SECOND QUARTER 2022
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #1
APRIL 2, 2022
“THE CREATION”

 

 

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).

 

This week's Sabbath School Insights is dedicated to the memory of Pastor E. H. (Jack) Sequeira. It was Pastor Sequeira's riveting exegesis of the first 8 chapters of Romans that opened our minds to the powerful good news of the gospel back in 1988. Pastor Sequeira went to sleep in Jesus on Sabbath, March 26, 2022. Thoughts from this week's Insights include excerpts from his book The 27 Fundamentals:

 

"If we deny the Biblical record of creation then we must deny the hope of the gospel. The hope of the gospel is when Christ comes, He will shout, and the dead in Christ, which have been eaten by worms, will suddenly come back to life, not through a process of evolution, but spontaneously. They will come back much better than when they went down. They went down in corruption; they will rise up in incorruption. If we do not believe in a six literal day creation week, how can we believe that when Christ comes, the hope of the gospel will be a reality? Will He create you as a single cell which will take millions of years to develop into a human being? No. If I am alive at that moment I believe by faith, that in a flash, or twinkling of an eye, I will be changed, and this corruption will put on incorruption, and the battle against the flesh will come to an end.

 

"The greatest damage that the theory of evolution has done is that if you believe in this theory, you cannot believe that all of us come from a common source--Adam. Therefore, you cannot believe in the Biblical definition of the sin problem. Sin entered the world through one man. In Adam, all die. By the disobedience of one, condemnation came upon all men (Romans 5:12, 18; 1 Corinthians 15:22). If we do not have a common source then we must also destroy the 'in Christ' motif where the Bible teaches that by one man's obedience the whole human race was redeemed. By one man's obedience justification of life came unto all men. If we destroy the 'in Adam' concept, which evolution does, then you destroy the 'in Christ' concept. Then you destroy the gospel because the gospel teaches that God redeemed all men in one man, just like Satan ruined all men in one. Sin is not our animal weakness. The Bible does not teach evolution; the Bible teaches the very opposite--devolution--that God created man perfect and then he fell and since the Fall things have been getting worse. If things are getting better why do some cities need the National Guard to take care of them? We have reached the point where things are getting so bad, we have no solution to our problems, and Christ will have to step in but I thank God that He has given us a hope.

 

"It is my prayer that everyone will believe what the Bible teaches--God spoke and it happened. Jesus confirmed this when He said that God made man and woman and He defended marriage on the basis of what took place in creation. While I cannot explain how God spoke and it happened, I know that one day He will speak again and we will be changed because we believe in what He says."

 

This statement of faith is especially moving in light of Pastor Sequeira's passing. As indicated in the passage above, he had hoped to be among those who would live to see Jesus come. Generation after generation of Adventists have cherished this hope, and now another generation is passing to their rest. Is this God's will?

 

"We may have to remain here in this world because of insubordination many more years, as did the children of Israel, but for Christ's sake His people should not add sin to sin by charging God with the consequence of their own wrong course of action.

 

"Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own" (Last Day Events, p. 39).

 

"He has put it in our power, through cooperation with Him to bring this scene of misery to an end (ibid., p. 39)

 

The Lord in His mercy sent a most precious message through the ministry of brothers A.T. Jones and E.J. Waggoner to accomplish this work of preparing us for Christ's return. Sadly, this message was resisted and we are still here.

 

"The spirit of worldliness may contaminate the many and control the few; the cause of God may hold its ground only by great exertion and continual sacrifice, yet it will triumph finally.

 

"The word is: Go forward; discharge your individual duty, and leave all consequences in the hands of God. If we move forward where Jesus leads the way we shall see His triumph, we shall share His joy" (1 Selected Messages, p. 28).

 

~Patti Guthrie