Lesson 12 (Mar 13-19, 2021), Desire of Nations

 The Effects of Sin

1. How do wrong acts affect relationships in families or among friends? Who is more reluctant to meet up, the one committing the wrong or the one wronged?
2. Why do people not answer phone calls? For what reasons, if any, might God not want to hear a person's prayer?
3. Why did Adam and Eve hide from God?

Who is Forgiven

1. At what age do humans become accountable for sin? What makes one accountable? Does one need forgiveness for sins we are not aware of?
2. What are the requirements in order to be forgiven? Could a person who asks for forgiveness be refused by God?
3. What made the rich young ruler believe he had kept the law? What evidence is there whether he had kept it or had not?

Universal Appeal

1. Why is salvation described in terms of "light?" 
2. What is meant by the phrase "Arise shine?"
3. How well are kings and political leaders responding to the gospel?

The Year of the Lord's Favour

1. What does "anointed" mean? Who in the OT were in anointed, and for what? What is Jesus anointed for?
2. How is what Jesus brings similar to what the purpose of the Jubilee year was for?
3. How well is the Adventist church proclaiming or assisting in the "Lord's favour?"

The Day of Vengeance of Our God

1. How is the word "vengeance" related to the word "revenge?" On whom will God take revenge?
2. How can a God of love cause people to suffer in hell?
3. For whose benefit is God's vengeance?

Lesson 12 (March 6-11, 2020), Waging Love

 Buy Something Free

1. If no money is sought or given, how can a transaction be termed "buying?"
2. What are some ways in which people attempt to buy forgiveness?" How effective is it?
3. What was the price of our salvation? Who paid it and to whom was it paid?

High Thoughts and Ways

1. Why do you think God reminded Israel that His ways and thoughts are different (higher) than human ways and thoughts?
2. What are some things that are impossible for humans to grasp? Is the plan of salvation one of those things?
3. How can one explain God's love, forgiveness, redemption to unbelievers?

Fast Friends

1. What is the true purpose of "fasting?" 
2. How would fasting urge God do something that He might not have otherwise?
3. For whose benefit is fasting? How does it benefit?

Fast Fight

1. Is fasting a necessary part of religion and how important is it for salvation?
2. Why does God say that providing food and shelter to the needy are better than fasting? How are those things demonstrations of true religion?
3. Is it all right to do social work on Sabbath or should that be done on a weekday?

A Time for Us

1. What are some things that might be termed "doing our own pleasure" on Sabbath? What are some things that might not be our own pleasure?
2. Why does Isaiah refer to the feet and not the hands with reference to breaking the Sabbath?
3. What are some "idle words" that we may utter on Sabbath?
4. Why is the connection between acts of benevolence and the true purpose of Sabbath and the Sabbatical year?

Lesson 10 (Feb 27-Mar 5, 2021), Doing the Unthinkable

 Isaiah's Testing Truth

1. Why would having hairs from your beard plucked be shameful comparable to being spat upon? 
2. Why is honour and shame a life and death matter?
3. Why do people mock at those in distress?

The Suffering Servant Poem

1. What appeal does the Messiah have by being portrayed as a Servant rather than as a king?
2. In what way was Jesus disfigured physically beyond recognition as predicted by Isaiah?
3. How does Jesus bear our infirmities and carry our sorrows?

Who Has Believed

1. Why do the innocent have to suffer for the guilty?
2. Whose loss was greater Jesus' or Job's?
3. Why do we identify more easily with the innocent that with the guilty?

The Unreachable is Us

1. Why is Jesus pictured as a tender shoot rather than a strong tree?
2. Is all suffering because of sin?
3. In what way did our sins kill Jesus?

A Transforming Reparation Offering

1. What is the difference between "guilt" and "sin?"
2. How is the servant poems good news?
3. Why are lambs the ideal animals to represent the Messiah?
4. In what way is the sacrifice of a lamb not a fit representation of the Messiah's sacrifice of himself?

Lesson 9 (Feb 20-26, 2021), To Serve and to Save

 Servant Nation

1. Though any one can be God's Servant, who is specifically called to be God's Servant?
2. How well did Israel fulfill the task that God had assigned to the nation? What aspects of the task if any were accomplished? What aspects, if any, were not accomplished?
3. With so much evidence of God's help to Israel in the past why did so many kings not place their trust in him?

Unnamed Individual Servant

1. Why does God not identify his servant by name to make identification easier?
2. Is the term "servant" a positive term or a derogatory term In what ways was the Messiah God's Servant?
3. Is there a better term to describe the role of the Messiah in fulfilling God's task of saving humans?

Persian Messiah

1. How could Isaiah make a prediction of a Persian king by name two hundred years before he was born?
2. How much freedom of choice do we have if God knew everything we would be and do even before we were born?
3. Why do many people doubt that Isaiah could have made the prophecy so far ahead of time?

Hope in Advance

1. What would be the problem, if any, if there were really two Isaiah's like many people believe, one living an writing after the event?
2. Why would God promise comfort even before the distress came upon the nation of Israel?
3. Why is loyalty to one's nation so strong?

A Feeling and Suffering Servant

1. How successful was Jesus as God's servant? Was he a failure in any way because so many will not be saved?
2. How well is our church fulfilling the role of God's Servant?
3. What can local churches do to serve the community?

Lesson 8 (Feb 13-19, 2021), Comfort My People

Comfort for the Future

1. Does God himself punish his people or does he just withdraw his protection and allow Satan to afflict them?
2. Was Hezekiah really to blame for showing his wealth to his visitors? What was wrong about displaying God's blessings?
3. What could Hezekiah have shown his visitors that might have been better?

Presence, Word, and Roadwork

1. Why are roads repaired when a head of state visits?
2. How is the way actually to be prepared for the messiah? 
3. How successful was John the Baptist in preparing the world for Jesus?

The Birth of Evangelism

1. What do we mean by "shout it from the mountain tops?" Of what value is that?
2. What advantages might women have over men in the work of evangelism? 
3. Why were the majority of Adventist pioneer missionaries to India women?

 Merciful Creator

1. How is a display of the power of God a comfort to his people? Why weren't the Israelites at Sinai comforted by the display of God's power?
2. What did God accomplish by making Job feel so humble by showing his power in nature? 
3. What comfort is there in the fact that God is creator?

The Problem With Idolatry

1. Why do certain religions encourage images for worship?
2. Why did God prohibit Israel from making an image to represent him? 
3. What are the similarities in idolatry and adultery?
4. How easy or difficult is it to talk to someone you cannot see? 

Lesson 7 (Feb 6-12, 2021), Defeat of the Assyrians

 Strings Attached

1. How do bad kings like Ahaz have good sons like Hezekiah to succeed them?
2. Why do people prefer to trust human beings rather than God?
3. While trusting God how much human effort and planning should be done to counter threat?

Propaganda

1. What are the advantages of getting your enemy to surrender without a fight? What are the disadvantages, if any?
2. At what point does it become better to surrender to the enemy rather than fight and be destroyed?
3. How much can one trust the enemy to surrender, hoping to be spared?

Shaken, but Not Forsaken

1. How sure can one be that God has heard one's prayer and will answer it positively?
2. Why are some prophets like Isaiah believed and trusted by kings and others like Jeremiah doubted?
3. How concerned is God about his reputation?

The Rest of the Story

1. Why do kings and leaders not admit failures?
2. Can the account of the Bible which credits the death of 185,000 Assyrian soldiers to the Angel of the Lord, be harmonized with the historian Herodotus who blames the death on the bubonic plague?
3. Why does God rescue Jerusalem while allowing the others cities of Judah such as Lachish and Azekah to be defeated?

In Sickness and in Wealth

1. Was Hezekiah's illness a result of Satan's work? Why would Satan wish him to die?
2. Why did King Ahaz not want a sign from God, and why did Hezekiah ask for a sign?
3. How can the shadow on a sundial go backwards without throwing the solar system off course?

Lesson 6 (Jan 30-Feb 5, 2020), Playing God

 Doom on the Nations

1. Why was Babylon one of the worst enemies of God and Judah?
2. Are there any faithful people in Babylon?
3. Can the remnant church every become Babylon? How could that happen?

The Late Great City of Babylon

1. Does God cause nations to rise and fall, or does he merely allow it?
2. Could Babylon ever be rebuilt? Would that prove Bible prophecy which says it will not be inhabited again, wrong?
3. What do we mean by the term "Babylon is Fallen?"

Fall of the Mountain King

1. Why do some people deify kings? Do such kings believe actually that they are God?
2. What are things that feed a leader's ego?
3. What made Satan imagine that he could be like God? Why didn't he realize that such an attempt was foolish and doomed?

Heaven's Gate

1. Why is Babylon a fitting symbol for Satan?
2. Why would God use a mythical creature which has no real existence (like a dragon) to symbolize anything? Would it contribute to the idea that Satan might not really exist, or not?
3. Was Jacob's ladder leading to heaven, a dream or a vision?

Final Triumph of Zion

1. How many times will Babylon fall?
2. When is the "Day of the Lord?" Is there more than one?
3. Why does God burn the wicked in hellfire? Why not destroy them painlessly?