In Deuteronomy 4, we have read the wonderful admonitions that the Lord gave to His people through Moses regarding their great privileges as God’s chosen people. He had redeemed them out of Egypt “by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes” (Deuteronomy 4:34). In other words, not only did God do something great for you, He did it in ways that should help you remember, and never forget, what great things He had done for you.

Read Deuteronomy 4:32-39. What was the Lord telling them to remember, and why was it so important that they remember these things?

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Moses points the people back through all history, even to the creation itself, and asks them, rhetorically, if anything in all history had ever been done as was done for them. In fact, he tells them to ask; that is, to study for themselves and see if anything such as what they experienced had ever happened before. By asking them a few questions, Moses was trying to get them to realize for themselves what the Lord had done for them, and thus, ultimately, how grateful and thankful to Him they should be for His mighty acts in their lives.

Central to these acts was the deliverance from Egypt and then, perhaps in some ways even more astonishing, His speaking to them at Sinai, which allowed them to hear “His words out of the midst of the fire.”

Read Deuteronomy 4:40. What conclusion, then, did Moses want the people to draw from these words about what God had done for them?

The Lord didn’t do all those things for no purpose. He had redeemed His people, keeping His end of the covenant that He had established with them. They were freed from Egypt, about to enter the Promised Land. God did His part; they were now called on to do theirs, which was, simply, to obey.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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The first time the word “remember” appears in the Bible is in Genesis 9, when — after the worldwide flood — the Lord told Noah that He would put the rainbow in the sky as a sign of His covenant with all earth, that He would never again destroy all the earth with a flood.

Read Genesis 9:8-17. How is the word “remember” used here, and what can we learn from its use for how we should remember what God has done for us?

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Of course, God doesn’t need the rainbow to remember His promise and His covenant. He just spoke in language that humans could understand. If anything, the rainbow is for us, as humans, to remember God’s promise and covenant not to destroy the world again by water. In other words, the rainbow was to help people remember this special covenant that God had made; each time the rainbow appears, God’s people would remember, not only God’s judgment upon the world for its sin but also His love for the world and His promise not to flood it again.

Hence, we see here the importance of the idea of remembering: remembering God’s promises, remembering God’s warnings, remembering God’s action in the world.

The rainbow in the sky becomes even more important today when, based on the continuity of the laws of nature, many scientists reject the idea that there ever was a worldwide flood to begin with. How fascinating that Ellen G. White wrote that before the Flood came, many people had the same idea that the continuity of the laws of nature ruled out the possibility that a worldwide flood could ever happen. She wrote that the wise men argued that nature’s “laws are so firmly established that God Himself could not change them.” — Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 97. So before the Flood, people argued, based on the laws of nature, that it couldn’t come; after the Flood, people argue, based on the laws of nature, that it never came to begin with.

However, God in His Word told us about the Flood and gave the world a sign, not only of the Flood, but of His promise not to bring one again. Thus, if we remember what the rainbow means, we can have the assurance, written across the sky in these beautiful colors, that God’s Word is sure. And if we can trust His Word on this promise, why not trust His Word on all that He tells us, as well?

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Genesis 9:8-17; Deuteronomy 4:32-39; Revelation 14:12; Deuteronomy 4:9, Deuteronomy 4:23; Deuteronomy 6:7; Deuteronomy 8:7-18; Ephesians 2:8-13.

Memory Text: “Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD” (Deuteronomy 9:7).

Two words appear all through the Bible: remember and forget. Both refer to something human, something that happens in our minds. Both are verbs, and they are opposites: to remember is not to forget, and to forget is not to remember.

God often tells His people to remember all the things that He has done for them; to remember His grace for them and His goodness toward them. So much of the Old Testament consisted of the prophets’ telling the people, the Hebrew people, not to forget what the Lord had done for them. But also, most important, they were not to forget what their calling in Him was and what kind of people they were to be in response to that calling. “I will remember the works of the LORD; surely I will remember Your wonders of old” (Psalm 77:11).

Is it any different for us today, both at a corporate level and, even more so, at a personal one? How easy it is to forget what God has done for us.

This week, as expressed in Deuteronomy, we’ll look at this important principle, that of remembering and not forgetting God’s interaction in our lives.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, December 4.

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=4CK7YIiiR2E&w=560&h=315]

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Missionary Shares Faith on TV

By ChanMin Chung

Carlos Biaggi, an Argentine missionary in Lebanon, was flooded with messages and prayers from around the world after a powerful explosion rocked Beirut, killing about 200 people, in August 2020.

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One of the messages that Carlos received came from an Argentine pastor with whom he previously had served as a missionary in Paraguay.

“I have contacts with the media in Buenos Aires,” the friend wrote. “If someone wants to interview you, would you be willing?”

Minutes after Carlos said he was willing, the friend wrote that a journalist from C5N television, a 24-hour national news channel, wished to conduct an on-air interview the next day. “When you see an appropriate time during the interview, give your personal testimony,” he said. “Because it’s a major television channel, I believe that the interview will be short, most probably five minutes at the most. It will be a miracle if it lasts ten minutes.”

The interview, broadcast live across Argentina and other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, lasted an astounding nine minutes and fifty seconds. During that time, Carlos, dean of the business administration faculty at the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Middle East University, described the wave of hot air that struck his face moments after a warehouse exploded in Beirut’s port. He spoke about efforts by the Adventist Church and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency to respond to the tragedy. At the request of the television host, he also shared his personal testimony about how God called him to work in Lebanon.

Carlos said he had followed God’s leading to Beirut after receiving a doctorate in business from the Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies in the Philippines.

“They invited me to work here and said, ‘The truth is that it wouldn’t be easy,’” “But I said, ‘If God wants me to go to Lebanon, I will go. If He doesn’t want me to go, I won’t go.’ No matter what family or friends said, God had to show me that this was the place where He wanted me to be.”

“That day I prayed and opened my Bible to Isaiah 6,” he concluded. “What I read confirmed God’s plan for me because Isaiah replied, ‘Here I am, send me.’ I knew that this was a sign, and I thanked God.”

This mission story illustrates Mission Objective No. 2 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s “I Will Go” strategic plan: “To strengthen and diversify Adventist outreach in large cities, across the 10/40 Window, among unreached and under-reached people groups, and to non-Christian religions.” Learn more at IwillGo2020(dot)org.

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

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