Key Thought : The proper response to the Lord’s nearness consists in a life of faith to Him and obedience to His commandments. God acts on behalf of those who call on Him.
January 27, 2024

1. Have a volunteer read Psalm 139:1-18.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. How does this text show us God’s power, presence, and goodness?
3. Personal Application: What circumstances could cause us to lose our confidence in God?” Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “Because God knows everything about us, even our darkest thoughts and secrets, isn’t that frightening and scary?” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Psalm 17:7-9, 31:1-3, 91:2-7.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What does the psalmist do in times of trouble?
3. Personal Application: How do we deal with troubled times when we can’t see the Lord’s protection? Share your thoughts
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “What does it mean that God hears our prayers? Does that mean He will do something in response? That He will work to answer our prayers? Why don’t we see the response or answers to our prayers very often?” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read I Corinthians 10:1-4.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. How does Paul describe the Exodus story? What does he seek to teach with it?
3. Personal Application: What are some of the spiritual dangers we face as believers, and how can we learn to lean on God’s power to protect us from these dangers? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your neighbors states: “Why does Paul say that it was Jesus who led Israel out of Egypt? Jesus didn’t even exist back then. He wasn’t born until the time of Rome.” How would you respond to your relative?

4. Have a volunteer read Psalm 3:4, 14:7, 20:1-3.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. Where does help come from according to these verses?
3. Personal Application: How does understanding the sanctuary and its purpose give us hope and help in times of trouble? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

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Daily Lesson for Monday 22nd of January 2024

The Lord reveals Himself in Scripture as the living God who acts on behalf of those who call upon Him.

For the psalmist, “the Lord [is] always before me” (Psalms 16:8). Therefore, he trusts God and calls upon Him (Psalms 7:1, Psalms 9:10). The Lord will hear him even when he cries out of the “depths” (Psalms 130:1-2), conveying that no life circumstance escapes God’s sovereign dominion. Thus, the psalmist’s cry, no matter how urgent, is never devoid of hope.

Image © Pacific Press at Goodsalt.com

Psalms 121:1-8, meanwhile, celebrates the power of the Creator in the faithful individual’s life. This power includes:

1. “He will not allow your foot to be moved” (Psalms 121:3, NKJV). The image of “foot” is often descriptive of one’s life journey (Psalms 66:9, Psalms 119:105, Proverbs 3:23). The Hebrew word for “move” describes the security that God gives to the world (Psalms 93:1) and to Zion (Psalms 125:1).

2. The image of the Lord as Israel’s Keeper who does not slumber nor sleep highlights the Lord’s constant alertness and readiness to act on behalf of His children (Psalms 121:3-4).

3. The Lord is “your shade” (Psalms 121:5-6, NKJV) calls to mind the pillar of cloud in the time of the Exodus (Exodus 13:21-22). Similarly, the Lord provides physical and spiritual shelter to His people.

4. God is at their right hand (Psalms 121:5). The right hand typically designates a person’s stronger hand, the hand of action (Psalms 74:11, Psalms 89:13). Here it conveys God’s nearness and favor (Psalms 16:8, Psalms 109:31, Psalms 110:5).

5. God’s protection of His people is clearly confirmed in Psalms 121:6-8. God shall preserve His children from all evil. Neither “the sun” nor “the moon” shall strike them. God shall preserve their “going out” and “coming in.” These poetic figures underscore God’s comprehensive, unceasing care.

The bottom line? The psalmist trusted in God’s loving care. We, of course, should do the same.

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Daily Lesson for Sunday 21st of January 2024

Image © Jeff Preston at Goodsalt.com

Did you ever want to help someone but had no means? Likewise, some people tried to help you but did not understand your needs. Unlike even the most loving and best-intentioned people, God has both the perfect knowledge of us and of our circumstances, and also the means to help us. Therefore, His promises of help and deliverance are not shallow platitudes but firm assurances.

God’s knowledge of the psalmist is so great and unique that even his mother’s womb could not hide him from God (Psalms 139:13, 15). Divine knowledge pertains to time (Psalms 139:2), inner being (Psalms 139:2, 4), and space (Psalms 139:3)—the psalmist’s entire existence. God’s wonderful knowledge is the result of His creatorship and close acquaintance with people and is manifest in His care for them.

This wonderful truth about God knowing us intimately should not scare us but instead drive us into the arms of Jesus and what He has accomplished for us at the Cross. For by faith in Jesus, we have been given His righteousness, “the righteousness of God” Himself (Romans 3:5,21).

God’s presence is highlighted by depicting God as reaching as far as “hell” (sheol, “grave”) and “darkness” (Psalms 139:8,11-12), places not typically depicted as where God dwells (Psalms 56:13). His presence also is depicted as taking “the wings of the morning” (east) to reach “the uttermost parts of the sea” (west) (Psalms 139:9). What these images convey is the truth that there is no place in the universe where we can be out of God’s reach. Though God is not part of the universe, as some believe, He is close to it all, having not only created it but sustaining it, as well (see Hebrews 1:3).

As the One who knows all about us, God can help and restore us. The fresh realization of His greatness prompts an outburst of praise and renewed trust in the psalmist. He welcomes divine scrutiny as the means that can remove from his life anything that troubles his relationship with God.

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Daily Lesson for Saturday 20th of January 2024

Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study

Psalms 139:1-18; Psalms 121:1-8; Psalms 17:8; Matthew 23:37; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4; Hebrews 4:15-16.

Memory Text:

“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles” (Psalms 34:17, NKJV).

Again and again, the Psalms highlight the truth that the Sovereign Lord, who created and sustains the universe, also reveals Himself as a personal God who initiates and sustains a relationship with His people.

God is close to His people and to His creation, both in heaven and on earth (Psalms 73:23,25). Though He “has established His throne in heaven” (Psalms 103:19, NKJV) and “rides on the clouds” (Psalms 68:4, NKJV), He also is “near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Psalms 145:18, NKJV). The Psalms unswervingly uphold the truth that the Lord is the living God, who acts on behalf of those who call upon Him (Psalms 55:16-22). The Psalms are meaningful precisely because they are prompted by, and are addressed to, the living God, who hears and answers prayers.

We should remember that the proper response to the Lord’s nearness consists in a life of faith in Him and of obedience to His commandments. Nothing short of this faith and obedience will be acceptable to Him, as the history of Israel often revealed.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, January 27.

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Inside Story for Friday 19th of January 2024

By Andrew McChesney

Pedro was shocked at the greeting that he got when he returned from church services in Mozambique.

“Don’t go back to the Seventh-day Adventist church,” his sister said. “It’s not a good church because it has false prophets. If you go again, you can’t live here anymore.”

Worrisome thoughts filled Pedro’s head. Family problems in his hometown, Beira, had forced him to move 700 miles (1,140 kilometers) to his sister’s house in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo. Because he was new to town, he had missed a few worship services as he searched for an Adventist church. Now he had found a church, worshiped there for the first time, and returned home to find that his sister didn’t want him to go again.

Pedro prayed and kept going to church.

His sister stopped sharing her food with Pedro. She hoped that hunger would cause him to change his mind. But church members gave him food to eat.

Pedro thanked God for His care and kept going to church.

One Sabbath morning, as he was preparing to leave for church, his sister told him not to return.

“Are you still refusing to listen and insisting on going to your church?” she asked. “You don’t want to live here anymore because you don’t want to comply with the house rules.”

Pedro was sad but not discouraged. He realized that he wasn’t caught in a conflict with his sister but in a spiritual struggle between Jesus and Satan. He remembered Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (NKJV).

He went to church and asked the pastor and church members to pray for him. When he returned home later that day, he was kicked out.

A friend allowed Pedro to stay with him for two nights. Then a church member gave Pedro a job as the caretaker of his house in exchange for room and board.

Today, Pedro still works as a house caretaker, he is free to worship God every Sabbath, and he believes that God is working on his sister’s heart. Their friendship has been restored, and she no longer insists that he stop going to church on Sabbath. Pedro hopes that one day she will accept the whole Bible truth and learn to appreciate the inspired writings of Ellen White.

“I put on the armor of God,” he said. “I fought and won, and ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’ ” (Philippians 4:13).

Thank you for your Sabbath School mission offerings that help spread the good news of Jesus’ soon coming in Africa and around the world.

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