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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2022: On Death, Dying, and the Future Hope

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Rebellion in a Perfect Universe

Pastor Howard, we are starting a brand new quarter.

It's hard for me to even wrap my mind that we're entering the final quarter of this year, but here we are.

And we went from a lesson on suffering to now we're turning the corner and going for on death, dying, and the future hope.

And I think that Just scanning a little bit, obviously we're gonna have to talk about some big picture issues of where did sin and death all come from, but I love the emphasis on the hope part, just like last time's ended on the word happy, this one's gonna land on hope, and I'm pretty excited about that.

But you put together our Talking Points this week.

And I don't know that we have any other introductory comments.

We just need to dive into this whole new topic.

So you want to lead us out or you want me to pray first?

Yeah, let's have prayer and then we'll dive into the outline.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to begin this new series of studies.

Please bless us now as we study through it and we examine the different themes and topics and texts that are involved.

And when we look at this topic of death and dying, help us to truly focus on that future hope that we have in Jesus Christ and help him to become clearer and clearer in our minds.

Of course, resurrection comes in there, which is really, there's going to be some powerful stuff in this lesson.

It's interesting how when we talk about, I mean the reality is for Seventh-day Adventists, we're like, oh death is 1 of our, we know that because we have this topic.

But again, typically you're not hearing sermons on death in Sabbath worship services you'll have we'll have in a periodic evangelistic meeting and in 45 minutes to an hour You got all you cover it like in a single serving right And so it's nice to be able to go through and maybe look at, you know, realize that we're not just proof texting the thing.

Like this is a clear biblical teaching that the Bible is saturated with the teaching of the same man.

It's not just like, here is the truth about death, next topic.

It's connected to a lot of different things.

So we've got lessons this quarter on the judgment because that plays in on hell because that plays into the whole so you mentioned resurrection and then the origin.

Which I believe is where we start this time.

So in fact, this week's lesson, you could almost guess, it's entitled Rebellion in a Perfect Universe.

And we go into Ezekiel 28, Isaiah 14, Revelation 12.

Kind of made the note that every time we have a topic, you want to say, well, what was the beginning of that?

Well, almost every quarter starts with a lesson on creation or in heaven beginning with, and so this 1 starts even before creation.

It goes all the way back to the perfect universe that Satan you know messed up but well we have to fight that and and seriously we have to fight that I know this 1 already mentality because there's always things to get I was blessed by this lesson I hope that our viewers are as well and those who are Receiving this in Sabbath school classes.

So in our introduction here I've just summarized what the lesson tells us on Sabbath this quarter First of all the quarter Introduction takes a deeper dive into the subject of death resurrection the Saints final inheritance This week we begin our journey by reviewing how sin entered god's perfect universe I've got 3 talking points this week.

It says love requires choice And involves risk I've taken that from Sunday and Monday.

Number 2, sin's existence is and will always be a mystery.

You can have sins of mystery in 3 days about that.

That's, that's, I don't, that's fascinating to me.

I mean, it just seems like a simple statement, but there's a lot involved in that, but, okay.

And finally, number 3, sin can only be overthrown by demonstration.

We are drawing that largely from Thursday's lesson.

So we're not even talking about death so much as we're talking about sin first which then leads to death or corollary.

And I believe that's next week's lesson kind of starts to make that connection.

But just the whole idea of, you know, if we get a perfect universe, how did death come into the whole thing?

Well, you start with sin, which leads to death.

You have the lesson taking us to 1 John chapter 4.

And it just was interesting reading through the passage and having some of the comments of the author on this.

If you want to read 1 John 4 verses 8 and 16.

It says, He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

In verse 16, And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him." Now there's the main point here is that God is love, repeated in both of these verses, and and the contributor lesson builds on that and draws some conclusions, which I've outlined here.

But I thought it was really interesting going through here.

God is love, and then in verse 16, rather, we have known and believed the love God has for us.

That's really, We could spend a lot of time just talking on that.

It's 1 thing for God to be loved, but it's another thing to believe that he's loved.

And John builds everything, and the lesson is kind of highlighting, like, if we believe that about God, not that God is loving, that God is love, Love is defined by God, not my idea, your idea, our emotions, anything else.

That means his actions define love and the lesson highlights that even the justice of God is, I don't know what word, I forget which word the lesson uses, but Ellen White calls it in great controversy, the fruit of his love.

And so because if God is love, everything God does, everything downstream of that has to be tainted with love of you, but it's marked with his love.

And not just marked, but it communicates love.

02 Death in a Sinful World

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

We're now on our second lesson of our fourth quarter, the whole title being on death, dying, and the future hope.

The emphasis again is on the future hope part, but we do have to talk about death and dying, and today's, or this week's lesson is titled Death in a sinful world.

To give a little background, last time that we had our episode, first lesson of this quarter, talked about, well you covered that 1, but it talked about the whole rebellion in heaven, exactly the war against the law of God and whatnot.

And basically this week it moves from heaven to earth and it's a study on the fall of man into sin and the repercussions.

Obviously death being the major 1 that we still face today.

So we're laying the groundwork for where death came from in a from a perfect God.

Exactly so we went from heaven now to earth and I'm expecting even though I haven't studied all of them ahead that we're gonna dive into death and its ramifications on down the line of history here for us.

I don't think we have any other things to cover.

So Pastor Howard, could you give us a word of prayer and then we'll walk through our talk.

Heavenly Father, we are thankful for your word.

We thank you for the, being thankful also for the spirit of truth that you've promised to lead us into an understanding of truth.

We pray Lord, a special blessing on those teachers who are watching Talking Points and preparing the lessons and Lord that all would be blessed through this study of the word we ask and pray it in Jesus name, Amen.

Okay again and just my words here in our little lesson intro.

It says, This week's lesson examines mankind's fall into sin and the results we experienced from that fall to this day, namely, the harsh reality of certain death.

That's pretty stark, but that's where we're going.

But let's break it down into our 3 talking points.

Number 1, the fall of man was part of Satan's strategy against God.

Now, I thought this was a really almost over, it was kind of rushed past almost in the Sabbath afternoon lesson, but it really is an important starting point for the rest of the lesson, so we're gonna get into that.

Talking point number 2, Satan's most effective weapon is deception.

Obviously he wants to hurt mankind in lots of ways, but deception is uniquely his tool.

You get that from Sunday, Monday, and Friday.

And finally talking point number 3, though sin brings death, God still offers hope.

And of course that's a great way to end the lesson.

We're gonna be have a hopeful note, but let's look at this strategy of Satan.

Now, I know we may never talk about these things or want to speculate a little bit.

Maybe I ought to make a little interjection here, but I noticed last week and this week and regardless what we're dealing with, we try to end on a positive.

And I think that's good counsel for a Sabbath school teacher.

You don't, you know, you have your members who come every week, but you have people who come in and out of church who that might be the only time they ever hear anything.

So, you know, we do it without necessarily thinking about it, being in pastoral ministry or whatever, but I think it's a point to be made.

Well, to that point, I had this idea last week and we're kind of getting off the rails here, but let's have a little brief discussion that wouldn't it be amazing, Because we have these study guides prepared for a whole world field study.

Why couldn't you advertise in your community, hey, we're having a small group Bible study on this topic, and what if visitors did come to our Sabbath school?

It would be so helpful to understand what the Bible teaches about sin and death and the hope that we have in Christ.

So this would be a great thing for visitors to come to.

Anyway, so let's get into this a little bit.

Now in scripture, we do have some limited passages that give us a behind the scenes view of, like we talked about last week, the fall of Satan in heaven, his rebellion, and the motivations behind it.

You kind of have to read between the lines a little bit.

We do have that added insight of the spirit of prophecy, who really kind of fills in some of those blanks.

And in Sabbath Afternoon's lesson, it brings this up, that both humanity and angels have something in common, even though we're radically different.

We all have this free moral agency to choose, right?

And Satan used that choice, the capacity to choose, is what he used in heaven to peel people away from their loyalty to God, right?

If we're free to choose, are we not free to choose?

And he brings that same MO down to earth and he says, well it worked up there and he does it here.

But something else to put in here is in Isaiah, because you're talking about we have the added insight of spirit of prophecy, but even from scripture standpoint where you have, you know, Lucifer saying in his heart, or Isaiah, I will be like the most high, and you see the...

So he intentionally didn't say it out loud.

It wasn't just like, why are you saying it in your heart?

It shows us that he always works with strategy.

He's not just, and I put it in my notes as your follow man was a part of Satan's strategy, not just mindless revenge.

I'm gonna, no he's processing what is the best.

That's exactly my point is that he wasn't just randomly angry and arbitrarily trying to hurt people.

And when he came here to Earth, he came here with the goal of not just spreading discord but using humanity, this new created being, these new beings, as a tool against his already begun war against God, right?

So if you see, why don't you read, I've got it in notes, it's from Story of redemption page 27, but you'll find a piece of it here in Sabbath Afternoon's second paragraph, but why don't you read this 1 here?

He would endeavor to incite them, Adam and Eve, to rebellion, knowing that this would cause grief in heaven.

I think that's where we sometimes might end it.

We think, oh, he just wanted to hurt God's heart, so he wanted Adam and Eve to sin.

If he could in any way beguile them to disobedience, God would make some provision whereby they might be pardoned, and then himself and all the fallen angels would be in a fair way to share with them of God's mercy." So he was trying to leverage the mercy of God into a readmittance into heaven essentially saying I'm gonna I'm gonna hurt God by getting his precious new beings to fall and rebel but also if he extends them any mercy I'm gonna hop on board that train and we're gonna he was trying to interesting too that it doesn't say if and I know that's not wasn't your your emphasis mm-hmm he knew God would extend that mercy right he knew that so he said if I get them to go here, God will definitely extend their mercy.

It opens up a whole new chapter of this war.

And then we'll just come right in that door.

And so the lesson brings us out and I think rightfully so, fully aware of Satan's strategy, God warned Adam and Eve not to expose themselves to temptation.

So God's warning to Adam and Eve wasn't just to protect them, but it had more cosmic, more universal implications that the fall of man would be a big deal in this great controversy and anyway we don't have to spend too long about it but when we look at the rest of this lesson is gonna look at Genesis chapter 3 and his attempts to get humanity to fall.

But it was, I thought it an important thing to just take a minute and think about why was that important to Satan.

It wasn't just to arbitrarily cause pain, but it was a strategic purposeful move to extend the war and maybe regain what he had lost in the first fall.

All right, but let's talk about how he wages the war.

Satan's most effective weapon, talking point number 2, is deception.

Now there are times when Satan unleashes just violence and cruelty, but if you think about it, how many times has just old-fashioned pain actually gained him anything?

And how the blood of the martyrs was seed and it spread the Reformation.

You think about Stephen when he was stoned.

Immediately the people who witnessed it went out and preached the word even more.

So Satan's most effective weapon, his only real weapon that has really any impact, is deception.

And repeatedly the Bible warns us against Satan's power to deceive.

Well, you had Revelation 12, 9 in the notes here, which is Such a fascinating verse when you really let it sink in.

The Bible says, so the great serpent, I'm sorry, the great dragon was cast out.

That serpent of old, so you're tying it right into Genesis in that language.

That serpent of old called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

And you know you don't often think about the extent.

You know there's deception, there's always those few weak-minded people that you know.

This is a massive ability to deceive and it makes me think of Matthew where Jesus talks in Matthew 24 verse 24, false Christ and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the elect.

The most spiritual among us are going to be subjected to potential deception if it were helpful.

You know, think of, I put it in the notes here, but I think of John 8 44 where Jesus says to his adversaries on earth you are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you want to do he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand at the truth because there's no truth in him this is the part I want to highlight when he speaks a lie he speaks from his own resources for he is a liar and the father of it.

And I don't know if we ever just paused to think about that, but there was a time in the universe's history where no 1 had ever been dishonest.

03 Understanding Human Nature

We're in our On Death, Dying and the Future Hope series right now on the third lesson titled Understanding Human Nature.

So you wouldn't think that this would be like the question is like what is a person is a pretty simple thing and you like how can you have a whole lesson on that but believe it or not exactly well not just nowadays with but even in religious context there's a lot of misunderstanding and disagreement about what a person even is so what is life what is death and we're gonna get kind of in the nuts and bolts of what makes a person a person.

Praise the Lord, the Bible gives us a clear answer.

And we're going to look at that today in just a minute.

But Pastor Howard, why don't you start us off with a word of prayer and then we'll just sort of walk through our lesson.

Heavenly Father, we are thankful for your Word.

We're thankful for the Spirit of Truth to guide us in an understanding of your Word, Lord.

And as we study this week, especially in preparation for leading Sabbath schools, we pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would help us with our understanding and articulation that we might come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the nature of man in the future hope.

We ask and pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.

Now before we get into this, actual talking points this week, it would be helpful to take a very brief look at the table of contents.

If you notice that the lessons are structured in a certain way, each week takes a piece of this topic, but it doesn't just like take, you know, topical themes in some random order.

It actually goes through basically chronological order, starting from we saw rebellion in heaven in lesson 1, Then we had the fall in lesson 2.

Now we're getting understanding human nature.

But what we're gonna find out is that is specifically in the Old Testament passages that speak about it.

Then we have resurrections before the cross.

So I use that as a preamble to this week's lesson because this week's lesson examines what the Old Testament teaches about the nature of human life, the actual experience of death, and our only hope for life after death.

So we're going to talk about the nature of man, what is death, what it's like to be dead, and what is any hope after that, but all of it within an Old Testament context.

There's a whole lesson coming up about New Testament stuff, so you're gonna notice there's very few references to the New Testament.

It's not because the Bible is silent on it when it comes to the New Testament.

Just our contributor decided to stick with the Old Testament for this portion, which is fine.

I was jogging my memory as to lesson number 2, because you mentioned lesson number 1.

So lesson 2 just brought up the idea of how death came in through sin and the fall and now we're looking at the death and the effect of it upon human nature.

Talking point number 1, you don't have a soul.

Which for Seventh-day Adventists is not a particularly controversial topic at all, but for many other people that's a new idea.

And that is really woven through this whole lesson.

All right, talking point number 2, There is no consciousness in death.

Again, spanning a lot of the lessons Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but some, the question comes up now, like, how dead are dead people?

And we're gonna look at the experience of death as the Bible outlines it.

And finally, talking point number 3, life after death comes only through resurrection.

Again that's a theme through the whole week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

So it looks forward to that future hope but not in some immediate or other-realmly type of thing, but through a very specific thing.

So I thought I may bring this in inside of 1 of the talking points, but now is probably a better time just to touch on the general idea.

I mean, I can imagine if somebody tuned in right now and is not of a Seventh-day Adventist background, the typical understanding of most of Christianity is different from everything you just brought out.

And so I think it's important, number 1, to bring out that the statements you've made, we don't have a soul, there is no consciousness in death, life after death comes only through the resurrection, these are not sketchy or opinionated, these are clear teachings of Scripture.

And it would seem like, well, how could they possibly be clear teachings of Scripture if there's so much confusion?

And I just want to say, if you haven't studied it out, hang with us.

Because there is just so much, and of course this whole quarter is going over.

The other thing is introducing the concept of eisegesis.

There are 2 ways from a theological standpoint that you study scripture.

1 is, well, 1 way you should and 1 way you shouldn't, but 1 term that's used in the study of scriptures called exegesis, and it means drawing out of what's in the text.

I'm reading the text, and what is the text telling me?

How is it informing me about whatever subject I'm looking at?

Eisegesis is a bad habit of taking an idea I already have and reading it into what I read in the Bible.

For example, we've talked about this with love a lot.

There's so many ideas of love just that are very...

Just very narrow, constricted, even selfish.

Whereas love from a biblical perspective is selfless.

And for much of our society love is primarily emotional.

And so we take a concept oftentimes of love, even in biblical things, and when we read love in the Bible, we read into it.

We'll say, oh, people say things like, and we've talked about this before, oh my God wouldn't do that.

My God wouldn't do that because he's loving.

Loving as I understand or I like love to be.

But we want to read into the Bible And the idea of what we're talking about with death, you know, even the terminology like the soul, we take, and a lot of people don't realize that our culture is filled with ideas that have been drawn out of Greek philosophy, and we take the understandings, those Greek understandings, but it says soul here in the Bible.

But what does the Bible mean when it uses the word soul instead of what am I, am I eisegeting, am I reading into the verse?

So essentially A good amount of popular Christianity today or nominal Christian belief is actually an amalgamation of biblical, you know, passages woven into them maybe non-biblical concepts and so you have a head full of like or typically Christian thoughts but aren't actually in the Bible.

Certainly when we're dealing with the subject of the day.

Right, so what our goal here today is to take that exegetical approach and take a look at the texts and see what it actually says and just go with it.

Which brings us to talking point number 1.

There was an interesting statement made in Sabbath Afternoon's lesson.

It's in the notes or in the lesson itself.

Many people try to harmonize the words of Satan with the words of God, for them the warning you shall die refers only to the perishable physical body, while the promise you certainly will not die is an allusion to an immortal soul or spirit.

Now I thought that was a really interesting...

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