WWUTT 113 God Is Patient Toward You (Romans 2:1-5)

The Lord’s Patience as Salvation

The Bible says that the Lord is slow to anger, and we should be thankful for that. The Apostle Peter says that we should count the Lord's patience as salvation, for we're given an opportunity to repent of our sin and know His grace, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

Romans 2:1-5 and the Judgment of God

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, again today in Romans chapter 2, verses 1 through 5. Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things, and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

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, 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?

Peter’s Teaching on the Day of the Lord

God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. His patience is so we will know His grace. I was studying this morning in 2 Peter chapter 3 and trying to find a section of that that I could fit with this text today, but ultimately it came down to reading the entire chapter.

In verse 3 Peter starts,. Know this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

For they deliberately overlook this fact, they deliberately overlook that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

But by the same word the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but He is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn?

But according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, please be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish and at peace, and count the patience of our Lord as salvation.

Paul’s Letters and the Danger of Twisting Scripture

Just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters, there are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.

You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. So I hope that in this you see the love of God that is displayed in His patience toward us so that we might have an opportunity to repent of our sin, rejoice in the gift of salvation that has been given to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Salvation, Divine Nature, and Closing Prayer

God, we thank you for granting to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Jesus, who called us to His own glory and excellence by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises so that through them we might become partakers in the divine nature by your glorious grace.

And it's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

This is a production of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find us on the web at www .utt .com.