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FROM THE PASTOR'S STUDY

Topic: Message Outlines: Chapter 10 (Include Audio)

Romans 10:14-21 (5)

by Darrel Cline
(darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)

Chapter # 10 Paragraph # 3 Study # 5
June 2, 2009
Lincolnton, N.C.
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(502)

Thesis:   Israel's "knowledge" was insufficient to overcome her penchant for disbelief and contradiction.

Introduction:   In our study last week we attempted to make the case that there is a significant problem for humanity in the reality of God's universal Self-revelation: responsibility. At the very heart of the creature/Creator reality is this "fact" which no one can alter: creatures "owe" their Creator complete, absolute, knee-jerk, heart loyalty and mind acceptance. But, also at the very heart of our current experience is another reality: the human creatures who are introduced into this present creation by human procreation only give complete, absolute, knee-jerk, heart loyalty and mind acceptance to themselves. This contradiction between what is indisputably "owed" and what is invariably "done" has set the stage for all manner of disasters of various degrees of severity. And the greatest disaster of all lurks just beyond the horizon: Eternal Death.

Into these contradicting realities, Paul introduced the possibility of "salvation". But, it is only a "theoretical possibility" as long as humanity persists in simultaneously doing two things: pursuing false objectives and refusing to accept responsibility for the ensuing disasters. So, Paul, not willing to let salvation simply exist as a theoretical possibility and having already addressed the insistent pursuit of a terribly false objective by Israel, set about to also address the persistent refusal to accept responsibility. He did this by first declaring that responsibility derives from knowledge and then claiming universal knowledge.

It is this issue of "universal knowledge" that thus becomes, for those seeking a way to continually put the blame elsewhere, the contested issue. And, since Israel is the contextually central issue, the question is directly applied to Israel. Did Israel not know? This is the question that leads us into our study this evening.


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