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Today, we enter the realm of the Old Testament prophets. Isaiah awaits us. 

I would be remiss to not recall for us Isaiah’s dramatic experience of being called by God in chapter six. 

We are told in verse one that this book will be about God’s disappointment with Judah in general and Jerusalem in particular during the reigns of several kings. In fact, listen to verses two through four.  

“2 Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know; my people do not understand.

4  Woe, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who act corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the Holy One of Israel…”

As you or I give Isaiah a serious reading, we can’t help but notice something. There is a gathering presence that one can feel on the pages of this Isaiah prophecy. He is looking at a God who yearns for a closer relationship with the people, of Israel. He is looking at where God has been with humanity. 

Isaiah is sent to say some honest, transparent words about where Israel is headed in a geopolitical sense. Exile looms. Sin and indifference have taken their toll. A timeless message might be that God will not be ignored. Yet as all prophets genuinely sent by God then, and now, are prone to do, Isaiah laces his words with a message of hope. 

If you have followed this series since we began in Genesis, you may feel a gathering momentum now. The hunger pangs for redemption and help are beginning among a restless people. God hears the hearts of those who understand their own true need. 

Now in Isaiah, a palpable movement is gathering up. Among Creation, something powerful this way comes.

Isaiah. Yesha in the Hebrew. As we open its pages, Isaiah is set in the 8th century BC. That’s 800 years before Jesus Christ was born in a manger. Yet by the time Isaiah’s pages close, he will clearly be writing after the return of the Israelites, after the exile in Babylon. Which puts his closure much more like 510 BC. 

So, Isaiah lived, wrote and prophesied for over 300 years. Or, maybe he didn’t. Serious scholars that I give credibility to have, since 1955 or so, understood not one but three Isaiahs because of the three distinct sections and the time periods they cover, within this one remarkable book. I love Isaiah, and I have a feeling you do, too. 

What is on Isaiah’s mind? Well, that is a trick question. Because I want the reader to remember that Isaiah was himself a prophet. Prophets, by definition, were called of God not so much to speak their minds as they were to speak God’s mind. 

So, the better question might be: what was on God’s mind for Isaiah to say? First of all, we are reminded here in first or Proto Isaiah of God’s sovereignty and God’s judgment. 

God is disappointed and feeling a little neglected. Zion had been intended to reside at the center of a world of peace. Instead, corrupt leadership, never in any historical era a healthy thing for people to tolerate, has robbed Israel of its purity and Zion of its status. 

A second theme is of God’s faithfulness to the people and to Jerusalem. This will, of course, come more in the form of reflection and a call to remember. For now, distance invades the present relationship that the people could have with God, but have chosen instead largely to not. 

Third, we taste briefly a forecast of hope that will be enumerated much later in the form of God’s anointed One, a Messiah who will be given to provide redemption for this fallen and weakened people.

At Christmas time you couldn’t keep us out of Isaiah 40. You know it well. Because the corner that is turned now is toward the promise of a Messiah. Something powerful this way comes.

But neither Israel nor we will be getting any self-styled, designer and custom-made Messiah. Take him or leave him, that will be the offer of hope for Israel and for us.

“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. A voice cries out:  In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord!” Isaiah does, indeed, give us a compelling call to faithfulness.

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.