Daily Lesson for Monday 17th of February 2025

Throughout Scripture, God’s amazing power is made manifest. The Bible includes countless narratives of His exercising His power and working miracles. And yet, despite this, many things happen that God does not want to happen.

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

These texts and others teach that God is all-powerful and that He sustains the world by His power. Indeed, Revelation repeatedly refers to God as the “Lord God Almighty” (for example, Revelation 11:17; compare with 2 Corinthians 6:18, Revelation 1:8, Revelation 16:14, Revelation 19:15, Revelation 21:22) and the word translated “Almighty” (pantokrator) literally means ­“all-powerful.” The fact that God is all-powerful is not only affirmed in words but also manifest in the many amazing instances in which God uses His power to deliver His people or otherwise miraculously intervenes in the world.

However, to say God is “all-powerful” does not mean that God can do anything whatsoever. Scripture teaches that there are some things God cannot do; for example, 2 Timothy 2:13 declares, God “cannot deny Himself” (NKJV).

Accordingly, most Christians agree that God is all-powerful (omnipo­tent), meaning that God has the power to do anything that does not involve a contradiction—that is, anything that is logically possible and consistent with God’s nature. That some things are not possible for God because they would involve a contradiction is apparent in Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane. While Christ affirmed that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26), He also prayed to the Father as the crucifixion neared, “ ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will’ ” (Matthew 26:39, NKJV).

Of course, the Father possessed the sheer power to deliver Christ from suffering on the cross, but He could not do this while also saving sinners. It had to be one or the other, not both.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-08-pantokrator/

Daily Lesson for Sunday 16th of February 2025

“God is sovereign,” the youth pastor taught his middle school group. “That means He controls everything that happens.” One puzzled middle schooler replied, “So God was in control when my dog died? Why would God kill my dog?”

Trying to answer this question, the youth pastor replied: “That’s a tough one. But sometimes God lets us go through hard times so that we’re prepared for even more difficult things in the future. I remember how hard it was when my dog died. But going through that helped me deal with an even more difficult time later when my grandma died. Does that make sense?”

Image © Rolf Jansson at Goodsalt.com

After a long pause, the middle schooler replied, “So God killed my dog to prepare me for when He’s going to kill my grandma?”—Marc Cortez, quoted in John C. Peckham, Divine Attributes: Knowing the Covenantal God of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), p. 141.

People sometimes assume that everything that occurs happens just as God wants it to. Whatever happens in the world is precisely as God wanted to have happen. After all, God is almighty. How, then, could anything occur that God does not want to occur? Hence, no matter what happens, no matter how bad, it was God’s will. That, at least, is what this theology teaches.

While many people believe that God must always get what He wants, the Bible tells a quite different story. Again and again, Scripture depicts God as experiencing unfulfilled desires. That is, what happens often runs counter to what God states that He actually prefers to happen. In many instances, God explicitly declares that what is happening is the opposite of what He wants. He willed one outcome for His people, but they chose another instead. God Himself laments: “ ‘My people would not heed My voice. . . . Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies’ ” (Psalms 81:11,13-14, NKJV).

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-08-our-sovereign-god/

Daily Lesson for Sabbath 15th of February 2025

Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study: Luke 13:34; Jeremiah 32:17-20; Hebrews 1:3; Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Ephesians 1:9-11; John 16:33.

Memory Text:

“ ‘These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world’ ” (John 16:33, NKJV).

Providence is the term used to describe God’s action in the world. How we think about God’s providence makes a huge difference in how we relate to God, how we relate to others, and how we think about the problem of evil.

Christians hold various understandings of divine providence. Some believe that God exercises His power in a way that determines all events to happen just as they do. He even chooses who will be saved and who will be lost! In this view, people are not free to choose other than what God decrees. In fact, people who believe this way argue that even human desires are determined by God.

In contrast, strong biblical evidence shows that God does not determine everything that happens. Instead, He grants humans free will, even to the point where they (and angels) can choose to act directly against His will. The history of the Fall, of sin, and of evil is a dramatic and tragic expression of the results of abusing this free will. The plan of salvation was instituted in order to remedy the tragedy caused by the misuse of free will.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, February 22.

Sunday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-08-free-will-love-and-divine-providence/

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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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/mission-spotlight-for-february-15/

Inside Story for Friday 14th of February 2025

By Andrew McChesney

Grace Babcock woke up suddenly in the middle of the night to the sound of an angry voice. “You don’t know,” the voice said. “You don’t understand.”

Image © Pacific Press

Grace wasn’t scared. If anything, she was annoyed about being woken up in her one-bedroom apartment at the Holbrook Indian School, where she worked as a teacher. She listened.

“God is using you like a puppet,” the voice said. “There is stuff that you don’t know. You are following God blindly, and God is tyrannical.”

Grace had been struggling to trust God. The recent death of a Holbrook student in a bus accident had hit her hard. She had many questions for God, but she hadn’t really wanted to talk to Him about them.

Now the voice was accusing God, and she didn’t like that, either.

“Go away,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

The voice fell silent.

But the accusations against God hung heavily in the room. Grace didn’t want to talk to God, but she thought that it was only fair that He be given an opportunity to respond. She asked God about each specific accusation that she had heard. Silence. She fell asleep.

The next day, Grace went to a nature spot where she often liked to think. Sitting on a brown rock, she brought up the accusations again to God. Silence. As night fell, she went home.

The next day, she returned to the nature spot. Again, silence. But as she walked home, she sensed a voice say, “You don’t need to know the answers to these questions that you are asking. You need to have faith and trust.”

“That’s true,” she said. “I don’t need to know the answers. But I do need to know that You are good. Right now, I don’t know that You are good.”

At home, Grace opened the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and began to read. As she read, she sensed a voice say, “Look up.”

Looking up, she saw a picture from a coloring book on her refrigerator. The picture had been given to her by a fifth-grade student, and it depicted Jesus’ cross and the words of John 3:16. “You did that for us, Jesus,” Grace said. “Since You did that, You are good. You really are good. I can trust You, even though I don’t have answers to all my questions.”

This mission story offers an inside look at a previous Thirteenth Sabbath project. Grace Babcock teaches elementary students at the US-based Holbrook Seventh-day Adventist Indian School, which received the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in 2021. Thank you for supporting the spread of the gospel with this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering on March 29.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-07-inside-story-a-voice-in-the-dark/