By the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

This verse should be a great encouragement for us to do God’s work, since among the vilest of the vile, the most depraved and degenerate, and the most drugged and drunken people, the Lord has His elect people who must be saved. When you take God’s Word to them, you do so because He has sovereignly ordained you to be the messenger of life to their souls, and they must receive it, for this is how the decree of predestination works. They are as much redeemed by Christ’s blood as the saints now standing before His eternal throne. They are His property and, although they may now be lovers of bars and alcohol and haters of holiness, if Jesus Christ purchased them, He will have them. God is faithful to remember the price His Son has paid for His elect, and He will not allow Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice to be an ineffective, dead thing for any of them. Multitudes of redeemed souls are not yet regenerated, but regenerated they must and will be. This is the comfort and assurance we have when we go forth to take God’s life-giving Word to them.

Furthermore, these ungodly souls have been prayed for by Christ before the throne of God, for the great Intercessor said, “My prayer is not for [My disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message” (John 17:20). Poor ignorant souls know nothing about praying for themselves, but Jesus prays for them. Their names are written on His breastplate, and before long they will bend their stubborn knees to Him and will finally breathe a repentant sigh before His throne of grace.

“The time of figs [is] not yet” (Mark 11:13 KJV). The predestined moment has not yet struck for many, but when it comes they will obey. “As soon as they hear me, they obey me” (Ps. 18:44), for God will have those who are His. They must come to Him, for the Spirit cannot be ignored when He comes forth in the fullness of His power; they must become willing servants of the living God. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power” (Ps. 110:3 KJV).

“After the suffering of his soul . . . my righteous servant will justify many. . . . I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong” (Isa. 53:11 – 12).

By the pen of Jim Reimann:

Today we see God’s absolute sovereignty in salvation. Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:17 – 18). The Lord, however, has chosen to involve His people in spreading the gospel. As Spurgeon said today, Jesus prayed for those who would later “believe in [Him] through their message.”

Paul continues in 2 Corinthians 5 by saying, “God . . . gave us the ministry of reconciliation. . . . And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:18 – 20). May we remember what transpired when Paul preached the gospel: “When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).