Daily Lesson for Tuesday 7th of May 2024

By a.d. 538, the pagan Roman Empire had collapsed. Justinian, the Roman emperor, surrendered civil, political, and religious authority to Pope Vigillis. The long period of the medieval church’s domination began. It continued until a.d. 1798. The French general Berthier, on orders from Napoleon, marched unopposed into Rome on February 10, 1798. Pope Pius VI was taken captive and brought back to France, where he died. This date marks the prophetically predicted end of the Roman Church’s secular authority, the 1,260 days or years as depicted in Daniel and Revelation (see yesterday’s study).

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

What a powerful manifestation of the truth of biblical prophecy! Daniel, writing more than 500 years before Christ, so accurately predicted events more than 2,300 years later. We can, indeed, trust the prophecies given in the Bible.

Meanwhile, during all this, the truth of the gospel was kept alive by the witness of the Word. But even greater challenges threatened biblical truth. The beast that ascended from the bottomless pit (Satan) made war against the Scriptures. He initiated new assaults on the Bible’s authority through the French Revolution that began in 1789.

In the French Revolution, the government officially established the Cult of Reason as a state-sponsored atheistic religion, intended to replace Christianity. A Festival of Reason was held nationwide on November 10, 1793. Churches across France were turned into Temples of Reason, and a living woman was enthroned as the Goddess of Reason. Bibles were burned in the streets. God was declared nonexistent, and death was pronounced to be an endless sleep. Satan worked through godless men to kill God’s two witnesses. Their dead bodies would “lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11:8, NKJV).

Egypt was a culture of many gods that denied the true God (see Exodus 5:2). Sodom represents gross immorality. In the French Revolution, God’s two witnesses—the Old and New Testaments—lay dead as a result of the atheism and immorality that ran rampant as normal restraints were loosed in revolution and bloodshed.

Revelation 11:9 says that the bodies of God’s two witnesses would lie unburied for “three-and-a-half days” (NKJV), i.e., prophetic “days” representing three and a half literal years. Atheism was at its height in the French Revolution, at least for about three and a half years. This period extended from November 26, 1793, when a decree issued in Paris abolished religion, to June 17, 1797, when the French government removed its restrictive religious laws.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24b-06-the-two-witnesses-are-killed/

Key Thought: During the French Revolution, blood flowed through the streets. Atheism was the ste religion for three and a half years. Thousands were slaughtered, the Bible was banned and burned. But the Word of God could not be silenced.
May 11, 2024

1. Have a volunteer read Revelation 11:3-6.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. List five identifying features of the two witnesses in this prophecy.
3. Personal Application: What blessings do you get from reading the Old Testament? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “I am a New Testament Christian. The Old Testament is a history of the Jews under the Old Covenant. It is irrelevant and unnecessary for us today. I don’t read the Old Testament.” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Revelation 11:7-9.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What did the Bible predict would happen to these two witnesses?
3. Personal Application: What are some of the teachings that are based on tradition that are held by many Christians that are not based on the words of God? Share your thoughts
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “Why do you think the two witnesses are symbolic and not literal?. Why do you think the one thousand two hundred and sixty days are symbolic and not literal?” How would you respond to your friend?
   (Note: See Rev 12:5,6,14,15; Rev 11:2; Daniel 7:25.)

3. Have a volunteer read Revelation 11:11.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What prediction does this text make about the word of God? How was this fulfilled?
   (Note: During this time the American Bible Society and International Bible Societies were formed. Bibles were printed in thousands of languages and spread around the world.).
3. Personal Application:: What prophecies speak to you personally and why? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your neighbors states: “What are some ways that people today may be trying to kill the two witnesses or make them minister in sackcloth? Is there an attack on the Old and New Testaments today?” How would you respond to your neighbor?

4. Have a volunteer read Revelation 11:15-19.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What events take place when the seventh trumpet sounds at the close of time?
3. Personal Application: What did John see opened in heaven? What does this tell you? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/6-the-two-witnesses-teaching-plan/