Questions & Answers
Questions 172 (COD Page 709)
“I lived many years in sin until I found the Lord. Please, Brother Branham, I have sinned again and I am not worthy to come before you in this holy place. Please tell me if I can be restored wholly again. Please help me, Brother Branham, I have a devil in me. Help me! Will you lay your hands upon me and restore me again?
98 Now, there is a question, I never noticed it when I read it a while ago. There is a question. Now, if that person is present...Let me just read it to you:
I have lived–I have lived many years in sin until I found the Lord. Please, Brother Branham...(See?)...I have sinned again and I’m not worthy to come before you in this holy place. Please tell me if I can be restored whole again. Yes.
99 You have not sinned, my friend, so far in God but what you could be restored. If you had sinned so far that you could not be restored, you’d never want to be restored. See? See? But as long as there is Something dealing with your heart, you’re still in line of restoration.
100 “Guilty of the least is guilty of the whole.” I have sinned many times, every day every one of us do things that we don’t want to do.
101 It’s in our heart...You don’t want to be that way or you wouldn’t ask this question. See? That’s itself a proof that God still is dealing with you. You’ve probably gotten nervous, probably Satan telling you that you can’t be restored. He’s lying, certainly, he is. Because, look, if there is a deep, calling, there’s got to be a Deep to respond to the call. If there’s a hunger for Something, that Something’s got to be somewhere or you would have no hunger for It. See?
102 As I’ve said lots of time. Before a fish had a fin on his back, there had to be a water first for him to swim in or he wouldn’t had any fin. Before there was a tree to grow in the earth, there had to be an earth first before there was a tree, because the earth had to be first for the tree to grow.
103 Now, before there can be a creation, there has to be a Creator to create the creation. See what I mean? Now, as long as you are wanting and hungering to get back to God, there’s a God somewhere calling to you, see, or you wouldn’t be hungering. There’s a Creator!
104 Now, if you...There is a place that you can cross where you can’t get back, but when that is you’re down there again in the same shape you was. It goes to show that you only fell from grace. Backsliding is not lost. I want somebody to tell me where backsliding is lost, and prove it to the Bible. Backslider is not lost, he’s just out of fellowship.
105 Israel backslid but they never lost their covenant, they lost their–their praises and joy.
106 David lost the joy of his salvation when he took Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, but he never lost his salvation. He never said “restore to me my salvation,” said, “Restore to me the joy of my salvation.”
107 Oh, there’s so much of this legalism today, the “touch not, taste not.” You don’t do things legally.
108 I didn’t come to this church tonight legally. I feel tired, I–I–I’ve been nervous, I’m upset, I’m wondering about something that’s out before me, my heart’s burning, even as such as much till my heart’s fluttering. I got a cramp, pain, right at this minute, just shooting back and forth, up and down through here. Weak, nervous, trembly; catch a hold here and squeeze; got my toes squeezed up in my shoes. I felt anything but come down here. Why did I come, then? Because I love God. Live or die, I must stand here for Him. It’s not because I have to. He wouldn’t care about whether I did or not. I’d...If I’d die I’d go to Heaven, anyhow. But I’m coming because I love Him. You serve God because you love Him, not because you just got to do it. Because you love Him enough!
109 I’m not true to my wife because I’m afraid she’d divorce me. I’m true to her because I love her. There’s no other woman in the world but her. That’s the reason I’m true to her. Not because...If I done a mistake and they thought I did something wrong, come to her, say, “Meda, honey, I didn’t mean to do that.” She’d forgive me for it, I know she would. I’d forgive her; I love her. But I–I’d forgive her; she’d forgive me. But I wouldn’t do it for nothing, I love her too much to do it. It isn’t because I didn’t think she would forgive me, it’s the idea that I love her too much to do it in the first place. And as long as I love her like that, I’ll never do it; and if she loves me the way she’s supposed to, she won’t either.
110 And you love the Lord with all your heart, you don’t have to worry about these things. If you make a mistake, you don’t sin willfully, you just done something wrong. See, you’ve slipped back. True, you was up here in fellowship, you’ve dropped back down in this muss down here again.
111 But what is it? It’s just like an–an eagle. One time I saw...up here at Cincinnati Zoo, I took Sarah and was going down there. If anything I seen that hurt me, is to see something penned up.
112 I just can’t stand to see anything in a cage, even little birds. And I know you women have them little birds, you turn them out.
113 When I was a little boy I used to say, “If ever I get a chance, when I get to be a man, I’ll slip in every house and turn them poor little guys loose.” Yes, sir. I said...Sitting up there in the hot sun, and them say, “Hah, hah, hah,” and the woman out somewhere on the back porch smoking a cigarette, and that poor little bird sitting there burning up. He can’t do nothing about it, he just has to sit there. And he wasn’t born for that! I thought, “Boy, if I could slip up there and let him out, he wouldn’t be there very long.” See?
114 I hate to see anything penned up. I hate to see a man calls hisself Christian then penned down with some kind of a church creed, “I can’t say, ‘Amen.’ I–I can’t believe in That. The pastor says, ‘Don’t believe It.’” Oh, my, goodness! You’re born free.
115 Then how about a big eagle? He’s a heavenly bird. He lives way in above the clouds. That’s where he goes of a morning. Way so high, nothing else can follow him! Not another bird...he would disintegrate in the air if he tried to follow him. He’s a special-made bird.
116 And then somebody had caught him in a man-made trap, he had caught this big eagle and put him in this cage. And the poor ol’ fellow...I looked at him and my heart just burned. He looked at that side like that and he didn’t know how to get out of that cage. He would just get across there, and he–he knowed how he’d take off, and he’d start flopping his wings. And here he’d go, he’d bang his head up against the bars and beat the feathers out of his arm, wing feathers here, and all across his head, till it was bleeding. He hit that bar so hard it’d knock him plumb back on his back. And he’d lay there and roll them weary-looking eyes, look up towards that sky, “There’s where I belong. There’s my home. There’s where I was born for. But, looky, between me and there is a cage. Well, the only thing I know, I’m put my mind to it and here I come,” and “bang,” he’d go right back again.
117 I thought, “Oh, my, isn’t that terrible! I wish they’d sell him to me. I’d pawn my Ford to buy him, see, just to turn him loose.” See? Oh, it made me feel so bad, that poor big bird there, beat the feathers...I thought, “That’s the most horrible sight I ever seen.”
118 No, I take it back, the most horrible sight I ever seen is a man born to be a son of God and then penned up in some creed. And he looks up there and sees a God that he really wants to serve, but he just can’t do it. They won’t let him do it, see, penned up. That’s a horrible thing.
119 Yes, yes, sister, brother, ever who wrote this, if you have fallen down here that don’t mean you’re lost. You’re just an eagle got into a pen, that’s all. You’re caged-up down here in sin again. You don’t want to be there, that’s the reason you’re looking upward. There you are, “Oh, Brother Branham, I once lived up there, is there a way here?” Yes.
120 Reminds me of one day (oh, a little boy) I was walking around behind the farm, and there was...somebody had tied an ol’ crow to keep him out of the corn. And that poor ol’ fellow was just about starved to death. I couldn’t be that mean to do that. He tied the ol’ crow by the foot, and that fellow had eat everything was around, he couldn’t get nothing else. The farmer just left him. And he was so poor that he–he couldn’t even get up. Just he...And the crows would fly over and say, “Caw, caw, caw.” In other words, say, “Come on, Johnny Crow! Wintertime is coming, let’s go south!” But he couldn’t do it, he was tied.
121 So one day a certain fellow come by and seen that poor ol’ crow, so he just went over and caught him and untied him, said, “Go on, boy, you’re free.” See? And so then, the first thing you know, he kept walking around.
122 Here come the crows over, hollering, “Come on, Johnny Crow! Caw, caw, caw! Let’s go south, the winter is coming. You’re going to freeze to death.”
123 If he could look back, say, “Can’t do it.” See, he had been so used to being tied, see, he just thought he was still tied.
124 You may think you’re tied, too, brother, sister, that wrote this question. You may think the devil has got you tied down there, but he’s lying. There was one time a Man come to earth, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, He untied you. Don’t you believe it; you don’t have to stay down there, no, sir, you’re free. That’s right. He died in your place to take away your sins. You just believe on Him, flop your wings and fly away with the rest of them. Don’t stay in that pit of the devil. No, sir.
Now. Will you lay hands upon me and free from that?
125 Sister dear or brother dear, sure, I’d lay hands on you, but that wouldn’t free you. What would free you, you’re...is to understand that you’re already free. You’re already untied. You don’t have to worry about being free, you’re already free! Jesus made you free. Be not again entangled in the yoke of bondage. You’re free as you can be. You don’t have to be tangled up. Laying my hands on you is just a tradition. We might do that. That, why, I could do that, but that still wouldn’t set you free until you accept what He done for you; that’s just me saying “Lord, I believe It.”
126 Well, you just lay your hands by faith upon Him, say, “Lord, I believe It,” up you come. That’s right, confess your sins. See, “He that hides his sins will not prosper, covers his sins. But he that will confess his sins...” There’s where you get freedom and justification, when you’re willing to say “I’m sinned, I’m wrong.” That’s what you said here:
I have fallen, I am sinned. I’m dead wrong! Is there a chance for me to be whole again?
127 Absolutely! The minute that you desire It, that shows that God dropped the Lifeline down to pick you up. Just rise up on His Lifeline of faith and prayer, move right on up into the rest of the eagles like that, go flopping away. That’s right.
128 Yes, laying on of hands, that’s–that’s a great thing, I believe in that. I believe in laying on of hands, I sure do. But that isn’t what does it. I could lay hands upon the people, week in and week out, and still it would do no good until you accept what Christ did for you. That’s only my sanction, laying hands. They laid hands on the elders. They did those things, it was their sanction before God that they give their faith to it, they give their belief to it. See? Sometimes, just like things...
129 I am so misunderstood so many times. I–I have...last night. I’m halting between opinions, and I–I don’t know just which way to turn. I–I’m, myself, I am between opinion, I–I don’t know what to do. I hope this is just the church natural, or the church spiritual sitting here, rather, I don’t guess they’re recording this so I’ll just say what I want to. They...
130 I wanted a little heart-to-heart talk with you, and I believe I’ll just take it, anyhow. I had a note wrote here with a Scripture, whether...If I didn’t, I was going to speak on The End-time Evangelism, what the end-time evangelism is. Maybe I’ll save that for another day. I’d like to talk to you from my heart, just from the bottom of my heart.