Inside Story for Friday 3rd of January 2025

By Andrew McChesney

Kneeling before a South Korean student, I asked if he had any prayer requests before I washed his feet during a Communion service at the Moscow International Seventh-day Adventist Church in Russia.

“Pray for North Korea,” said the student, who was studying at a Moscow university. “The gospel needs to reach the North for Jesus to return.”

Image © Pacific Press

With that prayer request in 2006, I learned about a special burden that Seventh-day Adventists from South Korea carry for their brothers and sisters in the North. Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14, NKJV). South Korean Adventists see the North as a final frontier in the church’s mission to proclaim the gospel to the world, and today many are prayerfully seeking ways to open the Bamboo Curtain.

The Adventist Church’s work started in the North in 1904 and then spread to the South. Today, the church has 285,000 members living among 52 million in the South. But no Adventists are known to be in the North, which has a population of 26 million. Still, a trickle of information indicates that God has a people in the North, said Beom Seok Oh, a director at the Northern Asia-Pacific Division who oversees the church’s outreach to North Korea. During a trip to South Korea, he told me of a North Korean woman who drank a soy-sauce brew every Sabbath morning to get sick with a fever so she would be excused from mandatory Saturday work. When she was jailed, she smuggled a Bible into prison and buried it in the ground, furtively digging it up to read. Later, she managed to slip over the border to South Korea, where she could worship God freely. Church leaders are preparing for when the northern border will open. When it does, they intend to send missionaries into the country.

In the meantime, South Korean Adventists are caring for North Korean defectors. A deacon and his wife regularly visited a new defector, helping him clean his apartment, prepare meals, and submit government paperwork. After six months, the defector declared belief in God, said Chang-Seop Lee (pictured), pastor of the deacon and his wife’s church.

Another defector couldn’t sleep as he thought about his wife and children in the North. Pastor Lee prayed with him, and afterward, the defector acknowledged that he believed in God and had read the Bible in the North. The incident reenergized the pastor’s resolve to assist defectors. “I believe that we can expand our reach to the North by starting with the people whom we can meet today,” he said.

Pray for North Korea. Thank you for planning a generous Thirteenth Sabbath Offering on March 29 to further the spread of the gospel in the Northern Asia-Pacific Division.

(0)

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-01-inside-story-opening-the-bamboo-curtain/

Daily Lesson for Friday 3rd of January 2025

Read Ellen G. White, “ ‘To Meet the Bridegroom,’ ” Pages 405–421, in Christ’s Object Lessons.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

“It is the darkness of misapprehension of God that is enshrouding the world. Men are losing their knowledge of His character. It has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. At this time a message from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and saving in its power. His character is to be made known. Into the darkness of the world is to be shed the light of His glory, the light of His goodness, mercy, and truth.

“This is the work outlined by the prophet Isaiah in the words, ‘O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.’ Isaiah 40:9-10.

“Those who wait for the Bridegroom’s coming are to say to the people, ‘Behold your God.’ The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them.

“The light of the Sun of Righteousness is to shine forth in good works—in words of truth and deeds of holiness.”—Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, Pages 415, 416.

Discussion Questions

<–Thursday

(0)

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-01-further-thought-god-loves-freely/

View an in-depth discussion of God Loves Freely 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.

(2)

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/1-god-loves-freely-hope-sabbath-school-video-discussion/

Join the Hit the Mark panel as they discuss Sabbath School Lesson 1 – God Loves Freely – Hit the Mark Sabbath School. It’s the fastest hour of the week!

(0)

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/god-loves-freely-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school/

Daily Lesson for Thursday 2nd of January 2025

God invites everyone into a love relationship with Him, but only those who freely accept the invitation enjoy the eternal results. As seen in the parable of the wedding banquet, many whom the king called “ ‘were not willing to come’ ” (Matthew 22:3, NKJV).

Accordingly, shortly before His crucifixion, Christ lamented: “ ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!’ ” (Matthew 23:37, NKJV). Christ wanted to gather them, but they were not willing. The same common Greek verb that means “to will” (thelo) is used both of Christ’s wanting to save them and of their not being willing to be saved (and the same term is in Matthew 22:3  above, as well).

Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com

Yet, Christ went to the cross for these people and for us. Amazing love! While human sin merits death, God Himself (in Christ) paid the price and has made a way to repair the ruptured relationship between heaven and earth. Meanwhile, He continues to bestow His love on us, though He is under no obligation beyond His own free commitment to do so.

In the ultimate display of God’s love—the Cross—we see that Christ gave Himself for us of His own free will. Christ laid down His life of His “own initiative.” No one took His life from Him; He freely offered it, according to the plan of redemption agreed upon in heaven before the foundation of the world.

“The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of ‘the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.’ Romans 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God’s throne. From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, ‘that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ John 3:16.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 22.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

(0)

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-01-crucified-for-us/