I Will Restore
57-0309B, I Will Restore, Miller's Cafeteria, Phoenix, AZ, 57 min




I was thinking, coming along the line, just a few moments ago, to get... on the... come up to the breakfast, and I was speaking with a man who was a Baptist... had just come into this marvelous full gospel way. And we were talking about Baptist theology, and he said, "Brother Branham, what do you think about it? They... It seems to get farther away. A many of them are coming in."
And I said, "They certainly are--are a good church, the Baptist church--nice people, and they have good teaching." I said, "But it's just like taking a bird, and you put him into a cage and give him orthodox food, a lot of vitamins to make good wings, but you got him in a cage." So that's it. "What good does it do to make him good strong wings, if you're going to keep him in a cage?" Might as well not give it to him, so I...?... somewhere like, where you can fly free."

And this man happened to be a Kentuckian, and he said, "Well," he said, "I can prove that Paul was a Kentuckian."
I said, "How is that?"
Said, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with 'you all.' He was a real Kentuckian." [II Thessalonians 3:18]

I'm thinking, the last time we gathered here, I believe it was, we didn't get anything to eat. You remember that, Brother Browning? We just set around and talked, but we had a spiritual feast. That's much better. And then this morning, seems like that the Lord's given us a double portion: something to eat for our stomachs and already get food for our hearts. And we're grateful to Him. [Matthew 18:20]

Someone we were talking to said oh... something about the Businessmen, and they said, "Why, they took Brother Branham; that's the only denomination he belongs to is the Christian Businessmen."
I said, "I'm getting to be such a fanatic that I believe that's about the only one that'll receive me." I said, "I'm just such a crank anyhow, that I believe just the Christian Businessmen is the only one. They can shove me from one to the other, you know, 'cause they represent them all." So... But we're happy to be here with the Christian Businessmen, and the ministers and their wives, and all the visitors, if there be any with us that's not ministers and not in the fellowship.
This has been a great time for me here in Phoenix. So sorry that I had a throat the way I have it. But I... This is just about my fifth month now, without hardly a day or night off, but what I've been in a service--constantly on the go.

The papers makes a lot of statements that's not true. I don't believe Billy said it. But if he did say it, I would say, that one thing would be, like Billy, would be like it is with many of our other evangelists, and with myself--and I hope you read between the lines what I'm saying--sometimes our zeal burns up our wisdom. We try to go too long, too hard; we get wore down. You get to a place you can't think right. Seems like... Oh, I don't know. Sometimes when I get to feeling like that, I'll just kinda be glad when I hear the trumpet sound. I think it'll all be over. There'll be no more struggles, no more heartache...?... you know what I mean.

I know I wore awful thin one time. And I'm getting thin again. But how can you set still when thousands are calling and pulling from everywhere? I thought, "Well, Lord..." Last fall when I come back from Brother Bonn or the Christian Businessmen over on the little time of vacation, I thought, "Well, Lord, I'll just step into the harness and stay until You call me." and just overdone it because of these things. I would rather die in the harness than out of the harness.
So when we're thin, and wearing thin, and so forth, as I've just stated, you get tired. I've... My throat's giving down, but to come into a time like this where we sit in a little gathering... And I wonder if the Lord don't just let us get all tore up sometimes, where He can just mold us, and fashion us, and make us a little different, and bless us, and kiss us on the cheeks, and say, "My child, I'm right with you, and I'll give you just a little encouragement; go ahead."

That which the palmerworm has left has the locust eaten;... that which the locust has left has the a... (I beg your pardon, I'm reading it wrong.) That which the palmerworm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left... the cankerworm has eaten;and that which the... (I mean) the caterpillar has eaten; that which the caterpillar has left has the... a... cankerworm has eaten has the caterpillar...
I'm all mixed up again, but... Standing here with tears in my eyes and shaking, I... Well, I'll read it again.
That which the palmerworm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has the cankerworm eaten; that which the cankerworm has left has the caterpillar eaten. [Joel 1:4]
I'm all mixed up again, but... Standing here with tears in my eyes and shaking, I... Well, I'll read it again.
That which the palmerworm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has the cankerworm eaten; that which the cankerworm has left has the caterpillar eaten. [Joel 1:4]
And then over in Joel 2:25:
I will restore unto you... [Joel 2:25]

And we have come this morning as a group of people under the old oak tree, as it was, to set around for a little time of fellowship. And I pray Thee, God, to be merciful too, on us and to give unto us that which we have need of. May the great Holy Spirit now come among us, and come among each of us, and give us the food from the Bible that we have need of. Bless this group of men, Lord. Bless this gathering. Bless the revival, and the Christian Businessmen, and for everything that's been done or said during this meeting. And we pray that in the end we'll hear those wonderful words, "It was well done, My good and faithful servant. Enter into the joys of the Lord." We ask in Jesus' Name, amen. [Matthew 25:21]

You know, there's none of us just alike. If we should all go up this morning and they'd gave us a fingerprint, we'd find out there is no two fingerprints exactly alike. That's known. They claim, there's no two people got noses just exactly alike. We're so different one to the other and many make-up. But we can certainly agree that we're all humans.

I wouldn't mean to speak evil of the Baptists, or the Presbyterians, or not even to the Catholics, because there's Catholic people who I believe are saved. God has so... made it so simple to us that, "He that believeth on Me..." See? And there's many of them, you... I wouldn't believe the system of the Catholic church, but I believe in the Catholic people. I don't believe in the system of the... maybe the Baptists, or Presbyterian, or even the Pentecostals, sometime, but I believe in their people, because they are my brothers and sisters.

But there's four great things here that I want to mention, and that is, Joel, the prophet, who was God's eagle, who climbed up into the sphere of God, and saw the day coming. Peter quoted him on the day of Pentecost in Joel 2:38. He said, "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." And Joel saw that coming. And if Joel's prophecy was so accurate, that it saw Pentecost many hundred years before it ever happened, then surely, the prophecy that he has given to this day, we could say would be accurate. But the thing I want to speak on is this: the four great destroyers. [Acts 2:16]

And if you will check closely on your insects, those three... or those four insects are the same insect in a different form: the caterpillar, and the locust, the cankerworm, and the... I mean the... I get them mixed up.
The first was the palmerworm, and then the locust, and then the cankerworm, and the caterpillar. We are told that that is the same insect in just different forms coming down. [Joel 1:4]

Now, the first thing that Pentecost produced was brotherly love. It tore down the middle wall of partitions and made a brotherhood, to such a way that they had everything in common in the Bible days--a brotherhood. Paul spoke of this brotherhood, and he gave all the gifts of the Pentecostal church, and then said in I Corinthians 13, that, "Though I speak with tongues as men and angels, and have not this love, which brings the brotherhood, I am nothing. And though I have the knowledge to understand all the mysteries of God, I am still nothing without love, the love of the brethren." [I Corinthians 13:1-2]

Now, Jesus spoke of this and said that... Paul did, rather, and said, "Let brotherly love continue." That was in the first church. But something taken place. And there was a fellow come in by the name of a palmerworm. And when he began to eat on that vine of brotherly love, he cut the very sap line of it. Because it don't make any difference how smart we are, how much we think we know, or how much we want to be different from somebody else, and as long as that brotherly feeling isn't among us, we are fighting a losing battle. That's right. We can't win. There's no way for us to win. [John 13:35], [John 11:16], [Hebrews 13:1]

It's all right, and you brethren, the reason I said for you to come this morning, I want to speak to ministers... It's all right to have denominations. There's nothing against that. But when denomination isolates himself and separates his fellowship from his brethren, that old palmerworm has eat the life out of it to begin with. That's right. [I Corinthians 12:1-11]

Now, I'm just saying that for an example. And if we could do that between two men, why can't every brother do it? I might have a right to say things against the church's...?...

You know, there's an electric fence like. That palmerworm can't get over that fence. That shock of the Holy Spirit of love, it'll kill him every time, brothers. And if we need fences to build, it oughtn't to be denominational fences; it ought to be love fences to keep the insect out, to keep the palmerworm out, for he is the devil's number one destroyer.

Now, we shook hands with the Baptist setting over there coming down. I believe there's another Baptist looking at me there with a checkered tie on, or was. See? It is an experience. And the trouble of it is, we let these insects get in and tear us to pieces. And there is the number one killer. That's what's eating in our Pentecostal experiences today.

I've never expressed this before between Pentecostal people or anyone. But seeing the tremendous strain that's been on me, that's why I come to do it this morning. It's the mightiest church on the face of the earth. And it is the church.
There's only one church. Many of the them are still branded Baptist, Presbyterian... [Romans 8:39]

That's what I think it'll be at the day of the Judgment: it won't be whether you're Methodist or Baptist, or Presbyterian, but what brand you got on you, but it'll be a borned again experience that...?... Holy Ghost...?...

Recently at a meeting, where a Lutheran group of people... A dean of a college had Brother Moore and I there, and he so differed with me. But what got him was in the supernatural. And he called me out, to have dinner with him. And there was pretty near as many there as there is here at this breakfast. And then, when we got through eating and was explaining to him, he wanted to know "What we Lutherans have..."
And I said, "Well, do you say..."
He said to me, "Do we Lutherans have anything?"
I said, "Sure. You have Christ." I said, "I'll make it to you in a parable." A man once planted a field of corn. And he went out in a few days, and he looked, and there were little, two little sprouts sticking up like this. And the man begin to praise God for a field of corn. I said, "Did he have corn?"
He looked at me, said, "Well, perhaps in a sense he had corn."
I said, "He had corn, potentially."

But if the truth was known, the very life that was in the leaf has made the tassel. And it has to have the leaf to drop it's pollen to further on towards maturity. After while the ear come, had grains on it--the Pentecostal, restoration of the gifts, back to where it went into the ground, the return of the power of God in fullness, showing Christ alive, at Pentecost, through the gifts and manifestations of the first church.
But you know, when this ear of corn come on, it looked back to that tassel and say, "You ain't got nothing. You ain't even in it. And you old dead Lutheran leaves down there, there's nothing to you."

But now the thing about this, we've had that in our minds so long, until it has created another thing. And we've got fungus growing out all over the ear. You know what fungus is? What it... You know what fungus is and what brings it. You see? It's something wrong, something wrong with the tree that has fungus on it. It's got a disease.
And Pentecost has got a disease. It's got a lot of fungus growing on it. That's right. In the--in all of our churches--got fungus growing on it. We've let the old palmerworm come along with his stinger and break down brotherhood, break down unity among us. Paul said in the Bible that he wanted us to all speak the same thing. He wanted us all to be in unity.





They could not help doing it. I wonder when we stand before Jesus at that great day... And as the patriarchs stood before Joseph, and they condemning themselves, "We knew we did this. We should not have done this."...
And he said, "It was all for the good."
I wonder, really with all of our differences and other things, when we come that day and say, "Oh Lord, if I'd have knowed that I'd never done this."
But what if He'd just say, "Well, it was all for the good. It might preserve life in some way."

Now, in the day of the early age, there come a time when they set up a pope and made him a god--give him a triple crown: the jurisdiction over heaven, purgatory, and hell. I've seen his crown. I looked at it myself. And they begin to come to a man worship. And they be... set up from the worship of the one true God to a false earthly god and got priests in there and called them "Fathers...?... Father." The Bible plainly told us; call no man, "father," but God, and to worship no man but God. [Matthew 23:9]

I said, "Just take it off the list." I would not pay that respect to any earthly man...?... If he is a minister, or reverend, or elder, whatever he wishes to be called, all right, but never do worship to a man. That's right.

Now, they lost sight there, of the true picture of the one true God. God is not three Gods. God is one God. God has three offices, the trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but it isn't three different Gods. If it is, we're pagan. But that never started in the early church; they knowed different from that. It started in the middle age, when the unity of brethren was broke up, and the love.

Instead of coming like brethren with brotherly love and with unity, the first one begin to see the--that the three Persons of the Godhead was in one Person, Christ Jesus; He was the manifestation of God in flesh, not another man. And then you set up and got the little dogmatic idea of the oneness, so-called. Then you started on that, begin to harp on it, and you made God one like your finger, one, and you know that's wrong. You better scholars know better than that. But what was it? It was because the palmerworm begin to eat first. Instead of setting and reasoning together when I come into the factions of the Pentecostals they set a table bigger than that, with their heads around, "You go this, and you can't go to this. You preach for them, you can't preach for me."
I said, "We are brethren. Absolutely."

It started in the early days. Paul said, "When I come among you, one has this and one has that. One said, 'I'm of Cephas.' and, 'I'm of Paul.' Was Cephas crucified? Would you baptize in the name of Paul?" Why, that stuff had already started. It was eating into the church. [I Corinthians 3:4, 5, 22]

The other one said, "Silly. When Jesus died, they bury a man on his back." So they baptize him three times backward: once for the Father, and once for the Son, once for the Holy Ghost. And they split up. My goodness, brethren, can't you see? Don't you understand? Let it be a vision to you. What difference does it make? When we have lost our feeling of brotherhood, we're in a terrible shape...?... Do you get it? But these little things that break out, then somebody grabs it, and, "We'll make us a unity." That's not unity; that's pure petty jealousy. Get what I mean? We need real Christian, apostolic unity. Yes, sir.

But John, trying to cap it all, said, "Oh, keep Christ, the unity of Christ, the love of God in our hearts. Little children, love one another." [Acts 20:29], [I John 3:23], [Philippians 1:15-18]


If I would direct my message towards one of them, I'd be a hypocrite. I don't speak against things the Baptist church says this, the Methodist church says that, and this does that or this does that. I'm not preaching against the men; I'm preaching against that devil of a cankerworm, that's trying to get a hold of mankind. And we see it. We will... I brought this so that we could lay it out before these brothers, that we would see that these destroyers was predicted to come and eat the vine down. [Joel 1:4]

But what is it? What's keeping them from it? Their organization. If they get caught in that bunch, they'll get excommunicated. That's a false unity; the Bible said so. That's right. God never did organize His church. Now, don't be against that. God said it had to happen. But the thing of it is among all of us, let's be brethren. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]

What come next? That's where the palmerworm died and turns into a locust and he goes to stinging. Then the locust goes and in comes the cankerworm. The cankerworm leaves and here comes the caterpillar to get what's left. See? Right back to the stump it goes. And brethren, the point with the life coming up from the root, Christ Jesus ('cause He was the Root and Offspring), we, by our indifferences, have let these things cut up and keep us a stump.
"Is there any hope then," you say, "Brother Branham?"
Blessed be to God, "I will restore saith the Lord. All the years, the blessings, that the cankerworm, the caterpillar, the palmerworm and everything that's eaten down..." And brethren, as a middle-aged man, as a preacher of the gospel, and your brother, which loves you with Christian love, I'm looking to see the day, soon, when those cankerworms and caterpillars will be sprayed with God's insect powder and...?... and every church will embrace one another: men shall be brethren and praise the Lord. [Joel 2:25]

Then the gifts will come and they say, "Oh, Jones said, 'This was this and this was that.'" It's the Holy Spirit, truly, but It can't get through to produce Itself. These little insects are keeping it down. That's the reason we can't have real... Why, this great power that's in the church, should have swept her from sea to shining sea. The great church of the Living God should be every power...?...
What does it? Just as soon as one raises up here comes the caterpillar and starts boring on. But one great thing: God said it would be that way. We see it. And God said, "I will restore." I'm looking for it. God bless you. [Joel 2:25]