REVIVAL (Part V)

By Odon Bulamba (23 May 2003)

Jacob loved Leah’s sister more than her and Leah was isolated. Although she had obeyed her father and accepted the name she was given, she lived in a relationship with Jacob that was not easy and Leah was disappointed. She didn’t flee her house, she didn’t even criticise her father who wanted her to marry Jacob, instead she said, I am here and I have to look after my family, God is my witness.

How many times do we complain? How many times do we say that it’s because Michael told me, that’s why I live like that today. It’s because of him why I’m suffering today, why did that happen to me? Maybe I could flee and go away, but this is not a solution.

Eventually God saw Leah’s life and opened her womb while Rachel who was beautiful in people’s eyes was without child. This is the way revival works. Where you are weak, where everybody knows you are weak, God keeps making you grow. You find a husband (Jesus) and you were a simple Christian but as a miracle you become a servant of God, you who didn’t speak with God yesterday, you will talk with Him today, and because you obeyed you start living together with Jesus in the same house, to say that Jesus and you become one and the ministry can go ahead.

So when Leah became pregnant she gave birth to her first child who was Reuben. And if you read well she gave birth to seven children before her sister gave birth to her first one. The one who was loved couldn’t give birth and the one who was not loved could give birth. When God revives those who belong to Him He gives them the gifts of the Spirit and these gifts will show themselves at work while those who are loved by man won’t have any gifts. They will start to preach, perform miracles and do whatever God wants, while the others are still waiting to adopt a child. Like Christians today, they look for miracles and gifts here and there but they cannot find them.

In some countries people say if this one will be an evangelist it would be great because of has height, or if this person could be a pastor it would be great because he is really handsome, if someone is ugly everybody would say not this one. In America, if the pastor is black, the Church is black and if the pastor is white, the Church is white, and when the pastor is green what colour will the Christians be because we don’t have a race that is green. So we must be careful, we must pray to God sincerely so that these gifts might be put into action. Although man can reject us and criticise us, our eyes will always be on God.

So Leah gave birth to her firstborn Reuben, in the book of Gen 29. What does Reuben mean? Reuben’s arrival made Leah to rejoice a lot. Gen 29:32 “Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.” Reuben means to see.

First Leah was humiliated and then discovered that the Lord could see how people would humiliate her. When you are humiliated by others, when you are humiliated by the world and it’s a problem, when you are humiliated by disease, when you are humiliated by suffering, do you believe that God can see this humiliation, and if God can not see, do you tell Him to do something? You must know that to be revived you will be humiliated, not only by man but also with our everyday lives, sickness can humiliate you, lack of money can humiliate you, lack of a Church can humiliate you, everything can humiliate you, but remember that God can see what’s happening, when you remember God’s presence, when you remember God’s eyes, you will make the first step towards revival.

Leah gave birth to her second son. His name was Simeon. I remember 2 yrs ago in December, Michael and Sylvie sang a song at Hukanui church called Simeon. This song touched me a lot because it had a meaning for me. What does Simeon mean? Simeon means to be answered. That day when Michael and Sylvie sang, it was an answer for the world. The world would wait for Jesus and the day of His birth He was there, it was an answer. Like you and me from time to time when we ask God for things, do we wait for the answer from God or not?

Many Christians when they pray they say, let’s pray because this person or that person encouraged me, but deep in their hearts they don’t pray, they pray because they are influenced, this is not to pray. People will be the first ones to complain and contradict God, I prayed but you didn’t answer me. When we pray we have to do it with sincerity, and God will answer. So for the second step of revival we must pray with certitude and precision, we must pray knowing that God will answer, we don’t have to go left or right, or say let’s find the solution here or there, we must pray knowing that God is there and He will answer.

Leah fell pregnant again and gave birth to Levi. What does Levi mean? It means attached. Look at that, she was answered a few weeks ago and now she is attached to God. As for you, when you pray to God and you have an answer, do you get attached to God or do you leave Him and carry on with your everyday life? Many Christians when they have a problem and really want God to do something in their lives, they will pray with strength but when God answers, they will just say praise God, they don’t become attached to God, they don’t have time to get attached to God, they completely forget God’s presence but when another problem will arrive, they will say where’s God, let’s seek God.

If you get attached to God you will not have problems, problems will avoid you because problems will know that God is with you. If God is with you, who will be against you? But if you let God go far away, Satan will see that you are alone and he will come and attack. That is what we call temptation. But if you are attached to God you may have a few trials but you will win.

After that Leah gave birth to Judah. What does Judah mean? It means to praise. After being attached to God you must praise Him. Revival works together with praise and if you are not attached to God yet, it will be difficult to praise God. You’ll praise Him today but tomorrow you won’t. It’s like someone who’s drunk, he goes two steps on the right and two steps on the left, there’s no balance. If you are not attached to God, you might stand up today and feel God’s fire but tomorrow when you praise, it won’t be the same.

Oscar used to lead us in the church in praise. When he started praising through hymns people would sing, dance, and sweat to the point where sometimes we would forget who we were. However, there were other days where he would lead us in praise and as we were singing he would say stop stop, are you tired, didn’t you eat, why are you tired, let’s praise God with strength, he would always refer to Psalm 150 “let everything that has breath praise the Lord”. Whatever you praise with, just do it, whether it’s your hands, your instrument, just praise God; from there people would really praise God. Do we praise God in our hymns, in our prayers, in our actions; everything He does for us, do we praise Him?

After that Leah gave birth to Issachar; Gen 30:17, Issachar means my wages, or my reward. So what kind of wages do you get after praising? What present does God give you after praising Him? As our brother Oscar would say, whoever has breath must praise God. I would say that the life we have is a present. God gives us this present in advance. When we can meet together like this, it’s a present, whatever happens in our lives, is a present. And when you give a present to someone and the person doesn’t even say thank you, how do you feel?

Imagine, you give someone a Bible and the person takes it and puts it beside him and doesn’t say anything, how will you feel deeply in your heart, would you feel joy? No, sadness will be there, you may even judge this person, although you won’t say it but you might think that this person isn’t educated. The education that God gave us is that we have to give thanks for everything. Do we glorify God for everything? For example; when you wear a pair of shoes, do you glorify God for that, when you have everything you need, do you glorify God for that? If you don’t glorify God for the presents He gives you, then what do you glorify God for? When a person gives you a present and you don’t say thank you, do you think you would say thank you if you had to buy this thing with your own money? I don’t think so. So we have to be thankful because He gave us the Gospel freely. Some people try to find this Gospel to buy but they can’t even find one, and when they find a Bible they glorify God with all their heart. So we have to know how to glorify God.

After that Leah had another boy Zebulun, which means to honour. When God gives you a present and you glorify God, this honours God. How many times do you honour God in your life? So, these are the steps of revival, they are very simple steps, but they are very serious to put into practice, when you talk about them it seems easy, but to put it into practice is not that easy. When you can give birth to all these things, the new life will begin in you.

So who was the seventh child Leah gave birth to? It was Dinah, what does Dinah mean? (this is homework). Dinah was the seventh born, and for all that time Rachel didn’t give birth. God can give us in advance seven different things that the world doesn’t have. God will give us seven different things that other Christians don’t have, and all this will be in advance, only if we start to accept what Leah accepted to be. So if you accept to live as a Christian and accept to follow all these steps you’ll see that God will get closer to you. At the beginning Jacob didn’t love Leah, but because she started giving birth, Jacob got closer and closer to Leah to the point that they had 7 children. She didn’t think about anything that happened the day of her wedding, she knew that God was there and He is just, that’s all. We are called to live like Leah. Leah was given a servant named Zilpah. Zilpah was there to help Leah.

Some versions talk about Leah meaning a cow. We know that in New Zealand and everywhere else if someone has cows then they are rich, poor people don’t have cows. Cows represent riches. These riches are not something you can see with your eyes, but they are riches that are hidden like a treasure. Let’s take the example of a cow. Firstly, when a cow gives birth, the farmer will come and help this cow to give birth, the farmer will look after this calf because he knows it is a riches. God also takes care of us, because He knows we are riches. After a while the calf will get bigger, not only his eyes will grow but the whole body will grow too. So you have a cow that starts walking, there is grass, which is hard to uproot from the soil, but when a cow eats it he can do it easily, he isn’t tired, they keep doing this great work for years.

The cow has a tail, what’s its role? It taps to the right and then to the left. The cow controls its body; if a fly touches it on its left side then it will be chased away immediately. As for us, when we are touched by the world, what is the weapon we use to defend ourselves? Although the cow keeps beating the flies with its tail it continues to eat the grass. Imagine you are eating and an insect comes under your clothes, what will you do? Will you keep eating, no; you will stop and probably jump up and down. But with a cow it’s not like that, the cow gives the tail its task. As for you, do you give the Holy Spirit its task in your life? Do you give God His task in your life, or do you keep doing what you are doing and leave it to the point where God will take revenge?

When the cow eats, after a certain time he is full and then ruminates. Do we also ruminate, do we remember what we ate? After a certain time a cow will give birth, to mean that the cow always produces, the cow gives us milk. The cow keeps giving us milk, and God told us that “I prepare Caanan for the Israelites, the country where milk and honey flows”. Why did God speak about milk? This poor Leah whose name means cow can produce something, which God has prepared for a whole nation, what a destiny. Here you are as God’s servants and God says that through Michael my people will have that, through Oscar my people will get that. It’s not easy to understand but when God gives, He gives and that’s it.

Also people eat the cow’s meat. The cow helps all of us, even its skin has a task, and its flesh also. Even what the cow rejects helps us. Everything that the cow gives has a work to do. Of course you can say that the cow doesn’t have a nice appearance, but you’ll be the first one to eat the meat or to drink the milk, or you’ll be the first one willing to be rich or to have a farm. So as for us Christians we have to expand our knowledge, and to expand our knowledge by reading the Bible is not enough, it’s also about practising what we learn. When we put into practice what we learn then things will work really well and nobody will be able to stop it. As Ezekiel could see the bones that were covered with flesh, we also have the ability to see the plan that God has for us in the future. Do you look at your future life in the Lord, or don’t you have this vision. So if you don’t have it, it’s the time to think about it so that you might be revived in the Lord. Amen.