1. I would like to draw your attention to the word "purpose":

• "according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself" (1:9b).
• "being predestinated to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (1:11).

2. I want to speak today on "The Eternal Purpose of God."
3. God has only one purpose, and that purpose is fully brought before us in this passage of Scripture that we are looking at today.
4. In carrying out His purpose God created Adam and Eve, and later God sent a flood upon the earth but saved Noah and his family. Later God scattered the people but chose Abraham and upon his seed He established the nation of Israel.
5. It was part of God’s purpose that the Israelites be different from the other nations, that they would be a testimony for God. It was through them that God sent His prophets, His Word, and most importantly His only begotten Son.
6. This was all according to God’s eternal purpose. The Bible says that the Lord Jesus Christ is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev.13:8).
7. God’s eternal purpose includes the second coming of Christ to establish His kingdom here on earth. I will say more about this later.
8. These are all various aspects of God’s one eternal purpose.

1. Notice the word "abounded" (1:8). This indicates an overabundance of wisdom and prudence, bestowed upon us by our gracious God. The great preacher and writer John Bunyan wrote another well-known book before Pilgrim’s Progress, and that was Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.
2. That is the idea here – God "hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence" (1:8).
3. Prudence is the effective use of wisdom. Right thinking will lead to right actions.
4. What this is saying is that God has graciously shared His plans and purposes with us. His desire is that we should know His eternal purpose. God wants us to know His perfect will (cf. Col.1:9).
5. Therefore, God has given us wisdom and prudence (Eph.1:8) and spiritual understanding (Col.1:9) that we may have "the knowledge of His will" (Col.1:9).
6. God wants us to understand His purpose and see which way things are going. The unsaved man has no idea where things are going, but we do.
7. History is moving in a definite direction. We can see "the writing on the wall," though worldly people cannot.
8. God has "made known to us the mystery of His will" (1:9). The word "mystery" as it is used in the NT has a different meaning than the way we normally use it (e.g. a "murder mystery" or Sherlock Holmes mystery).
9. "A `mystery’ in Scripture is a previously hidden truth, now divinely revealed, but in which a supernatural element still remains despite the revelation" (Scofield Bible, p. 1014).
10. Some NT mysteries include: Matt.13:10,11; Rom.11:25; I Cor.15:51; Eph.3:3,4,9; 5:32; 6:19; Col.1:26,27; 2:2,3,9; II Thess.2:7; I Tim.3:16; Rev.1:20; 17:5,7.
11. God works all things "according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself" (1:9), and "after the counsel of His own will" (1:11) – not my will or your will, but "His own will."
12. We have already looked at several doctrinal words in our study of Ephesians: election, predestination, adoption, redemption, and mystery. Next is "dispensation," which literally means an "economy" or a "plan of administration."
13. H.A. Ironside writes that "there are various economies running through the Word of God. A dispensation, an economy, then, is that particular order or condition of things prevailing in one special age which does not necessarily prevail in another."
14. Charles Ryrie is more succinct: "A dispensation is a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God’s purposes." This definition ties in with our message today: that we might know God’s eternal purpose.
15. One of God’s eternal purposes is for Christ to return and set up His millennial kingdom. Paul refers to this here as "the dispensation of the fulness of times" (1:10).
16. We are presently in the church age or the "dispensation of grace." This will be followed by "the dispensation of the fulness of times."
17. In other words, God has a special dispensation or economy or plan of administration for the final era of human history on this earth. All human history is heading towards this goal – for our Lord to establish His throne as Head over "all things" (1:10).
18. This is speaking of universal dominion, not universal salvation (Rev.20:7-9).

II. THAT WE MIGHT KNOW GOD’S ETERNAL PURPOSE, HE HAS PREDESTINATED US (1:11; cf. 1:5).

1. We already spent some time studying the doctrine of predestination. Since it is a difficult concept, please allow me to review.
2. The word means simply "marked out beforehand."
3. Webster’s Dictionary says predestine means "predetermine or foreordain."
4. In other words, God has a plan and everything is going along according to God’s plan, or "according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself" (1:9).
5. To avoid confusion, two principles must be kept in mind:

1. In the Bible, predestination is never used in reference to unsaved people. If a sinner goes to hell, it is not because it was predestined but because he refused to repent of his sin and believe in Christ.
2. The purpose of predestination is for God to conform us to the image of His Son (Rom.8:29).

6. "Predestination is that effective exercise of the will of God by which things before determined by Him are brought to pass" (Scofield Bible, p. 1250).
7. God predestines both Jew and Gentile (2:14-16). Paul’s reference to "we" (1:12) means "we Jews," and "ye" (1:13) means "ye Gentiles."
8. He refers in 1:14 to both – "our inheritance."
9. When Paul speaks of obtaining this inheritance (1:11), it is based upon faith in Christ (1:12b).
10. This inheritance has not been fully realized yet. That is why Paul speaks later of "the earnest (pledge) of our inheritance" (1:14). This inheritance looks forward to the time when all true believers, both Jew and Gentile, will reign with Christ in His millennial kingdom.
11. This has been marked out by God before we were even born. From all eternity God has marked out or predestinated those who were "to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom.8:29).
12. Therefore, the purpose of this predestination was "that we should be to the praise of His glory…" (1:12).

III. THAT WE MIGHT KNOW GOD’S ETERNAL PURPOSE, HE HAS SEALED US WITH HIS HOLY SPIRIT (1:13,14).

1. Notice the sequence:

1. They "heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation" (1:13). No one can be saved without "the word of truth" (cf. Rom.10:17; I Peter 1:23).
2. They "believed" (1:13).
3. They "were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" (1:13).

2. Every genuine believer is sealed with the Holy Spirit the moment He is saved. When a person trusts Christ, he receives the Holy Spirit as a sign that he belongs to God and that he will be kept safe by God until the time he receives his glorified body.
3. Our church had to recently order a seal to verify that we are incorporated. In legal matters, a seal indicates ownership and security. Likewise in spiritual matters – the Holy Spirit seals us as God’s property and guarantees our preservation until the day of redemption (cf. Eph.4:30).
4. He is the "Holy Spirit of promise" (1:13). He was promised by both God the Father and God the Son (cf. Joel 2:28,29; Acts 1:4,5; John 14:16,17; 16:7).
5. The Holy Spirit is the "earnest" (pledge or guarantee) of our inheritance. When someone goes to purchase a building or property, the seller wants a down-payment as a pledge or guarantee that you are in "earnest."
6. As the seal, the Holy Spirit guarantees that we will be kept safely for the inheritance. As the earnest, He guarantees the inheritance will be kept securely for us.
7. The Holy Spirit is "the earnest until the redemption of the purchased possession" (1:14). In other words, the earnest looks forward to the full redemption, i.e. the redemption of our bodies – free from disease, sickness, and death (cf. Rom.8:23).

CONCLUSION:

1. A preacher was talking with a man who worked in the circus. He was the man on the flying trapeze. This man told the preacher that the safety net below served two purposes: (1) to keep him and the others from breaking their necks. (2) Then he added, "The net also keeps us from falling. Imagine there is no net. We would be so nervous that we would be likely to miss and fall. If there wasn’t a net, we would not dare to do some of the things we do. But because there is a net, we dare to make two, and even three turns."
2. The preacher told the man of our security in Christ. When we are sure that we are saved and in His hands, we dare to attempt big things for Him. We do not have to worry about falling into hell because we "were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" (1:13).
3. We are "in Christ." How can we go to hell if we are in Christ?