Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to Sound of Faith. I am Sharon Knotts, thanking you for joining us today, because we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

If you have ever wondered just how special you truly are and how precious you are to God, then today's message is for you. I am wonderful and marvelous. God said that he knew you before you were even formed in your mother's belly, and he has a plan, a wonderful plan for your life. From the womb to the tomb, he will be with you because he calls you wonderful and he calls you marvelous.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: You know, I love to preach, I love to teach, and it's the thing the devil fights me hardest on. Whenever I have the opportunity, it's like all hell comes against me. And so, I am just asking for you to pray with me this morning. I do not know how long I will be. Of course, I know every time I say that. You know, but I really mean it this morning. I am not kidding.

But you know, the Lord, he knows everything. Sometimes we wonder where things come from and why things happen. But I can tell you this, that if you know the Lord, and I will even go out on a limb this morning and say if you are in this place and you do not know the Lord, I am still here to tell you that the Lord has a plan for your life.

And you are not just here because, you know, you do not have anywhere else to go. God, if you do not know him and you haven't given your life to him, he is reaching out to you right now. In fact, if you could see a panoramic view of your life up to this point, you would be able to see if you could look through God's eyes, you could see so many places where the hand of God had circumvented in your life to keep evil from you, to keep destruction from you. And even when bad things did come, and sometimes we make stupid mistakes and we open the door and things happen, and life is life.

Amen. Even then, the goodness of the Lord is always there. Because you know what the Bible says? The Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish. There is not one person that God wants to be lost. God never made hell for people. He made hell for the devil and his angels. God never intended one precious human being that he made in his own image and his own likeness to ever go to that terrible place, and yet people are going there.

As I speak this morning, there are people that are already in the flames of hell in torment. The Bible says that hell has had to enlarge itself seven times. Seven times God has enlarged hell. That's a sobering thought. In order to accommodate the masses of people that are going there. And once people are there, you know, it's not like you can, you know, go there for a vacation and see if you like it. It's not like you can go check it out for a weekend and see whether or not you want to come back. Amen.

I mean, it's not one of those things, you know, where you can go and say, well, before we move to this new place, let's go check it out. No, when you go to hell, you're there for good. There's no exits. Amen. And that's why the Bible says, now, today, if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your heart. Because he said, I am standing at the door and I am knocking. And if you could see a picture in the spirit, he's not only knocking, but I believe the tears are flowing down his face as he's saying, won't you open up and let me come in?

Because I have a plan for your life. Amen. Turn with me to Jeremiah the first chapter and verse 5. I want you to know that God had a plan for your life even before you were born. Amen.

Jeremiah the first chapter, the fifth verse. This is a powerful, powerful verse. It speaks volumes about a lot of things that are going on in our world today. Anybody that's on the fence about abortion, all they need to do is read this one verse, and there's, you do not need any other arguments, you do not need anybody else to come and explain anything else. You do not even need any doctors, you do not need nurses, you do not need anybody to come and tell you anything. Read this one verse and you will know the answer.

Jeremiah 1:5. Before, someone say before.

Audience: Before.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And before thou came forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. What a word. God came on the scene to this young man, he was just a he was still very young, just a teenager. And Israel was in its most backslidden state. They were just steps away from going into captivity. And God raised up Jeremiah, and Jeremiah was shaking. He was like, you know, I mean, you you raised me up at the to be the prophet to the absolute worst time of the nation. I do not think I am up to this, God. I I cannot do this. God said, Jeremiah, let me tell you something. Before you were conceived, before I formed you in the belly, that means before that your mother and father ever came together. Before that seed was ever planted in your mother's womb and and she did not even know that it was there. I want you to know, before that, I knew you.

I knew you then. I remember years and years ago when I was a teenager, the Lord spoke to me through one of God's servants and he said, I'd never heard this before. He said, he said, I knew you in your father's loins. And you know that really stuck with me because it let me knew that know that your father's loins, that means before conception even came together. We know that when there's conception, there is a life. It is a life at that moment. I do not care if it's so microscopic that you cannot, you know, know it's there. It's a life. But he said, when you were still in your father's loins, I knew you. And this is basically what God is saying to Jeremiah. Galatians 1:15 in the New Testament. We have the Apostle Paul, and this is what he says, but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his son in me that I might preach among him among the heathen.

So we have Paul. He grew up, he was a rebel. He was fighting against God. He was killing and destroying the people of God. He was destroying the Christians because he thought they were some cult. He did not understand yet that Jesus was the Messiah. But one day Jesus came along and opened up his eyes. There are some of you today, you've been in blindness, you've been in darkness. You do not know, but God is here to open up your eyes. He wants to tell you, I love you. I've known you since you were in your mother's womb. And today I am here to call you by your name. I am here to tell you, I am your God. I am your father. If you will turn to me, I will reveal myself to you.

I do not care if your life up to this point has been one big zero. I do not care if you haven't done anything you wanted to do, if you've never met any of your dreams and aspirations, if everything you ever thought you would do as a kid and a teenager is all going down the drain. I want to tell you, it does not matter. God says, I know you. And I will separate you and sanctify you if you will let me. So God, he knew us. The first thing we've got to know is we've got to understand God knew us before we were even born.

And he said through the Apostle Paul after, of course, Paul got saved and got the great revelation, and he was the great apostle, and you can read this later in your own time, Romans the eighth chapter. I will not take time to read it all. It's beautiful. But where he gets down around the 29th verse and he says, for whom he did foreknow, he did also also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. And then it goes on to say that if he predestinated you to be conformed to the image of his son, he in the same area he talks about how that if he foreknew you, then he called you. And if he called you, and you will answer.

You've got to answer. He said he will justify you. He will make you righteous. He will take every awful, filthy thing, sin in your life. I do not care how undone and wretched it is. He said, I will wash it just as if you never did it. And then I will do the most wonderful, marvelous miracle that's ever taken place on planet Earth. I will conform you to be in the image of my pure, sinless, precious, beloved son, in whom I was always and always well pleased. And I will look at you. When I look at you, I will see my son in you.

That's what he will do for you. He said that we can be accepted in the beloved. That when Christ sanctifies us, it tells us in Hebrews, when he sanctifies us, we become one with him. And when we become one with him, we're just as sanctified as he is. We're just as holy as he is. I don't don't ask me to explain it, I cannot explain it. Nobody can explain it. But when it happens to you, you know it. You just know it.

So first of all, he knew us before we were born. Second of all, turn to Psalm 139. All right. Now we're conceived. We're in our mother's womb. Amen. We're now in our mother's womb. That conception has happened. Mother and father have come together in that holy act. That holy union that God ordained when he told Adam, he said, here's your wife. Here she is. She's part of you now. Flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone. Bone. And then the first, the very first blessing God ever pronounced in the Bible. He said, now, be fruitful and multiply. And bring forth sons and daughters. That's why God wants holy marriage, mother and father, because man and man and woman and woman cannot be fruitful and multiply. In no way. They just cannot do it. They cannot obey the first blessing and the first commandment. They cannot be fruitful and multiply. So right there is no way. It's going against God's word. Because no matter what you do, two men cannot have a child and two women cannot have a child. Amen.

So here we are. Our mom and dad has come together in that holy act. And now we're we're in the womb, I should say. I am jumping ahead of myself. Psalm 139, beautiful Psalm. Oh, Lord, thou has searched me and known me. You know my down-sitting, my up-rising. You understand my thoughts from afar. God is watching you. We think we got Big Brother watching us. My Lord, they can see everywhere we go. They can put chips on you. They can put sensors on you. They can put those uh those things, they can tell wherever you are. Satellite calls, cell phones. But I will tell you something, God, he sees you when you sit down. He sees you when you get up. He knows your thoughts before you think them. He said, you compass my path, my lying down, and you're acquainted with all my ways. When I am lying down, you're watching me. When I get up, you're there. He said, Lord, there's not one word in my tongue, but that you do not know it already. That's a sobering thought. My God, put a watchman at the door of my mouth and a gatekeeper at the gate of my lips. Because God knows the word that's in my tongue. Sanctify my tongue, oh Lord. James said, who can tame the tongue? He said, nobody but the Holy Ghost.

That's why you need the Holy Ghost. He will tame your tongue. He said, you beset me. And that word beset me all it means is surround. In the perfect sense, it means to be surrounded. You surround me behind me. You've laid your hand upon me. Oh, when I think about it, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. I cannot even comprehend it. It's so high. How can I ever understand how much you're watching over me? Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? It does not matter where you go. You might be backslidden and away from God. You can run, run, run, run, run. But no matter where you go, God's presence is always going to try to bring you back. He's going to keep knocking at your door. How many say amen? If you go up into heaven, he said, well, you're there, Lord God. He said, if I make my bed in hell, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, there your hand will be there. Your right hand will reach out to me.

And so let's drop on down now to uh verse 13. This is where I really want to get. For thou hast possessed my reins. And reins just means your innermost part of your being. It it literally it referred to the kidneys, which just means, you know how when you something happens to you very emotional, where do you feel it? Do you feel it up in your head? No, you feel it right here. That's your reins. Okay? He says you possessed me in your reins. You covered me in my mother's womb. How dare they rip that child out of that mother's womb when God has covered it in the mother's womb.

I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And marvelous are thy works, and my soul knows right well. My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret. And curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth. For thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect. And in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, oh God, how great is the sum of them. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. And when I awake, I am still with thee. Oh, my God. Let's talk about this a little bit. He said, God, you made me. And you know what? I am wonderful. I said, I am wonderful this morning. You're wonderful this morning. I am marvelous.

How dare you call something God made and attach some term to it. The devil comes and sits on your shoulder. He says, you know, you do not have it anymore. You know, you're over the hill. You're old now. You got gray hair. You cannot do what you used to do. You're a failure. You never did all the things you said you were going to do. Oh, you stood up there on that podium when you graduated and you were going to do this and you were going to do that, and you did not do none of them. Now look at you, maybe your home's broken up. Maybe you've been divorced. Maybe you've lost financially. Maybe you just never were what you thought you would be. And the devil comes and sits on your shoulder. He says, you're nothing, you're no good. God does not see you. He's not blessing you. You know what? We've got to rise up and we've got to say, God says I am wonderful. God says I am marvelous. God says he knew me when I was in my mother's womb and he loved me. He covered me. He covered me. Amen. He covered me.

You see, my mom, she had a miscarriage right after my dad and her were married, the first early parts of their marriage. She had a miscarriage. And then right after she had that miscarriage, then she got pregnant with me. Now, I do not understand why things happened the way they do. She miscarried that child and it's a sad thing when you lose a child. But all I can say is God knows what he's doing because if she would not have miscarried, I would not be here. She would not have had me. How many say amen? So we've got to know that for whatever reason God covered me in my womb. And you're probably a lot of stories out here the same way that you were not supposed to be born. And you were your mother was not supposed to carry you to full term. And and and then maybe you were born sickly or premature. But God said he covered you in his womb. He says, my substance was not hid from me from thee when I was in secret and I was curiously wrought. And I love this word curiously. It's a very curious word. And that's why I love it.

And really, it's an Old English word. And if I would take you back in Exodus, which I will not, but if I were to take you back there when God told them how to make the Tabernacle and how to make the clothes for the priest and how to make the fancy linen girdles, and he told them to embroider it with gold and scarlet and blue threads, and make it very beautiful and ornate. Have you ever seen the tallit that the Jewish men put on when they pray? It's got all the beautiful little sewing in it and embroidery. Well, the high priest was even fancier. And there you will find that same word. He says, make a curious girdle. And all he's saying is make it really fancy. Now, we're kind of today, we do not embroider and crochet. Now, I do not does anybody here embroider and crochet? Anybody? Bless your heart. There's two people out of all these ladies, two. But there was a time when all women did that. And and it's a dying art. But isn't it? Don't you love? Don't cannot you appreciate when you see something embroidered that's not printed on with a machine? And you just want to run your hands and say, now look, this isn't printed on. This is sewn on. It cost more money. It's sewn on. It's hand sewn, right?

And so it's the same word. God curiously made us, he embroidered us, he handmade us, he crafted us. When we were in our mother's womb, he was making us. How dare they rip that child out of that mother's womb. God is in there curiously making and putting it all together. Amen. And here is now that we live in the modern age that we live in, with science advanced like it is, we can see a little better. Because now they've discovered in our lifetime, they've discovered DNA. And they have unlocked, and they're still unlocking a lot of the things that have to do with DNA. And you know, if you see a picture of a DNA, what does it look like? It looks like a telephone cord. How many know it's wrapped real like a spiral and it's real real tight. And on that DNA is a code. Now, I cannot say the word. I would have to study it for about five minutes to pronounce it. I do not have that much time. But it's a big long word and it it actually stands for a whole bunch of chemicals. And it's a chemical code. And that chemical code tells what we're going to be. Are we going to have blue eyes, green eyes, brown hair, straight hair, curly hair? We're going to be tall, thin, skinny, fat, whatever. We're going to be what we're going to look like is in that DNA. Amen.

Everything that we're going to be is there. And so that DNA has is if you take now the the human body, the average human body has about 60 trillion cells. I am sure, give or take, depending on your size and height and age and all that. But about that. If you take one cell. Somebody say one.

Audience: One.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: One cell. And the DNA from one cell and stretch it out. Take that cord and stretch it out so it's straight. It would be about 40 inches long. Okay? And so if you would take all the cells in the average human being and end to end, stretch them out, you know, end to end, end to end, end to end, until you had them all stretched out, it would be 60 trillion miles. That is farther than our farthest planet Pluto in our solar system is from the earth for one person. Somebody say I am wonderful.

Audience: I am wonderful.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: I am marvelous.

Audience: I am marvelous.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: I mean, there's so many ways you could go with this message. You could go all directions. But I will stick with what I am, but I will throw out one little thing. We need to take care of that which is so We need to watch what we put in it. If God made us like this, we need to watch what stuff we're putting in there. Are we putting alcohol in there and drugs? Are we putting nicotine in this wonderful, marvelous thing that God's made? Are we eating all kinds of pork and fat and all kinds of stuff that's that's not good for our bodies and God made us to be wonderful and marvelous? And you know, if you went out there somebody gave you a brand new Cadillac with every option on it, they said, here, it's yours.

I mean, what would you do? Wouldn't you be out there taking care of it? You'd get the oil change, you'd check the tires, you'd check the transmission fluid. I mean, you'd be out there shining that thing, and yet we take our cars for oil changes and yet what do we do to our bodies? That's another message.

Audience: Come on.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Somebody say I am wonderful.

Audience: I am wonderful.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: So you see, we're made up of chemicals. Did you know that every living thing is made up of four basic chemicals? And we are made according to now, you know, I am not a scientist. It was definitely not my forte in school. I I passed it, but I did not love it. But I do read and I try to get the gist of things and I cannot get real technical, but that's okay because then that way you'll understand me. If I if I tell you something I do not understand, how can I expect you to understand it? But we're made up of basically four chemicals. And they have a code. Let's call them A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D. Take A, B, C, D and just put it in all kinds of different sequences. A, B, C, D, A, C, B, D. Or B, C, D, A and go on and on and on and on and on and on. And just just let it go forever and ever. Change it around, change it around. And that will determine what it's going to be. Is it going to be a giraffe? Or is it going to be a cat? Or is it going to be a person?

And that tells you right there, it's another way we could go with this message, but we're not, but I will just throw it out at you, that shows you that behind this perfectly designed thing is a designer. Let me ask a question. If you were to go down to Ocean City and you were to walk get up early in the morning before anybody else had gotten up, and you were the only person out there, and you looked and on the sand, bless your heart, was written in great big letters, I love you. Now, how many would then conclude that the waves came up in such a way, and they just happened to just hit the sand in a certain way, pushed it there, pushed it there, it just happened to come out, I love you. How many would believe that if that's what they told you?

You would say, no. Why? It's obvious that that could not be random. That could not be accidental. It took an intelligent being to take an alphabet that other people could understand, one intelligent being to leave a message, so another intelligent being came along and saw that, who knew the English language, the 26 letters of the English alphabet, understood how to read and put them together to get certain words. Now, maybe if your little two-year-old went up there, they would not know. But if you went up there and you saw that, nobody could tell you or convince you that the water just happened to come up and swish on that sand and just happened to all form and say, I love you. You would conclude that somebody was there before you. Somebody with a brain and intelligence.

And when scientists that are in the field of chemical biology look at the sequences of DNA, and they see those sequences, the alphabet of the chemicals in our body, and they see how that as you put them together in certain sequences, it causes a human being or whatever to come forth. They can only conclude one thing. It could not have been by accident, it could not have been by random. It took an intelligent being. It took a designer. It took a creator. And there's no creator that anyone's discovered yet on this earth that can do that or duplicate it. Amen. They cannot duplicate it. All they can do is take a cell that's already there with the DNA already in it and then take that part of it and duplicate it. But they cannot go out there and get uh, well, let me get give me some hydrogen and and give me some I do not even know what they are. I am just throwing this stuff out. And and and I know we have certain things in our body, you know, that we're made of. Well, give me a some hydrogen and nitrogen and we'll put it all together and get a person. And nobody has done that yet. They cannot even make one cell, much less a human being.

Somebody say I am wonderful.

Audience: I am wonderful.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Somebody say I am marvelous.

Audience: I am marvelous.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: So you see, God knew you before you were born and he knew you while your mother, you were in your mother's womb. He said that your eyelids did see my substance while I was yet unperfect. Now today, they have 3D sonograms. They're amazing. They can see these tiny, teeny little fetuses in there smiling, crying, sucking their thumbs. These tiny little things. They can see when they showed us when we saw the one that Corinne had, uh, when she was was pregnant. I mean, you could see the shape before they were kind of like flat. But now they're 3D. You could see little Matthew's shape. You could see the shape of his mouth and the way his brow was. I mean, you could see it. And she was not that far along.

And so you see that why if you see a baby that's born about the edge of the ability to exist is like six months in gestation and then it's shaky. I mean, it's shaky. It's possible but most of the time they do not make it. But they can, you know, do all kinds of things and put them in those intensive care units and they can really watch them 24 hours a day and sometimes they can pull them through. But if you were to go in there and see a six-month-old fetus that was born prematurely, that it's not pretty. I am telling you, they're not pretty. They look like their skin's been burned and they're all funny-looking and shriveled-looking and they do not look very pretty and you think, but you know what? You come back, you come back in a couple months. You come back when that child would have been born if it had, you know, went the. And you come back and there they are. There's those big beautiful eyes. There's those beautiful little eyelashes. There's that pretty little skin, whether they're brown skinned or white or whatever color they are. You see and they think, oh, yeah, there's mama's nose. Oh, yeah, she's got daddy's eyes. You see it then. Why? Because it's all there, even when it's unperfect, it's still there. And if you give it time, it will come forth. Amen.

And that's how it is with us. God, he sees us. He saw us when we were in our mother's womb. And he says that when all of our members were there, he wrote them. We've read it here in this verse. He says, all in your book, you wrote all my members down. Now if we would I am just paraphrasing this. He said, you wrote all my members down in your book. God knows the day you would be born, and he knows the day we will die. God knows our lifespan. He knows the day that we will come into this earth, and he knows the day that we will depart. And that's something that none of us can know except God reveal it, and generally he does not do that. Because he wants us to serve him and be ready every day. How many say amen? So the day that you were born, God knew where your life would take you. He had it all written down in his book. How many say amen? He's mindful of you. In Psalm 69:6, he said, by thee I have been holden up from the womb. You're the one who took me out of my mother's womb. Therefore, my praise shall continually be with thee. And then the next verse that where I stop, he said, how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O Lord. How great is the sum of them. My God, the word says who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? And yet if I could have the privilege that just peek into one part of God's mind, the part that says Sharon Ann Hardy Knotts, it would be so many precious thoughts. I would never be able to count them. If every day of my life, 24 hours a day, I tried to count them, I couldn't count the thoughts that God has towards me. You could not count the thoughts that he has towards you. He said through the same prophet Jeremiah in 29:11, for I know the thoughts that I have towards you, saith the Lord God. I have thoughts to bless you. I have thoughts to prosper you. I have thoughts to give you a hope and a future. The devil is a thief. I want to let you know all he's going to do is steal and kill and destroy your life. He's going to sidetrack you. He's going to try to get you on drugs. He's going to try to get you to become an alcoholic. He's going to get you to try to have a baby before you're married, so that your plans take another turn. But God said, if you will give your plans to me, I have a plan for you. I will bless you. I will give you a hope and a future.

And if you've already made some of those mistakes, it's not over with. It's not too late. Give it to God. He can fix it. He can work it out. Amen. Tell the devil, he's a liar. I am wonderful. I am marvelous. God loves me.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen, what a beautiful word of the Lord for each of us. I am wonderful and marvelous. Have you ever really contemplated how precious you are to God? He said that even when you were in your mother's womb, he covered you. And you were created in an ornately and intricately work of his design. There was nothing accidental or random about our creation. We are made up of a complex four chemical alphabetical sequence, each with its own unique code that determines the function of every cell of our individual 60 trillion cells. The DNA of just one cell stretched out is about 40 inches long. This requires intelligence of a designer. God made each of us with purpose.

God told the prophet Jeremiah, I knew you before you I formed you in your mother's womb and I called you to be a prophet unto the nations. And Paul said that it pleased God to separate me from my mother's womb, to call me by his grace and reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the heathen. What has God called you to do? If you do not know, it begins by answering the call. For whom he did foreknow, he also called, Paul said in Romans, but you must answer the call. And when you do, he promised, I will be with you. When you pass through the floods, when you pass through the fire, through great trials, even unto your old age and gray hair, I will carry you. From the womb to the tomb, God will carry you, and he will never forsake you. For he said, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, to do you good and not harm, to give you a hope and a future. David said, I was young once and now I am old, but I have never seen the righteous forsaken. God said, I will not forget you because I've engraved your name on the palm of my hand.

If you would like to order I am Wonderful and Marvelous on CD, send a love gift of $10 or more to the radio ministry. Request offer SK111, that's SK111. Mail to PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Or order online at [https://www.rghardy.org](https://www.rghardy.org) where you may also order on MP3. But to order by mail, send your minimum love gift of $10 to PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Request offer SK111. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying, Maranatha.