By Odon Bulamba (6th May 2005)
FANATICISM IN CHURCHES
You can see fanaticism in the church. For example if I ask sister Joan how many people from your church visit you? …How many times has your pastor visited you? Never. How long have you been in that church? For years.
So, why do you think he doesn’t visit you? If the pastor is busy, why doesn’t he send a deacon to do it?
If sister Joan was the Minister of Agriculture in that church, she would probably get a phone call a week. When the church has a personal interest or advantage they’ll make an effort to keep in touch and to have a good relationship, but they won’t with simple people like us.
This is what we see here with the white horse. Someone comes on a white horse but the real picture is hidden. God didn’t want to reveal clearly to John the role of the bow, so he won’t be shocked. In Chapter 16 we’ll come back to that and understand why and how this rider was on a white horse.
This is not the time of God’s tribulation yet. This one will start with the seventh trumpet: He will come Himself to punish the world, so that people can repent and go back to Him.
HOW WILL MEN MISTREAT MEN?
We are now talking about the tribulation coming with the seventh seal. This is when human beings mistreat other human beings. A Nation will decide this or that and another nation will also decide this or that. Now if NZ wants to say no! They will be answered: It’s the law! We clearly see Satan playing his role: he’ll put a law in a country, he’ll put a law in the system, he’ll put a law in the church, follow that law and everything will go right but sometimes, the law made by human beings is a law for perdition, misleading people.
You’ll see it clearly in churches to the point they can decide to excommunicate people. What about forgiveness? Jesus warns us about losing one of the souls He bought. A church can easily reject you because you’ve sinned, even without any investigation. Money is the only thing they’ll consider to keep you in the church, though. This is how Satan is even trying to take away Christians from the church. Satan will be given that crown: “Continue to reign on us. We want you to continue to guide us.”
CAN AN ANGEL COMMAND JESUS?
If Jesus was the rider, the angel’s voice saying: “Come” would command Jesus. And Jesus would obey. The question is: is Jesus a commander or was this voice commanding Jesus? Theologians are divided on that issue.
In Rev. 5: 2-3, everybody stayed quiet in heaven and nobody could stand up and say: “God, do this!” If the rider was Jesus, who can really command God? Angels, other creatures in the heaven … We know very well that our Lord is the commander, He is the guider and the leader and no one or no other power can lead him because he is sufficient. God Himself as Jesus would stand up in front of that crowd and … the Bible doesn’t say anything after that, that white horse disappeared.
He became conqueror of what, of whom, of God, of the world, of the church?
THE HORSES ARE PULLING CHARIOTS
In Zechariah, the horses were pulling something and wherever they were going this thing also followed them. Today it’s written in Thessalonians, Satan occupies the head of the church and he’s pulling many Christians in his chariot. We are not riding the horses but we are pulled behind thinking that God is taking us somewhere. One person leads the horse and many people are behind without knowing the direction or the destination. This is how today there is an ecumenical council of churches. It is the representation of that chariot trying to put as many churches as possible behind them to pull them all somewhere.
Think of a compass: in any position it’ll be, we’ll know where the North is. God wanted us to know that if his people are misled and don’t come back to Him, they’ll still face the North (God’s direction) of the compass. John learnt that six famous churches were not recognised by God, they were misled, their compass was in the wrong position. They were in a danger, and that’s why Jesus said that salvation is a personal matter. If you don’t work for your own salvation and you just follow a church, it’s a danger.
KNEEL DOWN SOMETIMES AND ASK GOD WHERE YOU ARE GOING
Open your Bible, kneel down sometimes and ask God where you are going. If God doesn’t respond, ask Him to guide you. You must know where you are going.
Ask God. Tell Him: “You said that at the end of the time things like that will happen? Am I really in the right church or not? We are meeting here with this small group, am I really in the right place or not? What Odon and other people tell us is it true or not? Open my eyes, open my mind, open my soul so that I’ll know the Bible and I’ll know the truth.”
By knowing the truth we’ll know where to go because if we don’t, we’ll disappear. Are we Balaams or Balaks? Are we blessing or cursing the people of God? If you’re not sure you should be here, don’t come to please others but ask God. “I want to know the truth and if there is no truth here, remove me from that group and lead me somewhere else.” Remember that salvation is a personal matter.
Many people will come in God’s name and take the Word of God to mislead Christians. They’ve studied how to mislead people with the Word of God. If an interpretation is not good, it’s easy to get lost with the Word of God.
The church is our family but inside a family there are sometimes problems: bad behaviour, difficulties, bad ways of talking, attitudes. If Odon belongs to my family and has a bad attitude, I don’t have to imitate him, I can live nicely. Let’s not become fanatics. Fanaticism represents one of the horses here.
PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL FAMINE
And one of the horses brought famine. And it’s not only about the physical famine, but also spiritual: we are not properly fed in our churches. Pastors can take a message from the year 1975 and they preach it again in 2005. This leads to spiritual sickness, our souls are malnourished.
And after 10 years in a church we’re still at the same level, Christians don’t grow. They go to church on Sundays, they pray but in their everyday life in the society, they are nasty, easily angered, they break things, hate people, criticise and destroy.
It’s like stagnant water: although the rain clean in it, if you slip and fall in it, your clean clothes will be stained green and you’ll stink. When water stays outside for a long time it stinks, gets dirty and even mosquitoes can reproduce. When Christians don’t grow they’re just like that water, we stay at the same level and we become like this intoxicated stagnant water. There is something impure, something wrong.
How many years have you been praying to God to change your life? “God, help me so that I’ll not be lazy anymore. Help me so that I’ll not talk so much …” For years. But everyday you just live the same life.
Why can’t you grow? It’s the secret of this verse Revelation chapter 6:2. There is something wrong somewhere. We have to find what it is. When we come to chapter 8 we will find it and pray for it, for our personal liberation. We are prisoners of small actions we do, character or habits, which are just hanging around our bodies. We need to get rid of them. God wants us to learn the difference between the four horses and what is behind them and makes our lives a bit wrong.
ASK GOD TO REVEAL TO YOU THE SECRET OF THAT VERSE
Deuteronomy 29:29
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
The secret of the Bible belongs to Him, so pray to God and ask Him for the truth, to convince you of the truth. If not you might read 10 books with 10 interpretations and get confused. Ask God to reveal to you the secret of that book and if he doesn’t want to reveal it to you put it aside and tell Him:
“God, because you don’t want to reveal this to me, I will not continue to kill myself with this horse. I’ll leave it there until the day you’ll convince me. The day you’ll convince me that the horse is Christ or Antichrist, that day I’ll believe.”
Challenge God, have that courage to tell God. Sometimes he just watches us go everywhere. So don’t get lost, talk to Him and ask Him for the revelation. He’s the only one who can reveal things to us.
Today, the devil worshipping church is looking for members. They can give you up to $70 000. It’s a curse. You might even receive a letter from them. Be careful with them. Because people have lots of financial problems, they want the money and by doing so, they become a member of that church. They give you the money and take a sample of your blood from your finger, put it on a piece of paper.
The world is reaching its limits. Satan acts clearly now, he doesn’t hide his actions. Please, be careful. Don’t take the money and lose your life
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