Friday, April 3
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, NJ: 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:
1. In what way does prophecy confirm the Bible’s divine origin? How can these fulfilled prophecies affirm us in our faith?
2. In reference to the question at the end of Tuesday’s study, why is the evidence for Jesus as the Messiah so powerful?
3. 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 that (often in reference to Himself) the Scriptures must be “fulfilled”? (See, for instance, Matthew 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?
