THERE is nothing more wonderful than God's long-suffering. In fact we read that it is "salvation," forasmuch as “he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Now, this fact is most noteworthy. It cannot be pointed out too frequently. It is little known, and widely disbelieved; indeed, the ordinary natural idea is that God is vindictive, austere, and hard, and that He finds pleasure in judgment. Such is, alas, our natural conception of God; but it is, blessed be His name, altogether wrong. The verse just quoted may well dissipate that idea. He is not willing that any (no, not one) should perish, but that all (yes, every one) should come to repentance.
How minute is this statement! Ponder the two words "any" and "all." Let your mind run down the ranks of the entire fallen family and select, if you will, its most prodigal members, and those most worthy of perdition; and, then, remember our word, "not willing that any should perish," or again, on the other side, " that all should come to repentance." Such is God. He is long-suffering, but withal He is not indifferent. His long-suffering never merges into indifference, nor His patience into apathy.
To us it may seem extraordinary that nineteen centuries have been allowed to pass without vengeance being taken for the death of His Son, or for the growth of sin during that long period.
The long-suffering of God is the blessed answer.
But that suffering though long, though very long, will end, and give place to judgment.
So it was with the world before the flood, and with Israel before its captivity. So will it be with Christendom today. “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night "—and then woe betide the unwary and unprepared.
Hence, if God's present long-suffering should be constantly pointed out, and widely proclaimed, so also should be the solemn, certain fact of His coming judgment.
When Christ was in their midst He said to Israel, “How often would I have gathered thy children together... but ye would not!”
How often? He alone could tell! but, often as He would, so often would they not; and His tender love and outstretched hand of mercy were coldly disdained, spurned, and rejected. He pleaded patiently, and He suffered long, but without avail For His love He received hatred, and was awarded the cross. But at last, at long last, when His longsuffering was proved beyond measure, He said to them, "Behold your house is left desolate." He retired from their midst who alone was their Helper, and left the dire desolation of His absence instead. Ah what more desolate than the people, or the man, left and forsaken of God!
One of the worst and bitterest sorrows of hell will be that God cannot be reached!
The wicked wish today that there was “no God." Their wish will be gratified to their eternal anguish by-and-by.
Take care, dear reader, God has suffered long with you, very long! how often has sounded in your careless ear the sweet "come" of a patient Savior, as often treated with guilty neglect by you. Take care, I pray you, lest desolation be your doom. Mercy rejected is judgment accepted.
J. W. S.