Inside Story for Friday 7th of June 2024

By Andrew McChesney

The Nigerian town of Umuacha is located at a strategic crossroads. The town boasts a big market that attracts daily crowds from neighboring towns. But it lacked a Seventh-day Adventist church.

The absence of an Adventist church was astonishing because Adventist churches had been established more than 70 years earlier in all of the surrounding towns. Even the headquarters of the Adventist Church’s Aba North Conference was located nearby. But Umuacha had no church.

Why?

The first church opened in Umuacha more than 80 years earlier, and it resolved to be the only church in town. As the years passed, however, townspeople sold their land to outsiders who, in turn, constructed their own churches. The oldest church accepted the newcomers, but all declared that Adventists, who worshiped on a different day, would never be welcome.

Adventist churches in the neighboring towns struggled to reach Umuacha. When they sought to organize evangelistic meetings, no one would give them a meeting place. Hopes were raised when the church in nearby Mba conducted a two-week evangelistic meeting outside the town and afterward opened a branch Sabbath School. But the Sabbath School closed after only three months. Later, Mba young people held Bible studies that brought several Umuacha families to the Mba church on Sabbaths. But the families stopped attending when their neighbors threw stones at them.

In 2021, the Aba North Conference laid new plans for evangelistic meetings in Umuacha but again struggled to find a site. One landowner agreed to host tent meetings but then abruptly changed his mind. Additional attempts provided unsuccessful that year and in 2022. It seemed hopeless.

Then a church member, Christian, made a new attempt to find a site. While searching, he met Chilaka, the owner of a school.

“You who are running around, what are you looking for?” the school owner asked.

“It seems that I am looking for you,” Christian replied.

After a discussion, the school owner offered the property for the meetings. Christian gratefully accepted.

For a month, Adventist preachers proclaimed the Word of God in Umuacha. They were joined by a medical team that cared for the sick. In the end, 29 precious souls were baptized. Then someone donated land, and an Adventist church opened in Umuacha.

“Today, the church is progressing to the glory of God,” said Caleb Uchenna Onyendi, evangelism director for the Aba North Conference.

God’s timing is perfect, he added, pointing to Exodus 9:5, which says, “Then the Lord appointed a set time, saying, ‘Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land’ ” (NKJV). The Lord did just that in the town of Umuacha.

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The post Inside Story: Unreached Town in Nigeria appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24b-10-inside-story-unreached-town-in-nigeria/

Daily Lesson for Friday 7th of June 2024

A recent book by Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven, is premised on the idea that, at death, the dead remain alive in some kind of conscious existence, with “near death experiences” (NDEs) being used as part of the “proof.” One example: “Another girl, who had an NDE during heart surgery, said she met her brother in the afterlife—which surprised her because she didn’t have a brother. When she later recovered and told her father, he revealed to her for the first time that she did, indeed, have a brother, but he had died before she was born.”—Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Books, 2021), p. 69. Strobel struggles, however, to harmonize the idea of an immediate afterlife with the clear biblical teaching that only when Christ returns do Christians receive their final reward.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

We have been warned: “Many will be confronted by the spirits of devils personating beloved relatives or friends and declaring the most dangerous heresies. These visitants will appeal to our tenderest sympathies and will work miracles to sustain their pretensions. We must be prepared to withstand them with the Bible truth that the dead know not anything and that they who thus appear are the spirits of devils.

“Just before us is ‘the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.’ Revelation 3:10. All whose faith is not firmly established upon the word of God will be deceived and overcome. Satan ‘works with all deceivableness of unrighteousness’ to gain control of the children of men, and his deceptions will continually increase. But he can gain his object only as men voluntarily yield to his temptations. Those who are earnestly seeking a knowledge of the truth and are striving to purify their souls through obedience, thus doing what they can to prepare for the conflict, will find, in the God of truth, a sure defense. ‘Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee’ (verse 10), is the Saviour’s promise. He would sooner send every angel out of heaven to protect His people than leave one soul that trusts in Him to be overcome by Satan.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 560.

Discussion Questions

1. What subtle spiritualistic influences might Satan be using to influence the mind? What role does mass media play?
2. How would you share your faith with a friend who just lost a loved one and believed that this person was in heaven? What is appropriate to say, and what is not appropriate?

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The post Friday: Further Thought – Spiritualism Exposed appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24b-10-further-thought-spiritualism-exposed/

Join the Hit the Mark panel as they discuss Lesson 10 – Spiritualism Exposed. It’s the fastest hour of the week!

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The post Spiritualism Exposed – Hit the Mark Sabbath School appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/spiritualism-exposed-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school/