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VOLUME IV

STUDIES IN THE BIBLE

(Obadiah 17)

Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson

Published by World Wide Web Witness Inc.

July 2010

ISBN 978-0-9808498-1-3

PREFACE

This is the fourth volume of Possess Your Possessions.

There are such a lot of them to possess!

It takes time
even to review some of them!

Preface to Volume I

Obadiah refers to this as something to happen in Israel when once more they will realise the value of what matters most, when there will be found two things in Israel: HOLINESS and DELIVERANCE.

As the Old Testament is the bud of the bloom which is the New, this is an emphasis to be regarded. In Psalm 119, the writer is given to proclaim his preference for the word and wisdom of the word of God beyond any assignable prize or treasure. He is filled with longing for those prescribed judgments, assignments, declaration, testimonies of the Lord (119:20). In fact, he states this: "my soul breaks with longing for your judgments for all times." Again, in 119:40, he records this: "Behold, I long for Your precepts; revive me in Your righteousness." He desires accordingly and asks for this: "Establish Your word to Your servant who is devoted to Your fear," and asks the Lord, "Turn away my eyes from beholding worthless things." His plea is this: "Revive me according to Your lovingkindness so that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth."

Human love from one to another can be laterally absorbing; but this is love for the very foundations of life, its wisdom, its Maker's thought concerning it, mankind, his history, his destiny, the reasons for it, the divine desire and the ways of righteousness before God who alone COULD make it so.

Since He has done so, and with it appointed the way back to the homestead of holiness from the fields of folly, including those of stolen pastures, forbidden landscapes and poisonous minerals, and left in the process not a visiting card, but a Cross in which He permitted men to assail Him, present in human form, so that their sins might not be able to do so (cf. Micah 7:19ff.), it is wise and delightful, a plateau for life to study, ruminate in and digest His word. It does not alter. The only experiment it makes is this, that WE study it and FIND its truth beyond anything else in the whole realm of testable literature in scope and majesty, truth and wisdom, knowledge and reliability. How will this be done ? by knowing it, for which you must study it.

This book is not just to KNOW MORE about the Bible, but to examine choice passages in which depth and height and practical blessing are to be found to an eminent degree, so that ready assimilation may occur.

This is not to say that it will all be easy; for it is only after some hard exercises that the mind sometimes becomes both supple and informed enough to realise what IS precious. However it wil, DV, have various levels and so may feed many, as the good Lord enables. Further, it will show - because it is there - the tenderness, love, grace, pity, power, provisions, predictions, depths and heights that make of the Bible, the very word of God, such a treasure that the student with ready heart and apt mind finds this: "Your testimonies are my delight, and my counsellors."

There is such sweet accord, and at times, such challenging stimulus that tests as does a penetrating teacher, the very superficiality so readily coming into confident composure in the loose heart, there is so majestic a security and such a consistent confidence that needs no trumpet, for it speaks as one with authority, and with every part compared, it gives such an outline, as if one were circumnavigating with Cook, but not a continent but rather the content of the divine divulgements to man that the not merely are the needs of the heart overflowed; they are flooded. Moreover, since it is the word of Go, none other than the Spirit of the living God moves as if explaining, applying, and the experience then to faith becomes not only an imbuement with beauty, but a perspective of truth and a pageant of peace. Blessed are those who find it so!

Preface to Volume IV

As we have been progressing over the past few weeks from Volume I to the present, there have appeared more and more of the treasures of Christ and His word to supply, as if one had found a Pacific Island (not yet sunk), and on it a mass of wonderful items, now being shipped to the mainland. We therefore proceed with these exhibits, and their application to our contemporary world, which is intense, and indeed, there is no vitamin deficiency anywhere near so fatal as the present one in terms of the startlingly careless ignorance of the word of God, of the way to go and the ingredients in it.

To this, then, we continue to turn, showing its relevance, rationality and reasonableness on the one hand, and its necessity for life on the other.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

I SAMUEL 16-20

SAMUEL AND SAUL

PRIORITIES, PURITY AND PERSPECTIVES July 18, 2010

I Samuel 15:22-23

GOOD, EVIL, ABSENCES AND PRESENCES

CHAPTER 2

THREE CASES BEFORE THE FACES TURN

TO SEE THE PIERCED ONE

Three Sovereigns, but One Rule