Revelations 8 (Part VII) Plague of Gnats

By Odon Bulamba (Friday 1st July 2005)


Revelations 8:8-11


THE PLAGUES OF MOSES: THE GNATS

Who can tell me the advantages of having gnats? Who likes gnats among us? They are really small insects that can cause so much suffering to your body. They can bite and suck blood and can easily destroy your body. I’ve never met anyone who is proud of having them. People use chemicals to remove them because they don’t like having them. Gnats also choose where to live. If you are really clean then it’s not too easy to have them, unless you sit by someone who has them, in that case they can easily come from that person to you. It is very easy to get them.


We, as Christians must know how to protect ourselves from small things that can make us sick. To do that, first of all we must go to the Word of God, which says that there is neither small nor big sin. Sin is just sin. Those small insects represent sin in our lives. In our lives we have different ways of analyzing things. We might regard sin as something “very bad”. But if for example Chloe takes my pen without asking, you might think, “That’s fine.” We regard some of our sins as fine, and others as big but for God a sin is a sin.


You cannot see those insects from far. Some people can have them in their hair and they will not notice unless someone next to them says, “Odon you’ve got something in your hair.” Then I will know I’ve got something. I will recognize I have them if I accept someone to tell me, to warn me, to remind me there is something wrong in my hair. Children who have them depend on their parents to decide to put chemicals on them and get rid of them, otherwise they can live in their hair for many months or years.


You cannot easily remove gnats, if it bites your body you can’t just find it and kill it. Sometimes you can but it’s not really easy. You also can’t get them whenever you want them. You will not know where they come from and when they disappear again. They come from anywhere: your husband, wife or child can be a stumbling block for you. Don’t just expect Satan to come with horns or a tail and say, “I am Satan, protect yourself.” Be watchful at any time and know that sin can crop up from anywhere. So we need protection. When those small insects were in Egypt. What did they do? Who can tell me? It is written in:


Exodus 8:16.


“And the LORD said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt”.


Some Bible versions give another meaning to that word. You can see those small things come from anywhere, they came from dust. Dust normally does not produce insects. Today, in our lives things that we don’t expect can produce something that can really surprise us. Science today, for example, can produce anything. From the Word of God we use, we can produce things, which will glorify God or not. The way we confess things in front of people can produce joy or hatred depending on how we have voiced our ways. With your strength you can build or destroy, with your thoughts you can sin or glorify God. So we have to be really careful in the small things we do.


When Moses took the dust and showed Pharaoh what God could do, the magicians of Egypt thought ‘we are also able to do that. Don’t intimidate us, we are also a great people, we know, we have the knowledge too.’ And they proved it.


Moses watched them and wondered how they could also do it.



Today pagans say, “How can Christians do such things?” or, “How can someone like Peter do this? In that case, we can call ourselves Christians also or why not say a Christian is a person who is not a believer but behaves like one”. Our little sins can sometimes make a bad impression. A French saying says: “don’t call anyone who puts on priest’s clothes, a priest.” Or wearing nun’s clothes doesn’t make you a nun. The truth is that you are not a nun, but someone else.

 So let’s put aside the appearance and think about the secrets of the dust.


Tell me now, how important is the dust for you in your life? Is dust really important? Is it really useful and why did God create dust? I think our sisters will be really unhappy if they can see dust around their walls or homes. They will remove it because they hate the dust.


- But is dust important?

- We were made from dust or Adam was made from dust.


- Yes that’s really good we were made from dust, which means that dust has an impact on our lives. Dust is something important. We came from dust and God made us that way, we were given life but now we hate it.



If I want to sit in this chair and I see dust on it, I will think ‘Ange can you please clean this seat or I might go and sit somewhere else.’ If you want to eat and you see dust on your plate along with your food, you will not eat from that plate. First of all you may not have the courage to tell Ange about it, but you will take action and either get another plate or clean that one yourself because you fear telling Ange, and offending her. But others may say “Ange, look at this”. Ange may say, “Oh I’m sorry”. If it’s Pete (her husband), he will say “Ange the plate you have offered me is not a good one” because Pete is in the right position to talk to Ange.



Since God created us and gave us these bodies, He made us first responsible before Him to tell our bodies when they are not clean. “My body, stop this. If you carry on, you will produce something that is not good.” For example, our brother has made a mistake, is arrested and accused of child abuse. Everyone will remember he is a Christian. Everyone will be proud to say, “Oh you Christian people, look at this” because somewhere there he didn’t tell his body ‘you are starting now to be covered by dust, you need cleaning, you need purification from Jesus blood so the outcome of your product cannot harm others.’