Revelation 9 (the three baskets) Part II

By Odon Bulamba (15th July 2005)


The second type of basket which you find in the Bible:


One day a servant of God was praying and he saw a basket that came from heaven. That basket was full of impure animals. He saw them coming from heaven. Imagine that something impure can come from heaven. Let’s say we are here tonight praying and God knocks on the roof and says, “Here I am, I am God look at me, satan and his angels are coming from heaven. Drunkenness, lies and everything that we call sin is coming from heaven”.


What would you think? You will think this is not God because you know that in heaven everything is pure. That man of God saw the basket coming from heaven but the Bible doesn’t tell us that it was hanging by a cord. He saw it contained impure things and was told to eat them. God said you have to eat them because this is a teaching. What can we learn from that? Who was the person that saw the basket coming down from heaven? Peter. Peter was there by himself and when he saw the basket he thought, uh oh what should I do? I don’t need impurity but God is offering it to me.


As Paul says, my body is weak and in the same way, you don’t need your body. Sometimes people can say, “I’m really afraid because I am ugly. I’m not happy because I am short, thin, fat or tall.” From our bodies we can start to find some little mistake that God did. God didn’t give me good nails so I need to buy some so I can have the prettiest ones. I don’t have nice hair maybe I can dye it or I don’t have a good face I need plastic surgery. We can start to offend God because we want to correct him.


Peter who was like a rock when he was told to eat from the basket was shocked. What also do you refuse to swallow from whatever God gives you? Some people say, “I hate this child, I hate my daughter because she is naughty.” I hate this person because of such and such. All that I get from heaven, God gives it. “God I don’t want my nose, I hate it. Doctor remove this I want it a different shape.” After 10-15 years maybe you will look like Michael Jackson. “This is really ugly now I want to change it and be the way I used to be.”

You can see all those baskets are coming. For example, technology; around the 1960s and 70s only a few people had a TV. People were not really interested to watch TV and also because TVs were expensive there were not many who had one. Today that market of impurity is opened. You can go to the Warehouse and find a TV for $200-300. Even a Second Hand Shop will sell it for $150. Even friends can offer you one for free. That is the way. Whoever will receive a TV will think this is nice and you can’t imagine something impure can come from the TV, untill the time that you switch it on, change channels and then you can start to learn. From there you will see people can kill each other, there is good news, bad news, and you can say I hate this program but all this technology came from someone. God gave brains to people so they can make something for His glory but people continue to make it impure.


When Peter saw the basket what did he do? Did he eat the animals? He refused and it was really only a vision. Today we have got a vision. We can see where the world is going. Everything is open we can see from outside. Look on the streets. Sometimes I used to drive around town just to look around and you can see how people are going closer and closer to death. They are trying to push themselves to the limit of life. They will drink, take marijuana and think this is life, we are enjoying life but they are destroying and killing themselves.

One day I visited a man and he bought to me some food. He said he had tomato sauce but by mistake his daughter mixed it with some chemicals. He couldn’t throw it away because he said he did not have any money to buy another one. He believed that if I was a Christian and prayed the poison will not have any affect on my life. So he insisted I eat it. I asked, “What chemicals did she put in the sauce?” He went and checked in his garage and returned with a tin that had a picture of a skull on it. It was a sign of danger. I asked him why he kept this poison in his home. He said he kept it for whoever does something wrong against him. He will give it to them by mixing it with food or water and they will die. “That is the answer for me too” I replied. “So you have offered me that tomato sauce so I can die?”


“Oh no, no I believe that you can pray and God will do something but eat it first so I can also experience how God is so powerful.”


God tells us that we don’t have to drink poison and test him to see if He will act so I told him that I couldn’t do that. “Okay if you cannot do that, drink it so you can show to me that your body is protected. If you do it, I will become someone who will believe in God from now.”


“It will be easier if you can drink it then I can pray for you. If you believe in that then you will get saved and you will never die.”


“Really?”


“Yes.” Then I asked for a glass. I put some in it and told him to drink it, then I will pray but he said, “I cant”


“Why? Have you already seen someone who has died from poison?”


“No, I have never but I know it is dangerous”






Peter in his vision saw that there was a danger in front of him (Basket of impure animals). God gives us visions so that we can know there is a danger coming and we have to protect ourselves or we will die. When I was younger I had 2 sparrows. One day a small lizard came and laid an egg in their nest. I knew that the sparrows had only laid 2 eggs and I was asking myself, where did the 3rd egg come from? It was the same size as the other eggs, I couldn’t believe it. The 2 birds didn’t know the 3rd egg was there. The day I was expecting to see the little chicks I saw something else - a little lizard. But because the bird did not cover the 2 eggs properly they were destroyed. I didn’t get to see the outcome from them because they were rotten and I wondered if I should keep them or not.






Who can look after a lizard? For me personally I couldn’t because firstly I don’t have time to look after it, secondly I could not feed it and thirdly it is not something that I like. So I put it aside.






We also who are Christians, if God offers us something we have to make sure that we like it. We have to accept it according to the way that God gave it to us. Thirdly we have also to control it properly so we cannot get into confusion. To confuse something with what we have been learning to something that we will learn later.






If people today are taught about a vision they try to limit that vision for the time that they see it. They forget about the coming time, that is the biggest danger of the church today. We who receive visions have to look to the future. We don’t have to only limit our vision for the present because the present has got its realities. Whatever God shows to us, we will see the consequences later.






For Peter the visions he had were completely different to what God told him to go and do. God was telling him about human beings, God was telling him about people like himself. Go and pray for someone. Many people are impure in this world but do you really pray for them? How do you support them? God bring that basket down in front of us and say, “Look Ange, look, Odon, look Michael this is full of impurity. Many people are inside many souls are lost.”


Look at the situation around New Zealand, around the world. What did you do? The vision is there do something, pray. For example, on Monday I will pray for Tonga, God give these people in Tonga salvation. On Tuesday you’ll pray for Sweden, Wednesday it will be for Yugoslavia and so on. You have to pray for different countries. Sometimes it’s a shame when you ask some people if they have any prayer requests, they say, “Umm, umm maybe we can pray for Nathan so he can become taller” or “Can you pray for me so I can receive such and such.” We have a lot of prayer requests around ourselves yet there are a lot of people around us that need Jesus Christ.






Visions are there. Pray for Hamilton or even an area of Hamilton, like Nawton. “Jesus people who are in this town now, I want them to get salvation, I want for them to meet with you.” Don’t pray about how God can meet with them, it’s not your business, just tell Him. God is so happy, and I will say even more happier when you pray for souls rather than material things. That’s why he told us that there is a party in heaven when souls are saved. Imagine, who could organize a party in heaven, who could do that?






Today if someone here will say, “Jesus this is the soul I have bought to you.” In heaven there is a party. People in heaven will ask who organized this party? Someone will answer your name. People in heaven will say, “How come?” and the answer will be, “He bought a soul to God.” That’s why our Almighty says we need a party in heaven. Imagine only a short prayer of yours can bring a soul to God and then all the heaven will be shaken because of you. God will really be proud of you. But if you tell God I need new shoes, I need this and that, then God will say there is a lot of impurity around, you can’t you see them. I gave to you a vision and you don’t even have a prayer request, you don’t find the time to pray but only tell me about your own problems. Aren’t you really selfish? We need also to pray for others to show God the situation around us. So that was the second type of basket.