If it were in the range of human capacity to conceive a time when God dwelt alone, without his creatures, we should then have one of the grandest and most stupendous ideas of God. There was a season when as yet the sun had never run his race, nor commenced flinging his golden rays across space, to gladden the earth. there was an era when no stars sparkled in the firmament, for there was no sea of azure in which they might float. There was a time when all that we now behold of God’s great universe was yet unborn, slumbering within the mind of God, as yet uncreate and non-existent; yet there was God, and he was “over all blessed for ever;” though no seraphs hymned His praises, though no strong-winged cherubs flashed like lightning to do His high behests, though He was without a retinue, yet He sat as a King on His throne, the mighty God, for ever to be worshipped – the Dread Supreme, in solemn silence dwelling by Himself in vast immensity, making of the placid clouds His canopy, and the light from His own countenance forming the brightness of His glory. God was, and God is. From everlasting to everlasting.

- C.H. Spurgeon (Sermon I: Sovereignty and Salvation, Isaiah 45.22)