Devotional on Isaiah

Lost Maples State Park, TX – 2006

Only God can speak of the future with certainty
Isaiah 14: Exactly as I planned, it will happen.
The topic is still the downfall of mighty Babylon. The very subject likely sounds like so much wishful thinking to many. After all, Isaiah is talking about an unstoppable world power that dominates the entire region. Any suggestion that Babylon will come crashing down must be an excursion into fiction. Still, that’s Isaiah’s message. Even though no power on earth can challenge this mighty army, a Power above earth has it in His sights. Now, some have used this passage as a proof that God has either fully mapped out the future or somehow travels through time or even exists in all of time at once. I accept the possibility of the first, but can’t see the “time travel” versions. For one thing, everything we know about God is what he’s told us or shown us about himself. We might read something in the Bible and conclude that God did it, or knew it, because he “looked ahead in time.” However, to do that is to come to our own conclusions, and not because we’ve been given a Biblical insight about God. Well, so much for the “time travel.” The first suggestion is that God mapped it all out. As I said, I believe that’s possible. That is, I believe the Almighty has the power and authority to do just that. The problem for me isn’t in that arena at all. Instead, it’s that such a view destroys the possibility of free will. In other words, God could map everything out, but he can’t plan it all and still grant free will to human beings. That leaves me with a view of God that concludes he “could” have designed a universe in which he could travel through time, but we have no evidence that he did and that he could have written the entirety of Creation out on day one, but he couldn’t have done that and given human beings anything greater than the illusion of free will. So what do I do with a passage in which God says things will happen as he planned? I’ll simply accept it. Babylon has displeased the Almighty who says, “Because you have acted as you have, I’ve decided just how I’m going to do away with you.” Things will happen to Babylon as God has said because God is going to bring it to pass. It’s not because he’s already seen it, looking into the future or because he intended, from the beginning, for Babylon to fail as it will. Rather, it’s God, in Sovereign authority, declaring what he is going to bring to pass.
Take Away: It’s fun to think about the nature of time and the foreknowledge of God, but we’d better not get too theologically invested in our musing.

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