Talking Points Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2025: God's Love and Justice

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

06 God’s Love of Justice

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

We're continuing right on through our God's Love and Justice lesson series and this week, Pastor Howard, lesson 6 is titled God's Love and Justice.

So the whole thing is God's Love and Justice.

This week is God's Love of justice and I think there's probably an interesting distinction there because we've talked about this at the very beginning, God's love and justice, does that mean 2 things of God, God's love and God's justice or is it God's love plus the separate thing of justice?

Well this makes that more clear, We're talking about God's love of justice.

He doesn't just tolerate it, and it's not something that's like foreign to his character.

This week I put the talking points together, and before I dive into the lesson, why don't you lead us off with a word of prayer.

I'll kind of outline the structure of their study this week.

Father in heaven, we are so thankful for your Word and the privilege we have of studying together.

As a world church, We do pray for each and every Sabbath school class, Lord, this week that we'll be studying this lesson, that the Spirit of Truth will be with them and will impress hearts and minds with those truths that are transformative in the life, that the members that partake in these classes and the visitors would have a deeper appreciation of you and your character of love and justice, and that they would be better able to witness for you as they come in contact with people seeking to lead them to heaven.

We ask and pray all of these things in Jesus' name.

Now this week we have 3 talking points, but before I share this I wanted to share how I came to it because it was interesting.

In Sabbath Afternoon's lesson it starts off with the illustration of how the the ancient Near East gods so-called gods lowercase g were you know what says fickle immoral and unpredictable right and they had atrocities that they were in their name which are horrible things right but then on Friday's lesson it comes back around with this great statement from Steps to Christ, page 10 and 11, which we're gonna look at how Satan led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice and blood.

Well, basically you have this bookend of false concepts of God, the so-called gods of the heathen world, and then the Satan misrepresentation of God throughout history.

And that's where the lesson maybe, I don't know if it was intentional, but I appreciated the framing that it made me sit back and think for a second, why do we even need a lesson on love and justice?

That's why we have such a lesson, because of this.

Because there is a misconception of God and what is justice and how does it go with love?

It actually in a strange sort of way you understand the connection I'm making here in a minute but sometimes people will say well why why aren't there more texts in the New Testament you know about the Sabbath?

Why aren't they always you know people who don't believe in the Sabbath and they're like there ought to be more to you know proving which day the Sabbath is because everybody kept the Sabbath in the New Testament.

In other words you don't need to reaffirm but in in contradistinction to that because Satan has attacked this concept of God's character, that does need to be clarified.

So that's why we have this entire lesson study.

And of course because he's attacked the the Sabbath that has to be clarified.

Confirmed in our day where it didn't before.

But your point is we have to address things that are problems.

And the issue is, why is this even a problem?

Shouldn't everybody be okay with God's love?

And that's where talking point number 1 comes from, is Satan misrepresents God.

And we're going to take that from Sabbath, afternoon, and Friday.

But this idea of why is God like this, we don't just come across those naturally, Satan has implanted that strategically and we're gonna talk about that.

Talking point number 2, true love loves justice.

It doesn't just tolerate justice, it's not just okay with it, or certainly it's not a necessary evil, it's part and parcel of love itself.

And that comes, that's the bulk of this week's lesson, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday.

And finally, talking point number 3, circumstances change, but God's character doesn't.

From the very beginning, not just of this world's history, but from the very fall of Lucifer in heaven, from the beginning of any problem, the core issue has been this insinuation of doubt and disparagement of God the slander against God's character framing that Satan has put on thing he has attempted to have put it in the notes.

From the very beginning, Satan has tried to swap characters with God in the minds of angels and men.

Now, to be clear, it's not like he wants to be God's character.

He just wants to appear like he has God's character.

And he knows that God is not bad, but he wants to make him look like he is bad.

He wants to kind of swap the perspective that people have.

In Genesis chapter 3, verse 1, famously, right there at the very beginning, the introduction of Satan to humanity at the Garden of Eden, at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you had this insinuation of doubt against the character of God.

This is after the man and the woman were formed in the image of God, they were given the Eden home, they were given dominion over the whole planet, and God had 1 rule.

Like, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." And he comes around and says, did God really say that you can't eat from any of the...

The implication is, I've let you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And you would think, well, that's exactly what Revelation chapter 12 says.

But he was that serpent before he came to this world.

If you have Ezekiel chapter 28, why don't you read us verses what, 15 and 16?

Verse 16 says, by the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within and you sinned therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God and I destroyed you Oh covering cherub from the midst of the fiery stones.

Again in verse 18 it says you defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the trading, by the iniquity of your trading, before I brought fire forth.

So it repeatedly invokes this trading or some versions say merchandise or trafficking.

And when I teach on this, I often talk about like, well, what if Satan, because it said he was filled with violence, but notice the violence is within yeah, right?

He didn't say outwardly all right God stick him up because that would be the not so great controversy But he he uses this tool of what the Bible here calls trading or trafficking.

Other versions, other root words from that are slander or tail bearing.

The idea is you're peddling something and the thing he was peddling is in true political fashion, right, Because we're right here in the season of voting and everything else.

That election season when we were recording.

That, you know, he's marketing himself as the better candidate for the job.

And we see in Isaiah what he wants the job he wants my throne to be on the top of everything he's like vote for me I'm the freedom candidate I'm whatever and God he's the 1 who's and he's from the very beginning been trying to do this character exchange in the minds of people.

Thus we find from Steps of Christ page 10 and 11 from Friday's Quarterly.

Yes, it says, The enemy of good blinded the minds of men so that they looked upon God with fear.

They thought of him as severe and unforgiving.

Satan led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice, 1 who is a severe judge, a harsh exacting creditor.

He pictured the Creator as a being who is watching with jealous eye to discern the errors and mistakes of men that he may visit judgments upon them." So he took the good thing which is the justice of God and his sovereignty and rule, and he tries to make it appear as though it's harsh, evil.

And how many times have we seen in, maybe in our own lives and certainly in this world, people have bought that lie, hook, line and sinker, that God is mean, he's stern, or that justice itself is incompatible with the character.

No good God would do such, would kill, no good God would destroy, or, yes he would, right?

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2025: God's Love and Justice

Eric Flickinger

John Peckham

It Is Written

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

This is a fantastic subject, God's love of justice.

This is part of the larger theme that we're studying this quarter, and that is the God of love and justice.

We're going to see these 2 ideas come together today.

Father, we ask that you will bless us once again as we study your word.

Help us to understand how you love justice and how that is a part of your character.

We ask your blessing on our time together today and we thank you.

Well, we're grateful to have once again with us this week the author of this quarter's Sabbath school lesson, that is John Peckham.

He is an associate editor at the Adventist Review and also a research professor at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University.

So this week we're looking at God's love of justice.

The ancient Near Eastern deities had some characteristics that kind of contrast with the God of the Bible.

And how might somebody's perspective of God, that is the God, be influenced by maybe some things that they've experienced or are familiar with with these ancient Near Eastern gods?

Yeah, the Ancient Near Eastern gods are, in some ways, akin to like a supervillain in a comic book.

They have superhuman strengths and powers.

And yet they also have superhuman defects and foibles and sins.

So if you look at the kinds of things that humans struggle with, selfishness, anger, violence, all kinds of horrible character defects, but they tend to be magnified in these ancient Near Eastern gods.

And 1 of the things that the ancient Near Eastern systems of sacrifices was intended to do was to placate these gods, to keep them happy with the people and maybe if you gave them enough offerings then they would treat you well, they wouldn't bring destruction on you or some kind of a calamity.

But 1 of the big problems for them is these ancient Near Eastern gods, they're actually very fickle.

You don't know what will please them 1 day and make them angry the next day.

You could do everything seemingly right and they're still angry.

Or in some cases, they just didn't know what these crazy gods might want.

And so if you think of living like a person in those days, that you're just walking on eggshells every day about how you could be in right relationship with these gods that you think are controlling everything that's happening around you.

He's a God of love, but also a God of justice.

And he tells his people exactly what he expects of them in his law, and in his law he tells them what he expects of them not for his sake, but for their sake, because what he asks of them is actually what is good for them.

It's actually what brings flourishing to their life.

And so this is why you have the psalmist over and over again say things like, oh how I love your law, because this was a great blessing to them that you have a God who himself is consistent and constant, his character never changes, and he also clearly lays out precisely what he expects of people and how things will go well for them.

Again, not for his own sake, but because he's always looking for the flourishing of his people.

He's constant, he's dependable, he's loving.

So how do we get this God of love and God of justice together in a way that makes sense to us?

Because maybe we have a difficult, many of us have a difficult time finding out how those 2 sync beautifully.

Yeah, in Scripture these concepts that sometimes seem to us like they're far apart, they're actually very closely intertwined.

According to Scripture you cannot have true love without justice.

The kind of love that will allow injustice and evil and suffering to continue forever, that's not love at all.

Love without justice isn't really loving.

And justice without love could be harsh or could be exacting.

And we see in Scripture that it's not just that God is love, He is, He's love, and it's not just that God is a just God, but these are actually part and parcel of His character, and God himself loves justice.

So there's a number of passages that just teach this explicitly that I want us to see.

The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

So you notice in that text it's just an object of his love, his righteousness and justice, and the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

So you see how these concepts go together, they are inextricably linked.

We could also read Isaiah 61 verse 8, and I will read that.

Robbery or any kind of injustice, any kind of evil, again because it always harms at least 1 of his children.

And so it's not just that God is love on the 1 hand and He's just on the other hand, These things go together.

In fact, they're the foundation of his government and this is what the psalmist teaches in Psalm 89.

In Psalm 89 and verse number 14, it says, "...righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.

Mercy and truth go before your face." And you see how these concepts fit together.

You have righteousness and justice, the foundation of his throne.

And in fact, as we'll talk about later in this quarter, this is at the center of what we call the cosmic conflict or the great controversy, that there are questions raised.

And actually his very government is built on this concept.

But juxtaposed with that, in parallel, is mercy and truth, or loving kindness and faithfulness is another way of translating those terms.

They're very commonly put together in the Old Testament.

Faithfulness and loving kindness or mercy and truth And these are also central to God's government and central to God's very character because the way that he governs, the way that he acts in the world, is just always an expression of his love, which is always just, and his righteousness is always loving.

These 2 things cannot be separated in God's character.

And when we think of them as separated, we actually have an impoverished concept of both at work in our minds.

Speaking of things that go together when it comes to God, I want to delve for a moment or 2 into the ideas of faithfulness and righteousness.

How do faithfulness and righteousness work together?

Let's look at a couple of different passages here.

Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse number 4.

In Deuteronomy 32 verse 4 it says, "...he is the rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice.

A God of truth and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.

If you look at that verse, I don't know how else you could say more strongly that God is perfectly righteous and just all the time.

All his ways, not some of his ways, all his ways are justice.

He's a God of truth and he's without injustice.

So if we miss it the first time, right, that all his ways are just, he's without any injustice.

Again, it's like using all of the language you could use to that God is only and always fully just, fully righteous, always faithful.

And what I often express to my students is that humans will often let you down, but God never will because His character is unchanging.

He is always righteous and always faithful, and he's always trying to do good for everyone.

In Psalm 145 verse 9 it says, Sometimes people get the idea that God is partial, that he's good to some and not others.

As we'll see, have an opportunity to see later on in future lessons, we'll wrestle with these ideas.

Joe Crews

Amazing Facts

Soul in Conflict

Adopted children gradually take on the traits of their foster parents and drop many of the traits of their actual parents.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about adoption miracles.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

The aged priest in the temple and his youthful assistant had retired for the night.

As they lay sleeping, a voice called Samuel, the young man who was helping the old priest.

Samuel, being an obedient servant, rose from his place of slumber and went immediately to the side of the priest, Eli.

But the priest was surprised, for he hadn't called the lad at all.

Now when this thing happened the third time, Eli realized that the call must surely be the voice of God talking to Samuel.

And he instructed him to go back and lie down again, but he added these words, "...if the voice shall call again, you answer, and say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." So again Samuel went back to his bed, and for the fourth time that same voice spoke to him.

And this time Samuel responded as he had been instructed, and he said, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.

Now, friends, this is the story of God's call to Samuel to be a prophet and a spiritual leader in a time when Israel desperately needed divine leadership.

It was a time of spiritual decline and apostasy in Israel.

The political and social conditions of the time demanded some real leadership, and God would call his people through this humble lad, and his voice would be heard guiding the affairs of his people.

Today in a world of turmoil and strife, the spiritual conditions of mankind must be at their very lowest ebb, and God's voice is still calling men everywhere to respond to his will.

There are at work this very moment strange, almost mysterious powers working on the minds of men.

Voices, unheard with the natural ear, are constantly calling for the attention of men and women and young people.

The souls of men are in constant conflict, and the Bible tells us there are just 2 great powers in the world today.

Paul speaks of these 2 powers clearly in Romans 6.16.

We are told that whichever voice we listen to, whichever power we serve, will be the voice that directs us and the power that controls our lives.

Perhaps today you find your own soul in conflict.

Perhaps you have a problem that seems too difficult to solve.

And maybe in your heart right now there is a deep longing for a better way of life, you deeply desire to serve God, but somehow you find it well-nigh impossible to do it.

Possibly some habit of life has held you in bondage and you need to break with that sin.

Your intentions are the very best, but somehow you fail on every hand in this constant struggle to be free.

Is there no help for you at all, friends?

We want to get the answer to that question today.

I want you to read with me in Romans 7, 15-25, if you want to know the story of another man who was struggling just like we are.

Now Paul speaks and in essence he says this, he says, I find that my soul is in conflict.

The very things I know to be good and right and that I want to do and follow are the very things I fail to do.

And I also find the things that I hate to be the very things that I find myself doing so often.

And then finally in his despair, Paul cries out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this damp?' And so we can see that the Apostle Paul also found his soul in conflict, and he faced the very same problem that we face every day.

Now Paul is speaking here of that same struggle and conflict that you and I need to learn how to deal with and to cope with.

There's the voice of God speaking, and then there's the voice of Satan calling us to.

And since all of us are sinners by nature, we find it much easier to listen to and follow that voice of Satan than we do the voice of God.

Little by little we find that by following the way of Satan we become a slave to the devil and to his way.

But now with the voice of God revealing to us a better way of life, we are constantly trying to free ourselves from the dominion of that evil power.

The struggle for the supremacy and the heart and life of every man has started.

In Romans 7.25 we read that Paul finally found peace and freedom for his soul through faith in Christ who set him free.

Paul realized that while there was nothing good in him, yet Jesus had set him free from sin and from the power of that evil influence over his life.

Now, in this story, friends, and in this experience, we find the answer to our own soul's struggle.

We come to Christ by faith, we confess our sins to Him, we determine to walk fully in His way, but almost before we have taken the first step in this new way of life, we find ourselves falling back into that old, former way.

The voice of God has called us, we've responded to it, but the voice of Satan is there also calling us and wooing us, and by our very natures we seem to find it easier to incline back towards him.

It seems that victory through Christ is just about impossible as far as we're concerned.

What are we going to do about this situation?

Are we bound and tied by these bonds of our fleshly nature so that we can't be free?

Listen, we get up in the morning and start out with every good desire and intention, don't we?

I'm going to practice very hard at being a Christian.

But almost before we realize it, we sin again.

Some old habit of life from the old human nature rises up and we fall back again into defeat.

Day after day goes by just like this 1, and soon we get the feeling that there really isn't much use in trying.

We've tried so hard and failed so miserably that there's just really not much hope for us.

You know, I'm reminded of the legend told about, and it illustrates this condition of life so beautifully that I'm talking about.

The legend says that there was once a wolf who lived on the side of a mountain, and every morning he observed a shepherd in the valley below as he brought his flock out there to graze, his flock of sheep.

Now the wolf would watch all this with fascination as the shepherd took care of those sheep and all of their needs.

The shepherd would lead them to the very best grass and guide them to the best water, and when the sun was high and hot he would take them into a shady spot, And at night he made very sure that the sheep had a warm, safe place to sleep.

So finally the wolf decided that he'd like to become a sheep.

He'd like to have the shepherd take care of his needs too.

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All Teachings

06 God’s Love of Justice

28m

06 God’s Love of Justice

28m

Soul in Conflict

13m

Working with a Winner

58m

05 Heard God’s Voices or My Stomach Growled

58m

05 Christ in You: Illuminated With His Glory

1h 1m

In Search of True Revival

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People Pleasing

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Last Night

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04 God Likes What I Like

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04 The Latest in New Theology

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09 Unmasking the Beast & Antichrist Part 1

1h 30m

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