Daily Lesson for Sunday 17th of March 2024

Psalms 134:1-3 recalls the Aaronic priestly blessing in Numbers 6:24-26 (also Psalms 67:1) and highlights blessing as the underlying principle and outcome of the relationship between God and Israel.

Image © Steve Creitz at Goodsalt.com

The people bless God in the sanctuary, and God blesses His people from Zion. The blessings extend to all of life because the Lord is the Creator of heaven and earth. The mention of Zion as the place of divine special blessings underlines the Lord’s covenantal bond with His people. It is thus within the covenant of grace that Israel exercises the privilege to bless the Lord and is blessed by Him.

The Psalms often depict the worshipers as the servants of the Lord. “Who by night stand in the house of the Lord” (Psalms 134:1, NKJV) likely refers to the night guard of the Levites (1 Chronicles 9:23-27) or to the praise that was offered to God by the Levites both day and night (1 Chronicles 9:33).

Because the Israelites worshiped the invisible God, who could not be represented in the form of any image, the sanctuary served to reflect the glory of the Lord and provide a secure environment for sinful people to approach their holy King. This encounter is initiated by the Lord Himself and is regulated by His statutes and decrees.

“Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5, NKJV). What we see here, in the words of Peter, is a New Testament expression of the same ideas presented in these psalms, that of God’s people, now a holy priesthood, offering praise and thanksgiving to their Lord Jesus Christ, their Creator and Redeemer, for all the good things that He had done for them.

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Daily Lesson for Saturday 16th of March 2024

Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study

Psalms 134:1-3; Isaiah 42:10-12; Revelation 14:3; Psalms 15:1-5; Psalms 101:1-3; Psalms 96:1-13; Revelation 14:6-12; John 4:23-24.

Memory Text:

“I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being” (Psalms 104:33, NKJV).

As our experience of God’s grace and power increases, we are prompted to ask with the psalmist: “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?” (Psalms 116:12, NKJV). The inevitable reply is to devote one’s life to being faithful to God.

In the Psalms, Israel is not simply a nation but “the great assembly” (Psalms 22:22,25, NKJV; Psalms 35:18). This reveals Israel’s primary calling to praise God and to bear witness about Him to other nations because the Lord wants all the world to join His people in worship. The Lord’s people are identified with the righteous, who worship the Lord and whose hope is in Him and in His love.

Praising the Lord in the congregation is perceived as ideal worship. This does not mean that the prayer and praise of the individual in Israel assume a secondary meaning. By contrast, the individual’s worship of God feeds the communal worship with renewed praise (Psalms 22:22,25) while in turn individual worship develops its fullest potential in close relationship with the community. The worshiping community also is called the “assembly of the upright” (Psalms 111:1). The upright know God (Psalms 36:10) and are known by God (Psalms 37:18), and this experience permeates every aspect of their existence.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, March 23.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24a-12-worship-that-never-ends/

Is this True or False? The relieving of stress is fundamental to our longing for God. Join us as we discuss Lesson 11 – Longing for God in Zion.

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Inside Story for Friday 15th of March 2024

By Andrew McChesney

Returning to the barracks after a short stint of shoveling coal on a mountain, Sekule informed his commander that he would not bear arms, even in the ongoing Bosnian War.

“I don’t want to shoot people,” he said.

“You must take a weapon,” the commander insisted. “Otherwise, you will have to serve two years instead of one.” Noncombatants were required to serve two years rather than one in the army.

“I don’t care,” Sekule said. “I won’t carry a weapon.”

The commander sent Sekule to an intelligence officer. Only soldiers who were in deep trouble were sent to the officer. He could imprison soldiers.

Sekule explained his position to the officer.

“Fine,” the officer said. “Take a gun and, if you are sent to the front, give it back. That way you will serve only one year instead of two.”

“What do you mean?” Sekule said.

“Agree to carry a gun during training, but the training that you will receive will be on teleprinters instead of the shooting range,” the officer said.

Sekule agreed. He was assigned to office work, helping run military communications by typing on a teleprinter.

The Sabbath turned out to be a bigger challenge than guns for Sekule. Because of the war, Sekule needed to be trained quickly to work on a teleprinter. But he refused to attend training sessions on Sabbath.

Food, also, was a challenge. Military rations were prepared with lard. Sekule’s parents refused to send money for food because they hoped he would change his diet.

Sekule prayed, “Please bless me like You blessed Daniel. He decided not to eat unclean food, and I want to do the same.”

Sekule’s commander didn’t know what to do.

“You won’t work on Saturday?” he asked.

“No,” Sekule said.

“Do you have any suggestions about what we can do?”

“No.”

“You won’t eat meat?”

“No.”

“Do you have any suggestions about what we can do?”

“No.”

The only thing Sekule could eat was bread and tea. In four months, he lost 50 pounds (23 kilograms), dropping to 137 pounds (85 kilograms). He was skin and bones.

Sekule Sekuli´c is an affluent entrepreneur and faithful Seventh-day Adventist in Montenegro. Read more of his story next week. Thank you for your Sabbath School mission offerings that help spread the good news of Jesus’ soon coming in Montenegro and around the world.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24a-11-inside-story-skin-and-bones-part-7/

Daily Lesson for Friday 15th of March 2024

Contemplate the message of Isaiah 40:1-31 and Isaiah 51:1-16.

The songs of Zion make an absolute commitment to staying mindful of Zion and the living hope in God’s sovereign reign that it represents. While many blessings of God’s sanctuary are experienced in this life, the hope in the fullness of life and joy in Zion is still in the future. Many of God’s children long for the heavenly Zion with tears (Psalms 137:1). To remember Zion implies not merely an occasional thought but also a deliberate mindfulness and decision to live in accordance with that living memory (Exodus 13:3, Exodus 20:8).

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

Therefore, singing the songs of Zion carries a passionate resolve to keep alive the hope in the restoration of God’s kingdom on the new earth (Revelation 21:1-5). “There, immortal minds will contemplate with never-failing delight the wonders of creative power, the mysteries of redeeming love. There is no cruel, deceiving foe to tempt to forgetfulness of God. Every faculty will be developed, every capacity increased. The acquirement of knowledge will not weary the mind or exhaust the energies. There the grandest enterprises may be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations reached, the highest ambitions realized; and still there will arise new heights to surmount, new wonders to admire, new truths to comprehend, fresh objects to call forth the powers of mind and soul and body.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 677.

A commitment not to forget Zion is an implicit pledge of the Lord’s pilgrims that they will never accept this world as their homeland but await the new heavens and the new earth.

Thus, the psalms of Zion can be sung by believers of all generations who long to live in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 3:12). The songs of Zion encourage us to anticipate the future world with hope, but they also oblige us to be agents of God’s grace in this present world.

Discussion Questions

1. How do we take the spiritual and theological principles that centered on God’s people in Zion, a literal place in Jerusalem, and apply them to the church and its mission to the world?
2. How can believers abide in God’s sanctuary today? (John 1:14-18, Hebrews 12:22-24).
3. How will Zion become the city of all nations as envisioned in Psalms 87:1-7? (Romans 5:10, Ephesians 2:11-16, Colossians 1:19-23).
4. How do you answer the person who points to the reality of the wicked prospering in this world while many “good” people suffer? What do you say? Why is it important to acknowledge that we don’t have full answers for everything here now?

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