No summary of the prophets would be complete apart from one last message: their loud insistence that the world will not end in “universal final defeat,” but in Joy. Their voices soar like songbirds’ when the prophets turn at last to describe the joy beyond the walls of the world. In that final day, God will roll up the earth like a carpet and weave it anew. There will be no fear then, and no pain. No infants will dies; no tears will fall. Among the nations, peace will flow like a river and armies will melt their weapons into farm tools. No one will complain about the hiddenness of God in that day. His glory will fill the earth, and the sun will seem dim by contrast.
Human history is not an end in itself but a transition time, a parenthesis between Eden and the new heaven and new earths till to be formed by God. Even when everything seems out of control, God is firmly in control, and someday will assert himself.
