By Odon Bulamba
Once again we are here for the Word of God. This is our first Sunday to meet for 2019 and
I’m sure that although we are Sunday today, this Sunday is different from the
last Sunday we met. Everyday is
different, days can have the same name but they are different days. Every single second of your life is
different. Every breath you take is
different. Life is moving on and is not
the same. Most of the time we get confused because we forget what we were
yesterday is not the same person we are today.
If I was weak yesterday, today I am strong. If I was tired yesterday I can be awake
today.
What is your plan for 2019 with God, Jesus
Christ? Singing these songs today, I
have collected a few good lessons. When Jesus
went to Jerusalem, He had a plan. “Prepare
the way of the Lord,”: He knew He had to prepare His way of moving from here to
there and everybody knew that Jesus was coming.
What preparation do you have for meeting Jesus in 2019? Maybe Jesus has sent you to find a donkey for
him to ride on. Maybe he has asked you
to prepare a jacket for him to walk on.
Maybe you are to collect the palm leaves. What have you planned for God?
God always has a plan for us. Do I have a plan for God? Jesus is our friend and He loves us. If He is your friend, what do you plan for
your friend in 2019? At the end of 2018
you had a plan for your friends and family.
You planned what gifts to give ahead of time. What have you prepared for 2019 for Jesus? That question is not only for you but it is
also for me. If I haven’t prepared
anything yet for Jesus, I am late and I need to hurry up. In January this is what I have planned for
you and February, March to the end of the year we need to plan for each month
of the year.
If you did not prepare anything, then
prepare to fail. If you don’t have
anything prepared for Jesus, then you are preparing for failure and your
relationship won’t work well.
“You are my King, I’m forgiven”…song
continues… “Amazing love”. Do you have
an amazing love for Jesus or does Jesus only have to love you amazingly? Don’t you
have to love him back? When you were a
child your parent said to you I love you and you answered, I love you too but
when Jesus says He loves you what do you say in return?
Mathew 24:15, this is a message Jesus was
giving to His disciples. The 10th
sign of Jesus coming back. We have
talked about the first 9. “When you see
the abomination that causes the desolation spoken of through the prophet
Daniel, let the reader understand”.
The person who is supposed to understand
the message is not the listener but the reader.
It’s not about the observer it’s about the reader. Let the one who reads, understand this. How often do you read and when you do, what
do you read? You can see children read a
book in 2 days. Adults read the
paper. My father would read one verse of
the Bible quickly and then read the paper and take time to read the paper.
Do we sometimes read the gospel of Jesus to
find out what is going on in our lives or do we just read it because it is
there? If you want to understand, then
you must read. If you don’t want to
understand, then be lazy in reading.
When you see the abomination of the
desolation. Before to see it, you must understand
what it is. Behind me there are good
patterns on the wall but I don’t understand their meaning. Maybe someone else will know. The person who made the patterns will be able
to tell us the story behind the signs.
Is it just a decoration or does it have meaning?
By reading the Word of God, we don’t have
to say amazing love but we have to understand the meaning behind the
words. What we see behind what we
see. When I read the Word of God and
understand it, then it is good but when I don’t understand then I am just
wasting my time because I don’t understand what is behind the words and when I
am asked a question, I get lost.
My first question, what is the abomination
of desolation? What does it mean? It’s not any type of desolation but what
Daniel talked about. This is the 10th
sign, what Daniel talked about. What did
he speak about. Daniel 9-11: that is
where the story lies. Before we go deep in that, today we will only talk about
abomination of desolation to try to understand what it is so we can then come
back to Daniel to understand what and why he wrote it.
Abomination is something that is violent
and destroys and gives the feeling of vomiting.
When was the last time you vomited?
Can you remember it? When vomit
is coming, you can’t stop it even if you are clever and strong, tall, white or black,
you can’t stop it. It’s a feeling that
starts in a way that you can’t explain.
Slowly inside you, you feel nauseated and you get lots of saliva in your
mouth and you can’t swallow it. If you
swallow it, your body feels worse.
I’ve seen people in church when they feel
nauseated, they start to think where is the toilet? That feeling of vomiting makes you lose your
peace and pushes you to feel uncomfortable.
People can talk to you but you can’t respond because your concentration
is on something else. You can tell those
around you but it doesn’t sort it out.
That feeling of vomiting will come inside you. You might be someone who had a nice meal
earlier in the day and maybe spent time cooking it but the feeling of vomiting
won’t care about the time you spent cooking.
That feeling of vomiting will push you to
get rid of that nice meal. You can enjoy
your icecream but when you vomit, the taste of the icecream won’t be the
same. This kills what was good in the nice
food to become yuck and you don’t want to look at it anymore. When you saw the icecream, you looked at it and
it looked delicious but when you feel nauseated, it doesn’t look good anymore. When you bring the food out of your body,
people who enjoyed you eating icecream will not want to look at the vomited
icecream.
Abomination transforms what is in your body,
to something that is rejected. The Word
of God is food, a message from a preacher, a message from God and you
appreciate that food. When you are
crossing a lot of problems and you open your Bible and you feel Jesus is
listening to you, you feel good. Then
abomination comes to you and brings that taste to change your joy in the Lord
and you feel nauseated and you no longer want that Word in you anymore.
Whoever accepts Jesus, Jesus lives in them
but when abomination comes, you feel like vomiting. By using His saliva, Jesus made a blind
person to see. When you are nauseated
you spit your saliva and you don’t want your saliva. People will be shocked to see you vomit. You can’t control yourself and you can’t act
responsibility. When the devil comes in your
life with abomination and he comes into the temple, into the church, he gives
the feeling of nausea. I don’t feel like
reading Word of God today, I’ll read it tomorrow. When someone uses the Word of God, you feel
defensive.
When the Holy Spirit speaks to your
conscience, you believe the Holy Spirit has no role in your life and you tell
him to be quiet. When you vomit, you try
to force it out. You widely open your
mouth and tell your lungs be ready and you take in the breath and push it
out. Sometimes you will accept to put
your head in the toilet bowl because if you stand up, you will get vomit over
you. You accept for your head to be in
the toilet. The smell from the vomit
doesn’t please you but you force yourself to do it.
Someone will ask you, “Are you alright?” You have a justification, “I feel sick, I ate
such and such”. You have an explanation
that your body doesn’t accept what is inside you. Praise the Lord we have people working at the
hospital to help that person to vomit and they write down the times that you
vomited. A nurse will check your
temperature and ask you if everything alright but that doesn’t stop the
hospital from feeding you. You must eat
even though you are vomiting because your body needs food.
Those who vomit say they don’t want to eat
anymore because it might make them vomit more.
Those that quit the gospel don’t want to consume it anymore because it
will make them vomit. Better not to read
it anymore. That is why Jesus says in Revelations,
“remember your first love”. When you
were first saved you read the Bible all the time but now you don’t want it
anymore.
Desolation means to destroy something. You vomit not because something came inside
your body but because the devil has a secret, he wants to destroy your
soul. The Word of God of is life and the
devil knows that for you to die, he must remove that Word of God from your
life. He fights first against the Word
of God that lives in you. If you kick
that Word of God outside of you then it will be a desolation.
How do you protect the Word of God that
lives in you? Do you have any precaution
on how to protect Word of God? Do you
have any assurance for the Word of God?
Many people have life/contents insurance. I have had things stolen and my insurance
replaces what I have lost because those things are important to me. The Word of God that you receive every day,
have you got insurance for Word of God? How do you protect it because it is precious? People will run to find the Word of God but
they won’t find it in the end times.
How do you protect your gospel? If not, you don’t have any insurance. I have seen the pills to take for
nausea. If vomiting was so good for your
health, then the doctor would not give you medicine to stop you from vomiting but
because vomiting can be dangerous for your life, they must make sure you are
safe. Jesus lives in you. How to we protect him and make sure He
doesn’t leave our lives? Do you have any
agreement with God to live with you forever?
Otherwise, when we feel nauseated, we might
think to vomit rather than stopping the nausea.
If you don’t have any anti-nausea medicine, you will vomit. You might find yourself removing God from
your actions, your life etc.
Recently, I went to Tauranga. Hayley met with some friends. I had my own time. It was a Sunday. A man was on the street giving leaflets to Jesus. Every person rejected his leaflet. Another lady was giving away a leaflet about
makeup. People could take from the women
but not from the man because his was about eternal life. I picked up one. He was a white man from south Africa. I said, “Hey people of Tauranga, why do you
reject Jesus?” The man ran away from me.
People were passing me as though I was
crazy, “if you want life come and listen”.
A few people came around and I told the guy to talk but he said, “no you
do it”. We want to serve God but we
don’t have the courage. I used to stand
on the street giving leaflets but did they understand the leaflet, why didn’t I
open my mouth to speak which is louder?
When you board the trains in China, they
are all on their phones but nobody is talking.
One day I shouted, “hey you people of China” but no one could hear me
because they had their earphones in their ears.
No one could hear me even though I was shouting. Once you are talking to them, they can’t hear
you because they are busy listening to their own thing. What have you put in your ears to avoid
hearing the Holy Spirit or why do you run away from Jesus when He is talking to
you?
There was crowd watching Jesus on the cross
but how many could hear what He was saying?
Maybe only those who were closer to Him.
Only those that come close to Jesus will hear His voice. Don’t accept your body to accept abomination
because you will be the one who gets destroyed.
2019 should not be a year of abomination
but a year of building and making yourself stronger.
