God chose, before He ever created
the world, a people that He was going to save, that He was going
to deliver, and wrote their names down in the Lamb's Book of Life
from the foundation of the world. I've been preaching that or proclaiming
that now for 55 years. I started out on that theme and
I have never got over it. It's a wonderful truth. Think
about this, that God chose you. And then think about this, why? It wasn't because you were better
than anybody else. That's what makes it so awesome. I am awestruck that God would
choose me. Oh, what a wonder that God chose
me. Unmerited favor. Undeserved favor. You see, there are passages of
Scripture that I quote so often to you, where God said in the
book of Jeremiah, before I formed you in your mother's belly, I
already loved you. I knew you. And ordained you. You're not living an accidental
life. Sometimes it may seem that way, but you're not. I hear people
say all the time, so-and-so fell on bad luck. That's an old Southern
word for predestination, I guess. There's no such thing as luck.
There's God, and I'm glad about that. Before I formed you in
your mother's belly, I loved you according as He had chosen
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. We're bound to
give thanks for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because
God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation. And he knew
you were going to shoot up and maybe prostitutes and you guys
and all of your craziness. Think about this. There are guys
sitting in here that have been, well, in and out of prison. In fact, some of you heard the
gospel in prison. That's how God brought you. He
had to lock you up. Isn't that something? You thought
it was the worst day of your life when the judge said five
years. But God was at work. The message of the gospel totally
shuts you up to giving God all the glory. That salvation is
of the Lord, that He's the Alpha and the Omega and the beginning
and the end. I have been justified without
a cause. Isn't that an awesome statement? That is, there was no cause in
you that caused God to love you. Think about how long you wandered.
How you wandered. Just like crazy people. How long
were you on drugs? Those of you who are churchy
people, how long were you in church before you really came
to see in regeneration power? The hound of heaven caught up
with you. God sought you out of your lodibar, out of the place
of no pastures, out of that wilderness. God sought you out, singled you
out, and made you conscious of your sinnership. Some of you
are sitting in here, and I know you're saying this, I should
have been damned to the lowest hell. I was such a rubble rouser,
so disobedient to my parents, so disrespectful, out in the
world, and the Holy Spirit caught up with me. You see, that's why
we say around here, something has to happen on the inside before
anything happens on the outside. God does something on the inside
that changes your wonder. I hope that you've come to this
conclusion, that if there's Anything good comes out of you, God put
it in you. And it comes out of that new
nature, not your old fleshly nature, because in my flesh dwells
no good thing.