Have you ever been haunted by your past?

Over a decade ago I was preaching during the first worship service and I guess I was all wound up in what I was preaching, because an elder motioned to me that it was time for Sabbath School. I had a real passion for what I was preaching at the moment and basically chastised the elder for telling me to stop. It came across kind of … no it definitely came across as high and mighty and condescending to the elder. The elder quickly ducked out of view of the congregation. I soon realized I did not react appropriately and even made a fool of myself. After church I told the elder I was sorry. He graciously accepted my apology and for the remainder of our time together in that congregation he acted like it never happened. But I had trouble shaking it. Four or five years later, he and I were talking in the hallway, and of course he was acting totally natural, while I was still cringing inside over what I did years ago. As we were talking, the obvious finally dawned on me. He does not even remember what I am cringing about! I am the only one who remembers it! He forgot about it years ago after he forgave me. Why am I holding on to this?  I had to forgive myself then and there, and now I no longer feel awkward when I see him, and, of course, I have never repeated the incident. 

It appears in the days of Nehemiah Israel was still haunted by its past, going back to the days of Moses. 

But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and rich in unfailing love. You did not abandon them,  even when they made an idol shaped like a calf and said, ‘This is your god who brought you out of Egypt!’ They committed terrible blasphemies. Nehemiah 9:17-18 NLT 

This came during their time of confession. They are claiming God’s forgiveness but still going over things that happened long ago. The good news is, history does not have to repeat itself. Paul was haunted by his previous actions towards Christians, but he still was able to move on. 

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Philippians 3:13-14 NLT 

Paul was able to get over his past by not continually thinking about it, but also by being sure not to let his history repeat itself. He pressed on to what was ahead instead of repeating what was behind him. When a runner trips over a hurdle she can’t waste time wallowing in self pity. There is no time to lose. She must get back up and run! But she also must make sure she does not trip over any more hurdles. There is no time for self-pity or for tripping over more hurdles. 

David made some big mistakes, but we don’t see him making the same mistakes over and over. I think his prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 offers us some clues as to how he moved forward instead of letting history repeat itself. 

For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭51:3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So David was haunted by his rebellion just like Israel, and just like I was. Often times we try to ignore negative feelings and emotions but they have their place. Those negative feelings are symptoms telling us a problem needs to be fixed. If we only treat the symptoms then the problem remains and still needs to be fixed. 

Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. Psalms‬ ‭51:4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

David recognized that He hurt God. He is not sorry that he hurt himself. He is sorry he hurt God and others. 

Forgive me for shedding blood…Psalms 51:14 NLT

David’s confession is specific, just like Israel’s in Nehemiah 9.  

At the Christian school where I occasionally substitute teach, one of the classrooms uses what is called a fix-it ticket. When students do something inappropriate,  students writes down on a piece of paper exactly what they did wrong, and how they are going to fix that form of behavior. They sign the paper themselves, and then the teacher signs it and the student takes it home for the parents to sign. In Psalms 51 David appears to be writing a fix-it ticket. He is writing specifically about what he did wrong and also how the problem is going to be fixed. A while back I had an attitude that I knew was not right. I wrote a letter to God telling him specifically why I was wrong and asked for Him to help me in specific ways not to have that attitude any more. I have never had that attitude since.. I believe that actually writing things out, not typing but actually hand writing things out can be very therapeutic. If nothing else it shows God and ourselves that our repentance is earnest, rather than just giving a flippant “Please forgive me. I’m sorry.”

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭51:1, 7, 10, 12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com

Instead of just making promises to do better, David claims God’s promises. 2 Peter 1:4  Tells us that we can participate in Jesus’ divine nature by claiming His promises rather than making our own promises. David even has to ask God for the willingness to obey. It reminds me of Jesus crying in Gethsemane, “Father, Not My will but Your will be done.”  Realizing David could not clean his own heart he asked God to clean and purify it for him. 

We don’t see David repeating his history over and over because his repentance and confession were very specific and very deep. David realized and openly confessed his own weaknesses and how we was prone to sin. 

For I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. Psalms 51:5 NLT

Therefore instead of being self-confident David put his confidence in God’s powerful love and promises. We too can keep our sinful history from continually repeating itself by making our repentance deep and heartfelt, and by having no confidence in our flesh or human effort (Philippians 3:3), but rather put our hope and faith in God’s powerful love and promises. 

Amen!(0)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SabbathSchoolNet/~3/4iid3Us4FDo/

Present for Uganda’s President

By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Seventh-day Adventist Church president Ted N.C. Wilson was thinking about religious literature when I arrived in a hotel lobby in Uganda to accompany him and other church leaders to a meeting with the African country’s president, Yoweri Museveni.

Image © Pacific Press

“I have a pen for the president”, Pastor Wilson told church leaders, referring to a special pen engraved with the name and logo of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. “But do you have some books for him?”

I spoke up. “I have a nice-looking color ‘Steps to Christ’ up in my room”, I said.

Glancing at his watch, Pastor Wilson urged me to hurry upstairs for the book.

As I rushed to my room, I marveled that I had packed the book in the first place.

Two weeks earlier, I shook my head “no” when my father asked whether I planned to take any sharing books on the trip. I explained that I had taken five copies of “Steps to Christ” on my previous trip, to Russia, and had struggled to find any takers.

“You should take some books anyway”, my father insisted.

Reluctantly, I bought five copies of “Steps to Christ” at the Adventist Book Center in Keene, Texas.

But the books didn’t satisfy my father.

“Will you take a new Bible, too?” he asked.

I often buy a new Bible before a trip just in case I’m asked to give a sermon, and then I give it away. I prefer to read the Bible on my cell phone, but I don’t like to hold my cell phone while preaching.

“No need for a Bible”, I told my father. “I won’t be preaching”.

My father was not deterred. I bought a black-leather New King James Bible.

In the Ugandan hotel room, I remembered the Bible and took it and “Steps to Christ” to Pastor Wilson.

A short time later, President Museveni welcomed us to State House Uganda in Entebbe and immediately plied Pastor Wilson with questions about why Adventists keep the Sabbath on Saturday. Pastor Wilson gave a short Bible study and, later, appealed for the country to abolish Saturday exams for Adventist students. To his delight, President Museveni agreed to look into the matter.

Pastor Wilson presented the engraved pen to President Museveni and suggested that he could use it to sign important documents or, more important, to underline verses in the Bible.

Then he handed over the Bible and “Steps to Christ” to President Museveni, left, who smilingly raised them for the guests to see.

That evening, I excitedly called my father on Skype. “Thank you for listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit”, I said.

Now in my travels, I always carry a brand-new Bible and copies of “Steps to Christ”.

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

All Rights Reserved. No part of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide may be edited, altered, modified, adapted, translated, reproduced, or published by any person or entity without prior written authorization from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Amen!(2)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SabbathSchoolNet/~3/fjd6S3IPqNw/

Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “Confession”, pages 37-41, in Steps to Christ.

In Nehemiah 9:25, the Hebrews talked about how their ancestors “delighted themselves” (NKJV) in God’s great goodness. The verbal root is the same as the name Eden, as in the “garden of Eden” (Gen. 2:15). Perhaps, the best translation would be “they edenized themselves” if only edenized were a verb.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

The gospel is, after all, restoration, and what better symbol can there be than Eden to represent what we are ultimately to be restored to? God raised up the Hebrew people and brought them to the crossroads of the ancient world in order to create the closest reflection of Eden that could exist on a fallen earth. Even after the captivity and return, the potential was still there. “For the LORD will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden” (Isa. 51:3, NKJV).

Yes, the people enjoyed the material blessings that the Lord had promised them, blessings that, to whatever degree possible in a fallen world, were reminiscent of the abundance of Eden. And that was fine. They were supposed to enjoy them. God created the physical world precisely in a way that humans could enjoy, and ancient Israel — blessed of God — enjoyed it, too. Their sin was not in “edenizing themselves” in God’s great goodness but in forgetting the Lord (Ezek. 23:35), whose goodness they were enjoying. The blessings became an end in and of themselves instead of a means to an end, which was to reveal God to those around them.

Discussion Questions:

Amen!(2)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SabbathSchoolNet/~3/aWFlmVE4HKI/

Read Nehemiah 9:32-38. What is the focus of the conclusion of the prayer of confession?

Once again the prayer turns to praising God for who He is: great, mighty, and awesome, one who keeps the covenant and mercy. They seem sincere in their acknowledgment of God’s goodness to them.

Petition

They also bring a petition in the form of making a covenant with God, which is described in detail in chapter 10. What is their petition?

“Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and awesome God, who keeps covenant and mercy: do not let all the trouble seem small before You that has come upon us” (Neh. 9:32, NKJV).

The community has to pay tribute to the kings who are over them. Oppression from every side is plaguing the small company of Israelites, and they are tired of it. They have had to endure one tyranny after another, and they are hoping for a reprieve.

Interestingly, they call themselves “servants”. After outlining the infidelity of their nation, they end by referring to themselves with that word. Servants, of course, obey those who are over them. The use of this term, then, implies that they realize they need to obey the Lord in ways that those who came before them didn’t. This is an expression of their desire to be faithful to the Lord and His commandments. And, as servants of God, they are asking Him to intervene in their behalf.

The community of Ezra and Nehemiah describe their current experience as being “in great distress” (Neh. 9:37), which can be compared to the affliction the Israelites experienced in Egypt (Neh. 9:9). Their prayer praises God for seeing their affliction in Egypt and not overlooking it. The community is now asking God to intervene just as He had in the past, even though they don’t deserve it, because no one — kings, princes, priests or prophets, or fathers — was faithful. Thus, they are relying only on God’s grace and mercy to them, and not on themselves or in their ancestors’ works, in hopes that the Lord will intervene in their behalf.

Read Romans 5:6-8. How do these texts reflect what the Israelites were asking of God? What comfort can we draw from what the Israelites were asking and what Paul was saying in Romans?

Amen!(0)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SabbathSchoolNet/~3/kL7Zmk_U_ps/

Read Nehemiah 9:23-31. How are the Israelites described in comparison to God’s “great goodness” (Neh. 9:25)?

This next section of the prayer/sermon focused on life in Canaan as the Israelites possessed the land that God had given them. They had been handed land, cities, vineyards, and fields ready for use, but they had taken it all for granted. At the end of verse 25, we are told that “they ate and were filled and grew fat” (NKJV). Growing fat is an expression that is found only a few times in the Bible (Deut. 32:15 and Jer. 5:28), and each time it has a negative connotation.

Hearing the Law

The people might have “delighted themselves in Your great goodness” (NKJV) but theirs wasn’t a delight in God but, instead, in all they had. Apparently having everything doesn’t produce a close walk with God. Many times we think, “If only I had this or that, then I would be happy”. Unfortunately, we see that the Israelites had everything from God, and yet their “happiness” in those things only made them less devoted to God. Too often it’s too easy for us to focus on the gifts while forgetting about the Giver. This is a fatal deception.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we cannot be happy for the things that God has given us. He desires that we rejoice in His gifts, but this joy in the things He gives doesn’t guarantee a relationship with God. In fact, if we are not careful, these things can become a stumbling block.

Nevertheless, in this chapter, the leaders now confessed the ways that they had been unfaithful to God. As they looked through their history, they specifically named transgressions they had committed as a nation. A couple of aspects emerge as especially important, because they are repeated: 1 Israel cast God’s law away, and 2 they persecuted the prophets.

In other words, they realized that God’s law and His prophets were essential to their development as a godly nation and as individuals. The prayer emphasizes this conclusion by stating that “if a man does” God’s commandments, “he shall live by them” (Neh. 9:29, NKJV; direct quote from Lev. 18:5) and by highlighting that it is the Spirit that spoke through the prophets. God has given us His commandments for an abundant life, and He sent His prophets to guide us in our understanding of His truth. What we do with these gifts is the essential question for us all.

Amen!(0)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SabbathSchoolNet/~3/BkpdDSjG1nI/