The Long-Suffering God
Romans 2:1–16
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience? Romans 2:4 (NIV)
There are two ways we can go in responding to God’s kindness, tolerance, and patience. Paul is clear about them. One way is repentance, the way Scripture urges. The other is defiance, or spite toward God’s goodness.
Which will it be for you? You can defy God. You can set yourself against his goodness, tolerance, and patience. But why should you do that? Why should you “show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience” (NIV)? These are winsome qualities. A kind, tolerant, and patient God is a good God. Why should you fail to realize that God’s exercise of these attributes toward you is for a good end?
I want to give you three reasons why you should allow these attributes to lead you to repentance and why you should no longer despise the goodness of God.
First, if God is a good God, then whatever you may think to the contrary in your fallen state, to find this good God will mean finding all good for yourself. You do not normally think this way. You think that your own will is the good. Can you not see that it is your own sinful way that is the cause of your miseries? God is not the cause. God is the source of all good. If you want to find good for yourself, the way to find it is to turn from whatever is holding you back and find God. God has provided the way for you to turn to him through the death of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Second, if God is tolerant of you, it is because he has a will to save you. If he wanted to condemn you outright, he could have done it long ago. If he is tolerant, you will find that, if you come to him, he will not cast you out.
Third, if God is patient with you in spite of your many follies, it is because he is giving you an opportunity to be saved. The apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). If God is good in his patience, his reason for being so must be to do good. His patience must be to give you opportunity to turn to him. If he has allowed you to live twenty, forty, or even eighty or ninety years, it is so that you might come to him now—before you die and the opportunity for salvation is gone forever.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.