One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.
For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.
Act 18:9 Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace:
Act 18:10 For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.
What kind of a city was it?
Corinth was one of the most worldly and immoral cities of the east.
Here was the temple of Venus, with its degrading and disgraceful services.
What kind of people were they?
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?
1Co 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?
Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
1Co 6:10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
And that is what some of you Were!
1Co 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
This is the apostle's own reply to the question.
Observe:
1. The Lord's people are often found in the most unlikely places!
Who would have expected to find God's chosen people, a multitude of them-in a place so foul, so polluted, so degraded, as Corinth?
God's jewels are often found buried in the worst filth!
2. The Lord chooses the most unlikely people!
Who would ever have thought that the Lord would have chosen the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers--to be saved?
But He did!
God's people are picked off the foulest dunghills!
Oh the wonders of sovereign grace!
~James Smith