightily about it. What about your soul tonight? Jesus Christ died for you.
You say, "Brother Branham, when I can get quit smoking, when I can quit drinking, when I can straighten this thing up, I'll do it." Oh, it will never be done right. You'll never be able to do it. Why don't you just come the way you are? And, by faith, go to that Stream, Thy flowing wounds supply, then redeeming love to be your theme, and shall be till you die.
Why take a substitute? Why try to get in by your church? Why try to come in because you quit drinking or quit lying? Come by the way of perfection. "For by one Sacrifice He has perfected forever those that are sanctified."
"How do I get sanctified?" Confess your sins in the Presence of the Blood of Jesus; and the Life that come from that Blood, comes back to the worshipper and sanctifies Him from the desires of the things of the world. For by that all-sufficient Sacrifice He has sanctified us; one Spirit, we are all baptized into one Body. "Now there's no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, to them that walk not after the flesh, but the Spirit." If you're trying to walk by the Spirit, and still lusting for the flesh, the Sacrifice hasn't been sufficiently applied to you. But the worshipper once purged has no more desire of sin.
That was Calvary. It isn't a place to sell flowers, or a little place to do this or that. It was a place where God and man were reconciled. It was the place where peace and perfect safety was brought to mankind. Can you go with me tonight, my sinner friend, to Calvary, and by faith apply this Blood to your own soul, and let the Holy Ghost come and sanctify you by His great Sacrifice?
William Branham, Sermons Perfection
http://www.en.branham.ru/read_prop.php?date=57-0419