Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: Isa. 7:14–16, Isa. 7:17–25,
Isa. 8:1–10, Isa. 8:11–15, Isa. 8:16–22.
Memory Text: “I will wait on the Lord, who hides His face from the house of Jacob; and I will hope in Him” (Isaiah 8:17, NKJV).
At a burning building in New York City’s Harlem, a blind girl was
perched on a fourth-floor window. The firemen had become
desperate. They couldn’t fit the ladder truck between the buildings,
and they couldn’t get her to jump into a net, which she, of course,
couldn’t see.
“Finally her father arrived and shouted through the bull horn that
there was a net and that she was to jump on his command. The girl
jumped and was so completely relaxed that she did not break a bone
or even strain a muscle in the four-story fall. Because she trusted her
father completely, when she heard her father’s voice she did what he
said was best.”—Edited by Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for
Biblical Preaching, p. 135.
In the same way, God provided powerful evidence that He wanted
the best for His children, but they rejected the gently flowing way He
first presented to them; thus, He had to speak to them with a roar and
a flood instead.