God has settled and demonstrated His foreknowledge and ability in the history of a people on the earth. This is the foundation on which this lesson is based.
To illustrate, in the 12th chapter of Genesis, written about 4,000 years ago, is recorded:
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing ...”
Genesis 12:1-2
This shows that God knows Abram is to be shown a land. God says, “I will make of thee a great nation” at a time when Abram had no family whatsoever. And God takes the progeny of that man and extends His covenant to them, even though at that time Abram himself had no child. He also says: “I will bless thee and make thy name great and I will bless them that bless thee”.
Only the great Creator with His foreknowledge and inexhaustible power could make such promises and actually bring them to pass. And perhaps the most staggering aspect is God’s world-scale pronouncement: “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed”.
The promise concerns not only the land of Canaan to which Abraham was to journey, nor only the Jews, since Abraham was not a Jew when the promise was made to him, but the whole world of all kindreds, lands and nations! In fact, anyone who would choose to put their faith in God will find the joy of believing in Him.
He shows how that in working out these promises over a timescale of thousands of years, He will at last produce the conditions when all nations will be blessed. In other words, He will bring about the Kingdom of God on earth.
But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD,
Numbers 14:21
God can determine what is to happen through His foreknowledge, and there is nothing and no person who will be able to frustrate His divine purpose. He says:
I am the LORD, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
Isaiah 45:5
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