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Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

Mark Finley

01 The War Behind All Wars

We're beginning a new series of Sabbath School lessons titled The Great Controversy.

If you were asked what theme runs through the entire Bible, what would you say?

But actually what theme ties them all together?

Now you no doubt are familiar with the book, The Great Controversy, written by Ellen White.

This series of Sabbath School lessons is based solidly on the Bible, but the readings of Great Controversy add insight and wisdom, they're corollary readings.

So each lesson of this quarter will have a reading from the Great Controversy.

So if you have the book Great Controversy, I would encourage you to look at your Sabbath school lesson and follow along with the chapters that I've outlined that go along with the particular lessons.

After the first lesson, we will cover the book pretty much chapter by chapter, section by section in Great Controversy.

But again, the lessons were all based on scripture.

Now, when we think about the Great Controversy theme, what are we thinking about?

It's speaking about Eden lost to Eden regained.

It talks about Lucifer, the fall of Lucifer in heaven, the fall of Adam and Eve, the point of salvation in the sanctuary system, the coming of Christ, early New Testament Christianity, the apostasy that came into the church, the Reformation, the rise of the Advent movement, the last day events in the coming of Christ.

So this is going to be a very comprehensive series of Sabbath school lessons.

Let's just dive right into our first lesson, titled The War Between All Wars.

You know, as I've traveled the world and people have asked me 1 question above all others, and that's this.

If God is so good, why is the world so bad?

Why is there so much sickness and suffering and heartache in our world?

If God is all powerful, why doesn't he stop it?

Although we may never have a full, complete answer to all of those questions until eternity, we can get answers that satisfy the mind and also speak to the heart.

The reason there's war on earth is because it was first war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.

The dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was any place found for them in heaven any longer.

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

He was cast into the earth and his angels were cast out with him." Now notice a number of things in this passage.

First there are 2 sides, Satan and the evil angels, Christ and the good angels.

They come into conflict, they battle, they war.

Evil never prevails, never triumphs in the face of Christ and righteousness.

Satan and the evil angels were cast out of heaven.

If that's true in heaven, it's also true in your life, my friend, that Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, the eternal I am, will prevail in your life.

As we open our hearts to him, Jesus casts out the demonic forces that try to destroy us.

There's no temptation taken unto man, but is common to man.

That God is faithful who won't allow you to be tempted above what you're able.

First Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 13.

Notice it says the great dragon, verse 9, was cast out that serpent of old called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

He's the dragon because he wants to destroy you and he's the serpent because he wants to deceive you.

So the deceiver is a destroyer and the destroyer is 1 who deceives.

Now there's something significant, very significant about this.

Why did God allow this rebellion in heaven?

Did a loving God create a demonic angel that initiated the war in heaven?

Was there some fatal flaw in this angel that allowed him to rebel?

The Bible clearly explains this in Ezekiel chapter 28.

And you'll find that in the middle of Sunday's lesson, Ezekiel chapter 28, was there some fatal flaw in Satan that caused him to rebel?

Did God make a mistake when he created Satan?

28 verse 12 and onward, son of man take up a lamentation against the king of Tyre.

The king of Tyre is a representation of Satan and evil.

And say to him, thus says the Lord, you were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of God, every precious stone which you're covering." Notice he's the seal of perfection.

Verse 14, you were the anointed cherub who covers, certainly not the king of Tyre, certainly that it represents Satan.

You walk back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones.

You've noticed verse 15, you were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created till iniquity was found in you.

There was a fatal choice that Satan made.

Satan allowed pride to well in his heart.

What it led him to do, Isaiah 14, verse 12 to 14 says, Lucifer says, I will ascend it to the heights of the most high.

I'll set my throne above the stars of God, I'll sit on the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north." What's the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north?

He wants to command rather than be commanded.

And he claims that God is unfair, God is unjust.

He claims that God is a vindictive tyrant and a wrathful authoritarian leader.

Why did God allow him the power of choice?

If you look at Sunday's lesson, under the next couple paragraphs, it says, God did not create a devil.

02 The Central Issue: Love or Selfishness?

Welcome back to another of our Sabbath School series titled The Great Controversy Between Good and Evil.

Our lessons this quarter are based on the book, Great Controversy.

You remember last week, we noticed the fact that the Great controversy is that theme that ties the entire Bible together.

It takes us from Lucifer's fall in heaven and his rebellion against God to the restoration of God's throne in the new heavens and the new earth.

So the great controversy is this all-encompassing theme dealing with the fall of Lucifer from heaven, his casting out of heaven, the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Christ's promise of the Messiah, the sanctuary system in the Old Testament, and Israel's history in the Old Testament.

The Great Controversy takes us through the whole Old Testament period.

Then it goes into the New Testament with the coming of Christ, Christ's death for humanity, his perfect life, his death for humanity, the resurrection of Jesus, his ascension to heaven, his high priestly ministry, the early New Testament Christian church, the apostasy of the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the rise of the Advent movement, and the coming of Jesus, the restoration of God's eternal kingdom after the millennium.

So the Great Controversy is all encompassing theme.

Now, I'd like to encourage you to read the book, Great Controversy, during the Sabbath School lessons.

Now we launch right into the book Great Controversy and this will be found, you can, if you want to read the corollary reading, you can go to the Great Controversy chapters 1 and 2.

Now every 1 of our Sabbath School lessons is based on the Bible.

But I do draw heavily from the great controversy and the insights there.

But the lessons, of course, this is a Bible study period, so they are solidly biblical.

I've titled lesson number 2, the central issue, love or selfishness.

And that's really the issue in the conflict between good and evil.

Let's suppose that you are a herdsman and you're living 2000 years ago, a little more than that now, and you are herding your sheep up there by the Mount of Olives.

And as you are coming up, you see a man teaching a group of his disciples.

And as he looks over the Kidron valley down toward the temple there at Jerusalem.

He says, not 1 stone is going to be left upon another.

And you as a herdsman are just amazed what's all this about.

And Jesus begins to talk about the destruction of that temple at Jerusalem and the signs of the times.

And I'm sure the disciples were as well, and they did not understand what was happening.

They didn't understand how the temple could be destroyed.

They didn't understand that Titus' armies would attack it.

70 AD, 35 years, 36 or so after Jesus spoke.

But as you and I look at that concept of the destruction of Jerusalem, we see in the destruction of Jerusalem a foreshadowing of the destruction of our world at end time.

Now we're going to look at Sunday's lesson.

As Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem, his heart was broken.

John's gospel said he came to his own and his own didn't receive him.

Just think about the love that flows from Jesus' heart.

The tears that must have been in his eyes as he's told his disciples that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, not 1 stone upon another.

We find that lament or that cry in Luke chapter 19, 41 to 44.

Luke chapter 19, you can almost hear when you read this passage, the sobs of Christ.

You think of the fact of the depth of his love, the breath of his compassion.

Luke 19, we're going to take a look at verse 41.

And Jesus, it says, "'Now as he drew near, ' this is Christ is coming near the city just before his trial and crucifixion.

He's coming near and it says, "'Now as he drew near, he saw the city and he wept over it, saying, verse 42, if you had known even you especially in this your day, the things that make your peace, but now they're hidden from your eyes.

Verse 43, the days will come When your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side.

He makes the prediction that Titus and the Roman armies would come down and totally destroy the city.

That event would happen some 35, 36 years in advance.

Christ looked with prophetic eye into the future.

Now It's difficult to understand an event as destructive as the devastation on Jerusalem in the light of God's loving character.

History reveals, I'm looking at the note, Sunday's lesson, history reveals that tens of thousands died as the Roman army with General Titus led his armies against the city.

Men, women, and children were slaughtered.

Where was God when his people suffered so greatly?

Now The answer is clear, but it's not easy to grasp.

Where was God when his people suffered so closely?

He was the God that sobbed in Luke 19, 41, chapter 19, 41 of Luke.

And he was the God that sobbed then, but he was the God that was sobbing when it happened.

He gave Israel possibility after possibility after possibility, sent prophet after prophet, sent his own son.

But when the religious leaders rejected that, and when they turned their backs on his love, he withdrew his protective presence and allowed their choices to play out in the destruction of Jerusalem.

For centuries, I'm back to the note now, for centuries he reached out to his people.

By their rebellion against his loving-kindness, they forfeited his divine protection.

God does not always intervene to limit the results of his people's choices.

He allows the natural consequences of rebellion to develop.

God did not cause the slaughter of innocent children in the destruction of Jerusalem.

The tragic death of the innocents was Satan's act, not God's.

Satan delights in war because it stirs the worst passions of the human heart.

Down through the centuries, it's been his purpose to deceive and destroy and then do what?

Satan wants to bring heartache and sorrow in your life.

He allows, he wants, Satan wants to have sickness.

He wants to have famine and a heartache and premature death, and then people say, where's God in all this?

The truth of the matter is God was not in it at all.

These were the acts of Satan, not the acts of God.

You know, in some insurance policies it says this policy is covered except for acts of God, and you know the acts of God might be a flood for example, the acts of God might be some natural disaster.

It said, oh the insurance policy covers everything except the acts of God.

They are the acts of the evil 1, the acts of Satan.

We see in the destruction of Jerusalem, the slaughter of men, women, children, and innocent.

We see God allowing the choice of human beings to play out.

And we see God withdrawing his presence and we see Satan viciously in that attack.

But you say, where's God's love in all this?

You know, we see something amazing that reveals God's love in Matthew 24, verse 15 to 20.

Here we have provisions, Matthew 24, verse 15 to 20.

Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoever reads, let him understand.

In other words, when the Roman armies are approaching, when they're surrounding the city, Let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house.

Let him who is in the field not go back and get his clothes.

But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babes in those days.

Pray that your flight not be in the winter on the Sabbath, incidentally, why would Jesus say, pray your flight not be on the Sabbath, if Israel was not going to be keeping the Sabbath?

If God's people, if Christians were not going to be keeping it, spiritual Israelites, Christians, If they were not going to be keeping the Sabbath in 70 AD, why would he ever say, pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath?

So this is good evidence that they still would be keeping the Sabbath.

04 Standing for the Truth

Welcome back to another 1 of our studies in The Great Controversy.

We're on lesson number 4 and the study for this week's lesson is based on The Great Controversy chapters, the book Great Controversy chapters 4 to 6.

As I've explained earlier, although the lessons are Bible-based, we are using Great Controversy, the book Great Controversy, as our commentary for this series.

The book The Great Controversy by Ellen White has circulated into the tens of thousands, millions of copies, and scores of people around the world during this period of time are reading the book Great Controversy.

In today's lesson, titled Standing for truth, we find the fulfillment of Acts chapter 5 and verse 32.

In Acts 5, verse 32, Peter makes this remarkable statement.

And let's go back and pick up the Acts 5, verse 28, then I'll go to verse 32.

In Acts 5, verse 28, the authorities say to Peter, did we not strictly command you not to teach in his name?

And look, you've filled Jerusalem with all your doctrine.

And do you intend to bring this man's blood on us?

Peter, James, John, the disciples stood for truth.

And God blessed that as all Jerusalem was filled with the doctrine.

What does Peter say when they threatened him and commanded him not to teach in the name of Jesus?

Peter says, verse 29, then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men.

They stood fast for the truth of God's word and they were empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Look, Peter says, him has God, that's Jesus, God is exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior, to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins.

We are his witnesses of these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those that obey him." So The Holy Spirit empowered the disciples' witness so that thousands, tens of thousands, would be impacted by the gospel.

The Holy Spirit strengthened them, strengthened each of these Apostles, each of these disciples of Christ, so they could face torture, imprisonment, economic challenges, and death itself.

And so when we come close to Christ, the Holy Spirit empowers us to stand for the truth of God's Word.

In the introduction to this lesson on Sabbath afternoon, I tell the story of the wonderful Christian leader, Polycarp, who stood for Christ in Smyrna.

That's the modern city of Izmir in Turkey.

Smyrna, you remember, is mentioned as the second of the churches of the 7 churches in the Book of Revelation.

The word smyrna means sweet smelling incense.

Once a year, the Roman government required every citizen to burn incense to the gods of Rome.

He felt he certainly couldn't burn incense to those gods.

He was brought into the marketplace of Smyrna, the Agora.

The pro-council of the city said to Polycarp, old man, because Polycarp is 86, 87 years old by now, says, old man, just burn incense and walk out of this agora, out of this marketplace, and live.

Polycarp looks up and he says, 80 and 6 years have I served him, my master Jesus.

And Polycarp, to the jeers and cheers and yells of the crowd was burnt at the stake.

Polycarp stood firm for truth and his martyrdom impacted others.

Now a period of compromise came into the church from about 321 AD till 500 AD.

By this time, 538 AD to be specific, the church had gone through a period of compromise, a period of distortion of the truth of God's word.

Here's where the images came into the church and replaced worshiping God directly.

Here's where sun worship came in or Sunday came in rather than worshiping the creator on the Sabbath.

Here's where the church councils took the place of the Word of God, and the teachings of man took the place of the cross of Christ.

So you have this era as the church is becoming, the Roman church is becoming a large bureaucracy, and by 538 AD, the Roman church was largely ruling Europe.

Now the Bible had predicted this in Revelation 12, verse 6.

I list 2 texts there, Daniel 7, verse 23 to 25, that talks about the little horn, the papal power reigning for time, times and half a time or 1260 years.

A very similar expression as to what we have in Daniel.

Revelation 12, 6 says, and then the woman.

We've already identified previous lessons.

The woman is the church into the wilderness where she has a place prepared of God that they should feed her there 1, 260 days.

Now in Bible prophecy, 1 prophetic day equals 1 literal year.

There are more than 20 lines of evidence of the day-year principle in the Old Testament, according to Dr.

Numbers 1434 says, I've appointed you each day for a year.'" Ezekiel chapter 4, verse 6 says, "'I've appointed you a day for a year.'" So in Bible prophecy, now not every time a day is mentioned does represent a year, but when you see beasts and when you see symbolic language, 1 prophetic day equals 1 literal year.

So 1260 days in this prophecy would represent 1260 years.

The woman, the church, flees into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God.

Now notice, the place is prepared by God.

In the wilderness experience of life, in the dark ages, God had men and women who stood faithful to him.

The world has never been so dark that there has been no light.

God, the light of truth at times flickered dim, but God always has had light in this world.

Verse 14 in Revelation 12, But the woman was given 2 wings of a great eagle, whose woman the church, that she might fly into the wilderness.

Did we see the woman flee into the wilderness in verse 6?

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Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

05 Faith Against All Odds

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