Bible Study - Sabbath School Podcast

“The First King of Israel,” pp. 605, 606, in Patriarchs and Prophets. “Satan will arouse indignation against the minority who refuse to accept popular customs and traditions. Men of position and reputation will join with the lawless and the vile to take counsel against the people of God. Wealth, genius, education, will combine to cover them with contempt. Persecuting rulers, ministers, and church...

There is an unfortunate tendency among some Christians to dwell on the hard things of Bible prophecy. We see that trying times lie ahead, and the study of prophecy can become fear-based, focusing on hardship instead of the promised resolution to the story. While God does not sugarcoat the future, and He is honest about the events that will transpire between now and the close of the great controver...

In the story of Esther, we meet Haman, who is hungry for position and power. He is given a great degree of prominence in the empire, above all the other princes ( Esther 3:1 ). If we read  Ezekiel 28:11–15 and Isaiah 14:12–15  about Lucifer, we can find some parallels with Haman, an evil antagonist to God’s chosen people, who refuses to bow to God’s supremacy. Satan’s overarching intentions are re...

Boaz falls deeply in love with Ruth and wishes to marry her, but there is a significant barrier: there is a closer relative who also has a claim on the woman and the land. If we consider Boaz to be a type of Christ, this situation may reveal an issue at stake in the great controversy. Christ loves us, but there is a “closer relative” who also has a claim: Satan. What do the following passages reve...

Naomi asked that her name be changed to  Mara  because of the bitterness that had fallen over her life (see  Ruth 1:20 ). Our relationship with our Creator has been irreparably damaged by sin, forcing us into spiritual poverty. Our prospects are dim, and we spend our lives gleaning what we can from the edges of the field, living on the scraps of joy that can still be found in a broken world. But i...

Critics of the Christian faith have often pointed to the brutal reality of living in this world as evidence that: (a) God does not exist, (b) He is powerless to intervene when bad things happen, or (c) He doesn’t care when we hurt. Many of the stories of the Bible, however, provide abundant evidence that none of these assumptions are correct. True, God is allowing the human race to reap the conseq...

Read for This Week’s Study Ruth 1:1–5; Ruth 2:5–20; Job 1:6–11; Matt. 4:8, 9; Esther 3:1–14; Rev. 12:14–17 . Memory Text: This week we continue to explore stories that prefigure last-day events. By using real-life events and people, God helps us to see things from His perspective and helps us understand how to interpret the prophecies that come later, which are given to help strengthen our faith....

Read Ellen G. White, “The Flood,” pp. 101, 102, in Patriarchs and Prophets. “The high priest cannot defend himself or his people from Satan’s accusations. He does not claim that Israel is free from fault. In filthy garments, symbolizing the sins of the people, which he bears as their representative, he stands before the Angel, confessing their guilt, yet pointing to their repentance and humiliatio...

The description of judgment found in  Daniel 7  gives us a glimpse behind the veil—to an awe-inspiring opportunity to see how God is resolving the problem of sin while still redeeming those who wish to live in a covenant relationship with Him. Read the description of the investigative judgment provided in  Daniel 7:9, 10, 13, 14, 22, 26, and 27 . What is the primary focus in the judgment? What is...

Just prior to the destruction of Sodom, there is a curious story that takes place on the plains of Mamre. God, accompanied by two angels, appears to Abraham. When Abraham sees them, he invites the heavenly visitors to a meal, and it is at this point that God promises that Abraham and Sarah will have a son who would lead to the Messiah. Jesus, indeed, came from the line of Abraham (compare with  Ga...

There is another key Old Testament story to which Peter makes direct reference when describing last-day events: the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities of the plain were legendary for their wickedness and became the first example of population centers destroyed by fire from heaven. Read  2 Peter 2:4–11, Jude 5–8, and Ezekiel 16:46–50 —and note all of the details. What were the moral cond...

Peter reminds us that many will be unprepared for Christ’s return because they “willfully forget” ( 2 Pet. 3:5, NKJV ) what happened at the Flood. Today, even though the world has a collective memory of a great deluge (an astonishing number of global cultures tell the story of a devastating flood, from the ancient Greeks to the Mayans), the story of Noah is today perhaps one of the most ridiculed...

Read  Revelation 6:12–17 . Consider the details of these people’s response to seeing last-day events suddenly play out. What do you notice about their response? It is interesting to note that the lost are not crying out, “What is this?” or “Who is behind this?” They appear to  know  what is happening. They refer to Jesus as the Lamb, which would require knowing something of the story of Christ. Th...

Read for This Week’s Study Rev. 6:12–17; Matt. 24:36–44; Gen. 6:1–8; 2 Pet. 2:4–11; Gen. 18:17–32; Dan. 7:9, 10 . Memory Text: The Bible is filled with accounts of God’s people that point to future events and that hold keys to helping us understand present truth. In fact, some of those accounts foreshadow last-day events with surprising detail, providing us a broader foundation for understanding t...

Read  Psalm 133, Acts 1:4–9, and Revelation 5:4–7 . “During the patriarchal age the influence of the Holy Spirit had often been revealed in a marked manner, but never in its fullness. Now, in obedience to the word of the Saviour, the disciples offered their supplications for this gift, and in heaven Christ added His intercession. He claimed the gift of the Spirit, that He might pour it upon His pe...

Read  Psalm 67 . How does this hymn of praise inform your understanding of the role of God’s people in  Revelation 14:6–12 ? Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a new black coating that renders objects painted with it nearly invisible. Created from nanotubes, it is many times darker than any black material previously created. This new material can absorb 99.995 perc...

Read  Psalm 75 . Read also  Matthew 26:26–29 and Revelation 14:9–12 . What does this psalm reveal about some of the issues at stake in the judgment, and how do these other texts help us understand these issues? There is some thought that this psalm would have been sung upon the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib’s army ( 2 Chronicles 32, 2 Kings 19 )—a story that appears to point forward to the...

Read  Psalm 47:1–4 . What does it say about our place, ultimately, in Christ’s kingdom? Long term, the future is bright. Until then, humanity ceded dominion over the planet to Lucifer, and by the time Satan appeared at the heavenly council in Job, he boasted that this earth belonged to him. “ ‘From where do you come?’ ” God asked. “ ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and fo...

Much of the language in the book of Psalms is symbolic, but when it comes to the language that points forward to the ultimate resetting of our planet, we have little reason to believe that it is  merely  symbolic.  Psalm 46  reminds us that the physical earth will be deeply affected by Christ’s return. But it is not merely the rocks and ocean that will be affected; the grand climax of earth’s hist...

Read Psalm 46. What message of hope can we take from this amid the turmoil of life now and what we know is going to come upon the earth in the last days as the great controversy plays out here? Psalm 46 appears to touch on a theme that we find in the book of Hebrews: that of something better. Jesus is better than the earthly high priest, His sacrifice is better than all the animal sacrifices, and...

Read for This Week’s Study Psalm 46, Jer. 4:23–26, Ps. 47:1–4, 1 Thess. 4:13–17, Psalm 75, Rev. 14:6–12 . Memory Text: When thinking of final events, we tend to focus on the beasts and the powers of Revelation. And, of course, they have a big role—an important one, too. Otherwise, God would not have put them in the Bible for us to understand them (see  Rev. 1:3 ). Prophecy, however, also deals wit...

“The psalms of David pass through the whole range of experience, from the depths of conscious guilt and self-condemnation to the loftiest faith and the most exalted communing with God. His life record declares that sin can bring only shame and woe, but that God’s love and mercy can reach to the deepest depths, that faith will lift up the repenting soul to share the adoption of the sons of God. Of...

After the Lord had appeared to Isaiah in the throne room scene of  Isaiah 6:1–8 , and after Isaiah had been told that his “iniquity is taken away” and his “sin purged,” he then answered God’s call by saying, “ ‘Here am I! Send me’ ” ( Isa. 6:8, NKJV ). That is, once he knew that he was right with God, and despite knowing his faults, he was ready to work for the Lord. Is it not the same with us? Ho...

Read  Psalm 5 . In this work, David draws sharp contrasts between those who are lost and those who have been redeemed. Compare this psalm with the language of  Revelation 14:1–12 . What similarities do you find, and how does this inform your understanding of what it means to be a part of God’s last-day remnant movement? It is instructive to note that David insists that evil “may not dwell” with Go...

The remnant gathered on Zion have a name engraved on their foreheads: the name of the Father and the Lamb. (Whether this is two different names is doubtful; Jesus is the very image of the Father!) A “name” in the Scriptures signifies more than a label by which people address each other; it stands for character. To this day, many cultures still say that someone has a “good name” when people think h...