The Days Of The Restoration
I want to read to you from the book of Joel, chapter one verses 1-3.
"The word of the Lord that came unto Joel..."
"Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?"
"Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation."
"That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left the caterpillar eaten."
Now in the second chapter of Joel, verses 25-27--God gives a promise: "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you; and my people shall never be ashamed."
JOEL WAS SPEAKING about the tree of Israel, and saying that what one devourer had left, another had eaten.
The Jews have always been likened unto the fig tree. I think Joel was referring to Israel when he spoke of it being eaten. They were eating up God's vine. His heritage. Israel was taken down until there was nothing left but a bare, bleeding stump. I think Jesus was speaking of this when He said, "Behold the fig tree and all the trees." When spring is here and the trees begin putting out buds, you say summer is nigh. "Likewise, ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." (Luke 21:31).
An infidel said to me one time that he could prove that the Bible wasn't true. The first thing he mentioned was that Jesus was a thief because He went through the cornfields that did not belong to Him and ate the corn. I answered that He was "the Lord of the Harvest," and it belonged to Him in the first place.
He added that Jesus, in Matthew 24, told of many disasters and said, "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." He said that all of that generation had passed away, and generations have passed since then.
He went on to say that those things never have been fulfilled and neither had Christ come back. He believed that Jesus wasn't any more than any other man.
I said, "That just shows, my friend that God hid these things from the eyes of the wise and the prudent and has revealed them unto babes who will learn." You will never understand these things by theology. It is a sad thing when they take theology and put it in the place of the Holy Ghost. Instead of teaching the Church theology, the Church ought to have the Holy Ghost leading it. They have taken the upper room out, where they used to go and pray and seek God and be filled with the Holy Ghost, and they have put the supper room in its place.
The supper room is not God's way of supporting the Church. God said, "Bring ye all the tithes and offerings into the storehouse." (Malachi 3:10).
The man who loves God will take pleasure in supporting God's work. You like to help those you love really well.
When you help the Church, you are helping God because "inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me." (Matthew 25:40) Jesus said that.
So, I said to the man, "Look here, fellow; you misunderstood what Jesus said. Your carnal mind cannot understand it." Jesus said, "That generation shall not pass till all be fulfilled. What generation? The one that sees this tree putting forth its buds. What is that tree? It is the same tree that Joel spoke of. When you begin to see the Jews returning to Jerusalem, the fig tree is putting forth its buds. And that generation is not going to pass away till all be fulfilled.
Just about the time that this great healing revival began moving through the world, the Jews were declared an independent nation, and the six-pointed star of David rose over Jerusalem for the first time in many centuries. The tree is putting forth its buds. The Jews are returning. God hardened Pharaoh's heart to run them out of Egypt. God hardened Hitler's heart, Stalin's heart, and the rest of the nations to turn them against the Jews. If you want to know what time it is, watch the Jew. He is God's calendar.
Never will the Lord forsake Israel. He said in Jeremiah 31:37 — "If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel."
These people were blinded for a time that we might have access to the light. But now we are turning down, rejecting, and crucifying anew Jesus Christ. With our theology we are explaining away the blood. We are explaining away the power of God. We are explaining away all miracles and signs. It is just as great a sin for men today to reject God's message of the Holy Ghost as it was to reject God the Father in the days of Moses, or Jesus Christ in the days of His flesh. When you reject this persecuted way of salvation, you are rejecting God flatly, and turning Him down. The Jews were zealous for God, but they rejected Jesus. The Holy Ghost who is with us tonight, is the same God that led the children of Israel through the wilderness. Rejecting is death. Judge yourselves!
Joel saw it coming--the restoration of the Church. "What the palmerworm left, hath the caterpillar eaten, what the caterpillar left, the locust hath eaten." What a picture of our time! But then God turns around and says, "I will restore! I will restore! I will restore what you had once." To restore anything is to replace it again. In John the 15 chapter, He spoke of the vine, and how He had come to prune it. But the locusts and the other devourers had gotten in and eaten it down to a stump. However, God said, "I will restore I will put it right back exactly as it was in the first place." And brother, since the day of Pentecost, they have constantly cut off of that tree. What one group left, another has eaten. 'But I will restore," saith the Lord. "I will bring her back in her beauty again. I will restore to her the same Holy Ghost that she had. I will put prophets in her midst. I will put signs and wonders there. I will do just that," saith the Lord.
Yes, one group had the shout; another took it away. They did away with praising the Lord and the old-time prayer meetings. Because of hot weather, they have drive-in places that they call church. Nobody wants to go to church. It is because the caterpillars are eating on them.
They say Divine healing is a thing of the past, and shouting was for Grandma. These other blessings were for the disciples. They have taken all the blessings from the Church. But God says, "I will restore, I will bring her back again." Hallelujah! "I will restore," saith the Lord. That's good enough for me.
I think of David that night when he was a little weary, waiting for a sign to tell him when to go to battle. As he lay there, he heard the sound of the rustling in the mulberry bushes. God was going before him. The wind of God, a sound in the mulberry bush, I hear today, bringing out, pulling together. Hallelujah! The power of God is binding up, breaking down the middle walls of partition, sending the Church out, robed in the beauty of Pentecost. Not a fanatic, not a cold starchy church, but a genuine baptized, Holy Ghost one, God working through her in signs and wonders, vindicating His presence. "I will restore, " saith the Lord.
Some time ago while in Canada on a hunting trip, I came into camp, weary, 1,000 miles from a hard top road. I was way back in the wilds. I turned on an old radio I had there. You could get police calls once in a while. There was a group of about six ministers there. The first thing we heard was that they were calling for Rev. William Branham to report to Dawson Creek as the Royal Mounted Police wanted him for an emergency call. Oh my! What could it be? I wondered if something had happened at home. We were three days journey from there. One minister said he would start with me right away. But I said it wouldn't do to go then as it was too dangerous at night. So I went out in the woods a piece, knelt down and asked God what was the matter. I prayed for about two hours. I fell into a trance, and the Lord said, "It is not your home, it is not your children. It is someone trying to get hold of you." Talk about a very present help in time of trouble! What comfort! Oh, to hear the voice of God!
The next day when I was riding at a gallop on a horse, knocking the limbs out of the way as we went, had to go through an old burned-over area. There were great stately looking trees, and the wind was blowing a mournful sound through the branches. I thought, "What a spooky looking place." Every time the wind would blow, the trees didn't give, but just moaned and groaned. I stopped my horse, tied him up, then walked down a little bit and looked at the trees. I said, "Praise God. I see that Joel was talking about." It puts me in mind of some of those old formal churches today, standing up like great stately towers that were once alive, but now are dead. The bark has burned off of them, the termites have eaten them, and when that mighty rushing wind (The Holy Ghost) comes along, all they can do is complain and moan and groan. They can not understand anything about it. Once a mighty forest, once a great towering church, but now dead!
"What the palmerworm hath left, the caterpiller hath eaten." Sure, they are churches, and they stand there like tombstones, mournful-looking. The pastors inside say, "The day of miracles is past. " When a rushing mighty wind comes down over them, they say "Those things are of the devil." Yet they are trees. They are churches. They can look back and say that their past leaders did this and that. But what is the Holy Ghost doing in them today? They look like trees, but are dead. I thought, "Oh, God is this forest going to always be like this? Then I watched the wind blowing again and I noticed there was an undergrowth coming up. Everytime the wind would hit it, it would just frolic and dance and give with the wind. I said, "There is the old-fashioned restoring again, with the power of the Holy Ghost coming down like a rushing mighty wind. It's got life in it. Hallelujah!"
This new growth doesn't deny God's power; it just says that "all things are possible."
I noticed another thing. Every time those little trees would shake, it looked like they would pull out of the ground. What were they doing? Just loosening up the ground so they could grow deeper. Every time a blessing comes to a born-again man, it shakes him so he can dig deeper. It gives him another experience. When the wind comes, they don't stand there stiffly, and moan and cry; they enter into it and take what comes along. Loosen up. Get some life in you so that you can move with the wind!
"I will restore," Saith the Lord. What did He mean? He will restore a people that will believe. If they want to stay dead and moan and groan and say that the day of miracles is past, they can. But there is still some undergrowth coming up. God is going to have His Church complete--standing in her beauty, clothed in righteousness, and kept by the Holy Ghost, with signs and wonders following. Just moan on Pentecostal rain is falling. Praise the Lord it fell on me. I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them. God is still God. The Holy Spirit is restoring again. He is shaking the undergrowth down here. The Church isn't standing in her full strength yet, but she is coming up just the same. The rains fall on her, the winds blow and twist her and shake her. She keeps right on growing. One of these days God will come and receive her.
They used to have big revivals with the power of God present. I was just reading about John Wesley preaching Divine healing. A minister didn't like it, and he turned a fox and fox hounds loose in his meeting. John Wesley turned to him and said, "The sun shall not set on your head three times until you have called for me to pray for you." The man died that day, as the sun set, calling for John Wesley to come pray for him.
We are having these big revivals again, and God is with us. Yes, friend the words of our Lord, "I will restore," are coming to pass before our very eyes. Throw away your doubts and fears and GET INTO THIS GREAT REVIVAL NOW!!!