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DIAMONDS OF DIVINE DIVULGEMENT
IN THE BIBLE
Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson
Published April 2011
by World Wide Web Witness Inc.
ISBN 978-0-9870886-7-3
PREFACE
In any romance, there are likely to be moments of revelation, understanding, intense empathy, that rise like the rocky cliffs by the shore, filled with significance. Like dawn and sunset, they tie together much lustre, together with light.
The Lord loves His people, and would have all come to reconciliation with Himself. Despite numerous faulty statements by some theologians over time, this is the case. How does one know ? It is because it is so written in the Bible, so clearly that no one has ever provided a rebuttal, in Colossians 1:19ff.. It PLEASED the Father, having made peace through the blood of the cross, to reconcile ALL THINGS, yes whether in heaven or on earth, to Himself. It not some secondary reconciliation; it is not some segment in heaven or on earth, but all of both. This is the statement. Who daring to use the name of theologian can dare contravert what God says about His own heart! Indeed, even if it were possible here, which is assuredly not the case, there are a large number of similar statements such as I Timothy 2, Ezekiel 33:11, Luke 19:42ff., and tender appeals which would scarcely be real if for inscrutable reasons God did not really WANT all to be reconciled to Himself with an ardour and intensity, using such terms as "AS I LIVE," as He put it in Ezekiel, and exhibiting such lamentations at what did NOT occur earlier in Israel, as found in Isaiah 48:16ff., which swells like an ocean wave that surmounts all resistance: but a godly and a blessed one, constructive and not destructive.
He is sovereign, but AS sovereign He is an inimitable lover, and the scope even to the summum bonum of salvation, is set for one as for all; though the attainment is indeed limited, and the way is too narrow for many a foot (Matthew 7:15ff.).
HENCE there is something of which human romance is merely an expression, based on the same love, however much at certain times it may be distorted by human sin. ONE and one party alone is the effectual cause, at the ultimate in the foreknowledge of God and hence in reality, for exclusion from God and that is each person involved in such negation (John 3:19). THAT is the criterion God gives in accounting for loss in the presence of such ardent love as He exhibits in John 3:16, a love which came with the scope that the world be saved, and not judged.
With God there is no distortion, but great restraint, for the purity of love is not the seizure of force, and those who love learn! Yet the divine love is there, inimitable, inerodable, indomitable, but unwilling to ruin its own reality by mere surreptitious grabbing.
The tenderness is true, not affected, though it be God who loves. Man loves to see such undimmed, unpolluted love, and what reminds of it. Thus, when a prince seems to be truly loved by a princess, and to find in her a special feature that braves the fainting heart, reinforces the glimmers of hope, wanders like a perfume into the nostrils and grasps the heart as hand does hand in greeting, and loves in return, then many are truly glad. Why ? It is a joy to see a love that transforms in action, without the frequent subsidies from sin which mar love into desire of various alien types, and merely uses romance as an empty form.
There is nothing empty about the love of God
(cf.
Love is Purer Than the Peak Snow-Crested,
More Vital than its Dashing Streams: The Love of God alone).
It is both articulate and ardent, realistic and redemptive, since there is NO ONE ever born to our race, who was excluded from its appraising desire, for lack of it in scope or intensity; and there is none who has any but his or her own self to blame, for exclusion from it and its fruits (YOU WERE NOT WILLING, is the refrain, in whatever format, Proverbs 1, or Matthew 23, or Luke 19, or Isaiah 48:16). In Isaiah, we find that GOD longed for a different outcome than that obtained.
In Christ, He sighs, laments, in Isaiah exhibits a heart all but desolated at the rejection which sets in; but HE WILL NOT accept accolades from empty hearts (Isaiah 1), manipulative devisers, such as often on this earth show false hearts amongst our race. IF there is a rejection, known to Him from eternity (Ephesians 1:4), then in the end, there is an identification of the one in that case with what ? It is with what is evil, dark and devious, wrong-headed and empty-hearted, so that the thing becomes hateful; but this is the result, always the result.
The cause from the start is as God states, and the result as God states it, and one of the results is predestination which logically follows from what God knew from the first, before man or space or time as we have it so much as lifted the blankets on life, and opened an eye to behold what was here! before creation. That is the sequence in Romans 8:30, and in reality. Predestination merely ties up what is the case, as foreknown to God. It is a divine insurance, securing of what is precious, so that the truth being known, is made certain. None of His will ever be lost, and He KNOWS them (II Timothy 2:19).
Let us consider this in the light of the title of this volume.
In this love, and indeed in all the integrity of the Divine Being, there are then moments, times, statements, revelations which are intense with meaning, evocative with a fulness which overflows the eyes to the heart, and this to the very spirit of man, and grips what is receptive with its passion, wonder, admirable grace, in its divine expression. Since with God this is always linked at length to action, it is more than a verbal melody, but rather a deep magnificence, word and deed wedded never to part.
Such items in the Bible, whether obvious at first or not, which show the divine name to be hallowed in intensity or depth or with special appeal or illumination, it is these which are in mind here.
CONTENTS
THE DIVINE NAME
NOT A HANDLE FOR INTRUSION
BUT A GLORY TO HALLOW
Exodus 3:14
RAYS IN ISAIAH
Strings of Pearls Lit Up
Diamonds of Desire Nascent with Light
THE LOOK OF THE BOOK
Emphasising the Messiah
LOOKING WITH A CHILD
AND LOOKING AFTER ONE SPIRITUALLY
LOOKING WITH A CHILD
AND LOOKING AFTER ONE SPIRITUALLY
This is part II in
the series on the child.
It follows on the basis of Chapter Three, which should be read first.
STILL LOOKING WITH A CHILD
AND LOOKING AFTER ONE SPIRITUALLY
This is part III in the series on
the child. It follows
on the basis of Chapters Three and Four, which should be.
By this time, John has grown a little older.
Immortality to Light!
To Death: Abolition!
To Life: Light
II Timothy 1:9-10
STILL LOOKING WITH A CHILD
AND LOOKING AFTER ONE SPIRITUALLY
Part IV
This is part IV in the series on
the child. It follows
on the basis of Chapters Three, Four and Fuve, which should be read first.
By this time, John has grown a little older.
STILL LOOKING WITH A CHILD
AND LOOKING AFTER ONE SPIRITUALLY
Part V
This is part V in
the series on the child. It follows on the basis of Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7,
might advisedly
be read first. John continues to grow a little older, time by time.
THE SCARECROW
THE END AND THE OBJECTIVE
THE TWO HAVE A UNITY BACK OF BOTH
TRAVELLING TIME
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE
We have seen last time, that I Timothy 1:5 tells us precisely where we should be, could be going, and the purpose of it all, just as II Timothy 1:8-12 tells us WHY this is so, and where man should be, go and end, giving an orienteering focus. At both of these we have recently looked in preaching. Now we follow it up. In this address, we will consider more of the entire flight, sitting in heavenly places as to status and operational style, yet purged for the performance, through pre-flight and at times in-flight servicing. It is a matter of travelling time and spiritual perspective.
THIS INNOCENT WORLD!
Romans 1:18-20
News 442
A question the pope did not answer, Easter 2011.