Bible Study - Sabbath School Podcast

Read Revelation 17:1, 2, 15 and Revelation 18:1–4. How extensive is Babylon’s influence? The fallen church system has an international reach, influencing people around the world with her deceptions. Satan is enraged that the gospel will be proclaimed to every “nation, tribe, tongue, and people” and that this “ ‘gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world,’ ” so he employs every possibl...

Read Revelation 12:17 and Revelation 17:14. How is God’s church described, and what is Satan’s reaction to it? Down through the centuries, God has always had a people who have been faithful to Him. Revelation 12:17 describes the faithful as those who “keep the commandments of God,” and those who are elsewhere depicted as “ ‘called, chosen, and faithful’ ” (Rev. 17:14, NKJV).Read Revelation 14:8 an...

Memory Text:“ ‘These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful’ ” (Revelation 17:14, NKJV).The great controversy theme is summarized in Revelation with the symbolism of two women: one clothed with the sun, in Revelation 12, and one dressed in scarlet, in Revelation 17.The stri...

“The reason provided . . . to worship God is that He is the Creator. In the heavenly liturgy, celestial beings expressed the idea in a very succinct way: ‘For You created all things’ ([Rev.] 4:11, [NKJV]). On earth, God’s creatorship needs to be emphasized as much as possible, so the angel says, ‘Worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters’ ([Rev.] 14:7, [NKJV]). It...

The Sabbath is a place of refuge in a weary world. Each week we leave the cares of this world and enter God’s retreat center—the Sabbath. The famed Jewish author Abraham Heschel calls the Sabbath “a palace in time.”—The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005), p. 12. Each seventh day, God’s heavenly palace descends from heaven to earth, and the Lord invites...

The great controversy, which began in heaven millennia ago, was over the question of God’s authority. The challenge remains the same today, as well. Read Revelation 14:7, 9, and 12. Summarize these verses by completing the sentences on the lines below. Revelation 14:7 is a call to ...Revelation 14:9 is a solemn appeal not to ...Revelation 14:12 describes a people who ...These passages make it clea...

In an attempt to destroy the uniqueness of our creation, the devil has introduced a not-so-subtle counterfeit. The counterfeit, accepted by even some among us, goes like this. God is the prime cause of creation, but He took long ages to bring life into existence. Evolution was the process He used. This approach attempts to harmonize “scientific data” with the Genesis account. It asserts that the d...

It is because our world so desperately needs the reassuring message of Creation that God gave us the Sabbath. In the mid-1800s when the evolutionary hypothesis was taking the intellectual world by storm, God sent a message of incredible hope. We have been studying this message, found in Revelation 14:6, 7.Satan has made every attempt to distort the idea of Creation because he hates Jesus and does...

If we are merely a collection of randomly formed cells, simply the product of chance and an advanced African ape, nothing more, then life has little meaning. If we are merely one of the estimated eight billion people clawing at one another for living space on a planet called earth, life loses its purpose, other than mere survival. In contrast, the biblical Creation provides a reason to live and a...

James 2:8–13; Deut. 5:12–15; Ps. 33:6, 9; Revelation 14; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1.Memory Text:“And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 3:9, NKJV).The essence of humanity’s dignity is a common Creation. The fact that we are uniquely created by God places value on ever...

The worship of God is central in the Scriptures and has always been a bone of contention for humans and for God’s people. Throughout the Old Testament the prophets reprimanded the people of God for worshiping other gods or for worshiping the Lord using the worship practices of the pagan world. The conflict between worshiping God and worshiping other gods belongs at the very center of the cosmic co...

However much we can and do marvel and worship the Lord as our Creator, there’s more to it. As we have already seen but worth looking at again is the idea that our Creator also is our Redeemer. The God who created us is the same God who redeemed us. The God who said, “ ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness’ ” (Gen. 1:26, NKJV), is the same One who, on the cross, cried out, “ ‘Eli...

Look at the first angel’s message. Everlasting gospel. Hour of judgment. Worship the Creator. Look at how closely related these ideas are. When we stand before our Creator in judgment, it’s only the gospel that gives us any hope at all. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1, NKJV). No...

The God of Creation, who brought the sun, moon, and stars into existence, whose awesome power created this planet and filled it with living things, also is a God who is interested in each one of us. He is the God who delivered His people from Egyptian bondage, who guided them in their wilderness wanderings, who rained manna out of heaven, who caused the walls of Jericho to collapse, and who defeat...

The God of Creation, who brought the sun, moon, and stars into existence, whose awesome power created this planet and filled it with living things, also is a God who is interested in each one of us. He is the God who delivered His people from Egyptian bondage, who guided them in their wilderness wanderings, who rained manna out of heaven, who caused the walls of Jericho to collapse, and who defeat...

Read Revelation 14:7. How does the message of the first angel conclude? What final appeal does this judgment-hour message make? (See also Isa. 40:26, John 1:1–3, and Rom. 1:20.)Revelation 14:7 ends with a clarion call to worship the Creator; this call is especially important now, when most of the scientific and even the Christian world have accepted evolution, a teaching that strikes at the very h...

After His ascension to heaven (Acts 1:9), Jesus visited the last of the living apostles, John, on the island of Patmos, where John had been exiled by the ruthless Roman emperor Domitian. Read Revelation 1:9. See also Matthew 13:21, Acts 14:22, and John 16:33. What’s the message here for all who seek to follow Jesus in this world? Separated from the support of his family, friends, and the Christian...

Memory Text:“ ‘You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created’ ” (Revelation 4:11, NKJV).It’s easy to take things for granted, particularly things that we have always known or experienced. How easy is it, for instance, for young children to take their parents for granted, whom they have known all their short li...

Here’s a quick and easy way to look at the 70-week prophecy of Daniel 9:24–27.First, there are the 70 weeks (Dan. 9:24),Next, there are the seven weeks and 62 weeks, or 69 weeks (Dan. 9:25) of the 70 weeks. There’s the last week, the seventieth (Dan. 9:27).And, finally, that last week is divided—“in the middle of the week” (Dan. 9:27)—into two three-and-a-half-year sections. That’s it. Seventy wee...

The first 490 years of the 2,300-year prophecy were designated especially for the Jewish nation of antiquity and the coming of the Messiah. The last part of the 2,300 years has to do with God’s people, both Jew and Gentile, along with the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, and, ultimately, the second coming of Christ. The first 490 years applied to the first advent of the Messiah and ended in a....

Gabriel began this 490-year prophecy with an event that was extremely important to Daniel and to the Jews—the command to restore and build Jerusalem. Though various decrees had been passed regarding Jerusalem, in Ezra 7, we discover that the decree passed in 457 B.C. allowed the Jews not only to return to their homeland but also to establish themselves as a religious community (see Ezra 7:13, 27)....

Read Daniel 9:23. What specific instruction does the angel give to Daniel? Why is this significant in understanding the meaning of the cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 8:14?The angel plainly instructed Daniel to “ ‘consider the matter, and understand the vision’ ” (Dan. 9:23, NKJV). What matter, and what vision? Because there is no vision recorded in Daniel 9, the angel Gabriel must be speakin...

Read Daniel 8:17, 19, 26. What time period does the angel declare that the vision of Daniel 8 and the 2,300 days apply to, and why is that important to understand? Some argue that the 2,300 days are literal days. They also believe that this little horn of Daniel 8 applies to the Seleucid military leader Antiochus Epiphanes (216 b.c.–164 b.c.), who attacked Jerusalem and defiled the Jewish temple,...

As we have already seen, there must be a judgment before Christ comes. The angel announces in a loud voice that “ ‘the hour of His judgment has come’ ” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV). The book of Daniel gives us the time when this judgment begins. Read Daniel 8:14. What specific timetable does Daniel give us regarding the cleansing of the sanctuary? Each Jew clearly understood the meaning of the cleansing of t...

Memory Text:“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand” (Romans 13:11, 12, NKJV).Several years ago, National Geographic magazine described a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park in the United States. After it ended, forest rangers trekked up a mountain to...