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 11: “Waiting In the Crucible”
[COLLEEN TINKER]
Problems with this lesson:
- The subject of patience is is discussed from an underlying perspective of Adventism’s belief that Jesus has delayed His coming.
- Biblical Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, not an attribute a non-born again person can develop by will-power and practice.
This week’s lesson is confusing on the surface because, while the lesson uses Bible texts about patience and draws proper moral lessons about the quality of patience, it lacks power and insight. The reason for this irritating confusion became clear in the Teachers Comments. On page 146 is this quote:
The biblical explanation of God’s patience will help all Christians, and especially us as Seventh-day Adventists, to understand the delay of the second coming of Jesus. In addition, it will help us evaluate and grow our own patience.
Also on the same page is this observation:
Patience is a key characteristic of the end-time remnant of God: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12, NKJV; see also Rev. 13:10). The remnant understand that they must be patient until the coming of the Lord in the same way that a farmer is patient until the harvest is ready (James 5:7, 8; see also Luke 8:15, Heb. 6:12, Heb. 10:36, Rev. 14:14–20).
One’s worldview determines how we understand data. Adventism’s worldview carries the foundational belief that Jesus did not come when they expected Him to come, and that since 1844, He continues to “delay” His coming. EGW has told us that if Adventists had “finished the work”, Jesus would have come long before this.
The above statements in the Teachers Comments reflect these Adventist assumptions. Significantly, they are not overtly stated in the lesson. In fact, the lesson tries to use Bible texts and make moral application out of them—but the way Adventists understand “patience” is exactly the way the Teachers’ Comments suggest: “patience” involves Adventists not giving up their beliefs and their almost-vain hope that Jesus really will come back when their theology teaches them that Jesus is delaying, and that further, His delay is based upon their own failure.
How on earth can a person understand biblical patience when he or she is taught that “patience” is the refusal to question their cultic teaching but instead they should persist is doing the “work of the church” so that Jesus will hasten, rather than delay, His coming?
Fruit of the Spirit
Galatians 5:22, 23 teaches us this about patience:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
In other words, “patience” is an attribute of God Himself, one that the Holy Spirit places within those who are born again and sealed with the Spirit. It is inseparable from love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These attributes of God are placed within us when we are born again.
After we are born again, the Holy Spirit teaches us to trust God at the moments of temptation and to allow His Spirit to bring His word to our minds when we are tempted to act in the flesh. When we lean on the Lord instead of indulging the flesh, we begin to see Him taking care of us, enabling us to trust Him and to refuse to hurt or otherwise be destructive to ourselves or others in the heat of the moment.
Patience is a gift from God, and only the true born-again believers are able to learn to live with patience, because only those who know Jesus actually have His patience in them.
Furthermore, God is not delaying His coming. He has a day fixed when He will come and judge the earth. Paul said this to the Athenians:
Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:29–31).
God “has fixed a day” when He will “judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.” We do not hasten His return by “finishing the work”—and certainly Adventism is not delaying or hastening His coming! Adventism teaches another gospel, and their false religion is not involved in the work of Jesus’ church, the body of Christ! Adventism teaches “another gospel” and is opposed to the finished work of Jesus on the cross.
In summary, patience is an attribute which true believers have from the Holy Spirit. We are able to learn to trust Jesus and to lean on His strength and power when we are tempted, and the more we are able to trust Him, the more our responses to the world around us are patient. We learn not to fight against life but rather to submit life’s hardships to the Lord and ask Him to teach us to trust Him in them.
We receive His peace as we trust Him, and increasingly our lives are marked by His patience which wants people to come to a knowledge of the truth.
We don’t develop patience by willpower; rather, we grow in patience by trust in Jesus. Furthermore, Jesus is not delaying His coming while He impatiently waits for us to “finish the work”. No, He has fixed a day when He will come—and neither hasten nor hinder His return.
We do work for Him as we learn to trust Him, but we do not move His appointed times.
Patience is a gift of the Spirit, not a product of learning to live with self-discipline in “the crucible”. †
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