The most stupendous and overwhelming subject for human
study is the Godhead. The contemplation of the Divine
perfections is in some measure unbalanced. The prodiwill warm the very cockles of the heart, provided,
of course, that we are His children, born of His Spirit. God is a
perfectly balanced person. All His attributes work
harmoniously to the praise of His glory. Every man of us by
reason of sin gal is
typical of all of us by nature, and he had to come to himself
before he would say, “I will arise and go to my father” (Luke
15:18). Sin is a form of insanity; in conversion we get a sound
mind. “Then they went out to see what was done; and came to
Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were
departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right
mind: and they were afraid” (Luke 8:35). All of God’s attributes
are perfectly blended and go to make Him the great and
glorious Being He is and ever shall be. God is so great that
we can study only one perfection or attribute at a time.
God cannot be found by searching. You may sail the
unclouded sky and soar to the greatest heights and yet not
find God: “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and
the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth
out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a
tent to dwell in” (Isa. 40:22). You may sail upon all the seas
and circle the globe without finding Him. You may study bugs
and flowers and still be ignorant of the God who made them.
You may take samples of His works into the laboratory and
study them without coming to know Him, Whom to know is life
eternal. God cannot be discovered by the physical senses.
All of God’s works give witness to His existence, but they have
nothing to say about His character or moral perfections. His
works tell us that He is, but do not tell us what He is. God, in
His character, can only be found where He has revealed
Himself, and this is in His word, the Bible. “The heavens
declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his
handywork” (Ps. 19:1), but they give no testimony about Him
as moral Lawgiver. In the study of what the Bible has to say
about God, we find that the attribute of patience or
longsuffering belongs to His very nature. “But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith” (Gal. 5:22).
GOD REVEALED HIMSELF TO MOSES
When God gave Moses the tables of the law the second time,
He came down and stood with him on the mount and
proclaimed His Name, that is, He described His character in
moral government. And this is what God said to Moses: “And
the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD,
The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and
abundant in goodness and truth” (Ex. 34:6). God did not
reveal Himself in any physical features, but in His perfections
as a Spirit. And when Israel sinned by murmuring against
God, and God threatened to exterminate them, and offered to
make of Moses a greater nation; Moses, the typical mediator,
pleaded the character of God as revealed to him on the
mount. And this is what Moses said to God: “And now, I
beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as
thou hast spoken, saying. The LORD is longsuffering, and of
great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no
means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children unto the third and fourth generation” (Num.
14:17,18). God as a moral Governor is patient or
longsuffering.
“LONG OF NOSE”
The longsuffering of God is a quality in the Divine nature that
makes Him slow in dealing with His enemies. God does not fly
into a rage at the least provocation. The Hebrew word, which
is sometimes translated “longsuffering, “and sometimes “Blow
of anger, “literally means “long of nose” (or “breathing”).
Anger is indicated by rapid and violent breathing through the
nostrils, and the opposite is longsuffering or slow of anger. A
snorting, charging bull is an emblem of passionate anger. But
God is not like a bull or prancing horse, eager to go, in the
work of judgment. God is in no hurry to punish His foes. He is
not like a cruel, nervous dictator, in a hurry to have his
enemies shot at dawn. God is patient with rebels, and this
patience belongs to His nature. A general or universal
atonement is not necessary to account for the long delay in
the punishment of a wicked and rebellious. The devil, as well
as man, has defied God for ages and is still at large, not
because Christ died for him, but because God is patient. God
is waiting to judge, not until His patience runs out, but for the
human cup of iniquity to fill. The time of judgment is left to His
sovereign will and does not depend upon any degree of His
patience. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of
the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious
fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive
the early and latter rain” (James 5:7). He is infinite in patience,
and judgment will not be an act of impatience, but of stern
justice.
POWER OF SELF-CONTROL
Longsuffering may be defined as God’s power of self control.
This is what Moses meant when he said, “And now, I beseech
thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou
hast spoken, saying, The LORD is longsuffering, and of great
mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means
clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation” (Num. 14:17,18).
God’s great power is not only seen in His control over His
creatures, but over Himself as well. God is not quick
tempered; He does not lose His head and fly off the handle.
He has perfect poise and balance. He knows nothing of
impatience. His justice, to be sure, is inexorable, but He does
not have to be in a hurry to judge His enemies. He waits in
perfect patience to vindicate His honor and satisfy His justice.
Arthur W. Pink says “Divine patience is that power of control
which God exercises over Himself, causing Him to bear with
the wicked and forebear so long in punishing them.” And
Charnock, one of the noblest of the Puritans said:
“Men that are great in the world are quick in passions and are
not so ready to forgive an injury, or bear with an offender, as
one of the meaner rank. It is want of power over that man’s
self that makes him do unbecoming things upon provocation.
A prince that can bridle his passions is a king over himself as
well as over his subjects. God is slow to anger because great
in power. He has no less power over Himself than over His
creatures.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
There are many illustrations of Divine patience in Bible history
as well as in events of general observation. God’s patience
has been signally exhibited through the long centuries of
human and satanic rebellion.
1. The time of Noah was a period of Divine longsuffering.
“Which sometime were disobedient, when once the
longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark
was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved
by water” (I Peter 3:20). Those were wicked days, but God
was slow to punish. Even after He announced His purpose to
destroy the world, He waited one hundred and twenty years
before sending the flood. “And the LORD said, My spirit shall
not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his
days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Gen. 6:3). Those
were days when sexual immorality ran riot; days when Divine
warning was ignored; days of fun poking at God’s preacher of
righteousness; “The earth also was corrupt before God, and
the earth was filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11), yet God waited
to punish because He is a patient God.
2. The whole of the Old Testament dispensation was an era of
Divine forbearance. “Whom God hath set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through
the forbearance of God” (Rom. 3:25). We learn that the sins of
that dispensation were remitted through the forbearance of
God. The sins of the Old Testament believers were passed
over until Christ should come and make atonement. “For the
life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon
the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the
blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:11).
God did not punish them for their sins because He was
waiting to punish them in the person of His Son. Their sins
were remitted before they were paid for. It was like this:
Christ, in eternity past, became the Surety for those given to
Him by the Father in the everlasting covenant, agreeing to
assume human nature, pay their debts and thus make
satisfaction for their sins to Divine justice. This was
announced immediately after the fall: “And I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”
(Gen. 3:15), but it was four thousand years to the fulness of
time, when Christ, the Surety of the better covenant, should
come to obtain redemption of transgressions that were under
the first covenant: “And for this cause he is the mediator of the
new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of
the transgressions that were under the first testament, they
which are called might receive the promise of eternal
inheritance” (Heb. 9:15). And all this time was one of patience
or forbearance. God did not stir up His wrath and execute
judgment upon sinners because He had reserved it for His
Son, their Surety. And while waiting for the Surety to come
and make satisfaction for sins, He appointed animal
sacrifices, which could not satisfy justice and take away
Sin.”for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats
should take away sins” (Heb. 10:4).
3. God’s dealing with Pharaoh is another instance of His
longsuffering. Paul defends God from criticism in His dealing
with Pharaoh, by saying, “What if God, willing to shew his
wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much
longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” (Rom.
9:22). The will of God referred to here is His will of purpose.
God’s will of purpose, concerning vessels of wrath, is to
display His wrath and power in their judgment, but in
longsuffering He endures or tolerates them until by their sins
they are fitted to destruction.
“How often do men wonder that God endures so much sin as
appears in the world. Why does not God immediately cut off
transgressors? Why does He not make an end of them at
once? The answer is, He endures them for His own glory, and
in their condemnation He will be glorified. To short sighted
mortals, it would appear preferable if God would cut off in
childhood all whom He foresaw would continue in wickedness.
But God endures them to old age, and to the utmost bounds
of wickedness for the glory of His own name” (Robert
Haldane).
4. God’s dealing with Paul illustrates His longsuffering towards
“vessels of mercy.” “And that he might make known the riches
of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore
prepared unto glory” (Rom. 9:23). We will let him tell it:
“Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus
Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them
which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting” (I
Tim. 1:16). Of all the unbelieving Jews, the conversion of Saul
of Tarsus seemed the most unlikely, “Who was before a
blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained
mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (I Tim. 1:13). But
in the purpose of God he was a vessel of mercy afore
prepared unto glory, and in dealing with him God gives a
pattern of His longsuffering.
And Peter has these same vessels of mercy in view when he
explains the long delay of our Lord’s return. “The Lord is not
slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness;
but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Most certainly the reference is to His will of purpose that none
of those denominated “us” should perish. The “us” of the text
are the same as the “beloved” of verse one, and are
distinguished from the “scoffers” of verse three. And verse
fifteen lends weight to this interpretation: “And account that
the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.” God’s longsuffering
issues in the salvation of the vessels of mercy. It is like this:
We who are now saved were by nature children of wrath,
even as others, and needed to repent. If Christ had returned
before we repented we would have perished. When He
returns, the day of salvation will be over and judgment will
begin; and if He had come five, ten, or twenty years ago many
of those now saved would have perished in their sins, and
God’s will would have been thwarted.
GOD’S PATIENCE IS GREATLY ABUSED
The exercise of this attribute leads men to sin more boldly.
“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed
speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in
them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11). Men confound the patience of
God with their belief in His non-existence. Because they sin
and get by with it for a time, they conclude there is no moral
Lawgiver to Whom they must give account. A farmer thought
he had proven there is no God. He selected a certain piece of
ground on his farm for an experiment. He broke the ground on
Sunday, he planted the seed on Sunday, he did all the
cultivating on Sunday, and on the first Sunday in October he
reaped a larger harvest than on any other part of the farm. He
wrote to his newspaper editor the results of his experiment,
scoffing at the idea of any God. The editor replied briefly but
to the point in these words: “May I remind you that God does
not settle His accounts on the first Sunday in October.”
Bob Ingersol thought he had demonstrated there is no God
when he challenged Him and gave Him five minutes by the
watch to strike him dead. When a great preacher in England
heard what the upstart had done, he remarked: “Does the
gentleman from America think he can exhaust the patience of
God in five minutes?”
If the believer does not understand this attribute of
longsuffering, he will fretfully wonder why God does not crush
His enemies and put an end to so much wickedness. Blessed
be His Name! He will, but in longsuffering waits for His
purposes to ripen. And while He waits some are fitting
themselves to destruction, and some are being fashioned by
His grace to be vessels of glory. “Cast not away therefore
your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For
ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of
God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and
he that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:35-
37). “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that
cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6). In
much humility and gratitude may both writer and reader say
with the poet:
“Lord, we have long abused Thy love,
Too long indulged in sin,
Our aching hearts e’en bleed to see
What rebels we have been.”
“Only one life to live and soon is past
Only what’s done for Christ will last!”
Hoping to make the time I have left count for the glory of God.
THE LONGSUFFERING OF GOD
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