FIRST QUARTER 2021

SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #1

JANUARY 2, 2021

“CRISIS OF IDENTITY”

 

 

The importance of studying Isaiah

 

QUOTATION

“In this very work Christ was giving evidence of His divine mission; He was doing the very work that it had been foretold the Messiah would do. In the synagogue at Nazareth, he had opened the book of Isaiah, and read there the description of His mission. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” The priests and rulers should have known that He was the anointed of the Lord; for they claimed to be the expositors of the prophecies.” EA (Experiences in Australia) 189.6.”

 

QUOTATION

“Inspiration is revealed in this record of Christ’s work. These closing chapters of the book of Isaiah should be diligently studied, for they are full of the gospel of Christ. They reveal to us that Israel was fully instructed in regard to the coming Saviour. Again, the prophet exclaims, “Behold, My servant, Whom I uphold; Mine elect, in Whom My soul delighteth; I have put My spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.” [Isaiah 42:1, 2.] He will not be like the teachers of His day. The ostentation and show and parade of piety revealed in the priests and Pharisees are not His way.” Letters and Manuscripts Vol 14, Ms 151, 1899, par. 6.

“If you are in darkness, and do not know what light is, read over some of these precious promises in the book of Isaiah. Accept them as the assurances of a God Who never fails, and you will have light in the Lord. There are many who think they have no time to read the precious Word; yet in this book lies the source of our highest education. In the hope of securing worldly honor and a name, men connect themselves with institutions of the world and gather learning from those who do not honor God. But the Lord promises to those who keep His sabbath, and who choose the things that please Him, a name “better than of sons and daughters,” “an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.” [Verse 5.] Letters and Manuscripts Vol 24, Ms 81, 1909, par. 10

 

APPLICATION

Many a parent is faced with or anticipates the nightmare of having their children rebel against them. A close friend of mine, in preparing me for our children entering their teenage years ominously said “Just you wait. One day they will tell you that they hate you.” My immediate thought was “After all I have done for them? Really? Hate me?” Providentially the curse has not come, but if one really thinks of it, there is no perfect parent, no not one. For this reason, strong feelings like ‘hate’ is not that unreal of an emotion to expect from those who we have imperfectly nurtured and cared for. Is it?

But what about God? Does He deserve rebellion from His children? After all that He has done for us? Is there any heartbeat that He has withheld from you since birth? Has He failed to give you breath for any significant amount of time? Has He ever deprived any part of your body with a steady supply of blood flow? Never! The truth is that “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). He is our life-source, but we are rebels—left to our own devices.

“The professed people of God had separated from God, and had lost their wisdom and perverted their understanding. They could not see afar off; for they had forgotten that they had been purged from their old sins. They moved restlessly and uncertainly under darkness, seeking to obliterate from their minds the memory of the freedom, assurance, and happiness of their former estate. They plunged into all kinds of presumptuous, foolhardy madness, placed themselves in opposition to the providences of God, and deepened the guilt that was already upon them. They listened to the charges of Satan against the divine character, and represented God as devoid of mercy and forgiveness.” The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 4, p. 1137.

This week’s lesson title “Crisis in Identity” mirrors the challenge that all are facing in the coronavirus new world. All indications are that WE have rebelled against God. By ‘we’ I mean us ‘good and upstanding’ Adventists. In searching for the phrase “Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah,” in the rest of scripture we find that it occurs only one more time and that is in Hosea 1:1. This means that Isaiah and Hosea were contemporaries.

In Hosea the rebellion is starkly spelled out. Unfaithfulness is given a name: Gomer, and correspondingly so too are her children as depicted by their names. In addition to Hosea, God used Amos in His attempts to retard the downward slide of His increasingly wayward people. The late Harold Rich stated it like this “Hosea and Amos share some important insights that we need today, living as we do during the last prophetic time period of Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22). Hosea indicates that God’s professed people are destroyed ‘for lack of knowledge’. (Hosea 4:6) whereas Amos indicates there will be ‘a famine for hearing the words of the Lord.’ (Amos 8:10). What is this ‘lack in knowledge’ and the corresponding absence of ‘hearing the words of the Lord’? It appears to be that of the lack of self-knowledge. A drone-like perspective of who we are and where we are in the grand scheme of time. George Santayana famously put it this way “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. It is spiritual, emotional, social, and mental Alzheimer that is the diagnosis of God’s people. There are personal and corporate aspects to this. Isaiah points out in verse five of chapter one that ‘the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint’. But God has not left us to our blindness and forgetfulness. He asks us to trust Him as a child trusts their parent.

 

Ellen White’s son, Edson, experienced an identity crisis of his own. He had been unwise in the responsibilities that he had as one at the head of one of our publishing concerns. In appealing to her own son who drifted from most of what he knew to be right she wrote:

My son Edson, the more humble you keep, the closer you draw to God and show you trust Him as a little child trusts its parents, the more securely you will walk. Your strength is wholly in God—in your simple, entire trust in God. The churches of Seventh-day Adventists need to walk more by faith and be less dependent upon feeling….

The softening, subduing influence of the Spirit of God upon human hearts and minds will make the true children of God sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.... There will be a soft, subdued spirit in all those who are looking unto Jesus. The love of Jesus always leads to Christian courtesy, refinement of language, and purity of expression that testify to the company we are with—that like Enoch we are walking with God. There is no storming, no harshness, but a sweet fragrance in speech and in spirit.

The Word is to be our study. Here is a mine of precious ore. Much of it has been glimpsed, but there is digging to be done to secure more precious treasures. There have been many who have just rummaged over the surface in a most careless, slovenly manner, when others are searching more carefully, prayerfully, and perseveringly, and hidden, inestimable treasures are found....

Do not let anyone's speeches, or thoughts revealed in actions, affect you. You want an abiding Christ. He loves you. He has drawn you by the cords of His love. Let it be seen that your life is hid with Christ in God. Let there be no hasty speech, no cheap words, no slang phrases. Let it be demonstrated that you are conscious of a Companion Whom you honor, and that you will not make Him ashamed of you. Only think, dear children [Edson and his wife, Emma], we are representatives of Jesus Christ! Then represent His character in words, in deportment, that others may see and understand your good works and glorify God. Letters and Manuscripts Vol 14 Letter 171, 1897.

 

Martin Luther solves the identity crisis in this way.

Christ has done enough for me. He is just. He is my defense. He has died for me. He has made His righteousness my righteousness, and my sin His sin. If He has made my sin to be His sin, then I do not have it, and I am free. If He has made His righteousness my righteousness, then I am righteous now with the same righteousness as He. My sin cannot devour Him, but it is engulfed in the unfathomable depths of His righteousness, for He Himself is God, Who is blessed forever.’ This we can say, ‘God is greater than our heart.’ (1 John 3:20). The Defender is greater than the accuser, immeasurably greater. It is God Who is my Defender. It is my heart that accuses me. Is this the relation? Yes, yes, even so! ‘Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?’ It is as if he were saying: ‘No one.’ Why? Because ‘It is God Who justifies.’ ‘Who is to condemn?’ No one. Why? Because ‘It is Christ Jesus (Who is also God) Who died, yes, Who was raised from the dead, etc.’ Therefore, ‘If God is for us, who is against us?’ If He has made my sin to be His sin, then I do not have it, and I am free. If He has made His righteousness my righteousness, then I am righteous now with the same righteousness as He.” Martin Luther’s Commentary on Romans.

 

~Richard Kearns