Daily Lesson for Thursday 1st of May 2025

The remnant church was born in the New World, precisely where those seeking religious liberty had fled during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Given the long-standing religious and political obstacles that existed elsewhere, it is doubtful that the launch of this movement would have been as swift or powerful in some other location as it was in the new land that became the United States.

Image © Steve Creitz at Goodsalt.com

The angel cries with a loud voice, much as the three angels of Revelation 14:1-20 and the angel of Revelation 18:1-24 do. This is an urgent moment in history when the work of the remnant church is established for the sake of “ ‘many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings’ ” (Revelation 10:11, NKJV).

The angel holds a “little book”—likely the book of Daniel (see Daniel 12:4)—which is open for the first time in many generations. He has one foot on the sea and another on the earth. This might be in reference to the idea that the message covers the globe, both the Old World and the New. It might also be a reference to the idea that this message is for all nations: those who live on the land and those who live in the “Gentile” sea.

The world, at long last, will be lighted up with the glory of God, and the final messages of Revelation 14:1-20 are carried to everyone. As with Israel, our mandate as a church is to preach the gospel “ ‘in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come’ ” (Matthew 24:14, NKJV).

God is pushing human history toward its grand conclusion: the end of human empires and the permanent enthronement of Christ. Read Daniel 2:34-35,44-45. The Bible makes it perfectly clear, without any ambiguity, that all these worldly kingdoms will be eradicated, without a trace of them and their ugly legacies left, and will be replaced by God’s eternal kingdom, where sin, suffering, sickness, evil, and death will never rise again.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-05-prophesy-again/

Key Thought : This week we will look at the problem caused by the fall and the desire for human government as opposed to God’s government.
May 3, 2025

1. Have a volunteer read Daniel 2:31-35.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. What truths can we learn from this prophecy?
3. Personal Application: How much surety can you have about how true and inspired the Bible is because of this prophecy? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “Knowing that there are going to be wars and news of wars ahead of time, how can we draw comfort knowing these things are going to happen?” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Daniel 7:1-3.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What lessons can we draw from the imagery depicted here, such as the first beast rising from the sea?
3. Personal Application: How do we learn from these nations and Israel how to balance obeying the powers over us and the Lord as well? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “How can you be sure Daniel 7 is a repeat of the four nations of Daniel 2? Are there any Biblical evidences of these nations?” How would you respond to your friend?
   (Note: Babylon is depicted in Scripture as flying like an eagle over Bosrah, and as a lion devouring its prey. Bricks from the ancient city of Babylon had carvings and etchings of lions with eagle’s wings…Daniel 8 shows two beasts fighting. One is called Medio Persia, the other Greecia. Alexander of Greece conquered very swiftly, like a leopard with four wings. The notable head was broken, and four heads came up for it. The four heads represent the four generals who divided his kingdom after he died. History proves prophecy. And then Rome rose and became the Greco-Roman Empire.)

3. Have a volunteer read Revelation 10:1-11.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What insights and applications can we find in this passage that apply to prophecy and history?
3. Personal Application: How does realizing that all kingdoms and accomplishments will eventually turn to dust help us keep things in prospective as to worldly or political things? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your neighbors states: “What proofs do you have in Revelation 10 that show that the 1844 message was a mistake in events rather than in timing?” How would you respond to your neighbor?

4. Have a volunteer read Genesis 2:9-17.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What was the first command that God gave humanity? Why was it so important?
3. Personal Application: How does knowing what evil is now help us understand what was forbidden in Eden? 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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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/5-the-nations-part-2-teaching-plan/

Daily Lesson for Wednesday 30th of April 2025

The land and sea imagery in the Bible, especially for prophecy, can be very instructive. Consider the case of the symbols of land and sea in Bible prophecy, which are contrasted sharply.

“Symbolically, when earth and sea are juxtaposed, earth often represents the ordered world, or even the land of Israel, while sea refers to the Gentile nations that menace it as the sea menaces the land.”—Beatrice S. Neall, “Sealed Saints and the Tribulation,” in Symposium on Revelation, book 1, ed. Frank B. Holbrook (Silver Spring, MD: Biblical Research Institute, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1992), p. 260.

In this thinking, land is a place of stability, established on the government of God; sea represents the unstable turmoil of nations established on human pride.

Image © Phil McKay

Notice that the dragon uses water to persecute the woman (the church). As we have seen, in prophecy water often symbolizes worldly governments and the turmoil and chaos that often attends them. Hence, we can see how Satan was able to use the masses, prodded by their leaders, to persecute God’s people through much of church history.

Also, Seventh-day Adventists have understood Revelation 12:16 to refer to the migration of persecuted believers to the New World. If our understanding of land and sea is correct, what does this say about the founding of the American republic?

Could we consider it to be “the earth” in the same way that the “Promised Land” was—a place set aside for God’s people? Could this be why the land beast first appears to be lamblike? Though America has never been the “New Israel” as some of its early founders liked to see it, for a long time it has been a land of religious freedom for millions of the world’s religiously oppressed.

Unfortunately, this lamblike beast will one day speak “like a dragon” (Revelation 13:11, NKJV). The United States, so long a beacon of religious freedom for the persecuted, will become the dominant religious persecutor! This is another example of what happened when humanity chose to rule itself instead of being ruled by God.

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-05-between-land-and-sea/

Daily Lesson for Tuesday 29th of April 2025

The dream of Daniel 2:1-49 was first presented to a Babylonian king. The vision of Daniel 7:1-28, in contrast, was presented to a Hebrew prophet, a member of God’s covenant people.

Daniel is shown the same subject as was Nebuchadnezzar but from a different perspective. Instead of a statue, he sees a series of nations rising up out of the sea, the result of wind churning up the water. These nations were in a continual state of strife, causing a perpetual shift in power among them. Such passages as Psalms 65:5-8; Isaiah 17:12-13; and Jeremiah 46:7-8 use the analogy of floods and waves to depict the tumult among the nations.

In contrast, the Promised Land existed, at least for a period of time, as an island of peace and safety amid a sea of Gentile kingdoms—a sacred nation established on the solid foundation of God’s government, as opposed to the unruly nations around it.

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

Daniel watches the chaos of Gentile warfare from the shore, when suddenly the beasts start coming up on the land_—into his territory! Gentile problems had now become his people’s problems. They had chosen to live _like Gentiles, so now they would live with (and under) Gentiles. Starting with Babylonian domination, God’s covenant people never again enjoyed complete or long-lasting autonomy.

This loss of autonomy for God’s people today will persist until the close of time, when Christ is finally restored to His rightful place as our King. In the New Testament, God’s people continued to suffer under the thumb of the Roman Empire and then under the persecutions of the little horn, pagan Rome’s successor.

Though, historically, some nations have been better than others, and some eras have been more peaceful than others, the vast majority of the history of nations, peoples, and empires has simply been going from one tragedy to another, from one oppressor to another. And often this is all done under rulers claiming only the best of intentions for their own people. What a contrast to the rule that God had wanted for His people, if only they would have chosen it.

<–Monday Wednesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-05-daniel-7/

Daily Lesson for Monday 28th of April 2025

It was during the Babylonian captivity, through the prophet Daniel, that God presented the most compelling descriptions we have of the relationship between His people and the kingdoms of this world. His people were no longer autonomous; they would now be reaping the consequences of their choices. (And, perhaps, learning from them?)

Image © Phil McKay at Goodsalt.com

At the end of the nineteenth century, many people were exuding a new confidence in human progress. The Paris Exposition (1900), for example, was a remarkable showcase of optimism about the future. Surely, with all of our technological and scientific advances, many of humanity’s worst problems would be at an end! As humanity entered the twentieth century, among many thinkers there was this great optimism that Enlightenment ideals—such as human perfectibility and the power of reason—would usher in a wonderful new era for humanity.

World War I, however, quickly shattered those dreams, and by the end of the twentieth century, we had lost more than 200 million people to warfare. We may have advanced in a technological sense, but certainly not in a moral one. To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., we have guided missiles but misguided men. And that’s a very scary combination.

Many students of prophecy have noticed that the metals in Daniel 2:1-49 move from most valuable to least valuable: gold devalues to silver, silver devalues to brass, and brass to iron, until we end up with only iron and clay.

Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and other nineteenth-century thinkers attempted to convince us that humanity is somehow tracking upward—that we are evolving biologically and socially. And though in some ways human existence has improved (at least at a physical level), who actually looks ahead to the future of this world, as it is now ruled and governed, with much optimism about peace, security, and prosperity?

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-05-daniel-2/