When did God foreordain that believers would maintain good works?
God foreordained that believers would maintain good works before He ever created Adam, before He saw the whole mess mankind was going to go into. He knew before creating Adam that good works would be the result of a salvation experience, and He had already ordained His believers to maintain them.
Les explains that this foreordination was before God ever created Adam, before He saw the whole mess that mankind was going to go into. Even then, God had already foreordained that His believers—those that were His—should maintain good works. They were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God before ordained. Les illustrates this by asking about Abraham, who was well spoken of and never had a bad word said about him, except the one time he tried to pawn off his wife as his sister. Jacob was a rascal and a cheat, but once he met the Lord at Peniel, not another bad remark about Jacob; he was an exemplary saint from then on. The same pattern continues through the Old Testament and the New: every time one of God's choicest servants comes on the scene, God looks for good works. Les says God knew before He ever created Adam that this would be the result of a salvation experience.