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FROM THE PASTOR'S STUDY

Topic: Message Outlines: Chapter 8 (Include Audio)

Romans 8:26-30 (12)

by Darrel Cline
(darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)

Chapter # 8 Paragraph # 4 Study # 12
April 8, 2008
Lincolnton, N.C.
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(394)

Thesis:   The "calling" of God is His way of bringing the "many brethren" into existence.

Introduction:   In our last study we considered the focus of Paul's predestinarian perspective: God's intention of establishing Jesus as the "firstborn of many brethren". In that study I attempted to make the point that God is of such a nature that He simply does not permit "Love" to go unrequited and that He absolutely refuses to permit "evil" to succeed. Since Jesus loved to the point of the provision of a Substitutionary Atonement, the Father has highly exalted Him to the pinnacle of His Kingdom's glory. As that pinnacle, He has become the standard to which all of the heirs of the Kingdom will be conformed. When the Kingdom is finally established, every heir of it will love like Jesus loves and will believe what Jesus believes.

However, there is another side to this issue: the intense opposition to "Love" that "evil" brings to the table. But, in the declaration that for those who participate in "Love", all things work together unto good, there rises this truth also: God flatly will not permit evil to succeed against those who love. Nothing that "evil" brings to the table can subvert God's plans of good because He has both the superior intelligence and power to frustrate every evil intent. Now, it is true that this is not temporally absolute in that evil does accomplish Death, but in the longer term of the cause/effect streams that lead to final results, evil can not win against those who love. It obviously does win in a final sense in individual terms for those who do not come to Love, but even that is a hollow victory because evil thrives only in its aggression against God and when it is finally turned into the Lake of Fire it will not be able to have any Death impact upon God's Kingdom any more.

This evening, as we continue our studies (this is # 197), we are going to look a bit further into what I have dubbed "God's sub-methodologies" for bringing the Grand Plan to Perfection. We have already had an introduction to the focus of our study in that we looked briefly into Paul's "those who are the according-to-purpose called" in the context of his fantastic promise that all things work together for good for them. But, in that study we focused upon the issue of "purpose" rather than the issue of the calling, so this evening we are going to consider our "calling". Given Peter's exhortation in 2 Peter 1:10, this is no small matter and we need to understand as much as we can about it.


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This is article #395.
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