Closer To Heaven
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Join the Hit the Mark panel as they discuss Sabbath School Lesson 11 – Taken and Tried. It’s the fastest hour of the week!
(0)Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/taken-and-tried-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school/
Daily Lesson for Thursday 12th of September 2024
Mark 14:53-59 describes Jesus being brought to the Sanhedrin and the first part of the trial. It is an exercise in frustration. Again and again, the leaders try to make their accusation against Jesus stick. The Gospel writer notes how the testimony was false and the witnesses never agreed.
Finally, the high priest arises and addresses Jesus directly. At first Jesus does not respond. But then the high priest places Him under oath before God (see Matthew 26:63) and asks the direct question if He is the Messiah.
Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com
Jesus frankly and openly admits that He is and then references Daniel 7:13-14, regarding the Son of man as seated at God’s right hand and coming with the clouds of heaven. This is too much for the high priest, who tears his robes and calls for Jesus’ condemnation, which the council immediately gives. The leaders begin to shame Jesus by spitting on Him, covering His face, beating Him, and calling on Him to prophesy.
While Jesus is inside being tried and giving a faithful testimony, Peter is outside giving a lying report. This is the sixth and final sandwich story in Mark, and here the irony is particularly pointed. Here are two parallel characters, Jesus and Peter, doing opposite actions. Jesus gives a faithful testimony, Peter a false one. Three times Peter is accosted by a servant or bystanders, and each time he denies association with Jesus, even cursing and swearing in the process.
It is at this point that a rooster crows a second time, and Peter suddenly remembers Jesus’ prophecy that he would deny his Lord three times that very night. He breaks down and weeps. Here is the striking irony—at the end of His trial, Jesus is blindfolded and struck and commanded to “prophesy!” The idea was to mock Him since He could not see who struck Him. However, at the very time they do this, Peter is denying Jesus in the courtyard below, fulfilling one of Jesus’ prophecies. Consequently, in denying Jesus, Peter demonstrates that Jesus is the Messiah.
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What words of hope would you give to someone who, though wanting to follow Jesus, fails at times to do so? Who of us has not, at times, failed to follow what we know Jesus wants? |
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Join It Is Written Sabbath School host Eric Flickinger and this quarter’s author, Dr. Thomas R. Shepherd, as they provide additional insights into this week’s Sabbath School lesson, “The Beginning of the Gospel.”
(0)Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/11-taken-and-tried-it-is-written-discussions-with-the-author/
View an in-depth discussion of Taken and Tried 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.
(0)Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/11-taken-and-tried-hope-sabbath-school-video-discussion/
Daily Lesson for Wednesday 11th of September 2024
It is shocking that one of Jesus’ closest associates betrayed Him to His enemies. The Gospels do not go into great detail about Judas’s motivation. But Ellen G. White writes: “Judas had naturally a strong love for money; but he had not always been corrupt enough to do such a deed as this. He had fostered the evil spirit of avarice until it had become the ruling motive of his life. The love of mammon overbalanced his love for Christ. Through becoming the slave of one vice he gave himself to Satan, to be driven to any lengths in sin.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 716.
Image © Lifeway Collection at Goodsalt.com
Betrayal in itself is deplored by all, even by those who make use of betrayers (compare with Matthew 27:3-7). But Judas’s deed is particularly nefarious because he seeks to hide his betrayal under the guise of friendship. He gives the crowd instruction that the man he kisses is the man to arrest. It appears that Judas wanted to hide his perfidy from Jesus and the other disciples.
Chaos breaks out when the crowd arrests Jesus. Someone draws a sword (John 18:10-11 says it was Peter) and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Jesus addresses the mob, chastising them for doing in secret what they were afraid to do in the open when He was teaching in the temple. But Jesus ends with a reference to the Scriptures being fulfilled. It is another signal of that dual plot running through the Passion Narrative—that the will of God is coming to fulfillment even as the will of man works to destroy the Messiah.
The disciples all flee, including Peter, who nevertheless will reappear, following Jesus at a distance and ending up getting himself in trouble. But Mark 14:51-52 tells of a young man following Jesus, an account found here and nowhere else in the canonical Gospels. Some think it was Mark himself, but that is unprovable. What is remarkable is that he runs away naked. The young man, instead of leaving all to follow Jesus, leaves all to flee from Jesus.
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Think about the fearful idea that being a slave of only one vice led Judas to do what he did. What should this tell us about hating sin and, by God’s grace, overcoming it? |
(1)Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24c-11-leaving-all-to-flee-from-jesus/
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