I was reading in Isaiah 44-48 this morning, and noticed how many times God was saying that He had told Israel from a long time ago what was going to happen to them now because He knew that they’d be worshipping idols, and He wanted them to know for sure that this wasn’t anything their idols had done or foretold, but that it was God Himself. God said several times that He is the one who knows the end from the beginning, that He is the one who sets things in motion, and that He is the one who spares and protects His people, not for anything His people had done, but because He wanted it that way.
I’ve known for a long time that God stands outside of time and can see all of it at once, but it struck me particularly this morning. Before God even created anything, He knew His chosen people would fall, fail, and purposefully walk away from Him, yet He constantly set things in place for them to know better and for them to come back, often in layers and well before they’d need some of the specifics.
God still does that for people today, individually and in groups. He knows how each thing in life needs to work together, so He sees to it that they each do. God both orchestrates and allows things through His divine sovereignty and through human volition. God wants people to see and know who He is, so He does things over time so people can see what they need to see in order to know Him.
Isaiah 46:9-10
Related:
God and the Complete Context of Time
Outside of and Unbound by Time
God Invented It
The Ageless One with an Age
Sometimes You Don’t Know
Struggling with Expecting God’s Goodness
Part of God’s Plan Concerning the End Times
Sovereignty of God and Volition of Man
God’s Will Can Be Weird