Divine Grace by Rev  Dr  Theophilus Lambo Part 1
Channel: Theophilus Lambo
Date: 27/06/2013

God's divine grace was already at work, during man fall in the Garden of Eden. Even in our state of disobedience to God, He did not condemn us to destruction, but through His Grace, He gave us another chance of life as we read in Genesis 3:21-24 "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. ..........
God's call to Abram was another testimony of God's Divine grace. God had compassion on humanity when He saw how we were suffering and languishing under the yoke of His curses upon us, because of the disobedience of our father Adam and Eve and He had to execute His second master plan to redeem humanity from the slavery of sin, into which Satan, the deceiver, had put us. God found righteousness in father Abram, even within the sinful and idol worshipping community in which he was staying. God said in Genesis 12:1-4 "Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, .........  God's call to Abram was an extension of grace to all humanity, through grace, He re-named him, Abraham; from whom all nations of the world would be blessed. The blessings God offered to Abraham descendants would be instrumental in bringing about a universal blessing "to all the families of the earth". This blessing finds expression in a God-given covenant, the object of which is to extend God's grace to the whole of human race. In a solemn confirmation of the promise to Abraham, God affirmed, "My covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations..... And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant" (Genesis 17:4, 7). Because of Grace, this promise was applicable to all Abraham's offspring, not only his racial descendants, the Jews, but also to his spiritual descendants, believers from all nations, as we read from Romans 4:16 "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all," It was God's plan for redeeming all believers, from all nations. In extending His grace to Abraham, God was establishing the beginning of the church, the community of grace.
The specific blessing of Abraham and his receiving of God's grace provides a model for the selection of individuals used by God in the history of redemption. In the gracious dealings of God with Israel, God was laying the basis for His outreach of grace to the universal church. God's gracious interventions in the Old Covenant (before Jesus) were intended to reveal the role of the church in His plan for redeeming the world. 'The prophets of the Old Testament were not merely serving themselves, or their contemporaries, but the church. You may wonder, were there churches in the Old Testament? God started His super plan of redemption a long time as we read in 1Peter 1:10-12 "As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesized of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the suffering of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven -- things into which angels long to look"