Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Seeing God's Character in Nature

Cinda Osterman

Ron Osterman

1. The Glory of Light

Loving Father in heaven, how great we are, grateful we are to you for the gift of life, the gift of your son Jesus.

It's about the creator as seen through creation.

And today we will be looking at your character.

And I just pray that you'll just hide us behind the cross, that the information that we share will encourage people, strengthen their faith, and show them the plan of salvation in a way perhaps they've never seen before.

We just trust each 1 here today to your presence.

We ask that your Holy Spirit be with us and guide us.

My husband's actually going to be doing most of the series that my mother was diagnosed with cancer in December.

So I've been spending a lot of time going back and forth to Arizona.

So when they wanted to know about speakers, I just knew I didn't really have the time, but my husband said that he would.

But he ran out of time, he said, would you take 1 of the talks?

So Thursday I'm actually gonna be going through, so today we're gonna do the glory of light, tomorrow we're doing sound, And then Wednesday will be parable of the plants.

And then Thursday is going to be the life cycle of a butterfly and the spiritual lessons learned in that.

By that afternoon or that time slot I think we'll be able to talk about how to get your children in nature and involved to come up with some of these things and then the last 1, you're going to miss any of them, don't miss the 1 Friday that is my favorite is the Gospel in the Stars and it's just my absolute favorite.

So anyway a lot of the stuff that we're presenting actually came about 25 years ago when I was homeschooling or us I should say homeschooling.

My husband did as much as he could since he had a full-time job but if I couldn't get something across, my husband especially science, He loved experiments and he'd get the oranges out and the apples and he'd show all the constellations, whatever he had to show, the sun and the moon, you know.

He just, he was really good at getting some of those concepts across.

We're studying in our homeschool about the electromagnetic spectrum.

And at the same time I was doing my devotions and I read God is light and I had this thought in my mind, God is light.

Well, that's the electromagnetic spectrum.

I wonder if God's character can actually be shown in that spectrum.

And then from there, we had a five-day presentation.

And this is condensing that 5 days into an hour.

So you're not going to get a whole lot of it.

So I want to share with you, We were sitting together last night trying to decide, we had to take out some, it was just too many slides.

So I just want to know in your handout, the part that's actually on the rainbow, which will be this 1, and the colors of the rainbow, I'm sorry, will not be covered during this presentation.

We decided it was just way too much material, but it's in there, and maybe another time we can do that.

It is fascinating material, but you'll have enough to go away with that you will really be blessed.

After the revelation that God's truth can be seen in nature, our science curriculum took on a whole different dimension.

The foundation of our science curriculum ended up being centered around God, his creation, and the spiritual lessons that he wanted to teach us.

And so that's what we're going to be sharing right now is how to take God's character and see it in the light spectrum.

So I'm going to actually turn it over to my husband, and I'm only going to be a backup for him.

1 of the things that I want to share right at the beginning, there's a lot of material here, so we're gonna be moving at the speed of thought, which is faster than the speed of light.

So put on your seat belts and stay with me because there's a lot of material to cover.

If you have questions, we're gonna hopefully have enough time at the end to answer questions, so I'm not gonna entertain questions throughout the presentation.

So if something doesn't make sense, write it down and we'll cover it as we get toward the end.

It was given to man long before the Bible, but after sin the character of God was misrepresented, and due to sin nature no longer fully revealed his character.

Thus the word of God was given that we may see clearly the plan of salvation.

Nevertheless, nature still holds great truths for us if we will only search for them.

So I don't have a picture of what the earth looked like before creation.

So what was the earth like at the beginning of day 1 of creation week?

There were no singing birds, there were no colorful flowers, no laughing children, just cold, silent, lifeless darkness.

Not the kind of place that any sensible person would want to be, yet someone was there.

And the moment that he came on the scene, the darkness fled away.

On all the other days of creation week, God created or made something, but on the first day, the Bible says that he simply let the light shine.

It was as if he was pulling back the covers over a newly formed world so it could bask in the light of his love.

John the Revelator saw a vision of the earth made new and here is what he was shown.

And there shall be no light, no night there, and they shall have no need of a candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light.

So a dictionary defines light as luminous, radiant, or electromagnetic energy.

Einstein's special theory of relativity equals mc squared.

He was actually a Jewish man, from what I remember, but he was a creationist, and he believed in a literal six-day creation week.

Therefore, we may conclude that God possesses energy in the same sense that God possesses love.

God, who is an intelligent, powerful being, reveals much about the spiritual and physical aspects of his character through the attributes of light.

To get a picture of God's character, it would be to our benefit to look more closely at this light.

So if you're familiar at all with the electromagnetic spectrum, this is the electromagnetic spectrum as much as we know it today.

All we see is visible light, that little narrow band in the middle with all the colors of the rainbow.

John informs us that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

So if we were to look at the night sky, before we go there, I missed something here, oh how the minds of man have attempted to understand that simple yet profound statement, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

We were really trying to understand this when we were doing our homeschooling.

What does it mean that in him is no darkness at all.

If you were to look at the night sky, and we'll be talking more about the night sky on Friday when we talk about the gospel and the stars.

But if you were to look at the night sky with your eyes, they could see in all the various wavelengths of light, not just visible light, you would find out that the night sky is as bright as the noonday sun.

This is what we see when we look at the sky in various different wavelengths.

So, Psalms 139 verse 12 says, yea the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day.

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

So to God, night day doesn't make any difference.

If you could look at the night sky in radio waves, and that frequency of light, the night sky would be lit up bright like the daylight in radio waves.

That's a picture taken from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Telescope.

But that was the night sky taken in radio waves.

This is the night sky taken in microwaves.

In infrared, in ultraviolet, in x-rays, and in gamma waves.

The night sky is lit up just like the daylight.

You can't see it because your eyes only see the visible light spectrum.

2. Parable of the Plant

Loving Father in heaven, we thank you so much for giving us an opportunity today to come together to study the Word, your Word in nature and your Word in the Bible and the spirit of prophecy, how it applies to our lives.

And Lord Jesus, as you gave these parables before, you did it with an intent so that when people would look upon the things that you tied the spiritual lesson to the natural, when they would see the natural, it would remind them of the spiritual.

And I pray that that will be our experience today, that as we look at flowers, pollination, and fertilization and fruit, that when we eat an apple, we'll be reminded of the spiritual lessons that you have in store for us today.

May your spirit guide us now as we open your word in Jesus' name, amen.

By the way, just for a point of reference, we started off here with the seed and then we picked up the leaves and photosynthesis.

We're gonna pick up with flowers and pollination.

So flowers are a universal expression of love and caring.

How many of you have ever been at this place?

That's 1 of my favorite places on planet Earth.

That's Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

So we see flowers at weddings and at hospitals and in nursing homes and people give them for celebrating birthdays and anniversaries.

People just don't even think of the spiritual lesson in flowers when they do that, I'm sure.

I mean, I do, but that's because I know something that they don't know.

The purpose of all flowering plants is to reproduce, producing seeds after their kind.

Every stage of the plant has this goal in mind.

The flower, however, is the part of the plant that houses the reproductive parts.

Before a plant can flower and produce fruit, it must store up a supply of food.

It must be exposed daily to the proper amount of daylight and darkness, and it must have a flowering hormone.

So the first thing the plant needs to do is to store up a supply of food.

We talked about this a little bit yesterday, but we'll talk about it more today.

So this is where the leaves play an important part.

25% of the food that a plant makes is used by the plant for its growth.

75% of the food that it makes goes for fruit development and seed development.

So 3 quarters of the life energy of a plant is focused on 1 purpose, to reproduce itself.

If you've ever mowed dandelions in your yard, like I have in my yard, the dandelion plant, if you don't mow it, the plant grows and it'll get, oh, 6 inches high off the ground and the flower comes up from there.

If you mow it, the plant may only be 2 inches high.

If you mow it again, it'll be 1 inch high, but it will still flower and it will still put forth seed even if it's only an inch tall.

That's because the whole purpose of the plant is to reproduce itself.

Size and the number of the leaves can be directly correlated to the size and the type of the crop.

So 30 to 35 leaves makes 1 decent sized Macintosh apple.

So if your trees are struggling and they don't have enough leaves and you're wondering why you're not getting enough fruit.

It's probably because the trees are in stress and they're not putting out enough leaves.

So it takes 12 to 15 leaves to produce 1 bunch of seedless grapes.

And we as Christians need also to store up spiritual strength.

David tells us in Psalms 119, 11, Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.

And Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1.4, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.

By these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Review in Herald, March 11, 1890, the servant of the Lord tells us, "'May God help us to gather up the jewels of his promises "'and deck Memories Hall with the gems of his word.

"'We should be armed with the promises of God.

Our souls should be barricaded with them.

When Satan comes in with his darkness and seeks to fill my soul with gloom, I repeat some precious promise of God.

When the devil came and brought his temptations in the wilderness, the only way he defeated him was it is written.

Well, the only reason why he could quote it as written as because he had put it as written in his mind from a child.

So the second thing that a plant needs to flower is to be exposed to the proper amount of daylight and darkness.

You may have always wondered why in the fall does a tree's leaves turn color and fall off.

The temperature may still be 70 degrees outside, but the leaves are starting to change and it's because of this.

From now on, the days are gonna get shorter.

We're gonna be talking about stars on Friday.

So the second thing the plant needs is to be exposed to light and dark.

As the flower turns to the sun that the bright beams may aid in perfecting its beauty and symmetry, so should we turn to the sun of righteousness that heaven's light may shine upon us, that our character may be developed into the likeness of Christ.

Character developed into the likeness of Christ.

First John 1.5, we looked at this a couple of days ago, God is light.

And we found out that God's light consists of 3 colors, 3 primary colors.

And you remember what they are because most of you were here.

And the 3 of them combined together to make white light.

So John tells us that if we walk in that light, the light of God's presence, as he is in the light, we have fellowship 1 with another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

Matthew 5.16 says, "'Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

We'll come back to this text in a little while, but the beauty here is that we are not only to receive light, but as we looked at on the first day of this seminar, we must reflect that light to others.

Otherwise, we're gonna be in big trouble when Jesus comes back.

Review and Herald, December the 2nd, 1875.

The soul can be kept pure and strengthened only by what?

Walking in the light as Christ is in the light.

Bible echoes and signs of the times, 715, 1892.

Our lives will not always be sunshine, there will be trials.

I'm sure you've experienced them, I have.

Everybody that's on this planet bears trials in their lives.

So how does that work with plants and us spiritually?

Through conflict, the spiritual life is strengthened.

Trials well-born will develop steadfastness of character and precious spiritual graces.

The perfect fruit of faith, meekness, and love often matures best amid storm clouds and darkness.

Review and Herald 410, 1894, trials are essential in order that we may be brought close to our heavenly Father in submission to his will, that we may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

Romans 5.3 Paul tells us, and not only so, but we glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation works patience.

3. Gospel in the Stars

Loving Father in heaven Please be with us today.

We have a lot of material to cover I'm gonna have to be going fast.

I don't talk fast Lord so you're gonna have to speed me up and you're gonna have to give my audience ears that think fast and hear fast so that we can understand this material together.

I just pray that your spirit be in our midst today and again I pray that you be with my wife and bless her and keep her in your care.

Bless us now as we open your word for we pray in Jesus name.

A lot of people come down this door over here.

The gospel story in the stars, the Maserath, before we get too far into this, and I'll explain all of this as we go along, we do not believe in astrology.

Astrology, as we're going to see here in a moment, is a counterfeit.

It's a counterfeit of a real story that God put in the starry skies.

And you're gonna see this in just a moment.

This is in southwestern United States, Navajo Nation.

That's the Mittens, it's in the Navajo Nation.

And this is a picture that was taken of A constellation near and dear to my heart.

It doesn't get any better than the constellation of Orion.

So I don't know if you can see it, but I'll point it out.

And That little star right there, we'll talk about in a little bit, is Betelgeuse.

That's Rigel, we'll talk about it in a moment.

But the 1 that's the most important to me is this little guy right here.

And we'll talk about that in just a moment.

Ancient people had a fascination with the stars.

To them, they weren't just twinkling lights in the night sky to make nursery rhymes about.

They were, as the Bible points out in Genesis 1.14, signs, prophetic signs, pointing to events that God had told their ancestors about.

Astral meaning in the sky, terra projection meaning on the ground.

My family and I have been at this place, that's Walnut Canyon in Arizona.

Wapaki is in Arizona, northwest of Flagstaff.

But the ancient Anasazi people, the ancestors of the Hopi and the Navajo, laid their cities out in the shape of the Orion Nebula.

And you'll see that reason in just a moment.

And it's a cave painting that some people think, well, it's just a bull.

However, on this cave painting, there are 4 stars.

One's a smudge mark and some stars up here.

And what that is is the constellation Taurus, the bull.

And if you've ever looked at Taurus in the night sky, this is Taurus in the night sky.

Well, you would think, yeah, you'd think that those are his horns.

But just to kind of give you an idea, from that picture that we just looked at a moment ago, the 3 stars down in the left, the group that's up above, there's the 3 stars down below, that's the belt of Orion, there's the group of stars up above, that's the Pleiades.

You can see the lines there, that shows the constellation.

This is what it really is, Taurus the bull, Orion, the mighty hunter.

We're going to talk more about them in just a moment.

Temples and pyramids all over the world are aligned to view certain stars at certain times of the year.

Were all these people simply pagan astrologers and sun worshipers?

Or did they know something vastly more important that the stars revealed?

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea and the days of Harry the king behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem saying where is he that is born King of the Jews for we have seen his star in the East and are come to worship him." Matthew chapter 2, verse 1 and 2.

Only the gospel of Matthew has this story of the Magi.

Ellen White expands upon this story quite well in the book Desire of Ages.

She says, Desire of Ages, page 59, the wise men from the East were philosophers.

They belonged to a large and influential class that included men of noble birth who studied the indications of providence in nature and who were honored for their integrity and their wisdom.

Of this character were the wise men who came to Jesus.

The light of God is ever shining amid the darkness of heathenism.

As these magi studied the starry heavens and sought to fathom the mystery hidden in their bright paths, they beheld the glory of the creator.

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Series

Seeing God's Character in Nature

2. Parable of the Plant

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

1. The Glory of Light

1h 16m

2. Parable of the Plant

1h 1m

3. Gospel in the Stars

1h 13m

4. Metamorphosis

1h 13m

Sound Doctrine