A father does not look upon his son in the womb and then decide to beget him because

he's going to be right-handed and tall and have beautiful eyes and be strong and smart.

A father just begets and boom, he brings out of nothing as it were a son.

So the image is that God begot Israel the way a father begets and that means he didn't look for

Abraham and say now there's finally a man who's got all the conditions met. I will choose Abraham.

He was a moon worshiper. When Scripture says Abraham was a moon worshipper, that's meant to stop us in our tracks,

because it means God's story of redemption continues with someone who wasn't even looking for him.

I'm Dan Kruver.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper helps us marvel that God's choice of us

doesn't rest on our worth, but on his gracious choosing.

This session was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on Wednesday evening,

February 5, 1992. Number seven, what sequence of thoughts led Charles Spurgeon to his first confidence

in the doctrine of election that describes holy to God all our change from unbelief to belief.

This is a very powerful quote for me when I read it years ago, and I'll tell you a little story that confirms it in the life of a young woman in this church in just a minute.

Here's the quote. One weeknight, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, how did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord, was my answer. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment.

I should not have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him.

I prayed, I thought. But then I asked myself, well, how came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the scriptures, I thought.

Well, how came I to read the scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? And then in a moment,

I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that he was the author of my faith and so the whole doctrine of grace

that's another word for Calvinism slash doctrine of election doctrine of grace opened up to me

and from that doctrine i have not departed to this, and I desire to make this my constant confession,

I ascribe my change wholly to God.

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