“For my own name’s sake, I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise, I hold it back from you, so as not to cut you off. See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.” (Isaiah 48:9–11, NIV 1984).
My Musings – This was God’s words to Judah. He delayed and held back His wrath. Not for the sake of Judah. The die had already been cast for them. So, the time came when He could no longer allow Himself to be defamed by His chosen people. They fell to the Babylonians into the “furnace of affliction.” But the Babylonians were an arrogant empire They boasted “I will continue forever— the eternal queen!” (Isaiah 47:7, NIV 1984). So, as to “not yield [His] glory to another,” they fell to the Persians “in a moment, on a single day,” (Isaiah 47:9, NIV 1984).
God also has words for us today. A future “Babylon” will arise led by the anti-Christ. “All inhabitants of the earth will worship [this] beast,”(Revelation 13:8, NIV 1984). As it was in the ancient past, “[He is saying] in [his] heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'” (Isaiah 14:13–14, NIV 1984). But “I [AM] will not yield [His] glory to [I will].”
The “furnace of affliction” in those days “will be [a time of] great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” (Matthew 24:21-22, NIV 1984). Yet out of this “Great Tribulation” will come “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” (Revelation 7:9, 14, NIV 1984).
My Advice – In the meantime, He is delaying and holding back His wrath. But one day God will say, “there will be no more delay! The mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.” (Revelation 10:6–7, NIV 1984). In light of this, “for [their] own sake,” there is no sense for anyone to delay or hold back in accepting Christ, “ so as not to cut [them] off.”
The Brew Is A Musing 