Scott Brown's sermon, based on Isaiah 18, examines the prophetic message regarding Ethiopia, a nation described as 'terrible from the beginning.' The sermon explores the geopolitical context involving Ethiopia, Egypt, and Assyria, and emphasizes God's sovereignty over nations and human affairs. Brown highlights the imagery of God looking down from above, observing the frantic activities of nations, and underscores the importance of trusting in God rather than worldly alliances. He discusses the transformation of Ethiopia from a fearsome nation to one that ultimately brings offerings to God, linking it to the theme of salvation. The sermon also challenges listeners to reflect on their own fears and where they place their trust, encouraging a reliance on God's rest and sovereignty.

Today's scripture is going to be read from Isaiah 18, if you would just follow along with me please. Woe to the land shadowed with buzzing wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, which sends ambassadors by sea, even in vessels of reed, on the water saying, Go swift messengers to a nation tall and smooth of skin, to a people terrible from their being onward, a nation powerful and treading down, whose land the rivers divide. All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth, when he lifts up a banner on the mountains you see it, and when he blows a trumpet you hear it. For the Lord said to me, I will take my rest and I will look from my dwelling place like clear heat and sunshine, like a cloud of dew and the heat of harvest. For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he will both cut off the springs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.

They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey and the beasts of the earth. The birds of prey will summer on them and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them. In that time a present will be brought to the Lord of Hosts, from a people tall and smooth of skin, and from a people terrible from the beginning onward, a nation powerful and treading down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, to Mount Zion." Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful for this passage of scripture, and Father we're grateful that you have us here today. Father, we pray that as a congregation we sit, we listen.

Father, that we would do more than just listen. That Father, we would truly hear within our ears, within our minds, within our hearts, Lord. That we would take this scripture and that we would learn from it. Father, that this scripture as it is is posited. Father, that it would change our lives, that it would cause us Lord to be more like You, that it would cause us Lord to have a deeper understanding of Your truth and Your Word.

Father, we pray for Scott as he brings this to us. Father, we pray that his words would be swift and quick in the sense Lord that he is speaking of what you have placed upon his heart We thank you Lord and praise your mighty name. Amen There there's such an advantage when you're above it all When you can sit on the heights and look down and see what is happening below. Many years ago, I used to take my family to Williamsburg. And in Williamsburg, there was a maze.

And our children loved to run through the maze of the bushes that were surrounding it. But the great thing about that maze is that you could get up high and you could look down and see where they were running and you knew where they were. They didn't know where they were, but you knew where they were. There's such an advantage to be above it all. You lift up and you look down and you can see the whole picture.

Well that's exactly the picture that we find in Isaiah chapter 18, that God is above and he's looking down and he's seeing the buzzing and the scurrying and the fearful and the fretful and the frantic efforts that are going on for self-protection. But the whole perspective of this chapter is God looking down from above and having perfect grasp of everything, not just perfect grasp of what's going on, but actually perfect control for what is going on. He sees the nations in an uproar. And there are three primary characters here in this chapter. There's Egypt, there's Ethiopia, and there's Syria.

But the focus is Ethiopia, a people that are described as terrible from the beginning. They were a rotten people, they were a mean people, they were a vicious people from the beginning. And it speaks really of the salvation of a terrible people. A people who are so entrenched, so impossible to break free from their terribleness. And yet, with God, all things are possible.

So it's a beautiful passage to consider. Egypt is afraid of Assyria. Israel is afraid of Judah. And Judah is afraid of Israel and their alliance with Syria. Ethiopia is afraid of a Syrian and goes to Judah for protection.

So it's a passage that brings brings out fear. It shows a people who are fretful, a people not resting in God, a people who are undone by what's going on, a people who are afraid of What is going to happen to them? And it brings forth all these questions about fear. You know, maybe it's because there are people here this morning that are afraid of something. Maybe because it's, Maybe we're here in this passage because we're having a hard time resting in God.

Maybe we're fretful. Maybe Assyria has gotten too big, And as a result, God has gotten so small. But that's the scene that is here. And as we read these different oracles against the nations, we're always asking the question, where am I in this story? But Isaiah 18 identifies the significance of a situation when when people and nations have their hope in the wrong thing.

They don't have their hope in the Lord. And so it causes us to ask, where do you place your hope? What security, what supports, what leverage points, what wisdom, what people, what institutions, what economy, what relationships, What food do you place your hope in? Because we're a people that are always placing our hope in something, aren't we? And that's what we find here.

And God looks down upon it all. And He sees where everyone is placing their hopes. And he takes a people, a terrible people, a people who are terrible from the beginning, a harsh and fearful people who do terrible things, And he rescues terrible people. So it's such a remarkable text. Well, let's look at this text first.

But first, I want to kind of fly over this. I want to tell you how I'm approaching this because it can be confusing and there are different positions about who's who in the passage. So I'm going to give you my perspective. It may be wrong but it makes sense to me and really the applications don't change much whether you take a different historical perspective and change the names of the people. But okay, so in verse one you'll learn the first thing that I want to understand about how I'm interpreting this.

Woe to the land shadowed with buzzing wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia." Where's that? That's Egypt. Verse 2, which sends ambassadors by sea. So Egypt is sending ambassadors by sea, even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying, Go swift, messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin. That's Ethiopia.

And then skipping on down to verse 6. For they will be left together for the mountain birds of prey and for the beasts of the earth. The birds of prey will summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them." That's Assyria. So that's my interpretive grid. There you have it.

Now let's get into the text. Verses one and two really introduce the activity here. The nations are buzzing. Woe to the land, shadowed with buzzing wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. He starts out with this word woe.

And woe is sometimes in the Bible used as a declaration of condemnation, but I don't believe that's the way that it's used here. It's ho or ah or alas, you know, pay attention, listen up, you know, look at what is happening here. And so this is, rather than starting with this is the burden as the other oracles against the nations have begun with. It starts with, with, with, whoa, or, or ah, you know, ah, the multitude of many people who make a noise like the roar of the seas." By the way, this word also appears in chapter 17, verse 12. So it's consistent where he says, woe or awe to the multitude of the many people who make noise like the roar of the seas.

So he's speaking of the same kind of thing that's going on. I think that what Isaiah is telling us is that he's still speaking of the problem of the people of God, and that is to make alliances and to trust in their alliances and not to trust in God. Isaiah is constantly appealing to trust in God, to place all of your hope in God. Don't place any of your hope in this world, don't place any of your hope in people or institutions or nations or anything. Trust in God and in God alone.

That's the thrust of this whole section. And The buzzing wings have to do with a great number of people or armies or ambassadors and the land is filled with them just like Egypt is filled with flies or maybe even dragon flies or tzitzit flies which are called armies. But there's this picture of this busy, frantic sending and coming of ambassadors. And God is standing above it all, as you can see from this perspective. And He is in control of the buzzing wings and the armies of this world.

In chapter 17, verse 18, we read that God whistles, and the flies come. God is in control of it all. So there's this nation of Egypt and Kush or Ethiopia are on the radar screen here. And now after the flood, we learn from Genesis chapter 10 in the table of the nations that Cush was the eldest son of Ham who came off the ark. And the sons of Ham were Cush, Mizrahi input, and Canaan.

And so You have this disclosure of the layout of the nations. Genesis 10 can give you the origins of the nations of the world. And now, fast forward in the time that we're in the days of Isaiah, somewhere between 720 and 715 BC, the Kushites actually grew in power. Ethiopia seemed to be ruling over Egypt, and you can read about this, but Now there's this mounting anti-Assyrian coalition that is taking place here. And you see evidence of it in 2 Kings 19, where King Terhaka of Ethiopia visits Judah.

So what you have here in this geopolitical scene is you have Assyria to the north and you have Judah and Israel in the middle and all kinds of other small surrounding nations and the tribes of Israel and you have Egypt to the south and there's the movings of armies and the attempt for geopolitical domination is really on, is in the center stage here of what we're reading. And so the Kushites, Ethiopia wants to make an alliance with the Judean king against Assyria, And that's where King Teharkah comes in from Ethiopia. And they come to Jerusalem, and they meet with Isaiah. And so we read of it here, which says, ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying, go. So with the word ambassadors, we're encountering the whole issue of alliances and nations taking their smartest people and sending them to other nations to try to figure out how they can either gain power or peace or maybe both at the same time.

And so these brilliant people who are scurrying back and forth trying to engage in a beneficial situation. So there's this feverish anti-Assyrian diplomacy that's going on. And the question is, will the schemes work? Will all the threats have a good result? Will the desperation do a good work, you know, in their lives?

Or will they trust in the Lord? Will they find themselves resting in God? Or will they be resting in their alliances? And you have this picture of vessels of reed going on the waters. Did you notice that?

These reed vessels, you know, and these are lightweight, durable boats, you know, durable against the rocks and sinking in the waters of the Nile and in the cataracts of the Nile and the rocky shores that are there. And so there are these reed boats. I don't know if you remember, maybe you're not old enough to know about Thor Heyerdahl, who wrote a book called Contikion. He made a balsa wood raft and he sailed it 8, 000 miles. And then he kept making these different boats and he made the Ra and the Ra II out of papyrus.

He took his papyrus out of Ethiopia, this very same kind of shipbuilding methodology. And he sailed the Ra too across the Atlantic Ocean from Morocco to Barbados. Well, Ra, of course, is an Egyptian god. And so he took the papyrus from Ethiopia and made these boats. And so that's the kind of situation that we find here.

These boats are moving back and forth in this geopolitical strategy that the nations are involved in. And Isaiah describes the Ethiopians in really beautiful terms in some ways, not in all ways. He speaks of them positively. You can see, I think you see God's enjoyment of his creation, the way he makes different people, different ways, and he speaks of them as swift and tall and smooth of skin. They're swift And perhaps it's just the way it's always been.

The Ethiopians are good runners. And it was a Kushite man that was a runner who was carrying information of Saul's death. But even today, the Ethiopians are built in such a way that they run fast. I know there's some recent research done on professional athletes, and guess what makes them so good at what they do? Well they have particular physical characteristics that nobody else has.

They have bone structure and muscle structure that nobody else has. It's kind of like the horse secretariat that had a heart like two and a half times bigger than all other hearts of horses and could run faster and longer and harder because it just could consume oxygen and fuel its whole system. Well, so people are just made differently. And these people are tall. The words in the King James, I think, is outspread, but they're statistically some of the tallest people in the world.

You know, the average male six feet four, the average female six feet tall. But they're tall, and perhaps this, I just think the Lord is just speaking of this people in glowing terms, at least so far. They're smooth of skin. Herodotus writing in 460 BC wrote that they were considered the tallest and handsomest people in the region. But anyway, he speaks of them that way.

But then he sort of drops the hammer on them and says, no, they're terrible people. They're terrible, wicked, mean, vicious people. And they've always been that way from their beginning onward. We've seen the various cultures of the world being depicted here and how there are their particular characteristics of people and their cultures. We saw the Medes and their culture and various others as we've been working through these oracles to the nations.

And the Ethiopians were legendary for their terribleness. And I love the fact that the Lord introduces this reality about this people, because it's just another testimony of how God can take a terrible people and bring them into submission. You might just think of how terrible you were before the Lord Jesus Christ rescued you. Now you're getting, you're still terrible, but you're getting less terrible because the Lord is working in your life and He's sanctifying you. But God takes a terrible people and he lifts them out of the miry clay and he begins to restore them.

It's such a marvelous thing but they were terrible from the beginning onward. They never changed. Their national culture was terrible. They did terrible things that caused others to fear. They were mean and they were proud of it.

Nimrod was one of their great ancestors. But I've read that they were the only black nation that never succumbed to slavery. They were so terrible on the one hand. And, you know, unlike some of their neighboring countries like the Congo who just fell into the whole economy of slavery, Ethiopia did not do that. One historian said that they protected their Christian subjects in the 16th and 17th century.

But something had happened to them. And there was a change. But Almost 200 years before Isaiah's time, Asa faces an army of Ethiopians. And this is just another illustration of the military strength and the terribleness of this nation. In 2 Chronicles chapter 14, Asa ends up with an army of 300, 000 from Judah who carried shields and 280, 000 from the tribe of Benjamin.

But An Ethiopian by the name of Zerah came out against them with an army of one million men. It was a formidable force here. They came out with 300 chariots. And Asa cries out to the Lord, and he says, Lord, it is nothing for you to help whether with many or with those who have no power help us oh Lord our God for we rest on you and in your name we go against this multitude oh Lord you are our God do not let man prevail against you." Asa cries out and he says, Lord, help us rest in you. That's another theme that's in this text here.

You can either trust in your alliances, or you can rest in the Lord. And when a million Ethiopians came up against Asa, he cried out and said, oh Lord, help us to rest in you. And then we read later on in the story that the Ethiopians were overthrown. And so even 200 years later in the time of Isaiah, the Ethiopians are known for their violence and their warlike nature. And everybody is afraid of Assyria, and some are afraid of Ethiopia.

It seems like everybody's afraid in this section of scripture. So the first thing that we see is that the nations are buzzing. There's this geopolitical reality. Judah is in the middle of it and these nations are jockeying for position, but the nations are buzzing That's the first thing that we need to recognize here and before we leave this point I just want to just pause and ask you know what what's buzzing around you? You know What are the threats that are buzzing?

What are the changes that are happening? Maybe the fears are changes that you have in your mind. Recognize this is nothing new. You're not anybody special. God has always had his people in the midst of intrigue and in the midst of buzzing.

And that's what we have here. Then we find out next in that the Lord is lifting up a banner. You'll notice by the outline that I have here that I'm really placing the Lord God as the central character of all of this. The nations really are as nothing. God is controlling them.

He's observing them. And he's actually moving them. So if you see the outline here, we see the nations are buzzing, and then the Lord God is lifting up a banner in verse 3. Here the Lord is making himself known. The text reads, all inhabitants of the world and dwellers of the earth, when he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it and when he blows a trumpet you hear it.

God is making himself known the whole earth here is now put on notice. I recognize that the word he in this verse is not capitalized. The translators did not believe it was speaking about the Lord. I do. I may be incorrect about that, but I think that it is God who is lifting up the banner.

It is God that is blowing the trumpet. If you look at these terms throughout Scripture, typically God is the central figure in lifting up a banner or an infant. Typically, He is. And so I'm taking that track with us. And He's summoning the nations.

He's speaking. He's acting. You know, Isaiah begins in chapter 1 verse 2 with, give ear, O heavens, and hear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. And then later on he speaks of a banner being raised up for the nations, and that is in chapter 11. In fact, I'll just read a little bit out of chapter 11 to give you a sense of how I think Isaiah is using this term banner.

In Isaiah 11, chapter, or verse 10, he says, And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner to the people. For the Gentiles shall seek him, and his resting place shall be glorious." And then later on in verse 11, to recover the remnant from his people who are left from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathros and Cush, from Elam and Shinar, from Hamath and the islands of the sea. He will set up a banner for the nations and will assemble the outcasts of Israel." So I believe this banner that's being lifted up, this trumpet that's being sounded, is God. He's bringing out His people from the nations, from Ethiopia, from Assyria, from Egypt, from the islands, from everywhere. God is saving people from every tongue and tribe and nation, and someday they will be before His throne." This is a picture of salvation.

God is the central character here, and He's lifting up the glory of His Kingdom. And people are attracted to it, And they're saying, I'll no longer fear nor trust in Assyria. I will no longer trust in my alliances. My hope will be in the Lord. So that's the picture here.

And God is doing two things. He's lifting up a banner, and He is blowing a trumpet. And That's really pretty much how almost everybody is converted. They see the Lord, they see Him high and lifted up. They see His beauty and His glory.

They see their own sinfulness. They see that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's The banner of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He can be seen whenever the Lord God desires that He be seen. He opens up blind eyes and He shows people His banner.

Maybe there's some people here whose eyes are just beginning to open and you see His glory and you see how vile and sinful you are and how hopeless you are in your sins and He's changing your heart and you're hearing the trumpet and you're seeing the banner maybe for the first time. It's such a wonderful thing when that happens. So the Lord is lifting up a banner and then the Lord is resting in verse 4. Here we read, for the Lord said to me, I will take my rest. And here God is proclaiming his peace in the midst.

Remember, he's high and lifted up. He's looking down on all the buzzing and the activity that's going on in the earth, and he's at rest. Everything is under his control. His plan is working according to the counsel of his will. God is not troubled by the international scene.

This is the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, where all the nations are in turmoil, like we see in Psalm chapter 2. But God is not troubled. In fact, it says that He laughs there. And God is untroubled, undisturbed, and unmovable. You know, we began our service, you know, in the Psalm, in Psalm 37, and unmovable.

We began our service in the Psalm, Psalm 37, where David says, Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of Him who prospers in His way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Do not fret. It only causes harm. God stands undisturbed and unfretful.

And as we continue to seek the Lord and know the Lord, that's how we become. We become less and less fretful and disturbed about the things that come upon us. You know, God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and the mountains slipped into the heart of the sea. Well this is a picture of God in his solitude and his unmovability.

And God is quiet. In Isaiah 14, We already read of that, where you have a picture of the king of Babylon. He ceases. The golden city has ceased. And then we read, the whole earth is at rest and quiet.

They break forth in singing. Now this rest that's spoken of here is a picture of the rest of Jesus Christ. It is His own rest. It's God's rest in His keeping of the Sabbath, His creating the Sabbath, which is really a foreshadowing of the rest that is in Jesus Christ. The rest that God has in heaven is also the rest that God has for His people in the midst of all the buzzing and the tumult and the threats and the difficulties, the disappointments, the broken hearts, everything.

God is at rest. And because God is at rest, so can you. The Ethiopians were troubled. They were disturbed. They were moved.

They were moved by all the rumors that were going on in that day. But God wasn't moved at all, and neither do His people have to be moved either. Remember that great story that's recorded in Acts chapter 20? The Apostle Paul is there with the elders of the Ephesian church and they're together and he's speaking to them and he says that he's going to Jerusalem And he says that he knows that things will happen there, that the trials and chains and tribulations are ahead for him. He knows that.

That things are not going to go well for him there. But then he says to them, But none of these things move me. None of these things move me. And here you find God the unmoved at peace ruler of the world. And he really, he calls his people into his peace.

He says, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. And this is a picture of God. You know, I had to laugh this week when I heard about a company that was doing an initial public offering. They were raising $15 million to launch a new startup called Worry.com.

Yeah, Worry.com. And it was a technological solution to Worry. It's a cloud-based trouble recognition system. And this worry.com will monitor and calculate what you should really worry about, the things that you can't control. The whole idea is that we spend so much of our time worrying about things we shouldn't worry about.

But there are things that we should worry about. And so taking everything that the web knows about you, your web history, your emails, your reading habits, your GPS, what people say about you out there. All of this is collected up, and it will tell you what you ought to be worrying about. And using this flow of data, the Worry app computes the things that you should worry about. Like are you needlessly wasting time worrying about some random event?

Like you're worrying about being bitten by a brown ray-clu spider. But there aren't any around there. You don't need to worry about that. Because the calculations have computed that you don't need to worry about that at all. Imagine taking everything that the web knows about you and helping you know what you should worry about.

Well of course, I read that on April Fool's Day. So there really is no worry.com. But there's worry.com in almost every person's heart. And there's all these calculations going on. What is this person saying?

What is happening over there? What is this world leader doing? What did Obama just do with my health care? What is happening? And all of these calculations are constantly rolling in our brains.

And we do it almost all day long. We're so self-serving and we've lost a sense of the rest of God and We're scurrying about and running about frenetically frantically as a result of all these calculations Well, that was what was happening with the Ethiopians. And that's your problem and that's my problem. But the Lord is resting. The Lord is resting.

You know, is it possible that just somehow, by some miracle of God's grace, this would be a congregation of people at rest, who truly rest in the Lord, whose confidence is in God alone, whose hopes are all resting on one foundation, the foundation of Jesus Christ. I mean, is it possible that God could do that? I know there are so many hopes that we have in our congregation, and of course we pray that God would lead us to build our hopes in the right direction through His Word. But Perhaps we could be a congregation like that, that hope only in the Lord. I mean, Isaiah has been arguing with us for weeks to hope only in God.

I don't know if you've noticed that. Every week, trust me, I'm sovereign. I control everything. Assyria is my rod. You know, he's mine.

I am doing with him what I want. I am bringing everything to be summed up in Jesus Christ. I am controlling everything. But Anyway, just to say, the Lord is resting while worry.com is running constantly in your brain. And then next we see the Lord is looking.

In verse 4, I will look from my dwelling place." God is looking, God is looking down. His eyes run to and fro. He never sleeps but he is always looking. Psalm 21 says, The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Isaiah 66 says this, But on this one I will look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word.

The Lord looks down upon his people. In Isaiah 11, 4, we learn that his countenance beholds the upright. In Psalm 16, 11, we learn that in his presence is fullness of joy. His presence, his look is so critical. In Exodus 14 we see that the Lord looked down on the armies of Egypt.

In Psalm 35 David says that God sees his enemies. He says, this you have seen. In other words, God sees all of the buzzing. And you can go through Scripture and see how God sees. God is the God who sees.

He sees everything. There's nothing going on in any nation, in any city, in any church, in any family, in any person that God does not see. God sees it all. He's observing you. He knows exactly what's going on in your life.

And He's at rest. He's not disturbed. And then next we see that the Lord is providing, in the last part of verse 4, he is looking like clear heat and sunshine, like a cloud of dew on the harvest. God is looking down like heat and dew. In other words, he's doing something as He's looking down.

He is at rest, but He's doing something. There's heat and dew in time of harvest. In other words, He is providing. The Lord is providing. He's providing what's necessary during all the buzzing that's going on.

And he is preparing the harvest in due time, as he is looking like clear heat and sunshine. Things need heat and sunshine in order to grow. We're experiencing that right now here in the spring. You know, the moment the days get longer, there's more beginning to grow. And the days are going to continue to get longer and more and more is going to grow.

And he is in control of the harvest. He's providing the heat. He's providing the sunshine. He's providing a cloud of dew in the heat of the harvest. He's causing things to grow.

He is making the harvest happen. He's handling the whole business of the ripening for the harvest. He's bringing everything to its right conclusion. He's causing things to grow. He's in the business of ripening for the harvest.

He's ordaining all of these things. Because, you know, God is working. Because God is doing something in the midst of His rest, that should tell us something about our own lives. God is working. God is in control.

But He's not just in control generally. He's in control specifically. He's in control of every single thing that grows in the world. He's in control of every single thought that anybody has. God is in control specifically.

Yeah, yeah, you might, you might be frustrated with your marriage. Guess what? It was God that put you together and He's done it for your own sanctification. God is in control. What troubles do you have?

God gave them to you. They're a gift. And then the Lord is also controlling the pruning and the harvest. Not only does he make it grow, but this next section here in verses 5 and 6, that God is also dealing with the harvest. He says, before the harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he will both cut off the sprigs and pruning hooks and take away and cut down the branches.

They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey and for the beasts of the earth. The birds of prey will summer on them and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them." So God here is controlling the pruning and the harvest. And the image here is Assyria. Assyria is at the apex of its power. It has become the most, the dominant aggressor in the region and everyone is trying to negotiate an alliance for protection either with or from Assyria.

And I think what we see here is that when some power seems so invincible, don't you think it's invincible? Because Assyria is getting ready to be brought down. And it will begin within one night, 185, 000 of their soldiers will die on the battlefield. And Assyria will never return to its former glory after that. It's a blow that begins to tumbling.

But here's the principle. Assyria is at the apex of his power except for God and God will take that power down. And often it is at the time of the greatest power of a threat is when it dies. And this is what is happening here. And God is going to reap the harvest.

He doesn't prune according to the time of pruning. He's actually pruning before the harvest. And God is going to take care of that great threat. And He will prune in His own time. And then He will take the fruit and He'll throw it to the birds.

These carnivorous birds that are going to come and eat them alive. They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey. These are rough and tumble birds and they will eat the prey. This is all about trust. This whole passage is about trust.

Who do you trust? That's why when you turn to 2 Kings 18, and I'd like you to do that real quickly. Turn to 2 Kings 18. Assyria sends a a messenger, the Rabshaka, and he says, Say now to Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this in which you trust? So the Rabshaka is saying, who are you trusting Hezekiah?

Don't trust God. That's the whole message. This is all about trust. Verse 21. Now look, you are trusting in the staff of this broken reed Egypt on which if a man leans it will go into his hand and pierce it.

The Assyrian envoy is saying to Hezekiah, why are you trusting in Egypt? That's the idea. Assyria is saying to Judah, why are you trusting in Egypt? This whole thing is about trust. And then the Rabshaka says, look, if you trust me, I'll give you 2, 000 horses.

But the Rabshaka says, he says this, Don't say that the Lord will deliver you. Don't say that the Lord will deliver you. Don't say that the Lord will deliver you. Do not listen to Hezekiah, lest he persuade you, saying, the Lord will deliver us. This whole thing is about trust.

All of it is about trust. That's the theme. So, not only is the Lord providing, but the Lord, And not only is the Lord controlling and pruning the harvest, the Lord is also worshiped in verse 7. Remember those tall people smooth of skin, terrible from the beginning? In that time, A present shall be brought to the Lord of hosts from the people tall and smooth as skin, and from the people terrible from their beginning onward, a nation powerful and treading." There's a present, there's an offering toward God, toward Zion.

And God takes a terrible people and he humbles them, and they break, and they repent, and they cry for mercy, and they're attracted to God's love, and his kindness leads them to repentance as a result of many things that God has done. And the gifts will be brought to Jerusalem and a terrible people will be saved. And this is the power of the Gospel, that the most terrible people can be saved. Psalm 68 speaks of it. Envoys will come out of Egypt.

Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God. Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God. Ethiopia has been stretching out her hands to destroy other people. Now she stretches her hands out to God. And sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth, oh sing praises to the Lord, Sila." Zephaniah speaks of it as well.

It Says, my dispersed one shall bring my offering. Isaiah 45, 14 says, the merchandise of Ethiopia shall come over to you. Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God. And so Ethiopia takes hold of God's strength. Ethiopia, at least some of the people there, trusted in God and they stopped trusting in their alliances.

And they finally gave up. And they said, only God is worthy of my trust. It's the hand of faith. And she stretched out her hands toward God. I think this is a message of really the exclusivity of the gospel, that God judges all the nations in reference to their embracing the gospel that God gave to Israel.

Notice what's central here is Judah. Worship is central. While all of the buzzing is going on, there's one thing that matters, and that is the worship of God. And everything really does center around it. Judah and her God are the central matter.

Because here's what the Bible teaches, that it is the God of the Hebrews that God uses to declare His glory in the world and to declare salvation. There is salvation in one name, and it's the kingdom of David. It's the kingdom of God that was established by Jesus Christ. That is the only means of salvation. And that really is the message of the Bible.

And right here, you find that message, that there's salvation in no other name except in Zion. You know, we know that the Ethiopians sought the Lord and they came to him. Remember the Ethiopian eunuch? He came to the Lord. There are Ethiopians that are mentioned in different parts in the Bible, and God is kind to rescue a terrible, terrible people.

Okay, let's get to some applications here about this chapter here. I think the first thing that I want to say, and we say it many times, but I'd like to just repeat it, is these things really were written for us. You know, Ethiopia and the Assyrians and all these things were written for us. 1 Corinthians 10 says that these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted and do not become idolaters as were some of them. In other words, that we don't place our hope in anything except the Lord.

Paul says in that same chapter in verse 11, now these things happened to them as examples. They were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." So these things were written in the Old Testament to help us to understand this matter of hoping, hoping and alliances and where we place our trust and how the calculations of our worry.com gene are operating. We see here that God is using the nations of the earth to declare His glory. That's another application.

Don't be deceived about what's going on in the world. God is in control. He's in control of every nation of the world. The USA, the EU, and every other kind of organization that you can name. Don't ever fear.

Don't ever worry about those things. God is in control. There may be things that you should say and do in the midst of the buzzing of the nations, but at least don't worry. God is in control. Also I just want to remind us again of how God saves the terrible.

You know, there's a man who's mentioned in Psalm 7. These are the words of Cush, A benjamite. Oh Lord my God, in you I put my trust. Save me. God saves the terrible.

You know, and I think it's worth just pausing for a moment and asking, how terrible were we? In what ways were we terrible? You know, well the Bible tells us that we were pretty terrible. Like that we had broken all of His laws. If you break one law, you've broken them all.

Like we broke all the laws of God. We were terrible. And we, and you know, people grow up with different kinds of terribleness, don't they? And every person in here had a particular kind of terribleness that became an idol in their life. And those idols just beat them to death.

And those idols are still around. But the truth is, God saves the terrible. And He rescues them from their terribleness. You know, what is the Church of Jesus Christ? It's a bunch of terrible people who have been rescued by the mercies of God.

And you know, I think that that should just... It should help us to at least think two thoughts. One is just to recognize how kind God has been to all of us. And because of His kindness, that it should make us patient with each other. But at the same time, we should recognize that God is rescuing us from our terribleness.

And we still need one another. We need to speak to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts of the Lord and teaching one another, counseling one another, bringing the Word of God to one another, because we're still pretty terrible And we still need help. And God has given us the Church to continue the work of dealing with our terribleness. I also just want to remind us by way of application that because He is still, you can be still. David said, be still in behalf of God.

He said, be still and know that I am God. You know, I don't know what worldly supports anybody is trusting in here today, but I know that we all have worry.com running in the operating system of our brains. And our worries drive us to our supports. And, you know, let's be a people who, that trust in God and trust in God alone. And then finally, just to give thanks for what God has done with the Ethiopians.

You know, God reaches out in all the nations of the earth. God is a missionary God. He reaches out to the terrible of the terrible. And we should do the same. The New Testament includes a story of an Ethiopian, and I want to close our time just reading about this Ethiopian, the Ethiopian eunuch who came to the Lord as a result of a mighty work of God.

In Acts chapter 8 verse 26 we read this, Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. So he arose and went, and behold a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, Go near and overtake this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said, Do you understand what you are reading?

And he said, How can I unless someone guides me?" And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him? The place in the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, And as a lamb before its shearer is silent. So he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation his justice was taken away. And who will declare his generation?

For his life was taken from the earth." So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, Here is water.

What hinders me from being baptized? And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So he commanded the chariot to stand still, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now, when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more.

And he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus, and passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea." What a wonderful story. And it really tells us some of the most important things of our lives. First of all, that we live among a terrible people. And the only hope for a terrible people is the Word of God.

And let's be like Philip, ready to hear the voice of God to run up to the chariot and read the voice of God to those people. That we would be a people like that in this community. I just want to challenge all of us to cry out to God, to hear the voice of God, to run up to the chariot, and to go and speak to the terrible of this world, recognizing that we too are terrible. And then the other thing is, can you say that you believe with all your heart in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you can say that and you've never been baptized, declare your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and join the people of God.

Will you pray with me? Oh Lord, we thank you for giving us a window into this great nation of Ethiopia and all that it teaches us, all that it teaches us about pride and being terrible And yet, by your power, can believe with a whole heart and trust you and be baptized and be brought into the community of Your great kingship. Lord, I thank You that You have shown us the futility of our worries. Thank You, Lord, that You've told us that You are at rest, that You have risen above all the turmoil of our lives. You are in control and you know what you're doing and we can rest.

And now Lord I pray that today you would give all of us a true rest. You've given us this today to learn of rest. Your rest and our rest and the rest of heaven. Now Lord that you would give us such a day of delight and resting in you. Pray that you would deliver all from their fears and give such a compelling vision that there you are in heaven, standing above it all, looking into it all, and having it all under your control.

Amen.