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The Extraordinary Grace of God |
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Written by Rev. Spence Laycock
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Friday, 02 December 2005 16:00 |
It was Donald Grey Barnhouse who once said, ?Love that reaches up is adoration, love that reaches across is affection, but love that reaches down is grace.? God has given each of us numerous opportunities to reach down, and there are many more times when it has been us who have been taken hold of by grace. You know what has guided your heart to be gracious, the apparent need, the remembrance of your past, the hope for good to occur?all these thoughts and many more go through our minds as we consider whether to be a gracious person in any given circumstance. These considerations do not take away from the fact that it really is grace that occurs.
My point is that grace is certainly the expression of love moving downwards, it is undeserved favor but it is guided or directed by a series of considerations in every case. Like the feathers on the shaft of an arrow or the grooves or the inside of a gun barrel, these considerations guide the expressions of grace every time. Humanly we can see how this is so, we get that, but what guides God?s mind when it comes to Him being the bestower of grace? It still is an absolutely free act of His will towards us, Ephesians 2:8,9 demonstrates that, but what directs His will to be gracious to whom He will be gracious? Does God just show grace to everyone and under every circumstance, like a great grace dispensing machine where all you do is pull the lever and you get . . .
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The Peculiar Survival of Gibeon |
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Written by Rev. Spence Laycock
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Sunday, 27 November 2005 16:00 |
I remember a time when I was about 8 years old and was having a lot of problems with my teeth. It was at that time in my life that I developed my first great fear, the fear of sitting in a dentists chair and watching him approach me with a needle as big as a matadors? sword. There was one time when I had to make my way to the dentists? office all on my own, to sit in the waiting room and then present myself as a willing participant in the removal of decayed enamel.
Have you ever had to choose to move towards something that you knew was going to be painful and yet you also knew it would ultimately lead to that which was very good? How do you resolve the problem of pain while trying to hold onto that which is essential to right relationship? Do I hate the dentist, do I distrust and pull away from my parents who sent me there, or do I resolve to see purpose beyond pain. It?s a simple question to answer when we think of cavities cleaned and filled to rot no more, but it?s more difficult to answer when we consider the pages of the Old Testament.
In Deuteronomy 7:1 all the people of Israel were told that they would take over the land of Caanan from seven nations that were greater and stronger than themselves. Verse 2 says, ? ?you shall defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with . . .
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Written by Rev. Spence Laycock
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Thursday, 24 November 2005 16:00 |
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I?d like you to imagine for a minute a great chalk board or blackboard. On one corner is written the equation, 1+1= blue. In another corner appears the equation, 1+1=3, down at the bottom appears 1+1= k, then 1+1= loud, and faster and faster other equations like 1=1= dark, 1+1= touch, 1+1= *, 1+1=%, 1+1=?
Then a great hand appears and with a piece of chalk writes in the very center of the board, 1+1=2.
Have you ever wondered why God would swear to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that He would give them a particular piece of land? Why was God so passionate about the physical land of Israel , and not just then some 4000 years ago, but even today? Deuteronomy 11:21 quoted God as saying this about the people of Israel being obedient to Him in order to stay upon the land, listen to the intensity that God feels for this land? ??that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.? Why is God so passionate about the land of Israel , the place where the people of Israel are to be? Is it possible that it is here, on the center of the chalkboard, that God has written for all to see, the truth about who He is, about what is and we are? To Him it is a foundational, even elementary concept upon which all other truth is built. The land of Israel was the chalk board where . . .
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Written by Rev. Spence Laycock
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Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:50 |
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This morning we are going to consider a place in Israel that is one of the oldest ruins on the face of the earth. Next to Jerusalem , no other Israeli city has received as much interest or research. It is the city of Jericho , and what took place there 3400 years ago has everything to do with us here this morning. The nation of Israel was a people of about 1million, living in a tent city called Gilgal, just 5 miles or so from Jericho . By faith they had been rescued from Egypt , by faith they had survived forty years of desert wanderings, by faith the Jordan River had stopped flowing so they could cross. Now the waters of Jordan flowed again, closing their exit, now they were ?in the cage with the tiger?- so to speak. In front of them was a fortress of incredible, even legendary, strength. It was the first city and perhaps the greatest city they were to face and God directed them to move forward. Consider for a moment what this meant. Here?s a picture of the way it was built.
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