Finding Peace

By Andrew McChesney

It was the worst day of Yean’s life.

Image © Pacific Press

The witch doctor approached him in their village in southern Laos and announced that he was going to die.

“And there is no one who can help you,” the witch doctor said, solemnly.

Yean was scared. People in his village believed that the witch doctor always spoke the truth. He could not lie.

Yean did not want to die. He was so frightened that he could not eat or sleep.

Soon his wife noticed that something was terribly wrong.

“What happened?” she asked.

Yean told her about his encounter with the witch doctor.

“I am going to die,” he said.

He didn’t know what to do. His wife didn’t know what to do.

Then he heard about a small group of Christians who gathered on Saturdays to worship. He had never been inside a Christian church, but he decided to find out whether the Christians could ask their God to help him.

Next Sabbath, Yean and his wife showed up at the Seventh-day Adventist church. He told the church members about the witch doctor and his fear of dying.

After listening, the members told him about a God named Jesus. They said Jesus had the power to not only save him from the witch doctor’s prediction of death but also to offer him eternal life. In their Bibles was the promise: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16; NKJV).

Yean was overjoyed when he heard about Jesus! He could claim the peace that only Jesus offers: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

When he left the church, he was so happy that he could not keep the good news to himself. He eagerly shared the peace that Jesus had given him with other villagers. He walked home with a big smile on his face. It was the best day of his life!

Today, Yean is alive and well, and he is attending the church where he first found Jesus.

Thank you for your Sabbath School mission offerings that help spread the gospel to people in Laos and other countries of the Southern Asia-Pacific Division, which will receive this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering.

This mission story illustrates Mission Objective No. 2 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s “I Will Go” strategic plan: “To strengthen and diversify Adventist outreach … among unreached and under-reached people groups, and to non-Christian religions.” Learn more at IWillGo2020.org.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought:

It is very significant that Paul in Hebrews used the Sabbath rest, and not Sunday, as a symbol of the salvation through grace that God offers us. The use of Sabbath rest in this way implies that Sabbath was cherished and observed by believers. From the second century A.D. forward, however, we find evidences of a decisive change in the church.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

Sabbath observance ceased to be considered a symbol of salvation and was, instead, considered a symbol of allegiance to Judaism and the old covenant, one that had to be avoided. To keep the Sabbath became the equivalent of to “Judaize.” For example, Ignatius of Antioch (around A.D. 110) remarked: “Those who lived according to the old order have found the new hope. They no longer observe the Sabbath but the day of the Lord — the day our life was resurrected with Christ.” — Jacques B. Doukhan, Israel and the Church: Two Voices for the Same God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), p. 42. Similarly, Marcion ordered his followers to fast on Sabbath as a sign of rejection of the Jews and their God, and Victorinus did not want to appear that he “observed the Sabbath of the Jews” (See Israel and the Church, pages 41-45). It was the loss of the understanding of Sabbath observance as a symbol of salvation by grace that led to its demise in the Christian church.

“The Sabbath is a sign of Christ’s power to make us holy. And it is given to all whom Christ makes holy. As a sign of His sanctifying power, the Sabbath is given to all who through Christ become a part of the Israel of God. …

The Sabbath points them to the works of creation as an evidence of His mighty power in redemption. While it calls to mind the lost peace of Eden, it tells of peace restored through the Saviour. And every object in nature repeats His invitation, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ Matthew 11:28.” — Ellen G. White,  The Desire of Ages, pages 288, 289.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

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