Turn with me if you would, back to Isaiah's prophecy. Isaiah chapter 18. And we'll take up a reading here from the first verse. Isaiah 18 and verse one. Here once again, the word of our God. Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels a bull rushes upon the waters, saying, go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto, a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled. all ye inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth, see ye when he lifteth up an end sign on the mountains, and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a cedar, heat upon herbs, sorry, a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. thus far the reading of God's word. May he bless us under its sound this evening. Hold that text in front of you if you would. I want us, before we begin to meditate on it, to maybe guide our thinking so that under God's blessing, we know how to apply this text to ourselves. Once you Friend, just to hear a few numbers. And the first number I wanna give you is, I suppose I'll put it in graphic terms, it relates to Windsor Park. If you were to put all of the members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, all of the members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Canada, Australia, Japan, and ourselves, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland, we would fill altogether 50% of Windsor Park. If you were to go outside and take all of the churches in Scotland that would be closest to us confessionally, so even include something like the Free Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland Continuing, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Together, all of those churches would fill 60%. All of their members would fill 60% of Windsor Park. If you come to ourselves here just in Northern Ireland, and you take the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, we still don't fill 60%. Windsor Park, somewhere probably close to 80%. If you were to take all of these numbers and compare them to the population on this province, we don't constitute even a percentage. We are 0.95% of the population in this land. And that's all together. The reason why I'm saying these things to you this evening is because I think we have a custom to say that these are days of small things. And I think our problem is we don't just realize how small these things are. Christian, as we come to this text, this text is really useful to us. It's useful to us in our context, just as it was useful to the church under age when it was first preached. But I want you to keep that in front of you. I want you to keep, friend, the fact that the days of small things, both then and now, are days of really, really small things. As we look at the first verse, you'll notice, friend, that we don't have the burden of that customary heading that we've seen thus far in this portion of the prophecy. We have instead a woe. Woe, he says, to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. The idea in the Hebrew is that really we're talking about Ethiopia and its environs. And the idea, friend, is that the prophet is now moving to a more remote part of the world. Up to this time, you remember that this portion of the prophecy is devoted largely to Judah's neighbors and largely as well to the great geopolitical forces in the day. But now he moves far further afield. He goes even as far as Ethiopia and beyond. And there is a woe, he says, that belongs to them. It's a message of foreboding that he carries to these distant lands. But this land, as you come to verse two, we're told it does something. This is the land, these Ethiopic lands, they send ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. That's likely a reference to them going through Egypt. And the idea is that they are sending their ambassadors for a very particular purpose. These are not just sent as if you like, haphazardly. They have a mission, and their mission is to say thus, go ye swift messengers to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto. They're going to a nation that has been brought very low. A nation, again, is called scattered and peeled in this text. And from the point of their embassage is to harass. We find this later on in the text. Their purpose is military. They intend to go to this land, this nation that's been scattered and peeled, and they intend to inflict even greater affliction. But the question, of course, is, well, what nation are we talking about? What is the nation that is scattered and peeled, that is to be harassed by Ethiopia and beyond? A friend, there's a large and unwieldy history of interpretation here that extends well beyond our time this evening. In fact, this is considered by many commentators to be one of the most difficult texts in the prophecy of Isaiah. And just this question is perhaps one of the most vexed. Which nation is the prophet referring to that has these ambassadors, these military men coming to harass them? Now, friend, the reason why this is complicated is in part because of the language that's used, and in part because the language that's used is illustrative, and perhaps we've lost the meaning of some of those illustrations. But I think, friend, in one sense, there's a very straightforward answer to these questions. First of all, I want you to notice the language that's used here. The language by some could be rendered of people who are tall and smooth, But I think the authorized version was right to translate it so as scattered and peeled. That's how, for instance, the ancient Aramaic translations render the text. That's how the Septuagint takes the text, a people carried off, a people who are strange or shorn, a people scattered or peeled. The question is, well, have we encountered such a nation thus far in the prophecy? And the answer is yes, we have. If you were to go back to chapter seven, you'll notice this. The Lord shall, and note the language, shall shave with a razor that is hired, namely by the King of Assyria. And what land is he shaving? Well, it's the land of Judah. As you go back to Isaiah six, you'll also notice this. that Judah is promised to be a people scattered. When there you have the prophet called to his work, the prophet responds, Lord, how long, how long shall I do this? And the Lord answer, he says, until the cities, now know this, be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate. And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking of the land. The prophet has already told us what land principally is in view here. The land that shall be shaved, shorn and peeled, if you like, will be peeled by the Assyrian powers. That's Judah. The land that will be scattered as well will be Judah. And that's why ancient rabbinic tradition, and that's why the ancient Christian tradition has seen this traditionally as a reference to the church underage. This is Judah. That is the land that Ethiopia and those neighboring nations intend to harass. It's the church. She is the people. She is the one who has been already reduced to a very low condition. And these lands are sending their ambassadors, really military entourages to go and to harass her further. That is go and pray upon her misery. But if you come to verse four, friend, you notice that the Lord does respond to this. The Lord says that he will take his rest. He'll consider in his dwelling place. And he gives two images here, that of refreshing. He will come and he will visit his people, though brought into a low condition and though confronted by so many enemies, even in the midst of her misery, he will come and he will impart refreshing. Now, two things, friend, before we proceed any further. I want you to notice that the theme that we have in this text is not new to us. The prophet has already presented this to us in so many ways. If you like friend, what you have in this text is simply a recapitulation of what we've seen thus far. That is the theme that the church is brought low, even exceedingly low. And then when she seems to be at her lowest point, then God intervenes and he surprises both them and their enemies with the deliverance of his church. How many times have we seen that thus far in Isaiah's prophecy? That just precisely at the lowest point imaginable, God intervenes and the church is saved. But I said to you at the start, there was a lesson in this for us, just as there was for the church who first heard this. Now, as you look at verse seven, and we don't have time this evening to do so, but as you look at verse seven, you'll notice that directly the prophet does have something to say to Gentile churches. There is something that belongs to people beyond Judah and to the church beyond Isaiah's day. But we'll reserve those comments, God willing, for the time to come. But what we can distill for ourselves from these four verses is that theme. That oft-repeated theme through Isaiah and throughout the scriptures that it is, friend, it's God's design to show his salvation often when the church is at her lowest. Often when in human terms it seems most unlikely, nearly impossible. Then God, friend, ordinarily comes to visit with incredible, with surprising grace. I think friend for ourselves, there is quite a lot that you and I are to take from this text for our own day. And so take as our theme, first of all, that God delivers his people in the face of their enemies. God delivers his people in the face of their enemies. And I want you to see that under three headings. I want you to see, first of all, the deployment of the church's enemies. I want us to then see God's delight in his church. And then finally, I want us to close by seeing the deliverance that God works on her behalf. So take, first of all, the deployment. of the church's enemies. You notice this from verse two. You remember these nations, these remote nations are summoning their own ambassadors to go. And the purpose again is to harass Judah. The purpose is again to prey upon the church's misery. And so she has summoned, the nations have summoned enemies to come. They have deployed their own forces to prey upon the church. But as you come to verse three, you recognize they're not the only ones making deployment. As you come to verse three, you notice this, and it's far clearer, I think, in the Hebrew, but you can gather it even from our text. All the inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth see ye when he, again, know the pronoun, it's in the singular, he lifted up an ensign on the mountains, and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. The question, of course, is, well, who is the referent? Whom does the pronoun belong? And the answer, of course, friend, in the scriptures is already provided for us. Perhaps we need to go back several months to our comments that we made in chapter 13. In chapter 13, you have that image, that powerful, that militaristic image where where it is the Lord God, who in that text we're told, he commands his prophet to set up a banner upon the high mountain, to exalt the voice under them, to shake the hand that they may go to the gates of the nobles. That's Judah, by the way. And then he says this, I, that is the Lord, have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones, I have called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness. And friend, you remember that in chapter 13, where the prophet's talking about there are all of the enemies there, summoned by God's secret counsel, by his providence to come to Judah. And like manner that here, these remote nations are coming to the doors of the church. And so yes, these enemies of the church, they are deploying their own forces, but you need to recognize that in verse three, God also has summoned this deployment. God is the one who as commander of all, according to his own secret providence and counsel has ordered them so to come. God is the one who brings them to Judah's door. They deploy, God deploys. the church's enemies. A friend, I want you to recognize something first of all, and that has to do with the malice of the church's enemies here. Worldlings are not gentlemen. The world will not treat the church in a gentlemanly way. And you see that so pointedly in verse two, don't you? How much do you have to hate someone Someone who has been torn as it were to shreds. Someone who has encountered one affliction quickly followed by another to summon all of your power to come against them while in their misery. How much do you have to hate someone to do more than kick them when they're down? But that's precisely the threat of the nations against the church. When she is scattered and peeled, when she is brought to her low condition, then the nations pounce, as it were, like a beast on wounded prey. Friend, I think this is an important reminder for us that the world is not a friend of the church. It's not. Christ says very pointedly, doesn't he? If you were of the world, the world would love his own, but because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. You know, in a fight, there are really three ways that a fight can come to an end. Obviously, you can create a kind of formal peace, maybe make a truce, or maybe there's simply just a lull in the battle. The scriptures are really clear. There can never be peace between the church and the enemies of God. And more than that, friend, I think we need to read the text of scripture clearly and see also that the scriptures also preclude a kind of formal truce as well. At best, friend, at best, and only by God's restraining grace is there ever a lull in the violence and in the conflict between the church and the world. And you may say to me, well, I know people who are enemies of God, and yet they don't hate me this much. And that may very well be true, but friend, that's only because of God's restraining grace. If they were left entirely to their own natural inclinations, Friend, they would wish nothing best, nothing more for you than what you have in verse two, to pray upon you when you are at your weakest. This is a picture of the malice, friend, that the world bears toward the church, and we need to know that. The world will never be your friend. If you're going to school or work, and friend, you're hoping and you're expecting that that you can have a real and a deep and a kind of lasting confederacy with enemies of God. Friend, you're fooling yourself. Again, by God's restraining grace, you may find men and women who are amicable. You might find men and women who deal with you fairly. But friend, it's only because of God's restraining mercy. If left to themselves, they would destroy you in this text. But secondly, I also want you to notice this, and we can't miss this this evening. At verse three, it is God who deploys these enemies to come. Their malice against the church is their sin, that's true. But God does overrule even, friend, their sin. And in this text, friend, what we have here is that he brings them again to the door of the church. It's God who does it. Why? Well, friend, you and I, we've already seen why God would bring the Assyrians in, why God would bring and would invade the church with all of these, his enemies. And it was because of the church's defection. It was not as though Judah were innocent, and these things just happened to befall her. For God told us again and again, up to this point, why he was bringing these nations to her door. And it was because she had forsaken him. So in chapter 10, verse five, the Lord says to the Assyrian, you are the rod of mine indignation. When the Assyrian comes against the church, The prophet is clear. Whatever sin and whatever malice was in Assyria to come, nevertheless, Assyria was the instrument in God's hand to chastise his people. And so God did indeed deploy these ones for his service. Psalm 80, I think we have a parallel to our text. The psalmist in that text, as he's praying to God, he says, thou makest us a strife unto our neighbors and our enemies laugh among themselves. We've been brought to a low condition and our enemies are rejoicing, just as you have in verse two. They're longing to pray upon us in our lowest place. But then this, in verses 12 and 13, the psalmist goes on to say, why hast thou broken down her hedges? so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her. The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Friend, in all of this, God is sovereign. As the wicked grow in strength, and as they come against Judah, the prophet would remind her that all of this has happened as God's chastisement for her sin. Friend, as we look at this text, I think first of all, as we seek to apply it to ourselves, I think for several, maybe 200 years now, we have watched as the church in the West has declined. And we've watched the tokens of God's wrath amount more and more. But so few have asked. So few have asked the question, why? And friend, this text urges us to be very careful, not to think like deists, that these things have just happened. And certainly not to think, friend, that the church hasn't incurred this chastisement. Friend, a text like this in its original context, and as we hear it this evening, It's a text that urges us to remember that God brings these things upon his church because she requires correction. Secondly, I want you to notice, friend, the delight that God has in the church still. And you look at that as you find in verse four, the Lord says through his prophet, I will take my rest. Literally, I will be at ease, I will be quiet. But then the next clause, and then he says, I'll consider in, or really the preposition is, I will consider at, or look at my dwelling place. And so you have this really graphic scene, don't you? Where you have the nations summoned to come to Judah's doorstep. They're summoned, of course, by their own governments. And then they're summoned, of course, by God's secret council and they come. And they come roaring like we saw at the end of chapter 17. They come with a great noise. And you see all of the horizon, as it were, crowded with these oncoming forces. And then God says, I will take my rest. I'll be at ease. I'll be quiet. Now it's striking, isn't it, friend? And you might be thinking, well, this parallels very much Psalm 2. Where you have, you know, the nation's raging, but God, the Lord who is in heaven, he sits there and he laughs. But that's not really a parallel to our text. Because in this case, as you look at the second clause of verse 4 that we read there, he describes the church as his dwelling place, not heaven. And here, friend, you have the idea that the image is not God above the nations, but it is God in his church, and he is taking rest, even as these nations are coming at her gate. It's a wonderful, I mean, almost sensibly paradoxical picture, isn't it? That God takes rest in the church, even when she is scattered and peeled. And when all of the nations and all of her enemies are amassed about her and ready at any moment to pounce upon her to her utter ruin. Friend, what you see in this text is that God still is pleased to call his people his dwelling place. And this is why it's so important for us to see this because as we look before and we recognize that all of these nations have come and the scattering and the peeling that she's experienced is for her own sin. It becomes all the more profound, doesn't it? That in verse four, he still calls her his dwelling place. She has brought the rod upon herself through her sin. She has called forth God's chastisement by her defection. And yet still, friend, in verse four, he calls her his dwelling place and the place where he will take his rest or his ease. It's a wonderful picture, isn't it? A shocking picture of the love that God has, that love of benevolence. that free love that he has for his own. You know, there are typically we speak of two different kinds of love that God bears toward his own. There's that love of benevolence, that free love that friend does not see anything in the object necessarily this lovely, but loves the object nonetheless. And then there's that love of complacency that sees that in the object which it delights in and so loves it, of course, because he sees what he loves. Friend, in this text, we're reminded that that though the church has engaged in defection, though she is rightly scattered and peeled, because they are his people still, he loves them. Pleased even to call them his dwelling place. And that's because of the covenant of grace. That's not because of any merit that the church has. And friend, you have to recall that when the Lord does deliver Judah, it's not because she has earned it. It's not because she had merited it through reformation. It was an act of free grace. You remember how the Lord speaks to Ephraim? Ephraim, you remember, is personified Ephraim was a tribe in the Northern kingdom and Ephraim in Jeremiah 31 is personified as a single individual, Ephraim himself perhaps. And the idea is that Ephraim comes to repentance and he goes back to the God whom he had so often spurned. And when he cries for repentance, the Lord responds and he says, since I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore, my bowels are troubled for him. For hundreds of years, friend, Ephraim was engaged in defection. And again, the prophets rose up early and were sent by God to call Ephraim back to repentance and refused time and time again to hear these summonses. Did you hear what the Lord said there? Ever since I first, and that's the meaning, ever since I first spake against Ephraim, I remember him still. Therefore my bowels, he says, are troubled for him. And Ephraim was chastised, and rightly so, but here the prophet tells us that the Lord still, he desired to deliver his church, though defecting, and though defecting for so long. You know, friend, I think this has an individual application that we shouldn't miss either. I know we've been speaking largely about the church corporate, but this is true on the individual level. The Lord does visit us with rods for our sin. He does chastise us, and we need to acknowledge that. Our generation doesn't more often than not. We need to acknowledge that God still speaks through the rod. If you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, friend, even under the rod, you need to remember that it's paternal discipline that you receive. When he threatens you as you continue in sin with chastisement, friend, it comes from the lips of a father who even to Ephraim said, since I speak against him. Since I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still." And that's true of the church corporate, and it's true of every individual believer. When he speaks so, and he speaks in severity, it is still from this principle of paternal love. Now Christian, I want to just meditate briefly on this a step further and to say that that up to this point, Judah does not know what is to come. All you see in the first part of verse four is that it was God's intention, and it's his delight in her. What she sees with her eyes is nothing but, friend, in human terms, is certain destruction. This reminds us, doesn't it, friend, that you and I are to interpret providence according to the promises of God. and not the other way around. Friend, if she's interpreting God's love and his dealings with her exclusively by what she sees in front of her eyes, she would despair. But here we find that contrary to what she sees, God does still delight in his people. And so as we close, friend, what is that deliverance that the Lord works for his people? He gives that to us at the end of verse 4 in two images. And it's given to us quite graphically. The Lord says, first of all, that he will come, and that's the idea, he will come like a clear heat upon herbs. And the sense there, friend, is this. It's not a scorching, not a blasting heat. It's not the heat of judgment. It's a warm and a fructifying heat. A heat that will be good to the herb, that will incite its growth. And then the second image is that you'll be as a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. And the image there, friend, I suppose it's quite understandable, isn't it? You can imagine being a laborer in the field all day under the scorching heat and then suddenly that cloud passes between you and the sun and then you're in the shade and suddenly the coal comes and you're refreshed. That's the idea. He will come to fructify the church. He'll come to be her refuge and her shadow under the blasting heat. And what you see in this text, friend, and this is so important, is that he will do this when the enemies are at the gate. when she's already been scattered and peeled, when she's already been reduced to a low condition, then He will come and He will bring refreshing. Then He will come and He will fructify His vine. Friend, the lesson, as we said from the start, is that God often saves when the church is in incredibly low condition. And we know why, don't we? You remember why Gideon had to call his forces again and again. The reason why he had to reduce the number of fighting men was, as the Lord tells us, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, mine own hand hath saved me. And one of the reasons why the Lord does bring this salvation at this time is so that none can say, that men who are dark and who often do not discern providences right, and who often forget to trace things to their first cause, that they can look at the church's deliverance and say, this is only the hand of God. We see this throughout the history of the church, and we don't have time this evening to go through these themes, but just think of Abraham. Christian, have you ever wondered why it took so long to come to Isaac's birth? I mean, couldn't it have been that the Lord would have granted a child to Abram in the land of Haran? And if that child would have been the child of promise? Or could it have been whenever later on as they move into Canaan that Abram was a younger man that he might have had Isaac? Why was it, friend, that he waited until, as the writer of the Hebrews tells us, that Sarah's womb was dead? That then he brings the promise. Or go further. Friend, when Israel was in Egypt, why was it that God waited until there was a generation in Egypt that did not know Joseph? Why was it that he waited now several hundred years whenever the memory of Joseph and really whole of Israel's allies had already lost touch with him? Why was it that then, only then did he bring them out of the house of bondage? Why was it, friend, that when the church under age was at her lowest place, when she was described as scorched earth dry ground that then the bud, the root, the rod rather of the stem of Jesse was born. Or why is it, for instance, in Romans 11, why when the church of the old covenant, it apostatizes that then the Gentiles are called in. Friend, it's the same theme of our text, isn't it? The Lord brings the church into a low condition and then redeems her, then works wonderfully for her. So as he said to Gideon, none can say, mine own hand has saved me. God delivers his people in the face of their enemies. Friend, I wanna ask two questions of you as we leave this evening. And the first is, how do you respond, friend, to the tokens of God's displeasure? How do you respond to affliction generally? And then I suppose, friend, related to that is how do you respond to the low condition of the church? The problem in Isaiah's day was that people didn't respond to the tokens of God's displeasure all right. They simply ignored them. They didn't even ask the question, why was God afflicting me thus? It didn't take any time for introspection. They didn't take any time to ask simply, what was the Lord saying to them? Friend, we mustn't be that generation. We've been that generation for too long, frankly. And are we a people, friend, who see the low condition of the church really, and who grieve for it. We ought to look, friend, to verses two and three, and we ought to remember that these things are to be matters of grief to us when we see them in our own day. You remember Psalm 102, the psalmist is so clear, isn't he? That the church, the low condition of the church so grieved him that he felt like he was a hearth scorched within. It consumed him in many ways. He wasn't a disinterested bystander. Does the low condition of the church affect you? Friend, if it does, if you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, I just wanted to read a few verses to you. Verses that very much reflect the promise of our own text. A promise that friend relates precisely to this theme. that both with the individual Christian in the church, at her lowest times are often the times just before her greatest blessing. So says the Lord by his prophet, for a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this, he's speaking here of the Babylonian exile, for this is as the waters of Noah unto me. For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord. that hath mercy on thee. Friend, that was a promise to the church under age, but a promise in its substance that belongs to the church through the running centuries. He will not, as he says there, let his covenant of peace be removed. Friend, as we leave this text, finally, just two words of exhortation. In this text, The church is taught afresh to interpret providence by promises. Yes, on the horizon, all things look bleak. And they are in human terms. But friend, those who are faithful are those who, as the apostle describes Abraham, in such cases against hope, they believe in hope. They will not stagger at the promises of God through unbelief. They'll be strong in faith, giving glory to God. Friend, that's your call and mine in a day of small things. To be those, friend, who do interpret providence according to God's word. And these are, secondly, days of small things. You're to lament them. You are. The scriptures give us the pattern. you're also supposed to look for deliverance. Like the watchman waiting for the morning light, so you and I are called to be. And here's the simple reason why. So often, through history, through the epistles, through all of scripture, we're taught time and time again, that it's whenever the church is in its lowest condition, when it seems nearly impossible for deliverance, for refreshing to come. That's precisely when the Lord often works her mercy. Friend, remember that in these days of small things. These are, but for God, a stage in which he shows that he and he only his Savior to his people. Amen.