There is One Lord - The Proof

Who has announced from of old the things to come? Let them tell us what is yet to be.

- from Isaiah 44:6-8

God reveals Himself to us throughout the Old Testament. It is instructive to us.

He is the Giver of life, and the Judge that declared us mortal.

He is a friend in the Garden, but a Supreme being that we can't look upon without dying.

He is a great military commander, and a gentle Father.

But He doesn't reveal all of this to us, all at once! Like children coming up through kindergarten, then primary school, then middle, high school, college . . . 

You don't begin by reading the entire Bible. Before that you have to be able to recognize entire phrases, and their meaning within a context. And before that, you have to be able to recognize entire words at a glance. And before that, you learn to sound them out . . . but must know the various rules of English pronunciation.

Before that, you have to know the sounds that letters make. You have to distinguish between vowels and consonants, without even being able to explain the difference.

And before that, you have to know your ABCs!

We are like children to God, and He teaches us new material, when we're ready.

At the right time, He declared Himself the Ancient of Days, the Lord of all time. I like to think of Him as being able to sort of float overhead, above our timeline, being able to see the beginning and the end at the same time, like we can look at a timeline before us and see the whole thing at once. Or, the same way we can open the beginning of a book, and the end, and read them one after the other.

When God declares Himself "the First and the Last," he is making a case not to even consider other Gods. 

As in a prior blog a few weeks ago, there is a predictive power of God, since He is above all time, He knows how the story is going to end. He says: "Can any other God, or being, prophecy what is to come in the future . . . and be right?" So that's the evidence. Has God predicted future events, and has He been right?

Well, that's another topic entirely, of course. That's probably an entire 13-week course. The question has caused many people to lose faith, because God's promises do not pan out sometimes, in quite the way they expected. 

But for now we leave it at that. Our ultimate proof that God is God, is that He knows all time, from beginning to end, and when it suits Him, He gives us a prophecy of what is to come. I think that the only real reason He would ever do this, is to encourage us. Not to scare us. Not to impress us. But to give us perspective and confidence.

And when you get right down to it . . . why wouldn't the Creator of everything have these unique powers?