I want to take my text this morning from Isaiah 48 verse 9, the text in which we all read together aloud in unison, and the first four words of verse 9, for my name's sake. That's my title this morning. Chapter 48 brings us to An end to the first section of chapters 40 through 66, these first eight chapters beginning in 40, God has declared His supremacy over the idols of the world, over Babylon for which Israel is headed as the judgment of God. He has declared that He knows and declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times of the things that are not yet done. We've seen many ways in which God has contrasted Himself with the gods that are no gods and His absolute sovereign control and sway over history to the point when He declares something, it comes infallibly to pass, just as He said. He has declared the name of the deliverer, Cyrus of the Persian Empire, who was not yet alive or born. He would raise them up, He would do all His pleasure on Babylon, He would deliver the Jews from captivity who were not yet in. And God would declare His greatness throughout these first eight chapters. In contrast, Israel is still stubborn, obstinate, stiff-necked. and they will remain so for into the years of the captivity until the remnant returns, we'll see a change. Yet God in this last pivotal chapter in this first section before He goes into more about the servant that is to come, the Messiah, we see in chapter 49 and on, He's mentioned Him in 42, now more specifically God will reveal another servant who will do what His servant Israel could not and did not do. And in this transition, God once again summarizes His character, His nature, we see in verses 9 through 11, and His purpose of redemption which we will note and look at this morning. So the three questions we want to ask about these three verses, 9 through 11, why is God angry? He declares that He is. Now for some people that requires an additional category in their thinking because we have grown up in a culture where everybody sings from youth, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, but nobody sings, Ah can my God His wrath forbear. Not many people sing, If God should cast my soul in hell, His righteous law approves it well. You don't hear many of those songs in contemporary Christianity today. But if we cannot sing about the wrath of God and talk about the wrath of God, we cannot know the love of God. There is no contradiction in the two. And I hope we'll see that in these texts. So he says, for my name's sake, I will defer my anger. A deferment is like a deferred payment. It's sort of hanging there, it's lengthened. If you get a deferred payment on your first payment in the mortgage, it doesn't go away, it's not resolved, it's got to be paid in the future. So God is angry, why? And what is He going to do with it? It's just deferred. Payment is deferred. Second question. How does God make sure that His glory and His name is no longer polluted? So he says in verse 11, for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it? because how shall my name be polluted? I will not give my glory to another." The word for tells us that whatever the antecedent to it is, I will do it, whatever that it is, he's going to do it because he will not allow his name to be profaned and defiled and he will not give that which is his to somebody else. How is he going to do that? What's he going to do to overcome this with Israel and with you? And then the third question, what then does God do in place of His anger? Whatever He does with it, whatever He does to overcome it in these verses, now what? What does He do now that takes place or after that takes place? So the first question, why is God so angry? And yes, I say so angry. because he's furious, Nahum 1.5. Now that's God's words and not mine. The Lord is furious as an expression of the degree of His anger. So we can't whitewash this and sort of make it look different than what God says it is. And so why is He angry? There's two reasons He's angry. The first reason is because of God's zeal for His name. By zeal, I mean His determination, His devotion, His allegiance, His commitment, His pledge, His passion, and yes, His jealousy. over his name. Moses told the children of Israel on a number of occasions that their God was a jealous God. The first time in Exodus 20 verse 5, you shall not bow down and serve them, graven images, for the Lord thy God is a jealous God. And then he tells what he does in his jealousy and the rest of those commandments. Exodus 34, 14, and in every context that God is jealous is mentioned, it's always in relation to graven images and false gods. You shall not worship any other god, Exodus 34, 14, for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. What that means is that everything you can look at in the Bible about the name of God, every facet of God's name, He is jealous over that. Is God gracious? He's jealous over it. Is God long-suffering? He is jealous over it because His name, capital J, X is 3414, is jealous. And so, whatever is embraced in the name of God, He is devoted, committed, passionate, angry as it relates to that name. And then in Deuteronomy chapter 4, again, you shall not serve or worship other gods, for our God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. Now we have a picture, if you will. If we want to say, what does it look like for God to be jealous? Think of an incinerator. An incinerator is a place where you put material and the whole purpose of an incinerator is to burn it to ash. It's like a forest fire that's consuming everything in its wake and it leaves nothing behind. It's like the oven of Malachi 4.1 where God Himself says He will be an oven to stubble, which is chaff and dry straw. Have you ever lit dry straw? gone, nothing there. He will neither live root or branch. You may have read or know that whenever there is a forest fire and it wipes out pine trees, the pine cone, when it's really heated up, opens up and the seeds are dispersed and it's God's way of replanting the forest. Not in this kind of fire. The pine cones are consumed, the seeds are consumed, the root, the branch, everything gone. as an expression of God's devotion over His name. So we might define jealousy like this because there is the jealousy of Genesis where Joseph's brothers were jealous and that was not good, that was sinful. But God's jealousy is not sinful. So the jealousy of God could be defined like this, or His zeal for His name, it's God's protective or protection and diligence over that which is His exclusive right and possession. What is God's right? We hear an awful lot about man's rights. What is God's right and what does He own as His own possession? Six times in our text, six times, for my name's sake, for my praise. For my own sake, even for my own sake, how shall my name be polluted? I will not give my glory to another." Six times God is going to express His zeal over His name and His right and possession to have it because if He will not give it away, the implication is what? He owns it. It's His right. He will not allow a human being anywhere to give His glory to another because it is His exclusive right. As Creator, as Savior, and in every way God has made Himself known, He is zealous and jealous over His glory. Now you can see here that God is not as centered on man as we think He is. In a culture, again, where the only verse that we seem to know is for God's love of the world, we see that God loves His glory. How much does He love it? He's a consuming fire. It's very important. Israel's foundation, if God is not going to cut them off, it is because of this foundation of God's zeal for His name, six times. It's not Israel at the center. Israel as a reflection of the center or maybe off-center, God, you can see here, He is at the center of what He's saying here. The second reason He's angry is not just over His name, but because precisely Israel has given His glory away. They've done it. They're guilty. So when he says, how shall my name be polluted? I will not give my glory to another. He is referring to his anger that's deferred. It is refrained for Israel who's given it away, just gave it away. So we need to explore a few moments asking the question, why is God angry? That leads us into what now? Deferment, refraining, where is the resolution of it? We ask, what specifically has Israel done? Verse 1 of chapter 48, put your eyes on that. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, the line of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth. nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city and stay themselves," which means they lean themselves or they say that they lean themselves, upon the God of Israel, the Lord of hosts, is His name. To say something and to swear by God's name, not in truth means not in the heart, not in reality, it's not genuine. And to say and call yourselves by the name of God an appellation, meaning God is our God, but not in righteousness means not for the glory of His name, verses 9 through 11. That's what God's saying. Okay? To swear by the name of God is not a sinful thing because God in Deuteronomy 6.13 commanded that Israel do it. Moses wrote, you shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve Him and you shall swear by His name. The swearing by God's name is like taking an oath of allegiance. It's like the oath of office the president does when he puts his hand on the Bible and he solemnly swears. that to the best of his ability, he will preserve, protect the Constitution. He will abide by the Constitution and he will be faithful to the people of America by the Constitution. He's giving an oath, he is affirming and swearing that he will abide by the Constitution. When Israel was to swear by God, they were making a commitment that their worship would be committed to God only and to no other gods. They would serve no other gods. And, of course, that's precisely what Israel has done. They have served other gods from the womb of Egypt all the way to the very day of this writing, time and time again Israel was swearing by the name of God, mentioning the name of God, calling themselves the holy city, saying they were staying on God, but not in truth. Something was out of sync with the heart and not in righteousness, which then means it wasn't for the glory and the honor of the name that we see in verses 9 through 11. Now, turn to Jeremiah and we'll see a little more closely what that means, to swear falsely or to swear by God's name, yet not in truth or in righteousness. Jeremiah is writing to the same group of people. after Isaiah, Jeremiah is going to be around when the captivity happens. And so Jeremiah is giving a last appeal to the people of Judah before they are ultimately taken away by Babylon. And so God, writing through Jeremiah, says this in chapter 5 verse 1, if you have your Bibles, put your eyes on that text. Jeremiah 5 verse 1. Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see, now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man, one man, if there be any that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth, and I will pardon it. And though they say, the Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely, O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth?" Now verse 2 is a point of clarification for verse 1. It's as if God's saying, look, go through Jerusalem and look at every avenue, every broad street, every narrow street, every alley, every... place where you could walk to and fro, and if you can find one man that seeks the truth, bring him back and I'll pardon. Point of clarification, they're going to say something but it's going to be false. Because you can imagine the person coming back and saying, Lord, I found a lot of people that know truth, that can recite truth, and that can say true things. God says, point of clarification, though they say, though they know, because who in Jerusalem doesn't know things about God? Who in Jerusalem cannot recite from their youth up something about the law, about the dietary laws, about the sacrifices, about the priest, about what goes on in Jerusalem? It is the holy city. Surely they are, God says, though they say. You're going to find a lot of people that will say, the Lord liveth but surely they swear falsely." Now, verse 3 is God saying, by question, form of a question, my eyes are upon the truth. In other words, seeking the truth is more than saying it, reciting it, knowing it. God says, I'm looking in the truth of the heart. I'm looking for the truth seeker that's not just saying, but something is resonant in the heart. And we know that even Jesus in John 4, talking to the woman at the well, told her that the hour has come when God is seeking those to worship Him in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. So God says, go see if you can find a man seeking the truth, and God Himself is seeking people that worship Him in spirit and truth, inside and outside. And so, continuing in chapter 5, they refuse, they're not grieved, they don't listen. God says, surely these people are poor in verse 4. So in verse 5 He says, I'll go to the leaders of Jerusalem. Surely, you know, that's how we think, well if these poor people down in the rank and file don't know it, well surely the leaders will know it. And there He couldn't find anyone seeking truth. So here's the result in verse 7, how shall I pardon thee for this? Thy children have forsaken me and sworn by them that are no gods when I had sworn by them. Now if your eyes are down on the text, you don't see what I just said. In fact, if you have your Bible, please put your eyes on the text. It actually says... They have sworn by other gods when I had fed them to the full." Now the English expression, fed to the full, is the same Hebrew word as verse 2, swear. It's the same Hebrew word as Isaiah 41.8.1, swear. So God is saying this, you swore allegiance to me and I swore allegiance to you. And that means I will supply, I will be your God, I will feed you to the full. What did you do? Verse 7, they then committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses. Like a woman who treacherously leaves her husband for other lovers, and like men who treacherously leave their wives for harlots, they were dissatisfied with the menu of God and the food and the beverage on that menu which was the supremacy of God and His name. And so Israel's sin is they didn't like. what God was doing, they didn't like the name of God and they would rather exchange the glory of God and forsake Him as contextually larger in Jeremiah 2, and dig their own broken wells and fill it with their water and drink to the full while they didn't mind God giving them Canaan and all the wheat and barley of that land, they were not interested in the true and living God for which God is furious. Why? Because it is the right of God, it is the praise of God, it is God's possession not only to glorify Him in word, but in heart. We find that Jesus rebukes the Pharisees who in a way He was saying they were swearing falsely. They were wearing the garb of religion, they were going about talking about the Law, they even searched the Scriptures, Jesus said in John chapter 5, but in Matthew 23 He says, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, for you may clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but inwardly You're full of excess, extortion and excess, extortion, plunder, pillaging, greed, excess, a lack of self-restraint, which is self-indulgence. Oh, we swear by the true and living God. Yes, God is our God, but inside, what was the truth? They wanted nothing to do with God and that's why they rejected Jesus. They wanted their own gods. They worshipped their own gods. And so it wasn't true and it wasn't right. Paul would speak about this to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3 when he would say, when perilous times shall come in the last days, and he gives a list of sins. Then he would conclude by saying that men shall be lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God. Having the form of godliness... but denying the power thereof." They had the formula, the form, the shell of godliness. In other words, they were saying things, they had an external kind of reality about godliness, but inwardly they didn't have the power of it. What is the power of godliness? It is when we love God and we have pleasure in the love of God over a thousand pleasures beside. for which in the last days when there shall be a forsaking of the faith, it'll be because people love pleasures in the world." I don't care what it is, food, entertainment, that's what they love over God. Paul says, turn away from them. They're not truly godly people. They're swearing an allegiance, but inwardly it's not true and it's not righteous. Now if God were to search the streets of Huntsville and He came to your house, what would He find? Would He find people that are swearing by His name an oath of allegiance, a commitment to follow Jesus as marked by their baptism and their public profession of faith in Him? But it's just not true. It's not right because inwardly would He find a people in our culture that are pursuing the pleasures of a fallen world and have forgotten and forsaken the true and living God and the true pleasure of His grace and His mercy and His character. Now if you look back at our text, Isaiah 48, you're going to see how entrenched Israel was in this. I mean, they're entrenched in it because in verse Four, he says, I knew that you were obstinate and your neck was like an iron tendon. You know, the tendons help the joints move. If the tendons or the muscles in your neck are iron, you don't move. Immovable. That's how entrenched. Not only that, your brow was like brass. Your forehead and your brows, brass doesn't move. It's not permeable. You can't stretch it and move it. So, Israel is so entrenched with their false gods that their stiff neck, stubborn, brow is brass and their neck is like iron, and they've been that way. How long have they been that way? Verse 8, "'Yea, you heard not, yes, you knew not, yes, from that time thine ear was not open.'" Now God is declaring things quickly, early on here, because He knows the stiff-necked people are going to say, hey, it was our gods that did that. He said, no, I'm going to act so decisively with Cyrus and what I'm saying through this prophecy, there's no way you can say that. You'll probably say it anyway. Why? Because your ear wasn't opened and I knew that you would deal very treacherously and you were called a transgressor from the womb. How long have they been doing it? From the womb of Egypt. to this day, this writing. Beloved, do you know that you came out of the womb as a lawbreaker? I don't get that. The children haven't even done any good or evil, the Bible says. In the womb you don't do anything. But because of your fallen parent, Adam, you don't move from keeping the law to lawbreaker, you are conceived as a lawbreaker because the sin of Adam is imputed to your soul and you're not good, you're not right. And if you ever mention the name of God apart from His grace when you come out of the womb, It won't be true and it won't be right because your life will be a complete exchange for the glory of God, for the idols of your own choice. Until such time, the grace of God arrests the soul of His people and brings them to the place of knowing, seeing, ears open to the music of heaven, eyes open to the glories of heaven, and heart opened to know the glorious God. So that's why God is angry over His name, over Israel, because they've given away His glory. So the question is, beloved, is God angry with you today? Well, we need to talk further to answer that question rightly. That's a good question to ask. Some people would dare never ask the question because they think God would never be angry with me. Is He angry? with you." So let's look further at our text. How then does God overcome this? Because He says He will do it. He's going to do something to overcome His anger and the rebellion and the stiff-necked and the stiff-heartedness of Israel. So let's read again in verse 11. For my own sake, even for my own sake will I do it. The antecedent is to defer and to refrain. And also in verse 10, to refine, which we'll look at later. So why is he going to do this? For his own sake, even for mine own sake will I do it, for how should my name be polluted? Which the answer is that it's not going to continue. There's going to be a resolution to this. How is God going to resolve this? Well, I think God purposely does everything on purpose. The word polluted gives us the answer. It can be defined as to defame, defile, and profane. And the way we find that God is going to resolve His anger and overcome the pollutions of sin against His name is that He Himself will become polluted. Isaiah 53 verse 5, He was wounded, He was polluted, He was profaned. It's the same Hebrew word. It's the same Hebrew word. You've polluted the name of God. The Messiah will come and He will be wounded, pierced for your pollutions because the iniquity of God's people will be like a pollution flooding His soul and His body. He will bear it on the cross, the pollutions of the sins of His people, and He will be pierced, wounded, crucified. He will die the death of deaths on behalf of the pollutions owing to our sin that will be charged to Him." Now that is what Paul means in Romans 3.25 which I think he's alluding to this very text of deferring God's anger and refraining it because that's not a resolution. The resolution is the cross. That's where it's actually poured out. Listen to Paul in Romans 3.25, whom He has set forth, God has set forth Christ. the Messiah of Isaiah 53, to be a propitiation by faith in His blood, which means the propitiation is by the blood, it's received by faith. Propitiation means to atone or to appease. How did this happen? It was by blood that God was appeased. Then Paul says, to declare his righteousness for the remissions of sins that are past. Remission and forbearance means to tolerate and kind of pass over. All right. What is Paul saying? He's saying the refrain and the deferment of Isaiah 48 and 9 was not God saying, it doesn't matter, I'm okay with you just going on and on and on from your birth all the way to the end defaming My name. He's saying the propitiation answers the resolution of His restraint. He's just restraining himself, like his rat just wants to break forth and he says, okay, I'll just restrain, I'll just pack it all in and keep it inside. You know, God doesn't even tell us to do that, does He? Ephesians chapter 4, be angry and sin not, don't let the sun go down upon your rat, don't keep it in. Now some of us interpret that to mean, oh, you mean I just get to explode on people? No. be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." What do you do with your wrath? You take it to the cross and you forgive. What did God do with His wrath? He exploded it on the cross. So our pattern of forgiveness is from Jesus. We don't explode on people. God didn't explode on people yet. He will for those that are not in Christ. But His wrath was appeased. It was satisfied. And now the cross declares that Isaiah 48 verse 9 is not just a deferment forever. It's not just God restraining His anger and He's going to do that for eternity. It was restrained. It was deferred until payment was made at the cross. Debt paid, God satisfied, the question is, are you satisfied? If not, God's angry with you. His wrath is hovering over the unbeliever. If you're an unbeliever this morning, you haven't embraced the cross. From the authority of God's Word, he's angry and he will remain so until deferment of payment will be made, either in Jesus or you've got to make that payment, beloved. You've got to make it. I can only tell you that because that's what God says. His wrath is abiding on the unbeliever. for which time when a person comes to faith by the grace of God, we find the cloud's darkness of wrath breaking forth and we learn that His wrath was appeased for me in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the glorious message of the cross that we even see right here in Isaiah 48, looking forward to that coming servant where God would then be propitiated, He would be appeased, He would be satisfied. Now, for the believer, beloved, the answer is that God is no longer angry with you. He will never, ever be angry with you. Now, He can be displeased with you. He is displeased with our sin, but there's a difference in God being wrathful towards you and displeased as a father. There's a difference in God pouring out wrath on a person and chasing them as a loving father because He's displeased with their sin. God will never again be wrathful because His anger has been appeased by Christ. That means we need to change our view toward God, our Father, when He deals with us because of our sin. Does He do so? Yes. Why does He do so? Out of love and mercy. And that's important to know because the foundation for Israel not being cut off, I will refrain for thee that I cut thee not off is the covenant of grace that God has made with individuals, which brings us to the second reason of how God will recover His glory because you may say, So Jesus died and I believe, but does that mean we just keep on going and sin? Look at Ezekiel chapter 36 and we see the second thing God has done to ensure that the pollutions of actual idolatry in the heart are overcome, Ezekiel 36. So there's the death of Christ and uniting us to Him by faith. But now God says, I'm going to do something else so that my name won't just continue to be polluted in the same way it was. I'm going to give a new heart. Now God's going to bring it personal to the individual. Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel is actually part of the captivity, he's in the captivity when he's writing. He would say in verse 22 of God speaking through Ezekiel of chapter 36, therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus sayeth the Lord God, I do not this for your sakes, notice the similarity, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned, polluted among the brethren, or heathen, whether ye went. And I will sanctify my great name which was profaned or polluted among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them, and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when...when are they going to know that? When I shall be sanctified in you in front of their eyes. See, God's going to do something additional. He's going to bring the cross to bear on individual people so that then all this profaning and this polluting of His name, there's going to be a transformation and now God will be seen as a separate hallowed God when the heathen and the people of the world see Now let me just give you a New Testament text where Jesus says this, Matthew 5, 16, let your light so shine that others may see your good works and hallow or glorify your Father which is in heaven. Now that's a New Testament parallel to Ezekiel 36. God will be glorified when the world sees your light shining in you by means of good works. So that's for us today, that's not just an Old Testament issue, it's something we're to do today and that's stated and restated many times in the New Testament. Now what's God going to do to ensure this because it's just not happening? I mean they're stubborn, obstinate, stiff-necked and a brow like brass. Verse 24, for I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all the countries and will bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. There's the problem. God is going to take decisive steps to overcome the pollutions of His name owing to Israel's idols. Clean water is a symbol of purification. So God, when Israel didn't get back, He didn't start shaking holy water on everybody. This is a symbol of purity. How is this going to happen, God? Verse 26, a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart, brass, iron, stiff-necked, stubborn, obstinate. Here's the grace of God. I'm going to take it out and I'm going to put in a heart of flesh, soft, compliant, humble, no longer as resistant as, meaning still sinners, broken, And then what's God going to do? And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. Now, don't get tripped up over the word cause, it's not mechanical or a forcing kind of cause, like a parent says, I'm going to cause you to clean your room and take steps and it's all external and not internal. No, the cause here is influence. God is going to decisively influence people so that they no longer 24-7 give His glory, His right and His possession of His praise to other people. Can it still happen? But will it happen like it did? Certainly not, because the grace of God that brings salvation will overcome a stiff-hearted, hard-heartedness and give a heart that is like flesh malleable, compliant, yielding. He will bring us to the foot of the cross and to His mercy seat where we bow in submission to the God of glory. In Hebrews chapter 10, the writer of Hebrews said the Holy Spirit was witnessing that to us in the covenant of grace with these words, speaking of the Messiah, He hath perfected forever them that are being sanctified. In other words, what is God going to do to overcome this rebellion? He's going to perfect by one sacrifice, that's the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then He's going to sanctify them, give them a new heart and then work in their lives. Whereof the Holy Ghost has witnessed to us by these words, saying, I will write my laws in their hearts and their minds and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people and I will remember their sins and iniquities no more. perfected forever, I will remember their sins and iniquities no more, are being sanctified, that's why I gave them a new heart. That's why I wrote the laws in their heart and mind, so that this external command which is killing people, I hate that command, I don't want to do that, becomes an internal delight. Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I want to pursue Jesus. Has that happened to you? Or just external, I'm just swearing by the name of God, I don't know why. I mean, my parents told me to, or my wife or my husband. Just Christianity in the South, but it's not in truth or it's not in righteousness. External, what does God do? He comes and He gives a new heart and He puts it inside so that now, when God says, love me, you say, oh man, I love you. It wasn't there before. And now there is a movement a divine influence in the life that now is struggling, walking, pressing toward the mark. So God has done both things. Beloved, has He done that in your life? Have you come to the place of faith and repentance? That's the first question. Has that happened in your life? And God is doing it. Are you still walking the pathway of discipleship of the Lord Jesus Christ through self-denial and following Jesus? Are you just swearing, but it's not true, it's not right? Oh, look to Christ and His pardoning grace and embrace Him. and give fruit to the fact that God has given you a new heart to love and to desire and to delight. Not easy, struggle, but yet in the heart I want to follow and love Jesus more. And then lastly, in chapter 48, what now? What does God do in place of that wrath? We've seen He's wrathful because of His anger and they're giving His glory to another. Jesus is wounded for our transgressions, our idolatry and all our sin and now God gives a new heart so that now we're moving in a different direction. Remember, there are many nominal Christians in the world. The fire will determine and reveal it when God heats it up. But the genuine Christian has a love for Jesus and wants to follow as a sheep for which Jesus said, they follow me. That's what they do. So what does God do now? Well, now He refines. Verse 10, behold I have refined thee but not with silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. Now the phrase not with silver is complicated, which means this, it's hard to understand what that means. I mean everywhere else in the Bible it says with silver, but now God says, hey, I'm not doing this with silver. And if you read the expositors, there's about ten different ways to look at it, which just kind of gets confusing. So, I'm going to shut my door on this interpretation, but I've got a crack in the door, which means I could change on it. You know, sometimes we have to do that with text in the Bible. I'm shutting my door, but I'm stopping halfway because I'm not that certain to slam it. Some things I am, but this one, I got it open and if I get more light from God, then we're going to open it and reclose it, okay? So let's think about what he means not with silver. I have refined thee, speaks of the past. God began to refine Israel from the beginning. They came out of Egypt. He brought them to bitter waters. Moses threw a tree in it. It became sweet. God said, I proved them there. I tested them. I refined them. That's what I was doing. Then in Exodus 17, they came to the waters of Meribah. Again, God proved them there. And then for 40 years, Deuteronomy 8.3 says, I proved them, I tested them, I fed them with manna, I humbled them to see whether they would... keep my commandments or no, and to know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live." So he's prisoned for 40 years. And then in Judges 2 and 3, he left nations in Canaan. He did not allow Israel to totally wipe out all the nations to test Israel. Get that. God told him, wipe them out, but they didn't because God had ordained by His providence to leave a few because that was going to be an extreme test. Well, that went on through judges. And then God sent prophets rising up early and often, which Jeremiah 6 says, that was a test, a different kind of test. Now, from the beginning out of the womb of Egypt to this very day, We have all the elements of refinery. We've got the founder, which is God, I have refined. We've got the furnace, which is the location of where it takes place where you refine silver. We've got the fire and the flux. The fire is the testing, the affliction. The flux is like the lead, which is to separate the silver from the alloy, the mixture, the stuff that's not good. But the problem is not with silver. And I think from the context, that means there's no silver there. It didn't work. Years and years and years, God is refraining, He's deferring His anger, and He's refining, but not with silver. Jeremiah 6 says, the bellows are burned, the instrument that blows the air on the fire to regulate the temperature, the bellows are burned, the lead is consumed, here comes the flux, and what's supposed to happen, the founder melts and there's separation, but the founder melteth in vain, and the wicked are not plucked away. There's no separation. There's no silver. Either it's so connected that when it's melted it all just flows away, that there's nothing good there. I have refined thee but not with silver, but now know what God says, I have chosen thee in a furnace of affliction. The affliction of Babylon is going to do its work. God is going to place the silver of a new heart represented by the remnant. The remnant represents the people of God, the true people of God. And what's going to happen? It's going to take. And now the refinery is going to take, because when God puts silver in the heart, now He has something to work with by His grace. Now you think about in your own life, how many of you came to the place of faith when God in His providence brought you to a crisis? Not everybody, like Israel. I mean, they're stubborn, they're obstinate, He brings them to an ultimate crisis, and in that crisis, He awakens them, He opens the ear, and now they're silver. I've talked to people like that. Again, it's not everybody. God often uses His providence to bring a crisis and in that crisis, when He's bearing on the conscience, He awakens the soul and they're brought to faith. So that's the imagery we have here. And now God in this chosen furnace, which is Babylon, hasn't worked, there's no silver, but now the silver comes. And what does God do? In place of anger, He refines. And beloved, He refines us today. Let me close with three or four ways you can know you're experiencing the refining fire of God which is not intended like a consuming fire. That's a huge difference. A consuming fire is where God is just being wrathful and He's going to pour out His wrath on people. But a refining fire is never a place of wrath, ever. It's a place of mercy and love. Even Jeremiah would look back on the destruction of Jerusalem in Lamentations 3 and say, This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. It is that the Lord's mercies were not consumed. I mean, if you look, it says it's over, it's gone. But he knew the covenant promise. His compassions fail not. His mercies are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness to what? Israel? Secondly, Verses 9 through 11, for my name's sake, for my praise, for my own sake, for my own sake, my name shall not be polluted and not be my glory to another. He's faithful to His name and therefore the foundation for the church today is God's covenant keeping faithfulness to His name. And so He won't allow you to go back into idolatry and just live there. He will not allow it. He'll come as fire, a fire of correction, a fire of training, a fire that we need to know and experience. So here's the first way, verse 17, Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way thou shouldest go, O that thou had listened, hearkened to my commandments. And when you're experiencing God in the refiner's fire, you know you're experiencing it when you're trusting God's lead in the fire. I am the God that teaches you to profit. I am the God that leads you in the way that you should go. And I've led you right in to the furnace of affliction. What's your response to that? Do you trust His wisdom or would you rather follow your own? Do you think God has a superb teaching ability that He knows when, how, where? as He did with Israel, He wasn't saying, you know, if I had done this earlier, maybe I've gotten better results all those years. No, He knew exactly when the furnace was right to bring about the result. So to experience God as the refiner's fire, we need to trust Him when we're in the fire that He's the teacher, He knows how to bring about profit or gain or growth, and that He will lead us in the way that we should go. Say, you know, the waters outside, the boat that's on fire, those are the waters of judgment that are just starting to boil and it doesn't look like they're really hot. It looks very cool out there in the world. But they're starting to simmer. And God is long-suffering and His wrath is abating at the moment. and underneath they're starting to boil and ripen. Oh beloved, don't jump out of the boat that's on fire to get into the water of judgment because it looks cooler. Stay with God. Now that may mean many different things according to the Word, but the first thing you need to do to experience the fire is stay there and know that He's teaching, He's leading, even when you don't understand where it's going. Flee idolatry, not God. Verse 20, go ye forth to Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans. Who's going to do that? The ones that have silver in the heart, at least symbolically. I'm not saying every Israelite that came back was true Israelite in spirit, but they represented, the remnant represents the true Christian. So who went? Who went? They fled Babylon which is often a picture of the world and a picture of their idolatry. So flee idolatry, not God, because that's what God is doing in the fire. He's revealing the idols of the heart for which we all have. And so He's still ensuring that His name is not being polluted by revealing to us the pollutions that we take on, the dirt that we gather so that we can be washed, be cleansed in a way of repentance. So 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13, there is no temptation overtaking you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will with the temptation provide a way of escape. Therefore, flee idolatry. Do you see the connection? Because God is with you in the fire, because He's aiming for your good in the fire, because He is helping you to bear it and to stay in the fire so that there will be a way of escape Flee idolatry. Don't flee God. Flee Babylon. Flee the Chaldeans. Number three, flee with a voice of singing. Declare ye, tell this, utter it, even to the end of the earth. Say, the Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. Praise God in the fire, which is here seen. You say, now there, you know, I was tracking with you, but now you've just gone too far. Really? Acts chapter 16. Two men with backs bleeding had been beaten profusely, and at midnight they sang praises to God. That was a fire. And you know what? The prisoners heard it. Look at the text again. Sing, declare it, tell it, utter it, even to the end of the earth. Say, the Lord hath redeemed His servant Jacob. If God is acting for the praise of His name, then in the fire He's aiming for His own praise in doing you good. Was not Paul and Silas declaring it, uttering it, and saying the Lord hath redeemed us? How? They sang. They sang and they gave thanks. Can you give thanks in your fire? That's what God demands in everything, give thanks. The pain of it, the fire is a symbol of pain, discomfort and affliction. It is not to be denied. God expects you to thank Him, praise, don't misunderstand, praise and worship, but people have this idea that you go into church, raise hands and praise and worship. That's not what the word means here. Paul wasn't doing that. He's hurting. Maybe he's leaning over when he's singing. But in the heart, he's thanking God because he knows the covenant faithfulness of God that this is not for his demise. It was for his good. and they thirsted not when He led them through the deserts, He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them, He claved the rocks also and the waters gushed out." Now there's no historical evidence that that happened when they left Babylon. It did, Egypt, in the wilderness, claved the rocks, water came out. But what God is alluding to here is like the Egyptian exodus, this redemption you will have no wants. If you thirst not, that means you have what you need, nothing lacking. James says, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations, which is the refiner's fire. When you meet with all kinds of trials, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting, lacking nothing. The Lord, you thirst not. Now that's a spiritual term. That doesn't mean you're never going to... not have any physical needs, are you always going to have plenty of food, plenty of everything? No, it's a spiritual thing. If God is reclaiming His glory in the pollutions owing to His name for a people who thirsted for everything but God, how will God restore? What will God do in its place? He will refine in such a way that He's aiming for your complete maturity spiritually so that you find that in God you lack nothing. Now you and I sometimes complain, which expresses that we lack, but who is going to know God and see what God says and His promises and say, you know, God is really... He's just shortchanging me. He's like what Eve said, right, or what she believed. Yeah, God said, you know, but if you eat this, you're going to gain something that God is withholding. That's a lie. That's deception. And in the fire, God is teaching us to know more about our completeness in Jesus Christ. Are you complete in Him? Do you trust Him? Will you follow Jesus today? Let's pray.