Redemption - Exodus, Ruth, Israel (Part II)

By Odon Bulamba (28 March 2003)

If we read the story of Ruth we will see that redemption happened later. Ruth who went with Naomi started living in a new country, she was no longer a Moabite, she became a Jewish girl, and she married someone; I think you know the story, redemption happened.

This means that in our lives, when it happens that we go up the mountain and down into the plains, we have to always remember the house of the bread of God. Am I with God or not? What I am doing, does it enable me to be in the house of God or not? If we have love we’re going to have love for our souls, we’re going to have love for our spirit. Who can tell me that they don’t like their life here, who doesn’t like his life? Maybe death can show it because when death comes it exposes the true state of someone. Death exposes the inner thoughts of everyone.

When I was a child, I had a grandfather who was very old. One day I said to him “you should die because you disturb everyone”. He was very angry and said, “You, I’m going to curse you, be careful with me, you can joke with everyone else but don’t joke with me”. He was afraid of death. When you tell young people (especially) to die, they will say, “no I am not ready to die, I need to live and to see what’s going on in the earth”. Most people take care of their bodies but they forget about their souls. They want their body to live for a hundred years and forget that their souls live forever.

Peter! If you are asked to die today will you be ready? Be sincere? Are you ready to die today? Ange, would you accept Pete to die today? It will not be easy, although you may say for yourself I can die but for those who love you, it will not be easy. It’s the same thing we must do for souls, when a soul is dying we must put ourselves in the place of this soul and say it’s not easy. I’ll explain; if Peter died today Ange will not see Peter on the earth anymore, I don’t know if she will happy on that day or not but I think not, Ange will cry because Peter will be gone forever. In God’s love when a soul dies, for people who live in Bethlehem they really cry. How many times do you cry for the souls? If you cry for something that will last for one hundred years and forget to cry for something that will last for eternity won’t you call yourself stupid?

Ange works at the hospital. How many times do you see people die? “Quite a few” Does it worry you? “It’s part of the job”. A person dies and is forgotten after a week, another one will die tomorrow and another after that. But for someone you love and you looked after them, they were hospitalised and then died, how would you feel? I think it would be hard and you’ll cry. For us Christians we are the sons of God and we acknowledge that God is our king, we married love, so we always cry for someone we love, if we don’t love all the souls around us, it will be difficult to love God. The Bible says that if you don’t love your neighbour how can you love God? By loving your neighbour you will also love God, and when you love a soul that dies I believe that you are going to kneel down and cry before God.

I will not talk about the book of Ruth, I will not teach about this book, but I tell you that there was a redemption. Go and read these four chapters of Ruth and discover this redemption.

The third redemption is the last one, which is what Isaiah, wrote. This redemption will happen in the last days. Each human being will see this redemption, although some people will reject this redemption it will still be there. For tonight this was only an introduction about redemption to give you an idea to know that there are three redemptions in the Old Testament; the first is in the book of Exodus, meditate on it and next week I’m going to ask questions about it; the second redemption is in the book of Ruth, read it also, there will be a few questions; and the third is Isaiah. So go home and read and discover. We will discuss about redemption altogether, in Boaz time, in Moses time and what Isaiah prophesied for the future. We’re going to stop there for tonight.

Question: How can we love people that we don’t know? Love is eternal, because God loved me He created me black and because He loved you He created you white, He created everyone, but our souls are only one colour, this colour is identical and in all of that we all have red blood, all our bones are white etc, this is to show us the value and colour of a soul. The love we have must not be limited to the physical. When we speak about God’s love we first see the value of the soul of a man. For example; if my father died today I will glorify if he has gone as a Christian, I might even sing, but if I only look at the physical body then my love is limited and as you know love practices justice, and when love practices justice it means that love is just, so I can’t love this one more and this one less.

Without forgetting there are different kinds of love, when we speak about God’s love this love is perfect, when we speak about human love it’s a love that is a little imperfect. But because the spiritual always gives birth to good deeds that are physical you will find that the one you couldn’t love yesterday, you will love them today and tomorrow you’ll love them more.

I’ll give you an example; what’s happening today in Iraq with the war; when you watch TV and see people shot, how do you feel? When you get together to pray, do you pray for them or not? You will see that many people pray for these Iraqis, they pray for peace, they pray that God might stop the war, of course it’s love, it’s not bad but do they pray for their souls that they might be saved, few Christians really pray for the souls in Iraq that they might be set free.

You will find in the church today the carnal love has more place than spiritual love and when you practice carnal love you can say that I love Peter more than Odon, because I’m led by the flesh, but when you are led by the Spirit of God everyone who is around you will manifest the glory of God, through this person you will see that God manifests Himself, physically it’s not easy to define but you will feel that you love, that’s how it is. Sometimes try to discern the souls, if you love someone’s soul it’s better than loving their body, because we know that this body will eventually decay and die. If a soul is dead you will never see this soul ever again.

It’s like someone who has $5 and loses it, you might be bothered but after ten mins or two hours you’ll forget about it, but if you lose your job, you’ll think about it longer, maybe you’ll even hate your life. The carnal life can be compared to this $5, but when you love the soul of man we know that the source of life is there, this will have such a great value in our love. A few years ago I talked about love, love is joy, love is patient, but this patience is not the effort I make to be patient, it’s something that comes from the inside. I put myself in other’s shoes and ask myself what the Bible teaches me about this person, I find an answer and put it into practice. So love one another and avoid discrimination and avoid prejudice, let’s practice pure love instead of practising carnal love, it’s not possible with human nature but everything’s possible with God, so ask God and God will give it to you.


Let’s pray, everyone is to pray for himself, and pray for the group in general that God will help us to understand the meaning of redemption