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Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Exod. 3:7, Matt. 22:37-40, Exod. 22:21-23, Deut. 14:22-29, Deut. 26:1-11, Lev. 25:9-23.

Memory Text: “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18, NKJV).

In His mercy, God has always had people with whom He has maintained a special relationship. In the stories of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—among others—we see God yearning to rebuild the broken relationship with human beings. But this was not just for the benefit of these few individuals and their families. When they were connected with God and blessed by Him, it was part of a larger plan to repair that relationship and share the blessing with others. As God said to Abraham, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing … and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:2-3, NIV). As he was blessed, he could be a blessing to others.

This blessing was to come through the nation of Israel and, ultimately, the Messiah, who would come from that nation. With the creation of the people of Israel, God was now working with an entire nation. So, He set about giving them laws, regulations, festivals, and practices that would be a way to live so that those who were blessed by God would be able to bless others, as well.

No doubt this principle still exists today.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, July 13.

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By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Food ran out on Sunday morning in the home of 9-year-old Joanne.

Image © Pacific Press

Father had abandoned the family after Mother started attending the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the U.S. state of Oregon. Father, who had immigrated with the family to the United States from South Korea, made it clear that he would never help them.

“If you choose God, let your God feed you”, he said. “Let your God clothe you”.

Mother, who didn’t have a job, prayed and cried in her bedroom that Sunday.

When lunchtime came, Joanne’s younger sister complained forlornly, “I’m hungry”. Her older brother sat stone-faced, trying to be brave even though he was helpless. Then Joanne remembered reading in “Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories” about children who prayed and received help from angels.

“All we have to do is pray!” she exclaimed. “’Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories’ says that if we pray, the angels will bring us food. Let’s pray!”

Brother rolled his eyes. Little Sister complained again about her hunger. Joanne didn’t know how to pray.

“Hello God”, Joanne said. “We are really hungry. ‘Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories’ says that You can send us food, so would You send us something to eat, please?”

The children waited. No food. Hours passed, and dinnertime came. Joanne thought, “What’s wrong? God is late!”

The children grew hungrier. Mother continued praying and crying in the bedroom.

Then Joanne said, “Oh, I know what we did wrong! God doesn’t think that we believe Him because we didn’t set the table”.

She told Little Sister to fetch metal chopsticks from the kitchen. The children set the table and sat down.

“Sorry about that, God”, Joanne prayed. “We probably did it wrong. Could You send us some food now? We’re ready!”

But nothing came. The children climbed into bed disappointed and hungry that night.

Early in the morning, they woke up to go to school. They had no food for breakfast and no money to buy lunch.

“Don’t bother, Mother”, Joanne whispered. “She is still praying and crying”.

The children opened the front door to leave the house, but their path was blocked – by a huge box filled with food.

Excitedly, the children called Mother to the door. Mother couldn’t believe her eyes. Joanne was overjoyed.

“The angels were just a little late!” she said.

That was the moment when Joanne knew that God lives and that He hears and answers prayers. Joanne Kim (née Park) is now the mother of her own four children. She and her husband, Jon, a dentist, are missionaries in Mongolia.

After the food miracle, Joanne, pictured left, is convinced that angels are Korean.

“I will tell you today that angels are Korean”, she said. “The food that they delivered was all Korean – everything you need to make rice, kimchi, and seaweed soup”.

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.

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Further Thought: 

Read Ellen G. White, “The Creation”, pages 44-51, in Patriarchs and Prophets.

“‘God is love’. … His nature, His law, is love. It ever has been; it ever will be. ‘The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity,’ whose ‘ways are everlasting,’ changeth not. With Him ‘is no variableness, neither shadow of turning’. …

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

Every manifestation of creative power is an expression of infinite love. The sovereignty of God involves fullness of blessing to all created beings”. – Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 33.

“If men would do their duty as faithful stewards of their Lord’s goods, there would be no cry for bread, none suffering in destitution, none naked and in want. It is the unfaithfulness of men that brings about the state of suffering in which humanity is plunged … God has made men His stewards, and He is not to be charged with the sufferings, the misery, the nakedness, and the want of humanity. The Lord has made ample provision for all”. – Ellen G. White, Welfare Ministry, p. 16.

Discussion Questions:

Summary: 

God created a good and complete world, and He appointed human beings, created in His image, to “tend and care for” His creation. Though sin broke the relationships that God had originally intended for us, we still have a role to play as stewards of the goodness of creation and caretakers of our fellow human beings. Fulfilling this role is one way we can honor God as our Creator.

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With the arrival of sin, it did not take long for the world to break down further. Sparked by jealousy, misunderstanding, and anger, the first murder involved the first pair of brothers. When God questioned Cain about his sin, his reply is probably ironic and rhetorical—“Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9)—and the answer implied by God’s initial question was, “Yes, absolutely, you are your brother’s keeper”.

Read Proverbs 22:2. What is implied in this apparently simple statement? What does it tell us about our relationship to our fellow human beings?

Cain slays Abel

Everyone we meet is one of God’s creatures, created in His image, and part of the network of relationships that connects us all in God’s creation, fractured and broken though it might be. “We are all woven together in the web of humanity. The evil that befalls any part of the great human brotherhood brings peril to all”. – Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 345. Like it or not, because of this common link, we have a God-given responsibility to God and to each other (see Matt. 22:37-39).

Throughout the Bible, the claim that God is our Creator is recurring. For example, it is one of the reasons given for remembering the Sabbath (see Exod. 20:11) and for worshiping God in the end time (see Rev. 14:7). It is also a primary motivation given for caring about others, for being concerned for the less fortunate.

We are all linked by the bond of our common origins in God. Whoever “oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God” (Prov. 14:31, NIV). How much clearer could that link be?

God as our Creator has a claim on us that demands our entire life, including our worship and our service and care for others. As difficult and frustrating and inconvenient as it might be at times, we are, indeed, our “brother’s keeper”.

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One thing God gave Adam and Eve that He didn’t give anything else on earth was moral freedom. They were moral beings in ways that plants, animals, and trees could never be. God valued this moral freedom so much that He allowed the possibility that His people would choose to disobey. In doing so He risked all that He had created for the larger goal of a relationship with His human creatures based on love and free will.

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But there was also a destroyer (this moral freedom existed for angels, as well), one who wanted to disrupt the good and complete world God created and sought to use God’s special creation on earth—human beings—to do that. Speaking through the serpent, the devil questioned the completeness and sufficiency of what God had provided (see Gen. 3:1-5). The primary temptation was to covet more than God had given them, to doubt the goodness of God, and to rely on themselves.

In that choice and that act, the relationships that were integral to the creation as God had designed it were broken. No longer did Adam and Eve enjoy the relationship with their Creator that they had been designed for (see Gen. 3:8-10). These two human beings suddenly realized they were naked and ashamed, and their relationship with each other was almost irreparably altered. Their relationship with the rest of the earth was also strained and broken.

Read Genesis 3:16-19. What do these verses tell us about the changed relationships between human beings and the natural world?

Because of the reality of sin, life suddenly got a lot harder for Adam, Eve, and the rest of creation. The consequences of sin are real, particularly as they affect humanity and our relationships. In a sense, we are distant from God our Creator. Our families are also affected in many ways, and our relationships with others are often a challenge. We even struggle in relation to the natural environment and the world in which we live. All aspects of our lives and our world show the brokenness caused by sin.

But this is not how God created the world to be. The “curses” of Genesis 3 also come with a promise that God would make a way to re-create our world and to repair the relationships that had been broken by sin. While we continue to struggle with sin and its effects in our lives, we are called to uphold the original goodness of the world and to seek to live out in our lives the plan God has for this world.

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