A very challenging way to approach preaching from the Book of Isaiah is to take major theological ideas that Isaiah makes use of and try to make them meaningful and challenging to your audience. Before one can do that, these themes must be meaningful and burning to the speaker. This is not an easy way to come up with a sermon for next Sunday; but it can be rewarding!

A good starting place is to consider that Isaiah has more to say about God, his nature, and his ways than most any other book in the Bible. One certainly cannot give the whole material in one lesson; but maybe some main headings could be expanded into a series of lessons. A few decades back, the “God is Dead” movement was stirring debate. Many people in our communities live their lives as though God did not exist or as though he was dead.

Isaiah speaks of God as the existing one before all creation. One can use Latin derived terms like omniscient (cf. Isa. 48:3), omnipresent (cf. Isa. 57:15), and omnipotent (cf. Isa. 48:12) and impress people with his vocabulary, but he is not going to change their understanding, attitude or behavior much that way. For Isaiah, God is over there and we are over here. He is outside time, space, and nature. The scholarly term is “transcendent.” He is not a part of the processes of nature as the pagan gods were. He is responsible for the world, but he is not a part of the world and its forces.

In the Book of Exodus, God said to Moses, “I am who I am” (Exod. 3:14). Isaiah also uses the term “I am.” Isaiah’s God existed before any other: “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me” (Isa. 43:10). “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god” (Isa. 44:6; 48:12).

God is creator of heaven, the heavenly bodies, earth, and also people upon the earth. For describing the process, Isaiah uses the creative verbs of Genesis chapters one and two&emdash;-“create,” “make,” and “form” (Isa. 43:7). He is not describing a process by which people finally swung out of the trees. The maker of people is telling people how to conduct themselves, and he is demanding their service.

He is the living God (Isa. 37:4, 17), the everlasting God who contrasts with the dead gods that people make for themselves (Isa. 40:18-20). Isaiah asks, “Should one consult the dead in behalf of the living?” (Isa. 8:19). He repeatedly pours scorn on the idols people make for themselves. Western people do not make or worship images, but they do have their gods: sex, beauty, money, power, and pleasure.

Isaiah’s favorite epithet for this God is “The Holy One of Israel.” The phrase is twelve times in chapters 1-39 and is sixteen times in chapters 40-66. It occurs only six times elsewhere (2 Kings 19:22; Pss. 71:22; 78:41; 89:18; Jer. 51:5; Ezek. 39:7). The concept can occupy you for many a day.

Though God is described in anthropomorphic and anthropopathic terms, using hands, eyes, wrath, etc., He is neither like people nor like the creatures about people. He is grieved; he gets tired with people’s sins. But the unlikeness of God to people is a major concept of the book.

God did not go into retirement when he had finished creation. He is working out his plan through history. The whole Old Testament story is a narrative of portions of that plan. He chose Abraham, making promises to him about descendants being as many as the sand of the sea (Isa. 10:20-22). He gave a child to Abraham and Sarah (Isa. 51:2; 63:16). He chose Israel and redeemed Israel out of Egyptian bondage. He used Moses. He parted the Red Sea (Isa. 63:12). He gave victory in the period of the Judges (Isa. 10:26). He made promises to David about his dynasty, which he will carry out faithfully (Isa. 9:7; 55:3). History is linear and life has meaning.

The Assyrian military machine, without being conscious of it, is just a tool in his hand to punish his godless people (Isa. 10:6). The Exile is also a part of his plan. When he has finished his work on Mt. Zion, he will punish the Assyrians for overstepping their commission. Having accomplished his purpose in the Exile, he raises up Cyrus, without Cyrus knowing it, to bring back his people from exile, and he will reestablish them in their land (Isa. 45:1ff.).

How our people need to have this view of the purpose of history! It has the potentiality of giving life a purpose. The individual can be a part of God’s plan!

The threats of Isaiah make God’s wrathful side abundantly obvious. The Lord in his wrath is compared to a lion, which cannot be frightened away (Isa. 31:4). God’s wrath is terrible but will not last forever: “For in a little while my indignation will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their [the Assyrians] destruction” (Isa. 10:25). His wrath is for cleansing purposes compared to a smelting process whereby silver is separated from the alloy (Isa. 1:24-25). However, it is only temporary. “In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you” (Isa. 54:8). His people are invited to hide themselves for a little while until his wrath is passed (Isa. 26:20). The Psalmist said, “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime” (Ps. 30:5). “He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger for ever” (Ps. 103:9).

Isaiah’s God is a God of grace and mercy. If you are looking for the word “grace” in a concordance, you will not find it abundantly used in the book. But sins as scarlet can be as white as snow. From childhood to old age God has carried Israel (Isa. 46:3-4). He is waiting to be gracious (Isa. 30:18). Those who have bought into the Marcionite idea that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath while the God of the New Testament is a God of grace and mercy need to read Isaiah with eyes open to declarations of God’s mercy.

Only he who controls the future can successfully predict the future. The Lord has predicted the Exile and has brought it about. His successful prediction is evidence of his existence and his divinity. Now he predicts new things--the return from exile; and he will accomplish it. The idols people make for themselves cannot tell of the past, nor can they predict the future. They cannot hear, speak, or see. They can do nothing.

Isaiah has some unforgettable images for God that modern people need to know. One is that of the father whose children, despite all his kindnesses, have rebelled against and broken his heart (Isa. 1:2ff.). However, this opening oracle does not exhaust the father image (Iaa. 30:1-9; 63:16; 64:8).

In another figure, Zion with her people in exile laments that the Lord has forgotten her. The Lord responds that Zion is graven on the palms of his hands (Isa. 49:16). He is continuously reminded of Zion.

Then there are feminine images. The news recently has had some horrifying mother stories like that of the mother who intentionally drove her car into the lake with her children in it; or the woman in Houston, arrested on some charge, who did not inform the police that she had a two and one half year old child at home alone. The child survived three weeks on catsup and mustard before being discovered. Or there was the four to six hour old baby left in a backpack in a pick-up in West Memphis. “`Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?’ Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isa. 49:15).

God who inhabits eternity dwells in the high and holy place, but also with him who is of contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57:15).

Another image of God worth considering is the Lord as teacher. “Your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher” (Isa. 30:20). With that goes the declaration of Jeremiah, “The way of man is not in himself. . . it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jer. 10:23). The Proverbs remind us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Prov. 14:12; 16:25). The teacher is saying, “`This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left” (Isa. 30:21). “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go” (Isa. 48:17).

The Lord is the Rock of Israel (Isa. 30:29). He is the Rock of your refuge (Isa. 17:10). “Trust in the Lord for ever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock” (Isa. 26:4). In describing a king, Isaiah speaks of the shade of a great rock in a weary land (Isa. 32:2). But the Lord can also be a stone of offence, and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel (Isa. 8:14). The rock image is not unique to Isaiah. The Psalmist declares, “The Lord is my rock” (Ps. 18:2). “Who is a rock except our God?” (Ps. 18:31, 46; 31:2, 3; 62:2, 6). Isaiah also has the cornerstone (Isa. 28:16), which is cited in the New Testament (1 Pet. 2:6).

The Lord is a shepherd (Isa. 40:11).

Another motif is the Lord as judge (Isa. 33:22).

The Lord is our king (Isa. 6:5; 33:22).

Every introspective person in your audience in times of soberness will admit to himself that he needs forgiveness. Though Isaiah from beginning to end repeatedly indicts his people, it is the forgiving God he is representing. Isaiah’s God is waiting to forgive: “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you” (Isa. 30:18). The prodigal in Jesus’ parable did not have to beg the father to let him come home!

Isaiah has the most telling images to express the concept of forgiveness. They begin with “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isa. 1:18). The concept has personal relevance to Isaiah. The seraph touches his lips with a burning coal: “Your guilt (`awon) is taken away (sur), and your sin (chatah) forgiven” (kapar; Isa. 6:7). That concept needs to be expanded with “When he [Jesus] had made purification (katharismon) for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3).

There is the image of blowing sins away. “I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist” (Isa. 44:22). That which man cannot undo has been blown away as easily as clouds are blown away.

Isaiah in an apocalyptic passage describes a condition in which “No inhabitant will say, `I am sick’; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity (nas’ `awon)” (Isa. 33:24). The Psalmist says, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Ps. 32:1).

The Lord declares, “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25). The ancient scribe had his sponge by which he could just wash off the manuscript the mistake he had made. Ps. 51:1, 9 and Acts 3:19 speak of sins being blotted out. Once done, the mistake was gone. There was no remembrance of it (cf. Jer. 31:34).

The prophet Micah promises, “He will tread our iniquities under foot. Thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:19). The Psalmist says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12). David says, “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (Ps. 51:3). The poet says, “The ghosts of forgotten actions / came floating before my sight / and things I thought were dead things / were alive with terrible might” [Charles W. Stubbs, “Conscience and Future Judgment”]. But in modern terms, God, in his mercy, not for any merit of Israel, has hit the delete key on the heavenly computer. Sins are gone. Blotted out! How wonderful! There is hope for Paul the chief of sinners, and there is hope for me!

In Hezekiah’s psalm after his recovering from his illness, he praises the Lord for having saved him from death&emdash;-from the pit of destruction. He says, “Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (Isa. 38:17). God’s all-seeing eyes are considered to be in the front of his head, not in the back of his head. Sins behind his back are no longer visible to him. They no longer exist in his consciousness.

All of these images may be thought of as summarized and included in the Lord’s great invitation: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (yarbeh lisloach; Isa. 55:7). “Abundantly pardon” is not pardon “by the skin of your teeth.” The Psalmist says, “Thy steadfast love is great above the heavens, thy faithfulness reaches to the clouds” (Ps. 108:4). “The earth, O Lord, is full of thy steadfast love” (Ps. 119:64; cf. Ps. 136).

People in Isaiah are the creation of the Lord. He gives breath (neshamah) to people on the earth and spirit (ruach) to those who walk in it (Isa. 42:5). He made the breath of life (Isa. 57:16). The verbs used in the first two chapters of Genesis&emdash;-“created,” “formed,” and “made” (Isa. 43:7) describe the origin of people.

People are described as “flesh,” and the totality of them as “all flesh” (Isa. 40:5). “All flesh is grass” (Isa. 40:7; 51:12). The grass withers, the flower fades. God is spirit; people are flesh. “The Egyptians are men, and not God; their horses are flesh, and not spirit” (Isa. 31:3). People are like stubble, the fire consumes them (Isa. 47:14). “Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass?" (Isa. 51:12).

A chief human characteristic is its mortality. Events are dated from the deaths of kings Uzziah and Ahaz (Isa. 6:1; 14:28). Shebna, the official, will be thrown like a ball into a wide land; there he will die (Isa. 22:18). Hezekiah is told by Isaiah that he shall die and not recover (Isa. 38:1). The sin of the revelers who said, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die” will not be forgiven them until they die (Isa. 22:13-14). Hezekiah laments the brevity of his life (Isa. 38:10ff.). He compares life to the mobility of a shepherd’s tent and to cloth on a loom rolled up and cut off (Isa. 38:12). Those who dwell on the earth will die like gnats (Isa. 51:6). The claim of the rulers of Jerusalem that they have a covenant with death will not stand; the covenant will be annulled. Their plan is a bed too short to stretch oneself on and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in (Isa. 28:15-20).

The primary human characteristic stressed by Isaiah is human sinfulness. Sin is not a force within itself. Sin is the actions that sinful people do. People have the power of choice. Isaiah expounds no doctrine of Original Sin. The narrative of Genesis 3 is not further alluded to in the Old Testament. Isaiah does say, “the first father sinned” (Isa. 43:27); but it is probably Jacob, not Adam, that he is alluding to. Isaiah’s book is replete with use of the trilogy: “iniquity,” “transgression,” and “sin.” People like sheep have gone astray and turned each to his own way (Isa. 53:6).

If people had been obedient, their peace would have been continuous like a river (Isa. 48:18); but their iniquities have separated between them and their God (Isa. 59:2). One can choose from the multitude of indictments such as in chapter one or chapter forty-nine for the list of details. They are a people of unclean lips (Isa. 6:5) who are compared to Sodom and Gomorrah (Isa. 1:10) and whose punishment is compared to these cities (Isa. 1:9). Isaiah is not to walk in their ways (Isa. 8:11).

Human pride seems to be a major cause for human sin. Assyria claims, “My hand has found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as men gather eggs that have been forsaken so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing, or opened the mouth, or chirped” (Isa. 10:14). The king of Babylon is accused, “You said in your heart, `I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High’” (Isa. 14:13-14). One is reminded of the voice of the serpent in Genesis 3: “You shall be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). “Good and evil” is an Old Testament merism meaning “everything.” The daughter of Babylon is quoted as saying, “I shall be mistress forever” (Isa. 47:7) and “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children” (Isa. 47:8).

Isaiah declares that the Lord has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and high (Isa. 2:12). His list includes cedars of Lebanon, oaks of Bashan, high mountains, ships of Tarshish, and the haughtiness of people. With these brought down, the Lord alone is exalted. The Lord threatens, “I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant, and lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless” (Isa. 13:11). Isaiah envisions every knee bowing and every tongue confessing to the Lord (Isa. 45:23).

Despite human rebelliousness and waywardness, people have not lost their power of choice. They have the ability to turn and to find the Lord right where they left him. “Turn” and “return” are prominent words in Isaiah. “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:7). If one can use the game of checkers as a figure of speech, God has moved. It is your move next!

If one checks his concordance, he will observe that the Latin derived verb “repent” and the noun “repentance” are not a part of the vocabulary of the King James Version of Isaiah. These terms are prominent in Jeremiah, Ezekiel and some of the Minor Prophets like Amos and Joel. African-American preachers used to explain why their rural audiences had not heard of certain New Testament teaching by reminding them that they knew of “side meat,” “sow belly, “Pigs’ feet” and “chitterlings.” But they had not heard of “pork chops.” Why? Because the butchers had not been giving them to them. So it was, they asserted, with the New Testament teaching they had not heard of before. The English translators have not been giving us “repentance” in Isaiah; but that does not mean that the concept is not there.

The verb shub (“turn” or “return”) is found in Isaiah numerous times for reversing direction, sometimes turning from God and sometimes turning to him.

Shub is used for turning from God. Like sheep, each has turned to his own way (Isa. 53:6). A deluded mind has turned the idol worshiper astray (Isa. 44:20). Tyre turns back to her old ways (Isa. 23:17).

Past misfortunes have not turned Israel to the one who smote them; they did not seek the Lord of hosts (Isa. 9:13). Isaiah is called on in his preaching to make the people’s heart fat lest they turn (shub; Isa. 6:10).

Isaiah’s plea is, “Turn to him from whom you have deeply revolted, O people of Israel” (Isa. 31:6). “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa. 30:15). “Return to me, for I have redeemed you” (Isa. 44:22). “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to go good; seek justice, correct oppression, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isa. 1:16-17).

Though the technical English term “repent” is not used, how better could one describe the process: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:7). The uninitiated English reader may have trouble defining “repent”; but he cannot misunderstand Isaiah.

Isaiah’s promise is that “A remnant shall return” (Isa. 10:21-22) though it be only a remnant.

“Remnant” suggests to the English reader something degraded left over. Left over food is never pleasant. I bought a rug remnant to put in the bathroom for only a portion of what the rug would regularly cost. One expects to find at the Remnant Store bargains of this sort. In Isaiah the term “remnant” at times can be used negatively as for the survivors (sarid) from the calamity described in chapter one (Isa. 1:9). Hezekiah, brought to his knees by Sennacherib, can speak of praying for the remnant (she’arit) that is left (2 Kings 19:4; Isa. 37:4).

The remnant in a figure of speech is as a fat man who becomes thin and feeble (Isa. 17:4). It is as gleanings left by reapers (Isa. 17:5). It is as a few berries left in the olive tree (Isa. 17:6). It is as a flagstaff on a mountain (Isa. 30:17). Much later, Ezekiel talks about the few that escape the sword to confess their abominations and know that God is the Lord (Ezek. 12:16).

Isaiah explains the possibility of the phrase. He sees the trees of Assyria’s forest destroyed so thoroughly that a child can count those left (Isa. 10:19). Later Isaiah threatens Babylon with the cutting off of name, remnant, offspring, and posterity (Isa. 14:22). The same is done for Philistia (Isa. 14:30) and for Moab (Isa. 15:9). Those who survive will be very few and feeble (Isa. 16:14). The remnant of Syria will be like the departed glory of the children of Israel (Isa. 17:3).

However, “remnant” in Isaiah also has a quite different meaning. It is the righteous few who have abandoned the sinful ways of the whole nation and have returned to the Lord. The law of Moses taught, “You shall not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exod. 23:2).

Though it should not be the basis for developing a complex, one may be reminded that the voice of the people has seldom been the voice of God. The sins of a multitude brought on the flood (Gen. 6:4-8:22); only Noah and his family were saved. Lot was saved out of the multitude of Sodom (Gen. 18:17-33; 19:1-29).

Eleven against one sold Joseph into Egypt where he preserved a remnant on earth and kept alive survivors to his family (Gen. 50:20).

A majority of ten spies against two doomed Israel to wander forty years in the desert.

The ten tribes chose to follow Jeroboam and to abandon the kings of the house of David to whom the Lord had made everlasting promises.

Elijah complained that he alone was left to serve the Lord but was reminded that there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:10-14; 17-18)

Jesus spoke of “few” and “many” in comparing the narrow and broad ways (Matt. 7:13-14).

Isaiah took his son named “Shear-yashub” with him to confront king Ahaz (Isa. 7:3). We have no way of knowing how the child came to have that name. Neither do we know whether the name is pessimistic&emdash;-“A mere few will return”-&emdash;or optimistic&emdash;-“There will be some left over.” Either is possible, and both meanings are used in Isa. 10:21.

Isaiah speaks of a remnant of Israel, which he parallels, to survivors of the house of Jacob (Isa. 10:20). A remnant will return. Return (shub) is Isaiah’s term for repentance. Picking up the phrase “the sand of the sea” from the Lord’s promise of descendants to Abraham (Gen. 22:17) and to Jacob (Gen. 32:12), Isaiah declares that only a remnant shall return.

Amos, dealing with Israel earlier than Isaiah, had alluded to a remnant (Amos 3:12; 5:14-15; 9:1-4). Manasseh’s sins caused the Lord to cast off the remnant of his heritage, giving them into the hands of their enemies (2 Kings 21:14). In the midst of the Assyrian crisis, Isaiah promises Hezekiah the future of a surviving remnant: “And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward; for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant (she’arit) and out of Zion a band of survivors (peletah). The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this” (Isa. 37:32). God’s grace leaves survivors (Isa. 1:9). There is a purifying purpose in the calamity (Isa. 1:25-26; 4:2-4). Survivors are gathered again and blessed by the Lord (Isa. 11:10-16; 28:2-5). Those in the Exile are addressed as “all the remnant of the house of Israel” (Isa. 46:3; cf. 11:11).

The motif is picked up and expanded by later prophets (Zeph. 3:11-13). Ezra in his prayer describes those who have returned from exile as the remnant. Survivors are called to an exemplary life with the people of the Lord (Ezra 9:13-14; Isa. 1:25-26; 4:2-4; 10:20).

The remnant of the house of Israel is addressed in Isa. 46:3 with the reminder of the Lord’s care of them from childhood to old age.

Paul picks up Isaiah’s promise in Rom. 9:27-28). Believing Jews form the remnant of Israel.

Isaiah has more messianic references than any other Old Testament book. The New Testament traces the messianic motif in four streams from the Old Testament. One of these is that of the prophet like Moses which has its origin in Deuteronomy 18:18. Jesus is that prophet like Moses (Acts 3:22-23).

A second stream is that of “one like a son of man” of Daniel 7:13-14. Jesus frequently spoke of himself as the Son of man, and when on trial echoed the passage of Daniel (Matt. 26:64). Isaiah does not seem to echo either of these motifs.

A third motif is that of the descendant of David. The Lord promised David that he would raise up one of his descendants to sit on David’s throne (2 Sam. 7:12; Ps. 89:3-4). The Judean kings were of the line of David. King Ahaz is described as “the house of David” (Isa. 7:2, 13). The child to be born for whom four names, each with two elements&emdash;-Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace&emdash;-is to be on the throne of David and over his kingdom (Isa. 9:6-7). Isaiah’s call vision ended speaking of a stump with the holy seed being the stump (matstsebet; Isa. 6:13). Earlier in the book is an allusion to the branch (semach) of the Lord (Isa. 4:2). The cutting of the forest is mentioned at the end of chapter ten which is followed by a shoot (choter) from the stump (geza`) of Jesse (Isa. 11:1) and growing out of his roots (shoresh). Isaiah 53:2 speaks of one growing up as a young plant (yonaq), like a root (shoresh) out of dry ground. But the motif is not exhausted with these passages. Jerusalem is saved from Sennacherib “for the sake of my servant David” (Isa. 38:35). The second part of Isaiah promises the making of an everlasting covenant “my steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples” (Isa. 55:3-4). New Testament writers are explicit that Jesus fulfills this role (Acts 13:34).

More widely known is the Suffering Servant motif centering in Isaiah 53. The Ethiopian was reading this chapter when Philip came to teach him (Acts 8:32-33). But there are also echoes of it earlier in Acts in the use of the word “servant (pais”; Acts 3:13, 26; 4:30). Pais is the term the Septuagint uses to translate `ebed (servant). That it was the role of the Messiah to suffer rests on the interpretation of Isaiah 53. This theme is s whole topic within itself.

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