L esson 8 *May 13–19

(page 64 of Standard Edition)

The Sabbath and the End

Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: 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 mys-
tery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who
created all things through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 3:9, NKJV).

T
he essence of humanity’s dignity is a common Creation. The
fact that we are uniquely created by God places value on every
human being. The unborn in the mother’s womb, the quadriple-
gic teenager, the young adult with Down syndrome, and the Alzheimer-
afflicted grandmother all have immense value to God. God is their
Father. They are His sons and daughters. “ ‘God, who made the world
and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not
dwell in temples made with hands. .  .  . And He has made from one
blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth’ ” (Acts
17:24–26, NKJV).
Ours is a shared heritage. We belong to the same family. We are
brothers and sisters fashioned, shaped, and molded by the same God.
Creation provides a true sense of self-worth. When the genes and chro-
mosomes came together to form the unique biological structure of your
personality, God threw away the pattern. There is no one else like you
in all the universe. You are unique, a one-of-a-kind creation, a being of
such immense value that the God who created the cosmos took upon
Himself our fleshly bodies and offered Himself as a sacrifice for you
and your sins!

* Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, May 20.

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 S unday May 14
(page 65 of Standard Edition)

The Judgment, Creation, and Accountability

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 moral imperative for living. We
have been created by God and are accountable to Him for our actions.
The One who made us holds us responsible. He has established abso-
lutes, even in a world of “moral relativism.”

Read Revelation 14:7, Romans 14:10, and James 2:8–13. What does
judgment imply about such issues as accountability and respon-
sibility? How are the judgment, the commandments of God, and
worship linked?
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The message of the three angels flying in midair in Revelation 14
announces that “ ‘the hour of His judgment has come’ ” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV).
Since we were created by God with the capacity to make moral choices, we
are responsible for the decisions we make. If we were merely a random col-
lection of cells, products of our heredity and environment only, our actions
would largely be determined by forces over which we had no control.
But judgment implies moral responsibility. In this crisis hour of
earth’s history, the judgment hour, God calls us to make decisions in
the light of eternity. The first angel’s earnest appeal to “ ‘worship Him
who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of waters’ ” (Rev. 14:7,
NKJV) acknowledges that the basis of all worship is the fact that we
were created by God.
Meanwhile, our adherence to the seventh-day Sabbath demonstrates
our belief that Jesus is worthy to be worshiped as our Creator. It reveals
our acceptance of His Ten Commandment law as divinely inspired prin-
ciples for living life to the fullest. Because the law is the foundation
of God’s government and a revelation of His character, it becomes the
standard of judgment. Our faithfulness to the Sabbath commandment is
acknowledgment of our commitment to live obedient lives.

How does our understanding of Creation influence our behavior?

What relationship do heredity and environment have to the
choices we make daily? How can we, by God’s grace, overcome
character defects that we didn’t choose to have in the first place?

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 M onday May 15
(page 66 of Standard Edition)

The Sabbath and Creation

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 not want Him to receive the worship due Him
as our Creator and Redeemer. The Sabbath is at the center of the great
controversy over Christ’s worthiness to receive worship as our Creator.
God’s last-day message is one that calls all humanity back to worship-
ing Christ as the Creator of heaven and earth. The basis of all worship
is the fact that He created us.

Read Genesis 2:1–3, Exodus 20:8–11, and Deuteronomy 5:12–15 in the

context of Revelation 14:6, 7. How do we see in the Sabbath com-
mandment the link between Creation and Redemption, as well?
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Sabbath is an eternal symbol of our rest in Jesus. It is a special
sign of loyalty to the Creator (Ezek. 20:12, 20). Rather than being an
arbitrary legalistic requirement, it reveals that true rest from righteous-
ness by works is found in Him. The Sabbath speaks of a God who has
achieved for us what we could never do for ourselves.
Scripture calls us to rest in His love and care each Sabbath. Sabbath
is a symbol of rest, not works; of grace, not legalism; of assurance,
not condemnation; of depending upon Him, not upon ourselves. Each
Sabbath, we rejoice in His goodness, and praise Him for the salvation
that can be found only in Christ.
The Sabbath also is the eternal link between the perfection of Eden
in the past and the glory of the new heavens and the new earth in the
future (Isa. 65:17, Rev. 21:1).
The Sabbath calls us back to our roots. It’s a link to our family of
origin. The Sabbath has been observed continuously since time began.
It is an unbroken connection back through time to our creation. It keeps
us focused on the glorious truth that we are children of God. It calls us
to an intimate, close relationship with Him.

How is the Sabbath commandment hinted at in Revelation

14:6, 7, and why is it important to our end-time message? (See
Exod. 20:8–11.)

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 T uesday May 16
(page 67 of Standard Edition)

A Not-So-Subtle Deception
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 days of creation
are long, indefinite periods of time and that life on earth is billions
of years old.

Read Psalm 33:6, 9 and Hebrews 11:3. What do these clear Bible pas-
sages tell us about how God created the world?
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The biblical account is clear. God “spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast” (Ps. 33:9, NKJV). “By faith
we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God”
(Heb.  11:3, NKJV). The first chapter of Genesis affirms that God
created the world in six literal days of 24 hours and rested on the
seventh. The linguistic structure of Genesis 1 and 2 does not permit
anything else. Even scholars who don’t believe in the literal six-day
Creation acknowledge that the author’s intent was to teach the six-
day Creation.
The Hebrew word for “day” in Genesis 1 is yom. Throughout the
Bible, every time a number modifies the word yom as an adjective
(third day, first day, and so on), it limits the time period to 24 hours.
Without exception, it is always a 24-hour period.
Also, and to the immediate point, if God did not create the world in
six literal days, what significance does the seventh-day Sabbath have?
Why would God command it? It would make absolutely no sense at all
to leave the Sabbath as an eternal legacy of a six-day Creation week if a
six-day Creation week never existed to begin with. To accept long ages
of creation is to challenge the very need for the seventh-day Sabbath. It
also raises serious questions regarding the integrity of Scripture.
By attacking the Sabbath, Satan is challenging the very heart of
God’s authority, and what could be more effective in destroying the
memorial of the six-day Creation than denying the reality of the six-day
Creation? No wonder so many people, including Christians, ignore the
seventh-day Sabbath. What a setup for the final deception.

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 W ednesday May 17
(page 68 of Standard Edition)

Creation, the Sabbath, and the End Time

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 clear that the central issue in the conflict in
the last days between good and evil, Christ and Satan, is worship. Do we
worship the Creator or the beast? And because Creation forms the ground
for all our beliefs (after all, what do we believe that makes any sense apart
from God as our Creator?), the seventh-day Sabbath—embedded in the
Genesis Creation account itself (Gen. 2:1–3)—stands as the eternal and
immutable sign of that Creation. It’s the most basic symbol of the most
basic teaching. The only thing more fundamental to it is God Himself.
Hence, to usurp the seventh-day Sabbath is to usurp the Lord’s
authority at the most prime level possible, that of His identity as
Creator. It’s to get behind everything and uproot it at the core. It is,
indeed, to seek to take the place of God Himself (2 Thess. 2:4).
Of course, the real issue in the last days is our love and loyalty to Jesus.
But according to the Bible, this love is expressed in obedience to the
commandments (1 John 5:3, Rev. 14:12)—and the Sabbath alone among
the commandments is behind everything because it alone points to God
as Creator (Exod. 20:8–11). No wonder it will be the outward symbol of
the final divide between those who worship the Lord and those who wor-
ship the beast (Rev. 14:11, 12). Considering how basic and fundamental
the Sabbath is to everything else, it’s hard to see how the final issue of
worshiping the Creator could be about anything else.

Many people argue that it makes no difference what day one

keeps as the Sabbath, as long as we keep one. How do we answer
that argument with the Bible?

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 T hursday May 18
(page 69 of Standard Edition)

The Sabbath and Eternal Rest

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 us
into the glory of His presence for this 24-hour period to spend a time
of intimate fellowship with Him.
In the introduction to Heschel’s book on the beauty and solemnity of
the Sabbath, Susannah Heschel, his daughter, writes of the significance of
the Sabbath in these words: “The Sabbath is a metaphor for paradise and a
testimony to God’s presence; in our prayers, we anticipate a messianic era
that will be a Sabbath, and each Shabbat prepares us for that experience:
Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath . . . one will be unable
to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.”—Page XV.
At Creation, Jesus built a special dwelling for us. We can find refuge
there. We can be safe there. His work is complete. It is finished. When
we rest on the Sabbath, we are resting in His loving care. We are resting
in anticipation of our eternal rest in the new heavens and the new earth
that are soon to come.

Read Isaiah 65:17, Isaiah 66:22, 2 Peter 3:13, and Revelation 21:1. How
does keeping the Sabbath point us forward to eternity?
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The same God who created the earth the first time will create it
again, and the Sabbath remains an eternal symbol of Him as the
Creator (see Isa. 66:23). In fact, the Jews had seen the Sabbath as a
symbol, a foretaste of what was called in Hebrew the olam haba, the
world to come.
The message of three angels flying through the heavens appealing for
us to worship the Creator is heaven’s answer to the hopeless despair of
many in the twenty-first century. It points us to our Creator, the One who
first made all things, and to our Redeemer, the One who will, after the
judgment, after sin is eradicated, make all things new. “Then He who sat
on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And He said to me,
‘Write, for these words are true and faithful’ ” (Rev. 21:5, NKJV).

How can you personally make the Sabbath a foretaste of heaven

in your own life and your family?

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 F riday May 19
(page 70 of Standard Edition)

Further Thought: “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 has been correctly indicated that
the angel is using the language of the fourth commandment to justify the call
to worship God (Exod. 20:11). . . .
“Within the Decalogue the Sabbath commandment stands as its seal
in that it identifies who God is—the Creator; confirms the territory over
which He rules—everything He created; and reveals His right to rule—
for He created everything. In order for the dragon to succeed, he had
somehow to set aside this memorial.”—Ángel Manuel Rodríguez, “The
Closing of the Cosmic Conflict: Role of the Three Angels’ Messages,”
unpublished manuscript, pp. 40, 41.

Discussion Questions:
Ê How does the message of the Sabbath answer the great ques-
tions of life, such as where did I come from, why am I here, and
what is my eternal destiny?

Ë Dwell on the marvel of Creation. Dwell on the miracle of our

own existence in this vast universe. What should the fact that the
prime memorial of this Creation, the Sabbath, comes to us (as
opposed to us going to it), every week without exception, teach us
about how important the doctrine of Creation is?

Ì In Daniel 3 and Daniel 6, how do you see the issue of worship

being played out in these inspired accounts? What is found in
these accounts that can help us prepare and anticipate the chal-
lenge God’s faithful people will face during the crisis around “the
mark of the beast”?

Í How do we show someone who believes in the millions, even

billions, of years of evolution as the means of creation the irratio-
nality of keeping the seventh-day Sabbath as a memorial to that
creation?

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 i n s i d e
Story
Quandary of Two Books
By Clifford Goldstein
When I grew up in a secular Jewish home, the essence of my religious
experience could be summed up by how we kept the holidays: They tried to
kill us, they failed—let’s eat! Nevertheless, I was always a seeker for truth.
In the fall of 1979, my seeking took me down the path of the occult and
spiritualism. I even had a few experiences with astral travel. Not knowing
the source of these experiences, only that they were real, I decided to start
reading about them. Thus, I walked over to the library at the University of
Florida to get a book on the occult and start delving deeper into it.
At that point, I was a hungry writer who needed a job. As I was walking to
the library, I stopped at a health-food store in order to ask for work. A man
came out and, as soon as I said something about the supernatural, he blurted
out, “What?” He dragged me into the store and locked the door. After I told
him about my experiences, he tried to warn me about demonic influences.
Well, he might as well have talked to me about Santa Claus as about the
devil. Before I left, he handed me a book and said, “Please, read it.”
Thus, with his book in hand, I went over to the University of Florida
library and found an occult book. Because I wasn’t in school, I could not
check it out, so I sat down in the library, read the first chapter, and even
practiced the first technique, all of which was very new to me. Then, I went
and hid the book on the shelves so that I could be sure that no one would
check it out before I was done reading it myself.
Anyway, here’s the rub: I was walking through the library with the two
books. In one hand, I had, for the first time in my life, this book on the occult;
in the other, for the first time in my life, I had the book that the man in the
health-food store gave me. One book in one hand, one book in the other.
Occult book in one hand, and what was in the other? The Great Controversy.
At the time, I was clueless as to what was unfolding around me.
A few days later, after an amazing confrontation with the Lord, I gave
my heart to Jesus and those occult experiences never came back. Soon
afterward, I read The Great Controversy, a life-changing experience. No
question, the Lord arranged for this powerful, timely,
and important book to come into my life. Yes, I was
a seeker for truth, and I found so much of it there.
Join the global church in 2023 and 2024 in
the mass promotion and distribution of The Great
Controversy. Visit greatcontroversyproject.org for
more information or ask your pastor.
Clifford Goldstein, a prolific author, has served as editor of
the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide since 1999.

Provided by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission, which uses Sabbath School
mission offerings to spread the gospel worldwide. Read new stories daily at AdventistMission.org. 105
 teachers comments

Part I: Overview
In times of crises, what do human beings long for more than anything
else? When disaster strikes, what do we all seek? The one thing human
beings desire more than anything else in times of uncertainty is safety.
When a tornado, hurricane, typhoon, or some other natural disaster
strikes, what do we desperately desire? We desire a place to be safe with
our families. This desire for safety is also true in times of war or when
violence rages in our streets.
In a chaotic, uncertain world, the Sabbath is an oasis of peace. It points
us to our Creator, who gives us the assurance of security and safety in
His presence. The Sabbath is a place of refuge, a sanctuary in time that
descends from heaven to earth each week. It unites us in a common bond
with our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Sabbath is the great equali­
zer. Worshiping together on Sabbath, we recognize anew, we understand
afresh, that we are part of the great web of humanity, created by God, and
that He has “made of one blood all nations” (Acts 17:26).
In this week’s lesson, we will probe more deeply the meaning of the
Sabbath in our personal lives and discover how a proper understanding
of the Sabbath influences our attitudes, our choices, and our actions. This
week we will also study how the Sabbath will be the focal point of an end-
time crisis over the law of God. Satan’s final attack will be on the Sabbath
because the Sabbath is embedded in the heart of God’s law as the eternal
symbol of His creative authority.

Part II: Commentary

Creation, the Sabbath, and the judgment are remarkably linked in a divine
pattern. Creation speaks of the Christ who created all people. Thus, we
have a common ancestry. When the apostle Paul was debating with the
philosophers in Greece, he used this powerful argument: “ ‘God, who
made the world and everything in it, . . . has made from one blood every
nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth’ ” (Acts 17:24, 26,
NKJV). Paul’s point to the Athenian philosophers was simply this: the God
of the Bible is the all-powerful Creator of all humankind; therefore, we are
all part of one human family. Understanding this concept of Creation leads
us to respect one another, appreciate one another, and treat one another
with kindness, courtesy, and compassion. The Sabbath is the practical
expression that we believe in God as Creator and that we value human
life. Human life is sacred because it is a treasured gift given to us by our

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 teachers comments

Creator. Our Sabbath worship testifies to this eternal truth. Our lesson this
week discusses the Sabbath in the light of the judgment.

The Judgment, the Law, and Freedom of Choice

The fact that there is a judgment implies that human beings can make
moral choices. If we merely evolved, there would be no real basis for free
will. If everything were determined by our heredity or environment, we
would not be capable of exercising our freedom of choice.
William Provine, professor of history of biology at Cornell University,
acknowledges that evolution and free will are incompatible. In a lecture
delivered on February 12, 1998, he made this remarkable statement:
“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin
understood perfectly . . . [including the idea that] human free will is
nonexistent. . . . Free will is a disastrous and mean social myth.”—William
Provine, abstract for “Evolution: Free Will and Punishment and Meaning
in Life,” talk delivered on Feb. 12, 1998, https:www.discovery.org/a/9581/.
Free will is certainly not a “mean social myth.” It is a inalienable gift,
given by God to each one of us. If you do away with free will, there is no
way to determine right and wrong. If there is a judgment, there must be a
law that is the basis of that judgment.
The apostle James states an eternal truth when he says, “For whoever
shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all”
(James 2:10, NKJV). What law is James speaking about? Verses 11 and 12
explain it clearly: “For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said,
‘Do not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder,
you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those
who will be judged by the law of liberty” (NKJV).
In this passage from James, the Ten Commandment law, which is the
basis of God’s end-time judgment, is referred to as the law of liberty. Ellen
G. White’s comment on this passage is extremely helpful in understanding
the depth of these scriptures: “The only condition upon which the freedom
of man is possible is that of becoming one with Christ. ‘The truth shall
make you free;’ and Christ is the truth. Sin can triumph only by enfeebling
the mind, and destroying the liberty of the soul. Subjection to God is
restoration to one’s self—to the true glory and dignity of man. The divine
law, to which we are brought into subjection, is ‘the law of liberty.’ (James
2:12).”—The Desire of Ages, p. 466.
When we surrender our lives to Christ, we experience true freedom.
Obedience to God becomes a delight. Because Sabbath worship is in the
heart of God’s law, it is a symbol of our complete allegiance to Christ.
Through His grace, we obey His commandments, not to be saved but
because we are saved by His grace and desire to please Him in everything
we do.
God never forces or coerces our will. He did not force Satan to serve

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 teachers comments

Him in heaven. He did not coerce Adam and Eve to obey in Eden and will
never coerce us to obey today. Once again: “In the work of redemption
there is no compulsion. No external force is employed. Under the influence
of the Spirit of God, man is left free to choose whom he will serve. In the
change that takes place when the soul surrenders to Christ, there is the
highest sense of freedom. The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself.
True, we have no power to free ourselves from Satan’s control; but when
we desire to be set free from sin, and in our great need cry out for a power
out of and above ourselves, the powers of the soul are imbued with the
divine energy of the Holy Spirit, and they obey the dictates of the will in
fulfilling the will of God.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 466.
In the devil’s final deception, he will attempt to coerce God’s people to
serve him. Through restricting their ability to buy or sell, through ridicule
and slander, through persecution, imprisonment, and even death, he will
pressure them to conform. While Revelation 14:7 invites us to worship
the Creator, Revelation 14:9 warns against worshiping the beast. The final
conflict between good and evil is over worship.
A similar conflict over worship occurred when Daniel and his friends
were captives in Babylon. A counterfeit image was established on the plain
of Dura. King Nebuchadnezzar commanded all his subjects to bow down
and worship the golden idol. A decree was passed, condemning to death
anyone who did not bow down and worship the golden image. The second
commandment, forbidding the making and worshiping of idols, became
a test for the Hebrew captives. They entrusted themselves to God com-
pletely. Because of their loyalty and trust, they were thrown into the fiery
furnace. But God protected them. Jesus Christ, the Son of man, entered
the flames with them and provided divine protection.
In the final days of earth’s history, the world will be brought to a test
over the fourth commandment: “ ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy’ ” (Exod. 20:8, NKJV). The commandment that leads all humanity to
worship the Creator will be substituted by a counterfeit day of worship.
Once again, God will have a people who are faithful to Him. Revelation
14:12 declares: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep
the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (NKJV). God’s remnant,
His last-day people, will endure to the end. By His grace and through His
power, they will “keep His commandments.”
They will obey because the “faith of Jesus” fills their hearts and every
aspect of their lives. The same quality of faith that Jesus had when He
faced the cross, they, too, will experience. They will place absolute con-
fidence in their heavenly Father. This trust relationship with God will
take them through earth’s final conflict. The heart of this week’s lesson is
understanding that the One who created us will care for us in earth’s final

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crisis. Keeping the Sabbath reveals our trust in Jesus, our Creator, Redeemer,
Intercessor, and coming King. This is God’s appeal to each of us in the light
of His final judgment. Obedience to His law is the fruit of our faith.

Part III: Life Application

For Reflection: John Oxenham was the pen name of William Arthur
Dunkerley. Oxenham was an English poet and hymn writer. He wrote a
poem entitled “The Ways,” which summarizes this week’s lesson well:

To every man there openeth a Way, and Ways, and a Way.

And the High Soul climbs the High way, and the Low Soul gropes the low,
And in between, on the misty flats, the rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth a High Way, and a Low.
And every man decideth the Way his soul shall go.

The book of Revelation appeals to us to make eternal choices. There can

be no neutrality in the earth’s last war. The tests we will face, of which
Oxenham so eloquently writes, will cause “every man [to decide] the Way
his soul shall go.”
Invite your class members to contemplate personally, in the coming week,
the following questions:
1. Is Sabbath worship a day of delight for me, or is it a legalistic
requirement? Why is this so?

2. Do I find my highest delight in doing God’s will? Why, or why not?

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 teachers comments

3. Are there things in my life that I have refused to give up for

Christ’s sake? If yes, what are they? How can I learn to give them
up?

The Cross calls us to a depth of spiritual experience that is much more

than a mere mental ascent to truth. In the light of heaven’s final judg-
ment, our Creator calls us to trust Him completely in these final, climac-
tic hours of earth’s history.

Notes

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