<TITLE>15. Par 58-61</TITLE>L-58 Said, "Abraham, you're not even in the picture. I'm the One to do this." I'm so glad that He does. I just like to just believe Him and follow Him. After all, He's got the right to say yes or no. I'm so glad that He saved me, aren't you? And He never done it because I was any good, or you was any good, or we merited anything; He done it because He loved us. That's right. We never loved Him; He loved us. We couldn't change our nature, no more than you could tell a pig that he was wrong eating a manure pile. Why, certainly not.
I wouldn't think nothing to see a pig eating in manure. That's his nature. But I hate to see the day that I'd see a lamb eating in the same diet. And they... What gets me is; I--I don't condemn a sinner for what he does. The sinner's all right. If he wants to drink, and rouse, and fuss, and carry on, and stew, that's his business, go on. That's your business.
But you that call yourselves Christians and then do the same thing the sinner does, that shows your nature hasn't been changed. You're still a pig. That's right. That's right. I don't mean to hurt you. I want you to be cured. You know, you have to rub the scab off sometime to get the thing to heal up right.
So that's what the Gospel does. It gives us an old fashion rubbing down. Then, it pours some burning alcohol or something in the back of it to kindy make it burn a little bit.

L-59 Now, notice what he did. Then He said, "Abraham, I'm taking you out of the picture. You have no more to do with this at all." And Abraham went to sleep. And when he did, the first thing he saw before him was a real black darkness: death that faces every person. "It was once appointed unto men to die and after this the judgment." A hard darkness, hard, shaky, he had a horror. A darkness come before Abraham.
But after that, he looked and he saw a smoking furnace. Every sinner deserves to go to hell. God's confirming His covenant now... Watch. And then after the smoking furnace, he saw a little white Light: salvation. And this little white Light went up to these beasts and went right in between each one of these beasts, making the confirmation of the covenant with Abraham, this little white Light. What was he speaking of?
In a symbol if you're spiritual minded, you'll pick it up right quick. It was Christ he was speaking of. Every one of those animals, every one of those birds, them beasts, everything spoke of Christ at Calvary. Now, let me get it to you a little bit so you can understand it.

L-60 In Canada, what if you and I in Canada or anywhere in America was going to make a covenant one another. I'd say, "Sir, will you do a certain-certain thing?"
"Yes, Brother Branham."
"Well, I'll do a certain thing. Let's shake hands." You reach over and get his hand, shake hands. That's the covenant, confirming it. "Yes, sir, it's is it, boy?"
"It's settled." That's the way we do it, isn't it?
Now, in Japan when they make a covenant, it's a strange thing; but they get a little cruse of salt, and they get out there and talk the covenant over. And one gets some salt and throws it on the other one, and then throws salt back on him. Now, that's confirming a covenant.

L-61 But in the Orient, back in... The Bible becomes a new Book to you if you're ever in Palestine and in the Orient, the eastern country. It's a eastern Book. It's just a new Book when you see it in the light of the eastern people.
And in this day how a covenant was made, what they did, they taken a--they taken a beast and killed it. They killed the beast, and they wrote the covenant out on paper or a lamb's skin, wrote it out on here, and they took that, tore it apart up over this dead beast's body. One men took one piece, one men took the other one, and took an oath to God, that if they broke this covenant between them, let their body be like this dead beast. What a binding covenant. And that's how that God confirmed the oath to Abraham.


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