“For my name's sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another" (Isaiah 48:9-11)
"God does everything for God, for his glory." Look at Jonah who got in a boat and went the opposite direction of where God wanted him to go, but God had chosen him for his name sake. Did Jonah's disobedience get in the way of God's glory? Jonah prayed from the belly of a fish, "... you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.... but I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” (Jonah 2). Jonah is in the belly of a fish and he knows it is God who saved him. David speaks in a similar way, God rescued him from the pit. Why did God do this? For his own sake, for his glory.
“Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." (Isaiah 48:9-11)
God is speaking to Israel "You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ears have not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth" (Isaiah 48:8). He had chosen them and consecrated them to be His own, but they were stubborn and stiffed neck people. So for His namesake, God tries them in the furnace of affliction so that His name is not profaned, and His glory is not given to another. Do we see similar language in the new covenant in Christ? The furnace of affliction that brings about God's glory in His chosen?
"In which rejoice if at present it is necessary for a short time sorrowful in various trials so that the proving of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, being proven by fire—may be found to the extent praise and glory and honor in the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Peter writes according to God's great mercy he begot us into a living hope, to an inheritance preserved in heaven for us, in the power of God being guarded through faith for salvation prepared to be revealed. In this, we rejoice in the suffering because of the glory being revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
* He chose us in Christ before he created the world, we have obtained an inheritance, predestined according to the purpose of Him who is accomplishing all things according to His will, to the extent that we the ones hoping in Christ, exist the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:4-5, 11-12).
God chose us a people of His own. Why the furnace of affliction, suffering, and persecution, hardships... why the trials?
"for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." Is this not why there is encouragement in discipline, that we are called sons whom he loves whom he scourges so that we share in his holiness so that his name is not profaned and his glory is not given to another? He chose us in Christ, before he created the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, in love... according to the glory of his grace (Ephesians 1:4-6).
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. (Psalm 139:13)
Before this verse David basically says I can't escape you God, "If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!" (Psalm 139:7-8) David knew God had chosen him, he knew he could not escape his calling, he came to the realization of the soverignty and providence of God, and said, "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139:14-16)
God chose Jonah for a purpose, and for His own name's sake changed Jonah's will to be obedient. David said to be a man after God's heart experienced many trials, "I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him" (Psalm 40:1-3). Imagine Jonah sinking to the bottom of the ocean and being saved, swallowed by a big fish. Imagine David sinking in quicksand but being rescued by the Lord. The sinking was real for David and Jonah but it could be figuratively like a health issue, God is sovereign in it, for his own sake, for his glory.
"Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continual of you." (Psalm 71:6)
Jeremiah writes God spoke this to him, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5) In Isaiah we read, "thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: 'I am the Lord, who made all things...'" (Isaiah 44:24) And let us not forget about what Paul said, who had persecuted Christians and who as a Christian suffered many hardships, "when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace" (Galatians 1:15). Were these special people chosen and set apart by God? Yes, but as Peter writes so are we in Christ (1 Peter 2:9).
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. (Isaiah 60:1)
God does everything for the glory of God. Everything that occurs in your life, especially the furnace of affliction, it is for the glory of God. He is Sovereign in this way, allowing sufferings, affliction, to refine us, so we display his glory. For the chosen he will pass through the furnace of affliction, for his sake, his name will not be profaned and His glory will not be given to another.
beloved... abstain from the desires of the flesh which wage war against your soul, having honorable conduct among the peoples so that in which slandering you as evildoers from observing your good works glorify God in the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:11-12)
Fight for My glory, I hear God saying. God has chosen us to be the praise of His glory. Things are against us, we live in a body in which sin dwells and evil is near using the passions and desires of the flesh to war against our soul. Our enemy desires the glory that belongs to God. He appeals to people even within the church to turn from the glory of God to seek their own glory (John 5:44). Jonah said he forsook the steadfast love of God for vain idols (Jonah 2:8). The devil tries to counteract God's purposes, working against the transforming work of Christ that is restoring men to His glory. The devil corrupted the image God created man in and he desires nothing more to corrupt the purpose of growth in the church, so that we are kept children tossed to and fro in deceitful scheming, so we do not grow up into the fullness of Christ reflecting the image of Christ, God's glory. One day there will be a fullness of God's glory.
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Habakkuk 2:14)
We are called to glory and we must fight for glory. To fight for glory is to look through the suffering at the joy placed before us. The fight for glory is so that His name may not be profaned and His glory is not given to another. "The two great issues of the Bible are how the soul of man might not be destroyed and how the glory of God might not be belittled."* The fight for glory is the fight for the soul of the believer, whom God has predestined to be transformed from glory to glory.
