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HopeLives365

Mark Finley

03 Light Shines in the Darkness

I'm delighted you've joined us for another 1 of our studies in our Sabbath school lessons on the great controversy I've had the privilege of writing these lessons And so it's a particularly meaningful to me the great Controversy is a term that we use to describe the conflict between good and evil Christ and Satan It's a term that we use to describe this controversy that began in heaven millenniums ago and will never end until sin is finally eradicated from the universe and God ushers in the new heavens and the new earth.

Let's summarize what we've looked at the first 2 lessons.

In the first lesson, we studied about Satan's fall from heaven, the origin of the great controversy.

And we looked at the fact that God has given every human being the power of choice.

We saw that how God gave the angels in heaven the power of choice, and every angel had to decide whose side they would be on, Christ's or Satan's.

We discovered as well that God gave Adam and Eve that power of choice in the Garden of Eden.

And we've looked it down through the ages.

God has given men and women the power of choice.

He doesn't want mere machines to serve him.

He wants a loving response from beings who appreciate his character and respond to his love.

We notice that when Adam and Eve fell, God immediately gave the promise of the Messiah.

And although millenniums passed, Jesus eventually came.

He lived the life we should have lived, faced temptations, Satan's temptations head on, died the death we should have died.

And Jesus rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and is our great high priest.

Everything we need we have in Christ, the forgiveness, the grace, the mercy, the power, the strength.

So we looked at that largely in our first lesson.

In our second lesson, we looked at the destruction of Jerusalem.

We asked the question, if God is so good, why did he allow the destruction of Jerusalem?

Why did he allow so many innocent people, men, women, children to die?

And we discovered that God did everything he could to save them, everything he could to redeem them.

He sent prophet after prophet to warn Israel, to lead Israel back to him in times of rebellion.

And also he sent a message of warning to his people, the Christians living in Jerusalem, that when they saw the Roman army surround the city, that they should flee and leave, which many did.

And no Christians died in the devastation that took place in Jerusalem.

So in every aspect, God has revealed himself as a God of love.

We looked also in the lesson last week, in our second lesson, that the Christian church, armed with the power of the living Christ, went out and changed the world.

As Paul says in Colossians 1, verse 23, the gospel is preached to every creature under heaven.

We saw the magnificent growth of the Christian church.

First, each of those disciples were committed Christians and they knew Christ personally.

Secondly, they proclaimed Christ, and thirdly, they lived Christ.

And we looked at the fact that during some of the great plagues in the second and third century, the Christians went out into the streets, ministered to people.

And when non-Christians saw their unselfish love, these non-Christians are so impressed that they too joined the ranks of Christianity.

If you were Satan, what would you do about it?

If you were the devil, how would you try to stop the Christian church from growing?

You've tried persecution, that hasn't worked.

You've tried imprisonment and torture and death.

Might not you try to bring pagan practices into the church and what you didn't accomplish through deception, you might accomplish through compromise.

Today's lesson, this week's lesson, is called Light that Shines in Darkness.

On Sunday's lesson, we look at compromise, Satan's subtle strategy.

In John 14, 6, Jesus is speaking and he says, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is I'm the way, the way of salvation, the way of forgiveness and mercy and strength and power, the way to eternity.

We find Jesus the way, our Savior, so that we can walk in his truth, so we can live his life.

Everything he says is truth because he is the author of truth.

So Jesus is the 1 whose words are faithful and true according to scripture.

Now, if you look at what it says in John chapter 8, verse 44, You really have the antithesis of this, the opposite of this.

The scripture says, you are your father the devil.

The desires of your father you want to do.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him, because he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he's a liar and the father of it.

So you have Jesus the author of truth and you have Satan the author of lies.

You have Jesus the author of what is right and honest and upright, and Satan, the author of that, of falsehood.

You have Satan, the 1 who is trying to deceive.

Notice here in Sunday's lesson, the way I've worded it.

In contrast, this second paragraph under compromise Satan's subtle strategy.

In contrast, Satan is a liar that's in contrast to Jesus, the author of truth, and the father of lies.

He's prepared to use lies, deceit, misinformation, and distortion of the truth to lead God's people astray.

He deceived Eve in Eden by distorting truth, creating doubt and blatantly denying that what God said.

Satan's statement, you shall not surely die in the context of eating the fruit was a clear contradiction of what God said.

Throughout the centuries, Satan has used the same strategy.

He undermines confidence in God's word, contradicts God's revealed will, distorts scripture, and at times misquotes the Bible.

What is God's antidote, rather, for error?

What is God's remedy for the lies, the distortions of Satan?

Well, Proverbs 23, verse 23 will be helpful.

By the truth and do not sell it, also wisdom and instruction and understanding.

And as we open our hearts and come seeking God, pleading with him to reveal truth.

He gives us instruction to know what truth is, and he gives us understanding to follow it.

God gives us wisdom so we can discern it.

He gives us instruction so we can know what truth is.

And he gives us understanding So we can follow truth.

You remember, Jesus said in John 17, verse 17, sanctify them through thy word.

So Jesus is saying, You're set my people apart.

Satan's going to bring in deceit, but sanctify my people through the truth.

John 8, verse 32, Jesus says, I am the truth.

He says in John 8, verse 32, you shall know the truth and the truth shall do what make you free.

The truth makes us free from Satan's errors and Satan's falsehood.

In the book Great Controversy, page 51, we read, And this is the note on the bottom of Sunday's lesson.

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03 Light Shines in the Darkness

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