I set down on the log. I was setting there wondering; I said, "O God, how great Thou art," looking around. And just then, the winds a-blowing east, and I heard the most mournful noise I ever heard. I thought, "What's making that real funny noise." And I looked just ahead of me, and there was an old burn-over. I guess you all know what a burn-over is, where there's been trees, and the fire's went through and burned all the bark off of them, and they're just standing there, some of them blowed down and hard to get through.
And every time the wind would blow, then that wind blowing down through those old light bare trees, and the moon shining on them, it looked very (well, I should say, called it in a street expression), "spooky," kind of a funny feeling, give you. It looked like a graveyard, tombstones sticking up. And every time that wind would blow, that real mournful sound would set up in them trees. Oh, such a sound. And I thought, "Isn't that a spooky looking place?"
And I watched, stood and looked at it a little while, I thought, "You know this reminds me of the text I used to use over in Joel, said, 'What the palmerworm has left, the caterpillar has eaten. What the caterpillar left, has the cankerworm's eaten. What the cankerworm left, the locust has eaten.'" I thought, "Well, that sure is a picture of Joel." And I thought, "Yes, that reminds me of all that mournful noise of these great big high-standing steeples on churches, great big denominations behind them, but not a bit of life, like the old dry cowhide. [Joel 1:4]
Then every time God sends down that rushing mighty wind like He did on the day of Pentecost, the only thing they can do is just groan, moan: "The days of miracles is past. Don't you go around such stuff. Oh, it won't do." See? Just moaning and groaning.
Well, I thought, "Why don't them trees...? What makes them moan is because they haven't got any life in them. That's the reason they are moaning.
Well, I thought, "If they had life in them, they could sway with this wind." Well, I said, "That's right. What the Lutheran left, has the Methodist eaten. What the Methodist left, the Presbyterians eaten. What the Presbyterians left, the Baptists eaten. What the Baptists left, the Nazarenes eaten. What the Nazarenes left, the Pentecostals eaten." I said, "It sure come down to a big old bunch of bleak churches with nothing in them." That's exactly right. That's right.
Just when a revival hits there, "I'll have nothing to do with it. No. Keep away from that." Oh, brother. That was a pretty dark picture, till I happened to think that Joel said, "But I will restore saith the Lord." Then I thought, "Lord, how are You going to do this?" Then another great wind swept out again, and I noticed down beneath these old trees was standing a bunch of little scrubs, just little bitty trees coming up, little scrub fellows.
But every time the wind blowed and caught into those little old trees, they would just scream, and jump, and hold to one another, and that's as David said, "Clap their hands." How they were just as flexible. If the wind blowed over here to Jones, it was all right. If it blowed them over to--to the Assemblies, it was all right. If it blowed them back to the Foursquare, it was all right. They were just as flexible as they could be. Every one was so shaked together. "I will restore, saith the Lord."
I noticed, the strange thing of it, I said, "Well, there's one thing. Them trees are green, but they're flexible. They got life." [Joel 2:250]
William Branham, Sermons Why Is It That So Many Christians Find It So Hard To Live The Christian Life?
http://www.en.branham.ru/read_prop.php?date=57-0303A