Daily Lesson for Thursday 29th of May 2025

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a new black coating that renders objects painted with it nearly invisible. Created from nanotubes, it is many times darker than any black material previously created. This new material can absorb 99.995 percent of all visible light. Even the brightest light fails to make objects covered in this coating visible.

Image © Review & Herald Publishing from GoodSalt.com

Psalms 67:1-7 begins with an appeal for God to “cause His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth” (Psalms 67:1-2, NKJV). In the plan of salvation, God has provided a way for sinners to be readmitted to His immediate, glorious presence without being destroyed by His glory; and even now, in this life, the cross of Christ makes it possible for God’s face to shine on us.

But there is more: God intends that we reflect His light to the rest of the world. This was the task given to Israel: the temple was to be a house of prayer for all nations: “ ‘Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on My altar; for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’ ” (Isaiah 56:7, NKJV).

In this psalm, David reminds us that God wants His “way [to] be known on earth, [His] salvation among all nations” (Psalms 67:2, NKJV). Tragically, God’s people have often failed in this task. Israel’s record in the Old Testament contains some dark chapters, as does the record of the Christian church during the past two millennia. It is as if we have painted our hearts with an ultra-dark substance, content to absorb God’s light without reflecting it.

Sometimes, we treat God’s last-day movement as a kind of privileged departure lounge reserved for spiritual frequent flyers, and we seem quite content that the rest of the world must sit in the noisy, uncomfortable gate lounge, unprepared for the journey ahead. The remnant church of Revelation 14:1-20, however, is not content just to stand on Zion with Christ, basking in His presence. Instead, they fly across the face of the earth, urging the world to join them on God’s holy mountain.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-09-that-your-salvation-may-be-known/

Daily Lesson for Wednesday 28th of May 2025

There is some thought that this psalm would have been sung upon the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib’s army (2 Chronicles 32:1-33, 2 Kings 19:1-37)—a story that appears to point forward to the final destruction of the wicked in Revelation 20:1-15. The people of God are inside the Holy City with their righteous king when the armies of evil come up and surround them, and then they are destroyed by God Himself.

Image © Kevin Carden from GoodSalt.com

One of the things that God corrects in the judgment is the mis­ap­­propriation of power that has taken place in our fallen world. Fallen humans no longer live for others or for the glory of God but for self. Today, in many ways, we are living with the consequences of choosing to believe that there is no meaning or objective moral standard in the universe. If there is to be a meaning, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche insisted that we must invent it for ourselves and pretend as if the universe exists for our benefit. Each individual, in effect, behaves as if he or she is a god.

(One might justifiably ask: How well did this philosophy work out for Nietzsche himself? Not too well, actually. He went insane, collapsing on a street in Italy after trying to stop a man from beating a horse. He then spent the next 11 years of his life in a semi-catatonic state before his death in 1900.)

However bad the problems are, as believers we are reminded to live with hope and not to judge the future by current events. It is easy to despair as we see the pillars of civilization being steadily eroded by the hearts and minds of the godless or by those whose views of God are not found in the Bible. We are currently living in a period in which moral values, even things as basic as human gender, male and female, have come under assault, at least in some parts of the world. Certain types of immorality, things that many people would have been ashamed to talk about, even privately, are now lauded and applauded publicly. That’s how bad things are getting.

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-09-wine-and-blood/

Join It Is Written Sabbath School host Eric Flickinger and this quarter’s author, Shawn Boonstra, as they provide additional insights into this week’s Sabbath School lesson.”

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/9-in-the-psalms-part-2-it-is-written-discussions-with-the-author/

View an in-depth discussion of In the Psalms: Part 2 in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris.
Click on the image below to view the video:

With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/9-in-the-psalms-part-2-hope-sabbath-school-video-discussion/

Daily Lesson for Tuesday 27th of May 2025

Long term, the future is bright. Until then, humanity ceded dominion over the planet to Lucifer, and by the time Satan appeared at the heavenly council in Job, he boasted that this earth belonged to him.

“ ‘From where do you come?’ ” God asked.

“ ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it,’ ” he replied (Job 1:7, NKJV).

Image © Pacific Press at Goodsalt.com

Satan was declaring ownership; the foot was used in antiquity to represent ownership. “ ‘Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land,’ ” God instructed Abraham, “ ‘for I will give it to you’ ” (Genesis 13:17, ESV).

Talking about what Christ does at the end of the millennium, Ellen G. White wrote: “Christ descends upon the Mount of Olives, whence, after His resurrection, He ascended, and where angels repeated the promise of His return. Says the prophet: ‘The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee.’ ‘And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof, . . . and there shall be a very great valley.’ ‘And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one.’ Zechariah 14:4-5,9. As the New Jerusalem, in its dazzling splendor, comes down out of heaven, it rests upon the place purified and made ready to receive it, and Christ, with His people and the angels, enters the Holy City.”—The Great Controversy, Pages 662, 663.

<–Monday Wednesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-09-under-his-feet/