The LORD passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The LORD! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
Exodus 34:6
If you’ve ever read the book of Exodus, you will have been struck with the patience of God with His people!
God delivered them from slavery in Egypt with amazing signs and wonders. Yet, 3 days after seeing their brutal captors destroyed by the power of God they started grumbling and complaining. There was no water. There was no food. The way was too hard. Their enemies too many.
God provided for them continually, protected them continually and guided them continually, but still they complained, grumbled and many refused to obey His loving commands that were given for their benefit.
God would be perfectly justified in punishing sin immediately, right there and then when it happens. But the history of scripture shows that He doesn’t. God is complete and perfect patience.
God could have destroyed Adam and Eve for their sin, but He didn’t. He could have taken Noah into heaven and allowed the world to stay flooded, but He didn’t. He could have given up on all of the Bible heroes that we read about as children, but as adults found out their major character flaws and raw sinfulness. But he didn’t.
God promised that a seed would come. A descendent who would crush the head of Satan and destroy him forever. He never forgot this promise and never withdrew it because of man’s failures.
The promised seed has come. It was God in human form; Jesus Christ the Messiah. Jesus was so patient with His disciples. They were so slow to see that He was the promised seed. Even though He lived with them for 3 years and told them that He was going to die, they just couldn’t get it. They even fled when He was arrested. But He never lost patience with them. He appeared to them, forgave them and commissioned them to tell the world about Him.
God is still patient today. People may laugh and mock those who tell them that God will come again and destroy the world. This message has been preached for 2,000 years and He hasn’t come yet. Mockers and skeptics may say that it’s all a bit of a myth, an old superstitious belief that people need to cling to. But the Bible talks about them, and has this to say,
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
God doesn’t lose His patience with mockers. He could wipe them out right now, this instant, but He doesn’t. His love is so great that He doesn’t want any to perish. He wants all to repent and come into a loving relationship with Him.
He has set a day when this world will end. No one knows when that day will be. God’s patience will have been fully satisfied in that day, and the end will come. It is a certainty.
It is our responsibility to make sure we are ready to meet Him when this day comes.
(Watch video to the end!)
