Image © Pacific Press

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Genesis 4:1-26, Hebrews 11:4, Micah 6:7, Isaiah 1:11, 1 Corinthians 10:13, 1 John 3:12, Genesis 5:1-32, Genesis 6:1-5.

Memory Text: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it” (Genesis 4:7, NKJV).

In Genesis what follows immediately after the Fall, and then the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, are mainly births and deaths, all in fulfillment of God’s prophecies in the preceding chapter. As parallel chapters, Genesis chapters 3 and 4 contain many common themes and words: descriptions of sin (Genesis 3:6-8; compare with Genesis 4:8), curses from the ’adamah, “ground” (Genesis 3:17; compare with Genesis 4:11), and expulsion (Genesis 3:24; compare with Genesis 4:12, Genesis 4:16).

The reason for these parallels is to highlight the fulfillment of what went on before, the prophecies and predictions that God had given to Adam and Eve after the Fall. The first event after Adam’s expulsion is full of hope; it is the birth of the first son, an event that Eve sees as the fulfillment of the promise that she heard in the Messianic prophecy (Genesis 3:15). That is, she thought he could be the promised Messiah.

The next events: the crime of Cain, the crime of Lamech, the decreasing life span, and the increasing wickedness are all fulfillments of the curse uttered in Genesis 3:1-24.

Yet, even then, all hope is not lost.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, April 16.

Sunday–>

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Support for the mission activities of the Seventh-day Adventist church has always been part of the Sabbath School program. This video is Mission Spotlight for this week.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qDSoW98YKo&w=560&h=315]

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Forgiven in Prison, Part 1

By Andrew McChesney

The volunteers chose slips of paper with the names of inmates who had signed up for Bible studies at a prison in Spain. But nobody took one slip of paper. “Doesn’t anyone want to meet with this man?” asked Dante Marvin Herrmann, a 36-year-old theology student at Sagunto Adventist College.

Image © Pacific Press

“He’s too difficult to work with,” said one volunteer.

“He always mocks God,” said another.

Dante prayed and sensed a still, small voice say, “Go visit Matías.”

A prison guard brought Matías, a young, clean-shaven man, to Dante in an empty dining hall of the prison’s maximum-security block. Unlike the serial killers and other hardened convicts locked up in the block, Matías didn’t have any visible tattoos or an angry scowl on his face.

“You don’t look like the other prisoners,” Dante said.

Matías laughed. “You don’t know who I am,” he said.

“I don’t really care who you are or what you did,” Dante said. “We all have made mistakes in our lives, and we can’t change the past.”

Matías took a close look at Dante. He saw blue tattoos covering his arms and stretched-out holes in his earlobes left by body piercing.

“Are you from the Seventh-day Adventist Church?” Matías asked. “You don’t look like the other Adventists.”

“God can change every one of us,” Dante replied. He told how he had sold his soul to the devil at 17, joined a street gang, and worked as a drug dealer before finding the love of God in the Bible and becoming an Adventist. When he finished, the hour allotted for Bible study was up.

“Can you visit me again, please?” the inmate said. “I want to learn about this unknown God whom you spoke about. I’ve never heard about a loving God. I’ve only heard about an angry, condemning God.”

Dante promised to return the next Sabbath.

Back at the college, Dante mentioned Matías to a teacher. “Do you know who he is?” the teacher asked. When Dante shook his head, the teacher suggested that he do an online news search. The online search prompted Dante to pray. “God, this is very serious,” he said. “Why did you send me to him?” He sensed a still, small voice reply, “Dante, I have grace for you. I have forgiven you. I can forgive him, too.”

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

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Further Thought:

Consider the connection between “the tree of life” and “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” This relation is already suggested through the fact that they are both located “in the midst of the Garden” (Genesis 2:9).

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

But there is more between the two trees than just a geographical relation. It is because humans have taken the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because they disobeyed God, that they lost access to the tree of life, and could not live forever, at least in this condition. This connection underlies a profound principle. Moral and spiritual choices have an impact on biological life, as Solomon instructed to his son: “do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands; for length of days and long life and peace they will add to you” (Proverbs 3:1-2, , NKJV). This connection reappears in the future heavenly Jerusalem, where only the tree of life is present “in the middle of its street” (Revelation 22:2, NKJV).

“When God created Eve, He designed that she should possess neither inferiority nor superiority to the man, but that in all things she should be his equal. The holy pair were to have no interest independent of each other; and yet each had an individuality in thinking and acting. But after Eve’s sin, as she was first in the transgression, the Lord told her that Adam should rule over her. She was to be in subjection to her husband, and this was a part of the curse. In many cases the curse has made the lot of woman very grievous and her life a burden. The superiority which God has given man he has abused in many respects by exercising arbitrary power. Infinite wisdom devised the plan of redemption, which places the race on a second probation by giving them another trial.” — Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 3, p. 484.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

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Read Genesis 3:15-24. As a result of the Fall, what happened to Adam and Eve?

While God’s judgment of the serpent is explicitly identified as a curse (Genesis 3:14), God’s judgment of the woman and of the man is not. The only time where the word “curse” is used again, it applies only to the “ground” (Genesis 3:17). That is, God had other plans for the man and the woman, as opposed to the serpent. They were offered a hope not offered to him.

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Because the woman’s sin is due to her association with the serpent, the verse describing God’s judgment of the woman was related to the judgment of the serpent. Not only does Genesis 3:16 immediately follow Genesis 3:15-16, but the parallels between the two prophecies clearly indicate that the prophecy concerning the woman in  has to be read in connection to the Messianic prophecy in Genesis 3:15. God’s judgment of the woman, including childbearing, should therefore be understood in the positive perspective of salvation (compare with 1 Timothy 2:14-15).

Because the man’s sin is due to his listening to the woman instead of listening to God, the ground from which man has been taken is cursed (Genesis 3:17). As a result, man will have to work hard (Genesis 3:17-19), and he will then “return” to the ground where he comes from (Genesis 3:19), something that never should have happened, and that was never part of God’s original plan.

It is significant that against this hopeless prospect of death Adam turns, then, to the woman, where he sees the hope of life through her giving birth (Genesis 3:20). That is, even amid the sentence of death, he sees the hope of life.

Meanwhile, as would any loving parent, God had wanted only good for them, not evil. But now that they knew evil, God was going to do all that He could to save them from it. Thus, even amid these judgments, all hope was not lost for our first parents, despite their open and blatant disobedience to God; even though they — living truly in paradise — had absolutely no reason to doubt God, to doubt God’s words, or to doubt His love to them.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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