Daily Lesson for Tuesday 29th of April 2025

The dream of Daniel 2:1-49 was first presented to a Babylonian king. The vision of Daniel 7:1-28, in contrast, was presented to a Hebrew prophet, a member of God’s covenant people.

Daniel is shown the same subject as was Nebuchadnezzar but from a different perspective. Instead of a statue, he sees a series of nations rising up out of the sea, the result of wind churning up the water. These nations were in a continual state of strife, causing a perpetual shift in power among them. Such passages as Psalms 65:5-8; Isaiah 17:12-13; and Jeremiah 46:7-8 use the analogy of floods and waves to depict the tumult among the nations.

In contrast, the Promised Land existed, at least for a period of time, as an island of peace and safety amid a sea of Gentile kingdoms—a sacred nation established on the solid foundation of God’s government, as opposed to the unruly nations around it.

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

Daniel watches the chaos of Gentile warfare from the shore, when suddenly the beasts start coming up on the land_—into his territory! Gentile problems had now become his people’s problems. They had chosen to live _like Gentiles, so now they would live with (and under) Gentiles. Starting with Babylonian domination, God’s covenant people never again enjoyed complete or long-lasting autonomy.

This loss of autonomy for God’s people today will persist until the close of time, when Christ is finally restored to His rightful place as our King. In the New Testament, God’s people continued to suffer under the thumb of the Roman Empire and then under the persecutions of the little horn, pagan Rome’s successor.

Though, historically, some nations have been better than others, and some eras have been more peaceful than others, the vast majority of the history of nations, peoples, and empires has simply been going from one tragedy to another, from one oppressor to another. And often this is all done under rulers claiming only the best of intentions for their own people. What a contrast to the rule that God had wanted for His people, if only they would have chosen it.

<–Monday Wednesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-05-daniel-7/

Daily Lesson for Monday 28th of April 2025

It was during the Babylonian captivity, through the prophet Daniel, that God presented the most compelling descriptions we have of the relationship between His people and the kingdoms of this world. His people were no longer autonomous; they would now be reaping the consequences of their choices. (And, perhaps, learning from them?)

Image © Phil McKay at Goodsalt.com

At the end of the nineteenth century, many people were exuding a new confidence in human progress. The Paris Exposition (1900), for example, was a remarkable showcase of optimism about the future. Surely, with all of our technological and scientific advances, many of humanity’s worst problems would be at an end! As humanity entered the twentieth century, among many thinkers there was this great optimism that Enlightenment ideals—such as human perfectibility and the power of reason—would usher in a wonderful new era for humanity.

World War I, however, quickly shattered those dreams, and by the end of the twentieth century, we had lost more than 200 million people to warfare. We may have advanced in a technological sense, but certainly not in a moral one. To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., we have guided missiles but misguided men. And that’s a very scary combination.

Many students of prophecy have noticed that the metals in Daniel 2:1-49 move from most valuable to least valuable: gold devalues to silver, silver devalues to brass, and brass to iron, until we end up with only iron and clay.

Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and other nineteenth-century thinkers attempted to convince us that humanity is somehow tracking upward—that we are evolving biologically and socially. And though in some ways human existence has improved (at least at a physical level), who actually looks ahead to the future of this world, as it is now ruled and governed, with much optimism about peace, security, and prosperity?

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-05-daniel-2/

To learn of the Allusions, Images and Symbols in Bible Prophecy, we are really in great need of saying to God
Give Me The Bible – Hymn 272 so we are able to learn with His abundant help. This will be our theme for this, the second quarter of Bible Study, 2025.

As we have already looked at just a few verses from Revelation, it is now time to start delving into the book of Daniel, with a start on chapters 2 and 7, this week. Here we are able to look back at our pre-1985 SDA Hymnal and sing the old 
Number 497 – Dare To Be A Daniel. With this one in mind we can still include one from last week in our current SDA Hymnal, 
Once To Every Man And Nation – Hymn 606.

Daniel chapter 7 encourages us to 
Hail Him, The King Of Glory – Hymn 202, particularly in verse 2. From here, we are then able to go forward and have a solid foundation, so let us 
Build On The Rock – Hymn 531.

Just as “the remnant church was born in the New World (USA)”, as the Bible said would happen, we can once again say
For Your Holy Book We Thank You – Hymn 277.

Ellen G White’s statement on Friday ends so beautifully, reminding us to sing
When We All Get To Heaven – Hymn 633.

 Please continue to search the scriptures this week to be blessed and to bless others.

To learn unknown hymns, you will find the accompaniment music for each one at: https://sdahymnals.com/Hymnal/

Another great resource is for when there is a hymn you wish to sing but can’t find it in your hymnal. Go to https://www.sdahymnal.org/Search and in the search bar type a special word in that is in the hymn. I am sure you will be amazed at the help you will be given.

2 Timothy 2:15 KJV – “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/5-the-nations-part-2-singing-with-inspiration/

Daily Lesson for Sunday 27th of April 2025

The Garden of Eden was a classroom for God’s first people, a place where their interaction with the creation would endlessly teach them and their offspring more about the Creator. “The holy pair were not only children under the fatherly care of God,” Ellen G. White pointed out, “but students receiving instruction from the all-wise Creator. . . . The mysteries of the visible universe—‘the wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge’ (Job 37:16)—afforded them an exhaustless source of instruction and delight.”—Patriarchs and Prophets, Pages 50, 51.

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

The first use of the root verb tswh, “to command,” that God gave to humans was in Genesis 2:16-17, the command not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. How can some knowledge be forbidden? Isn’t it always useful to experience and to know more?

Not according to Scripture: God was intent on educating His people thoroughly while sparing them from the long-term suffering that some knowledge would cause, such as what would later happen when people chose to rule themselves rather than to be ruled by the Lord Himself.

Millennia later, when Israel asked for a king, the Lord laid out the consequences (as we discovered last week), and He informed His people that the decision to step away from His direct rule would last until the end of time.

As the kings of Israel became progressively more wicked, God’s cove­nant people became so worldly and so removed from their purpose that He gave them even more of what they wanted: human government.

Approaching the book of Daniel with this background in mind can be enlightening. Not only is the march of empires depicted in the book’s visions an indictment of “the nations”—the Gentiles—it is also an indictment of Israel’s failures, their refusal to follow His _mitswot _(commandments). Centuries of subjection, instead of the freedom first given in Eden, would become a new classroom in which willing hearts could witness the striking contrast between the kingdoms of this world and God’s kingdom.

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-05-the-very-first-commandment/

Daily Lesson for Sabbath 26th of April 2025

Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study: Genesis 2:9-17; Daniel 2:31-35; Isaiah 17:12-13; Daniel 7:1-3; Romans 3:10-19; Revelation 12:15-16; Revelation 10:1-11.

Memory Text:

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalms 46:10, NKJV).

Through the centuries, some people have argued that God wanted the Fall, that it was His intention for humans to descend into sin and death and thus lead Him—in the person of Jesus—to the cross. After all, how else could He have so powerfully and graphically displayed the depth of His love for humanity than by dying on the cross for them? In short, the thinking goes, God needed humanity to fall.

That is a horrible and wretched position to take. It was never God’s intention for either Satan or humanity to fall. The rebellion of Satan, and then of humanity, was a tragedy of immense consequence, and our joy in Him would have remained complete had our first parents not fallen.

This week, we will continue looking at the problems caused by the Fall and the desire for human government as opposed to God’s gover­nance. These truths are powerfully revealed in the book of Daniel, which shows that God was right when He warned His people about what would happen when they turned away from Him and chose earthly monarchs instead. This is exactly what they got: earthly monarchs and sinners lording it over sinners—never a good combination.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, May 3.

Sunday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-05-the-nations-part-2/