Daily Lesson for Tuesday 1st of April 2025

It is not uncommon to hear preachers use Daniel 12:4 to predict the rise of technological and scientific knowledge just prior to the advent of Christ. Many also use it to describe the advances in rapid travel that have taken place over the past century or so. Many of our own books have taken this approach. Though certainly reasonable interpretations, it might mean something else, as well.

Read the passage again. The angel’s instruction to Daniel begins with an injunction to “shut up the words, and seal the book.” The subject being discussed is the book of Daniel itself. Perhaps, then, could that knowledge which would suddenly increase at the end of time be knowledge of the book of Daniel itself?

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

This makes the book of Daniel somewhat different from Revelation, in that John was told not to seal his book (Revelation 22:10). Revelation was meant to be understood from the first, because “ ‘the time [was] at hand.’ ” In contrast, Daniel would be understood more clearly at some point in the distant future.

Over the centuries, many fine Christian thinkers attempted to explain the book of Daniel, and some made great headway. Understanding of Daniel increased rapidly, however, after the end of the 1,260–year prophecy, which ended in 1798, when multiple expositors around the globe started concluding that something spectacular was going to happen around 1843. The most notable of these, however, was William Miller, whose preaching launched the Great Advent Movement of the nineteenth century and began a chain of events that would give birth to the “remnant” church and a clear understanding of the three angels’ messages.

The birth of our global movement, in other words, is a fulfillment of Daniel’s prediction that “knowledge shall increase” at “the time of the end.”

In contrast, and without judging people’s salvation, think about the “darkness” that so much of Christendom exists in. Something as basic as the seventh-day Sabbath, established in Eden, is ignored, even dismissed, in favor of Sunday, a day rooted in Roman paganism. Or think of the utter ignorance about death, with the vast majority of Christians believing the pagan idea that the dead immediately go soaring off to another existence, which for some means an eternally burning hell.

In contrast, we should be thankful—and humbled—by the knowledge of the truth.

<–Monday Wednesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-01-daniel-shut-up-the-words/

View an in-depth discussion of Some Principles of Prophecy in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris.
Click on the image below to view the video:

With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/1-some-principles-of-prophecy-hope-sabbath-school-video-discussion/

Join It Is Written Sabbath School host Eric Flickinger and this quarter’s author, Shawn Boonstra, as they provide additional insights into this week’s Sabbath School lesson.”

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/1-some-principles-of-prophecy-it-is-written-discussions-with-the-author/

Daily Lesson for Monday 31st of March 2025

Nothing is quite as frustrating as urgently needing to communicate, perhaps at a clinic or pharmacy, while in a foreign country where you barely speak the language. You know what you need to say, but you do not have an adequate vocabulary to say it.

With God, a different problem emerges. “ ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth,’ ” He says, “ ‘so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’ ” (Isaiah 55:9, NKJV). The problem isn’t that God doesn’t have the vocabulary to communicate with us; the problem is that we don’t have the vocabulary or intellectual capacity to understand Him fully.

What do the following passages suggest about God’s understanding in comparison to our own?

The truth of the matter is that we will never fully understand the mind of God because He is infinite and omniscient. After all, we can barely understand everything about the creation; how would we fully understand its Creator? We can’t.

Image © The Classic Bible Art Collection – Formerly Standard Publishing at Goodsalt.com

Though we will never understand everything, we can understand what is necessary for our salvation. (See 2 Timothy 3:14-15.) When the apostles explained the gospel to their audiences, they frequently referred to fulfilled prophecy, from which we can deduce that one of the key purposes of prophecy is to illustrate the plan of salvation. Indeed, in the end, Bible prophecy must ultimately, in one way or another, lead us to Jesus and the promise of salvation that He offers to all humanity.

After all, the Lord, through whom all things were created (see Colossians 1:16, John 1:1-3), comes down to this earth and then offers Himself as a sacrifice on the cross for the sins of every human being, even the most wretched. That is how much God loves all of us. Having done all that for us, the Lord would obviously want everyone, wretches included, to know what He offers us in Jesus. And prophecy can do just that.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-01-god-wants-to-be-understood/