When Does The Lord Begin Working With His Elect?

[Study Aired June 21, 2026]

Over many years of ministering to the Lord’s flock I have been asked on more than one occasion… ‘What have I done to cause the Lord to judge me so severely for so long?’ We all make that inquiry of the Lord in our own preordained time.

Here is King David, who typifies each of us:

Psa 10:1  Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?

Like King David we look around ourselves and see others in this world who don’t even claim to be living for Christ and their lives are much less painful and much more physically prosperous than our lives:

Psa 73:2  But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.
Psa 73:3  For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Psa 73:4  For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.
Psa 73:5  They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.
Psa 73:6  Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.
Psa 73:7  Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.
Psa 73:8  They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily.
Psa 73:9  They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.
Psa 73:10  Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them.
Psa 73:11  And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?
Psa 73:12  Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world [H5769: ‘olam’, this age]; they increase in riches.
Psa 73:13  Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.
Psa 73:14  For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.
Psa 73:15  If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.
Psa 73:16  When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me;

Psa 94:3  LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?
Psa 94:4  How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
Psa 94:5  They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.
Psa 94:6  They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.
Psa 94:7  Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

Job, the author of the oldest book in scripture, expressed this same sentiment:

Job 9:24  The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he?

Job 10:1  My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
Job 10:2  I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.
Job 10:3  Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?

Job 21:6  Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.
Job 21:7  Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?
Job 21:8  Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.
Job 21:9  Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
Job 21:10  Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
Job 21:11  They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
Job 21:12  They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.
Job 21:13  They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
Job 21:14  Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
Job 21:15  What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?

King Solomon noticed this phenomenon:

Ecc 7:15  All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.

Ecc 8:14  There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.

The prophet Jeremiah had the same complaint:

Jer 12:1  Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?
Jer 12:2  Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.

Habakkuk also has the same complaint:

Hab 1:13  Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?

The prophet Malachi bears witness to this same rebellious spirit in the carnal minds of men:

Mal 3:13  Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?
Mal 3:14  Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?
Mal 3:15  And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.

The nation of Israel, which the Lord brought up out of Egypt, signifies us as “carnal babes in Christ.”

1Co 3:1  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
1Co 3:2  I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
1Co 3:3  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
1Co 3:4  For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

As a type of us, Israel witnessed all the plagues the Lord poured out on the Egyptians while sparing His own people. The Lord even killed all the firstborn of Egypt, both man and beast. That was the last plague, and it caused the Egyptians to cast out the Lord’s people and give them much gold and silver to leave in haste. Yet at the very first trial, when the Egyptian armies were bearing down on Israel with their back to the Red Sea they immediately accused God and Moses of bringing them into the wilderness to kill them:

Exo 14:11  And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?
Exo 14:12  Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

It happened time after time while Israel was in the wilderness and each and every time the Lord admonished Israel for their lack of faith in Him. It all serves to show us how weak our own faith is. Of course, the truth is that we, of ourselves, have no faith at all. Any faith we may appear to possess is “the faith of Christ”, bestowed upon us as “a gift of God”:

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

We have established by witness of the scriptures that we of ourselves have no faith in an invisible God. Yet we blame Him and blaspheme His name when our faith is tried.

Let’s go back to Psalm 73 and read the rest of that chapter. In the first part King David lamented how the wicked prosper in this world, while the righteous were constantly struggling. Then the Lord revealed their end:

Psa 73:17  Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.
Psa 73:18  Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.
Psa 73:19  How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors. [Rev 18:10]
Psa 73:20  As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.
Psa 73:21  Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.
Psa 73:22  So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.
Psa 73:23  Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.
Psa 73:24  Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
Psa 73:25  Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
Psa 73:26  My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
Psa 73:27  For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.
Psa 73:28  But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.

Psa 92:6  A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.
Psa 92:7  When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:

Even Zophar, one of Job’s ‘miserable comforters’, was given to see that in the end “the triumphing of the wicked is short.”

Job 20:4  Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth,
Job 20:5  That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?
Job 20:6  Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds;
Job 20:7  Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?

Now we see both sides of the issue of God’s judgment and His justice. God is a God of justice:

Deu 32:3  Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
Deu 32:4  He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

Rom 2:6  Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

Col 3:25  But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.

While it appears many times as though the righteous are punished while the wicked are rewarded in this present evil age, those outward appearances do not prove that God is an unjust God. It is by God’s design that our carnal-minded flesh be the first to prevail and rule over us. It is through the self-righteous rebellion of our flesh that the Lord is given the occasion He is seeking to destroy that dying, rebellious, carnal-minded “first man Adam” and replace him with “another vessel as it seemed good to The Potter.”

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jer 18:5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 18:6  O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

The “vessel He made of clay [which] was marred in The Potter’s hand” was “the first man Adam”, which The Potter “shaped in iniquity and conceived in sin” to give Himself the “occasion” He was seeking to destroy that ‘marred vessel’ and through that destruction bring forth a new “second man Adam.” This “new man” will, through the Lord’s justice, be put through “fiery trials” which will burn out all the rebellious, self-righteous iniquity and sin which is the very character of the marred vessel of clay with which the Lord has begun to make mankind into the image of His Son:

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Psalms 51:5 is the Biblical definition of a “vessel of clay… marred in The Potter’s hand” (Jer 18:4). That “marred… vessel of clay” gives The Potter the occasion He is seeking to complete the creation of mankind into the image of His dear Son.

Two verses of scripture are essential to understanding when God began working with His elect. Those two verses are Genesis 1:27 and Romans 8:29:

Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Now let’s examine what these two verses are telling us. We will begin with Roman 8:29.

“Many brethren” means all men of all time:

1Ti 2:4  Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 2:4 does not tell us that God wishes all men would be saved. It tells us that is what He will do, and for all those who think otherwise, let God be true and every man, no matter how highly regarded he is in this world, be a liar when faced with what scripture says. Does God ‘desire’ that all men be saved? O.K. let’s see what the scripture teaches about the things God desires:

Job 23:13  But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth.
Job 23:14  For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him.

Job 23:13 comports with all the rest of scripture which teaches the exact same message of what is truly good news. In this same book of 1 Timothy, Paul reinforces this wonderful Truth:

1Ti 4:10  For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially [Not ‘exclusively’, but “the firstborn among many”] of those that believe.

That verse does not read “Christ would like to be the Savior of all men…” What it reads is that He “IS the Savior of all men!” That is what the Father sent Him to be, and that is what He IS.

Joh 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

I am not blind. I see verse 16 requires belief in Christ to be saved, but I also see this very little understood verses of scripture:

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Peter tells us the Lord’s firstfruits, the “firstborn among many” are being judged in this present time:

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
1Pe 4:18  And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

“The house of God” is being judged at this very moment. It has been being judged for the past two thousand years, and at the appointed time “the dead in Christ shall rise first and we which are alive and remain will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.”

1Th 4:15  For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep.
1Th 4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first;
1Th 4:17  then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

The only way anyone can be part of this “blessed and holy first resurrection” (Rev 20:6) is to be granted to be a part of the “house of God” whose judgment “has first begun” as Peter informed us in 1 Peter 4:17. But ‘judgment… first begins at the house of God.’ That statement infers that “when the Lord’s judgments are in the earth the [whole] world will learn righteousness” just as the firstfruits learned righteousness in this present age. God’s “firstfruits” are “the firstborn among many” only because “judgment has first begun at us” (1Pe 4:17). They are not the ‘only fruits.’ They are “ the firstborn” simply because judgment has begun with them:

Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

That explains what Paul meant by “the firstborn among many.” The firstborn among many was “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.” The first man Adam was never “conformed to the image of His Son” simply because he was never predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ in this present age.

This raises the question, “Exactly when were the Lord’s elect predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son?” We need not guess because we are twice told exactly when the Lord made that decision:

2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

To any thinking person, the fact that we were “called with an holy calling… given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” it becomes obvious that the Lord knew in advance exactly what Adam and Eve would do, and He had prepared Christ to redeem us from our sins “before the world began.”

Now we will examine what Genesis 1:27 actually says, but let’s first look at how it reads in the KJV:

Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

That is not at all how the Hebrew reads. Yet, based upon this faulty translation of the original Hebrew and based upon Adam’s willingness to believe the serpent over putting His faith in Christ’s words, we have the whole world of Christendom believing that the first Adam was the Lord’s finished product. That’s right, Christendom for the most part believes that if only Adam and Eve had been obedient to the Lord’s commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that the death of Christ would never have been necessary. Indeed Genesis 1:27, as it reads in the KJV and in many other versions, appears to tell us that the first Adam was originally created in the image of His Son.

However, when we look closely at how the Hebrew actually reads, we will see that the first Adam was  not a whole man. He was not yet complete. Indeed, those who are given to discern the things of the spirit will notice that Adam’s creation on the sixth day signifies the fact that he is not yet complete. Not yet complete is the very significance of the number ‘six’. Here is the link to the study of that number:

                  https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/numbers_six/

Now, let’s read a much better translation of Genesis 1:27 and see how it really reads:

Gen 1:27 And creating is the Elohim humanity in His image. In the image of the Elohim He creates it. Male and female He creates them. (CLV)

The work of God with mankind is not completed on the sixth day, and that is exactly what we are told in the next chapter of Genesis and in the 4^th chapter of Hebrews:

Gen 2:2  And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. (ASV)

The Lord’s work with mankind is not finished until mankind acknowledges that he has ceased from his own works as God did from His:

Heb 4:10  For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

Anyone who still believes that his fabled ‘free will’ has anything to contribute to his salvation has not yet “ceased from his own works as God did from His”. This is the truth of how we are saved from our sins:

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that [that ‘grace through faith] not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Indeed, we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works”, but who is working our will to perform those good works? What  do the scriptures teach about our will?

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Our will and our actions are “both” the work of God and “Not of ourselves” (Eph 2:8).

As the depth of that Truth sinks into our heavens, it will become much easier for us to accept “all things” as the Lord’s work in our lives for our good:

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Eph 1:12  That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Once again, God’s elect are just the “first [to] trust in Christ.” God’s judgments continue right on through the “great white throne judgment”, when “the world will learn righteousness.”

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

You and I as the Lord’s elect are those who will “judge angels” in that great white throne judgment. Those ‘angels’ (the word ‘angel’ means ‘messenger’) will include all who have peddled all the false doctrines of their father the devil. All men will be judged “according to their works”, and in the end “the world will learn righteousness.”

Judgment Before the Great White Throne

Rev 20:11  And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell [G86: ‘hades’, the grave] delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14  And death and hell [G86: ‘hades’, the grave]  were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

The lake of fire IS the second death because those in the first resurrection were the first to  “die daily” (1Co 15:31), and were the first to be crucified daily with Christ (Gal 2:20), and they were the first to offer their bodies as a living sacrifice daily (Rom 12:1) in this present age. The ‘great white throne, the lake of fire, and the second death’ are one and all the same “judgment of God in the earth.”

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Being made aware of the extent of the sovereign work of God should help to keep us from comparing our sins or our good works, our accomplishments and our failures with those of others. The message Christ imparted to His apostles when He corrected their way of thinking about why a man would be born blind applies to all of His “all things [which He] is working after the counsel of His own will.” Apply these words to all the works of the Lord and you will be much less judgmental, and you will have much more peace of mind and the joy of the Lord:

Joh 9:3  Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

The Lord is “working all things after the counsel of His own will… for [our] good… that the works of God should be manifest…” in all of our lives and in the lives of all men.