I am Wonderful & Marvelous, Part 1

Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Otz, thanking you for joining us today because we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you've 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. 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'm just asking for you to pray with me this morning. I don't know how long I'll be. Of course, I know every time I say that, you know, but I really mean it this morning.

I'm 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'll even go out on a limb this morning and say, if you're in this place and you don't know the Lord, I am still here to tell you that the Lord has a plan for your life.

And you're not just here because, you know, you don't have anywhere else to go. God, if you don't know Him and you haven't given your life to Him, He's 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 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 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'm standing at the door and I'm 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 five. 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 you don't need any other arguments. You don't need anybody else to come and explain anything else. You don't even need any doctors. You don't need nurses.

You don't need anybody to come and tell you anything. Read this one verse and you'll know the answer. Jeremiah 1 5. Before, someone say before. Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And before thou camest 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, 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, man, you know, I mean, you raised me up to be the prophet to the absolute worst time of the nation. I don't think I'm up to this, God.

I can't 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 she didn't 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 don't care if it's so microscopic that you can't, 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 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 didn't 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 don't 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'm here to call you by your name. I'm here to tell you I'm your God.

I'm your father. If you'll turn to me, I'll reveal myself to you. I don't care if your life up to this point has been one big zero.

I don't 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 is akin to teenagers all going down the drain. I want to tell you it doesn't matter. God says I know you and I will separate you and sanctify you if you'll let me. So God said he knew us. The first thing we 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 8th chapter. I won't 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 for no, he did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. And then he goes on to say that if he predestinated you to be conformed to the image of his son, 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 got to answer. He said he'll justify you. He'll make you righteous. He'll take every awful filthy thing to sin in your life.

I don't care how undone and wretched it is. He said I'll wash it just as if you never did it. And then I'll do the most wonderful marvelous miracle that's ever taken place on planet earth. I'll 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'll look at you, when I look at you, I'll see my son in you.

That's what he'll 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. Don't ask me to explain it. I can't 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. And then 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 can't be fruitful and multiply. And no way. They just can't 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 can't have a child and two women can't have a child. Amen. So here we are. Our mom and dad has come together in that holy act. And now we're in the womb, I should say.

I'm jumping ahead of myself. Psalm 139, beautiful Psalm. Oh Lord, thou has searched me and known me.

You know my down sitting, my uprising. 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 things. They can tell wherever you are, satellite calls, cell phones. But I'll 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 can pass this my path, my lying down, and you're acquainted with all my ways. When I'm 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 don't 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 can 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 can't 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 doesn't matter where you go. You might be backslidden 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 verse 13.

This is where I really want to get. For thou has possessed my reins and reins just means your innermost part of your being. 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 range. 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 knoweth 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'm wonderful. I said, I'm wonderful this morning. You're wonderful this morning. I'm 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 don't have it anymore. You know, you're over the hill. You're old now. You got gray hair. You can't do what you used to do. You're a failure. You never did all the things you said you were going to do. All you stood up there on that podium when you graduated and you were going to do this and you were going to do that.

You didn't do none of them. Now look at you. Maybe your home is broken up. Maybe you've been divorced. Maybe you've lost financially.

Maybe you just never wear 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 doesn't see you. He's not blessing you.

You know what? We got to rise up and we got to say God says I'm wonderful. God says I'm 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 don't understand why things happen 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 wouldn't have miscarried, I wouldn't be here. She wouldn't have me.

How many say amen? So we've got to know that for whatever reason, God covered me in my womb and you probably a lot of stories out here the same way that you weren't supposed to be born. And you were a mother wasn't supposed to carry you to full term. 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 me 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 won't, 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 and it's got all the beautiful little sewing in it and the embroidery? Well, the high priest was even fancier.

And there you'll 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 don't embroider and crochet. Now I don't, 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 it's a dying art. But isn't it, don't you love, can't 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 costs 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 can't say the word. I would have to study it for about five minutes to pronounce it.

I don't have that much time. But it's a big long word and 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, if you take, now the human body, the average human body has about 60 trillion cells. I'm 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, 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 and 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'm wonderful. I'm marvelous. I mean, there's so many ways you could go with this message. You could go all directions, but I'm going to stick with what I am, but I'll 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 not good for our bodies, and God made us to be wonderful and marvelous? And, you know, if you went out there and somebody gave you a brand new Cadillac with every option on it, they'd say, 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 changed. 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.

Somebody say I'm wonderful. 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'm not a scientist. It was definitely not my forte in school.

I passed it, but I didn't love it. But I do read, and I try to get the gist of things, and I can't get real technical, but that's okay because then that way you'll understand me. If I tell you something I don't 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 on, and 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 is another way we could go with this message, but we're not, but I'll just throw it out at you. That shows you that behind this perfectly designed thing is a designer. Let me ask you 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 couldn't be random. That couldn't 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 2-year-old went up there, they wouldn't 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, 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 couldn't have been by accident, it couldn't 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. But they can't go out there and get, well let me give you some hydrogen and give me some, I don't even know what they are, I'm just throwing this stuff out. And I know we have certain things in our body, you know, that we're made of. Well give me some hydrogen and nitrogen and we'll put it all together and get a person.

And nobody has done that yet. They can't even make one cell, much less a human being. Somebody say I'm wonderful. Somebody say I'm marvelous. 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 and they're smiling, crying, sucking their thumbs. These tiny little things. They can see when they showed us, when we saw the one that Corinne had when she was pregnant. I mean you could see the shape that 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 wasn't that far along. And so you see that 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 don't 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'm 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 don't 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 to 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 that 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 read it here in this verse. He says all in your book you wrote all my members down. Now if we would I'm 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 will die. God knows our lifespan. He knows the day that will come into this earth and he knows the day that 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 six he said by thee I have been holding 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 where I stop he said how precious are thy thoughts unto me oh Lord.

How great is the sum of them. My God the word says who is known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor and yet if I could have the privilege to 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 couldn't count the thoughts that he has towards you. He said through the same prophet Jeremiah 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'll 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'm wonderful. I'm marvelous. God loves me. And 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 were made up of a complex for 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 under 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 don't know it begins by answering the call for whom he did for no. 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 under 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'm 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 P.O. Box 1744 Baltimore Maryland 21203 or order online at RGHardy.org where you may also order on an MP3 but to order by mail send your minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744 Baltimore Maryland 21203 request offer SK111. Until next time this is Sharon Natsane, Maranatha.