We spent a good portion of last week in Isaiah and in parallel passages of 2 Kings. Assyria has finally crushed the northern kingdom of Israel, and Judah is not far from a similar fate. And yet just here, when the future of God's people is utterly black, the prophet Isaiah begins to drop sparks of hope in the form of Messianic, millennial, and even tribulational prophecies.

Isaiah 32 & 33 stood out to me the most. In chapter 32, Isaiah prophesies of the day when the world is finally turned right side up in the end times:

Behold, a king will reign righteously and princes will rule justly. . . . No longer will the fool be called noble, or the rogue be spoken of as generous. . . . And the work of righteousness will be peace, and the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.
Isaiah 32:1, 5, 17

Yet between and beyond these hopeful words, a persistent warning weaves through: none of this can come to pass until the way is cleared by God's destructive vengeance on the world. The suffering must inevitably come first.