<TITLE>12. Par 50-53</TITLE>L-50 Now, we take here in America, if I was going to say that--that brother here, one of these brothers and I were going to make a--a contract or an agreement. A covenant is an agreement. If we were going to make a covenant with each other, we'd set down and talk it over with each other, maybe write out our contract, whatever it was, have a bit to eat together; and we'd shake one another's hand, say, "Put it here. We--we'll--we'll agree to do this." That's a covenant in America.
Now, if we was in Japan, a covenant in Japan, they make an agreement, and then they get some salt and throw salt on one another. That's a custom in Japan, making a covenant. But in the days of Abraham in the orients, how they made a covenant, they cut a--killed an animal, and cut it apart, and then they wrote up their agreement on this--this parchment, or their lambskin. And then they stand in there and take an oath by this dead beast sacrifice, if one ever breaks it, may their body be as that broken beast's body. And then they tear this apart. One man takes one piece, and one the other. And where that writing was, it can never be dovetailed, unless this same piece comes back to put it together again. Because when it tears, it rips back and forth, and so forth as it tears across that lambskin, where the writing is.

L-51 Then they kept--keep that, and then the only way that this covenant is kept, is when--brought to pass is when they come back; each piece of this parchment must meet together, dovetail perfectly to make the agreement just exactly the same.
Now, you say, "What was God doing then there, Brother Branham?" Here's what He was showing through Abraham's seed.
Abraham said, "I go childless," 15th chapter of Genesis, "and I don't have an heir, and that's this Eliezer of Damascus."
And He said, "It'll not be him. But the covenant, the one that I make the covenant with, comes out of your own bowels. It'll be by you and Sarah," in other words, "is the one that I'll make it." And now remember, he's a real old man.

L-52 Now, what was He showing? That through Abraham come the promised one, Isaac. And through Isaac come Jesus. And through Jesus... Isaac, he was only a father of Israel, but through Jesus He's the father of every nation, all the seed of Abraham. And how did He confirm it? Showing what He would do by the sacrifice.
Now, Jesus became that Sacrifice. And he went to Calvary, and God tore Him apart on Calvary, tore His soul, and Spirit from His body, and raised up His body on the third day, and set it on His own right hand, and sent back the same Spirit was upon Him, to work in His church to call Abraham's seed. Can't you see it, it's the baptism of the Holy Ghost? That's the confirmation, confirming it.

L-53 Now, the church that professes to be a Christian church, will have to have that same Spirit that was in Jesus Christ. For at the resurrection of the church, Christ and His Bride will come together and dovetail. The writings and promises of God will be made fulfilled there. So it cannot come together unless the same Spirit was in Christ is in you and me. And then if that same Spirit is in there, It'll do the same works, and live the same kind of a separated life, and do the works that He did. The Bible said so, all the way to Genesis confirms it. Genesis is the seed chapter. "Genesis" means "beginning." Here it is confirming. Would that not make us all happy? Would not that make a sinner... It ought to be striking. It ought to make a church member come to Christ and stay until he's filled with the Holy Ghost. It's the only promise of the rapture, the only way that the church and Christ can come together, the very Spirit.


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