SDA Sabbath School Lessons
Sabbath afternoon August 3, 1996

God Created the Universe.

GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE (Heb. 1:1, 2). Consequently, there is a "distinction between the Creator and His creatures."-- The Great Controversy, p. 438. This distinction lies at the very heart of the meaning of the Sabbath. The Sabbath celebrates the difference between God and humanity, calling upon the creature to rest in the Creator. (See Mark 2:27.)

"God saw that a Sabbath was essential for man, even in Paradise. He needed to lay aside his own interests and pursuits for one day of the seven, that he might more fully contemplate the works of God, and meditate upon His power and goodness. He needed a Sabbath, to remind him more vividly of God, and to awaken gratitude because all that he enjoyed and possessed came from the beneficent hand of the Creator."-- Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 48.

"Had the Sabbath been universally kept, man's thoughts and affections would have been led to the Creator as the object of reverence and worship, and there would never have been an idolater, an atheist, or an infidel."-- The Great Controversy, p. 438.