God’s Purposes Are Unstoppable

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God has purpose in everything He does. Tomorrow portions of the USA will experience a total eclipse of the sun. The moon is about 400x smaller than the sun while also being about 400x farther away from the sun than it is from the Earth. This combination allows the sun and moon to appear as if they are the same size in the sky. Websites like this physics one claim this to be a complete coincidence, but we know it was God’s plan. God designed the planets so that only us on Earth can experience this (someone living on Mars would never experience this because the distances and sizes are not right).

God is known in the Bible as the God of purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His own will. Therefore, what we see produced by the hand of God, is not the product of chance or accident, but the fulfillment of His purpose. The whole universe, sun, moon and stars, the earth and its fullness, are now as God purposed them before their creation; and as He had no pattern to work by, they are an exhibition of His wisdom and true creative power.

God has planned the heavens down to the smallest details of who you are. You are who you are on purpose. You are no coincidence!

The Lord of hosts has sworn:
“As I have planned,
    so shall it be,
and as I have purposed,
    so shall it stand.”

Isaiah 14:24 ESV

Reader, did God ever think He would save anyone, and yet that one’s salvation fail?

For the Lord of hosts has purposed,
    and who will annul it?
His hand is stretched out,
    and who will turn it back?

Isaiah 14:27 ESV

If God’s hand is stretched out to save His people, is it not wicked to contend that His hand can be turned back? “The Lord has spoken—he who made these things known so long ago” Acts 15:17-18 NLT.

God Made Us for His Purpose

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” Ephesians 2:9 ESV. Conversion is God’s work and not the work of chance or accident; it is one of the works which He does according to His purpose. “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family” Ephesians 1:5 NLT. Our being children is the result, not of chance, or human appointment or agency, but of the predestination of God. Our regeneration is an inheritance we have, not for our works, but for God’s purpose.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Ephesian 1:11 ESV

Here our being born again is the result of our being predestined; Therefore, we were predestined to this end by “him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Therefore, our being made to possess this inheritance was in the mind of God long before, and accordingly, we are blessed.

How will those be saved whom God has appointed to salvation, and who, in harmony with that appointment, have obtained their inheritance? “According to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” Ephesians 3:11 NIV. So, let us ask, what is that eternal purpose?

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

John 6:39 ESV

So this eternal purpose, counsel, and will is that all given to Christ shall be saved. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” Matthew 1:21 ESV. Will He fail? Will God’s eternal purpose be defeated, and His will unexecuted?

Falling from grace argues that He may fail; and if He may fail to save all given him, all His people, He also may fail in His blood, and the cross may be a failure. If so, then God’s purposes, counsel, and will may be a failure, and the Holy Spirit may fail; and there might well be a song of triumph in hell; all Heaven might be clothed in sack-cloth and mourning; and Christ might be mocked, thus: “This man began to build and was not able to finish” Luke 14:30 ESV.

We also learn that God possesses foreknowledge in the highest conceivable perfection; therefore, all His works are in perfect harmony with perfect wisdom, love, and power; and where He has begun a good work, He will perform it until the day of Christ. I would argue the truth of the final perseverance of every saint, upon the ground of the covenant of grace.

For our shield belongs to the Lord,
    our king to the Holy One of Israel.

Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one, and said:
    “I have granted help to one who is mighty;
    I have exalted one chosen from the people.”

Psalms 89:18-19 ESV

And of this chosen one he says: “‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations” Psalm 89:4 ESV.

He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all.

Unjustly condemned,
    he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
    that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
    for the rebellion of my people. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
    he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
    my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
    for he will bear all their sins.

Isaiah 53:5,6,8,11 NLT

The many justified are the many whose sins are borne; the bearing of sin results in justification. These two things are tied together so inseparably in each of these passages, that anyone willing to see truth can see it.

While His soul is being offered, He shall see the anguish of His soul, and be satisfied. He shall see the end and object of His death and be satisfied; what would satisfy Him but the ultimate salvation of all His people? Do lashes heal us on their own or we are healed because of His lashes? In all these passages, we are presented as one with Christ in the covenant; so our release from suffering is a necessary consequence of His suffering.

Consider today how strongly you are tied to God’s purposes and rejoice that you are no coincidence!

This is post 9 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
Image by Susan Cipriano from Pixabay