Before The World Began

The great Caruso remains mute in awe;
Mozart rejects first-composed notes for new;
Sistene's artist, aghast, discerns the flaw,
Blots his ceiling, as too marred for men's view!
What, pray tell, is this paragon of worth
That humbles giants and makes great art mundane?
It's God's master plan for man and Earth;
How the Kingdom of Heaven to attain!
No detail's too minute to be left out;
Not one chance act or word of man or beast
Takes place whose role's unplanned or creates doubt;
Each outcome's foreknown, if famine or feast!
Alpha to Omega, God made His plan,
Man's history complete, before he began!

The grandeur and beauty of God's master plan for man and his world stem not from its wondrous perseverance or ingenuity or any heroic effort of its protagonist; they arise from the spectacular success in preserving God's even-handed justice and credibility, despite the endless sordid exhibitions of gross failures and incurable carnality of the creature made in His image. All of it was planned by God in advance of any act of creation, even before the angels. The foreknowledge of Lucifer's rebellion and dark obstructing presence throughout also adds luster to the plan and its divine Author; instead of detracting from God's unmatched stature for giving evil life, even knowing in advance the tragedy it would do to His beloved human creation, Lucifer becomes the essential deus ex machina that justifies His bequest to man of unbribed free will!

"The Lord possessed me ['wisdom'---God's omniscience (foreknowledge)] at the beginning of his works, before his deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began. When there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water, before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the earth or its fields or any of the dust of the world. I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above, and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth." (Proverbs 9:22-29) [Brackets added]

No, God did not wind up the earth like a clock and retire, watching to see how it developed; nor did He haplessly flounder about, fixing breakdowns and putting new wrinkles in his original plan when first initiatives or covenants failed to work. Though from afar the history of man may appear as a patchwork quilt revealing man's failures and God's repairs, its every twist and turn, nook and cranny, whitewater rapid and millpond smooth, it has worked precisely as God knew it would; His original outcome is marching inexorably closer, matched to His expected finis.