JUSTIFICATION – (Part IV – Turtle)

By Odon Bulamba (21 March 2003)

The sin in us is like a coffin. When you go to a shop that sells coffins you’ll see some are nice to look at. But if you are told to go inside it, you’ll say, “no this is not for me, I better go to my bed to lie down”. Even if this coffin is worth $5000 and your bed only $200 you’ll think it’s better to go to my bed rather than the coffin. Some Christians don’t know how to control their life. They don’t know what justification is in their life. They are like people put in coffins and they say close the coffin now and bury me. Then you’ll cover my body with the dust. But I’m strong I’ll try to make my way and come out of it. But I tell you my brother and sister it’s not easy to leave a tomb once it’s covered. Even if you are strong you will never be strong enough to push the lid off the coffin and get out of it. After a time you will have no decision and you will die.

So the Christians who don’t think are compared to those people who accept to be buried alive because the coffin looks nice in their eyes. Sin also looks nice. Sometimes our weaknesses look nice. We think if I do this, this is not serious. But maybe some people will cover you up and you will stay there. The Bible says that if you have seven demons reigning in your life and those are cast out, the day they’ll come back (if you accept to receive them) they’ll come seven to the power of two. So you must be careful my brothers and sisters. If you say I have been weak in that area for 10 to 20 years and you think this weakness is normal behaviour for you, you think, “I steal, and it’s my normal behaviour” or “I’m lazy and laziness is my normal behaviour”, you will be told to change your life and you’ll say, “I was born like that”; I tell you be careful because you put yourself in a coffin. The devil will bury you alive, and once buried you will never come back. So it’s now time to wake up, to leave the world of darkness and know that your life is justified.

You know the turtle is a very slow animal. Only if there is a fire it will run, but it is usually very slow. For us too we are often very slow in the gospel. We don’t revise what we learn; we don’t have time to pray. We don’t have time to get closer to God. We are behind in different spiritual things. There is a danger, because the one who is behind is the one who is slow in his decision, he is always the loser. Some people say little by little the bird will make its nest. But this is not true we must be violent in the gospel. The one who is violent never walks slowly. They will be quick to show his violence. But if you are not quick, can you say that you are violent? I don’t think so.

The second thing with the turtle is when danger comes. It will put his head back inside the shell, and his hands and feet and you will only see the shell as if it was saying this is my protection. Many people say their protection is their knowledge. Many people even take the Bible as their protection. My brother do you know the Bible says what you’ve done is not good. So I want to tell you dear brother, dear sister that the Bible is our protection, not for bad things, but only for things that glorify God. So don’t use the Word of God to cover your sins. Don’t use the Holy Gospel to draw the blanket over you, no don’t do that, God is against that. If you are in a wrong way accept it and repent. Put your protection in the Lord Jesus Christ. Call him to protect you. Don’t protect yourself. Assurances we have on this earth never protect us.

Life Insurance, although it’s called “life” insurance, it is not true, it cannot protect your life. One day I tried to play with those people from the insurance. I asked them to insure my life, they said, “Okay, do you need that?” I said, “yes, give me this insurance so death will not come to me”. They said, “No, you are wrong, we just give you insurance that when you die we give your money to your family”. “I’ll say my family is insured, not me. Or maybe those who stay after me, those ones will win something”. This is what the world can offer you. But Insurance or divine protection, protects your soul. This is an insurance of salvation. The one who receives this assurance to the eternity will sing hallelujah. He’ll see joy in his life forever. He’ll never suffer nor fear death. But if your insurance is not in the Lord Jesus Christ and you put your insurance for instance in this house one day this house will stay here and you’ll go alone.

In Africa for instance, when some people die people cry, it’s true and this is hard because they cry for their friends, but when they are alive they never cry for their souls. They never cry because their souls are dead, they just cry for the bodies. Us, we are Christians, how many times do we cry for our brothers and sisters who are spiritually dying? How many times do we feel this bitterness deep in our heart when a brother is lost? When my sister is lost what do I feel in me? Or don’t I feel anything. When I walk here in town and I see the young men with their pants halfway down their thighs at 11pm with beer. They think this is joy. What do I feel deep in my heart? When a friend like Ange dies what do I feel deep in my heart? This is the question we must ask ourselves because one day we’ll judge the earth. If you are not just or fair, you are not a good judge. If you are not fair in the gospel you will never judge the earth.

For instance if I’m a thief and all the newspapers write, ‘Odon is a thief‘, and tomorrow I sit where the judge sits, what will the population of New Zealand think? They will criticize me. This man didn’t respect the law, he was a thief yesterday and now he wants to judge others. People will never accept me as a judge because they cannot trust me. We must know the value of faith. We must also know the value of the soul. If we know that we’ll know how to judge. A judge is not someone who waits for someone to fall into sin and talk to him tomorrow at court. No! A judge when he sees a mistake he will tell you. Don’t let my sister carry on doing evil to say that tomorrow I’m waiting for her and she’ll see.

So for the rest of the animals, the angel and the Holy Spirit go and meditate on that your self. This is my final word for justification. One point was left so try to make an effort. Try to use your spiritual ability to learn what justification is. You can meditate on those 2 or 3 animals. Next time we’ll go through another. If up to now you don’t know about justification it’s now time to go back to your notes. If you have forgotten what you’ve learnt it’s now time to go back to it because one day the gospel will disappear and all your notes will disappear. But what is written deep in your heart is what will endure. I want to say what David says in Psalm 119:11 In my heart I wrote your commandments, so I will not sin against you O God. So in your heart write down all that you learn and you’ll see. When you write justification in your heart you will know exactly who justifies you. You’ll also know how to justify others.

So we are going to pray and we are all going to ask God to help us so we will live like this woman. She lost her life for a long time and in the end she decided to touch Jesus. Tell Jesus today I want to touch you. I want to find healing for all my sicknesses whether it’s physical or spiritual. We are going to stand up, and you can cry for your soul. Feel free to cry to Jesus and tell Jesus I will put into practice justification in my life. After that you can pray for anyone present or absent among us. If you are still weak in some areas pray for those weaknesses.