God is Patient
Note from Justin: Check your e-mail for this Sunday's attribute study. My apologies for failing to get it into your hands this past Sunday. If you do not get it just give me a call at the church.
"And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, 'The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.'" Numbers 14:17-18.
A.W. Pink (Attributes of God)-
How wondrous is God's patience with the world today. On every side people are sinning with a high hand. The Divine law is trampled under foot and God himself openly despised. It is truly amazing that he does not instantly strike dead those who so brazenly defy him. Why does he not suddenly cut off the haughty infidel and blatant blasphemer, as he did Ananias and Sapphira? Why does he not cause the earth to open its mouth and devour the persecutors of his people, so that, like Dathan and Abiram, they shall go down alive into the Pit? And what of apostate Christendom, where every possible form of sin is now tolerated and practiced under the cover of the holy name of Christ? Why does not the righteous wrath of heaven make an end of such abominations? Only one answer is possible: because God bears with 'much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.'
And what of the writer and the reader? Let us review our own lives. It is not long since we followed a multitude to do evil, had not concern for God's glory, and lived only to gratify self. How patiently he bore with our vile conduct. And now that grace has snatched us as brands from the burning, giving us a place in God's family, and has begotten us unto an eternal inheritance in glory, how miserabley we requite him. How shallow our gratitude, how tardy our obedience, how frequent our backslidings! One reason why God suffers the flesh to remain in the believer is that he may exhibit his 'long-suffering to usward' (2 Peter 3:9).
Since this Divine attribute is manifested only in this world, God takes advantage to display it toward 'his own'"
I pray your meditation on God's patience will cause you to overflow with thanksgiving, be quick to obey, and willing to be patient toward others. God give us much grace so that we may be patient as you are patient.
1 comment:
Okay, I've got another question, but this doesn't really relate to the lesson that much. Anyway, in reading Ex 34:7 and Num 14:18, I read that God carries over sin from the fathers to the children. I recall studying this in my Hebrew Bible course at UofL, and the conclusion was simply that Israel had a corporate relationship with God (although I'm not sure if these passages speak solely of Israel), just as in Joshua 7 the punishment for Achan's sin was on the entire nation. However, I read Ezekiel 18 this week, and it seems almost directly contradictory of this, claiming that people are judged for their own sins and no one else's. Obviously, this is way off the lesson, but I am simply wondering, is this a contradiction, did God's relationship to men change, or what is the deal? Thanks.
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