The most important day.

William Branham.
 

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That day on Calvary.

Luke 23:33,
And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

It's one of the most important days of all the days that God ever let dawn on the earth. And if it's so important to the human race-Calvary-I think it's good for us to go back and examine and see just what it means to us. For I'm sure in this late hour that we're living, we are seeking every importance of God that we can know; and all that we can find out, we are here to learn of it. To see what is for us, and what God has done for us, and see what He's promised to do for us. And that's what we come to church for.

That's why the preacher preaches. That's why he studies and meditates in the Scripture and seeks for inspiration, is because he is a public servant to God's people, and he is trying to find something that will ... that God would have to say to His people, something that would help them. Maybe it might be condemn them in their sins; but would be a help to raise them up, that they might forsake their sins, and then raise up to serve the Lord. And ministers should seek these things.

If this day being so important, one of the greatest days, let us look at three different things that day meant to us. We could take hundreds. But this morning I have just chosen three different vital things that we want to look at for the next few moments, that Calvary meant to us. And I pray that it will condemn every sinner that is present, that'll make every saint go on to his knees, that'll make every sick person raise his faith to God and walk away healed, every sinner saved, every backslider come back and be ashamed of himself, and every saint rejoice and take new hope-new hope.

The one great important thing that Calvary means to us and the world is, it settled the sin question once for all. Man was found guilty of sin, and sin was a penalty that no man could pay. The penalty was so great until there wasn't anyone that could pay the penalty. I truly believe that God ordained it that way-that the penalty would be so great that no man could pay it-so He could do it Himself! Now, the penalty of sin was death. We were all born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies. Therefore, there wasn't none of us that was worthy, or they could find one on earth that was worthy.

And sin did not start on the earth. Sin started in heaven. Lucifer, the devil, was a condemned creature for his disobedience before he ever struck the earth. Sin began in heaven, where God put the angels and so forth upon the same basis that He put human beings on. Knowledge. The tree of knowledge ... the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, where man could take his choice. And when Lucifer was given the preeminence to make his choice, he wanted something better than God had. That started the trouble.

And there was a requirement for sin. The requirement was death. Death was the penalty. And that is ... we could go into great details of this, because I do not believe that there is but one death. There is one life. I believe a man that has eternal life can never die, and I believe there is a complete annihilation of that soul that sins. For the Bible said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall surely die”-not the man, the soul that sinneth. So Satan must surely die, to be completely destroyed. How I disagree with the Universalists that say that Satan will be saved! He sinned, and he is the originator of sin. His soul sinned, and he was a spirit. That spirit shall be totally annihilated to be nothing left of it.

And when sin struck the earth back in the beginning like a sheet of blackness falling from the heavens, it literally paralyzed the earth. It throwed every creature on the earth, and all of God's creation, in bondage. Man was under bondage of death, sickness, troubles, sorrows. All nature fell with it. Sin was an anesthetic that actually paralyzed the earth! And then we was set here, hopeless, because every creature on earth was subject to it, and everyone born on earth was subject to it. So it had to come from some place where there was no sin. It could not come from the earth. One of us could not redeem the other. It had to come from another. Therefore, when man realized that he was separated from his God, he become a wanderer. They wept, they cried, they toiled, they wandered about through the mountains, and through the deserts, seeking a city whose builder and maker was God. For he knew that if he ever got back in the presence of God, he could talk it over with Him. But there was no way back. He became lost, he didn't know which way to turn. So he just took out wandering, trying to find somewhere that he could find a way back to that place! Something on the inside of him told him that he came from a place that was perfect.

There is not a person here in this visible audience this morning, or in the audience of the magnetic tape where it'll go around the world, there's no one here or anywhere, but what seeks for that perfection. You get your bills paid, you think that'll settle it. When you get your bills paid, then there's somebody sick in your family. When the sickness gets all right, then you got more bills to pay. The first thing you know, your hair is turning gray, and then you want to be back young. And there's something all the time, constantly, because of that wave of sin. But in your heart, because that you seek for that, it shows that there is a perfection somewhere. Somewhere there's something.
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Finally one day-that's that day at Calvary-there was One came down from glory, One by the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God, who came from glory, and Calvary was formed. That was the day that the price was paid, and the sin question was settled forever, and opened up the way unto this thing that we're hungering and thirsting for. It brought a place of satisfaction. There's no man that's ever visited Calvary and seen it the way it was, that can ever be the same. Everything that he ever desired or longed for is met when he reaches that place. It was such an important day, and such an important thing, it shook the world! It shook the world like it was never shook before. When Jesus died at Calvary and paid the sin question,

this sinful world had a blackout! The sun went down in the middle of the day. It had a nervous prostration, the rocks shook, the mountains rent, and the dead bodies bursted from the grave. What did it do? God zeroed in on Calvary. He wounded that animal called Satan forever. Now he has been more vicious since then, because it brought light to the human race; and anyone knows that a wounded animal is its most vicious ... crawling around with his back broke. Now, Satan was knocked out at Calvary. The earth proved that it was. The greatest price that was ever paid, and the only One that could pay it, came and done it at Calvary. That's where the great price was paid. That's one of the things.

God had required it. No man was worthy, no man was able, no man could do it. And God came Himself and was made human, and lived a human life under human desires, and was crucified at Calvary. And there, when Satan thought He wouldn't do it, He wouldn't go through it-He went through Gethsemane and every temptation that any man ever stood. He went through it just like all men; but He paid the price! And that's what blacked the earth out. Like an anesthetic for an operation. When a doctor gives a man an anesthetic ... he first knocks him out before he can do it. And when God gave the operation for the church, the world got an anesthetic. Nature had a convulsion. No wonder. God, in human flesh, was dying. It was the hour that the world had looked for, yet many of them did not know it. Like it is today, many look for these things, and yet they don't recognize them. They don't realize the way out. They're still trying to seek pleasures and things of the world, trying to find their way out.

There has been many sign posts that pointed to that day-many great foreshadows. It had been foreshadowed by the lamb, by the bullock, by the turtle dove, and all these things; but yet it could not break it. It could not break that death hold! For Satan had the earth. The very rocks that he once walked up and down on the earth, burning brimstone-Lucifer was the son of the morning and he walked on the earth when it was a burning volcanic-those same rocks that had cooled off, when Jesus died at Calvary, belched forth out of the earth. The price that was paid, and the bondage of Satan was broke.

God put back into the hands of man a way back to what he was looking for. He had to weep no more. When He broke the backbone of Satan there at Calvary-the back bone of sin, of sickness-and it brings every mortal being on the earth back into the presence of God with sins forgiven. Hallelujah! Our sins are forgiven! No more can Satan black us off from God! There's a highway made, there's a telephone sitting there, there's a line to glory. It brings every person in reach of that line. If a man is full of sin, it connected him in on central. He can be forgiven of that sin! Not only that, but that sin is paid for! You don't have to say, “I'm not worthy.” Sure you're not. You never could be. But a worthy One took your place! You are free! You don't have to wander anymore. You don't have to be a pleasure-seeking man out here on the earth. For:

There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
Where sinners plunge beneath the flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

You don't have to be lost. “There is a highway, and a way, and it's called the way of holiness; the unclean don't pass over it.” For he comes to the fountain first; then he enters the highway.

He broke the powers of Satan. He opened the prison doors of hell, that every man that was shut up in this earth-in the prisons-fearing that when he died, what death would be to him ... on Calvary He opened those cell doors and let every captive go free. You don't have to no longer be torn down by sin. You don't have to no longer yield your members to sin, drinking, smoking, gambling, telling lies. You can be honest, just, and upright; and Satan can do nothing about it, because you got ahold of a line! a lifeline that's anchored in the rock of ages. Nothing can shake you from it. No winds can shake you from it. No nothing, not even death itself, can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus.

That's what Calvary meant. Men that were in bondage were set free. Men that were once under fear of death can no longer fear death. A man who longs for a city whose builder and maker is God, he can step on the highway, and set his face towards heaven, because he is free. Hallelujah, he's redeemed! He don't need to wander anymore, for there's a way of knowing whether you are right or not. God gives us life. Our sins are gone. That day at Calvary paid the price.
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First, we should seek what that day meant. Second, we should see what that day has done for us, what it did for us. Now third, let's look at what we ought to do for that day, what ought we to do. First, we should look into it, for it's a great day-greatest of all the days. The sin price was settled. Satan's power was broken. And now we want to see what we should do in return. Now, in return, when Jesus died at Calvary, on Calvary that day, He not only paid the price for our sins, but He also paid the price and made a way that we could follow Him. For we, as the fallen Adams that's been redeemed.... As the Spirit led Adam-the first Adam-by the Spirit, that had control of all nature, then we-the second Adam, or, the man of the earth-has been redeemed by Christ from the day of Calvary, can follow Him.

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That day on Calvary.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17