The Patience of God

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Nahum 1:3

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How would you characterize your view of the Lord? I think, for many people who don't think about that often enough,
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I know part of the guilt lies upon pulpits.
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It was A .W. Pink, a little book we were reading in family worship this week.
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He says, How vastly different is the God of Scripture from the
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God of the average pulpit? In Colossians 1, verse 10,
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Paul prays for the church there. One of the things that he prays for the church is that they would be increasing in their knowledge of God.
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You know, when someone asks to pray for you, I wonder if that's something you think about.
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Oftentimes, someone says, How can I pray for you? And if you're like me, you answer, You're like, Oh, I guess everything's okay.
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My family's okay. Finances are okay. You know, I either pray for America or whatever. Ever ask someone,
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Would you pray that I would increase in my knowledge of God?
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We don't think near often enough about God. We think about ministry.
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We think about programs. We think about budgets. Perhaps we think about,
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How can I get the world to love us? Or perhaps we think about, How close can I go to this or that sin without crossing the line and having to feel guilty?
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But we don't often near often enough think about God.
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And as we started Nahum, this beloved little prophet, he just won't let us off the hook, will he?
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He will not let us not think about God.
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And here's encouraging news. God is all satisfying to the regenerate heart.
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As we think more of God, as we learn more of God, please, please believe me this morning.
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You won't find him boring. He's not boring to the believer.
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The more that we learn about God, the more that we delight in him. We taste and see that he is good.
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And so we're considering in our journey through Nahum, understanding Nahum's God and ours.
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And today we take up the subject of the long suffering of God or the patience of God.
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Would you stand with me as we read? We'll focus in on verse 3, really comes in context of 2 through 8.
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But notice we've read all these, the Lord is, the Lord is, the Lord is statements. And here's a new one in verse 3.
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The Lord is slow to anger.
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The Lord is slow to anger. Father, would you help us to understand what it means that you're slow to anger?
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That you're long suffering, that you're patient. Let us learn these truths today.
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Let us trust you in your patience. Let us praise you for your patience. Let us preach your patience.
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Let us imitate your patience. Let us not presume upon your patience. Oh God, you're patient.
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You're patient with us even this morning. As we gather in here today and how often even already our thoughts have strayed to other things.
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You've been patient. Be patient with us still during this message.
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Give us your grace during this message. Be patient with our slowness to hear. Give us ears today to hear.
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Hearts to receive. Minds to think. Stretch our view of who you are. Not something different than the
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Bible. We don't have to invent. We don't have to try to make you bigger or whatever strange things people may come up with.
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We just want to see you as the Bible has said. And we want that bigness to occupy who we are.
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And let it change us forever. May Christ be exalted. May we rest in his gospel. We pray it all in his name.
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Amen. You may be seated. The Lord is slow to anger.
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It's another the Lord is statement. Verse 3 begins there with God's covenantal name.
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Yahweh. The I Am. We could actually spend a whole sermon just on understanding
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God's name. But I remind you this morning as we begin. This is a truth.
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This is so true. It's so obvious you may have missed it. But it helps us to remember that God is knowable.
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Right? God is knowable. He is knowable because he has made himself known.
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So you can know God through general revelation. He has made himself known there. You can know at least about God from creation.
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That's what the Bible teaches us. But it's in his word that he has revealed his personal name.
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It's in his word that he has revealed to us what he is like. He has revealed to us his attributes.
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His characteristics, if you will. And in his son, Jesus, we see how we can know this
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God in a saving way. I'll just make this comment. Jesus claimed to be Yahweh, by the way.
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He claimed to be the I Am. Whatever you do with Jesus, you can't deny.
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You could say the gospel writers got it wrong, which you would be wrong. But you can't deny that Jesus claimed to be the
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God of the Old Testament. In the flesh. Jesus is, listen to me, this is our doctrine, this is our theology, this is what we believe, this is
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Christian orthodoxy. Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh. The second person of the
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Trinity. The eternal Son of God who came that we may know God savingly.
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So as we preach week in and week out from this book, you must remember this great reality.
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God delights to be known. He has made himself known. He can be truly known, but only through Christ and his gospel.
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I could go on a tangent, you know, but we don't worship the same God as Muslims or whatever, right?
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Like, we can only know this God through Jesus Christ. And here's the gospel.
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What God has done for us in Christ. His perfect life. Substitutionary death.
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His victorious resurrection. I'm just saying in this sermon that God can be known through Christ.
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We must repent of our sins and trust his saving gospel. And in so doing, we see this.
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The very essence of eternal life is knowing God. I didn't just make that up.
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Wow, that's a profound thought. Where'd you get that? I got it from the Bible. John 17 3.
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We say the Lord's Prayer in our catechism, and that's fine. I don't have a problem with it. It is the
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Lord's Prayer. Maybe it's more the model prayer. The Lord's Prayer proper, you might say, is John 17.
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Where the son prays to the father. And Jesus says in John 17 3 this.
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And this is eternal life. That they know you. The one true
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God. And Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. In other words, the essence of eternal life is not heaven.
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The essence of eternal life is not blessings. The essence of eternal life is knowing
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God. And today, you say, well, who is this
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God? What is he like? And today, in our text, we see that this God, verse 3.
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The Lord, the text says, is slow to anger. Except the text doesn't say that.
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The text doesn't say the Lord is slow to anger. The text says the
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Lord has a long nose. That's what the text says.
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It says that his nose is long. That's interesting, isn't it?
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I'm not making that you're like, have you gone crazy? No, I mean, that's what it says. In Hebrew, it says that Yahweh has a long nose.
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It's a Hebrew idiom, right? I think that what's being communicated is this.
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You ever seen someone get mad and they get red in the face? Right? So they get mad. So the idea is, someone gets mad, their nose gets red.
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Okay, but what the text is communicating, it's a Hebrew idiom. It's all over the Bible. It's a Hebrew idiom that the text is communicating.
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God's nose doesn't get red fast. I mean, I know that's an anthropomorphism anyway. God doesn't have a nose. But the idea is,
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God doesn't have a nose that gets red really fast. He has got a long nose. It takes a while for his nose to get red.
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Or as the ESV translates it, he's slow to anger. We have idioms like this in the
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English. So, for example, we say, if someone gets mad, they have a what?
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A short fuse. Well, God doesn't have a short fuse. He has a long fuse.
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Or exactly what the text says here. He is slow to anger. It's all over the
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Bible. Exodus 34, 6, for example. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed,
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The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
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In Exodus 34, 6, the King James translates slow to anger as long suffering.
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That is, the Lord suffers injuries done to him and his glory, and even his people for a long time.
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Long suffering. Instead of immediately pouring out his vengeance upon hell deserving sinners, the
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Lord is patient. And I didn't read it in the beginning, but go back to the text and notice that the slowness of anger is connected with the power of God.
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The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. So think about a short -tempered man.
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A short -tempered man or an easily angered person. They have no control over themselves.
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Right? That person is offended and he has no control over himself and he gives way to his anger and he lashes out.
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But the text is telling us this is not how we are to see or think of God. This is not who
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God is. God is not a short -tempered God. He is not a God ruled by his emotions.
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He is without passions. Certainly in the sense that he's not ruled by passions. He's not moody.
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He's not ill -tempered. I'm afraid. There are certain people you have, you're afraid what you're going to say around them.
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You've got to walk, another idiom, you've got to walk on eggshells. Right? You've got to walk on eggshells around them because if you say this or that they'll, another idiom, fly off the handle.
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Right? All these are just spoons. This is what we say all the time. It makes translation hard, doesn't it?
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That's not God. That's not
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God. The text says he's slow to anger. He's long -suffering.
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He's patient. You understand that the jealous God, the vengeful
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God, the just God, is also the patient God.
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And none of these attributes are conflicting. So based on this text, I have five points for the church today.
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First, we must trust God's patience. Number one, we must trust God's patience.
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The Lord is, why is he saying this? We're going to think about this for a moment. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and the
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Lord will by no means clear the guilty. Why does the Lord say this? I think it's two -fold.
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I'll mention the first one here. I'll mention the other one here in just a second. The question may arise.
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Here's the first reason he says he's slow to anger. The question may arise in Judah's mind. Why, God?
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We have been afflicted by the Assyrians for decades.
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They have done horrible things to your people for decades. They skin people alive.
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They worship idols. They mock your name. Why, God, have you not wiped them off the face of the earth?
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And what is the answer to this question? It's given in verse 3. Because he is slow to anger.
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A .W. Pink says, the patience of God is the excellency which causes him to sustain great injuries without immediately avenging himself.
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So, I need to clear something up this morning at the beginning of this sermon. We think about the long -suffering of God.
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We think about the patience of God. And we may think to ourselves, of course he is patient. Of course!
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Who wouldn't be patient with people like us? We are so patient -worthy.
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We are so lovable. But if you think that way, then it actually diminishes this glorious excellency of God.
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You understand that God's patience it doesn't flow from us to God whereby it flows from us and it demands patience from God.
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Rather, it flows from God to us. It flows out of His glorious goodness unto undeserving, underline, bold, italicize, circle it, undeserving, sinners.
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See, our default state is why the patience of God, the patience of God doesn't amaze us because we think too lightly of our sin.
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Our default state is to have a view of man that is way too high and a view of God that is way too low.
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Now, you may have not thought through it this way. Maybe you didn't articulate it this way.
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But I would argue that you probably have a default theology if it hasn't been corrected. You have a default theology whereby you think of people, at least most people, as basically good.
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There's country songs about that. The ones like, I believe most people are good.
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Most mamas qualify for sainthood or however the song goes. It just gets stuck in your head.
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I don't believe most people are good. In fact, I believe none is good. No, not one. That's just what the
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Bible says. There's not a neutrality here. It's why verses like,
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Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. They confuse us. Or we try to wash them, or we try to dismiss them altogether.
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We think, how could God hate Esau? But that's not what should shock us.
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There was a woman once who told Charles Spurgeon, I cannot understand why
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God should say that he hated Esau. And to be honest, that may be some of your questions this morning too.
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Hate Esau? How could God do that?
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But Spurgeon's reply nails it. He said, that is not my difficulty, madam.
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My trouble is to understand how God could love Jacob. We are not owed
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God's patience. God owes us. In fact,
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I think that we could categorize this under God's common grace for all mankind. Every sinner experiences, in some measure in this life, the patience and long -suffering of God.
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Now, at first, so I say, so the point is, remember, point number one, trust God's patience. You're like, well that seems easy, right?
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That sounds good to me. It sounds good at first, but let's think about it for just a moment, whereby we might be led to doubt
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His patience. You see, we like God being slow to anger toward us.
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That's good. Okay, but what about the text? The Lord is slow to anger.
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What is the context? What is this prophecy? He's slow to anger toward who? The Assyrians.
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Wait. You mean God is patient with Iran? Yeah. You mean
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God is patient with North Korea? China? Not just America? He's patient with these other countries?
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Yes. You mean to tell me that God is patient with the man who harmed the little girl?
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Yes. Yes. You mean to say that the people who wronged me, who did my family wrong, who harmed me or hurt me financially or hurt me physically or hurt me in some wicked way, maybe some of you are out there today and something's happened to you that we don't even know about and it's just been very hard, and you're telling me that God is patient with my perpetrators?
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Yes. Yes, I'm saying that. And I'm saying, we need to think of God in this way and we need to trust
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God's patience. Why did God allow these things to happen? Because He is long -suffering.
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This can make us mad. It made Jonah mad. If you read the other book about Nineveh and you go to the end of Jonah, one of the reasons
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Jonah said he didn't want to go to Nineveh is because God is patient. He said,
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I didn't want to come. Didn't I say He was? Back in Tarsus, I don't want to come here. Why?
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Because you're long -suffering. You're slow to anger. And I don't want you to be patient with these people.
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And I'm telling us this morning in this first point that the people of God are called to trust the patience of God and we must have faith here.
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You must believe this morning that God is wise in His patience and though justice may be postponed, it will never be left undone.
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We must trust God to execute His justice in His time and believe what the text says down in verse 7,
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He is good. Judah was called here to trust God's patience. He is, Yahweh is slow to anger and we must be patient and we must trust
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His patience as well. So for example, God is patient with the political leaders we find inept and ungodly.
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He is patient with the drunk driver who killed a beautiful family. He is patient with the wicked world.
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He is patient with our nation. And in all of this, we're called to trust His plan.
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Knowing that the fruit of God's patience is an inheritance of nations.
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And as we saw last week, He'll never leave any wrong undealt with, even if justice is momentarily postponed.
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So dear believer, if you're here this morning and you say, there's something that happened to me, there's something going on and I just want
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God's vengeance to be done, I'm encouraging you this morning, take some time.
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Trust His patience. He is in control. Let's move to our second point. Secondly, we must praise
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His patience. The Lord is slow to anger. Now it's interesting what
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Nahum leaves out here, because in other places, like in Jonah, like in Exodus 34, in other places where it says that God is slow to anger, it also talks about His steadfast love,
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His faithfulness. Here, none of that's there. It's silent. It just says, the Lord is slow to anger.
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And I think that's because there comes a point when it's time for God to be finished with His patience, if you will.
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And this happened to the Assyrians in 612 B .C. Judgement came. But the long -suffering of God is praiseworthy, for it is from this glorious attribute that God saves
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His people. From the attribute of His slowness to anger, God is able to save His people.
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And let's see if I can talk about that. I think that's the other reason, by the way, that God's slowness to anger is mentioned here.
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It's mentioned to explain why God hadn't destroyed Nineveh yet. But it's also mentioned here as a reminder. Here's a reminder of how
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God saves His people. He's slow to anger with Nineveh, but He's also slow to anger with Judah as well.
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And it is God's slowness of anger that ultimately will bring about salvation.
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We are far too misunderstanding of our sin before a holy
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God. Let me just put it to you this way right up front. If God were not patient, you would not be saved.
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There are in the Scriptures the plans of God revealed.
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For example, Romans 9, 22 and 23 talks about God's patience.
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What if God, desiring to show His wrath, to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy which
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He has prepared beforehand for glory. There are vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy.
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That's just from the text. Proverbs 16, verse 4 says, The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked, for the day of trouble.
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So as we saw last week, the vengeance of God is coming. There is a fixed day that God has appointed whereby
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He will judge the wicked. But in God's great patience, this day has been postponed, deferred, not changed.
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It could have been yesterday in God's plan, but it wasn't. He's still willing to wait.
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Now understand that in this waiting, God has suffered innumerable insults. He has suffered innumerable disobedience, rebellion, rejection, hatred, blasphemy, immorality, and yet,
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He still waits with patience. And instead of wiping the world out of existence,
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He is long suffering. Why? Why? Why? So that He can carry out
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His plan to its fullness and save the full number of those He is determined to save from eternity past.
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So let me make this clear for us. We must praise God for His patience because it is the means by which we are saved.
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William Plumer says this, God long spares sinners that by His goodness they may be led to repentance.
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Let me put it in my own terms. If God were not slow to anger,
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He would have destroyed me long before I came to Christ. If God were to destroy
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America for her sins, He would have destroyed... And for you, listen to me, God was slow to anger with you so that He might give you the undeserved opportunity for repentance.
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Our sins, you understand the wretchedness of our sins. No, you don't. You don't. You don't.
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And I don't. Not fully. You don't fully appreciate the weight of your sins.
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Your sins cry out to God. Like the song we sang, Our sins are many. They cry out to God for justice and vengeance.
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But His mercy is more. And by His mercy and by His slowness of anger, we are saved.
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Of course, I hope this leads our minds directly to the cross. The Lord is slow to anger, slow to anger, slow to anger.
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And then we see Him unleash His anger on the cross. You understand that He was patient in the coming of His Son.
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In the Old Testament, waiting some 4 ,000 years since He gave the promise in the garden of the seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent.
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For thousands of years, the people of God waited, looking for the Messiah. Many within physical
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Israel, what they did is, they abandoned God, they blasphemed God, they served idols, but God remained patient.
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Many outside, or other nations of course, continued in sin and wickedness. God could have ended the world, but He did not because He is slow to anger.
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And then comes Jesus, patience in the flesh. Patient, think about Jesus' patience.
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Patient with His parents. They were looking for Him in Jerusalem. He was patient with them. He submitted
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Himself to them. Patient with His disciples. They said and did many foolish things.
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He's patient with the Jewish officials as they led Him away in the cover of darkness. The sham of a trial.
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Patient with the false witnesses who lied. Patient with Pilate as he sits under his judgment.
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You ever think about how Pilate talks to God? Patient with the Roman guards as they take
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His hands and they hold Him down, secure Him, bind Him on the cross. And patient as they nail, as it were, the
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God of the universe and the flesh to a Roman cross. Patient with the criminals, one on His left and one on His right as they crucified them alongside
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Him. Patient with those as He's hung naked on the cross and they walked by and they wagged their heads.
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He saved others! Let Him save Himself! Wagged their heads and committed great blasphemy against God.
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Yet, He's patient with them. Behold the man upon the cross.
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And there on the cross, the slowness of God's anger pays off. Instead of destroying the world,
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He gave His only Son to satisfy His righteous and holy wrath against undeserving and unworthy sinners that they would be saved through the propitiatory work of Christ.
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In other words, think of it this way. How longsuffering is God with sinners? He's so patient that He's willing to punish
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His own Son in their place in order to save them. Shaolin sang it this way, rapped it this way, the cross is the true meaning of longsuffering.
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They placed the body of Jesus in a borrowed tomb. There we notice that the disciples were impetuously impatient and they gave up hope.
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But on the third day, Jesus rose again from the dead and for 2 ,000 years, God has demonstrated
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His patience in order to save sinners. We must trust the patience of God, but listen to me, church.
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We must praise the patience of God. Will you stand in awe of God's slowness of anger towards you?
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When is the last time that you just stopped what you were doing and you thought to yourself, before you got frustrated with knuckleheaded so -and -so or knuckleheaded so -and -so or the people on TV or the people at the
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Olympics, when's the last time you just stopped and you just said, God, You have been patient with me.
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And I owe You all praise. What a glorious attribute of God.
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Without God's patience, no one would be saved. And that leads me to my third point. Trust.
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Praise. Thirdly, we must preach the patience of God. The text says the
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Lord is slow to anger. Now, we cannot merely preach the holiness of God.
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We cannot merely preach the jealousy of God or the vengeance of God or the wrath of God.
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You can't just isolate one of these attributes and say, I'm not going to talk about that one. I'm going to talk about all the other ones, but I'm not going to talk about that one.
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No, we are called to preach all the attributes together for they give us a complete picture of the glory of the
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Triune God. He has revealed these to us. He's revealed His jealousy. He's revealed His vengeance. He's revealed
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His power. He's revealed His sovereignty. And He's revealed His patience. Why?
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Because the church is called to preach His patience. We must preach the patience of God as the hope of sinners far and wide.
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I did some study this week. Most weeks I just don't do study. No, I'm joking. But I did study this week on this particular subject and I found some quotes may surprise you.
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John Calvin said this. The Lord defers
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His coming that He might invite all mankind to repentance.
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I'm just going to read again. John Calvin. The Lord defers His coming that He might invite all mankind to repentance.
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Why is God patient today? So that He might give the whole world more than enough time to repent.
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The patience of God means that today is a day of mercy. We must preach
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God as being slow to anger. Because the text tells us in v.
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3 the Lord is slow to anger. And you understand that God prevents not a single person from repentance.
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In fact, God's patience declares a genuine disposition to have all persons repent.
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You don't believe that? Yes, I do. Again, I think John Calvin believed it. Listen to what he says.
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So wonderful is God's love towards mankind that He would have them all to be saved and is of His own self prepared to bestow salvation on the lost.
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God is ready to receive all to repentance so that none may perish.
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Our God is slow to anger. Romans 2, 4 and 5 Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience?
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Not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when
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God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Do you understand that the patience of God and the long suffering of God and God's slowness to anger makes the sins of men and women and boys and girls all the worse?
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God displays His patience with the world today only to have these people reject
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His kindness. God shows mankind patience only to have all persons left unto themselves reject
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Him. And the text says to follow their own hard and impenitent heart. Here we are.
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We're preaching a patient God. A God slow to anger. A God ready to forgive. A God ready to receive all unto repentance.
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And what is the response of mankind apart from grace? We don't want you.
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We hate you. The biblical truth of God's sovereign election in eternity past.
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That means of choosing people in Christ as vessels of mercy passing over others in His justice.
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This is not at odds with a sincere patience in time whereby
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God truly offers salvation to all who will repent and believe the gospel.
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That doesn't make sense to me. I can't wrap my mind around that. I can't put those two things together. Well, frankly, let me just say this.
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It doesn't matter. It's what the Bible says. Whatever the Scripture teaches, that must we believe and we'll let these things fit together in our minds as they will.
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Because they will. Because this is truth. Ezekiel 33 11 As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked would turn from his way and live.
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Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?
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God is long suffering towards sinners, and yet, listen to their response. They will not repent.
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So don't misunderstand me. I'm preaching the whole council, I believe. Only the elect, ultimately, will be saved.
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Because though God displaces patience towards all, all refuse him without his sovereign intervention by efficaciously drawing sinners to himself in Christ.
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Do you understand? That's a lot of big words there. What I'm saying is, if God leaves a sinner to himself, that's not unjust.
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And sometimes God does that. Even though he says, come and come repent, but they will not repent.
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He leaves them to their own, if you will, free will. But this truth of God's election does not negate the well -meant offer of the gospel to all.
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And if God can display perfect patience with the wicked, why can the church not display this patience too?
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We must preach the patience of God to a lost and dying world. This day is a day of patience.
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Why? That people may repent. Why has God given us August 11, 2024?
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That people may repent! We herald God's kindness from the rooftops, letting them know
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God's disposition to the world. We have a patient God who will forgive. Who will he forgive?
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Any! You mean me? Yes, even you! Well, how? What do I got to do? Repent and believe the gospel!
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This is God's disposition. Turn to Christ alone in faith and trust the
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Lord as God and King. Let me say this. As we talk about the patience of God towards the lost, we can all grow here.
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Because as frustrating as the evil is in our world today, you and I have not been nearly as offended, as insulted as God has.
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No man or woman has ever offended you as much as you have provoked
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God. And yet God shows patience. Verse 3.
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He is slow to anger. Can we see this as a call to the church to proclaim the patience of God?
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To take the gospel to the nations and let them know that today is a day of patience.
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It's a day of mercy. The day of vengeance is coming. We must preach this. We must preach this.
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The day of vengeance is coming and it draws nigh, but not today. Today, at least right now, is a day of patience.
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And sinners far and wide must not refuse God's kindness, but instead repent of their sins and believe the gospel.
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If God is patient with sinners, what must our disposition be? This leads me to my fourth point.
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So the church is called to trust God's patience. And we must praise
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God's patience. We must preach God's patience. Fourthly, we must imitate
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God's patience. We've seen in each attribute so far there's a bit of imitation.
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So the text says the Lord is slow to anger. We learn that God is jealous and we must imitate His jealousy by being jealous for God.
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We learn that God is an avenging God and we imitate that at least in part by caring about justice and truth.
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But God is slow to anger and the church too is called to imitate the patience of God.
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Now, you've already seen that a little bit in the last point. I get that. But I'm going to press that a little bit further because here's the reality.
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And in the context of our country, the context of this coming election and all these things, lost people can get absolutely frustrated by what they do, how they live, how they choose to live, how they vote, what they promote.
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They can get so frustrated. And yet, listen to our text this morning.
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The Lord is slow to anger. God is long suffering toward them.
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He is patient. Why? That the church would be full of zeal for the glory of God and exercise patience towards the lost by bringing them the hope of Christ.
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By preaching the Gospel to them. To show them by our patience with their insults, by our patience with their ridicule, by their patience even of their persecution of us, that we would show them by our patience the goodness and mercy of God and we would patiently and persistently call upon them to look to God in Christ and to let them know if they will repent, they will be saved.
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God will save sinners. Even the Democrats, right? Even the
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Republicans. God will save sinners who repent of their sins and believe the
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Gospel. That we wouldn't just go one time and say, well I did evangelism. I passed out a track and I'm done.
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But that we would keep going. We'd keep knocking. We would keep preaching. We would keep employing.
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But you say, it's hard. Sometimes it's hurtful. And sometimes I have to give up other things so that I can deal with these people and these people, you don't understand these people.
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They don't even want to know the Lord. They just want to laugh at me. They just want to ridicule. Gunner was out preaching yesterday. We kind of had a team.
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Team of three. Myself, Jacob, and Gunner. And Gunner was preaching. And this guy, he pulled up in the parking lot.
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And I was kind of watching him. You know, I kind of watch. And I just make sure everything's going okay.
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He pulls up in the parking lot and then he immediately backs up. And I'm like, okay, what's he doing? He goes and he pulls in front of Gunner.
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And I'm like, okay. What's going to go on here? So I walk over there just to make sure everything's okay. Well, what was he doing?
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He was just trying to intimidate him. He was just laughing at him. Laughing in his face. Look, I'm just saying, we deal with people that don't even seem to want to know the
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Lord. And you say, that's hard. Yes. I'm not arguing that.
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But this is why the biblical term is long suffering. Right? Long suffering.
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Can the church not suffer long for the sake of the gospel? If God is patient with sinners, then why can the church not be?
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Lost people, listen to me, are going to do lost things. Does this excuse it?
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No. But it does put it in a proper perspective. Let us show patience.
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And let me give a word of hope to some of you with unbelieving family members. Even now, God is slow to anger with your unbelieving family members.
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And the patience of God means that I have a real and sincere hope for any and every living sinner.
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If they have breath in their lungs, then God is presently displaying long suffering, which means
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I have hope for their salvation, which means I must patiently and persistently share the gospel with them.
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There's another application here as well. If I had a sign here that said, like in an airplane, fasten your seatbelt,
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I would push the button now. Fasten them. Because there's another application we have to gather.
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It's not directly related to the text, but it comes down the line, thinking about the patience of God. God is patient today.
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He's long suffering today with His churches, with believers.
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And if God is patient with the church, shouldn't this be imitated by His people?
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Some people leave the church. Why? Well, because the church is full of hypocrites. Yeah, that's true in some senses.
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In some sense, you pull back enough later. We're all undergoing progressive sanctification.
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You can't leave the church. You can't leave the church and just go do your own thing and live by yourself like A .W.
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Pink or whatever. Why? Because God is patient with His people. And you should imitate
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His patience. Christians need more patience with fellow Christians. I'm just telling you.
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And let's talk about that right here in our church. Right here at Providence Baptist Church. You must be patient with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
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Let me give myself as an example. God is so slow to anger with quattro sanctification.
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I wake up and I sin. I make a resolution and I break it.
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I flip through the Bible flippantly. I grumble about this thing or that thing.
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I pray too shortly. I don't discipline my children enough. Or I discipline them too much.
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Or I get anxious about things. Or I get mad at the people on TV or about the things.
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God is so slow to anger with the sanctification of one of your pastors.
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And yet, He maintains His patience with me. He is sanctifying me even in spite of me.
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Our God is patient with the bride of Christ. I'm telling you church today. You must be more patient with the family of God.
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Why are you so quick to beat someone over the head with your Bible? Has God not been gracious to you?
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Why are you quick to anger and God is slow to anger? Can we not patiently bring people along?
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Can we not patiently endure immaturity? Don't misunderstand me.
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This isn't excusing sin. We're not excusing sin. We're not saying, aha, you're in sin. I'm being patient with you.
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That's not what we're talking about. We're not excusing sin. We're just talking about this slow, continued process of people's sanctification and I'm going to be patient with you.
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I'm going to display graciousness. Because God has been patient with me. If that doesn't convince you, let me give you some text.
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James 1 .19 Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
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It's a very practical way that we can show patience. I'm going to be a quick hearer. I'm going to be a slow speaker.
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And I'm going to imitate God by being slow to anger because God is slow to anger. I'm going to be hard to offend.
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I'm not going to be offended at the drop of a hat. You're going to take a long time to offend me.
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Why? Because I'm slow to anger. I'm going to be really ready to reconcile. At the first step of senior repentance,
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I'm in. I'm going to be humble. I'm going to be an imitator of God.
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You understand? Galatians 5 .22 Don't forget. One of the things the Spirit of God produces in the people of God.
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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. And then what's number four? You can say it. What's number four? Love, joy, peace.
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Number four, I'll give you a hint. It's the title of the sermon. Very good, Jack. It's patience.
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In other words, you know that patience is not a spiritual gift. It's not a spiritual gift.
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I just don't have the spiritual gift of patience. Whoa, bud. It ain't a spiritual gift. It's a spiritual fruit.
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You understand the difference? It's something the Holy Spirit is producing inside of these believers.
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No. Every believer. It's patience. God is producing that in us. Colossians 3 .12
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Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
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Patience with the church. By the way, I just want to mention this. It's hard work. We need grace. We need the
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Gospel. We absolutely need the Holy Spirit. Listen to me now. I'm just going to get on a little bit of a tangent.
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But it's actually hard work to have a real church. I'm not talking about you just show up, you sing some
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K -love songs, you wave, you have superficial relationships, and you go back and you live your life and you don't get involved with people.
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No, I'm talking about having a real church is hard. It's not easy. Real fellowship. Real investment.
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Real, real investment in one another's lives. It's hard. Knowing each other. Knowing their struggles.
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Knowing their sins. Being vulnerable with one another. Praying for one another. Seeing somebody continually to not take your counsel and yet you still love them and you walk alongside them anyway.
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Showing up. Working. Being together as a church. It's hard work. That's what we're called to.
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And there's no greater work in this world today than the work God is doing. And the work
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God is doing, Matthew 16, 18, is building His church.
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Well, it takes a lot of patience. Bingo. That's right. And that's what the text compels us.
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To see God's slowness of anger and let us demonstrate it not only toward the lost but also to the church.
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And then I have one final point and we'll be done. We must trust God's patience. This won't take long. Praise God's patience.
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Preach God's patience. Imitate God's patience. And finally, let me just mention that we must not presume upon God's patience.
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The Lord is slow to anger. This is true.
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And it is the burden of my heart that both you and I would know this great
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God as revealed in the Bible. That our boast would be in nothing else as Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24 says, our boast would be in nothing else but knowing who this
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God is. Knowing Him in Christ. Seeking to make Him known to the nations. And to know the patience of God, to know the long suffering of God is to not presume upon His patience.
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Let me say first to the Christian. Christian, God has been kind to you.
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Your life is a gift and it will soon be over. You say, well, that's morbid. No, even if you live another hundred years, your life is going to go by quickly.
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And the time for growing in godliness I'm saying to you is not tomorrow. It's today.
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You must not presume upon the patience of the Lord. You must not say, well, God is patient, so right now
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I'm young, I'm a teenager, I'll just enjoy my life. When I get older, I'm going to get serious about the things of the
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Lord. When I have a family, I'll get serious about the things of the Lord. Right now I have kids, young kids, it's hard, they're in sports, all this, it's difficult.
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When I have grandkids, I'll get serious about the things of the Lord. And I say to you, that is presumption. And you are called to grow today.
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To grow in the Lord today. These are the days, not for immaturity, but maturity. One major application for you is that you would be satisfied that you would be satisfied with knowing
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God. That you would not be satisfied with little knowledge of God. That you would grow in His Word.
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That you would take seriously time in the Scriptures. That you would seek to read the Bible not as just like a Jesus -calling foolishness, or not just some sort of self -help tool, but you would want to read the
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Bible for this grand purpose, not the only purpose, but for this overarching purpose. You want to read the Bible because you want to know
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God. You take seriously sitting under the preaching of the Word. Not to make your life more comfortable or less guilty or whatever, but you sit under the preaching of the
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Word for this grand purpose. You want to know who God is. I'll say to you, Christian, do not presume upon the patience of God.
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Do not say, today I'll attend to my felt needs and tomorrow I'll grow in my adoration of God.
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No, friend. That's presumption and it's great wickedness. Second application for Christians, do you have a friend or neighbor or family member outside of Christ?
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The application here is that God is demonstrating His patience with them even now, but you, friend, must not presume upon.
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Here's how I'm going to take this into your life. You must know that it is your duty to take the
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Gospel to this person, to pray for this person, to point this person to Christ.
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What I'm saying is you can't walk away today and say, well, I'm so glad God is patient. That means so and so is going to come around one day.
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No, you are, what if you are the very means by which God is going to bring this person to Christ?
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So, take initiative. Take opportunity. Don't assume they know the Gospel. It's very simple.
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Ask a question like this, what is the Gospel? And then when they tell you the right answer, say amen.
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If they tell you the wrong answer, push back on it and share the Gospel. Right? Don't presume.
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You say, ok, but I've already shared the Gospel. What must I do now? Well, you must exercise patience with God's plan.
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You've got to trust Him. You've got to. He hasn't put salvation in your hands. Salvation is of Yahweh.
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Rest in Him. He is good. Do your duty and trust His providence. And again, part of that may be continued painstaking patience and enduring insults from your own family, ridicule from your own family, from those you love, even as you don't give an inch on the truth.
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And in prudence, and in love, and in love for God, and in patience, you look for continued opportunities to do what?
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To share the Gospel. Ok, and then, as you might expect, I have one more application.
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And, on not presuming on God's patience. And we'll go back to the text for this.
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The Lord is slow to anger. I think about Assyria.
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Perhaps they presumed upon the patience of God. Perhaps they just didn't care at all. Maybe I'm speaking to someone here.
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Assyria, you understand, Nineveh, they had great walls, great wealth, a great army. They were, at the writing of this anyway, a world leading empire.
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But then in 612 BC, all of that was over. God's judgment came. And the
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Assyrian Empire was no more. And none of what they had achieved, their money, their possessions, their big fat wall, none of it saved them from the judgment of God.
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So I say to you, unbeliever, God has an appointed day to judge the nations in righteousness.
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The Bible says that His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. Unbeliever, you need to understand that today
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God has been very kind to you. Abundantly kind. I'm asking you today, what have you done with this kindness, children?
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What have you done? You have Christian parents. What have you done with this kindness? If you have not repented of your sins and believed the
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Gospel, you have begrudged the kindness of God. Come to Christ.
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You have added sin to sin by not only already deserving the judgment of God, but now resenting the very means by which
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God has provided for you to escape His judgment by turning from your sins, giving you breath in your lungs, understanding, hearing the
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Gospel, and He's giving you the opportunity today to repent and trust His Son, to run to our patient and merciful
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Savior, Jesus Christ. God's patience is not a license to sin.
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It is a call to repentance. Today your health is strong.
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Your mind is clear. It's a terrible analogy, but I wonder when Joe Biden's mind really went like, you know, one day he could understand things and the next day, you know, down the road somewhere, there's some point where he went from understanding things to not understanding things.
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I saw it in my grandmother. I'm not trying to be rude or crass. My grandmother had dementia. There's one day
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I'm having a conversation with her and then there's one day I'm like, she's not, she don't know who I am. I flat out asked her, do you know who
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I am? She said, no. Your mind's strong today. Will it be tomorrow?
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Your health is strong today. People have heart attacks and die all the time.
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Not me, I'm healthy. People think that all the time and they die. People get in their cars, they drive to a different location, before they get there, they get hit, a tire falls off, something crazy happens.
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Lightning strikes a tree, it falls over, and they die. What I'm saying to you is, you have your health today, you have your mind today, you have your bank account full today maybe, or in this economy, maybe it's not quite full, but at least it's open, right?
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What are you going to do? What are you going to do when you don't have those things?
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And what are you going to do when God's judgment comes and you haven't repented? You can't presume that God's patience will be upon you tomorrow.
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And I say to you, little boy, little girl, young man, young woman, middle -aged man or woman, senior adult man or woman, you must not presume upon God's patience.
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He's long -suffering with you today. The promise is right now. He's being patient with you right now.
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You're hearing the Gospel right now. He's slow to anger with you right now. But at the right moment,
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His judgment will befall this land. We already see the rumblings. I mean, don't be foolish.
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We already see the rumblings. There's part of me that says there's no way the most leftist agenda could ever be elected.
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The Harris -Walls agenda could ever be elected President of the United States. That could never happen, right? There's part of me that thinks that.
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There's another part of me that says this may be an absolute sign of the judgment of God on our land. And I'm saying these are not the days for you to play games.
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Why would you forsake such a patient God? Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to run to the
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God who is slow to anger. Today is the day to repent of your sins and trust
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Christ. Church, how ought you to respond to the patience of God?
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You know, may we never come and sit under the preaching of the Word and especially contemplate one of the attributes of God and leave this place unaffected.
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Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that You're patient. We pray that You would display
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Your long -suffering still with us. Even today that You would mercifully call sinners to Yourself.
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Even today that You would sanctify Your people. Even today that You would create here the church that You would have.
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May we give our lives to this, knowing that we serve a God who is slow to anger, worthy of our praise.