God's Patience With Men

Peter speaks about the patience of God to the people in Noah’s day, who were wicked, ungodly, immoral, violent, and so on. And it says they once were disobedient. This is 1 Peter 3:20.

“They once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.”

Notice, the patience of God caused him to wait. The Bible indicates that God waited at least 100 years while the ark was being prepared. The people of that day concluded God doesn’t judge. He’s not, he’s, we can get away with it. They didn’t understand that the patience of God caused him to wait, and it’s still true today.

We really cannot understand history unless we understand God’s patience. We’ll get a very warped and negative and dark view of history. We’ll say, well, the wicked flourish and God does nothing about it. But God’s patience is expressed by not intervening hastily against wickedness. The phrase that’s used about him in Exodus 34:6 and 7 is that he is slow to anger. And that, incidentally, is part of being patient. We need to bear that in mind, being slow to anger. God revealed himself to Moses in these verses. Says,

“The Lord passed by in front of Moses and proclaimed: ‘The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.’”

So God passes over wickedness and sin and rebellion because he’s longing to show mercy and to forgive. But there will come a time when his patience will run out and he’ll intervene. Not only is patience a characteristic of God the Father, it is also a characteristic of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Paul says this about himself in 1 Timothy 1:16:

“And yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience, as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life.”

Here’s Paul, blaspheming, persecuting the church, taking the clothes of those who stoned Stephen, in total open rebellion against his Messiah. And yet Jesus was patient. He waited. But when his moment came, he apprehended Paul on the Damascus Road and changed him just in a moment.

Patience is also an aspect of Christian character that we need to cultivate. Listen to this about the fruit of the Spirit.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Where this version says patience, you’ll remember the old King James Version says longsuffering. And let me say what I said yesterday, there’s only one way to acquire longsuffering, and that is by suffering long. And then in Colossians 1:11, Paul prays for the Christians,

“that they might be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might for attaining of all steadfastness and patience.”

And notice that patience is an expression of God’s power. It’s not a mark of weakness. It’s a mark of strength.

And then, further on in Colossians, he tells the Christians,

“And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

I want to emphasize that patience is the expression of strength, not of weakness. So many people with a carnal view see patience as weakness. It isn’t. It’s strength. There are two verses from Proverbs that speak about this. Proverbs 16:32:

“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who captures a city.”

And Proverbs 25:28:

“Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit.”

That’s the kind of person who loses his temper in a moment. As we say in contemporary speech, he blows his stack. He loses control of himself. He can shout. He can even get violent. But all that is not strength. That is weakness. The man is strong is the one who rules his own spirit, who doesn’t let the city of his spirit be broken into by things that disturb him, take away his peace, and his self-control. Believe me, that is true spiritual strength, to be in control of yourself, not to be provoked into foolish or rash statements or actions by people who are wicked, people who are unreasonable, unjust. We have to learn a little of God’s patience. We have to learn to let things go wrong sometimes and do nothing about them.

The Lord spoke to me personally the other day in a rather unexpected way. I really don’t know what I was thinking about, but he said this to me, as I believe, I heard his voice. He said, “People have to be allowed to make their own mistakes.” And I thought that’s profoundly true. How many times as parents or pastors we want to protect everybody from their mistakes. Sometimes we have to do what God does, let people make their mistakes. That takes patience. When you see a child you love or a member of your church going astray, doing something foolish, you know they’re going to pay the price for it. But God doesn’t give you liberty to intervene. God says, you’ve got to let them go their way and learn their lesson. That’s patience.

As a matter of fact, the Bible emphasizes that patience is particularly necessary in God’s servants. This is what Paul says about the Lord’s bond-servant in 2 Timothy 2:24 and 25. He’s talking to somebody about pastoral responsibilities.

“The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.”

You see, we see people are wrong, but we don’t have to jump on them every time. We have to exercise patience and just hope that our patience, like God’s patience, will bring them to repentance.