THE SABBATH SCHOOL

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 20, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 12.

THE SABBATH SCHOOL

LESSON 4.—MARCH 30.—THE FINAL RECKONING.

Lesson Scripture, Mal. 3:13-18; 4:1-6, R.V.

13 “Your words have been stout against Me, saith the Lord. 14 Yet ye say, Wherein have we spoken against Thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked mournfully 15 before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are built up; yea, they tempt 16 God, and are delivered. Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him, for them 17 that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not. 1 “For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall. 3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I do make, saith the Lord of hosts. 4 “Remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and judgments. 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before 6 the great and terrible day of the Lord come. And He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.

(1) What charge does the Lord again bring against His people? What do they respond? Verse 13. (2) What things does He enumerate? Verse 14. Note 1. (3) What do they say of the proud? What of the wicked? What of those who tempt God? Verse 15. (4) What do those do who truly fear God? How does God regard them? What does He cause to be done? Verse 16. (5) What promise does He make concerning them? When will this be manifest? How will He spare them? Verse 17. Note 1. (6) What will the faithful know in the great day of God? Verse 18. (7) What will be the character of that day in this world? What will the proud and the wicked then be? What will become of the stubble? Verse 1. (8) What shall rise to those who fear God? What will be its influence upon them? Verse 2. Note 2. (9) What then will be their relation to the wicked? What will the wicked then be? Verse 3. Note 3. (10) In view of all this, what are we enjoined to remember? Verse 4. Note 4. (11) Whom will God send before that day comes? Verse 5. Note 5. (12) What will He do? What will be the result of rejecting his message? What will be the result of accepting the message? Verse 6.

NOTES.

1. It is vain.—This is the sight of the fleshly eye, the worldly view, the darkness of unbelief. David said that he was envious when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, until he went into the sanctuary of God, where he looked at them as the Lord saw them; then he saw their latter end. “Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and prolong his days, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God; ... but it shall not be well with the wicked.” Righteousness is always gain, even tho it seems to end in defeat. It is not yet revealed what the children of God shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. They are here now, but they are not revealed. What they suffer makes it seem as tho they were counted as sheep for the slaughter; but in all these things they are more than conquerors thru the love of Christ.

2. Healing in His wings.—From the time of Adam the race has deteriorated, and God's people have gone down in death thru wasting disease, starvation, and in every conceivable ill way; but when Christ comes, He will heal all these defects and restore man to his normal size and beauty.

3. Leave them neither root nor branch.—God gives to all existence and life, that He may be glorified. His glory is always for His creatures’ best good. If man will not use God’s life aright, he will revert to his original elements, the dust of the earth. They who have triumphed over and oppressed the good have perished with the sin they have chosen; sin can not exist in the unveiled presence of God when He comes into His own, and they perish in the burning glory of His presence. Satan, the root of all, and the wicked, the branches, perish forever in what they have chosen.

4. Remember ye.—The law of Moses for all Israel, with the statutes, would include all typical offerings, all the truths connected with the sanctuary, and the significance of the ceremonies, as well as the nature of the moral precepts. Remembering this would lead to the development of all the truth of the great threefold message of Revelation 14. It would show the service of the Levitical priesthood to be no meaningless service, but replete with Gospel truth, a service unto the shadow and example of heavenly things.

5. I will send you Elijah.—“But did not God send Elijah in John the Baptist?”—Yes, in a sense. Matt. 11:14; 17:10-12. But John declares that he was not Elijah. John 1:21. What, then, are we to understand?—Simply this: Elijah in his work of reform was a type of John, who went before Christ “in the spirit and power of Elias.” Luke 1:17. But the “great and terrible day of the Lord” did not then come, save to that one people as a nation. All these were types of the great and terrible day of the Lord upon the world. We have in Elijah’s time the apostasy of Israel thru the influence of Jezebel, a sun-worshiping Zidonian. We have the antitypical Jezebel in the great apostate church. We have the union of that church with the State, even as Jezebel with Ahab. There is demanded the spirit and power of Elijah to reprove of sin, preach again God’s down-trodden truth, be very zealous for His law, and reprove the sun-worshipers of Baal. These will be manifest, not thru one person, to one country, but thru all God’s true people to the world.