Randy Skeete

Randy Skeete: Week of Prayer 2005

Upland Indonesian SDA Church

A Marriage Made in Heaven

Our Father in heaven, we are in your presence for the single purpose of hearing your word and interacting with you through that word.

I ask in the name of Jesus to remember the promise you made to Moses in Exodus chapter 4 verse 12, When you said to him, Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

Father, in the name of Jesus, teach me what I should say, and open the eyes of those who are listening, that they may behold wondrous things out of thy word.

I pray with confidence from my heart in Jesus' name, Amen.

When I was counseling at the University of Michigan, and I was there for 15 years, 1 of the things that the students always desired very earnestly was the privilege of entering into a mentoring relationship with someone far advanced in the field that they desired to enter.

Particularly when I moved to the medical school to counsel there, many students from the very first year of medical school wanted to do research with some leading light in that particular area of interest that the student had.

Because they reasoned that it would only be advantageous to the applications to some residency program 3 or 4 years down the road.

And so they made earnest efforts and asked me for letters of recommendation so that they could work with these experts in their fields on mentoring relationship.

In the social sciences, we have a lot of emphasis placed on having young boys have a relationship with with mature men, men who are about something in their lives, men who have accumulated some degree of success, men who live lives that are upright and so that these young boys can see that kind of life and perhaps be influenced by that life to live similarly.

The experience of mentoring is regarded to be a very high high value indeed and so it is.

God is the originator of the mentoring relationship And I'll try to demonstrate that from scriptures 5 minutes to 8.

I'll keep you abreast of the time so you don't have to be worried at any time whatsoever.

God is the originator of the mentoring relationship in his own unique way because from creation it has always been God's desire that He and we would have a relationship that is ongoing and unbroken.

That was His original desire and it remains his desire despite the introduction of this catastrophe called sin.

I say again it has always been God's desire to have a mentoring relationship with his creation.

Now let's take a look at creation and learn something about God.

Please share your Bible with someone next to you who does not have 1.

Romans chapter 1 reading from verse 16 and I read from the King James Version.

Reading from verse 16 the Bible says, this is the Apostle Paul speaking, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power on Godhead so that they are without excuse.

Let us re-examine verse 20, for the invisible things of him, meaning the qualities of God, the traits of God, the personality of God, the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made.

The Bible tells us it is possible to learn something about God by observing what he has created.

In other words, let me put it this way, they are detectives, psychologists who work with the criminal society, the criminal society, by that I mean the FBI and all other agencies that work to solve crimes.

And they can learn about the mindset of a criminal by studying the details of that person's crime.

So that they on the basis of the crime committed can develop a profile of the criminal.

And what is amazing is that so often they are astonishingly correct.

Now God is no criminal, God is a creator of that which is good and he tells us examine what I have done and you will develop a profile of me of sufficient detail for you to make an intelligent decision regarding how you will relate to me.

And so the invisible things of him from the creation of the world, the Bible says, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead and the verse is so arrogant if I may say that it concludes by saying so that they are without excuse.

It is impossible to look around with an honest eye and a similarly honest heart and not conclude that there is a God so that who God is is somehow reflected in what God does let me repeat that Who God is may be detected in what God does because there is no line of demarcation between God who he is and God what he does.

Now keeping this principle in mind that God can be seen to some degree not completely no 1 can grasp God completely but God has made evidence of himself known in what he has created so that those who examine honestly may come in contact with this God.

This verse also bears out this proposition.

We have half an hour to go or 35 minutes.

The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.

Now here we have evidence again that by examining the creation of God we see evidence of God the heavens you look up in the sky they declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork the detail that went into creation the sense of artistry the sense of beauty the predilection for symmetry and proportion All of this can be seen by an honest, and I must stress the word honest, examination of the heavens and of course the earth.

The title of this evening's message, by the way, is A Marriage Made in Heaven.

According to Adventist beliefs, who wrote the book of Job?

And the book of Job is supposed to express some of the oldest events next to creation in Scripture.

We know Job lost all his children, 10 in 1 day, all his possessions in 1 day, and yet he remained faithful to God.

Read Job sometime and see that in the life of Job we have an example of a man who clearly in his life lived by this principle, I don't care what I lose, I don't care who I lose, I will not lose God.

That's a principle by which we must live.

And so no matter what the devil did, Job remained faithful, and God was able to lift Job up to the universe and brag on Job.

Isn't it a beautiful thing when God can brag on you and me, instead of turn away in shame and tears?

Job 12 verses 6 and 7, But ask now the beasts, and they shall do what?

Teach thee, and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee, or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee, and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.

You want to understand something about the omnipotence of God?

Now he doesn't expect you to talk to a cow, but study the lives of animals, study the fishes, look at a bird flying through the heavens, and if you look honestly, Job says, you will see something of the grandeur and the greatness of God.

God I say is expressed in his creation sufficient for us to know that there is a God.

As we continue, a marriage made in heaven.

Quickest book to find Genesis or Revelation.

Genesis 2 verse 7 read with me, and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

When we think of the heaven where do we point?

Now in other words in the beginning God created the heavens up there and the earth down here look at the creation of Adam again in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.

Man, a living being, as Genesis 2, 7 expresses it, to be a living being you need something from beneath and something from above.

And the combination is put together not by someone from beneath, but by someone from above.

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Presenter

Randy Skeete

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A Marriage Made in Heaven

45m

Sound Doctrine