Sabbath: Restless and Rebellious

Image © Pacific Press

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Num: 11:1-33, Num: 12:1-13, Num: 13:27-33, Num: 14:1-23, 1 Corinthians 10:1-11, Num: 14:39-45.

Memory Text: “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

Over the centuries, many people have reported strange, restless behavior in dogs and other domestic animals before major earthquakes.

Scientists have now established that animals are able to detect the first of an earthquake’s seismic waves — the pressure wave — that arrives in advance of the secondary shaking wave. This probably explains why animals have been reported acting confused, or restless, right before the ground starts to shake. Some animals, such as elephants, can perceive low-frequency sound waves and vibrations from foreshocks, which humans can’t detect at all.

A few minutes before the 5.8-magnitude quake that hit the Washington, D.C., area on August 23, 2011, some of the animals at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo started behaving strangely. Among those were the lemurs, who began calling loudly for about 15 minutes before the ground started shaking.

In this week’s study, we look at some examples of strange human restlessness that was brought about, not by impending natural disasters such as earthquakes but, rather, by the basic sinfulness of fallen human beings who were not resting in what Christ offers all who come to Him in faith and obedience.