You ready? All right. Another one of those good
heart -to -heart talks and you were expecting
it because you got your Bible right there. And
that's exactly the thing to do. It makes it more
personal. Do like I do. Mark your Bible. Get
a little red pencil. Mark it. It makes it so
personal, so with sort of... Your Bible. You
know, after Mama was gone, I found her Bible.
I have it. Just the other day, I went through
its pages again. I saw the different portions
that she had marked. It just sort of made...
The presence of Mama, very real. For in those
marked pages, I saw my Mama in a new light. It
was as though I could see my Mama's heart. And
it's just like that. Well, sir, I left you, you
know, on our little heart -to -heart talk regarding...
The personal word of God is found in the first
chapter of Ephesians. And we've been talking
about this thing of predestination. There have
been books written on it. There have been thousands
of sermons preached on it. Now, let's go back
to the word of God. And you're always right.
And you never get off in your doctrine. Stay
with the Word. All right? I'll just read the
third verse and then the fourth, and we'll stop
and talk about this glorious relationship between
God the Father and His adopted child. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. according as he
hath chosen us in him before the foundation of
the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children, by Christ Jesus
to himself according to the good pleasure of
his will. Say, you talk about a plan. This is
the greatest thing that I have ever seen. Talk
about something that is vitally important to
you and to me, to every human being. To be an
heir of God. To be adopted of God the Father.
My goodness alive. Have you ever thought what
it would be like to have been adopted by one
of the richest families in the world today? And
probably... In your imagination, you've almost
become jealous of their children and think, oh,
my goodness, if only I had had Mr. Sonto as my
father, if only I had been born in that family,
why couldn't I have been an heir to that estate?
Don't sit there envious. Don't sit there thinking
what it might have been like to have been an
heir to a multi -million dollar estate. I have
something here in the Word of God that is greater
than being an heir to an estate in the natural.
Is there... Anything greater? Could there be
anything more thrilling? Could anything surpass
the fact of being an heir of God? First of all,
you have to realize that he's God Almighty, the
maker of heaven and earth. All things are in
his hand. It is in his hands to give, to withhold,
nothing. He's limitless, boundless, perfect in
wisdom, perfect in knowledge, perfect in power,
perfect in all things. Just pause a minute and
think of it. An heir of God. That is exactly
what a man or a woman is who has been born again,
who is a Christian. who knows Jesus Christ as
his Savior, his Redeemer. In God's perfect plan
for man, he willed that every human being should
be his heir by adoption. Oh, somebody says, Miss
Kuhlman, you're way out now. Oh, don't tell me
with the condition the world is in today. When
I look around and see some of these human beings
and the way they act and the way they look and
the way they live, don't tell me it was in the
will and the plan of God that they should be
his heir. I know. My friend, I know sometimes
it's hard to believe, but I've got the word.
I can back it up with the word. People are living
in the condition that they are living in this
hour because they will to live in that condition.
And it's just like that. are way back there when
the three sat at the great conference table.
God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Oh, I have visualized that over
and over again. Of course, the Bible doesn't
say that there was a great conference or that
there was a conference table. But I know. that
they were in conference because there was a definite
time, a definite place, when Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, offered himself through the Holy
Spirit to God the Father to be given that you
and I might have life eternal. The perfect...
plan of salvation was all laid out, it was all
mapped out before Jesus ever came in the form
of a babe to Bethlehem. Before Mary was ever
told that her body would encompass that which
was of God, that supernatural something. that
God himself had ordained. Long before Mary knew
it, it was all in God's plan that it should be
as it was. And when the three sat down at that
great conference table, talking over redemption's
plan, not one person, regardless of nationality,
race, regardless of color, every human being
was included, from the first Adam to the very
last person who will be born, was included in
this great plan. And God predestinated, God foreordained,
even before the foundations of the world, All
should be saved. Salvation was for all. When
Jesus died on the cross, he didn't die for just
a few or a certain percentage or those of a certain
nationality. But he died for all. There was no
exception. Jew, Gentile. Black, white, yellow,
all. For God knows no such thing as race and
nationality. Somebody said, well, Ms. Kuhlman,
what happened? This is what happened. Man was
created with free moral agency. You are free
to do anything you want to do. You are absolutely
free to live a respectable life. You're absolutely
free to be a hippie. You're absolutely free to
hate. You're absolutely free to love. You are
absolutely free to keep His Word. You are free
to leave all morals out of your life. I am perfectly
free right now, even though I have been preaching
the Word for years. I am perfectly free this
very moment to get... up from the chair that
I'm sitting in, walk out of this radio studio
and say, I've contributed my part to humanity.
From here on out, I'm going to take it easy.
I can do it. God won't stop me. I'm not forced
to do what I'm doing. I have not been forced
all these years to work as hard as I have worked,
16, 18 hours a day. No one has forced me. God
has not forced me to give my life as a living
sacrifice to preach the gospel. I have chosen
to do it. I have done it by choice. When it came
to giving my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ,
in that little Methodist church when I was only
14 years of age. How well I remember that Sunday
morning. Not one soul said a word to me. My mother,
who stood beside me, knew nothing about salvation.
My father, at that service, when I said, Papa,
I've given my heart to Jesus. And he just looked
at me and said, I'm glad. And I wondered thousands
of times if he understood. No one forced me.
No one led me. Only the Holy Spirit spoke to
my heart. And I chose to accept Christ as my
Savior in the forgiveness of my sins. And every
person this very hour listening to me, if you've
been born again, you were not forced into it.
God never forced you. You did it out of choice.
In exactly the same way, that man who is unregenerated
today, that man who is still living in sin, that
man without morals, That man without peace of
mind and peace of soul, that man who is living
in sin, has made his choice. He chooses to do
what he has done and is doing. But it doesn't
change the fact one iota that God was not willing
and is not willing that any should perish but
that all should come into eternal life. In his
great plan, before the foundations of the world,
he predestined, he planned that all men, all
women, should become his heir by adoption through
Jesus Christ his Son, making us a... joint heir
with His Son. At the same time, when He created
man, when He said to the Son and to the Holy
Spirit, let us make man in our own image and
after our likeness, He created man with free
moral agency. We are free to choose. We are free
to reject. Every human being is free, absolutely
free to go to heaven or to go to hell. You make
your choice. No person will ever be able to stand
in the presence of Almighty God and shake a finger
in God's face and say, you sent me to hell. Because
God doesn't send anyone to hell. You choose to
go to hell. You have chosen to make your own
hell right here on earth. We make these choices
ourselves. I'm giving you something to think
about. I'm giving you the word of God. The Lord
is not willing that any should perish, but that
all should come into everlasting life. All should
accept his only begotten Son in the forgiveness
of his sins. You are living there in defeat?
Just stop a minute. For one split second. Just
check up, take inventory. Look at your past life.
Oh, I know you've blamed everything on everybody
else. You either blame it on your husband, or
you blame it on the children, or you blame it
on the teacher, or you blame it on circumstances.
Human beings are made like that. We like to put
the blame on everybody else. but we'll never
look ourselves directly in the face and say look
here old girl you brought this all on yourself
every bit of it you brought it on yourself this
very moment you are living in defeat It was never
God's will that any man or any woman should be
defeated. Do you mean to tell me that the conditions
of the world is in this very hour? That that
is God's perfect will? When I pass some of these
folks on the street and sometimes I can't restrain
myself, I have to turn around and look at them.
You'll never Make me believe that the will of
God for them, God's perfect will for them, is
to be in the condition that they are this hour.
Never. They have made the choice in spite of
all that God has done for them. In spite of the
spiritual light. In spite of... The tenderness
of the Holy Spirit. In spite of the fact that
God made it possible that they should be his
heir. Think of it. Just pause a moment. Think
of it. It was God's will. that all of us in his
great plan, and he made provisions for it, that
we should literally be a joint heir with his
only begotten son. Why? To the praise of the
glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted
in the beloved. He made full provision that we
might have this as our inheritance, that we might
be to the glory of his grace, and that we should
be something that he could be proud of. It's
the same thing within the second chapter of Ephesians,
the seventh verse. that in the ages to come,
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ.
But there are millions of people who will not
permit him to show his grace and to show his
kindness and to show his glory and to show his
power. Through their lives. Oh, this is so thrilling.
This is so wonderful. If only men and women could
realize what they could be. In Christ Jesus.
They fight him. They work against him. They deny
him. They do everything in the world contrary
to his laws. No wonder they get themselves in
such messes and such predicaments. Until finally,
the grand finale to the whole thing. will be
that man will destroy himself. God will never
destroy man. Never. God will never destroy this
generation. Man will destroy himself in spite
of everything that he has done. to keep you from
that destruction. Even to the place where man
will go to hell. Eternal punishment. Not because
God sent him there or that God ordained that
it should be or predestined that he should be
lost. But you and I make the choice.