To Pass
God has declared the future in both written and verbal form though people. These declarations are sometimes called prophecy. In some instances, known as past prophecy, God has done what was declared. Because we are hard headed creatures, and God knows we are hard headed creatures, He told us what was going to happen before He did it. Human tendency is to claim responsibility for the things that God has done. So, if these prophetic events were not foretold by the One Who would accomplish them, we would have taken, and still do try to take, credit for them. So God cuts us off at the pass and declares what He is going to do before He does it.
God Almighty has declared what will come to pass.
Just to make sure it is clear - in relation to past prophecy - if God had not said what was going to happen and then done it, we, weak, mortal beings, would have declared that we and/or the things we created, our idols, had accomplished it. “Our leaders did that. Our city did that. We did that.”
Human beings have heard what God has said will happen. We have heard the future things revealed. God says in verse 6 of Isaiah 48 - “Now see it happening.” In this chapter the Lord is using Isaiah to speak to Israel, the people to whom God sent the prophets so that they would know in advance of the coming armies, the coming captivity and the coming redemption. Those events had come and were coming to pass in Isaiah’s time.
Then later in the same chapter, God says (paraphrased) ”Listen up! From now on I am declaring new things.” In other words, we have been through the latest chapter of prophecy. Now I am writing the next chapter and there is all new stuff to declare. Things unknown; things newly created. Israel had never heard them, never seen them. But God declared them.
So here we are - God’s people - in a world where His prophecy from old has been and is being accomplished. That “new thing” God revealed through Isaiah is our prophecy of old today and that prophecy of old is happening all around us. Will we deal treacherously and say we knew it and we did it? Or will we acknowledge the Almighty God who declares the future things and then does them, so that His people may know and see that He is real and there is none like Him.