THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

Transcription

1 THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD God s Patience Psalms 145: The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. 9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. 10 All thy works shall praise thee, O LORD; and thy saints shall bless thee. Nahum 1:3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. There is no study of God that presents the infinity of His nature more impressively than the study of His perfections; and among those perfections nothing, perhaps, more strikingly illustrates that infinity than His patience. Octavius Winslow Definition of God s Patience The Bible uses the words patient, long-suffering, forbearing, and slow to anger, to describe God. God s patience is an expression of His grace and mercy over time. The word longsuffering means to suffer long, that is, God is willing to endure the rebellion, disobedience, and ungrateful attitude of people for a period of time. The word forbear means to put up with difficult people. God s patience may be regarded as His self-control. A. W. Pink defines God s patience as that power of control which God exercises over Himself, causing Him to bear with the wicked and forbear so long in punishing them. Stephen Charnock adds: God is slow to anger because He is great in power. He has no less power over Himself than over His creatures. Everything in the world exists to bring God glory. People often ask why God allows sin in the world. Without the existence of sin we could not know God s grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, and patience. God s patience is specifically related to His mercy (Ps. 145:8), power (Nah. 1:3) and wisdom (Prov. 16:32; 19:11). God s patience is always guided by infallible wisdom. John Snyder comments: God does not need to remind Himself to be patient. God does not try to be patient. God does not find it easy to be patient one day and difficult the next. Patience is part of God s majesty and it comes naturally to Him (Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty). Biblical Evidence of God s Patience 1. God was patient with sinners before the flood Genesis 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 1 Peter 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. God waited 120 years before He sent the flood and during this time Noah built the ark and preached the truth. Noah was a preacher of righteousness, which means he declared God s standard of right and wrong and His command to repent of sin.

2 2. God demonstrated His patience with Israel Over and over God demonstrated great patience with His rebellious people. Shortly after the golden calf story in Exodus 32, God reminded Moses of His patience. Exodus 34:4-7 4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. 5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. Numbers 14: And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, 18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. 19 Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. 20 And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word. Moses appealed to God on the basis of His patience when Israel provoked God to anger. God exercised patience for many years with many generations (Ps. 78:10-38; Acts 13:18). He was very patient not only with Israel s rebellion, but also with their self-righteousness. Jonah 4:1-4 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. 4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry? God was patient with the prophet Jonah as well as the city of Nineveh. The whole city repented and submitted to God, but Jonah pouted and resented God s mercy upon the Ninevites. Jonah knew the Lord was patient, but He didn t seem to understand that he was the one who really tried God s patience. 3. God demonstrated His patience when people rejected Christ John 1: He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. When Jesus came to this world He was mostly misunderstood and rejected. Luke 13:6-9 6 He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. 7 Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? 8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: 9 And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. Jesus told a parable about the fruitless fig tree, a symbol of Israel s persistent unbelief and rejection of Him (see also Mt. 23:37). 4. God shows patience toward all sinners in need of salvation

3 Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? God reveals the riches (fullness, completeness) of his goodness and patience in leading us to repentance (salvation). Romans 3: Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. God s patience is revealed in all forgiveness of sins. 1 Timothy 1:16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. The Apostle Paul said his salvation was an example of God s great patience. longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you. 5. God exercises patience in withholding justified vengeance Revelation 6: And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. Our Response to God s Patience 1. We must not misjudge and abuse God s patience longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Ecclesiastes 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Unbelievers generally make light of God s patience and use it as a excuse to continue in their sinful ways. In the latter days scoffers will say that God is slack (negligent) concerning His promise of Christ s return. Some misjudge God s patience and assume He is forgetful, ignorant, lenient, unable or unwilling to punish sin. Some people assume that just because God hasn t punished them already, He won t punish them at all. God is patient, but His patience eventually runs out. 2. We should appreciate God s patience before and after our conversion Just think of how we test God s patience before we are saved. We sin against God and violate our conscience. We disobey God s commands and put off God s call to salvation. We are often like Paul to whom the Lord said, It is hard for you to kick against the pricks (prodding sticks used with animals, Acts 9:5). Most of us heard the Gospel many times before we were saved, yet we were stubborn, resistant, proud, careless, indifferent, and looking for excuses not to be saved. But God is patient. If you re not saved, don t try His patience any longer.

4 After we are saved we continue to try God s patience. How true are the words of this children s song: It took Him six days to make the moon and stars, the sun and earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and how patient He must be, cause He s still working on me. God wants and expects us to learn, grow in Christian maturity, and serve Him faithfully, yet we rebel, disobey, balk, and make excuses. We must never use God s patience as an excuse to do what s wrong or failure to do what s right. We should see God s patience as a motive to please and honor Him. O the tenderness and graciousness of the Lord s patience with His people! How patiently He bears with their ungrateful repining, their secret rebellion, their cold love, their cruel unbelief, with their continual backslidings. Truly the patience of God after grace is greater than before grace. How this thought should subdue our rebellious spirits, break our hard hearts, and lead us, in every fresh remembrance, to the blood of Christ to wash in the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Octavius Winslow 3. We should wait patiently for God Psalms 37:7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. 1 Thessalonians 1:10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. Hebrews 10: For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. 37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. 4. We should be patient with other people Ephesians 4:1-2 1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love. Colossians 3: Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; 13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Resources for Further Study Boice, James Montgomery. Foundations of the Christian Faith. Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God. Enns, Paul. The Moody Handbook of Theology. Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. MacArthur, John and Richard Mayhue, eds. Biblical Doctrine. MacArthur, John, ed. The MacArthur Study Bible. Packer, J. I. Knowing God. Pink, A. W. Gleanings in the Godhead. Snyder, John. Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty. Sproul, R. C., Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible. Strauss, Lehman. The Godhead. Torrey, R. A. What the Bible Teaches. Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy. Washer, Paul. Knowing the Living God.

5 THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD God s Patience Psalms 145: The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. 9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. 10 All thy works shall praise thee, O LORD; and thy saints shall bless thee. Nahum 1:3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. There is no study of God that presents the infinity of His nature more impressively than the study of His perfections; and among those perfections nothing, perhaps, more strikingly illustrates that infinity than His patience. Octavius Winslow Definition of God s Patience The Bible uses the words patient, long-suffering, forbearing, and slow to anger, to describe God. God s patience is an expression of His grace and mercy over time. The word long-suffering means to suffer long, that is, God is willing to endure the rebellion, disobedience, and ungrateful attitude of people for a period of time. The word forbear means to put up with difficult people. God s patience may be regarded as His self-control. A. W. Pink defines God s patience as that power of control which God exercises over Himself, causing Him to bear with the wicked and forbear so long in punishing them. Stephen Charnock adds: God is slow to anger because He is great in power. He has no less power over Himself than over His creatures. Everything in the world exists to bring God glory. People often ask why God allows sin in the world. Without the existence of sin we could not know God s grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, and patience. God s patience is specifically related to His mercy (Ps. 145:8), power (Nah. 1:3) and wisdom (Prov. 16:32; 19:11). God s patience is always guided by infallible wisdom. John Snyder comments: God does not need to remind Himself to be patient. God does not try to be patient. God does not find it easy to be patient one day and difficult the next. Patience is part of God s majesty and it comes naturally to Him (Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty). Biblical Evidence of God s Patience 1. God was patient Genesis 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 1 Peter 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. 2. God demonstrated His patience Exodus 34:4-7 4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. 5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

6 Numbers 14: And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, 18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. 19 Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. 20 And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word. Moses appealed to God on the basis of His patience when Israel provoked God to anger. God exercised patience for many years with many generations (Ps. 78:10-38; Acts 13:18). He was very patient not only with Israel s rebellion, but also with their self-righteousness. Jonah 4:1-4 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. 4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry? 3. God demonstrated His patience John 1: He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. Luke 13:6-9 6 He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. 7 Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? 8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: 9 And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. 4. God shows patience toward Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? Romans 3: Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. 1 Timothy 1:16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you. 5. God exercises patience in withholding Revelation 6: And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. Our Response to God s Patience 1. We must not God s patience

7 longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Ecclesiastes 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Unbelievers generally make light of God s patience and use it as a excuse to continue in their sinful ways. In the latter days scoffers will say that God is slack (negligent) concerning His promise of Christ s return. Some misjudge God s patience and assume He is forgetful, ignorant, lenient, unable or unwilling to punish sin. Some people assume that just because God hasn t punished them already, He won t punish them at all. God is patient, but His patience eventually runs out. 2. We should appreciate God s patience O the tenderness and graciousness of the Lord s patience with His people! How patiently He bears with their ungrateful repining, their secret rebellion, their cold love, their cruel unbelief, with their continual backslidings. Truly the patience of God after grace is greater than before grace. How this thought should subdue our rebellious spirits, break our hard hearts, and lead us, in every fresh remembrance, to the blood of Christ to wash in the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Octavius Winslow 3. We should Psalms 37:7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. 1 Thessalonians 1:10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. Hebrews 10: For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. 37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. 4. We should Ephesians 4:1-2 1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love. Colossians 3: Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; 13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Resources for Further Study Boice, James Montgomery. Foundations of the Christian Faith. Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God. Enns, Paul. The Moody Handbook of Theology. Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. MacArthur, John and Richard Mayhue, eds. Biblical Doctrine. MacArthur, John, ed. The MacArthur Study Bible. Packer, J. I. Knowing God. Pink, A. W. Gleanings in the Godhead. Snyder, John. Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty. Sproul, R. C., Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible. Strauss, Lehman. The Godhead. Torrey, R. A. What the Bible Teaches. Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy. Washer, Paul. Knowing the Living God.