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FROM THE PASTOR'S STUDY

Topic: Message Outlines: Chapter 9 (Include Audio)

Romans 9:19-29 (4)

by Darrel Cline
(darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)

Chapter # 9 Paragraph # 4 Study # 4
January 6, 2009
Lincolnton, N.C.
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(462)

Thesis:   "Being fitted for destruction" means to be allowed to illegitimately respond to God until there is no possibility of being developed into a servant of God.

Introduction:   In our last study we attempted to make the case that there is a significant interplay within the desires of God that explain why God is preemptive in regard to individuals. It seems to be the indisputable case that God cannot reveal the alternative realities regarding His own nature to created persons unless He is willing to allow them to function as real persons: selecting objectives; developing plans to achieve them; and executing the actions necessary to the plans. In other words, God had the option of not creating persons, but once He rejected that option, the larger issues were governed by that choice.

Then, once "persons" were created, the "problem" of getting them to the point of "love" that would carry them through all of eternity became the issue. In the larger context of our text, it is clear that the apostle Paul, a created person, had "arrived" in respect to this issue. Now, in the smaller context of our text, this created person who had "arrived" in respect to the kind of love that will carry through forever is attempting to unveil at least some of the answers to the questions that surround the question of "how" a created person comes to such love.

In these answers, there are some details that "surface" as more critical than others. One of those details is the significance of "revelation" (a tool of edification unto Life). A second of those details is the order of "purposes" (God's purpose takes precedence over man's). A third of those details is the necessity of removing man's works from consideration so that he might be given Life (Life is either a reward or a gift and the either/or is an absolute exclusion). A fourth of those details is the absolute understanding of the righteousness of God (He never judges any one who has not done evil). And a fifth of those details is the absolute requirement upon every creature to take the place of humility before his/her Creator (it cannot be established by man that creations ought legitimately to be exalted above Creators).

That brings us to a sixth detail: the decision by God to make a glorious Life possible for created persons. It is to this sixth detail that we again turn our attention this evening.


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