Closer To Heaven
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Is this True, Somewhat True, or False? Understanding types and antitypes is essential to our spiritual growth. Join the Hit the Mark panel as they answer this and other questions from Sabbath School Lesson 10 – The True Joshua. It’s the fastest hour of the week!
(0)Daily Lesson for Sabbath 6th of December 2025
Image © Pacific Press
Memory Text: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1, NIV).
Living in a community can, at times, lead to disputes and tension. This is especially true in a community, such as the church, where people from different backgrounds and social strata—and who are sometimes brought up in completely different cultures—live and work together for a common purpose.
This week we will study Joshua 22:1-34 and a challenge that arose from a great misunderstanding among the people. At the beginning of the book, Joshua commanded some tribes to cross the Jordan and participate in the conquest, along with the tribes on the west side of the Jordan (Joshua 1:12-18). Now that the task is accomplished, they are free to return. However, at the east side of the Jordan, they build an altar that raises concern among the West Jordan tribes.
Why is it dangerous to jump to a rash conclusion about the behavior of others? How can we foster unity in the church? Why is it important to keep in mind the larger scope of our calling and not to get caught up in distractions? These are some of the questions we are going to deal with this week.
(0)Our Sabbath School program has always been linked to the support of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission program. This video provides a little insight into this important work.
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(0)Inside Story for Friday 5th of December 2025
Kim Sun is associate director of the 1000 Missionary Movement, whose headquarters in Silang, Philippines, were constructed with the help of a 1996 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering. Read more next week.
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Image © Pacific Press
For four years, Kim Sun argued with his parents about the Bible every time he came home to South Korea on vacation from his theology studies at the Adventist University of the Philippines. After graduating, he kept touting Adventist doctrines as he studied for a master’s degree in theology in South Korea. The arguments grew so intense that his parents’ church organized a prayer vigil for his parents, who served as a church deacon and deaconess. About 100 people prayed that the parents wouldn’t be swayed into leaving their church. Finally, Mother asked Sun to stop discussing the Bible.
Sun was dismayed until he heard a preacher say that God has an individual plan for each person. He realized that his plan for his parents might not be God’s plan. He decided to pray and trust God’s timing. He didn’t talk to his parents about the Bible for two years.
In the meanwhile, Sun completed his master’s and got a job with the church. He dreamed of becoming a pastor, but he didn’t receive a job offer.
As time passed, Mother began to wonder if her own beliefs were blocking her son’s dreams. She overheard someone ask Sun if his parents were Adventist, and he replied that they belonged to another denomination. She asked Sun directly, “Would it be helpful to you if we joined your church?”
Sun understood that his parents were worried about his future, but he didn’t want them to become Adventists for his sake. “It wouldn’t be helpful,” he said. “You need to study the Bible for yourselves and then decide.”
Sun introduced his parents to a pastor in their area, and they started Bible studies. None of Sun’s Bible arguments had convinced them over five years. But as they studied the Bible, they saw Jesus’ love in truths that they hadn’t noticed previously. After two months, they joined the Adventist Church.
Sun was so happy! He was the first Adventist in his family, and now his parents had joined him. He remembered the joy that he had experienced several years earlier when a man’s life was changed after he introduced him to Jesus in the Philippines. He remembered his desire at the time to become a full-time missionary.
Sun decided to return to the Philippines as a missionary with the 1000 Missionary Movement, an organization that is part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Southern Asia-Pacific Division.
(0)Daily Lesson for Friday 5th of December 2025
“Christ’s mission was not understood by the people of His time.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
. . . The traditions, maxims, and enactments of men hid from them the lessons which God intended to convey. These maxims and traditions became an obstacle to their understanding and practice of true religion. And when the Reality came, in the person of Christ, they did not recognize in Him the fulfillment of all their types, the substance of all their shadows. They rejected the antitype, and clung to their types and useless ceremonies. The Son of God had come, but they continued to ask for a sign. The message, ‘Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,’ they answered by demands for a miracle. . . . The gospel of Christ was a stumbling block to them because they demanded signs instead of a Saviour. They expected the Messiah to prove His claims by mighty deeds of conquest, to establish His empire on the ruins of earthly kingdoms. This expectation Christ answered in the parable of the sower. Not by force of arms, not by violent interpositions, was the kingdom of God to prevail, but by the implanting of a new principle in the hearts of men.”—Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, Pages 34, 35.
“The church needs faithful Calebs and Joshuas, who are ready to accept eternal life on God’s simple condition of obedience. Our churches are suffering for laborers. The world is our field. Missionaries are wanted in cities and villages that are more certainly bound by idolatry than are the pagans of the East, who have never seen the light of truth. The true missionary spirit has deserted the churches that make so exalted a profession; their hearts are no longer aglow with love for souls and a desire to lead them into the fold of Christ. We want earnest workers. Are there none to respond to the cry that goes up from every quarter: ‘Come over . . . and help us’?”—Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 4, p. 156.
Discussion Questions
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