MINISTRY OF THE MESSIAH

David Butler (0:00)

Hi there, I'm Dave Butler.

Grace Freeman Smith (0:02)

And I'm Grace Freeman Smith.

David Butler (0:03)

Welcome to Don't Miss This. Y'all, we're just always get excited. This is our very last Isaiah lesson.

Grace Freeman Smith (0:10)

People probably think that we're faking. They're probably like, oh my gosh, every single time you say that, you're so excited about things. Well, they don't get it.

David Butler (0:17)

The truth really is, honest to goodness, honest to goodness, arm to the square. I feel like I love Isaiah four times more, at least than I used to.

I kind of liked Isaiah, but genuinely, I don't know what happened. I honestly don't know what happened. But this year. Yeah, and part of it, maybe I started reading it in another translation, so I was like, oh, I actually understand it now. But when I-

Grace Freeman Smith (0:42)

And that does do something.

David Butler (0:43)

Yeah, but when I started walking through Isaiah, like I was walking through an art museum, that's when it changed for me for some reason. I don't know why it was that simple, that I just was not trying to follow the story anymore, but instead enjoy the pictures that he was painting of Jesus one at a time. And some of them, I don't love as much as I love other ones, but that's how an art museum is, right? Some people stay longer at this painting because it really speaks to them. So that's the advantage of having a book like Isaiah that covers so many years, right? And so many different audiences and so many ways of presenting. You just get this collection of his sermons, his letters, and all the last prophets are like that, by the way.

Right? Jeremiah is going to be like that. It's like a collection of all of their things. So you can kind of treat them pretty similarly where you're just like, oh, I'm walking through this art museum. Let me find the spots that really speak to me and just more spoke to me. So I'm not even making it up, everyone.

Grace Freeman Smith (1:46)

It's not fake. You're not faking your excitement. You really just love it.

David Butler (1:50)

It really is true. It's so true.

So these last bit of Isaiah, I can't remember if we talked about this, the tip in that gives you the themes of Isaiah. If we didn't, today we are, yeah. And he kind of talked, the chapters are sort of divided by theme, to some degree. And these last ones, he talks a lot about just the end game, the end goal, like what his whole hope and intention and purpose is. So we want to start there. Start with this picture of he's saying, this is where I'm trying to take you. This is my hope for you in the end.

Grace Freeman Smith (2:34)

Which is sometimes helpful, especially like when you think about doing an art project, that if you watch someone else, like I just like saw this TikTok video and it was like, guess who this is? And the whole time I was like, oh no, like who's gonna tell them that they're bad? Or like-

David Butler (2:48)

Or then it's like amazing.

Grace Freeman Smith (2:49)

Yes, and then in the end, it's so good. And I was like, wait, you like knew what was coming the whole time. And so it wasn't, it didn't stress you out when you were halfway through and it looked terrible because it was just like, you knew what was about to happen. And I think that that's helpful in this moment that you're like, pause and be like, wait, there's someone who has the end picture in mind that knows what's going to happen. Let me tell you what the end is, because it might help the middle of the story make more sense.

David Butler (3:15)

Yeah. And especially if you knew, let's say there was a series of those videos on TikTok or something, or you knew the artist.

Grace Freeman Smith (3:20)

Yes.

David Butler (3:20)

And you knew they were really good. So you could say to yourself, as you watch the ugly part, or if you, or if there was someone new watching it with you, you would just be like, just trust, trust, trust, trust, trust. In the very end, this ends up being, it'll blow your mind is what will happen. And so I feel that when I read these words. So we're actually gonna start in Isaiah 65, which is toward the very, very end. And this is, I think one of the best pictures that he paints of what I'm hoping to get everybody toward. So let's start in 17, 65, 17 For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. And I think this is interesting because I like that it says new and not, um, instead of like fixing it, I'm doing something entirely new, right? I'm not like fix putting, I'm not gluing it back together. The brokenness of the world. I'm creating something entirely new and I love the next line. And the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind. And that's so fascinating to me that there's things that keep me up at night. There's things that keep people I love up at night, that they remember over and over. Tragedies that they've experienced, worries that they have.