Friday March 27
Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “The Scriptures a Safeguard,” pp. 593-602, in The Great Controversy; “Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled,” pp. 662-680, in The Desire of Ages.
"Many have died for upholding and remaining faithful to the Word of God. One such man was Dr. Rowland Taylor, an English Parish minister, who resisted the imposition of the Catholic mass during the reign of Bloody Mary in his Hadley, England parish. After being cast out of the church and derided for his adherence to Scripture, he appealed in person to the bishop of Winchester, the Lord Chancellor of England, but he had him cast into prison and eventually sent him to the stake. Just before his death in 1555, he spoke these words:
“ ‘Good people! I have taught you nothing but God’s holy Word, and those lessons that I have taken out of God’s blessed book, the holy Bible. I have come here this day to seal it with my blood.’ ”—John Foxe, The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, rewritten and updated by Harold J. Chadwick (North Brunswick, N.J.: Bridge-Logos Publishers, 1997), p. 193. Dr. Taylor was heard repeating Psalm 51 just before the fire was lit, and he gave up his life.
The question we need to ask ourselves now is: Would we remain as faithful to upholding the truths in God’s Word? Sooner or later, in the final conflict, that test will come. The time to prepare for it, of course, is now."
Discussion Questions:
• In what way does prophecy confirm the Bible’s divine origin? How can these fulfilled prophecies affirm us in our faith?
"• In reference to the question at the end of Tuesday’s study, why is the evidence for Jesus as the Messiah so powerful?"
"• Jesus and the apostles demonstrated unwavering faith in the trustworthiness and divine authority of Holy Scripture. For example, how many times did Jesus Himself refer to the Scriptures and the fact that (often in reference to Himself) the Scriptures must be “fulfilled”? (See, for instance, Matt. 26:54, 56; Mark 14:49; Luke 4:21; John 13:18; John 17:12.) Thus, if Jesus Himself took Scripture (in His case, the Old Testament) so seriously, especially in terms of prophecy being fulfilled, what then should our attitude be, as well, toward the Bible?"
Inside Story
A Grain of Prayer
By Andrew Mcchesney,
Adventist Mission Yolanda Malla learned about the power of prayer from a rice field.
Malla found work, planting and cultivating rice, in a field in her native Philippines after her husband divorced her, leaving her with two baby boys. The landowner gave her permission to work in his rice field under the condition that she give half of the harvest to him. The field was located beside a field owned by a relative.
"Malla worked hard and, when the crop started to grow, she saw that the harvest was likely to be first-class rice.
“Lord, I don’t want any disaster to destroy this rice,” she prayed. “I need it to feed my children.”
Two weeks later, a powerful storm struck the region. Malla listened as the wind and rain pounded against her home.
Suddenly she remembered the rice.“I can’t do anything, Lord,” she said. “Please remember my prayer.”Several days later, after the flooding subsided, she managed to leave her home and travel to the rice field to survey the damage. To her surprise, her rice was brown and ripe. There was no sign that the fierce storm had ever happened. Then Malla looked over at the surrounding fields. They were com-pletely ruined. Even her relative’s crop was destroyed.The field’s owner was amazed at harvesttime. “This is the first time that this rice field has produced first-class rice,” he said, surprise ringing in his voice. “Rats ate the crop of the farmer who borrowed this field to grow rice last year.”
The rodents had eaten so much of the rice that the previous farmer was able to harvest the entire crop on his own. Malla, however, needed 17 people to help her harvest the rice.
Looking at the bountiful crop, Malla remembered her prayer on the night of the storm.
“A small prayer is a powerful prayer,” she said in an interview in Cyprus, where she works as a domestic helper. “A small grain of prayer produced a million grains of rice. We couldn’t even count the rice.”
No comments:
Post a Comment