October 12–18, 2019

This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.

 

Lesson 3—”God’s Call”

This week’s lesson starts off well regarding our calling from God. Not all are called for the same tasks and God does seem to use our different abilities in different ways, whether those abilities are a special gift from God or whether they are just what we have inherited or learned. No matter the talent, God can use it for His purposes if we just allow Him to lead us.

As for Ezra and Nehemiah, they clearly had leadership abilities which, as the author points out, God used to fulfill His promises to Israel for their return to their own land.

As one who set his heart to seek the Lord, Ezra was able to lead the people to God and to seek His guidance in teaching them His laws. One indication of his success in this instruction is the fact that the people recognized their sin in marrying the people of the land, and came to Ezra confessing their sin. 

After Ezra had mourned their sin and confessed it to the Lord, the people were led to make it right. The fact that they were willing to make it right showed the extent to which they had learned from Ezra’s wise, godly teaching.

At the end of Sunday’s lesson is this paragraph full of wisdom:

Sometimes we get the idea that if we love something it must not be from God, because God will give us only difficult tasks that we might not want to do. But if we are walking with God, the desire to do something we love are often God-given. God wants us to have a passion for what we do for Him.

This is so true. When we read in Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart”, sometimes we forget that when we walk with the Lord, He changes us until our desires and wishes align with His. Instead of a magic genie who will give us what we want if we just ask, He changes us so that what He gives us is just what we want.

After this great start to the lesson, sadly, we come to Monday’s lesson where it diverges from historical record by insisting that the decree given by King Artaxerxes in the 7th year of his reign, 457 BC, was the decree to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. 

But, if you read that decree in Ezra 7, you will see that this was not a decree for the general return to Jerusalem.

What it does order is the following:

• This decree lists all the gold, silver, wheat, wine and other supplies they could take (verses 15-18). 
• It stated that the utensil from the temple were to be taken back to Jerusalem (verses 19, 20). 
• The local ‘treasurers’ were to supply whatever the people needed. (verses 21-23)
• It also says that the ‘treasurers’, around Jerusalem, are not allowed to tax the returning priests and Levites. (verse 24)
• The King further specified that the temple service was to be allowed and that Ezra was to set up some sort of civil rule to judge the people. (verses 25-26)

Apparently this is not considered one of the general decrees for the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. Rather, it is specifically for Ezra to go to Jerusalem and take with him the priests and Levites who wished to return to set up the temple services. All of the orders in this decree are about the things of the temple and gives Ezra permission to set up the services of the temple and the civil laws. The priests and Levites, the services of the temple, the supplies for the services and the “house of the Lord” are all mentioned a total of 10 times in this decree. On the other hand, the city and the walls are not mentioned even one time.

Another problem with the Adventist use of this decree is this: if, as the author claims in Monday’s lesson, there were three decrees to return to Jerusalem, how does he account for what would then be the fourth decree, in Nehemiah 1, which is the only one that says anything about rebuilding the city and the walls?

Adventist tradition picks this decree as the one for rebuilding Jerusalem so that they can use 457 BC as the starting point of their interpretation of the prophecies of Daniel 9. 

But this decree, just like the one issued by Cyrus and the one by Darius, say nothing about rebuilding the city or the walls. It is specifically, and exclusively, about the establishment of the religious and civil aspects of the society in Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple.

It isn’t until Nehemiah 1, during the 20th year of King Artaxerxes (445 BC), that we find the first, and only, decree specifying the rebuilding of the city and the walls.

Using this starting date (457 BC) for the 490 year prophecy of Daniel 9 has several problems.

1. It assumes a decree regarding the temple services to be a general decree for the return of the people. But that decree was not given until 445 BC.
2. It sets an incorrect starting point for the supposed 2,300, which is un-Biblical itself when mis-applied to the start of the Adventist Church.
3. It mis-uses the 490 year prophecy by applying it’s fulfillment and completion to Jesus’ ministry and the assumed time that the “preaching of the gospel was enlarged and also went to the Gentiles “ to quote the lesson.

I used to just accept all this and turn a blind eye to all the confusing numbers but now, after having read the book The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson and seeing the clear, precise explanation of the correct dates, I find it almost physically painful to see the distorted, twisted and arbitrary changes that have been made to God’s word, just to fit 1844 into the timeline.

 

The 70 Weeks and the 2,300 Days

In discussing this lesson with Colleen Tinker, she said this: 

This Adventist 2300-day prophecy is SO confusing that most people never really “get” it, and if they look at Scripture, it makes no sense. When I was at Walla Walla College, I took Daniel and Revelation during summer school from the head of the theology department, Gordon Balharrie. I was excited, because I believed I would FINALLY understand how these time lines worked.

Do you know…that man did NOT finish his own curriculum for the class that summer. He did not explain those prophecies nor try to clarify them. He left us all hanging, and I was as confused when I ended as when I began. This crazy prophecy is entirely invented, and Adventists either need to face the fact that the Bible does not teach these things, or they must resign themselves to living in increasingly deep confusion and a spiral into unreality that demands editing everything they see and hear because it doesn’t fit with their internal confusion. 

I agree with your conclusions about the prophecies. If one reads it at face value, the story is amazing and the prophecies are clear.

The lesson uses these prophecies wrongly. The author arbitrarily select certain decrees and dates and hangs Daniel’s prophecies onto them. Yet Daniel itself does not support this interpretation of dates, and the historic, biblical facts do not fit the Adventists’ interpretation of them.

For a clear discussion of Daniel’s prophecies and dates, please watch Gary Inrig’s teaching at the 2016 Former Adventist Conference. He preached through Daniel 8 through 11 and showed clearly and historically what those prophecies meant, how they were fulfilled, and showed that the prophecies in the last half of Daniel 11 are yet to be fulfilled. Gary taught sessions 2, 3, 6, and 10, and you can find them here: Gary’s Daniel Sessions.

 

God’s Election

From the lesson:

Thus, we are not left to transform ourselves; but rather, God promises to accomplish this transformation by His power.

How does one believe that statement and still believe Ellen White when she says things such as the following clear about who she believes does the sanctifying:

True Christians will represent Christ in deportment and in character. They will sanctify themselves through obedience to the truth…. (RH August 23, 1881, par. 2).

This says that all the promises of “help” from God will come only if we are perfectly obedient (perfect):

What God promises He is able at any time to perform, and the work which He gives His people to do He is able to accomplish by them. If they will live according to every word He has spoken, every good word and promise will be fulfilled unto them. But if they come short of perfect obedience, the great and precious promises are afar off and they cannot reach the fulfillment (CH 378.1).

This one says that it is up to us to remedy defects—become perfect:

Not one of us will ever receive the seal of God while our characters have one spot or stain upon them. It is left with us to remedy the defects in our characters, to cleanse the soul temple of every defilement (Testimonies, vol 5, p 214).

This one says that the cleansing (sanctification) must come before the power of God comes:

The refreshing or power of God comes only on those who have prepared themselves for it by doing the work which God bids them, namely, cleansing themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (Testimonies, vol 1, p 619).

And which comes first in these:

In order to let Jesus into our hearts, we must stop sinning (Signs of the Times, March 3, 1898).

and

Christ looks at the spirit, and when He sees us carrying our burden with faith, His perfect holiness atones for our shortcomings. When we do our best, He becomes our righteousness (EGW, Letter 22, 1889).

So, how do you balance the claim in the lesson—that it is God who does the transforming (sanctification)—with the claims of Ellen White that the power of God won’t even come upon us until we clean up ourselves? 

This question occurs at the end of the day’s lesson:

Why does that not, however, mean that your choices cannot cause you to lose the salvation that God offers?

It is unclear exactly what the author means by “lose the salvation”.

If he means we can lose out on the offer of obtaining salvation, then yes, it’s true that we choose whether or not to accept salvation. And there is nothing in the Bible that would indicate that each person gets only one chance in a lifetime to make that choice. As long as there is life, the possibility of making that choice is there.

But, if the author means that the salvation itself, once it is ours, can then be lost, then he is directly contradicting the Bible about our assurance—guarantee—of salvation once it is ours.

This is again stated in the next day’s lesson in the paragraph about King Saul where it says this:

Just because someone is called by God to do something special for Him doesn’t mean that this person will embrace God. Our free will remains the determining factor, and if we don’t follow God’s leading, we can lose everything.

Again, the author seems to be pitting our “free will” against the Almighty, Sovereign God who has promised numerous times to never lose one of us or let us be snatched out of His hand. So, once again, it is unclear, when he says it can be lost, if the author is referring to the chance of salvation or the salvation itself. 

 

Friday

The reader is told to read carefully the chapter in Prophets and Kings about the 70 week prophecy. 

Doing so will just reinforce the incorrect, unbiblical claims in Adventist theology about the 70 weeks and the 2,300 days. 

To counter that, I would again encourage you to read The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson to see an approach to these prophecies that are Biblical and remain true to the Biblical text., and to watch the videos of Gary Inrig teaching the fulfillment of the prophecies in Daniel here. †