Inside Story for Friday 11th of April 2025

By Andrew McChesney

No cow stood in the yard when Mother returned home from the market.

Mother looked around the yard. No cow. She knew her two small children were waiting for her in the house. Tears filled her eyes. How could she tell them that the cow, their only source of income, had been stolen? Without the cow, they would die.

Image © Pacific Press

Mother decided not to tell the children. She didn’t want them to see her tears. Walking over to some bushes, she poured out her heart to God. She reminded Him that her husband, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, had been arrested for keeping the Sabbath and sentenced to eight years of hard labor far from their home in the then-southern Soviet republic of Tajikistan. She thanked God for the now stolen cow, whose milk she had traded for flour, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and cucumbers at the village market.

“What next?” she wept. “How can my children and I survive?”

As she cried and prayed, she looked at the bushes and saw something caught in the branches. She looked closer and saw that it was a banknote for a large sum of money. “Thank You, God!” she prayed. “You have sent money to buy another cow.”

Mother dried her tears and returned to the market to look for another cow. But every seller wanted more money than she had found in the bushes.

Finally, a man agreed to lower his price.

“I’ll give you my cow for the amount of money that you have,” he said.

It was the smallest, scrawniest cow in the market.

Mother handed over the money and took the cow home.

“God, this cow is in Your hands,” she prayed.

At home, Mother fed the cow, and the two children played with it. With food and love, the cow grew and grew. Before long, it was producing twice as much milk as the cow that was stolen.

“God saved our lives during this difficult time,” said Liubov Brunton, the granddaughter of the mother in the story.

She said the miracle with the milk serves as a powerful reminder that God protects and cares for His mission workers, no matter where and when they serve. But the story of the cow didn’t end there. Liubov’s grandmother was about to witness another miracle. Read about it next week.

Thank you for your mission offerings that support the spread of the gospel around the world.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-02-inside-story-the-milk-miracle/

Daily Lesson for Friday 11th of April 2025

Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “The Revelation,” Pages 578–581, in The Acts of the Apostles.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

Many world religions simply deal with ideas; in powerful contrast, the ideas found in the Christian religion are anchored firmly in historical events. The Bible is the story of God’s interacting with humanity throughout history, and by studying thousands of years of such interactions, we can learn much about the consistent character of God.

Sometimes, however, Christians complain that they are getting tired of hearing the same things. Sometimes, when our distinctive prophetic message is being preached publicly, we think that we already have heard it and have nothing new to learn.

The fact that our message is unchanging and consistent, however, does not mean that it is simplistic or unchallenging. Quite the opposite: when you are studying information relayed to us from the mind of an infinite God, you quickly discover that you will never reach the end of a subject.

Ellen G. White states that one of the reasons the book of Revelation was written was to anchor the Christian church in its historical message for all time. “Some of the younger workers [at that time] . . . had become weary of oft-repeated truths. In their desire for something novel and startling they attempted to introduce new phases of doctrine.”—The Acts of the Apostles, p. 580. To that extent, it is not merely a book about the future; it is also a book about the past, designed to keep us rooted in our historical faith so that we are not led astray by a desire to seek originality.

Discussion Questions

<–Thursday

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-02-further-thought-the-genesis-foundation/

Join the Hit the Mark panel as they discuss Sabbath School Lesson 2 – The Genesis Foundation. It’s the fastest hour of the week!

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/the-genesis-foundation-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school/

Daily Lesson for Thursday 10th of April 2025

The issue of worship is a key subject in the book of Revelation. The perpetrator and enabler of false systems of worship is identified as the “dragon” (Revelation 13:2-4), and the serpentine description of this fallen cherub is no accident. It clearly points us back to the Garden of Eden, where a serpent entered Paradise and persuaded Adam and Eve to follow him into rebellion against the Creator.

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

There are two accounts in the Scriptures in which Satan leads the whole world astray. In Genesis, at a moment when there were only two people in existence; and then in the account given in Revelation 12:1-17 and 13, in which Satan is identified as the one who “deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12:9) and as the one who enables the sea beast power so that “all the world” marvels and follows it (Revelation 13:2-3). One of the themes found in Bible prophecy is the unchanging nature of the great controversy. God’s character and Word do not change, and neither do the ambitions of the devil.

Fortunately, because the nature of the great controversy does not change, and because we have clear reference points in the prophetic Scriptures, Christians are able to sift through trends and begin to recog­nize where spiritual pitfalls might lie. God will always be who He is, and the same is true of the devil. Satan may wear a thousand disguises, but millennia of fallen human history, coupled with the prophetic scenario painted in Revelation, demonstrate that he never strays from the game plan he used in Eden. God has promised us wisdom and discernment (James 1:5), and armed with the certainty of the Scriptures, we need not fall for the devil’s lies. Unfortunately, many have fallen for them, and many more—the majority—will, as well.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-02-the-serpent/

View an in-depth discussion of The Genesis Foundation 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/2-the-genesis-foundation-hope-sabbath-school-video-discussion/