Building Lasting Change

by David Guerrero

“In the January-February edition of The Sabbath Sentinel we examined the initial steps that are necessary to make change happen in a marriage. In order to set off in the right direction of lasting change, we need to pray that God will help us to look within ourselves so that we can see the situation as it really is. Asking God to help us examine our own hearts, as well as asking His Spirit to change us, is crucial in addressing change as He sees appropriate and best. Second, we need to treat each other in love, that is, to consider our mate’s needs ahead of our own, for love conquers all. Third, we must confess our own wrongdoing to God as well as to our partner, because admitting our own faults makes our prayer life much more effectual, and it creates the platform for reconciliation (James 5; Matthew 19). Today, let’s look at the heart of change.

What is Causing the Problem? The Bible is sufficient to address all human woes. Conflict is one aspect of humanity that many of us have a difficult time addressing and handling. However, through the inspired word of God, the apostle James gets to the root of our problem…”

(this article is an excerpt from the September–October 2010 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 5, click this link:

http://biblesabbath.org/media/tss_545.pdf

Don’t be Deceived by Misguided Views of Love

Kelly McDonald, Jr.
“thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:18).

“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14).

When I was called into ministry in 2006, one of the first places I labored was college. College is a battleground for the minds of tomorrow. Presently, the battle is raging even more as political correctness seems to have taken its grip on many campuses.

One time I was talking to a young man. We were discussing God’s will for our lives in staying sexually pure.  He admitted that he was sleeping with his girlfriend. I tried to explain that God has a better way, but he said that he was simply “loving his neighbor as himself.”

The moment he said this, I was shocked. I could not believe that someone could use the Bible to justify such behavior. He then went on to say “isn’t love the message of the whole Bible?” I tried to explain that there were still standards as to how we define that love –and if its not in those definitions its not love. Unfortunately, my plea fell on deaf ears.

This incident highlighted a major problem in our country and especially the American Church. When we remove the commandments of God as a standard from our schools, churches, and institutions, people will define love as they see fit.

In Galatians 5:14, Paul explained that the law is fulfilled in loving our neighbor as ourselves. A few verses later, he then went on to explain: “19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Just a few verses after telling us to love our neighbors, Paul explained what behaviors are excluded from the definition of love. The fact of the matter is – we still need God’s commandments to help us understand love so that we do not become deceived by our emotions and lusts of our flesh.

The young man I talked to was simply deceived; we know satan is the deceiver. In the Garden, his first attack against mankind was to twist what God originally said and then slander his character.

We will continue this subject next time by looking at the chapter on love in I Corinthians 13.

Time & Chance

by Brian Knowles

“Just the other day, 228 people boarded an Air France flight from Brazil to Paris. They never arrived at their destination. As far as anyone knows, they are two miles down on the ocean floor in the crushed wreckage of an Airbus A330. The reason for the devastating crash is unknown. It could have been weather, an electrical failure or even terrorism. We may never know.

In Paris, friends and relatives of the deceased waited without much hope for word on what had happened to their loved ones. Interviews indicate that the passengers were ordinary people going about their business in normal ways. Most were French or Brazilian. The list included a 60-year old American geologist and his wife, a possible member of the Brazilian royal family (out of power since 1889), the head of ThyssenKrupp steel in Brazil, and the head of Michelin in Latin America. All share a watery grave at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Somewhere in the world, this type of thing happens every day. Good, normal people, minding their own business, are suddenly killed in unforeseen accidents, or by terrorist bombs, or weather disasters. In the latter, thousands may die. Millions can be affected. Immediately children are cut off from parents, old people lose their sons and daughters, wives lose their husbands. There’s no answering the question, “Why Maria?” or “Why my children? Were they so evil that they had to die like this?” The heartache of loss lasts for years, sometimes for a whole lifetime….”

(this article is an excerpt from the July–August 2009 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 11, click this link:

http://biblesabbath.org/tss/538/tss_538.pdf

Should God’s People Be Assertive?

By Dr. David L. Antion

Must God’s people sit helplessly by while others take away their rights? How is it that God’s servants can go boldly and respectfully to God but fear to speak boldly and respectfully to church leaders? This attitude was even in some churches in Paul’s day. 2 Corinthians 11:20: “In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face” (NIV).

Most people are either “nonassertive” or become “aggressive” when they are in disagreement. Either of these is an extreme. The “nonassertive” Christian goes through life without getting their needs met or their rights. The “aggressive Christian” goes through life sometimes getting their needs met but hurting people in the process.

Understanding our rights is the first step to learning Godly Assertiveness. In the “Bill of Assertive Rights” we find that we have the right to “judge our own behavior, thoughts, and emotions and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon” ourselves. We have the right to offer “no reason or excuses for justifying” our behavior.

(this article is an excerpt from the May–June 2008 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 11, click this link:

http://biblesabbath.org/tss/531/tss_531.pdf

The Man Who Circumcised Jesus

by Kenneth Westby

“Shepherds in the Judean hills east of Bethlehem were the first to see that something unusual was taking place. It was a dark night as the new moon of the seventh month had yet no light to cast. Bethlehem lay in shadows in the distance, typical of all small towns before the modern age. During the day there had been much travel on the road passing through Bethlehem leading to Jerusalem, but now deep into the night all was quiet and the stars shown bright.

It was fall and the Feast of Tabernacles was fast approaching. Soon Jerusalem and the Temple courts would be thronged with Jews celebrating the most joyous festival of the year. In addition to the festival crowds the Roman overlords, for taxation purposes, had ordered another census of Judea requiring males to travel to their ancestral territory. Many were traveling in Israel that season, including a humble couple who had journeyed from Nazareth in the north to be registered in Bethlehem, the city of King David.

Joseph was of Davidic decent and his pregnant wife, Mary, joined him on the trek. With so many travelers coming and going, it was no surprise the couple could find no lodging in Bethlehem. But Mary’s child chose that night to be born, and they had no choice but to settle for the shelter of an animal stall….”

(this article is an excerpt from the March–April 2007 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 4, click this link:

http://biblesabbath.org/tss/524/tss_524.pdf

The Potter and the Clay

by Daniel Botkin

“Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, ‘Why hast thou made me thus?’ Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”—Romans 9:20-21

God is likened to a potter, not only in Romans 9 but also in Jeremiah 18. No doubt these passages of Scripture were the inspiration for the lines of a well known hymn written nearly one hundred years ago: “Thou art the Potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after Thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.”

Clay is a good material to represent man. The very first man, Adam (whose name means “man”), came out of the ground (adamah in Hebrew). Adam was a piece of lifeless clay until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Thus clay reminds us of our humble origins and of the fact that we owe our existence to our Creator.

The frailty of clay vessels reminds us that human life is fragile. When my wife and I did volunteer work on the archeological dig around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in 1976, we discovered, while sifting through the soil of New Testament times, that the most common archeological finds are usually bits and pieces of broken pottery. The millions of broken clay jars that lie buried in the earth remind us that the ground is not only our origin, it is also the destiny of our fleshly body.” In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19)…

(this article is an excerpt from the Jan–Feb 2006 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 4, click this link:

http://biblesabbath.org/tss/517/tss_517.pdf

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design: Scientific evidence that God is in the details

by Richard A. Wiedenheft

The theory of evolution by natural selection has dominated the scientific world for almost a century and a half. And while most evangelical Christians have always disparaged and dismissed the theory, their arguments have done little to loosen its grip on the thinking of most scientists, educators, and millions of their students.

But now evolution is being challenged on a new front by scientists themselves–not necessarily Christians–who are part of what is called the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. They claim that evolution simply cannot explain the incredible complexity and exquisite pattern so apparent in the natural world. On the contrary, these could only be the result of intelligent design.

The roots of this movement can perhaps be traced back to a book written in 1984 by three scientists. These men challenged the validity of experiments that supposedly demonstrated that life could have arisen by chance from some primordial soup. Near the end of their book they write:

“A major conclusion to be drawn from this work is that the undirected flow of energy through a primordial atmosphere and ocean is at present a woefully inadequate explanation for the incredible complexity associated with even simple living systems, and is probably wrong.”

In his 1996 book Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, puts it this way…”

(This article is an excerpt from the July-August 2005 edition of The Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 5 click the link below: http://biblesabbath.org/tss/514/tss_514.pdf

Love and Law

by Tommy Willis

“We should get to know and teach God’s law, but what also needs to be kept in mind is that law without love is pharisaical.

Our Bible study should teach us to love God and our fellowman. If not, then we fail to grasp what God is trying to teach us.

We should not try to teach that the law is done away. Jesus said: “Think not that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17).

Jesus said: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John14:15). And in verse 21 He says: “He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me….” We need to see the connection between love and law. We must hold fast to the truths that God has taught us.

Some church organizations can have an institutional unity that has nothing to do with the spiritual unity we should have. We may grow to learn all of the doctrine and agree that the law is binding, but if we fail to apply it and the love that’s intended to be with it, then we suffer loss.

Vital doctrines are important, and we enter…”

(This article is an excerpt from the May-June 2004 edition of The Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 17, click the link below: http://biblesabbath.org/tss/507/tss_507.pdf