Sunday School

  CENTRAL THOUGHT Justification is God’s act of declaring us “not guilty”, of our sins. HYMN: AMAZING GRACE! HOW SWEET THE SOUND Text: Romans 4:25, 5:1-11, 18 Introduction: By the act of justification, the Lord Jesus Christ ushers us into the presence of God. We now have peace with God: not merely a subjective feeling (peace of mind), but primarily an objective status, a new relationship with God: once we were His enemies, but now we are His friends (see Romans 5:10; Eph. 2:16, Col. 1:21-22). Once we were separated from Him, now we are joined (united) (Phil. 2:1, Rom. 6:5) with Him by Christ. The Almighty God declares, “not guilty”, all that would run into Christ. In Num. 21:8-9, the Holy scriptures recorded the “strange” cure to snake bite that the children of Israel were receiving. A bronze snake was hung on the pole; anyone who was bitten by a snake and looked at it lived. The Lord Jesus Christ brought a fuller meaning to this event in Johh 3:14, 15, where he explained that just as the Israelites were healed of their sickness by looking at the snake on the pole, all believers today can be saved from sickness of sin by looking to Jesus’ death on...

CENTRAL THOUGHT Jesus Christ was made God’s suffering servant when He died on the cross for man’s redemption. HYMN: I GAVE MY LIFE FOR THEE   Text: Isaiah 52:54 (Reading Text: Isaiah 53:1-12 Introduction: Right from the time of creation and especially after the disobedience of Adam, God devised a plan to redeem man from the effect of his disobedience. The price of sin is death for without the shedding of blood there is no remission. In the Old Testament sin was atoned for in various ways and sacrifices of different types of animals prescribed by the mosaic laws. These sacrifices had a shortfall as they could not both atone and wash clean man’s heart. Consequently, God raised His servant, Jesus Christ and delivered Him to an astonished world, astonished because of His underserved suffering and humiliation, and because of the dramatic end. The scriptures reveal that He bore the punishment due to others voluntarily in obedience to the voice of God who call Him. The prophet Isaiah declares unequivocally “surely he has borne our griefs and carried away our sorrow …he was wounded for our transgression he was bruised for our inequities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we 21a0re healed”, Isaiah...

  CENTRAL THOUGHT God deals with us as individuals.   HYMN: WHEN WE WALK WITH THE LORD Text: Ezekiel 18:1-32   INTRODUCTION This lesson addresses two classes of people, God’s children and unbelievers. First, as God’s children we must know and be conscious of the fact that we are individually responsible for our actions while alive here on earth. Again, every man is morally responsible and liable to God’s judgement. An old and common deception from the devil has been the thought that we could inherit Christianity from our parents. Just as the son of a University cannot inherit his father’s degrees and positions by merely being a son, a pastor’s son cannot inherit his father’s faith by merely being a son; and no one becomes a Christian by belonging to a “Christian family”. If a child follows the ways of his father he may live like the father. But primarily, as human beings, the Lord has given a vital law that overwrites an old one. The old adage described the old law: “The fathers ate some grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ez 18:2). This saying was stopped and with a divine oath, revealing God’s unalterable intention, the Lord stated that henceforth, the soul who...