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It Is Written

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

Mark Finley

Eric Flickinger

01 The War Behind All Wars

02 The Central Issue: Love or Selfishness?

03 Light Shines in the Darkness

04 Standing for the Truth

05 Faith Against All Odds

John Bradshaw

Money, Money, Money

06 The Two Witnesses

07 Motivated by Hope

08 Light from the Sanctuary

09 The Foundation of God’s Government

10 Spiritualism Exposed

11 The Impending Conflict

12 Earth’s Closing Events

13 The Triumph of God’s Love

Welcome to Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written.

We're glad that you could join us for a brand new study where for the next 13 episodes, we are going to be diving into 1 of the most significant and important subjects in all of Christianity.

And why is it important to you and to me living today?

We're going to be finding out in the very, very near future.

We're glad that you are with us, but before we begin, let's start with prayer.

Father, we want to thank you for being with us today.

And as we delve into this very significant subject, we ask that you would guide our study of your word and through it, may we understand better who you are and what your plan is for us and for the rest of your children as we look forward to that great day when Jesus returns.

And we are grateful during the course of this entire series of studies to have with us Pastor Mark Finley.

He is an international author, speaker, evangelist, and former speaker director of this ministry, It Is Written.

You know, it's so exciting to participate with It is Written.

I spent 14 of the most precious years of my life at It is Written.

We look back at very fond memories of our time there And we're just excited to be with you anytime we can work together with It Is Written.

It's always a blessing to have you here on our programs.

We're looking at The Great Controversy, a very significant subject, an intensely and immensely significant subject.

What is the Great Controversy and why are we going to be spending 13 episodes looking at this very important subject?

Well, the Great controversy is the theme that really ties the entire Bible together.

When you think of this great controversy or conflict between good and evil, we think first about God creating angelic beings with the freedom of choice.

And then 1 of those angels rebelling against God.

And so this great controversy starts in heaven.

It is then transferred to earth as Adam and Eve disobey God.

And down through the Old Testament history, we see this conflict between good and evil, between the forces of right and the forces of wrong.

Jesus comes and the controversy intensifies, particularly at the cross, where Satan does everything he can to destroy Jesus.

But Jesus, our sin bearer, bears the guilt and shame of the sins of the world.

And then is marvelously resurrected after his death on the cross and serves in heaven as our great high priest, giving us strength in the great controversy between good and evil.

We look down through the Middle Ages where truth was compromised and on to end time where God will restore that truth and the ultimate coming of Jesus and the restoration of a new heavens and a new earth.

So the great controversy goes from the rebellion in heaven, Eden lost, down through the centuries, to Eden regained with the new heavens and a new earth.

So it is that overarching theme of all of Scripture.

So this overarching theme of all of scripture that we're going to be delving into.

This is something that you've been studying for a long time, and we see the world that we're in right now and the challenges that we're facing.

How long ago did God impress you that this subject was something worth diving into?

How did we end up with it in our hands today?

And why do you think it really is important for people living today, all around the world, to grasp this important subject?

Well, when I went into ministry, I began to sense the importance of this Great Controversy theme.

And I've been in ministry 57 years, and so I've been preaching on the Great Controversy theme.

In 2024 and 2025, Seventh-day Adventists have a massive project of distributing the book, The Great Controversy by Ellen White.

There'll be millions and millions distributed.

There will be hard copies in the full edition.

And I was asked to prepare the Sabbath school lessons based on the book Great Controversy, but anchored in scripture.

Every lesson has its foundation in scripture.

But something unique that we've done with this quarter's lessons is we have listed the chapters from Great Controversy that that biblical lesson is based on.

I've written now this is my fifth Sabbath school quarterly.

The general conference president, Theodore Wilson called me and he said, Mark, I've got an assignment, but it's an interesting 1.

He said, well, the timeline is quite short.

Because usually we have 2 years, 2 and a half years to write the lessons.

And he said, Mark, we got about 3 months, but we need a series on the great controversy.

Well, you know, it takes about 15 hours a lesson, about 200 hours to write it.

I didn't have that time just sitting around, but when my dear friend, Elder Wilson, asks me something like that, and I put everything else aside basically and wrote the series on the Great Controversy in about 3 months of time.

And so I'm just so thankful for that privilege because it is such a vital, vital scene, particularly for those of us that are living in the last days at end time, because prophecies are being fulfilled all around us that we find outlined in the Great Controversy.

So very significant subject for us today.

I want to drop into the first lesson in this quarter's study guide.

Why did you choose that title to launch us into this 13-study journey on the Great Controversy?

When you think about it, what really is behind every war, from the battle that took place in heaven to all of the Old Testament struggles between Israel and the Amalekites and the Jebusites and so forth.

When you look at the origin of war, they usually come because of selfishness, the pride of nations, the desire of would-be world rulers to rule, to control.

And so the war behind all wars is that war that began in heaven when Lucifer rebelled against the government of God.

And he did so filled with pride, filled with arrogance, filled with this desire to dominate.

So the basic philosophy of war is domination.

The war behind all wars, the great controversy between good and evil, is Satan's attempt to dominate and to take the rightful ruler of the throne, Jesus Christ, off the throne.

So Satan's desire is to dominate, evil's desire is to dominate, has been since, well, the beginning of rebellion and that selfishness.

You know, 1 of The big questions that a lot of people have today is if God is supposedly so good and so powerful and so Wonderful and so loving if he's so good.

And and How are we going to be answering that question as we go through this quarter's lesson?

Well, Pastor Eric, you know, you and I do a lot of evangelism, and that's 1 of the questions we get very often in evangelism.

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

Why does the loving God allow so much suffering in our world?

When God created angelic beings and God created Cherubim and Serabim and all of his creation, he gave to them freedom of choice.

Now let's suppose that God did not give his beings freedom of choice.

If you take away freedom of choice, you take away the opportunity to love.

And if you cannot love, you cannot have fulfillment or true happiness.

When you give the freedom of choice, you run the risk of beings making the wrong choice.

But God respects the freedom of choice because that's what makes a human being, the ability to choose.

That is what allowed heavenly beings to be higher than simply mere robots or Ottomans, mere puppets.

So the reason there's so much suffering in the world is that in the power of choice comes the ability to make the wrong choice.

And when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they opened a door that God wanted forever shut, the door of sickness, suffering, heartache, and evil.

When Lucifer rebelled in heaven, he opened a door that God wanted forever shut.

Series

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

01 The War Behind All Wars

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Sanctuary, 1844, & Why it Matters

05 - 1844 and the Great Controversy

1h 4m

Plenary

Divine Service

49m

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

01 Rebellion in a Perfect Universe

31m

Don’t Lose Heart

50m

Talking Points, 1st Quarter 2022. In These Last Days: The Message of the Hebrews

02 The Message of Hebrews

29m

Going the Distance

2. The Little Engine that Couldn’t

48m

The Seven Thunders

54m

The Shadow’s Light

The Everlasting Covenant

44m

InVerse, 1st Quarter 2022: Hebrews

10 Jesus Opens the Way through the Veil

27m

Righteousness by Faith

Revival and Reformation in the Last Days

1h 11m

The Key to the Wedding and the Kingdom

1h 12m

Through the Sanctuary by Sean Brizendine

03 At the Laver

50m

Sound Doctrine