God, the Mastermind of all Creation

I continue to write and share about my readings and studying of Isaiah because I've been really blown away by the realization -- i mean the type of realization that makes you sit in silence for a minute or more just contemplating the truth of what I've just read -- that God truly, absolutely is the Mastermind of all creation. I've grown up in the church, attended Sunday school, took for granted the Bible, knew about Jesus and that he died on the cross and then rose again to life to pay the penalty for my sin and just kinda stored up these Bible stories in my head. But it's not until life happened and spiritual maturity developed that God has made Himself more fully known to me. not fully completely known to me -- that's probably a lifelong journey -- but still shocking sometimes the things I continue to learn about God.

Anyway, today's reading is from Isaiah 44:24-28. I include the passage at the bottom for reference. If I just read the words, I just think to myself "Ok, so what?" but there's so much in just these few verses.

I know in my mind that God is the Maker of all things, the heaven and the earth and even myself.

The thing that hit me are the last verses - God carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messagers. He is also the Creator of events and circumstances. He knows what will happen, He is in control. Isaiah, one of God's messengers, goes on to outline very specific predictions :
1) Jerusalem will be inhabited
2) Judah will be rebuilt
3) their ruins will be restored
4) Cyrus will be the one through which these things will happen -- specifically, the rebuilding of Jerusalem and God's temple.

I've read 2 Chronicles (36:20-23) and Ezra (1:1-7) in the past so i know that it is, in fact, through King Cyrus of Persia, who issues the rebuilding of the temple of God at Jerusalem in Judah. His decree tells the people of God to return to Jerusalem to accomplish this work. He even returns the articles of silver and gold which were taken from the temple by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.

What I didn't fully realize when I was reading Isaiah in the past for the first time, is that Isaiah lived and wrote these words in a time when Judah was still it's own considerably profitable nation. They were not under captivity of any sort except i suppose to the blindness of their sinful ways. But Isaiah had predicted all these things : that the Assyrian nation, who had taken over the northern Israel nation, would advance and approach Judah but would be stopped at the gates of Jerusalem, that Babylon would eventually capture Judah, that the King of Babylon would take all the treasures from the temple and the people would be exiled. He also predicted that an anointed one would rise up - this one named Cyrus. Cyrus would accomplished God's work of rebuilding Jerusalem and rebuilding of the temple. This prediction is made at least 100 years before Cyrus is even born. And when Cyrus is born and enters the story, everything is fulfilled as Isaiah had predicted.

It's easy to take for granted the fact that Isaiah made so many predictions about what was to come and that they were eventually fulfilled - sometimes many hundreds of years later -- because I have the entire Bible in front of me. One day I can be reading about King Cyrus and the next day I'll read about Isaiah's predictions and in my mind, it seems like these could have been written one after the other. When studying the actual timeline of the events that took place, I realize that Isaiah's message from God was that these things would take place and in fact did not take place until many years later. It also fulfills what Isaiah says -- this is one of the ways that I can know that God is God - it is Him who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers.

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“This is what the LORD says—
your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD,
the Maker of all things,
who stretches out the heavens,
who spreads out the earth by myself,
who foils the signs of false prophets
and makes fools of diviners,
who overthrows the learning of the wise
and turns it into nonsense,
who carries out the words of his servants
and fulfills the predictions of his messengers,
who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’
of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be rebuilt,’
and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’
who says to the watery deep, ‘Be dry,
and I will dry up your streams,’
who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd
and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,”
and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.”’

Isaiah 44:24-28