The Patience of God

What ideas come into our minds when we think of the word ‘patience’? Perhaps we think of resoluteness, determination to persevere, hanging on without any idea of whether the situation will change. Yet we cannot use those words to describe God’s patience because he knows the outcome. 

We can see God’s patience in numerous ways. The kinds of trees that are around the church speak to us about God’s patience. After all, when God made those kinds at the beginning, they appeared as mature trees; now he waits for them to grow. The birds and the cats and dogs at the beginning were made mature by God; now he waits for them to grow. At the beginning, Adam knew immediately what to call each creature; now God tells us gradually what each is like. Every person we saw today is an example of God’s patience, some of them in numerous ways. Every Christian is an example of divine patience, even in the process of their sanctification.

Perhaps some Bible passages come into our minds with regard to God’s patience. One that we may have thought about is 2 Peter 3:9: ‘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.’ What does that verse say to us? Who is Peter speaking about? To whom does God show patience in that verse?

Another verse that we might recall is what God said about the people before the flood? His decision was that his Spirit would not always strive with man. What did God mean by that decision? Is it connected to the preaching of Noah? Is it due to them no longer living as long as they used to do? Or does it have some other meaning?

When we think of God and his responses we should bear in mind three things. First, his responses are according to his eternal plan. God is not going to do something different from that at any stage; if he did, his plan would not be eternal. Second, usually the word ‘patience’ is connected to his people, and applied in different ways by the biblical authors. Sometimes, it is used to describe life before their conversions; at other times, it describes life after their conversions. Third, it is frequently used in connection with God’s judgement, sometimes to warn us about the necessity of preparation, and at other times about the way his patience reveals his determination to punish sinners.

God’s plan

What can we say about the plan of God? One thing that we can say is that many of its details have not happened yet. This is true in what we could describe as general examples. For example, each of us probably has a future that will last for a few years or decades. Those coming years remind us that God is patient with us. But there are also particular truths that reveal his patience and here are three of them.

One future detail is the gathering in glory of all God’s people in the new heavens and new earth. Who is looking forward to that gathering? No doubt, Christians are, or they should be because it is why they were saved. Is God aware that that day is coming. Of course, he is. Will God be pleased when that day comes? He will. How is he responding today regarding that future day of glory. He is patient, as he waits for it to occur.

Another future event that has not happened yet is the second coming of Jesus. The date is fixed in the divine diary, even although Jesus said that, as far as his human knowledge was concerned, he did not know when it would happen. Is Jesus looking forward to that day? The answer is yes, which means that he is patient as he waits for it to come. Obviously, he is not impatient, nor is he indifferent to its arrival. The fact that he is patient reveals his righteous character which is submissive to the will of God.

What else has God told us about the future? We know that some people are very interested in the signs of the times. As far as I can see, God has given three definite signs, definite because they are part of his plan and will occur. They are (1) the worldwide preaching of the gospel, (2) the conversion of the Jews and (3) the appearance of the man of sin. None of the three have happened yet. Our response regarding the first two should be to use them as arguments in our prayers for gospel growth. But what is God’s attitude towards those definite events that he knows are coming? It must be patience because, after all, each of them will reveal his glory in different ways. The glory of his grace will be seen in two of them because many will be saved; and the glory of his judgement will be seen in the third because it will reveal that he is a God of righteousness.

God’s people

Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15: ‘But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.’ In that verse, we see described the patience of Jesus as revealed in the life of Paul, with Paul calling it perfect patience. What does Paul mean? After all, he cannot mean anything very unique about his case because he immediately connects it to the fact that his experience of salvation is an example for subsequent believers. 

Spurgeon comments on this verse that ‘It is a vulgar error that the conversion of the Apostle Paul was an uncommon and exceptional event and that we cannot expect men to be saved now-a-days after the same fashion.’ So if Paul does not want his readers to think that his conversion was unique, he must mean that despite some particular details such as location and degree of experience his conversion is a pattern for all other conversions because it reveals the perfect or incomprehensible patience of Jesus. Perhaps the best way to understand what Paul means is to ask this basic question, ‘Have any good sinners ever been saved?’

Paul is an example of a religious sinner who was saved by Jesus. He is an example of a violent sinner who was saved by Jesus. He is an example of a hypocritical sinner who was saved by Jesus. He is an example of a sinner who misused his childhood privileges in connection with having been brought up according to the Bible and who was saved by Jesus. He is an example of a confirmed sinner who was saved by Jesus. Paul is an example of how much Jesus will endure from one he is determined to save.

Paul is an example of how faith in Jesus is sufficient to save a person. Imagine living at the time when Paul was on the rampage and you are speaking about the possibility of his conversion to a friend. Perhaps we would conclude that Jesus would have to do something extraordinary to bring Paul to himself. In a sense he did, when he revealed to Paul that he was the Saviour, but is that not what Jesus does to all other converted sinners, except with them they don’t see anything visible? Jesus also highlighted Paul’s sins when he accused Paul of having persecuted him during the campaign against the church. Paul realised he was a sinner, but does Jesus not speak to all converted people about their sins? Moreover, Jesus used a simple believer, Ananias, to bring assurance and help to Paul, and is that not a common way that Jesus uses with other converts? Whatever else we wish to say about Paul, it is obvious that Jesus showed great patience towards him. And he shows great patience with all who eventually believe.

How do we know this? Remember the verse that we mentioned earlier from 2 Peter 3:9: ‘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.’ Who does God show patience to in that verse? They are described as ‘you’, the believers that Peter is writing to. Peter cannot mean that God wanted everybody to be saved because even by the time Peter wrote his letter an untold number were already lost for ever, and there were millions living at the time of writing who never heard the gospel. Rather Peter is saying that God exercises patience as he waits to gather in his people. We just have to ask ourselves, ‘How patient was God as he waited for us to be saved?’ There are almost twenty centuries between Peter’s letter and us. God waited twenty centuries to convert us, to bring us to repentance. He is patient, incredibly patient.

An obvious way in which God shows his patience concerns the progress, or lack of it, that we make in the Christian life. All we need to do is consider how Jesus responded to his disciples when he was here on earth. No doubt, we can easily observe how Jesus loved them despite their many failings, but one way in which his love was revealed was in his patience. Peter would affirm that was the case, wouldn’t he? And all of us who are Christians can and must say the same about how Jesus deals with us.

God’s punishment

Paul told the philosophers in Athens that God has already fixed the date when the day of judgement will occur and all humans will be tried. When will that be? We don’t know. But we do know that almost two thousand years have passed since Paul preached that sermon. What has God being doing every day since then, every moment actually of those centuries? He has been revealing his patience. Think about it in this way. How many people sinned yesterday at 14.15? Billions. How many sinned five minutes later? Billions, and in most cases the same people. What is God waiting for? In an absolute sense, he is either going to forgive people or judge people. These are the options. He knows the date when he is going to announce that all his people have been pardoned and he knows the date when he is going to announce that all others will be judged and condemned. He already knows who will be in each group, and he waits.

Paul addresses impenitent people in Romans 2:4: ‘Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?’ God reveals his common grace to people day after day so that they will repent. They choose not to do so, and in the process they are despising the patience of God. He watches them eating their food that he has provided in providence, but he does not hear expressions of gratitude. What are those people doing during each day of God’s patience? Paul tells us in the next verse: ‘But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed’ (Rom. 2:5).

Peter in 1 Peter 3:20 mentions how ‘God’s patience waited in the days of Noah’. He also tells how long God waited for, ‘while the ark was being prepared’. Maybe it took one hundred and twenty years during which time the Spirit was striving. There is Noah preaching, there is the ark taking shape, there is the Spirit at work, and all who heard Noah, who watched him at work, who felt the hand of the Spirit, did not respond to his message. God was very patient with them, but the judgement of the flood was not delayed one day.

There is a story told of two farmers, one who kept the Sabbath and the other who did not. During harvest, the one who disregarded the Sabbath pointed to all the grain and crops he had gathered; he then asked the other farmer what his God thought of that accumulated gain. The other farmer replied, ‘God’s day of accounts is not this year.’ We look out on the world and what should we see? We should see the goodness of God to sinners, we should see the patience of God with sinners, and we should remind ourselves and others that we are closer than ever to the great day of accounts.

The prophet Nahum made this announcement to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished’ (Nah. 1:3). We might have assumed that he would have said, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will be very merciful.’ No doubt he is with some.  But the prophet’s words are a reminder that God’s patience actually reveals that he is in control of time, that he is waiting for the day when he will judge.

Application

We have see that there is a connection between God’s patience and his plans, his patience and his people, and his patience and future judgement. The Lord does not cut short his plans, he shows patience to his children before and after conversion, and he shows patience with sinners because the judgement day has not occurred yet. Thinking about God’s patience helps us in dealing with several issues.

First, God’s patience reveals why he does not judge sinful people immediately. We live in a time when many sins are advocated that used to be feared. Perhaps we wonder why God does not do something. He is doing something — he is patient. The Lord is patient with people for one of two reasons — they will become believers or he will deal with them on the Day of Judgement.

Second, God’s patience reveals his wisdom and knowledge. How would we arrange for the conversion of a number that no one can count drawn from all the centuries and from a wide range of countries? We would not know where to start or how to continue the process. Nor could we continually know what was due to occur next. But God’s patience reveals to us that always knows what to do.

Third, each one of us has been the object of divine patience. If we are Christians, recall the years of your rebellion and how God bore with you even although you were a child of wrath even as others. If you are not a Christian, observe how patient the Lord has been with you throughout all your life. Others have been called to his judgment, but you are here still.