we are faith witnesses . . .

[Burnt Mills Sabbath School]

 

Burnt Mills Sabbath School

 

Dear Friend,

Welcome to Burnt Mills Sabbath School.  We trust you had a good week. We invite you to come study, fellowship and worship at Burnt Mills this sabbath – September 4, 2010.

 

Christians today may not be eyewitnesses, but we are faith witnesses to Christ's power in our life.  If we have experienced the gospel as Good News, we will not be able to keep it to ourselves. 

 

Our feature program at 10:30 a.m. this Sabbath, September 4, 2010 at Burnt Mills attempts to expand on this theme.   Have you been a witness for Christ lately ?  Have you experienced the power of God working in your life ?  What is your testimony of HIM !

 

This Sabbath we will also learn a new theme song – prepared for this quarter’s study on the Book of Romans (ref: Romans 8:28, 31-32).   Please find attached the sheet music with lyrics for “And We Know That All Things” by Bodil Morris.  You should be able to to print out this pdf document.  In any case, we will have this for you as an insert in the bulletin this Sabbath.

 

We know you have been blessed by the contemporary comments on the weekly lessons - often tied to a current national or world event.  Please forward this email to someone if you have been blessed.  Be sure to study and share your own views and understanding of this week’s lesson.  It will be a blessing to others in your class. 

 

Redemption for Jew and Gentile | September 4, 2010 | Adapted from Contemporary Comments

 

Romans 9 (New International Version)

 

God's Sovereign Choice

I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

 It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. For this was how the promise was stated: "At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."

 

Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

 

 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,

   "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

      and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

 

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

 

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea:

   "I will call them 'my people' who are not my people;

      and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one,"and,

   "It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,

      'You are not my people,'

   they will be called 'sons of the living God.' "

 

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

   "Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,

      only the remnant will be saved.

For the Lord will carry out

      his sentence on earth with speed and finality."

 

It is just as Isaiah said previously:

   "Unless the Lord Almighty

      had left us descendants,

   we would have become like Sodom,

      we would have been like Gomorrah."

 

Israel's Unbelief

What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone."As it is written:

   "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble

      and a rock that makes them fall,

   and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."

 

 

 

“In spite of the fact that there have already been two decades of failed Arab-Israeli negotiations with little to no noticeable progress, September 1 the Obama administration will host another Middle East peace summit in Washington.

 

Dinner guests at the White House the day before the summit include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

 

George Mitchell, United States envoy to the Middle East, has shuttled between the two nations trying for many years to build bridges. There have already been two decades of failed negotiations with little to no noticeable progress. Because he has been directly involved over time, Mitchell sees the larger picture of this on-going conflict. His hope is that with direct face-to-face dialogue between Netanyahu and Abbas, more will be accomplished.

 

On National Public Radio this past weekend Mitchell was quoted as saying “Past efforts at Mideast peace that did not succeed cannot deter us from trying again, because the cause is noble and just and right for all concerned.”

 

We continue our study of a Biblical conflict that has frustrated another envoy, Pastor Paul. His letter to the church in Rome pleads with his people to accept the fact that by faith in the Messiah, salvation is offered to both Jew and Gentile.

 

This week’s Bible Study introduction suggests that Romans 9 may be a bit confusing if we look at the verses out of context.  Paul is writing a long letter with arguments, metaphors, examples as well as direct answers to his own arguments and Chapter 9 is just one portion of this long epistle, now put into book form. Unless we look at the bigger picture of what Pastor Paul is saying to people he has been working with for years, we can become confused.

 

Theologian, Dr. John Brunt, suggests that we look at Romans 1-8 as a cluster of texts and then view Romans 9-11 as a nit-together argument that ends with the bottom line. No matter what God has done in history in calling certain people and appearing to reject others, he has always had (and continues to have) but one goal in mind: To have mercy on all and to save all.  Brunt suggests that it is helpful to flip forward to the end of Chapter 11 before digging deeper into Chapter 9.

 

Brunt directs us to Romans 11:32 and 33 that reads as follows: “God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all. O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (NRSV)

 

Knowing the rest of the story, we can now better sense the heartache of a pastor whose soul is filled with deep anguish because his own people, Israel, have not accepted the Messiah. After all the blessings that have been poured out on them and the privileges given to them, his pastor’s heart Paul can’t bear to think of them being lost. Instead of trusting God, they have relied on their ability to keep the laws, their own works, and didn’t embrace what God had done for them. Even so, like George Mitchell, Paul holds out hope —even to the point that he would die if he is the one to stand in his own people’s way of Salvation.

 

While studying our lesson this week we need to keep in mind that God in His mercy has but one goal: to save everyone who has faith in Him.”

 

 

Wishing you an abundance of God's Sabbath blessings.

 

Regards,

 

Joseph Pakkianathan

Burnt Mills Sabbath School