Isaiah 41:22

The former things. Let the idols plead their own cause. Let them show what they have done for the world. Have they done anything to make it a better place in which to live? Have they brought in righteousness, mercy, justice, or truth? What can they reveal of the secrets of the remote past? Can they tell how the world came into being or how man came into existence?

Things for to come. Let the idols predict, if they can, the nature of things to come.

Let them attempt to open the future as if it were a book. God can, but not they. He knows the future as well as the past. Satan knows something of what is to come, but what he knows he has learned from what God has revealed. Also, he can partly predict the course that men under his control will take. But only God can actually foretell the future.

Having issued His challenge to the worshipers of false gods, the Lord gives a series of startling predictions regarding the future. There are prophecies of Cyrus (chs. 44:28; 45:1), of the coming of the Messiah to give His life for man (ch. 53), of His divine commission (ch. 61:1-3), of the giving of the gospel to the world (chs. 54:1-3; 60:1-5), of the humbling of Babylon and her idols (chs. 46:1, 2; 47:1-5; 48:14), of the deliverance of the Jews from Babylonian captivity (ch. 51:11), of the restoration of the earth to its Edenic beauty (chs. 65:19-25; 66:22, 23), and of the judgment of the wicked (ch. 66:14-16, 24). The fulfillment of these predictions is conclusive evidence that Jehovah is the true God.