All through the Bible, we are presented with one of two choices. Two options are presented here for us.

Read the following texts. What two options, what two choices, are either openly stated or implied in these texts and how are these options presented?

John 3:16

Genesis 7.22-23

Romans 6:23

Romans 8:6

1 John 5:12

Matthew 7:24-27

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In the end, there is no middle ground for us human beings. Before the great controversy is completely over, sin, Satan, evil, disobedience, and rebellion will be eradicated. After that happens, each one of us, individually, will either have the life, the eternal life, that God originally had planned for us all to have before the creation of the world, or we will face eternal death, that is, ”everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). The Bible doesn’t appear to present any other options for us.

Which fate will be ours? That answer, ultimately, rests with ourselves. We have the choice before us, life or death.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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None of us asked to be here, did we? We didn’t choose to come into existence any more than we chose where and when we were born and who our parents were.

It was the same with Adam and Eve. They no more chose to be created by God than did a leaf, a rock, a mountain. As human beings, we have been given not just existence (a rock has existence), and not just life (an amoeba has life), but life as rational free beings made in the image of God.

Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com

But we didn’t choose to come into existence as rational free beings made in the image of God, either. What God does offer us, however, is the choice to remain in existence; that is, to choose to have life, eternal life, in Him, which is what we can have because of Jesus and His death on the cross.

Read  Genesis 2.8-9, Genesis 2:15-17 and  Genesis 3.22-23. What two options did God present to Adam in regard to his existence?

“In the midst of Eden grew the tree of life, whose fruit had the power of perpetuating life. Had Adam remained obedient to God, he would have continued to enjoy free access to this tree and would have lived forever. But when he sinned he was cut off from partaking of the tree of life, and he became subject to death. The divine sentence, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,’ points to the utter extinction of life.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, pages 532, 533.

Thus, right from the start, the Bible presents us with just one of two options: eternal life, which is what we were originally supposed to have, and eternal death, which in a sense is merely going back to the nothingness out of which we first came.

It’s interesting, too, how the “tree of life,” which Scripture says gives immortality, and that first appears in the first book of the Bible, reappears in the last book. Read Revelation 2:7 and Revelation 22:2, Revelation 22:14. Perhaps the message is that though we were supposed to have access to the tree of life, due to sin we lost that access; then, at the end, once the sin problem had been ultimately and completely finished, thanks to Jesus and the plan of salvation, the redeemed, those who chose life, will have access to the tree of life as we were supposed to from the start.

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study:  Genesis 2.8-9; Romans 6:23; 1 John 5:12; Deuteronomy 30:1-20; Romans 10:6-10; Deuteronomy 4:19; Revelation 14:6-12.

Memory Text: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Always, it’s a sad story: a young person, in this case a 22-year-old woman, diagnosed with a deadly disease. Brain tumor. Even with all the marvels of modern medicine, nothing could be done until the inevitable. But this young woman, “Sandy,” didn’t want to die.

So, she had a plan. After she died, her head would be put in a deep freeze, into a vat of liquid nitrogen, in hopes of preserving her brain cells. And there it would wait, fifty years, one hundred years, a thousand years, until sometime in the future, when technology had advanced enough, her brain, composed of neural connections, could then be uploaded into a computer. And, yes, Sandy could “live” on, maybe even forever.

Sad story, not just because a young person was going to die, but because of where she put her hope of life. Like most people, Sandy wanted life, wanted to live. But she chose a path that, in the end, surely won’t work.

This week, as we continue in Deuteronomy, we will look at the choice of life, and the opportunity given us to choose life, but to choose it on the terms that God, the Giver and Sustainer of life, has graciously offered.

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

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=Mc3AZI84Beo]

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You can view an in-depth discussion of Law and Grace in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris. Click on the image to view:

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

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