The book of Isaiah begins on a bleak note. In Isaiah 1–6, the prophet speaks of Jerusalem as a bloody city with corrupt leaders. The poor and defenseless are oppressed. Isaiah is commissioned to go and tell them to repent of their sins. But Isaiah is told that even though he will appeal to them for around forty years, they will not listen.
As a result, they will be disciplined by God. The Assyrians will take ten tribes into captivity. Babylon will do the same to the other two tribes. Jerusalem and the temple will be destroyed.
But the book ends on a very good note. Isaiah tells the people that the kingdom of God is coming (65:17). God had promised the nation that the Christ will one day come and rule from Jerusalem over a worldwide kingdom. Israel will be the center of that kingdom.
A believing and righteous Jew of Isaiah’s day would have had a hard time believing such a statement. The nation and its capital were a cesspool of evil. A Jew living during the time of Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem and Judea would have seen death, chaos, and destruction everywhere he looked. He would likely have found it impossible to even picture the promised future kingdom.
Those Jews lived through very difficult times. In the future, another group of Jews will experience similar things. At the end of the Tribulation, Israel will be a believing nation, but will have been severely persecuted by the Man of Sin. Many will be put to death.
The history of believing Jews from Isaiah’s time until the return of Christ is one of suffering and death. But Isaiah says an amazing thing. When the Lord fulfills His promises to His chosen people and establishes His kingdom on this earth, He says that “the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.”
The kingdom will be so wonderful that all the sufferings and trials of this life will be forgotten. If God had not said it, a Jew taken to Babylon or one who lives through the Tribulation would not believe it.
What about us? Our lives are full of trials. Many believers have suffered terribly in this life. Paul was such a believer. In words similar to those of Isaiah, he said, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18).
The Lord tells us that if we follow Him in discipleship, we will suffer. We all know stories of believers who lived through such trials. Maybe we have as well. We can also add the sufferings that we experience simply as a result of living in this cursed world. If the Lord does not come first, we will all experience sickness and death. We will watch those we love go through the same things.
But in His kingdom, we will not even think of these hardships. This leads to two conclusions. First, the kingdom we will live in forever will be one that we cannot even imagine. Imagine a world that is so good that our sufferings will be forgotten.
Second, Isaiah’s words put our suffering in perspective. If we are faithful to the Lord, the world will hate us. The Lord will use the trials we go through to make us more like Christ. Such experiences prepare us for the role we will have in His kingdom.
Those rewards and what we will do when He comes will far outweigh whatever the Lord brings us through in this life. That is the way we ought to see our difficulties.
In eternity, we will remember them no more.
