By Odon Bulamba
If you are blessed, we can pray and receive something from God, not only for us but for all our descendents. If you are saved, your whole family will be saved. In the early church three thousand were saved from different countries and this is the result when we pray earnestly. When the spirit speaks, it’s not with a human tongue; it’s the way we act that will attract people to Jesus.
Acts 13:3, they fasted, prayed and laid hands. Fasting and prayer go together, Jesus used to fast. The early church used to pray only and the Spirit was there. Now we have been taught to fast.
There are three types of prayer:
1. simple
2. fast – harder, prayer and strength in difficult cases, efficient
3. watch – Jesus could pray all night
This message is about the simple prayer. Mathew 6:5-13, this is the pattern Jesus gave us to pray. In verse 5 it talks about hypocrisy and God is against that. We can be hypocrites before humans and before God. If I want people to know it is me preaching or praying, I am a hypocrite. When some pray before a crowd, they use complicated words to frighten people or to put people in confusion and to show off. Don’t be like the Pharisees who want to be seen and are proud.
Mathew 6:5, “do not be seen by others”. It is not about seeing you but seeing the glory of God through you.
Be humble, Hebrews 5:7,8, Jesus prayed and cried and tears would run down. The one who wants to be exalted will be humbled and the one who is humbled will be lifted up. To be humble is to admit what sin means. If I do this, will it be sin? If yes, ask God to forgive. If I say those words, will people be happy or shocked? If I am a Christian, I represent Jesus; will I give a good image of you if I pray with really high standards? Some one who sees me must see Jesus through me.
We have been created in God’s image. Like a negative of a photo, you can recognise who is in the photo but you can’t see very well. But if you develop it, you can see well. Even if you don’t see the face, you can know from the pants they are wearing, who it is. We must reflect God’s image. God doesn’t want us to be seen but for Him to be seen. In our prayers we must make ourselves disappear completely; it is only through us something comes out. If we pray and others know we are praying, God is jealous and we must worship Him alone. If you want the success you make yourself equal to God and remember that satan wanted the glory also.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
GALATION 6:1 Restore the one who is sinning
“Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted”.
The word “caught” makes me think of a fish being caught in a net and how that fish is unable to release itself, they can’t escape on their own and need help to be set free.
“trespass” is sin, it is when we fall short or miss the mark and sometimes we can sin without even knowing it and these are the times we need to help one another. And I mean "one another" because there will be times when I will need someone to set me free from the trap of sin and I will be sometimes the person to set another free. We have to accept that we will be on both sides of that. Some people think their only role is to help others but forget they also need help while others only want to be helped and never make any effort to support others.
We have to “Restore” the person. Restoration means to put back to its original form. If you restore an old piece of furniture you are putting that furniture back to its former glory. That is what we want to do when we are helping someone, when we are freeing them from their sin. We are putting them in the “right position” (putting them on the right track ) and “equipping them” by giving them whatever they might need to do that (encouragement, support, love, hope, forgiveness, patience).
We must help each other with “gentleness”. When we are holding a kitten we are gentle, we are soft and hold it delicately. More so with a new born baby and how much more should we do so when we are talking about someone’s soul. We must hold on to each other like babies, gently helping one another. When a baby is bathed, the mother is so careful and so particular in how she holds him. We want to wash each other’s sin, so we have to find a gentle strategy that is acceptable to that person. If we scrub roughly, we will cause irritation and even scarring. The person will not hear the message if we talk roughly but only focus on the way the message was said. Better to talk kindly so they can understand and accept.
“lest yourselves be tempted”. We have to check ourselves because when we see sin in others, this is usually an indication that that same sin exists in us. People who talk too much will always notice others who talk too much.
By Hayley Boud
The word “caught” makes me think of a fish being caught in a net and how that fish is unable to release itself, they can’t escape on their own and need help to be set free.
“trespass” is sin, it is when we fall short or miss the mark and sometimes we can sin without even knowing it and these are the times we need to help one another. And I mean "one another" because there will be times when I will need someone to set me free from the trap of sin and I will be sometimes the person to set another free. We have to accept that we will be on both sides of that. Some people think their only role is to help others but forget they also need help while others only want to be helped and never make any effort to support others.
We have to “Restore” the person. Restoration means to put back to its original form. If you restore an old piece of furniture you are putting that furniture back to its former glory. That is what we want to do when we are helping someone, when we are freeing them from their sin. We are putting them in the “right position” (putting them on the right track ) and “equipping them” by giving them whatever they might need to do that (encouragement, support, love, hope, forgiveness, patience).
We must help each other with “gentleness”. When we are holding a kitten we are gentle, we are soft and hold it delicately. More so with a new born baby and how much more should we do so when we are talking about someone’s soul. We must hold on to each other like babies, gently helping one another. When a baby is bathed, the mother is so careful and so particular in how she holds him. We want to wash each other’s sin, so we have to find a gentle strategy that is acceptable to that person. If we scrub roughly, we will cause irritation and even scarring. The person will not hear the message if we talk roughly but only focus on the way the message was said. Better to talk kindly so they can understand and accept.
“lest yourselves be tempted”. We have to check ourselves because when we see sin in others, this is usually an indication that that same sin exists in us. People who talk too much will always notice others who talk too much.
By Hayley Boud
Friday, November 27, 2009
The Bible (Part IV)
By Odon Bulamba
The Word of God is our spiritual food. I can see here in NZ when people go to the supermarket there are all different kinds of food, but people choose what they want...
However, for God, it is not the same thing. God says that you cannot add or take away anything, all the food that is there you must eat, everything in the Bible is about Me (God) and you cannot say that you will eat one part but not another. Some people will say, for example, that was for the Ephesians but it is not for us. Where is the book for the French in the Bible or for the Congolese or the New Zealanders? Our letters are not in the Bible but God says accept everything and don’t change or add anything.
It is up to you now to start meditating on the Bible and to eat this food, don’t wait to be hungry to eat the Word of God, it is very different from physical food, even if you are full, eat, because there will be a time when you will look for it and you won’t find it. An example; I had a brother who was a Christian but he wasn’t used to reading the Bible, when he had to give an exhortation at church he said, I don’t know what I’m going to say. He couldn’t find anything to preach about, why? Because he didn’t read the Bible, he wanted spiritual food only when he was hungry. He wanted to be fed so that he could give other’s food. God told him something, He said, “If you are not worthy to serve Me and if you are not available to meditate on my Word, then go”.
That was hard, it is hard when God tells you to go away. God put His trust in you and gave you all the gifts and they are here but if you show that you are lazy for God’s Word, God will put you aside because laziness is a sin,. How many people were able to go to Canaan? It was only Joshua and Caleb. Why was that? It was because the others were lazy they didn’t want to leave where they were and go and walk.
Belief is personal and to serve God is also a personal decision. God called many people in the Bible but they didn’t want it, God even forced them. If you wait until God has to force you then it will be terrible, it is better to accept even though you have weaknesses, just say, “I know that I am weak, help me” and God will help you. Instead of saying I want to do nothing while you have already committed yourself to God. If you do this, you will have a serious problem.
Matt4:4; it doesn’t mean much physically but spiritually it is of great value. There are 2 kinds of life, the 1st one is the breath and the 2nd one is the Word of God. Part of your life is for bread and the other part is for the Word of God and it is up to us to weigh up what is the most important one in everything we do. There are 24 hrs in a day, how many minutes do you give to God and how many hours do you spend for your bread, you can weigh this up and know where you are up to. You can also weigh up how much time you spend sinning and how much time you spend doing good.
Because we are at the beginning we are talking about the Bible, this is what we call spiritual food. As Michael said last time the first step is milk, maybe some farex next and then solid food. If a baby is not breastfed he might risk to be weak all his life and fall sick all the time, so milk is very important for the human body and to understand the Bible is very important because it will help us in our spiritual growth.
The Bible says that it is a sword, Eph 6:14 & Heb 4:12. It is a double edged sword; it will cut ahead of you and behind you. I can cut you with it but I can cut myself with it at the same time. Although I am a servant of God the Word of God must also correct me and condemn me too as I correct others. When I say God loves you it also comes back to me. God is making us perfect and preparing us for His work. Let’s be kind with each other, little mistakes are many but the Bible will help us to correct them little by little. If you think your brother or sister is making a mistake, just pray, go and talk to him and pray together, that is the role of the Bible.
The Bible itself cannot be explained but the power that is in you and the spirit you have will explain the power in this Bible and it will give life to the world. The Bible helps us to overcome temptation. What did Jesus say to Satan when He was tempted, He always said, it is written... When we are tempted we also must use the same word of life. For example; I want to steal something, deep in my heart God says no don’t steal so I tell my body it is written do not steal, however, if I don’t know clearly if stealing is a sin or not then I will sin. It will be my fault because I haven’t taken enough time to read the Bible. As you read the Bible you find how people sin and they don’t even know that they are sinning.
One day there were some people who wanted to beat me up. It was a church like the Salvation Army (but not the Salvation Army). In this church there men wearing a uniform with a hat, like policemen. I said that men must not wear hats inside the church, or when you are at God’s service. It was terrible, they wanted to eat me alive, they took me away and they used Jesus name against me, they said “Satan, in the name of Jesus we cast you out”, then they pushed me out of the church. I was telling them the truth. The world today doesn’t want to know the truth, when you talk about the truth that is against their community or personality, automatically they will say that you are Satan. It is really terrible. We must win over Satan and have a power in us. We must tell God to help us in our service with everything that is going to happen because people will abuse us, humiliate us. We must say to God if I am shocked I will be ashamed of You and I won’t make it, so give me the strength, give me the courage like David and Moses.
There is a servant of God in the US called Benny Hinn. One day I wrote him a letter with another brother. When he answered me he told me that when he started his ministry he was mocked, he was just about to give it up but God helped him, God gave him strength and today when he raises his hands, people fall. Now all those who mocked him are now his friends. It is always difficult at the beginning but when you will start to see all the gifts working everybody will come to you. They will all say good things about you and say that you deserve to be servants of God.
In the world other servants who have eyes can already see something here in Hamilton, to confirm that we will contact servants of God in the world and they will tell us what they see here in Hamilton and that will encourage you and give you the courage to carry on with everything. You will be like them and work greatly with God, only if you don’t give up the truth that is in here (Bible). Our mission on this earth; 2 Cor 13:8 & Num 23:19. Everything that contradicts the Bible is a false doctrine. The anti-Christ is already in this world and already lives with us, so if we are not careful we will lose it. Don’t add or take away anything. Check everything you are taught and you will be good servants of God.
The Word of God is our spiritual food. I can see here in NZ when people go to the supermarket there are all different kinds of food, but people choose what they want...
However, for God, it is not the same thing. God says that you cannot add or take away anything, all the food that is there you must eat, everything in the Bible is about Me (God) and you cannot say that you will eat one part but not another. Some people will say, for example, that was for the Ephesians but it is not for us. Where is the book for the French in the Bible or for the Congolese or the New Zealanders? Our letters are not in the Bible but God says accept everything and don’t change or add anything.
It is up to you now to start meditating on the Bible and to eat this food, don’t wait to be hungry to eat the Word of God, it is very different from physical food, even if you are full, eat, because there will be a time when you will look for it and you won’t find it. An example; I had a brother who was a Christian but he wasn’t used to reading the Bible, when he had to give an exhortation at church he said, I don’t know what I’m going to say. He couldn’t find anything to preach about, why? Because he didn’t read the Bible, he wanted spiritual food only when he was hungry. He wanted to be fed so that he could give other’s food. God told him something, He said, “If you are not worthy to serve Me and if you are not available to meditate on my Word, then go”.
That was hard, it is hard when God tells you to go away. God put His trust in you and gave you all the gifts and they are here but if you show that you are lazy for God’s Word, God will put you aside because laziness is a sin,. How many people were able to go to Canaan? It was only Joshua and Caleb. Why was that? It was because the others were lazy they didn’t want to leave where they were and go and walk.
Belief is personal and to serve God is also a personal decision. God called many people in the Bible but they didn’t want it, God even forced them. If you wait until God has to force you then it will be terrible, it is better to accept even though you have weaknesses, just say, “I know that I am weak, help me” and God will help you. Instead of saying I want to do nothing while you have already committed yourself to God. If you do this, you will have a serious problem.
Matt4:4; it doesn’t mean much physically but spiritually it is of great value. There are 2 kinds of life, the 1st one is the breath and the 2nd one is the Word of God. Part of your life is for bread and the other part is for the Word of God and it is up to us to weigh up what is the most important one in everything we do. There are 24 hrs in a day, how many minutes do you give to God and how many hours do you spend for your bread, you can weigh this up and know where you are up to. You can also weigh up how much time you spend sinning and how much time you spend doing good.
Because we are at the beginning we are talking about the Bible, this is what we call spiritual food. As Michael said last time the first step is milk, maybe some farex next and then solid food. If a baby is not breastfed he might risk to be weak all his life and fall sick all the time, so milk is very important for the human body and to understand the Bible is very important because it will help us in our spiritual growth.
The Bible says that it is a sword, Eph 6:14 & Heb 4:12. It is a double edged sword; it will cut ahead of you and behind you. I can cut you with it but I can cut myself with it at the same time. Although I am a servant of God the Word of God must also correct me and condemn me too as I correct others. When I say God loves you it also comes back to me. God is making us perfect and preparing us for His work. Let’s be kind with each other, little mistakes are many but the Bible will help us to correct them little by little. If you think your brother or sister is making a mistake, just pray, go and talk to him and pray together, that is the role of the Bible.
The Bible itself cannot be explained but the power that is in you and the spirit you have will explain the power in this Bible and it will give life to the world. The Bible helps us to overcome temptation. What did Jesus say to Satan when He was tempted, He always said, it is written... When we are tempted we also must use the same word of life. For example; I want to steal something, deep in my heart God says no don’t steal so I tell my body it is written do not steal, however, if I don’t know clearly if stealing is a sin or not then I will sin. It will be my fault because I haven’t taken enough time to read the Bible. As you read the Bible you find how people sin and they don’t even know that they are sinning.
One day there were some people who wanted to beat me up. It was a church like the Salvation Army (but not the Salvation Army). In this church there men wearing a uniform with a hat, like policemen. I said that men must not wear hats inside the church, or when you are at God’s service. It was terrible, they wanted to eat me alive, they took me away and they used Jesus name against me, they said “Satan, in the name of Jesus we cast you out”, then they pushed me out of the church. I was telling them the truth. The world today doesn’t want to know the truth, when you talk about the truth that is against their community or personality, automatically they will say that you are Satan. It is really terrible. We must win over Satan and have a power in us. We must tell God to help us in our service with everything that is going to happen because people will abuse us, humiliate us. We must say to God if I am shocked I will be ashamed of You and I won’t make it, so give me the strength, give me the courage like David and Moses.
There is a servant of God in the US called Benny Hinn. One day I wrote him a letter with another brother. When he answered me he told me that when he started his ministry he was mocked, he was just about to give it up but God helped him, God gave him strength and today when he raises his hands, people fall. Now all those who mocked him are now his friends. It is always difficult at the beginning but when you will start to see all the gifts working everybody will come to you. They will all say good things about you and say that you deserve to be servants of God.
In the world other servants who have eyes can already see something here in Hamilton, to confirm that we will contact servants of God in the world and they will tell us what they see here in Hamilton and that will encourage you and give you the courage to carry on with everything. You will be like them and work greatly with God, only if you don’t give up the truth that is in here (Bible). Our mission on this earth; 2 Cor 13:8 & Num 23:19. Everything that contradicts the Bible is a false doctrine. The anti-Christ is already in this world and already lives with us, so if we are not careful we will lose it. Don’t add or take away anything. Check everything you are taught and you will be good servants of God.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The Bible (Part III)
By Odon Bulamba
Eph 5:26, this is Jesus’ Word, through His servant. He says we are purified through water and through the Word of God. Other Bible’s say that we will be purified through water and this water is the Word of God. Water is life because in water we can find everything that is necessary for the body. God’s Word, however, is worth more than water. When God talks about water, it is to show us the purity of it, we have been taught that water is pure, for instance if you mix mud and water, this water automatically becomes impure. Water has no colour but mix it with another colour the water will not hide it and the colour will be seen by everyone. This is exactly what God will do with us. God will reveal to us everybody’s life. Maybe when you see Keith you will know who is Keith and he will not be able to hide anything. Because you are pure, something that is not pure will be revealed by God. God’s Word must also purify us and the purity we have will help others to be pure too.
Psalm 119 says, you must have a pure behaviour. Once you have been purified by God’s Word you must walk with it and keep it, by keeping this purity it will make you grow spiritually. How can we keep this purity? It is by reading God’s Word, by praying and by asking God to help us practice His word.
Personally I didn’t know that you could take a branch from a lemon tree and put it on an orange tree and it will give you 2 kinds of fruit, nevertheless, this is a sin which I didn’t even know. I discovered it one day in Deuteronomy, God said, I don’t want that. I (Odon) had a tree like that at home and I cut it down. When God reveals something and it is written in the Bible we must listen. For example; if someone takes the sperm of one animal and mixes it with the sperm of another animal such as a horse and a zebra you will have neither horse nor zebra, you will have the height of a horse and the stripes of a zebra and it is very beautiful, people are attracted, however God revealed to me that this is a sin, it is written in the Bible.
Today what is happening is called progress, it is something normal in science but God says that He is against this. We must purify our conduct, the way we speak, the way we walk and everything we do, also in our spiritual life. We are not here to please the world we are here to tell the world that Jesus is returning soon and the world will be condemned.
Most Christians, especially God’s servants, when they are invited to a church they always want to say nice things about the pastor and give honour to the assembly instead of telling the Christians of the dangers. The gospel you accept to bare will be to tell people the truth, whether they accept it or not, the truth must be said, never fear, never tremble and keep your control. The beginning is difficult but when God’s Spirit is with you, you will do it and everybody will be astonished. Some people will say, “Can Peter say that, can Michael say that...” Some people will say that they are demons, so you can expect that, they will tell you that you are in confusion, they will say that you belong to a Christian group that is not theirs. Be strengthened because Jesus Himself was called Beelzebub, it was hard for Him but He said that “everything I have lived, you will live it too”.
We should ask God to put His Word in our hearts because when His Word is in our hearts we cannot sin, Psalm 119:11.
Eph 5:26, this is Jesus’ Word, through His servant. He says we are purified through water and through the Word of God. Other Bible’s say that we will be purified through water and this water is the Word of God. Water is life because in water we can find everything that is necessary for the body. God’s Word, however, is worth more than water. When God talks about water, it is to show us the purity of it, we have been taught that water is pure, for instance if you mix mud and water, this water automatically becomes impure. Water has no colour but mix it with another colour the water will not hide it and the colour will be seen by everyone. This is exactly what God will do with us. God will reveal to us everybody’s life. Maybe when you see Keith you will know who is Keith and he will not be able to hide anything. Because you are pure, something that is not pure will be revealed by God. God’s Word must also purify us and the purity we have will help others to be pure too.
Psalm 119 says, you must have a pure behaviour. Once you have been purified by God’s Word you must walk with it and keep it, by keeping this purity it will make you grow spiritually. How can we keep this purity? It is by reading God’s Word, by praying and by asking God to help us practice His word.
Personally I didn’t know that you could take a branch from a lemon tree and put it on an orange tree and it will give you 2 kinds of fruit, nevertheless, this is a sin which I didn’t even know. I discovered it one day in Deuteronomy, God said, I don’t want that. I (Odon) had a tree like that at home and I cut it down. When God reveals something and it is written in the Bible we must listen. For example; if someone takes the sperm of one animal and mixes it with the sperm of another animal such as a horse and a zebra you will have neither horse nor zebra, you will have the height of a horse and the stripes of a zebra and it is very beautiful, people are attracted, however God revealed to me that this is a sin, it is written in the Bible.
Today what is happening is called progress, it is something normal in science but God says that He is against this. We must purify our conduct, the way we speak, the way we walk and everything we do, also in our spiritual life. We are not here to please the world we are here to tell the world that Jesus is returning soon and the world will be condemned.
Most Christians, especially God’s servants, when they are invited to a church they always want to say nice things about the pastor and give honour to the assembly instead of telling the Christians of the dangers. The gospel you accept to bare will be to tell people the truth, whether they accept it or not, the truth must be said, never fear, never tremble and keep your control. The beginning is difficult but when God’s Spirit is with you, you will do it and everybody will be astonished. Some people will say, “Can Peter say that, can Michael say that...” Some people will say that they are demons, so you can expect that, they will tell you that you are in confusion, they will say that you belong to a Christian group that is not theirs. Be strengthened because Jesus Himself was called Beelzebub, it was hard for Him but He said that “everything I have lived, you will live it too”.
We should ask God to put His Word in our hearts because when His Word is in our hearts we cannot sin, Psalm 119:11.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Bible (Part II)
By Odon Bulamba
If we are talking tonight about the Bible it is because God Himself called you and you are men of God so you belong to God, you are His servants, He gives you some importance in His kingdom. He wanted us to understand what the Bible is so that we won’t sin and make mistakes, so that we can be taught the truth, so that we can correct our mistakes.
How do we correct our mistakes? One day I asked God about it and He showed me that I had learned something the wrong way. When I was a child at Sunday school we learned about Noah. When the rain stopped the raven went to see if it was still raining, the raven didn’t come back and maybe he ate some of the dead bodies. God said to me that I was mistaken because what you learned is not in the Bible, so God corrected me. There are other examples. For instance people say it is not written in the Bible that we must not drink alcohol, it only says that we must not be drunk, this is not true. Because those people don’t read the Bible enough and are not prepared to be called men of God, sometimes God just leaves them. But when we become men of God, automatically we become prisoners of Christ. I can tell you today that God has taken all of you and put you in a prison, from now on don’t do what your will wants, you must always do things according to the will of God and in everything ask God for His opinion. I think you all know what a prison is, a prison is there to correct when you are wrong and when you have made a mistake you are jailed. They will give you a uniform, you won’t dress the way that you want, you will wear what you will be given and maybe you will be given your shoes, maybe your hair will be cut off, maybe you will be whipped in the mornings, there are many stories about prisons, in a prison you cannot go for a walk when you want. This is the same thing with you, God has sealed you with His Holy Spirit, you are now prisoners of Christ. Paul says in Philppians 1, I am a prisoner of Christ. So woe to those who want to do their own will.
To be perfectly equipped to do God’s work we must really know the Bible, to know the Bible is not to memorise all the versus but it is to understand what power is in the Bible and to know how this power works and put it into practice and also to know how to help others have the same power.
2 Peter 1:1-2, all teachers are here, God told me that before the false teachers existed they invented false Bibles and if you read their Bibles you will always be mistaken, so pay attention. Personally I thank God because He gave you discernment, it is really a great gift. It will help you understand where the truth and errors are. False teachers are not easy to pin point, I told you one day that you can have a bank note, one is true and one is false, to tell them apart you must be very careful, if you are not careful you will think that it’s only money and you’ll put it in your pocket, but the day that this bank note will go back to the bank, the bank will know that it is false, then people will try to condemn the one who did that, so pay attention with teachings that we have been taught and with what we are being taught.
We are going to talk about another point. The promise we have in the Bible from John 3:16... Therefore everyone of us will now, by receiving what God will give him must go to help those who are in Satan’s prison and bring them to God’s prison and that will be through the word of God. You are going to preach, exhort, perform miracles, prophecy and when people ask you how you do it and you can’t answer, it will not be good. Everything you do, you must be able to explain it. If you have the gift of prophecy or teaching you must know how to explain things according to the word of God, never accept a prophecy that is against God’s word, never accept a teaching against God’s word, you will be in trouble if you do.
This word that God gave us is spirit and life, John 6:63. Eph 5:26, man can’t do anything, man alone cannot do anything, this is what Jesus said. He said the Holy Spirit gives life and the word that I gave you is spirit and life. If the Holy Spirit is not in you then it will be difficult for you to understand the word and to explain it to people, it will be difficult for you to give other people life. Because you have different gifts, ie, healing, miracles, the ministry of pastor, prophecy and others, these gifts must give life to others. We already have the Spirit and the Spirit must produce life through the word of God. Maybe you will say how? Personally I can’t explain it but God who gave you must lead you and confirm it and you will give life to a few people. Maybe if you pray for the dead they will rise up again or if you pray for the sick they will be healed, you will preach to the so called Christians and they will be born again. You will also preach to responsible Churches and they will accept life, but if we don’t walk according to the will of God, instead of giving life we will give death.
God revealed something else to me, it was a vision, for example; there was a mother who was pregnant and she didn’t know what her child would look like, the mother was joyful because soon she’ll have a baby. A doctor examined her and he said to the mother, “you will give birth to a child, but this child won’t live”. The mother asked, why? The doctor said, “Because the one who you knew that conceived this child with you has aids and this child already has the symptoms and these symptoms carry death, so the child will be born but he will have symptoms of death in his body and the child will die”. God said, this is the same with us, God has prepared us as people who will give life to others but if what comes out is mixed with sin, then all those who will listen to our words be born spiritually sick and will carry death.
Faith comes from what we hear from the word of God, if you are impure and you give out the word of God people will also take this word and carry this impurity because it will be a seed that you have sown in them. You will think, I always preach but people don’t change, God will say, “I am holy and My word is pure and you are the one who gave the mistake, you were impure”. Wherever you go to do God’s work always try to be pure, before doing anything, first fix up your own life and after that you can go and help others. So, the mother of this child lost him. After a while he had a rash, at the beginning the child was beautiful but then he became ugly. I understood that if we preach the good news and there is something impure in us that it will have an effect. John 15:3 says that the teaching that we have makes us pure, everything that we are taught is to purify our lives, it is to prepare us to do God’s work, without this purification we can destroy.
If we are talking tonight about the Bible it is because God Himself called you and you are men of God so you belong to God, you are His servants, He gives you some importance in His kingdom. He wanted us to understand what the Bible is so that we won’t sin and make mistakes, so that we can be taught the truth, so that we can correct our mistakes.
How do we correct our mistakes? One day I asked God about it and He showed me that I had learned something the wrong way. When I was a child at Sunday school we learned about Noah. When the rain stopped the raven went to see if it was still raining, the raven didn’t come back and maybe he ate some of the dead bodies. God said to me that I was mistaken because what you learned is not in the Bible, so God corrected me. There are other examples. For instance people say it is not written in the Bible that we must not drink alcohol, it only says that we must not be drunk, this is not true. Because those people don’t read the Bible enough and are not prepared to be called men of God, sometimes God just leaves them. But when we become men of God, automatically we become prisoners of Christ. I can tell you today that God has taken all of you and put you in a prison, from now on don’t do what your will wants, you must always do things according to the will of God and in everything ask God for His opinion. I think you all know what a prison is, a prison is there to correct when you are wrong and when you have made a mistake you are jailed. They will give you a uniform, you won’t dress the way that you want, you will wear what you will be given and maybe you will be given your shoes, maybe your hair will be cut off, maybe you will be whipped in the mornings, there are many stories about prisons, in a prison you cannot go for a walk when you want. This is the same thing with you, God has sealed you with His Holy Spirit, you are now prisoners of Christ. Paul says in Philppians 1, I am a prisoner of Christ. So woe to those who want to do their own will.
To be perfectly equipped to do God’s work we must really know the Bible, to know the Bible is not to memorise all the versus but it is to understand what power is in the Bible and to know how this power works and put it into practice and also to know how to help others have the same power.
2 Peter 1:1-2, all teachers are here, God told me that before the false teachers existed they invented false Bibles and if you read their Bibles you will always be mistaken, so pay attention. Personally I thank God because He gave you discernment, it is really a great gift. It will help you understand where the truth and errors are. False teachers are not easy to pin point, I told you one day that you can have a bank note, one is true and one is false, to tell them apart you must be very careful, if you are not careful you will think that it’s only money and you’ll put it in your pocket, but the day that this bank note will go back to the bank, the bank will know that it is false, then people will try to condemn the one who did that, so pay attention with teachings that we have been taught and with what we are being taught.
We are going to talk about another point. The promise we have in the Bible from John 3:16... Therefore everyone of us will now, by receiving what God will give him must go to help those who are in Satan’s prison and bring them to God’s prison and that will be through the word of God. You are going to preach, exhort, perform miracles, prophecy and when people ask you how you do it and you can’t answer, it will not be good. Everything you do, you must be able to explain it. If you have the gift of prophecy or teaching you must know how to explain things according to the word of God, never accept a prophecy that is against God’s word, never accept a teaching against God’s word, you will be in trouble if you do.
This word that God gave us is spirit and life, John 6:63. Eph 5:26, man can’t do anything, man alone cannot do anything, this is what Jesus said. He said the Holy Spirit gives life and the word that I gave you is spirit and life. If the Holy Spirit is not in you then it will be difficult for you to understand the word and to explain it to people, it will be difficult for you to give other people life. Because you have different gifts, ie, healing, miracles, the ministry of pastor, prophecy and others, these gifts must give life to others. We already have the Spirit and the Spirit must produce life through the word of God. Maybe you will say how? Personally I can’t explain it but God who gave you must lead you and confirm it and you will give life to a few people. Maybe if you pray for the dead they will rise up again or if you pray for the sick they will be healed, you will preach to the so called Christians and they will be born again. You will also preach to responsible Churches and they will accept life, but if we don’t walk according to the will of God, instead of giving life we will give death.
God revealed something else to me, it was a vision, for example; there was a mother who was pregnant and she didn’t know what her child would look like, the mother was joyful because soon she’ll have a baby. A doctor examined her and he said to the mother, “you will give birth to a child, but this child won’t live”. The mother asked, why? The doctor said, “Because the one who you knew that conceived this child with you has aids and this child already has the symptoms and these symptoms carry death, so the child will be born but he will have symptoms of death in his body and the child will die”. God said, this is the same with us, God has prepared us as people who will give life to others but if what comes out is mixed with sin, then all those who will listen to our words be born spiritually sick and will carry death.
Faith comes from what we hear from the word of God, if you are impure and you give out the word of God people will also take this word and carry this impurity because it will be a seed that you have sown in them. You will think, I always preach but people don’t change, God will say, “I am holy and My word is pure and you are the one who gave the mistake, you were impure”. Wherever you go to do God’s work always try to be pure, before doing anything, first fix up your own life and after that you can go and help others. So, the mother of this child lost him. After a while he had a rash, at the beginning the child was beautiful but then he became ugly. I understood that if we preach the good news and there is something impure in us that it will have an effect. John 15:3 says that the teaching that we have makes us pure, everything that we are taught is to purify our lives, it is to prepare us to do God’s work, without this purification we can destroy.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
THE BIBLE (Part I)
By Odon Bulamba
Today we are going to talk about the Bible. Is the Bible really the Word of God? Because the Muslims say that the Koran is the Word of God and every other religion that has a book will say that their book is the Word of God. So we are going to see why we say that the Bible is the Word of God. In the beginning God created Adam and he was God’s friend, Adam didn’t know that God was God. For Adam, God was just a friend and he could do anything. Even when Adam sinned, instead of asking God for forgiveness he said to God, well you gave me this woman, if you didn’t give me this woman I wouldn’t have sinned.
Man was nearly equal to God. From that time on God wanted to make a rule and this rule would be the rule that would judge and condemn us. God found Himself in a situation where Adam accused Him, saying, “You gave me this woman”. After that the name of God started to change and as we know the first person in the Bible to call God, “Lord” was Seth, Genesis 4:26. Seth was a decedent of Adam, Adam regarded God as a brother or a friend but Seth discovered that this God shouldn’t be called brother or friend but rather, Lord. From that time on people started to pray whereas before that time people didn’t pray.
However, God saw that sin continued on the earth, at the time of the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, so God said now I must institute a law and everything must be written because people will forget but if it’s written people will remember. So God made the 10 commandments by Moses. God saw that there were people on the earth before Moses and the law wasn’t written yet, so how would these people be judged. So God decided to do what is written in Romans 5:13, He said because there was no law before Moses I will forgive all the people who lived before that time. So those who died in Noah’s time and in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, we shall see them in heaven because the law wasn’t there yet.
God’s mercy is boundless. When I left here last night I was on my way home and when I got to the corner I felt strongly that I had to go and see Guillaume, so I stopped the car and prayed, God allowed me to go to his place so I went. As I was praying for Guillaume God changed everything that I had planned, I was supposed to be talking about praise today but God said no, first talk about the Bible, so that My children will understand how important this Book is and so that they will also know how to use it and after you have talked about the Bible you can talk about praise.
In the beginning there was no law and yesterday was also the first time for me to discover that, because the Bible says in John, in the beginning was the Word however this Word wasn’t written at that time. That is what God wanted me to share with you tonight.
According to theology, the Bible is a set of books that were written by different people over a period of 1,400 years, it is a book that doesn’t contradict itself. But God revealed something to me; He said that the Bible wasn’t written by different people, it was written by only one person, however, in different branches. God said He was the one who inspired those people to write the Bible. Therefore, He was the only one who wrote the Bible. God used different parts of His body (branches) so that the Bible could be written. It wasn’t Moses or Isaiah’s knowledge that wrote the Bible but it was only under the inspiration of God. That is exactly why nothing can contradict the Bible because there is only one person who wrote it. It was as if someone had fallen asleep and was dreaming, it is not your will to dream what you want, the dream comes and you just dream it. God told me that in the beginning Moses was not there but Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. So who revealed all of what was in Genesis to Moses. God said to me, can’t you see that I am the one who wrote the Bible. Spiritually speaking, Moses didn’t have anything but because God chose Him he started to respond and be interested in God. God said, “and with my finger I wrote the 10 commandments on the tablets”. Because people wouldn’t believe that God could write, He wanted to use human beings, but He said, this Bible is not from human beings. When you say that a few people wrote the Bible, God says no. If you are a writer, you will use your thoughts to write, but those who wrote the Bible didn’t use their own knowledge or thoughts. Perhaps this is the only time that you will ever hear this kind of message, it is something spiritual so keep it for yourself.
The Bible was written in Hebrew especially the Old Testament, a few books such as Ezra and Jeremiah were written in Aramean before the deportation of the Israelites to Babylon and after that the writers wrote in their own language. After praying with Guillaume I went home, it was 1.30am and I had to stop my car to be able to listen to what God had to tell me. God told me one more time that what I am telling you today is the basis of everything that you are going to do and if you lose the value of the Bible or if you don’t understand what the Bible says it will be very difficult for you to read, meditate and understand what God wants.
I told God that I was confused because I have found two types of Bibles in my life, one has 66 books and the other one has more than 66 books, so I had the opportunity to ask what was the best one.
Today, men want to make money by selling the word of God, for example we have the king James version which has existed since the 16th, 17th century, every five years this version will change, it always says a new version and they change words which diminishes the meaning of the Bible. God says, keep what you have because the Bible that will be used here in NZ in two or three years will not have all of the original texts and My power will not be in this book. People will preach with this Bible but people will not accept Jesus. People will read this Bible that will have no power and there will be no transformation, they will always be sinners.
So I asked God, which one is the best Bible? God said what I have told you, you must understand and everybody must also understand what I said. God said, the first copy (10 commandments) that I wrote to Moses was broken because of man’s sin so I made a copy and the original is no longer there. The very first Bible is the one that I have blessed but the rest I don’t know. I was confused, what is the first Bible? God didn’t answer but I have discovered myself today that the Protestant Bible was the first one, the Bible with 66 books, the Greek Bible was written a few years later. If you want to be wise read the 66 books, you can read other books but don’t put your trust in them. The word of God is what the Bible is, why do we call it God’s word? 2 Timothy 3:16, why is it the word of God? Because it was inspired by God, He said that He alone is the author of the Bible, the Koran wasn’t inspired by God as well as other books, they were not inspired by God, God wanted to inspire this book, the Bible. Why did He inspire this book? The Bible says, it is to teach us the truth, we must know the truth through the Bible and apart from the Bible there is no truth.
Don’t be confused. Never accept any truth apart from what is in the Bible. God inspired His scripture so that all errors could be unveiled. God didn’t want us to be in the wrong so He gave us the Bible to teach us. Because I am nothing I could be a Muslim or a Buddhist or another religion that doesn’t use the Bible, those who are in those religions and believe in other books are mistaken and they don’t know it. By His grace, God wanted us to know the truth, it is only by grace that we are saved.
God inspired His Bible so that we can correct our mistakes, God sees that we make many mistakes and we sin all the time so He wanted to inspire His word to be able to correct us and give us the right pattern to live and so that the man of God will be perfectly equipped and able to do good works
Today we are going to talk about the Bible. Is the Bible really the Word of God? Because the Muslims say that the Koran is the Word of God and every other religion that has a book will say that their book is the Word of God. So we are going to see why we say that the Bible is the Word of God. In the beginning God created Adam and he was God’s friend, Adam didn’t know that God was God. For Adam, God was just a friend and he could do anything. Even when Adam sinned, instead of asking God for forgiveness he said to God, well you gave me this woman, if you didn’t give me this woman I wouldn’t have sinned.
Man was nearly equal to God. From that time on God wanted to make a rule and this rule would be the rule that would judge and condemn us. God found Himself in a situation where Adam accused Him, saying, “You gave me this woman”. After that the name of God started to change and as we know the first person in the Bible to call God, “Lord” was Seth, Genesis 4:26. Seth was a decedent of Adam, Adam regarded God as a brother or a friend but Seth discovered that this God shouldn’t be called brother or friend but rather, Lord. From that time on people started to pray whereas before that time people didn’t pray.
However, God saw that sin continued on the earth, at the time of the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, so God said now I must institute a law and everything must be written because people will forget but if it’s written people will remember. So God made the 10 commandments by Moses. God saw that there were people on the earth before Moses and the law wasn’t written yet, so how would these people be judged. So God decided to do what is written in Romans 5:13, He said because there was no law before Moses I will forgive all the people who lived before that time. So those who died in Noah’s time and in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, we shall see them in heaven because the law wasn’t there yet.
God’s mercy is boundless. When I left here last night I was on my way home and when I got to the corner I felt strongly that I had to go and see Guillaume, so I stopped the car and prayed, God allowed me to go to his place so I went. As I was praying for Guillaume God changed everything that I had planned, I was supposed to be talking about praise today but God said no, first talk about the Bible, so that My children will understand how important this Book is and so that they will also know how to use it and after you have talked about the Bible you can talk about praise.
In the beginning there was no law and yesterday was also the first time for me to discover that, because the Bible says in John, in the beginning was the Word however this Word wasn’t written at that time. That is what God wanted me to share with you tonight.
According to theology, the Bible is a set of books that were written by different people over a period of 1,400 years, it is a book that doesn’t contradict itself. But God revealed something to me; He said that the Bible wasn’t written by different people, it was written by only one person, however, in different branches. God said He was the one who inspired those people to write the Bible. Therefore, He was the only one who wrote the Bible. God used different parts of His body (branches) so that the Bible could be written. It wasn’t Moses or Isaiah’s knowledge that wrote the Bible but it was only under the inspiration of God. That is exactly why nothing can contradict the Bible because there is only one person who wrote it. It was as if someone had fallen asleep and was dreaming, it is not your will to dream what you want, the dream comes and you just dream it. God told me that in the beginning Moses was not there but Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. So who revealed all of what was in Genesis to Moses. God said to me, can’t you see that I am the one who wrote the Bible. Spiritually speaking, Moses didn’t have anything but because God chose Him he started to respond and be interested in God. God said, “and with my finger I wrote the 10 commandments on the tablets”. Because people wouldn’t believe that God could write, He wanted to use human beings, but He said, this Bible is not from human beings. When you say that a few people wrote the Bible, God says no. If you are a writer, you will use your thoughts to write, but those who wrote the Bible didn’t use their own knowledge or thoughts. Perhaps this is the only time that you will ever hear this kind of message, it is something spiritual so keep it for yourself.
The Bible was written in Hebrew especially the Old Testament, a few books such as Ezra and Jeremiah were written in Aramean before the deportation of the Israelites to Babylon and after that the writers wrote in their own language. After praying with Guillaume I went home, it was 1.30am and I had to stop my car to be able to listen to what God had to tell me. God told me one more time that what I am telling you today is the basis of everything that you are going to do and if you lose the value of the Bible or if you don’t understand what the Bible says it will be very difficult for you to read, meditate and understand what God wants.
I told God that I was confused because I have found two types of Bibles in my life, one has 66 books and the other one has more than 66 books, so I had the opportunity to ask what was the best one.
Today, men want to make money by selling the word of God, for example we have the king James version which has existed since the 16th, 17th century, every five years this version will change, it always says a new version and they change words which diminishes the meaning of the Bible. God says, keep what you have because the Bible that will be used here in NZ in two or three years will not have all of the original texts and My power will not be in this book. People will preach with this Bible but people will not accept Jesus. People will read this Bible that will have no power and there will be no transformation, they will always be sinners.
So I asked God, which one is the best Bible? God said what I have told you, you must understand and everybody must also understand what I said. God said, the first copy (10 commandments) that I wrote to Moses was broken because of man’s sin so I made a copy and the original is no longer there. The very first Bible is the one that I have blessed but the rest I don’t know. I was confused, what is the first Bible? God didn’t answer but I have discovered myself today that the Protestant Bible was the first one, the Bible with 66 books, the Greek Bible was written a few years later. If you want to be wise read the 66 books, you can read other books but don’t put your trust in them. The word of God is what the Bible is, why do we call it God’s word? 2 Timothy 3:16, why is it the word of God? Because it was inspired by God, He said that He alone is the author of the Bible, the Koran wasn’t inspired by God as well as other books, they were not inspired by God, God wanted to inspire this book, the Bible. Why did He inspire this book? The Bible says, it is to teach us the truth, we must know the truth through the Bible and apart from the Bible there is no truth.
Don’t be confused. Never accept any truth apart from what is in the Bible. God inspired His scripture so that all errors could be unveiled. God didn’t want us to be in the wrong so He gave us the Bible to teach us. Because I am nothing I could be a Muslim or a Buddhist or another religion that doesn’t use the Bible, those who are in those religions and believe in other books are mistaken and they don’t know it. By His grace, God wanted us to know the truth, it is only by grace that we are saved.
God inspired His Bible so that we can correct our mistakes, God sees that we make many mistakes and we sin all the time so He wanted to inspire His word to be able to correct us and give us the right pattern to live and so that the man of God will be perfectly equipped and able to do good works
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Neglect of our Gifts
By Odon Bulamba (summarised by Benedicte Bahjejian - 18/05/07)
The Lord is building us up brick by brick. If you read the daily Bible readings you will clearly and easily understand, but if you didn’t do it, you will struggle somehow.
Hebrews 2:1-4
‘We must pay more attention, therefore to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard him. […]’
In the Bible, there are 3 main questions to which there is no answer:
1. How can we escape judgment?
2. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36)
3. Church will be the first judged.
God finds we are neglectful, we do things according to our will, not His, and according to what pleases others around us, instead of pleasing God, our Creator.
If you neglect the great salvation, what will happen to you? Jesus told us about the great salvation to go and make disciples (Mat 28:19).
Neglect is not something good: marriage can be broken because of neglect, joy can be lost because of neglect, even money can fly away because of it, and neglect can make somebody’s life become worse than what it was.
• We, human beings neglect important things, we neglect God’s work, and we believe we are perfect. And the consequences of neglect is that I neglect myself, for example, not washing my dirty dishes or not changing my sheets. Therefore, we mix dirty stuff with God’s work, as mixing dirty and clean clothes.
• Furthermore, neglect doesn’t accept advice, people get angry when they are told to change something.
John 5:40 “Yet you refuse to come to me to have life”
Don’t wait for Good to come to you, come to him first!
The Great Salvation
The great salvation includes these 9 characteristics:
Second birth, forgiveness, reconciliation, salvation, sanctification, redemption, justification,
the gift of the Holy Spirit and new creation.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is the only thing Jesus gave to the Church. Muslims, Buddhists have salvation but not sanctification, not redemption etc. If I neglect this great salvation, I will not enter the kingdom of God.
Why do people, today in the Church, neglect their gifts?
1. Because they can’t be bothered
2. Because they don’t care
3. Because the satisfaction of physical needs comes first (eat, sleep etc.)
The consequences of carelessness
First stage - God comes to those who are careless & removes their gifts one after another, not all at the same time. And how does this happens?
For example, if a wife doesn’t respect her husband, he will not love his wife.
And if a husband does not love his wife, she will not respect her husband.
So if we don’t respect Jesus, the love of God for us will decrease, & we will be losers in everything we do, and become foolish.
2nd stage- God removes other people’s respect toward us. People will start to neglect you and avoid you. Therefore, you will try to impose your will by shouting or using physical force. And because God removed people’s respect for you, people will start to talk behind your back. The fruit of redemption in you will lose its life.
3rd stage- We bear the fruit of neglect
The opposite of the fruit of the Spirit stated in Gal 5:22-23.
Instead of love --- hatred
Instead of kindness --- harshness
Instead of peace --- strife and discord
Instead of goodness --- wickedness
Instead of patience --- impatience
Instead of gentleness --- rudeness
Instead of self- control --- license (excessive freedom)
LOVE, you loved someone yesterday, tomorrow you will hate him / her. We easily hate people because of small things they do to us. Yet life without LOVE is meaningless.
4th stage- We neglect ourselves
Example: A neglectful woman will stay in her pyjamas the whole day, neglect to prepare food, to look after the children and her husband. She will just find excuses. We also, as the bride of Christ, we give excuses to God why we don’t do his work properly, and we blame others. But why don’t you blame yourself first?
• When we neglect God, God humiliates us, the world humiliates us as well. And that’s when Satan sends his people to criticize us: “This man is not a man of God”. You will start to hate even people with whom you usually pray.
When they are sick, neglectful people cannot stop complaining that God doesn’t answer their prayers, and they get easily disappointed.
I will give you an example. When you are constipated and want to go toilet, nothing comes out. You want to poo but you cannot. Neglect is like constipation, it will prevent you from fulfilling your spiritual tasks. What is the solution? Fix your problems yourself.
Only God can heal you from being constipated. If you are neglectful, God will put a barrier in your works, to make you understand that you have to come back to him & repent.
People are leaking
Many people today are leaking. To take an example, if you remove the pin from the tube of a bike, the air will leak out of the tube. You can pump it this morning, but after a 1 hour ride the tube will be flat. To find the leak, you have to use water, & to fill it with air then you must glue a patch.
In the same way, people who show neglect in the work of the Lord, God will remove their power. The first love you once had for Him will vanish. Reading the Bible & praying won’t be any longer a priority in your life. And once you get flat, you pump your Spirit, you prepare your leading and exhortation, come at the prayer meeting pretending you are fine, when you are actually leaking. And after the meeting you are flat again. Pumping is not the solution.
WHY DON’T YOU JUST FIND THE HOLE, buy the glue and fix a patch to cover the leak?
If you are consuming God’s Words & not moving, you won’t move on. Fix the problem.
Isaiah 40:29 “He gives strength to the weary, and increases the power of the weak”
If you are weak & accept you are a neglectful person, you should go to God & ask him to increase my strength and care for his work. The trouble is that we only give God some time when we are asked to do so & we keep the rest of our time for ourselves.
God hates that!
God’s gifts are within us. If a neglectful preacher hides is gifts, people will never know he is a preacher. Thus, the more you use your gifts, the more people will see it and realize you are a servant of God. Pray, pray for your gifts, that people will discover what is inside you.
Consider this carefully: practice your gifts. To the ones who neglect to practice them, God will remove them one after another. Use them yourself.
If you face any problems, read Ps 34:6, shout to God for help & He will help you.
Pray God that his power may lead you.
Verses to help us where we are leaking
If you lost your first love, read Rev 2:4
If you lost your joy, read Ps 51:12
If you lost your burden for lost souls, read Mat 9:36
If you lost your priority- fact that God created you & have a purpose for your life, read
Mat 6:33
If you lost your sensitivity, read Hebr 3:8
If you lost your motion- less interested in God’s word, prayer, worship, going to church, read Mat 15:8
If you lost your fire for the Gospel, read Rev 3:15-16
Whoever practices his gifts will receive a crown, so work for your crown!
In conclusion, God wants us ready to serve him. So be ready.
Also, use the sheet ‘What we need to cover’ about the themes in the Bible to know about, and start your own research on the one you find relevant for you. The more you go deep in God’
The Lord is building us up brick by brick. If you read the daily Bible readings you will clearly and easily understand, but if you didn’t do it, you will struggle somehow.
Hebrews 2:1-4
‘We must pay more attention, therefore to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard him. […]’
In the Bible, there are 3 main questions to which there is no answer:
1. How can we escape judgment?
2. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36)
3. Church will be the first judged.
God finds we are neglectful, we do things according to our will, not His, and according to what pleases others around us, instead of pleasing God, our Creator.
If you neglect the great salvation, what will happen to you? Jesus told us about the great salvation to go and make disciples (Mat 28:19).
Neglect is not something good: marriage can be broken because of neglect, joy can be lost because of neglect, even money can fly away because of it, and neglect can make somebody’s life become worse than what it was.
• We, human beings neglect important things, we neglect God’s work, and we believe we are perfect. And the consequences of neglect is that I neglect myself, for example, not washing my dirty dishes or not changing my sheets. Therefore, we mix dirty stuff with God’s work, as mixing dirty and clean clothes.
• Furthermore, neglect doesn’t accept advice, people get angry when they are told to change something.
John 5:40 “Yet you refuse to come to me to have life”
Don’t wait for Good to come to you, come to him first!
The Great Salvation
The great salvation includes these 9 characteristics:
Second birth, forgiveness, reconciliation, salvation, sanctification, redemption, justification,
the gift of the Holy Spirit and new creation.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is the only thing Jesus gave to the Church. Muslims, Buddhists have salvation but not sanctification, not redemption etc. If I neglect this great salvation, I will not enter the kingdom of God.
Why do people, today in the Church, neglect their gifts?
1. Because they can’t be bothered
2. Because they don’t care
3. Because the satisfaction of physical needs comes first (eat, sleep etc.)
The consequences of carelessness
First stage - God comes to those who are careless & removes their gifts one after another, not all at the same time. And how does this happens?
For example, if a wife doesn’t respect her husband, he will not love his wife.
And if a husband does not love his wife, she will not respect her husband.
So if we don’t respect Jesus, the love of God for us will decrease, & we will be losers in everything we do, and become foolish.
2nd stage- God removes other people’s respect toward us. People will start to neglect you and avoid you. Therefore, you will try to impose your will by shouting or using physical force. And because God removed people’s respect for you, people will start to talk behind your back. The fruit of redemption in you will lose its life.
3rd stage- We bear the fruit of neglect
The opposite of the fruit of the Spirit stated in Gal 5:22-23.
Instead of love --- hatred
Instead of kindness --- harshness
Instead of peace --- strife and discord
Instead of goodness --- wickedness
Instead of patience --- impatience
Instead of gentleness --- rudeness
Instead of self- control --- license (excessive freedom)
LOVE, you loved someone yesterday, tomorrow you will hate him / her. We easily hate people because of small things they do to us. Yet life without LOVE is meaningless.
4th stage- We neglect ourselves
Example: A neglectful woman will stay in her pyjamas the whole day, neglect to prepare food, to look after the children and her husband. She will just find excuses. We also, as the bride of Christ, we give excuses to God why we don’t do his work properly, and we blame others. But why don’t you blame yourself first?
• When we neglect God, God humiliates us, the world humiliates us as well. And that’s when Satan sends his people to criticize us: “This man is not a man of God”. You will start to hate even people with whom you usually pray.
When they are sick, neglectful people cannot stop complaining that God doesn’t answer their prayers, and they get easily disappointed.
I will give you an example. When you are constipated and want to go toilet, nothing comes out. You want to poo but you cannot. Neglect is like constipation, it will prevent you from fulfilling your spiritual tasks. What is the solution? Fix your problems yourself.
Only God can heal you from being constipated. If you are neglectful, God will put a barrier in your works, to make you understand that you have to come back to him & repent.
People are leaking
Many people today are leaking. To take an example, if you remove the pin from the tube of a bike, the air will leak out of the tube. You can pump it this morning, but after a 1 hour ride the tube will be flat. To find the leak, you have to use water, & to fill it with air then you must glue a patch.
In the same way, people who show neglect in the work of the Lord, God will remove their power. The first love you once had for Him will vanish. Reading the Bible & praying won’t be any longer a priority in your life. And once you get flat, you pump your Spirit, you prepare your leading and exhortation, come at the prayer meeting pretending you are fine, when you are actually leaking. And after the meeting you are flat again. Pumping is not the solution.
WHY DON’T YOU JUST FIND THE HOLE, buy the glue and fix a patch to cover the leak?
If you are consuming God’s Words & not moving, you won’t move on. Fix the problem.
Isaiah 40:29 “He gives strength to the weary, and increases the power of the weak”
If you are weak & accept you are a neglectful person, you should go to God & ask him to increase my strength and care for his work. The trouble is that we only give God some time when we are asked to do so & we keep the rest of our time for ourselves.
God hates that!
God’s gifts are within us. If a neglectful preacher hides is gifts, people will never know he is a preacher. Thus, the more you use your gifts, the more people will see it and realize you are a servant of God. Pray, pray for your gifts, that people will discover what is inside you.
Consider this carefully: practice your gifts. To the ones who neglect to practice them, God will remove them one after another. Use them yourself.
If you face any problems, read Ps 34:6, shout to God for help & He will help you.
Pray God that his power may lead you.
Verses to help us where we are leaking
If you lost your first love, read Rev 2:4
If you lost your joy, read Ps 51:12
If you lost your burden for lost souls, read Mat 9:36
If you lost your priority- fact that God created you & have a purpose for your life, read
Mat 6:33
If you lost your sensitivity, read Hebr 3:8
If you lost your motion- less interested in God’s word, prayer, worship, going to church, read Mat 15:8
If you lost your fire for the Gospel, read Rev 3:15-16
Whoever practices his gifts will receive a crown, so work for your crown!
In conclusion, God wants us ready to serve him. So be ready.
Also, use the sheet ‘What we need to cover’ about the themes in the Bible to know about, and start your own research on the one you find relevant for you. The more you go deep in God’
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Gift of Administration
By Odon Bulamba (Summarised by Benedicte Bahjejian - 25th May, 07)
The first gift we are talking about is the gift of administration. And this gift means to lead to facilitate or to steer something. Many leaders can be leaders and they are not administrators. To administer is something really heavy, strong, something that requires commitment, determination, something hard to do.
People who are doing admin in the church can become treasurers, secretarys, office managers etc. So if you’ve got this gift, you have to know that you’re working not only for God, but also for people. And you’ll see people of every colour coming to you, people having good moods or bad moods, people who are angry and tough and people who are soft, and you need to know how to deal with them.
Let’s take the example of Moses in Exodus 18, where he tried to do everything by himself and it was impossible. He then started to suffer. God opened the door of suffering in Moses’s life. He was suppose to preach, to tell them the message, to tell them what to do and organize everything. And he had a few million people to look after. During that time, we didn’t have speakers nor microphones, people didn't have the chance to pass the message to each other as easily as today. When Moses and Aaron spoke, the multitude had to be quiet, to listen. And I’m not sure how loud Moses’ voice was. Then they decided to put people in groups so that the leaders could pass the message to the people. But that was not enough, so his father in law came and told him to share the tasks with others, so that the work of God would be done properly. Moses accepted this advice.
Would you be ready as well to accept to share some tasks of your gift with others. If you have got a gift of healing, and someone comes up to you and tells you: the power is going to be removed from you and given to Catherine, how would you feel? If you have got a gift of singing and someone says ‘ Your power will be given to Tyrone, or to Odon’ If you have got the power of doing something for God, and God will remove some of it and give it to someone else, how would you feel? Would you feel ‘ now I’m free, I am not over loaded’, or would you feel bad because the glory of yours will go down, the success you had or the hand claps you received will disappear. How would you feel? I think, being a human being, you’ll feel like ‘I want to keep my gift. I want to keep this glory’. Whenever I stand up and pray for people, I want to see miracles happening. If you remove these miracles and give them to Colleen, what will I use? Even if I pray for people, they will not get healed any more.
God will make you to suffer in that way sometimes. He will take something from you, and give it away to someone else. Because these are not your gifts, he gives to whom he wants, please don’t be chocked, don’t be disappointed and say ‘God, I cannot do it any more’. God has given you a gift for a purpose, to use it for a specific purpose and after achieving this purpose, he can give it to another person to use it in another way. So you’ve got a mission, which means that your gifts last a limited time. And you have to work during this time frame to finish that mission as soon as possible, because you don’t know what tomorrow holds. That’s why you’ll see most of God’s people stand up, give their message, and people will say ‘yes, we are blessed’, and the second message is just down. It is nothing. You may be good in singing today, but tomorrow not sing as perfectly as before. Someone can play an instrument today, but tomorrow the desire of practicing disappears. I’ll lose the ability to play the guitar, the keyboard or any other instruments. They can continue to know how to start a song, but they will lose this motivation.
So Moses was now at this stage where his power was supposed to be given to seventy people. Imagine now, what did Moses have left. If he had 3 kgs of power, to be shared amongst 71 people, Im not quite sure if he was a leader by name, or just the man of God who had all the blessings and power. so why that? Because God doesn’t want us to take all the glory. He doesn’t want us to be proud of what we are. That’s why, He will take something away from you and give it to someone else. You’ll keep what you have got, only if you are humble. If you humble yourself, you can keep it longer because he can create other missions and say : Go now, do this. After finishing there, you’ll come and He will say : Go now and do that. Don’t be surprised if Benny Hinn came here and prayed for you tonight, and you don’t get healed. Don’t be surprised if you start singing at church and you are out of tune. Don’t blame yourself, or friends, or brothers, and think ‘ I sung out of tune because of you’. No! Glorify God for that and carry on.
So here, we have a good example of Nehemiah, another man of God. He is the only person in the Bible, up to now, apart from Jesus, who was a good administrator. I picked up some of his good qualities. Someone who wants to be an administrator, or wants to lead, for God’s glory, he must have compassion.
So let’s think about it; what do you understand by 'compassion’?
- you listen, to sacrifice your time to spend with people, you care for this person, put yourself in other people’s shoes.
So if I say: Bene has compassion, what does it mean? Everything good, positive? Is there any negative points in having compassion? Does it mean that she has only positive qualities? That she is good in all areas?
- Someone who can identify with someone else’s life
To have compassion is hard. For example, I may not have the same amount of comnpassion for Leah and for Michelle. It would depend on how close you are with me, or how I behave when something happened. Yesterday, I was driving around Heaphy Terrace, two very old people, maybe 80 years old were crossing the pedestrian, holding hands and a car hit them. I don’t know if it was what God prepared for them that night. Both the man and the lady remained lying on the street. And the driver jumped out of his car and started yelling: Oh my God, my God, what have I done! He was really sorry for what happened but who could really believe him, everyone started to blame him: you could see this sign showing you the pedestrian crossing. You should have slowed down. And I was really sorry for this man, and also for the people who were hit…
but sometimes when we see that Christians like you and me, are going through a hard time, they had an accident, they are killing or hurting others, do you have compassion for them or do you criticize them? If I’ve got compassion for my pastor who sinned, I will think about him and his life, kneel down and pray for him. An accident is just an accident. And you cannot say you are an expert, that’s why you will not crash. You can crash. You can be the best pilot in the world and have a plane crash. Although in the air we don’t have a air code. In spiritual life also, such accidents can happen. But we people who surround others, we need to have that compassion toward servants of God, for the souls God has been looking after. If you don’t have compassion, you cannot be a good administrator. You need that. You have to pray day after day for people, you must understand their needs, you must put yourself in their shoes. Although God can bring suffering, although things can be tough, although you can go up and down in your daily life remember; compassion is very important.
An administrator must be goal orientated and full of faith, leading by example, knowing when to delegate your tasks etc.
If you turn to the book of Nehemiah, you will learn a lot. If you have got this gift, read the book of Nehemiah again. For people who have been doing the one year Bible reading program, they have finished reading this book, praise the Lord. But if you have never read this book, try to teach yourself.
Other examples are Jesus, Joseph, Deborah, David, James and Jairus. When you are an administrator, you ‘ll start to think about the church, not only the building, but people, how to organize the church of God? How to make my task easy? How to put things together? You don’t need people to come to you and say: You must do this or that now. You have to look around and think, what do we need. Do you have any program for this month? For this year? Can you plan something? How will it work? Suggest, propose and people will build up something.
As I said a few weeks ago, we have got messages on tapes, and these tapes will start to get destroyed very soon. And God said that everything you have got, you have to type it now and save it in one way or another. Because those tapes are going to get cold and will lose the information. And I’m not quite sure why we are saving these messages but I think they will help us in the future. They will help our church, our group and other people somewhere around the wolrd. And then they might produce books. And these books will be given to people, maybe people will read them. So we have to know how to keep them, and if I don’t make an effort and you don’t make an effort and you are lazy like me, I’ve never typed any of them. I don’t even know how many messages we have. I don’t even know the titles. I’ve just printed some papers and gave them to you and after 2 weeks I forget about them. And I move on to something else. But some people who have that courage and determination, they will type them and save them. And if you don’t keep what you have the Bible says that someone else will come and remove what you have. It will be taken from you. By typing you can also refresh your spirit, refresh yourself what you’ve learnt so far. You can remember. Will you have time to do so? If you have time, please do it.
So we can see that the person who is an administrator has many things to do, to organize, to teach, to give other people tasks and share them with others, because you can’t do everything by yourself. Most people are really working with their conscience, they are conscientious with what they are doing. They have responsibilities, you can see that this person is very responsible. They will not start something and stop it on the way. They will try to go to the end.
When I was a child, I wanted so much to play with animals, and I remember one night, our father sent I and Gustave to take a cat from a house to another house. And the male cat I was holding saw a female one on our way, and the cat tried to jump and to go there. And I was holding the cat and it became angry :WAW, WAW, WAW!!! It was scratching. I held one and spinned the cat around. I didn’t know how to control him. Gustave who was next to me ran away. And finally because the cat was extremely angry, I was compelled to release him. The cat ran away. So the person who was expecting us to bring the cat, he found that time was passing by. He rang my father and asked him: Where is the cat? It’s been a long time. My father asked: Aren’t my boys there? No, not yet. And he needed that cat because he had rats in his house, that were eating everything. So how to go back home? And our father had told us to put the cat in a cage. My father told us you were supposed to take a cage and put the cat in it. But because we were young and stupid we believe we knew cats very well and thought it was going to be fine. And on the way, the cat changed behavior.
Sometimes we know we have such gift and we believe we know how to control things: I am settled in this area. And on your way, things change. And you’ll be surprised when you see something that worked well yesterday and doesn’t work anymore today.
How to go back home: we were afraid. What would we tell our father? Eventually we decided to go back home.
- Dad we didn’t manage to go to the place because the cat was angry.
- Why didn’t you look after the cat properly? You have to go and find it now. And our father was really, really tough. Go out and find it!
Where should I go to find the cat? It was night time. And Gustave put all the blame on me because I was the one holding it.
- So, you why didn’t you intervene?
And we started to blame each other.
And for God it is not a solution. Whenever we are wrong, we have just to come back to Him and say: God, you gave me a gift to help others and support them, to build up something new in their lives, but I destroyed it. I’m sorry. I did something stupid, forgive me.
And praise the Lord because the cat didn’t lose the address of the house and every time cats come back. Our cat came back the following morning and it was like: Oh thank you God! And it brought peace in the family.
And most of the time, you lose what you have but if you believe that a new morning will come God will give it back to you. And you will discover that yes, I have something new in my life.
Most of the time, we are not responsible of what we do because we don’t care much. Because we don’t care about what God thinks about us. And when we are not responsible, God will put us aside. We have to ask God through prayer about wisdom and authority. Most administrators are proud of their power and so on.
If you read Lamentations 3:57: When I called you you came close to me and you said: Don’t worry.
Has God already told you not to worry? I remember we spoke once about this message: Don’t worry. It’s written 365 times in the Bible. So, one time for each day: don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry.
What creates your worries? What brings worries in your life? Is it your health, your financial situation. Your skin colour, your weight, whatever you have, your studies and so on what really brings worries in your life? It’s the first thing I ask myself and I recommend you to ask yourself too. What brings worries in my life? Once you know what it is, you bring it to God and say: Look God, if you remove this thing from my life, I will not worry anymore. Worries can take you far away from God’s direction, worries can make you become someone who hasn’t got any control at all. Worries can make you sometimes look stupid or they can make you someone useless in the society and worries will make you somoen who will never be able to make a decision. Haven’t you seen people who are not able to make a decision in their lives?
If I tell Michelle:
- Let’s go and visit Michael.
- I’m not sure
- OK are you ready to go
- UHH, OK what do you think?
- Oh I think we should go.
- UHH, for me Hum…
So the person is not able to make a decision. And there are 2 ways to make up your mind: either yes or no. When you serve people as an administrator, you must be free from worries. Firstly you know what the Word of God recommends you and secondly if the Bible says yes, it’s yes, no matter what’s going on. If it’s yes, it’s yes, if it’s no it’s no. it’s pretty clear. And when it’s no you have to think why it is no. and when it’s yes, think why it’s yes. Because people will tell you: If something goes wrong in your body, remove your eye and throw it away. If your eye makes you sin, pull it off your body and throw it away. That’s all. Some people interpret this wrongly to say that that if Leah does something wrong against me, I will not have anything to do with her and I will throw Leah away. If Tyrone tells me this is not good for me, I’ll cut the relationship with him and throw it away. They will interpret the Scriptures in a bad way. They will apply Bible verses in a wrong situation in order to protect their personal interest or to show others they are really strict. But God also requires flexibility. All those things can be hard and not go the way we want, God’s flexibility is more important.
The first gift we are talking about is the gift of administration. And this gift means to lead to facilitate or to steer something. Many leaders can be leaders and they are not administrators. To administer is something really heavy, strong, something that requires commitment, determination, something hard to do.
People who are doing admin in the church can become treasurers, secretarys, office managers etc. So if you’ve got this gift, you have to know that you’re working not only for God, but also for people. And you’ll see people of every colour coming to you, people having good moods or bad moods, people who are angry and tough and people who are soft, and you need to know how to deal with them.
Let’s take the example of Moses in Exodus 18, where he tried to do everything by himself and it was impossible. He then started to suffer. God opened the door of suffering in Moses’s life. He was suppose to preach, to tell them the message, to tell them what to do and organize everything. And he had a few million people to look after. During that time, we didn’t have speakers nor microphones, people didn't have the chance to pass the message to each other as easily as today. When Moses and Aaron spoke, the multitude had to be quiet, to listen. And I’m not sure how loud Moses’ voice was. Then they decided to put people in groups so that the leaders could pass the message to the people. But that was not enough, so his father in law came and told him to share the tasks with others, so that the work of God would be done properly. Moses accepted this advice.
Would you be ready as well to accept to share some tasks of your gift with others. If you have got a gift of healing, and someone comes up to you and tells you: the power is going to be removed from you and given to Catherine, how would you feel? If you have got a gift of singing and someone says ‘ Your power will be given to Tyrone, or to Odon’ If you have got the power of doing something for God, and God will remove some of it and give it to someone else, how would you feel? Would you feel ‘ now I’m free, I am not over loaded’, or would you feel bad because the glory of yours will go down, the success you had or the hand claps you received will disappear. How would you feel? I think, being a human being, you’ll feel like ‘I want to keep my gift. I want to keep this glory’. Whenever I stand up and pray for people, I want to see miracles happening. If you remove these miracles and give them to Colleen, what will I use? Even if I pray for people, they will not get healed any more.
God will make you to suffer in that way sometimes. He will take something from you, and give it away to someone else. Because these are not your gifts, he gives to whom he wants, please don’t be chocked, don’t be disappointed and say ‘God, I cannot do it any more’. God has given you a gift for a purpose, to use it for a specific purpose and after achieving this purpose, he can give it to another person to use it in another way. So you’ve got a mission, which means that your gifts last a limited time. And you have to work during this time frame to finish that mission as soon as possible, because you don’t know what tomorrow holds. That’s why you’ll see most of God’s people stand up, give their message, and people will say ‘yes, we are blessed’, and the second message is just down. It is nothing. You may be good in singing today, but tomorrow not sing as perfectly as before. Someone can play an instrument today, but tomorrow the desire of practicing disappears. I’ll lose the ability to play the guitar, the keyboard or any other instruments. They can continue to know how to start a song, but they will lose this motivation.
So Moses was now at this stage where his power was supposed to be given to seventy people. Imagine now, what did Moses have left. If he had 3 kgs of power, to be shared amongst 71 people, Im not quite sure if he was a leader by name, or just the man of God who had all the blessings and power. so why that? Because God doesn’t want us to take all the glory. He doesn’t want us to be proud of what we are. That’s why, He will take something away from you and give it to someone else. You’ll keep what you have got, only if you are humble. If you humble yourself, you can keep it longer because he can create other missions and say : Go now, do this. After finishing there, you’ll come and He will say : Go now and do that. Don’t be surprised if Benny Hinn came here and prayed for you tonight, and you don’t get healed. Don’t be surprised if you start singing at church and you are out of tune. Don’t blame yourself, or friends, or brothers, and think ‘ I sung out of tune because of you’. No! Glorify God for that and carry on.
So here, we have a good example of Nehemiah, another man of God. He is the only person in the Bible, up to now, apart from Jesus, who was a good administrator. I picked up some of his good qualities. Someone who wants to be an administrator, or wants to lead, for God’s glory, he must have compassion.
So let’s think about it; what do you understand by 'compassion’?
- you listen, to sacrifice your time to spend with people, you care for this person, put yourself in other people’s shoes.
So if I say: Bene has compassion, what does it mean? Everything good, positive? Is there any negative points in having compassion? Does it mean that she has only positive qualities? That she is good in all areas?
- Someone who can identify with someone else’s life
To have compassion is hard. For example, I may not have the same amount of comnpassion for Leah and for Michelle. It would depend on how close you are with me, or how I behave when something happened. Yesterday, I was driving around Heaphy Terrace, two very old people, maybe 80 years old were crossing the pedestrian, holding hands and a car hit them. I don’t know if it was what God prepared for them that night. Both the man and the lady remained lying on the street. And the driver jumped out of his car and started yelling: Oh my God, my God, what have I done! He was really sorry for what happened but who could really believe him, everyone started to blame him: you could see this sign showing you the pedestrian crossing. You should have slowed down. And I was really sorry for this man, and also for the people who were hit…
but sometimes when we see that Christians like you and me, are going through a hard time, they had an accident, they are killing or hurting others, do you have compassion for them or do you criticize them? If I’ve got compassion for my pastor who sinned, I will think about him and his life, kneel down and pray for him. An accident is just an accident. And you cannot say you are an expert, that’s why you will not crash. You can crash. You can be the best pilot in the world and have a plane crash. Although in the air we don’t have a air code. In spiritual life also, such accidents can happen. But we people who surround others, we need to have that compassion toward servants of God, for the souls God has been looking after. If you don’t have compassion, you cannot be a good administrator. You need that. You have to pray day after day for people, you must understand their needs, you must put yourself in their shoes. Although God can bring suffering, although things can be tough, although you can go up and down in your daily life remember; compassion is very important.
An administrator must be goal orientated and full of faith, leading by example, knowing when to delegate your tasks etc.
If you turn to the book of Nehemiah, you will learn a lot. If you have got this gift, read the book of Nehemiah again. For people who have been doing the one year Bible reading program, they have finished reading this book, praise the Lord. But if you have never read this book, try to teach yourself.
Other examples are Jesus, Joseph, Deborah, David, James and Jairus. When you are an administrator, you ‘ll start to think about the church, not only the building, but people, how to organize the church of God? How to make my task easy? How to put things together? You don’t need people to come to you and say: You must do this or that now. You have to look around and think, what do we need. Do you have any program for this month? For this year? Can you plan something? How will it work? Suggest, propose and people will build up something.
As I said a few weeks ago, we have got messages on tapes, and these tapes will start to get destroyed very soon. And God said that everything you have got, you have to type it now and save it in one way or another. Because those tapes are going to get cold and will lose the information. And I’m not quite sure why we are saving these messages but I think they will help us in the future. They will help our church, our group and other people somewhere around the wolrd. And then they might produce books. And these books will be given to people, maybe people will read them. So we have to know how to keep them, and if I don’t make an effort and you don’t make an effort and you are lazy like me, I’ve never typed any of them. I don’t even know how many messages we have. I don’t even know the titles. I’ve just printed some papers and gave them to you and after 2 weeks I forget about them. And I move on to something else. But some people who have that courage and determination, they will type them and save them. And if you don’t keep what you have the Bible says that someone else will come and remove what you have. It will be taken from you. By typing you can also refresh your spirit, refresh yourself what you’ve learnt so far. You can remember. Will you have time to do so? If you have time, please do it.
So we can see that the person who is an administrator has many things to do, to organize, to teach, to give other people tasks and share them with others, because you can’t do everything by yourself. Most people are really working with their conscience, they are conscientious with what they are doing. They have responsibilities, you can see that this person is very responsible. They will not start something and stop it on the way. They will try to go to the end.
When I was a child, I wanted so much to play with animals, and I remember one night, our father sent I and Gustave to take a cat from a house to another house. And the male cat I was holding saw a female one on our way, and the cat tried to jump and to go there. And I was holding the cat and it became angry :WAW, WAW, WAW!!! It was scratching. I held one and spinned the cat around. I didn’t know how to control him. Gustave who was next to me ran away. And finally because the cat was extremely angry, I was compelled to release him. The cat ran away. So the person who was expecting us to bring the cat, he found that time was passing by. He rang my father and asked him: Where is the cat? It’s been a long time. My father asked: Aren’t my boys there? No, not yet. And he needed that cat because he had rats in his house, that were eating everything. So how to go back home? And our father had told us to put the cat in a cage. My father told us you were supposed to take a cage and put the cat in it. But because we were young and stupid we believe we knew cats very well and thought it was going to be fine. And on the way, the cat changed behavior.
Sometimes we know we have such gift and we believe we know how to control things: I am settled in this area. And on your way, things change. And you’ll be surprised when you see something that worked well yesterday and doesn’t work anymore today.
How to go back home: we were afraid. What would we tell our father? Eventually we decided to go back home.
- Dad we didn’t manage to go to the place because the cat was angry.
- Why didn’t you look after the cat properly? You have to go and find it now. And our father was really, really tough. Go out and find it!
Where should I go to find the cat? It was night time. And Gustave put all the blame on me because I was the one holding it.
- So, you why didn’t you intervene?
And we started to blame each other.
And for God it is not a solution. Whenever we are wrong, we have just to come back to Him and say: God, you gave me a gift to help others and support them, to build up something new in their lives, but I destroyed it. I’m sorry. I did something stupid, forgive me.
And praise the Lord because the cat didn’t lose the address of the house and every time cats come back. Our cat came back the following morning and it was like: Oh thank you God! And it brought peace in the family.
And most of the time, you lose what you have but if you believe that a new morning will come God will give it back to you. And you will discover that yes, I have something new in my life.
Most of the time, we are not responsible of what we do because we don’t care much. Because we don’t care about what God thinks about us. And when we are not responsible, God will put us aside. We have to ask God through prayer about wisdom and authority. Most administrators are proud of their power and so on.
If you read Lamentations 3:57: When I called you you came close to me and you said: Don’t worry.
Has God already told you not to worry? I remember we spoke once about this message: Don’t worry. It’s written 365 times in the Bible. So, one time for each day: don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry.
What creates your worries? What brings worries in your life? Is it your health, your financial situation. Your skin colour, your weight, whatever you have, your studies and so on what really brings worries in your life? It’s the first thing I ask myself and I recommend you to ask yourself too. What brings worries in my life? Once you know what it is, you bring it to God and say: Look God, if you remove this thing from my life, I will not worry anymore. Worries can take you far away from God’s direction, worries can make you become someone who hasn’t got any control at all. Worries can make you sometimes look stupid or they can make you someone useless in the society and worries will make you somoen who will never be able to make a decision. Haven’t you seen people who are not able to make a decision in their lives?
If I tell Michelle:
- Let’s go and visit Michael.
- I’m not sure
- OK are you ready to go
- UHH, OK what do you think?
- Oh I think we should go.
- UHH, for me Hum…
So the person is not able to make a decision. And there are 2 ways to make up your mind: either yes or no. When you serve people as an administrator, you must be free from worries. Firstly you know what the Word of God recommends you and secondly if the Bible says yes, it’s yes, no matter what’s going on. If it’s yes, it’s yes, if it’s no it’s no. it’s pretty clear. And when it’s no you have to think why it is no. and when it’s yes, think why it’s yes. Because people will tell you: If something goes wrong in your body, remove your eye and throw it away. If your eye makes you sin, pull it off your body and throw it away. That’s all. Some people interpret this wrongly to say that that if Leah does something wrong against me, I will not have anything to do with her and I will throw Leah away. If Tyrone tells me this is not good for me, I’ll cut the relationship with him and throw it away. They will interpret the Scriptures in a bad way. They will apply Bible verses in a wrong situation in order to protect their personal interest or to show others they are really strict. But God also requires flexibility. All those things can be hard and not go the way we want, God’s flexibility is more important.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Suffering and Gifts
By Odon Bulamba (summarised by Benedicte Bahjejian - 25/05/07)
Suffering
Lam 3:31-33 “For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.”
This is a short message, telling us bout God. God is not the God who rejects people, no matter who you are & what you did, he continues to love you and me. But we are not called to do wrong things because his love is so great. That’s why He is teching us everyday to change and to improve, because He wants so much to make us new tools. I can easily ‘say this Bible is older than that one’, you can see that by just looking at these 2 Bibles. But in God’s kingdom everything is just new, present day after day. That’s why God tells us in the book of Exodus “I am who I am”, which means that I am the one who used to be, day after day I am a new God, I am refreshing and eternal, I am not old and I don’t change.
Once, a servant of God from the Bible said to God: I am old now and I cannot go to fight. God asked him: how old are you? I am 80. And he said: you have to go to fight, to be 80 is not a good enough reason for you not to go.
So God wants to use us, as I said, he doesn’t care about your age, or mind, or your personality, He doesn’t take control of your feelings. He asks us to go and serve him. You can be good in expressing things or bad in languages, you can be useless or have some handicaps, problems about yourself. But all this shall not stop God from using you. A good example that was given to me is about this country. People can face serious problems because of their culture, who they are, people cannot speak or hear. The government tries their best to educate these people somehow so that they play a role in the country. Blind people have trained dogs to lead them, and with this help, they can contribute to the development of this country. And new associations everywhere are created to train people to enable them to do something.
And in the kingdom of God it is the same. Many people believe that God has rejected them, they are unable to serve Him because they think they are just unable. They put their feelings first, and these feelings tell them: you are not the right one.
For instance Zacchaeus who was short, maybe shorter than me, tried to put his feelings aside, believing that even though I am short, I have to meet this God (Luke 19:1-4). If also you want to improve & you want God to use you, first of all, put your feelings aside. Satan can easily enter your mind and tempt you:
• you know, you are not really eloquent, how will you go on the street and talk to people about the Gospel?
• you are not so good at singing. How will open your mouth in a church and sing? People will hear that you sang the wrong tune.
And reasons will start to come & you’ll say: yes, that’s true, I am not really good in singing. And people sing to glorify God, because they have nice voices, you’ll try to hide yours. You will say: I am not singing so that they won’t criticize me. Even if you feel the power of worship in your heart, you will try to quiet it because you are afraid of people. But remember that God has never and ever rejected you. Why therefore are you rejecting God, thinking that what I have got is not enough to please you God.
So, as it is written in verse 32, God can make you suffer. But remember that he is full of love. Suffering will not make you say that: I can not serve God anymore, I cannot handle it anymore. I need to really feel God’s love. Imagine, when you are suffering, it is not easy to feel the love He has for you. For instance, if someone picks up a knife & attacks you & then later cuddles you ‘Oh, I love you! Come to me I love you!’. How will you feel? You’ll defend yourself and say: This is not love anymore. Maybe God will take away what you love so much, or he will not give you what you expect to receive, or what you deserved yesterday in order to make you suffer. And then the same God will come to you again saying: I open my arms, come & I will give you a big hug. And maybe you will tell God: "You are an hypocrite, God. I am sorry. While you are making me suffering, you want to show me love?"
So people who are growing up spiritually, & the ones who are reaching maturity in their spiritual life will face such things. Therefore, accept that suffering is normal. And remember that suffering has an end, it will not last forever. You can suffer tonight and tomorrow morning that stage will pass, and you will move on to another stage. People around the world today can say: there are many things happening in the country. For instance, murder, people are murdering each other in New Zealand. And if someone shoots someone else, it will be broadcasted on TV. And think about Congo; how many people die per day? And think of other countries such as Iraq or others. To the point that I think journalists are tired, they want to close this chapter it is too much, we can talk about it day after day after day. The smell of the country is only blood. So if your suffering is smaller than that, and you are complaining, & if God takes you to Iraq, where you will see blood everyday, will you really continue to persevere in your faith? If God tells you: The level where you are now is heavy for you, I want to bring you a level higher, so that you can face things that are 20 times harder than what you live now. Will you really continue to be a worshiper of that God?
You’ll wake in the morning and think how good is God, and say: Oh God, you are so good, you give me everything. At my work, my family is fine, I am feeling strong, I have to go to work. God will say: Ok, on your way, I will show you…
You’ll drive your car in the morning, & your way there BANG! car crash. Oh my God, what happened? And the person in front of you will tell you:
- This is your fault!
- No, this is not my fault; you are the one who came from the wrong direction.
- This is your fault, don’t bother me! And the person will leave.
You’ll call the police and the police will come. ‘Ok what’s the problem Odon?’
- O, I was just in this position, a car came this way & we had a crash
- What car was that?
- I can’t remember the number plate
- Ok, we think you are wrong because you should have noted it down. Anyway have you got insurance?
- No I haven’t
- So we cannot sort your problem out. Just go & fix your car.
Then, you’ll start to blame the police, ‘he is bad’, and judge the person who hit your car & left, you’ll even judge people who were witnesses because they say they didn’t see anything.
So we think you are wrong because you should have taken the plate number. Anyway, do you have insurance? No insurance. So we cannot sort out your problem, go and fix your car. And then you will start to judge that the police is bad, and maybe the person who hit your car and left. You will even judge people who were witness of the accident and who said they did not see anything
For instance, I was young, I used to go to a Catholic secondary school called Saint Paul. And there, we used to meet with a group of young boys and we would be naughty, as for example attacking someone, and when the principal would come to ask us what happened, we would blame the person and say that she or he was wrong. While we were the ones who attacked him. So if five, six, ten people testify against you, but you are telling the truth, who will really believe you are telling the truth? And most of the time, while doing God’s work, you will face these kinds of situations, where people will testify against you, you can tell them this is the truth, change your lives, Jesus likes you, He loves you, He died for you, and people will say: No! Your message is a wrong message. People will say no. Whatever you are talking about, it is not correct, you have to change your ways, you have to improve your strategies.
Although God does good to us, he doesn’t stop us from suffering. And there are three types of sufferings:
1) The first one is inside ourselves; you feel that you are suffering inside but you cannot express what it is. Sometimes you wake up and sit on your chair, and start to think about your life. And you feel pain inside: Why only me? Why only my family? Why did this happen to me? And by thinking of your mountains of problems, you can make yourself sick. And on that day, you loose completely your joy.
2) The second type is physical suffering. When your body is mistreated, because people hate you and so on. And you feel that you are really suffering of headache, stomach ache, backache and so on. Sometimes, you will find a remedy in seeing the doctor, and sometimes not.
3) The third one is spiritual suffering that very often our body cannot feel. It is the worst one because you don’t feel pain at all. It’s like people who practice yoga or kung fu, when they reach a certain level, when they are stubbed they do not feel the pain any more. In my country, in the 1960’s, people used to practice witchcraft, if someone shot another person; the bullet would just hit the body and drop on the ground. If someone wanted to stab another person, the knife would just bend by itself. No pain, no problem at all. When people are facing such attacks, they would put fear aside.
But when you do not feel this physical pain you will not fear God, nor people talking about the message of God. You will start to think that you are not sensitive to God any more, and be inflexible about what you believe in: "That is my way, my culture, the way I have been brought up. This is my life." And then you will find that you are loosing something, which is the love of God. Your love for God, and your love for others will decrease. And once your love for God decreases, you become a lazy person in your spiritual tasks; you will stop praying, stop visiting people, you will not exercise what the Bible asks you to do. And after that, the God who let you go through suffering will come and intervene, saying: Just because of this small hardship, you want to forget about me? He will be the first person to accuse you. He brought suffering, but he wants you to persevere, because according to the book of James, the more you persevere, the bigger your faith (will grow) and your faith will become stronger. Yet, if you decide to give up, you will lose everything.
God wants us to go through suffering, and yet no one likes to suffer. Some people will tell you that you cannot talk about suffering because you don’t know what it is, whereas others will tell you that to suffer a little is not really suffering because suffering made Jesus to fear, he wanted this cup to be removed from him because of the wrath of God coming on him. To suffer is hard, and when you suffer, that is when you realize how useless this life is, how useless is your body in the society, and in the kingdom of darkness. And Paul said that once you go through suffering, you do not live any more, but Jesus who lives in you (Galatians 2:20), because you find that everything you have got is useless. You can kill yourself studying, working from Monday to Monday, fulfilling all the requirements asked by the society, but never be satisfied. You will work so hard for the rest of your life, and when you finally look at your income, you will ask yourself: why did I work so hard? Some people, during their might have been working so hard, maybe twenty hours a day, but today are nothing. Yesterday they were rich but today they lost all their money. They had joy yesterday but today it is also completely gone. They worked hard to the point of being sick, their bodies cannot cope any more.
God wants you to work for him, not to the point of being sick but first of all to prepare your future in the kingdom of God. He is taking you somewhere, not only to please hHimself, but for you to have something in His kingdom. So if today you are suffering, your treasure is in the kingdom of God, you are preparing your own place. If you do not do God’s work, God will not lose anything, but you will lose. But if you work hard for him, you will bring more people to his kingdom, and be heir of this kingdom. For this very reason, God decided to give us gifts and ministries. It is true that we suffer and will continue to suffer, but we have to keep on working.
Now is not too late, you can still work by using your gifts. And remember that whenever you use your gifts, you will also suffer. You will be disappointed or chocked by people, they can say things you don’t like, God can completely abandon you, as he did with Jesus (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. If you reach this stage, don’t give up using your gifts, don’t believe that God is away from you just because you don’t feel his presence in your heart. No, GOD IS WITH YOU.
For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com
Suffering
Lam 3:31-33 “For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.”
This is a short message, telling us bout God. God is not the God who rejects people, no matter who you are & what you did, he continues to love you and me. But we are not called to do wrong things because his love is so great. That’s why He is teching us everyday to change and to improve, because He wants so much to make us new tools. I can easily ‘say this Bible is older than that one’, you can see that by just looking at these 2 Bibles. But in God’s kingdom everything is just new, present day after day. That’s why God tells us in the book of Exodus “I am who I am”, which means that I am the one who used to be, day after day I am a new God, I am refreshing and eternal, I am not old and I don’t change.
Once, a servant of God from the Bible said to God: I am old now and I cannot go to fight. God asked him: how old are you? I am 80. And he said: you have to go to fight, to be 80 is not a good enough reason for you not to go.
So God wants to use us, as I said, he doesn’t care about your age, or mind, or your personality, He doesn’t take control of your feelings. He asks us to go and serve him. You can be good in expressing things or bad in languages, you can be useless or have some handicaps, problems about yourself. But all this shall not stop God from using you. A good example that was given to me is about this country. People can face serious problems because of their culture, who they are, people cannot speak or hear. The government tries their best to educate these people somehow so that they play a role in the country. Blind people have trained dogs to lead them, and with this help, they can contribute to the development of this country. And new associations everywhere are created to train people to enable them to do something.
And in the kingdom of God it is the same. Many people believe that God has rejected them, they are unable to serve Him because they think they are just unable. They put their feelings first, and these feelings tell them: you are not the right one.
For instance Zacchaeus who was short, maybe shorter than me, tried to put his feelings aside, believing that even though I am short, I have to meet this God (Luke 19:1-4). If also you want to improve & you want God to use you, first of all, put your feelings aside. Satan can easily enter your mind and tempt you:
• you know, you are not really eloquent, how will you go on the street and talk to people about the Gospel?
• you are not so good at singing. How will open your mouth in a church and sing? People will hear that you sang the wrong tune.
And reasons will start to come & you’ll say: yes, that’s true, I am not really good in singing. And people sing to glorify God, because they have nice voices, you’ll try to hide yours. You will say: I am not singing so that they won’t criticize me. Even if you feel the power of worship in your heart, you will try to quiet it because you are afraid of people. But remember that God has never and ever rejected you. Why therefore are you rejecting God, thinking that what I have got is not enough to please you God.
So, as it is written in verse 32, God can make you suffer. But remember that he is full of love. Suffering will not make you say that: I can not serve God anymore, I cannot handle it anymore. I need to really feel God’s love. Imagine, when you are suffering, it is not easy to feel the love He has for you. For instance, if someone picks up a knife & attacks you & then later cuddles you ‘Oh, I love you! Come to me I love you!’. How will you feel? You’ll defend yourself and say: This is not love anymore. Maybe God will take away what you love so much, or he will not give you what you expect to receive, or what you deserved yesterday in order to make you suffer. And then the same God will come to you again saying: I open my arms, come & I will give you a big hug. And maybe you will tell God: "You are an hypocrite, God. I am sorry. While you are making me suffering, you want to show me love?"
So people who are growing up spiritually, & the ones who are reaching maturity in their spiritual life will face such things. Therefore, accept that suffering is normal. And remember that suffering has an end, it will not last forever. You can suffer tonight and tomorrow morning that stage will pass, and you will move on to another stage. People around the world today can say: there are many things happening in the country. For instance, murder, people are murdering each other in New Zealand. And if someone shoots someone else, it will be broadcasted on TV. And think about Congo; how many people die per day? And think of other countries such as Iraq or others. To the point that I think journalists are tired, they want to close this chapter it is too much, we can talk about it day after day after day. The smell of the country is only blood. So if your suffering is smaller than that, and you are complaining, & if God takes you to Iraq, where you will see blood everyday, will you really continue to persevere in your faith? If God tells you: The level where you are now is heavy for you, I want to bring you a level higher, so that you can face things that are 20 times harder than what you live now. Will you really continue to be a worshiper of that God?
You’ll wake in the morning and think how good is God, and say: Oh God, you are so good, you give me everything. At my work, my family is fine, I am feeling strong, I have to go to work. God will say: Ok, on your way, I will show you…
You’ll drive your car in the morning, & your way there BANG! car crash. Oh my God, what happened? And the person in front of you will tell you:
- This is your fault!
- No, this is not my fault; you are the one who came from the wrong direction.
- This is your fault, don’t bother me! And the person will leave.
You’ll call the police and the police will come. ‘Ok what’s the problem Odon?’
- O, I was just in this position, a car came this way & we had a crash
- What car was that?
- I can’t remember the number plate
- Ok, we think you are wrong because you should have noted it down. Anyway have you got insurance?
- No I haven’t
- So we cannot sort your problem out. Just go & fix your car.
Then, you’ll start to blame the police, ‘he is bad’, and judge the person who hit your car & left, you’ll even judge people who were witnesses because they say they didn’t see anything.
So we think you are wrong because you should have taken the plate number. Anyway, do you have insurance? No insurance. So we cannot sort out your problem, go and fix your car. And then you will start to judge that the police is bad, and maybe the person who hit your car and left. You will even judge people who were witness of the accident and who said they did not see anything
For instance, I was young, I used to go to a Catholic secondary school called Saint Paul. And there, we used to meet with a group of young boys and we would be naughty, as for example attacking someone, and when the principal would come to ask us what happened, we would blame the person and say that she or he was wrong. While we were the ones who attacked him. So if five, six, ten people testify against you, but you are telling the truth, who will really believe you are telling the truth? And most of the time, while doing God’s work, you will face these kinds of situations, where people will testify against you, you can tell them this is the truth, change your lives, Jesus likes you, He loves you, He died for you, and people will say: No! Your message is a wrong message. People will say no. Whatever you are talking about, it is not correct, you have to change your ways, you have to improve your strategies.
Although God does good to us, he doesn’t stop us from suffering. And there are three types of sufferings:
1) The first one is inside ourselves; you feel that you are suffering inside but you cannot express what it is. Sometimes you wake up and sit on your chair, and start to think about your life. And you feel pain inside: Why only me? Why only my family? Why did this happen to me? And by thinking of your mountains of problems, you can make yourself sick. And on that day, you loose completely your joy.
2) The second type is physical suffering. When your body is mistreated, because people hate you and so on. And you feel that you are really suffering of headache, stomach ache, backache and so on. Sometimes, you will find a remedy in seeing the doctor, and sometimes not.
3) The third one is spiritual suffering that very often our body cannot feel. It is the worst one because you don’t feel pain at all. It’s like people who practice yoga or kung fu, when they reach a certain level, when they are stubbed they do not feel the pain any more. In my country, in the 1960’s, people used to practice witchcraft, if someone shot another person; the bullet would just hit the body and drop on the ground. If someone wanted to stab another person, the knife would just bend by itself. No pain, no problem at all. When people are facing such attacks, they would put fear aside.
But when you do not feel this physical pain you will not fear God, nor people talking about the message of God. You will start to think that you are not sensitive to God any more, and be inflexible about what you believe in: "That is my way, my culture, the way I have been brought up. This is my life." And then you will find that you are loosing something, which is the love of God. Your love for God, and your love for others will decrease. And once your love for God decreases, you become a lazy person in your spiritual tasks; you will stop praying, stop visiting people, you will not exercise what the Bible asks you to do. And after that, the God who let you go through suffering will come and intervene, saying: Just because of this small hardship, you want to forget about me? He will be the first person to accuse you. He brought suffering, but he wants you to persevere, because according to the book of James, the more you persevere, the bigger your faith (will grow) and your faith will become stronger. Yet, if you decide to give up, you will lose everything.
God wants us to go through suffering, and yet no one likes to suffer. Some people will tell you that you cannot talk about suffering because you don’t know what it is, whereas others will tell you that to suffer a little is not really suffering because suffering made Jesus to fear, he wanted this cup to be removed from him because of the wrath of God coming on him. To suffer is hard, and when you suffer, that is when you realize how useless this life is, how useless is your body in the society, and in the kingdom of darkness. And Paul said that once you go through suffering, you do not live any more, but Jesus who lives in you (Galatians 2:20), because you find that everything you have got is useless. You can kill yourself studying, working from Monday to Monday, fulfilling all the requirements asked by the society, but never be satisfied. You will work so hard for the rest of your life, and when you finally look at your income, you will ask yourself: why did I work so hard? Some people, during their might have been working so hard, maybe twenty hours a day, but today are nothing. Yesterday they were rich but today they lost all their money. They had joy yesterday but today it is also completely gone. They worked hard to the point of being sick, their bodies cannot cope any more.
God wants you to work for him, not to the point of being sick but first of all to prepare your future in the kingdom of God. He is taking you somewhere, not only to please hHimself, but for you to have something in His kingdom. So if today you are suffering, your treasure is in the kingdom of God, you are preparing your own place. If you do not do God’s work, God will not lose anything, but you will lose. But if you work hard for him, you will bring more people to his kingdom, and be heir of this kingdom. For this very reason, God decided to give us gifts and ministries. It is true that we suffer and will continue to suffer, but we have to keep on working.
Now is not too late, you can still work by using your gifts. And remember that whenever you use your gifts, you will also suffer. You will be disappointed or chocked by people, they can say things you don’t like, God can completely abandon you, as he did with Jesus (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. If you reach this stage, don’t give up using your gifts, don’t believe that God is away from you just because you don’t feel his presence in your heart. No, GOD IS WITH YOU.
For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Men will be lovers of money
By Hayley Boud
(II Timothy 3:2-5)
Luke 16:13, ‘No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will hold on to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money’.
Servant
One who lives in the household and is considered part of the family but is not necessarily born into the family.
As Christians we are servants of God and we live in the family of God although we weren’t born into it. This isn’t the same as a slave because a slave has no choice but a servant is free to serve or not and as Christians we choose to serve out of love for God. And why do we love God and want so much to please Him and serve Him? Because He first loved us and we can remember times when He has served us.
We were not born with the desire to serve money but as we grow up we learn more and more the value of money (gold, diamonds, cars, houses). This pushes us to covet and to try our best to get these things. When we do that, we serve money and not God.
Master
One who has authority over those who serve. As Christians we must have only one master as confirmed by the first commandment;
Exodus 20:3-5, “You shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers n the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.”
The only one thing that we can serve on this earth is God. He must be our only master. When you serve someone you are looking only at that person and waiting for their command. If Michael hires a servant today that person will know that Michael is my boss and I must do what he asks me. He/she will never have the time to serve me as well. The servant will not move until Michael says so. He will wait until given an order. A servant will never get bored waiting or go off somewhere to fill in time or make up his own way to serve his master.
e.g. Michael, how would you feel if your servant decided to throw your favorite cheeses out of your fridge and into the rubbish? And after you have explained that you like your cheese to be bit smelly, he continues to throw it out anyway? Will you be happy? Annoyed? Will you feel like getting a new servant?
We have to remember that when we are serving God, we are doing HIS will and not our own. When you serve God you are looking to Him and waiting for His next command and you will not move until He says so. And wherever your master goes you will follow, quietly and patiently waiting for his order.
We can act the same way toward money. Many people love money and follow money wherever it goes and when it says jump, they will jump. Often people make decisions with only money as their reason.
“I decided to work in London because it pays 3x NZ”
“I decided to study as a doctor because it pays better than a vet”
“I decided to marry him because his parents are really rich”
Many people are inspired by money but never by God. Sometimes we struggle to go to church or to meetings but if we were told, “go to church this Sunday because the pastor is giving out 1000 to each person who comes”, we would be there without a doubt. NOTHING WOULD STOP US! This proves our real master is money and it shows how much we love money more than God.
I Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows”.
Today everywhere we see men and women will commit any crime to obtain money but some crimes are more subtle. We forget that we must place God first in our lives and in every decision we make and as servants we must ask God first before doing anything. When we forget that; we are committing a serious crime in God’s eyes. And money can be the reason that we forget God.
The verse says that some covet after money. To covet is to reach for something. And to err means to be led astray. So when you reach after money you will be led away from your faith and from this you will be pierced with many sorrows.
When you serve God and only God, He is a good master and He will never let you go without all your needs. If you need money, just ask and He will give it to you.
Sometimes we need money and so we steal from God by not giving Him the 10% that He has asked for (Malachi 3:8,9). When we do that we will be led away from faith and then we will have sorrow. When we give to God what is His, He will increase our faith and we will receive even more than what we gave Him. But when we steal from God, He teaches us a lesson and we will find that we will be cut with sorrow because every week we will find that we have no money. We won’t be able to explain where our money goes and we will start to really suffer. But when we remember God and give to Him, we will find that every week we have more than what we are supposed to have.
Sometimes we need money so we steal from others. You might write down in your pay slip longer hours than you worked. You might charge somebody for a service when it was God who gave you freely that time and the ability to do it. But when we trust in God, He provides and our faith gets stronger and stronger.
Money can really destroy relationships and my advice to any one here is to not let money destroy love that you have for others. If you have a problem of money with someone it is better to let that go and just ask God to help you. For example, if someone owes you money, for the sake of love just ask God to repay you. And if you owe someone money, for the sake of love make sure that you repay it as quickly as you can. Ask God for help. God is really rich so don’t forget to ask Him when you need it.
One time I gave somebody a lot of money because they were struggling and they needed money. After that a couple of years I found that I needed that person’s help in a service that I needed. Just as an example I will say that I needed my shoes repaired and this person was able to fix a pair of shoes for me. I expected that he would not charge me since I had given him a lot of money in the past, but that wasn’t the case. I was charged at full price and so I felt a bit annoyed by that. But that is not the way, when we do something for someone we must forget about it. We must not think now they owe us something. When we do something for someone, we are really doing it for God as Jesus said, ‘when you fed the hungry you fed Me’. So it is God who owes us and therefore God who we should turn to for payment.
Also, many Christian musicians around the world can be easily led astray if they are not careful. Some Christians might sing songs about angels instead of just singing about Christ Himself. So instead of glorifying Christ we can easily give the glory to angels and so we see just how clever satan is. He will never ask a Christian to sing, ‘satan brought me here’ but as you know satan is an angel so he gets glorified when we sing about angels. This is how a Christian can be led astray. Some Christians might think that if they sing about Jesus Christ, the world won't be interested in that song and the sales will be low and so because of money they can be led astray from their faith. As Christians we have to be careful not to let money lead us away from the faith.
In the Bible there is a man that is so happy because he has barns filled with grain and so he is rich. But that night he died. If you try to hold onto money what will you gain? A bank full of money and then you die. It’s better to not care about money and to use it and to give it freely because holding onto it will amount to nothing in the end. And as you know, rich people are made rich because they know how to use money to make money. As Christians, the way to make money is to give it away. The Bible says to test God on that one (Malachi 3:10).
II Tim 3:5 says that because of this the times will be perilous so let us not make our days difficult but let us make our days easier by trusting in God and serving only Him and nothing else.
(II Timothy 3:2-5)
Luke 16:13, ‘No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will hold on to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money’.
Servant
One who lives in the household and is considered part of the family but is not necessarily born into the family.
As Christians we are servants of God and we live in the family of God although we weren’t born into it. This isn’t the same as a slave because a slave has no choice but a servant is free to serve or not and as Christians we choose to serve out of love for God. And why do we love God and want so much to please Him and serve Him? Because He first loved us and we can remember times when He has served us.
We were not born with the desire to serve money but as we grow up we learn more and more the value of money (gold, diamonds, cars, houses). This pushes us to covet and to try our best to get these things. When we do that, we serve money and not God.
Master
One who has authority over those who serve. As Christians we must have only one master as confirmed by the first commandment;
Exodus 20:3-5, “You shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers n the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.”
The only one thing that we can serve on this earth is God. He must be our only master. When you serve someone you are looking only at that person and waiting for their command. If Michael hires a servant today that person will know that Michael is my boss and I must do what he asks me. He/she will never have the time to serve me as well. The servant will not move until Michael says so. He will wait until given an order. A servant will never get bored waiting or go off somewhere to fill in time or make up his own way to serve his master.
e.g. Michael, how would you feel if your servant decided to throw your favorite cheeses out of your fridge and into the rubbish? And after you have explained that you like your cheese to be bit smelly, he continues to throw it out anyway? Will you be happy? Annoyed? Will you feel like getting a new servant?
We have to remember that when we are serving God, we are doing HIS will and not our own. When you serve God you are looking to Him and waiting for His next command and you will not move until He says so. And wherever your master goes you will follow, quietly and patiently waiting for his order.
We can act the same way toward money. Many people love money and follow money wherever it goes and when it says jump, they will jump. Often people make decisions with only money as their reason.
“I decided to work in London because it pays 3x NZ”
“I decided to study as a doctor because it pays better than a vet”
“I decided to marry him because his parents are really rich”
Many people are inspired by money but never by God. Sometimes we struggle to go to church or to meetings but if we were told, “go to church this Sunday because the pastor is giving out 1000 to each person who comes”, we would be there without a doubt. NOTHING WOULD STOP US! This proves our real master is money and it shows how much we love money more than God.
I Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows”.
Today everywhere we see men and women will commit any crime to obtain money but some crimes are more subtle. We forget that we must place God first in our lives and in every decision we make and as servants we must ask God first before doing anything. When we forget that; we are committing a serious crime in God’s eyes. And money can be the reason that we forget God.
The verse says that some covet after money. To covet is to reach for something. And to err means to be led astray. So when you reach after money you will be led away from your faith and from this you will be pierced with many sorrows.
When you serve God and only God, He is a good master and He will never let you go without all your needs. If you need money, just ask and He will give it to you.
Sometimes we need money and so we steal from God by not giving Him the 10% that He has asked for (Malachi 3:8,9). When we do that we will be led away from faith and then we will have sorrow. When we give to God what is His, He will increase our faith and we will receive even more than what we gave Him. But when we steal from God, He teaches us a lesson and we will find that we will be cut with sorrow because every week we will find that we have no money. We won’t be able to explain where our money goes and we will start to really suffer. But when we remember God and give to Him, we will find that every week we have more than what we are supposed to have.
Sometimes we need money so we steal from others. You might write down in your pay slip longer hours than you worked. You might charge somebody for a service when it was God who gave you freely that time and the ability to do it. But when we trust in God, He provides and our faith gets stronger and stronger.
Money can really destroy relationships and my advice to any one here is to not let money destroy love that you have for others. If you have a problem of money with someone it is better to let that go and just ask God to help you. For example, if someone owes you money, for the sake of love just ask God to repay you. And if you owe someone money, for the sake of love make sure that you repay it as quickly as you can. Ask God for help. God is really rich so don’t forget to ask Him when you need it.
One time I gave somebody a lot of money because they were struggling and they needed money. After that a couple of years I found that I needed that person’s help in a service that I needed. Just as an example I will say that I needed my shoes repaired and this person was able to fix a pair of shoes for me. I expected that he would not charge me since I had given him a lot of money in the past, but that wasn’t the case. I was charged at full price and so I felt a bit annoyed by that. But that is not the way, when we do something for someone we must forget about it. We must not think now they owe us something. When we do something for someone, we are really doing it for God as Jesus said, ‘when you fed the hungry you fed Me’. So it is God who owes us and therefore God who we should turn to for payment.
Also, many Christian musicians around the world can be easily led astray if they are not careful. Some Christians might sing songs about angels instead of just singing about Christ Himself. So instead of glorifying Christ we can easily give the glory to angels and so we see just how clever satan is. He will never ask a Christian to sing, ‘satan brought me here’ but as you know satan is an angel so he gets glorified when we sing about angels. This is how a Christian can be led astray. Some Christians might think that if they sing about Jesus Christ, the world won't be interested in that song and the sales will be low and so because of money they can be led astray from their faith. As Christians we have to be careful not to let money lead us away from the faith.
In the Bible there is a man that is so happy because he has barns filled with grain and so he is rich. But that night he died. If you try to hold onto money what will you gain? A bank full of money and then you die. It’s better to not care about money and to use it and to give it freely because holding onto it will amount to nothing in the end. And as you know, rich people are made rich because they know how to use money to make money. As Christians, the way to make money is to give it away. The Bible says to test God on that one (Malachi 3:10).
II Tim 3:5 says that because of this the times will be perilous so let us not make our days difficult but let us make our days easier by trusting in God and serving only Him and nothing else.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sleep is dangerous
By Odon Bulamba (Summary by Benedicte Bahjejian - 22 Nov 06)
Sleeping when you’re tired is normal, but when you’re sick at the hospital it is not. When you’re sleepy, you are weak and you loose control over your body and your mind. When you go to a party, it’s easy to stay awake, but when it comes to praying, we feel sleepy and lazy. When I sleep I don’t control what I’m doing.
• The danger of sleeping
There is a time to rest because we are tired, but resting when it’s time for praying is laziness. Sleep is the enemy of body and soul because it pushes me far away from God. 1Th 5:6 ‘…so let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled’. When I sleep, I am not alert & self-controlled.
What would happen if God decides to sleep for 2 days? Who would rise up the sun, make the rain fall down? It would become like a disaster & darkness. Example: the dormouse sleeps 6 months a year, ½ of its life & people protect it from being killed. Satan protects also people asleep to prevent them from turning to God.
• Examples in the Bible
Jonah in chapter 1;5;6 was asleep when people were dying around him. He said he didn't care. When we also know that people are in hardships or in the waves, we say; I’ll pray later for him/her, that’s when we fall asleep.
Samson, Judg 16:19-21, strong man, over-sure of himself fell asleep on Delilah’s lap, that’s when Philistines came to shave off the 7 braids of his hair. We first overpower ourselves, but then feel weak when the danger arrives.
Mat 13:25 The enemy arrives when everyone is asleep and sows weeds among the wheat.
• What is sleeping?
Nothing about time of rest and sleep on this earth is mentioned in the Bible. But it will be in our future life with our future husband, Jesus-Christ. Satan makes us sleep and distract us by all means: want to go out while at church, want to have a drink while praying etc. But God shows us signs of our tiredness toward him.
• Signs that show we move away or are far away from God
Pr 24:30-34 Laziness is a sin & brings poverty & scarcity. A lazy man will not inherit the kingdom of God. Why don’t you push laziness away from u & work hard to be accepted in the kingdom of God?
Signs that show you are asleep:
1. Prayer is not a priority for you
2. Your spiritual knowledge is sufficient for you
3. You live a life of theory: you talk about the word of God but are not doing it. Faith without actions is dead. A dead faith is like a dream. You have poor actions.
4. You forget about eternal life. You don’t think about death & soon coming back of Jesus Christ.
5. More time of distraction than time for God
6. Minimise sin, you don ’t care to say sorry to others and to God when you sin
7. Test your holiness. Am I really holy?
8. Avoid spiritual duties
9. Sinners can’t see any difference between you & them. Talk rubbish things, do rubbish things like them.
Ph 4:13 We are battling against Satan, & I will win by making a decision. God doesn’t give food in my mouth. There are things we need to decide by ourselves. If we are ready, God can do something. He will not teach me how to dance, I have to learn by myself.
2nd Cor 10:3-6 Our weapons are spi to demolish strongholds, evth that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
Ecc 4:9-10& 12 2 are better than 1. 2 = me +God in me
Conclusion
Are u a Jonas, a Samson? Where are u asleep? Battle against sleep. Make your own decision of faith & obedience to pray.
For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com
Sleeping when you’re tired is normal, but when you’re sick at the hospital it is not. When you’re sleepy, you are weak and you loose control over your body and your mind. When you go to a party, it’s easy to stay awake, but when it comes to praying, we feel sleepy and lazy. When I sleep I don’t control what I’m doing.
• The danger of sleeping
There is a time to rest because we are tired, but resting when it’s time for praying is laziness. Sleep is the enemy of body and soul because it pushes me far away from God. 1Th 5:6 ‘…so let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled’. When I sleep, I am not alert & self-controlled.
What would happen if God decides to sleep for 2 days? Who would rise up the sun, make the rain fall down? It would become like a disaster & darkness. Example: the dormouse sleeps 6 months a year, ½ of its life & people protect it from being killed. Satan protects also people asleep to prevent them from turning to God.
• Examples in the Bible
Jonah in chapter 1;5;6 was asleep when people were dying around him. He said he didn't care. When we also know that people are in hardships or in the waves, we say; I’ll pray later for him/her, that’s when we fall asleep.
Samson, Judg 16:19-21, strong man, over-sure of himself fell asleep on Delilah’s lap, that’s when Philistines came to shave off the 7 braids of his hair. We first overpower ourselves, but then feel weak when the danger arrives.
Mat 13:25 The enemy arrives when everyone is asleep and sows weeds among the wheat.
• What is sleeping?
Nothing about time of rest and sleep on this earth is mentioned in the Bible. But it will be in our future life with our future husband, Jesus-Christ. Satan makes us sleep and distract us by all means: want to go out while at church, want to have a drink while praying etc. But God shows us signs of our tiredness toward him.
• Signs that show we move away or are far away from God
Pr 24:30-34 Laziness is a sin & brings poverty & scarcity. A lazy man will not inherit the kingdom of God. Why don’t you push laziness away from u & work hard to be accepted in the kingdom of God?
Signs that show you are asleep:
1. Prayer is not a priority for you
2. Your spiritual knowledge is sufficient for you
3. You live a life of theory: you talk about the word of God but are not doing it. Faith without actions is dead. A dead faith is like a dream. You have poor actions.
4. You forget about eternal life. You don’t think about death & soon coming back of Jesus Christ.
5. More time of distraction than time for God
6. Minimise sin, you don ’t care to say sorry to others and to God when you sin
7. Test your holiness. Am I really holy?
8. Avoid spiritual duties
9. Sinners can’t see any difference between you & them. Talk rubbish things, do rubbish things like them.
Ph 4:13 We are battling against Satan, & I will win by making a decision. God doesn’t give food in my mouth. There are things we need to decide by ourselves. If we are ready, God can do something. He will not teach me how to dance, I have to learn by myself.
2nd Cor 10:3-6 Our weapons are spi to demolish strongholds, evth that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
Ecc 4:9-10& 12 2 are better than 1. 2 = me +God in me
Conclusion
Are u a Jonas, a Samson? Where are u asleep? Battle against sleep. Make your own decision of faith & obedience to pray.
For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com
Monday, November 16, 2009
Sign of Times (Part XXVIII - 28)
By Moonings
ISRAEL GOD’S PROPHETIC CLOCK
The Future of Jewish Religion
Some popular writers on prophecy have said that the founding of Israel in 1948 was the sign Jesus intended when He called us to watch for the rebudding of the fig tree. But as we have said before, the parable does not refer to reinvigoration of the Jewish state. Scripture also represents Israel as a vine and an olive tree. Each symbol seems to have distinct meaning, the olive tree standing for the true Israel of God—that is, the spiritual seed of Abraham (Rom. 11:16-25)—and the vine, not the fig tree, referring to Israel as a political entity (Isa. 5:1-7; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 17:1-10; Mark 12:1-11).
On the Monday after the Triumphal Entry, Jesus cursed a fig tree as He made His way to the Temple, where, on the previous day, the religious leaders had scorned His claims to be the Messiah. He cursed the tree because, although it was green, it bore no fruit. In other words, it was flourishing but fruitless, just like the religion of Moses. The state of Israel was not flourishing. It chafed under the authority of Rome. Spiritual Israel was not flourishing in any sense. Thus, the fig tree was a fitting symbol only of the Jewish religious system.
When Jesus predicts that the fig tree will someday revive and put forth buds, He means, therefore, that the Mosaic religion, with all its laws and sacrifices based on the Torah, will reappear after being extinct for millennia. Many prophecies assume that the Jews will indeed return to the religious practices of their fathers. The Book of Daniel informs us that during the last week of the seventy that God has set aside for future dealings with Israel, the prince elsewhere called the Antichrist will
. . . cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Daniel 9:27
Parallel accounts of the same incident occur in Matthew 24:15 and 2 Thessalonians 2:4. These reveal that when the closing three and a half years of the present age begin, the Jews will have a Temple in Jerusalem, and they will be offering sacrifices according to the Mosaic rites.
A clue as to when the Jews will resume observance of the law appears in the last Scriptural reference to the fig tree, in Revelation 6. The record of the period subsequent to the opening of the Sixth Seal appears designed to suggest that the fig tree is on the verge of putting forth new buds. That record begins with an obscure image.
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
Revelation 6:13
Although this prediction will likely have a literal fulfillment, each term employed here is elsewhere defined as a symbol. The fig tree stands for Israel, of course. In Daniel 8:10, Revelation 1:20, Revelation 9:1, and no doubt also in Revelation 12:4, a star of heaven represents an angel—specifically, an angel of God. In Revelation 9:1, an angel coming to the earth on a divine mission is described as a star falling from heaven. (The statement in Revelation 10:1, "And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven," explains the imagery in Revelation 9:1). And the four winds of Revelation 7:2 (a text just a few verses beyond the text we are discussing) represent demonic agencies, as they do also in Daniel 7.
It is evident that at the time of Revelation 6:13, evil forces will press mightily against Israel, but angels of God will come to her rescue. The only harm done to the fig tree will be the loss of some untimely figs. The meaning is that some Jews will be killed for their faith in Christ. These Jews will be the first of the martyrs prophesied two verses earlier.
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
Revelation 6:11
The word translated "untimely figs" refers to late-ripening figs that hang on the tree until spring. We may regard the untimely figs mentioned here as figs found on the tree just before it enters a new season of growth. The image therefore implies that the fig tree is on the verge of putting forth buds.
The further history of the fig tree is given in Revelation 7.
1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
Revelation 7:1-3
The four angels who hold the winds in check are likely the same ones who came to the rescue of the fig tree. Another angel commands these four to keep up their protection of the fig tree and all the other trees. This passage employs "trees" both in a literal sense, with reference to vegetation, and in a symbolic sense, with reference to all the nations that will produce spiritual fruit. The symbolic sense of the term is illustrated also in Luke's gospel.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree and all the trees;30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.31 So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.
Luke 21:29-32
After an angelic guard is posted about the fig tree, 144,000 in the twelve tribes of Israel are identified as "servants of our God" and set aside to receive God's seal.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
Revelation 7:2-8
It is evident that the record of the period following the opening of the Sixth Seal emphasizes preparations for Israel's renewal. Untimely figs fall from the fig tree. The fig tree is surrounded by a protective watch. And angels set seals upon the 144,000. The record gives us the impression that these preparations continue throughout the whole period. The earliest we can reasonably date the budding of the fig tree is therefore at the opening of the Seventh Seal.
Times of the Gentiles
We must now determine whether Scriptural teaching concerning the rebirth of Israel supports the view that we are living in the Last Days. Many Bible students are unwilling to concede that the Jewish migration to Israel in modern times fulfills the Old Testament prophecies of a future return. Yet Isaiah (in Isa. 11:11) gives the first eschatological return of Israel a number—he counts it as the second. Thus, he prohibits any idea that there could be a temporary return of Israel within the Church Age, to be followed by another dispersion and another regathering at the very end. Such a regathering would be the third.
We conclude, then, that the modern regathering of Jews in Palestine and the formation of the Israeli state in 1948 are fulfillments of prophecy. The church has therefore been correct in viewing these events as signs that the day of Christ is approaching. But do these events also signify that we are living in the Last Days? It is conceivable, at least, that the Jews could assemble in their homeland and form a government long before the Last Days actually arrived.
The strongest argument that an emergent Jewish nation is a sign of the end times derives from Christ's most detailed warning of the holocaust in A.D. 70.
20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
Luke 21:20-24
Here, Jesus states that the Jews will not repossess Jerusalem until "the times of the Gentiles" have been fulfilled. This expression, which occurs nowhere else in Scripture, denotes the historical era since Pentecost, the era when the church has been carrying out Christ's commission to offer the gospel of salvation to the whole world, to gentiles as well as Jews. The times of the gentiles thus correspond with the Church Age.
Jesus' deliberately imprecise wording does not require an exact concurrence between the end of the Church Age and the end of gentile domination over the Holy City. The latter might be a gradual process anticipating the former. Yet, His wording does seem to confine the whole process to a time when completion of the Church Age is near at hand. The end of the Church Age is the same period that Scripture designates the Last Days. Thus, Jesus' teaching that Jerusalem would be a gentile city until the end of the Church Age implies that the church should view any purging of gentile power from the city as a sign that the Last Days have arrived.
Gentile control of the city has been waning now for almost two centuries. Jewish reoccupation of Jerusalem began with an influx of Jewish settlers in the nineteenth century. The Jewish population grew steadily until Israel attained statehood in 1948. Then, the fledgeling nation absorbed the western sector of the city into its territory. During the 1967 war, the Israelis added the eastern sector, establishing authority over the whole city except the Moslem holy site on Temple Mount.
Today, the Jews are in control of virtually all Jerusalem. No longer can Jerusalem be considered a gentile city. Nor can it be said that the city is trodden down by gentiles. The city is teeming with Jews and flourishing as never before. Yet Jesus said that Jerusalem would not escape gentile domination until the times of the gentiles had been fulfilled. On what grounds can we ignore or reject the obvious implication that we have now come to the end of the gentile era, to the Last Days?
ISRAEL GOD’S PROPHETIC CLOCK
The Future of Jewish Religion
Some popular writers on prophecy have said that the founding of Israel in 1948 was the sign Jesus intended when He called us to watch for the rebudding of the fig tree. But as we have said before, the parable does not refer to reinvigoration of the Jewish state. Scripture also represents Israel as a vine and an olive tree. Each symbol seems to have distinct meaning, the olive tree standing for the true Israel of God—that is, the spiritual seed of Abraham (Rom. 11:16-25)—and the vine, not the fig tree, referring to Israel as a political entity (Isa. 5:1-7; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 17:1-10; Mark 12:1-11).
On the Monday after the Triumphal Entry, Jesus cursed a fig tree as He made His way to the Temple, where, on the previous day, the religious leaders had scorned His claims to be the Messiah. He cursed the tree because, although it was green, it bore no fruit. In other words, it was flourishing but fruitless, just like the religion of Moses. The state of Israel was not flourishing. It chafed under the authority of Rome. Spiritual Israel was not flourishing in any sense. Thus, the fig tree was a fitting symbol only of the Jewish religious system.
When Jesus predicts that the fig tree will someday revive and put forth buds, He means, therefore, that the Mosaic religion, with all its laws and sacrifices based on the Torah, will reappear after being extinct for millennia. Many prophecies assume that the Jews will indeed return to the religious practices of their fathers. The Book of Daniel informs us that during the last week of the seventy that God has set aside for future dealings with Israel, the prince elsewhere called the Antichrist will
. . . cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Daniel 9:27
Parallel accounts of the same incident occur in Matthew 24:15 and 2 Thessalonians 2:4. These reveal that when the closing three and a half years of the present age begin, the Jews will have a Temple in Jerusalem, and they will be offering sacrifices according to the Mosaic rites.
A clue as to when the Jews will resume observance of the law appears in the last Scriptural reference to the fig tree, in Revelation 6. The record of the period subsequent to the opening of the Sixth Seal appears designed to suggest that the fig tree is on the verge of putting forth new buds. That record begins with an obscure image.
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
Revelation 6:13
Although this prediction will likely have a literal fulfillment, each term employed here is elsewhere defined as a symbol. The fig tree stands for Israel, of course. In Daniel 8:10, Revelation 1:20, Revelation 9:1, and no doubt also in Revelation 12:4, a star of heaven represents an angel—specifically, an angel of God. In Revelation 9:1, an angel coming to the earth on a divine mission is described as a star falling from heaven. (The statement in Revelation 10:1, "And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven," explains the imagery in Revelation 9:1). And the four winds of Revelation 7:2 (a text just a few verses beyond the text we are discussing) represent demonic agencies, as they do also in Daniel 7.
It is evident that at the time of Revelation 6:13, evil forces will press mightily against Israel, but angels of God will come to her rescue. The only harm done to the fig tree will be the loss of some untimely figs. The meaning is that some Jews will be killed for their faith in Christ. These Jews will be the first of the martyrs prophesied two verses earlier.
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
Revelation 6:11
The word translated "untimely figs" refers to late-ripening figs that hang on the tree until spring. We may regard the untimely figs mentioned here as figs found on the tree just before it enters a new season of growth. The image therefore implies that the fig tree is on the verge of putting forth buds.
The further history of the fig tree is given in Revelation 7.
1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
Revelation 7:1-3
The four angels who hold the winds in check are likely the same ones who came to the rescue of the fig tree. Another angel commands these four to keep up their protection of the fig tree and all the other trees. This passage employs "trees" both in a literal sense, with reference to vegetation, and in a symbolic sense, with reference to all the nations that will produce spiritual fruit. The symbolic sense of the term is illustrated also in Luke's gospel.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree and all the trees;30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.31 So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.
Luke 21:29-32
After an angelic guard is posted about the fig tree, 144,000 in the twelve tribes of Israel are identified as "servants of our God" and set aside to receive God's seal.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
Revelation 7:2-8
It is evident that the record of the period following the opening of the Sixth Seal emphasizes preparations for Israel's renewal. Untimely figs fall from the fig tree. The fig tree is surrounded by a protective watch. And angels set seals upon the 144,000. The record gives us the impression that these preparations continue throughout the whole period. The earliest we can reasonably date the budding of the fig tree is therefore at the opening of the Seventh Seal.
Times of the Gentiles
We must now determine whether Scriptural teaching concerning the rebirth of Israel supports the view that we are living in the Last Days. Many Bible students are unwilling to concede that the Jewish migration to Israel in modern times fulfills the Old Testament prophecies of a future return. Yet Isaiah (in Isa. 11:11) gives the first eschatological return of Israel a number—he counts it as the second. Thus, he prohibits any idea that there could be a temporary return of Israel within the Church Age, to be followed by another dispersion and another regathering at the very end. Such a regathering would be the third.
We conclude, then, that the modern regathering of Jews in Palestine and the formation of the Israeli state in 1948 are fulfillments of prophecy. The church has therefore been correct in viewing these events as signs that the day of Christ is approaching. But do these events also signify that we are living in the Last Days? It is conceivable, at least, that the Jews could assemble in their homeland and form a government long before the Last Days actually arrived.
The strongest argument that an emergent Jewish nation is a sign of the end times derives from Christ's most detailed warning of the holocaust in A.D. 70.
20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
Luke 21:20-24
Here, Jesus states that the Jews will not repossess Jerusalem until "the times of the Gentiles" have been fulfilled. This expression, which occurs nowhere else in Scripture, denotes the historical era since Pentecost, the era when the church has been carrying out Christ's commission to offer the gospel of salvation to the whole world, to gentiles as well as Jews. The times of the gentiles thus correspond with the Church Age.
Jesus' deliberately imprecise wording does not require an exact concurrence between the end of the Church Age and the end of gentile domination over the Holy City. The latter might be a gradual process anticipating the former. Yet, His wording does seem to confine the whole process to a time when completion of the Church Age is near at hand. The end of the Church Age is the same period that Scripture designates the Last Days. Thus, Jesus' teaching that Jerusalem would be a gentile city until the end of the Church Age implies that the church should view any purging of gentile power from the city as a sign that the Last Days have arrived.
Gentile control of the city has been waning now for almost two centuries. Jewish reoccupation of Jerusalem began with an influx of Jewish settlers in the nineteenth century. The Jewish population grew steadily until Israel attained statehood in 1948. Then, the fledgeling nation absorbed the western sector of the city into its territory. During the 1967 war, the Israelis added the eastern sector, establishing authority over the whole city except the Moslem holy site on Temple Mount.
Today, the Jews are in control of virtually all Jerusalem. No longer can Jerusalem be considered a gentile city. Nor can it be said that the city is trodden down by gentiles. The city is teeming with Jews and flourishing as never before. Yet Jesus said that Jerusalem would not escape gentile domination until the times of the gentiles had been fulfilled. On what grounds can we ignore or reject the obvious implication that we have now come to the end of the gentile era, to the Last Days?
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sign of Times (Part XXVII - 27)
JEWISH RESTORATION TO PALESTINE DURING THE END TIMES
The Second Return to the Land
For long ages after A.D. 70, the Jews lived as a despised people wandering in exile far from their homeland. But has the fig tree come alive again? The Zionist movement, which promoted Jewish reoccupation of Palestine, originated about a hundred years ago. With the support of powerful sympathizers, Zionist agitation soon opened the way for many people of Jewish descent to migrate to Palestine. By the time World War I began, almost 80,000 Jews lived there (1). At the outbreak of World War II, the Jewish population of the land had swollen to 450,000 (2). Then in 1948, when the number of Jewish settlers had reached nearly a million, the nation of Israel was reborn as a political entity (3).
Yet neither the regathering of Jews in the land nor the refounding of the Jewish state was the budding of the fig tree, although the renewal foreseen by Christ presupposes both of these developments. That is, the fig tree cannot put out new growth until the Jews have returned to Palestine and established their own government.
Prophecy offers glimmerings of both a reoccupied land and a reorganized state. Ezekiel foresaw that God would someday pour out His Spirit on Israel and establish them permanently in the land after He has gathered the people from a far-flung dispersion.
25 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name;26 After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.27 When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations;28 Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.29 Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 39:25-29
Several other prophets in many separate prophecies also speak of the same future restoration of Israel.
14 Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.15 The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.16 In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.17 The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.18 I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden.19 Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.20 At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD.
Zephaniah 3:14-20
6 And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the LORD their God, and will hear them.7 And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the LORD.8 I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them: and they shall increase as they have increased.9 And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again.10 I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and place shall not be found for them.11 And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.12 And I will strengthen them in the LORD; and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the LORD.
Zechariah 10:6-12
See also Isaiah 1:25-28; 27:12-13; 33:20; 49:22-23; 60:1-12; Jeremiah 23:3-6; Ezekiel 20:40-44; 36:8-15; Zechariah 14:11; and Malachi 3:1-4. Of particular interest is an oracle of Isaiah.
10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
Isaiah 11:10-12
The "root of Jesse" is Christ. The prediction that the gentiles will seek Christ (v. 10) implies a period of worldwide evangelism after His coming. This oracle is therefore one of the few Old Testament texts that speak of the Church Age. In the next verse (v. 11), the prophet foresees a day when the Lord will accomplish a "second" deliverance for His people. Most commentators suppose that Isaiah is treating Israel's deliverance from Egypt as the first. But the Israelites who escaped from Egypt were not a remnant. They were the whole nation in its infancy, when population was surging to new heights. Nor did they come from any nation but Egypt. Thus, as a few commentators recognize, the first deliverance by Isaiah's reckoning must be the return from Babylonian captivity (4). The placement of verse 11 after verse 10 suggests that the "second" will occur only after Christ has come and His gospel has been preached to the gentiles.
In fact, Isaiah envisions two regatherings at the end of history. The first (v. 11) will be partial, mainly from the nations listed. The second (v. 12) will be complete, from the four corners of the earth. The first will come about through the secret, Providential working of the Lord's hand. The second will happen in response to a public summons from the person of Christ Himself, the "ensign" in verse 12 as in verse 10. The following text describes the second regathering:
19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles.20 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.21 And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD.22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.
Isaiah 66:19-22
Once enthroned, Christ will sift the whole world for any remaining descendants of the twelve tribes and bring them to their appointed homeland. Yet it does not follow that there will be no previous regathering. Prophecy teaches clearly that there will be. Notice particularly what Jeremiah says.
3 For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.4 And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah.5 For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.8 For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him:9 But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.
Jeremiah 30:3-9
The prophet affirms that there will be a general regathering before the time of Jacob's trouble, which students of prophecy equate with the Tribulation. This regathering is the one which Isaiah designates as the second.
Yet the second regathering of the Jews is not in itself the sign that, according to the Olivet Discourse, would announce the end of the world. It is not the rebudding of the fig tree.
Rebirth of the Jewish State
One result of the second regathering will be the formation of a Jewish state. In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar which the Lord enabled Daniel to interpret, the king saw a succession of five gentile kingdoms (Dan. 2:41-43). The first four represented kingdoms with authority over an existing state of Israel. The fifth, which is still future, must therefore also refer to a gentile kingdom ascendant over a nation of Jews.
Zechariah is more explicit. He says that when the gentile world mounts its final assault on the land of Judah (an assault preliminary to the great battle known as the Battle of Armageddon), Jews will be living there under the rule of their own governors.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
Zechariah 12:3-6
But, just as the second regathering of the Jews in Palestine is not the rebudding of the fig tree, neither is the new Jewish state that they establish. Neither development is the sign that Jesus said would anticipate His coming.
The Second Return to the Land
For long ages after A.D. 70, the Jews lived as a despised people wandering in exile far from their homeland. But has the fig tree come alive again? The Zionist movement, which promoted Jewish reoccupation of Palestine, originated about a hundred years ago. With the support of powerful sympathizers, Zionist agitation soon opened the way for many people of Jewish descent to migrate to Palestine. By the time World War I began, almost 80,000 Jews lived there (1). At the outbreak of World War II, the Jewish population of the land had swollen to 450,000 (2). Then in 1948, when the number of Jewish settlers had reached nearly a million, the nation of Israel was reborn as a political entity (3).
Yet neither the regathering of Jews in the land nor the refounding of the Jewish state was the budding of the fig tree, although the renewal foreseen by Christ presupposes both of these developments. That is, the fig tree cannot put out new growth until the Jews have returned to Palestine and established their own government.
Prophecy offers glimmerings of both a reoccupied land and a reorganized state. Ezekiel foresaw that God would someday pour out His Spirit on Israel and establish them permanently in the land after He has gathered the people from a far-flung dispersion.
25 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name;26 After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.27 When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations;28 Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.29 Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 39:25-29
Several other prophets in many separate prophecies also speak of the same future restoration of Israel.
14 Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.15 The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.16 In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.17 The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.18 I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden.19 Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.20 At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD.
Zephaniah 3:14-20
6 And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the LORD their God, and will hear them.7 And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the LORD.8 I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them: and they shall increase as they have increased.9 And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again.10 I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and place shall not be found for them.11 And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.12 And I will strengthen them in the LORD; and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the LORD.
Zechariah 10:6-12
See also Isaiah 1:25-28; 27:12-13; 33:20; 49:22-23; 60:1-12; Jeremiah 23:3-6; Ezekiel 20:40-44; 36:8-15; Zechariah 14:11; and Malachi 3:1-4. Of particular interest is an oracle of Isaiah.
10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
Isaiah 11:10-12
The "root of Jesse" is Christ. The prediction that the gentiles will seek Christ (v. 10) implies a period of worldwide evangelism after His coming. This oracle is therefore one of the few Old Testament texts that speak of the Church Age. In the next verse (v. 11), the prophet foresees a day when the Lord will accomplish a "second" deliverance for His people. Most commentators suppose that Isaiah is treating Israel's deliverance from Egypt as the first. But the Israelites who escaped from Egypt were not a remnant. They were the whole nation in its infancy, when population was surging to new heights. Nor did they come from any nation but Egypt. Thus, as a few commentators recognize, the first deliverance by Isaiah's reckoning must be the return from Babylonian captivity (4). The placement of verse 11 after verse 10 suggests that the "second" will occur only after Christ has come and His gospel has been preached to the gentiles.
In fact, Isaiah envisions two regatherings at the end of history. The first (v. 11) will be partial, mainly from the nations listed. The second (v. 12) will be complete, from the four corners of the earth. The first will come about through the secret, Providential working of the Lord's hand. The second will happen in response to a public summons from the person of Christ Himself, the "ensign" in verse 12 as in verse 10. The following text describes the second regathering:
19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles.20 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.21 And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD.22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.
Isaiah 66:19-22
Once enthroned, Christ will sift the whole world for any remaining descendants of the twelve tribes and bring them to their appointed homeland. Yet it does not follow that there will be no previous regathering. Prophecy teaches clearly that there will be. Notice particularly what Jeremiah says.
3 For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.4 And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah.5 For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.8 For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him:9 But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.
Jeremiah 30:3-9
The prophet affirms that there will be a general regathering before the time of Jacob's trouble, which students of prophecy equate with the Tribulation. This regathering is the one which Isaiah designates as the second.
Yet the second regathering of the Jews is not in itself the sign that, according to the Olivet Discourse, would announce the end of the world. It is not the rebudding of the fig tree.
Rebirth of the Jewish State
One result of the second regathering will be the formation of a Jewish state. In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar which the Lord enabled Daniel to interpret, the king saw a succession of five gentile kingdoms (Dan. 2:41-43). The first four represented kingdoms with authority over an existing state of Israel. The fifth, which is still future, must therefore also refer to a gentile kingdom ascendant over a nation of Jews.
Zechariah is more explicit. He says that when the gentile world mounts its final assault on the land of Judah (an assault preliminary to the great battle known as the Battle of Armageddon), Jews will be living there under the rule of their own governors.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
Zechariah 12:3-6
But, just as the second regathering of the Jews in Palestine is not the rebudding of the fig tree, neither is the new Jewish state that they establish. Neither development is the sign that Jesus said would anticipate His coming.
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