If we are merely a collection of randomly formed cells, simply the product of chance and an advanced African ape, nothing more, then life has little meaning. If we are merely one of the estimated eight billion people clawing at one another for living space on a planet called earth, life loses its purpose, other than mere survival. In contrast, the biblical Creation provides a reason to live and a moral imperative for living. We have been created by God and are accountable to Him for our actions. The One who made us holds us responsible. He has established absolutes, even in a world of “moral relativism.”

Read Revelation 14:7, Romans 14:10, and James 2:8-13. What does judgment imply about issues such as accountability and responsibility? How are the judgment, the commandments of God, and worship linked?

Image © Pacific Press from GoodSalt.com

The message of the three angels flying in midair in Revelation 14:1-20 announces that “the hour of His judgment has come” (Revelation 14:7, NKJV). Since we were created by God with the capacity to make moral choices, we are responsible for the decisions we make. If we were merely a random collection of cells, products of our heredity and environment only, our actions would largely be determined by forces over which we had no control.

But judgment implies moral responsibility. In this crisis hour of earth’s history, the judgment hour, God calls us to make decisions in the light of eternity. The first angel’s earnest appeal to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of waters” (Revelation 14:7, NKJV) acknowledges that the basis of all worship is the fact that we were created by God.

Meanwhile, our adherence to the seventh-day Sabbath demonstrates our belief that Jesus is worthy to be worshiped as our Creator. It reveals our acceptance of His Ten Commandment law as divinely inspired principles for living life to the fullest. Because the law is the foundation of God’s government and a revelation of His character, it becomes the standard of judgment. Our faithfulness to the Sabbath commandment is acknowledgment of our commitment to live obedient lives.

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Image © Pacific Press

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: James 2:8-13; Deuteronomy 5:12-15; Psalm 33:6, Psalm 33:9; Revelation 14:1-20; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1.

Memory Text: “And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 3:9, NKJV).

The essence of humanity’s dignity is a common creation. The fact that we are uniquely created by God places value on every human being. The unborn in the mother’s womb, the quadriplegic teenager, the Down syndrome young adult, and the Alzheimer-afflicted grandmother all have immense value to God. God is their Father. They are His sons and daughters. “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. … And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:24-26, NKJV).

Ours is a shared heritage. We belong to the same family. We are brothers and sisters fashioned, shaped, and molded by the same God. Creation provides a true sense of self-worth. When the genes and chromosomes came together to form the unique biological structure of your personality, God threw away the pattern. There is no one else like you in all the universe. You are unique, a one-of-a-kind creation, a being of such immense value that the God who created the cosmos took upon Himself our fleshly bodies and offered Himself as a sacrifice for you and your sins!

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, May 20.

Sunday–>

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The Mission program of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is an opportunity for us to understand the needs of others and share in supporting them. Please click on the image below to watch the Mission Spotlight presentation for this week:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL28y6-BhBE&w=560&h=315]

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Sobered by God’s Grace

By Dale Wolcott

Back in the 1970s, two sets of Navajo parents, unknown to each other, sent their teenagers to live in the dormitories at Holbrook Seventh-day Adventist Indian School, located 100 miles (160 km) away from home. At Holbrook, boy met girl, boy and girl both met Jesus, and they were baptized. In due time there was a wedding, the first to be held in the newly constructed Seventh-day Adventist church in the boy’s hometown of Chinle, Arizona.

Image © Pacific Press

When Dennis and Gloria Fulton’s first baby arrived, they took him with them to church. So, baby Oliver grew up knowing that the Adventist Church was his church. But, somehow, he never really met Jesus. Things got in the way, such as Gloria’s nursing job at the local hospital. Making matters worse, Dennis struggled with alcohol, and Oliver began drinking as a teen.

Oliver graduated from public high school, moved to the big city to earn a master’s degree in information technology, and discovered that alcohol was controlling his life. At 38, Oliver in desperation moved back home to Chinle, where he knew his mother had been praying for him. He started attending his childhood church, hoping that something would change for him.

Oliver found that the church ran an addiction recovery ministry in which 80 Navajo people with struggles like his own met in the church fellowship hall five evenings a week for “Jesus and Me,” a program modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous. His life began to change.

Meanwhile, the church pastor noticed Oliver in the congregation one Sabbath and suggested having lunch the next week. The meal filled Oliver with hope. “When I came home, I figured I was such a bad sinner that I could never go to heaven,” Oliver says. “I just thought that maybe if I sobered up, I could help some other people get to heaven. But at lunch that day, the pastor told me that my sins could actually be forgiven. Jesus would accept me just as I am. I was amazed. It gave me hope.”

Oliver has been sober for four years now. At the church, Oliver met a woman, Traci, with her own story of Jesus delivering her from heroin addiction. The pastor baptized Oliver just days before marrying him and Traci in the same church where his parents had been married about 40 years earlier.

Today, Oliver leads the Chinle church’s recovery ministry. He also is taking online classes to become a certified substance abuse counselor.

Incidentally, Oliver’s father has been sober for several years as well. Sometimes on Sabbaths, father and son sit together in church, their sweethearts at their sides and smiles in their hearts.

Thank you for your mission offerings that support Seventh-day Adventist education and other forms of mission outreach around the world.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought:

 The worship of God is central in the Scriptures and has always been a bone of contention to humans and to God’s people. Throughout the Old Testament the prophets reprimanded the people of God for worshiping other gods or for worshiping the Lord using the worship practices of the pagan world.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

The conflict between worshiping God or worshiping other gods belongs to the very center of the cosmic conflict and came accompanied by disregard to the law of God.

“Worship addresses the most fundamental aspect of human existence in that it has to do with what humans as living creatures should do when confronted by the presence of the Creator. … Only those who are alive can worship the Lord; the dead cannot praise and worship Him. … The One who created us invites us to surrender our lives in the act of worship in order to receive them back from Him enriched, to be used for the benefit of others. Worship has to do with the very nature and purpose of our existence and with the need for having a center outside of ourselves that frees us from selfishness. Not to worship God is to lose our reason for existence; it is to exist in a state of disorientation and therefore to be dying, heading to total extinction because we are disconnected from the very source of life.” — Ángel Manuel Rodríguez, The Closing of the Cosmic Conflict: Role of the Three Angels’ Messages, unpublished manuscript, p. 42.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

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