2 Peter 3 Commentary - The Biblical Illusrator

Verse 1-2

2 Peter 3:1-2

This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you.

St. Peter’s love token

I. The nature of it--a letter written. What shall we render to the Lord for His mercy in writing these blessed covenants?

II. The number of it--a second after the former. “This second”; not so much fearing the miscarriage of the first, as hoping to work better confirmation by the next.

III. The tenor of it--to stir up their minds. Why are the words of the wise compared to goads (Ecclesiastes 3:11) but to show that the best in God’s team need pricking forward?

IV. The order--by way of remembrance. This is a just order and method; first, to teach the way of the Lord, then to remind men of walking in it. We are not only called teachers, but remembrancers (Isaiah 62:6). (Thos. Adams.)

I stir up your pure minds.

A Christian memory

The power of memory is, perhaps, the most amazing part of our mental equipment. It is a golden thread that links infancy and age, on which are hung, like pearls, varied facts and experiences of every hue. Memory has her servant, recollection, an invisible librarian running about the chambers of the mind, to find what she calls for. Now God uses this faculty in the work of building up Christian character.

1. The gospel has a history to be remembered.

2. History repeats itself ordinarily; but this history of the gospel can never be repeated. Christ has suffered once for all. A Christian memory is swift to remember this.

3. In the revelation of His “memorial name “Jehovah has emphasised the significance of memory. He is not an abstraction, a far-distant personality, even, but “the Father of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob”--a historic God.

4. Again, keep in mind that the life of our Lord in glory is linked with that of His redemptive work on earth, as truly as your existence there, some day, will be connected with your residence here on earth.

5. Finally, a Christian memory holds in trust these historic dates of Christ and His redemption, because of the fact that they are to be the theme of adoring praise throughout eternity. (J. M. English, D. D.)

Mindful of the words which were spoken before.--

Mindfulness

I. The object of their mindfulness.

1. “Words,” for their plain certainty; not shadows and abstruse paradoxes.

2. “Spoken before,” for their antiquity; not things of yesterday; no new devices.

3. “By the prophets,” for the authority; men that had their commission immediately from God Himself.

4. “Holy prophets,” for the sanctity; they passed not through the lips of a Balaam, or Caiaphas.

5. “The commandment of us,” etc. The prophets were legal apostles, the apostles are evangelical prophets. Both these came to the world with commandments.

II. Their mindfulness of that object. This consists in two things:

1. Observation. God never meant His Word for a vanishing sound; that which is kept upon eternal record in heaven, and is a constant dweller in the elected heart (Colossians 3:16), must not be a sojourner, much less a passenger, with us.

2. Conversation. It is a barren mindfulness that does not declare itself in a holy fruitfulness. Conclusion:

1. Let us desire the faculty and facility of doing; earnestly to desire it is one half, yea, the best half.

2. Let us be thrifty husbands of time and means to be spiritually rich.

3. Let us reduce all to practice. (Thos. Adams.)

Compendious commandments

Cultivate the habit of reflective meditation upon the truths of the gospel as giving you the pattern of duty in a concentrated and available form. It is of no use to carry about a copy of the “Statutes at Large” in twenty folio volumes, in order to refer to it when difficulties arise and crises come. We must have something a great deal more compendious and easy of reference than that. A man’s cabin-trunk must not be as big as a house, and his goods must be in a small compass for his sea voyage. We have in Jesus Christ the “Statutes at Large,” codified and put into a form which the poorest and humblest and busiest amongst us can apply directly to the sudden emergencies and surprising contingencies of daily life, which are always sprung upon us when we do not expect them, and demand instantaneous decision. (A. Maclaren.)

Verses 1-4

Verse 3-4

2 Peter 3:3-4

There shall come in the last days scoffers.

The character of the last days

I. The personal qualifications of the disputers here described. To be a scoffer is sure no very laudable character, being the joint result of pride and malice, the doing mischief, and the doing it in sport. But as this temper is most injurious, it is also ignorant and indocile. The sure effect of knowledge is an humble sense of the want of it; the deeper we immerse ourselves in any art or science, the greater difficulties are started by us. But over and above the ingredients, of pride, ill-nature, and incorrigible folly, the mockers of the text are branded with immorality and vice--“to walk after their own lusts.” And sure there cannot be a more prodigious impudence than that guilty persons liable to the severest punishments should dare to awaken observation by being sharp on others.

II. The force of their discoursings. “Where is the promise of His coming?” The delaying of performance is no prejudice against it. With Almighty God everything, however distant it may seem, is actually present. First, the apostle denies the proposition that all things continue as they were since the Creation; and secondly, he denies the consequence drawn from thence, Though all things did continue, it no way follows they shall for ever do so.

III. As they are a recital of a prophecy. The appearance of these scoffers in the world is itself a very signal mark of its approach (Jude 1:17-18; 1 Thessalonians 5:1; Matthew 24:37). Will they find arguments of mockery and laughter in the place of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth? If they can do this, in God’s name let them mock on, deny a future judgment, or what is more brave, let them dare it. (John Fell, D. D.)

The nature, folly, and danger of scoring at religion

I. To consider the nature, folly, and danger of scoffing at religion, than which nothing can be more offensive to a considerate mind.

1. Is there anything ridiculous in the belief of a Deity, a supreme, infinite, and intelligent mind, the creator and governor of the universe? Is it absurd to assert that He who made the world exercises an universal providence and directs all the affairs of it? What is there ludicrous in any of the duties of piety, in a supreme reverence and love of God? What is there that has a ridiculous aspect, or can excite any but the laughter of fools, in justice, temperance, etc.? Again, is it at all unsuitable to our most worthy notions of God to believe, that when the world was universally corrupted, He would graciously interpose for the good of His creatures, and teach them their duty by an extraordinary revelation? Is it in the least irrational to suppose that this revelation has fixed, with the utmost distinctness, the terms of our acceptance with God, and thereby removed distracting suspicions and superstitious terrors?

2. Further, the grand principles and duties of religion are so far from having anything ridiculous in them, that they are some of the plainest and most obvious dictates of reason, which renders the guilt of the scoffer much more aggravated and his impertinence and folly more insupportable.

3. Let me only add that religion is of the utmost consequence to the comfort of men’s minds, the peace of society, and the general good of the world. So that whoever sets himself to vilify these important truths not only fixes certain reproach upon himself by misplacing his ridicule on what has really nothing absurd in it, but is, in fact, whatever his intention may be, whether to gratify a trifling humour, display the forwardness of his genius, or corrupt the morals of the age, an enemy to society and the general happiness of mankind.

4. And as the guilt of these scoffers is very great, their danger is in proportion. For if the principles of religion should happen to be true, he that has so abused his reason, that noblest gift of God, as to employ it against his Maker, and all that is amiable and useful in human life, must expect to be treated with the utmost rigour and severity.

II. To inquire into the causes of it.

1. It sometimes springs from a levity of mind which disposes men to treat all subjects ludicrously.

2. Again, bantering religion frequently proceeds from ignorance and superficial inquiry.

3. Sometimes again it happens that the fashion of the age they live in, or the general humour of the company they frequent, makes persons set up for scoffers.

4. Scoffing at religion may, in some persons, proceed from a direct hatred of it, occasioned by a prejudice in favour of their vices. This was the case of the scoffers mentioned in the text, who are expressly described as walking after their own lusts. I may safely assert that immorality in the practice is the source of the most invincible prejudices against religion. How natural is it for those, who live as without God in the world, to wish that there was no such Being, that by destroying the first principle of all religion they may justify the want of it in their practice. I shall only add, that when men are averse to the principles of religion, they will naturally decline all further inquiries into the reasonableness of them, and be fond of everything that looks plausible on the side of infidelity.

Learn:

1. Into what extreme corruption the mind of man, which is indued with such noble faculties and formed for Godlike perfection, is capable of being sunk, even to mistake confusion for order and deformity for beauty?

2. Again, that we may not be imposed on by the scoffers of our own times, let us always take care to distinguish between reasoning and ridicule. We should examine what it is that is really ridiculous: whether it be religion itself, or something of a different nature substituted in the place of it.

3. Finally, that we may keep at the utmost distance from this crime, let us employ our reason in defending religion and representing it in a just and amiable light. Let our natural abilities be devoted to this service, and all our studies and improvements made subservient to it. (James Foster.)

The folly of scoffing at religion

I. We will consider the nature of the sin here mentioned, which is scoffing at religion. “There shall come scoffers.” In those times there was a common persuasion among Christians, “that the day of the Lord was at hand.” Now this, it is probable, these scoffers twitted the Christians withal. They looked upon all things as going on in a constant course.

II. the character which is here given of these scoffers. They are said to walk after their own lusts. St. Jude, in his epistle, gives much the same character of them that St. Peter here does (verses 18, 19). To deride God and religion is the highest kind of impiety. And men do not usually arrive to this degree of wickedness at first, but they come to it by several steps. I remember it is the saying of one, who hath done more by his writings to debauch the age with atheistical principles than any man that lives in it, “that when reason is against a man, then a man will be against reason.” I am sure this is the true account of such men’s enmity to religion--religion is against them, and therefore they set themselves against religion. Besides that, men think it some kind of apology for their vices that they do not act contrary to any principle they profess.

III. The heinousness and the aggravations of this vice. If it prove true that there is no God, the religious man may be as happy in this world as the atheist. Besides that, the practice of religion and virtue doth naturally promote our temporal felicity. It is more for a man’s health, and more for his reputation, and more for his advantage in all other worldly respects, to lead a virtuous than a vicious course of life. And for the other world, if there be no God, the case of the religious realm and the atheist will be alike, because they will both be extinguished by death and insensible of any further happiness or misery. But then if the contrary opinion should prove true, then it is plain to every man, at first sight, that the case of the religious man and the atheist must be vastly different; then where shall the wicked and the ungodly appear? I will but add one thing more, to show the folly of this profane temper. And that is this: that as it is the greatest of all other sins, so there is in truth the least temptation to it. Profane persons serve the devil for nought. Lessons:

1. To take men off from this impious and dangerous folly of profaneness, which by some is miscalled wit.

2. To caution men not to think the worse of religion, because some are so bold as to deride it.

3. To persuade men to employ that reason and wit which God hath given them, to better and nobler purposes, in the service and to the glory of that God who hath bestowed these gifts on men. (Abp. Tillotson.)

The sin of scoffing at religion

I. The nature of the vice.

1. It is not the serious inquirer that I complain of, let his objections be raised against whatever doctrines they may, but the individual who treats the subject with a spirit of levity, derision, and contempt.

(a) Much unhallowed ridicule is thrown by some on what are considered by us as the most sublime and important doctrines of revelation--I mean the trinity of persons in the Godhead, and the atonement of our Lord.

(b) The scorner will not unfrequently be found avowing his belief in the important articles which I have just mentioned, while, at the same time, he ridicules the only legitimate influence and valuable results of these doctrines. Has not the term saint, that highest appellation which can be given to man or glorified spirit, been bandied about society as a term of reproach?

(c) Another way of scoffing at religion is to pitch upon the imperfections of good men and to expose them to public ridicule. But how hateful is the malignity which delights to throw all the praiseworthy parts of the character into the shade of one ludicrous trait.

(d) It is a miserable device, which many have had recourse to, to select the absurdities of fanaticism and the hollow pretences of hypocrisy, as they have been exhibited in some false professors, and thus to raise a prejudice against all genuine religion.

2. To inquire where and when the practice of scoffing is indulged in.

II. The causes of scoffing.

1. There are many subordinate and proximate ones.

2. But the chief source of scoffing is that which the apostle has mentioned in the text, “Scoffers walking after their own lusts.”

III. The character of this vice.

1. It is irrational. Ridicule is neither the test of truth in others nor the way to obtain it for ourselves.

2. It is rude and uncivil. A decent respect is due to every man’s convictions on the subject of religion, though they may be erroneous.

3. It is a most cruel and inhuman sin. Did he but consider how many there are who, amidst the vicissitudes and the trials of life, have no ray of consolation from any other source to fall upon their dreary path, would he follow them to their last refuge and attempt to drive them by unhallowed scorn even from thence?

4. It is a most hardening vice. The sacred writers speak of a scorner as almost irreclaimable.

5. But its impiety in the sight of God surpasses all description. Religion is at once the production and the image of Deity; and to scoff at religion, therefore, is to scoff at God.

6. It is a contagious and injurious vice. Scorners are the chief instruments of Satan, the promoters of his cause, his most zealous apostles, his most able advocates, and his most successful emissaries.

IV. The punishment of the scorner.

1. Are there, tell me scoffers, no midnight scenes of terror and self-reproach? How will this be increased on the bed of death?

2. I cannot conceive of any character with whom Jehovah will be so awfully severe as the scoffer; his is the loftiest height of vice, and his will be the lowest depth of punishment. God’s patience in bearing with such impious creatures is wonderful; and His justice in punishing them will be in proportion.

3. And then, who shall tell the secrets of his prison, or conceive of what the scorner shall endure in the dark world of hell? There will be no saint near him there on whom to utter the effusions of his ridicule. Not one flash of wit will for a moment relieve the darkness of eternal night; not one sally of humour resist the oppression of eternal despair. (J. A. James.)

Where is the promise of His coming?--

The delay of the advent of Christ

I. The scientific difficulty.

1. So far as the objection relates to the delay of the second advent, it would seem that, in a scientific age like the present, it would least of all have weight. For the history of the earth, as related by geology, and the history of the cosmical system, as related by astronomy, present periods so vast, that the eighteen hundred years, during which Christianity has been evolving its work among men, shrink into utter insignificance in the comparison. Certainly, the man of science, of all men, should recognise the utter inadequacy of human standards of time as measures of the development of the plans of the Creator.

2. Again, so far as the objection relates to other aspects of the subject, such as the regularity and immutability of natural law which, it is alleged, forbid any such catastrophe as the end of the world, I suggest--

(a) The second advent involves the idea of the imagination of a higher stage of life and being for man--emancipation from old fetters, the ascent to a higher plane, the taking on a new body with new powers, and under new and higher conditions. But this is just in the line of the story which science is telling us--whether in astronomy, geology, natural history, or sociology--the several spheres in which the law of evolution is traced.

(b) The second advent involves the sudden manifestation of the Son of God, and a new birth of the world resulting from it. But again, the scientific man at our side teaches us that the ascent of matter and force to higher planes, though indeed in orderly succession, has not been by infinite gradation as upon a sliding scale, but always by paroxysms. The story of a chemist is a story of successive births of force into higher and higher forms, the transformation of dead into living matter, of physical into chemical force, and again of chemical into vital force. These are all instances of sudden births into higher conditions with new properties and powers which could not have been imagined before.

(c) The second advent--or that great event which, in the perspective, is contiguous with it, though in reality it may lie far beyond it (like two distant peaks, which seem to spring from the same base though a wide valley really intervenes)--involves also stupendous natural phenomena--the regeneration by fire, the new heavens and the new earth. But here again the analogy of science is in harmony with the scriptural revelation; for the geologist, in telling of an internal treasure-house of fire, as well as the astronomer in his theory of “planetary old age,” clearly establish that harmony. And, moreover, if there is a law of conservation of force, there is also, as its antithesis, a law of dissipation of energy. Says Le Comte, “All scientific speculations on the subject of the final destiny of the Kosmos bankrupt nature. The final result is, the running down of all forms of force into heat, and so the final death of the Kosmos.”

II. The historical difficulty. Christ promised to come again in person to judge the world. He said, “Behold, I come quickly.” But He has not come. Long cycles of history have rolled round, yet still He comes not. Now how do we meet this objection? Exactly as St. Peter did--by reminding the objector that with the Lord “a thousand years are as one day.” He is the strong and patient worker. Whether we study the record of races or of civilisations, the conclusion is the same--that the God who orders the course of history does indeed reckon “a thousand years as one day,” maturing His purposes through long tracts of time, and refusing to hasten His work in obedience to the impatience of men. Great nations are not born in a day; strong civilisations are not the product of a generation; both are rather the resultant of a combination of forces and influences whose origin must be sought in remote antiquity. Judging, then, from the analogy of history, what should be the case of Christianity? Here was a new spiritual kingdom set up on earth, designed to be as wide as the world, and as universal as man. How would its results be reached? Surely we should expect that such a design could only be wrought out through long cycles of time; or, at least, this is certain, leaving out of view what could be done (for who shall limit the power of the Almighty?) if experience shall prove that the kingdom of God is to establish itself slowly and through long ages of development, this is only what the analogy of history would teach us to expect. But does not this slow ripening of the great periods of history and civilisation, while it removes the difficulty occasioned by the long delay of the second advent, create at the same time a presumption against the manner of its imagination? The Scripture picture represents a sudden event, a great crisis and catastrophe in the history of the world, in the second coming of Christ. But this, too, finds its frequent analogies in history. The records of mankind afford instances not a few of great crises in the history of cities and nations and races, when sudden destruction has overtaken them, when the long pent-up clouds of wrath have burst upon them and swept them away from among the families of the earth. Such was the case with Nineveh and Babylon. Such was the case with Accad, a city older than either of these, which was indeed the cradle of civilisation, but which so utterly disappeared, that its existence was not even known forty years ago, and was only brought to light by the discovery of the key to the arrow-headed characters, in which the story of the Accadians, with their laws and literature and religion, had remained securely locked up for more than three thousand years. Such was the case with Jerusalem, which when it filled up the measure of its guilt, perished in that sudden storm of indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish. Such was the case with the Roman Empire, when it sank to rise no more before the devastating flood of the Northern barbarians. Similar examples are not wanting in modern history, illustrating the principle in question, and giving ground for the assertion that the analogy of history is in harmony with the prophecy that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night--a day of judgment and indignation and wrath to those who are disobedient and rebellious against the Son of God, but a day of Redemption to all them that wait for His appearing. (R. H. McKim, D. D.)

All things continue as they were.

Mans external universe as read by the scoffing sceptic

I. They get from it a one-sided idea. The idea they obtained from the observation of nature was, that it was unchanging. “Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue,” etc. This is only partially true. We thank God for this constancy. Without it the farmer would have no motive to cultivate his field, the mariner no chart to guide him over the deep, the philosopher no data on which to prosecute his inquiries or to build up his science. All would be confusion. Man, without plan, and without hope, would move under the wild impulses which the casualties of the moment awakened. Still, nature has her changes. Nay, amidst all this constancy are there not incessant revolutions? Does not the inorganic change in its appearance? Old mountains, rivers, islands disappear, and new ones emerge. The vegetable and animal worlds succeed each other. Nay, perhaps there is nothing the same--all things change. A one-sided view of u many-sided thing is evermore erroneous.

II. They apply this one-sided idea against the written word. “Where is the promise of His coming?” Now, has not the sceptic always read nature in this way? Whether he has looked at its astronomical, geological, or physiological phases, has he not always so read it as to get some false idea of it, in order to turn it against the Bible?

III. They do this from a sad perversity of heart. They are “scoffers walking after their own lusts and willingly ignorant.” (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Miracles are now neither necessary to the conviction of unbelievers, nor the conversion of sinners

I shall consider the words as a standing objection of scoffers or free-thinkers against the truth and authority Of the Christian religion.

I. That miracles are not now necessary to the conviction of unbelievers. It is sufficient that we are assured there was a time when the Christian religion was confirmed by numerous and undoubted miracles. Those who contend for the continuance of miracles in order to evince more effectually the truth of revealed religion, proceed upon one of these suppositions. Either that it is necessary every particular person should for his own satisfaction be an eye-witness of some miraculous fact, or else, that once at least in every age and nation, God should exert His omnipotence, and the miracle be committed to some public and standing record for the information of those who were not eye-witnesses of it. As to what is here required in the last place, it is obviated by staying that we have all the evidence of the miracles recorded in the gospel, that any man, who is not an eye-witness of it, can have of a miracle done in his own age or nation. Upon the former supposition, miracles would be so frequent that they would become of little force or consideration. This is certain, that the effects which miracles have upon men depend upon a good, docile, and obedient temper of mind. He that is in this good disposition needs no further evidence of miracles for his conviction; but he that is not, would not be convinced by them, though we should suppose them more frequent.

II. But if miracles are not necessary to the conviction of unbelievers, may they not re necessary to the conversion of sinners? or to reclaim those who already believe from walking after their own lusts, prod bring them to repentance? I answer again in the negative.

1. The same motives which now induce men to put off their repentance would, in all probability, be as prevalent, though we should suppose miracles more frequent. Would a miracle tend to convince a sinner of the Divine authority of the laws of the gospel? That we here suppose him convinced of already. Would it tend to enforce his obedience to those laws by conveying any sanctifying graces into his nature? What would it then do in order to his conversion? You will say it might be aa occasion of bringing him to a better temper of consideration, and to make him take up some speedy resolutions of amendment. It is granted; but then such a resolution is no more than what we see sinners taking up daily, and yet, notwithstanding this, how ordinary is it for them to shift off their repentance from time to time, till it be past time!

2. It is not reasonably to be expected such an impression should be of any long or lasting continuance.

3. Though what is here asserted could not be made appear from probable reasons and arguments; yet it is confirmed by experience and undeniable shatters of fact. We have numerous examples in Scripture, and it may not be improper to instance some few of them to this purpose.

1. And when I say that miracles are not now necessary to the conviction of unbelievers, I would be understood as speaking only of such unbelievers as live among Christians, and may at any time have the proofs of Christianity laid clearly before them.

2. If, then, God Almighty has afforded us all sufficient means to convince us of the truth of our holy religion, let us faithfully endeavour to employ those means to the ends they are designed; let us frequently reflect on the reasonableness of Christianity, and the evidence of its truth, that our faith may be built upon a solid foundation. (R. Fiddes, D. D.)

Verses 5-7

2 Peter 3:5-7

This they willingly are ignorant of.

Willing ignorance

Nelson, at St. Vincent, putting the telescope to his blind eye, and swearing that he could not see the signal to cease firing, affords an apt illustration of ninny who, for less worthy motives, will not, because they wish not, see the truth.

I. The avowed infidels and atheists. They are willingly ignorant--

1. Of the teachings of the Bible which they affect to despise.

2. Of the evidences of its Divine origin and inspiration.

3. Of the evidences of the being, wisdom, and love of God.

4. Of the evidences of the Divine origin of Christianity.

II. Many men of science and culture.

III. Multitudes who profess and call themselves Christians. All those who habitually neglect the sanctuary, and to whom the Bible is an unknown book. (The Study.)

The world that then was,… perished.--

The flood

I. A malefactor. “The world that then was.” Locally, a piece of it perished: the earth; materially, a great deal of it perished: all the riches and commodities of the earth; principally considered, all perished but eight persons: formally, there was nothing left. Only God’s quarrel to the world was for the men of the world; and His quarrel to the men of the world was for their sins. The world itself was, in this, like the sea; and sins, like the winds: the sea would be calm and quiet if the winds did not trouble it; if iniquities, like storms, had not put the course of nature into an uproar, the world had not perished.

II. An executioner. “Being overflowed with water.” This is an excellent servant to us, so God made it; but an ill master, so our sins make it. Nothing is so sovereign, which being abused by sin, may not, of a blessing, become a curse.

III. The conveniency of the execution. The water was not far to fetch; either with danger, as David’s water from the well of Bethlehem, through an army of Philistines; or with labour, as Jacob’s water from a deep well in the bowels of the earth; but near at hand, ready. (Thos. Adams.)

Man’s external universe as regarded by the thoughtful Christian

What is the Christian’s view of nature? The answer we get from this passage is--

I. He regards it as originally produced by the Divine word. “By the Word of God the heavens were of old,” etc. It had an origin--it is not eternal; it arose not from chance, but from the Divine Word.

II. He regards it as dependent every moment upon the Divine word. “The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same Word are kept in store.”

1. That the past changes of nature are to be referred to the Divine Word. Peter here refers to one tremendous catastrophe. “The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” The deluge was no accident. “I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth,” etc. The earthquake, the tornado, the blight, the pestilence, all these things in nature come from the Word of God. His will is in all.

2. That the present existence of nature is to be referred to His Word. “But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same Word kept in store”--are preserved in their present state. If this is a right view of material nature, we may infer three important considerations.

One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.--

God’s estimate of time

I. First, take this statement as a general principle, “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,” etc.

1. In opening up this general principle we remark that all time is equally present with God. Childhood, manhood and old age belong to creatures, but at the right hand of the Most High they have no abode. Growth, progress, advancement, all these are virtues in finite beings, but to the Infinite the thought of such change would be an insult. Yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, belong to dying mortal, the Immortal King lives in an eternal to-day. This is a subject upon which we can only speak without ourselves fully understanding what we say, but yet, perhaps, a metaphor may tend to make the matter a little simpler. There is a river flowing along in gentle slope toward the sea. A boatman is upon it; his vessel is here; anon it is there; and soon it will be at the river’s mouth; only that part of the river upon which he is sailing is present to him. But up yonder, on a lofty mountain, stands a traveller; as he looks from the summit he marks the source of the river and gazes upon its infant stream, where as yet it is but a narrow line of silver; then he follows it with his clear eye until it swells into a rolling flood, and he tracks it until it is finally absorbed into the ocean. Now, as the climber stands upon that Alp, that whole sparkling line of water adorning the plain is equally present to him from its source to its fall; there is not one part of the stream that is nearer to him than another; in the long distance he sees the whole of it, from the end to the beginning. Such, we think, is the stream of time to God. From the altitude of His observance He looketh down upon it and seeth it at one gaze; taking in, not at many thoughts, but at one thought, all the revolutions of time and all the changes of ages, and seeing both the thousands of years that have gone, and the thousands that are yet to come, as present at one view before his eye.

2. The text teaches us next that all time is equally powerless with God to affect Him. A day does not make any particular change in us that we can notice. But if you take fifty years--what a difference is perceptible in any of us! But as a day seems to make no change with us, so, but far more truthfully, a thousand years make no change with God. Ages roll on, but He abideth the same. We need be under no apprehension that God will ever be affected with weakness through the revolutions of time. The Ancient of Days, ever omnipotent, fainteth not, neither is weary. And as time brings no weakness, certainly it shall bring no decay to God. Upon His brow there is ne’er a furrow; no signs of palsy are in His hand. And as no weakness and no decay can be brought to God by time, so no change in His purpose can ever come through revolving years. To that whereto He hath set His seal He standeth fast, and what His heart decrees, that will He do. Moreover, as there can be no change in His decree, so no unforeseen difficulties can intervene to prevent the accomplishment of it. As long as there is a work to do, He shall do it; as long as there is an enemy to conquer, that enemy shall be overcome.

3. Yet further--no doubt the text intends to teach that all time is insignificant to God. Within the compass of a drop of water we are told that sometimes a thousand living creatures may be discovered, and to those little creatures no doubt their size is something very important. There is a Creature inside that drop which can only be seen by the strongest microscope, but it is a hundred times larger than its neighbour, and it feels, no doubt, that the difference is amazing and extraordinary. But to you and to me, who cannot even see the largest creature with the naked eye, the gigantic animalcule is as imperceptible as his dwarfish friend, they both seem so utterly insignificant that we squander whole millions of them, and are not very penitent if we destroy them by thousands. But what would one of those little infusorial animals say if some prophet of its own kind could tell it that there is a creature living that could count the whole world of a drop of water as nothing, and could take up ten thousand thousand of those drops and scatter them without exertion of half its power; that this creature would not be encumbered if it should carry on the tip of its finger all the thousands that live in that great world--a drop of water; that this creature would have no disturbance of heart, even if the great king of one of the empires in that drop should gather all his armies against it and lead them to battle? Why, then the little creatures would say, “How can this be; we can hardly grasp the idea?” But when that infusorial philosopher could have gotten an idea of man, and of the utter insignificance of its own self, and of its own little narrow world, then it would have achieved an easy task compared with that which lies before us when we attempt to get an idea of God.

4. I think we ought also to learn from the text that all time is equally obedient to God. You and I are the servants of time, but God is its sovereign Master.

II. God’s estimate of a day. He can make a day as useful, and to Him it shall be as long as a thousand years. I think this is one of the most brilliant of the Church’s hopes. We have been saying,” How many converts have been made by the Missionary Society during fifty or sixty years?” and we have said, “Well, at this rate, how long will it be before the world is converted?” Ah! “At this rate”; but how do you know God’s rate? God can do as much in a day as has been done in a thousand years that are past, if so He wills it. Only let Him will it, and there shall be one day written in the records of the Church that shall be equal in achievements, and in triumphs, to any thousand years of her history recorded aforetime. This should lead us to remember that when God speaketh of judging the world at the day of judgment, He will find no difficulty in doing it. Two hundred judges might find it difficult to try in one day all the cases that might be brought before them in a single nation, but God, when He holdeth the great assize, shall be able to convict every guilty one, and to absolve every penitent, and that, too, in one day.

III. God’s estimate of a thousand years. A day is to Him as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. “How long, how long?” the saints under the altar cry. “How long?” and the saints at the altar here to-day take up the same wailing notes, “How long?” But He answereth, “I am not long. What if I have waited and the time is long to you; yet it is not long to Me.” God bids you think for a moment, that if you really measure aright, it is no lengthened period of time that He has made the vision to tarry. For see you first, the time that has elapsed since Christ’s crucifixion is not long compared with eternity. Then, again, when ye say that God is long in the accomplishment of His great purposes, remember that He has no need to be in hurry. Whatsoever you and I find to do, we must do it with all our might: for there is neither work nor device in the grave whither we are hastening; but God liveth for ever. Besides, there is an advantage in His being slow--it tries our faith. To win a fight when it lasteth but for an hour, what is there in it? One gallant charge and the foemen have fled. Comrade, but that is a battle worthy to be written with your Waterloos and your Marathons, when hour after hour, and day after day, valour disdains to succumb, and patience endures the fight while foot to foot the soldiers stand. Further, it is well that God should thus be long, because He is unravelling revelation. The Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to loose the seals, and to open the book for us, and year after year He reads another page, and yet another in the Church’s history. If Christ should come to-day, if we should have no more conflicts, no more trials, then we might suppose that the book had come to its brilliant golden finis; but if it keepeth on a thousand years to come, so much the better: the glowing eyes of angels wish not for the end of the story, and the bright eyes of immortal spirits before the throne, when it shall be all over, shall not regret that it was too long. No, let it go on, great Master; let a thousand years run on; our loving hearts will patiently bear it, as though it were but one day. And more: the victory of Christ at the end will be all the greater, and the redemption all the more glorious, because of this long time of strife and confusion. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Time a rate of motion

The apostle evidently wishes us to look upon the flight of the years more as God in His eternity looks down upon them. We are to approach the idea of eternity not by multiplying years together in indefinite figures of time, but more truly by remembering that with the Eternal our measurements of time have no importance.

I. I ask you to reflect, first, that time is a gift of God to the creation. Time is a bequest from the Eternal conveyed and secured in the constitution of the creation. These visible, revolving worlds are by nature temporal. Time is the rate of motion determined by the Creator in His own thought of the worlds. Now, inasmuch as time itself is an original gift of God to the creation, we may well stop to reflect upon the value of this gift. It is one of the primal evidences of the benevolence of the Creator. This original providence of perfect time for the world, true to the infinitesimal of a second through the ages of ages, is evidence of the far-seeing thoughtfulness of the Creator. It is the first condition and means of conveyance of all other good gifts of God. Time is the magna charta of all man’s rights upon the earth. The ancient order of the heavens is the surety that our God is not a Sovereign who has made us of His mere pleasure, but one who has made all things according to His good pleasure; and whether man’s works upon the earth be good or evil, this solar system which God made shall keep true time without variableness, or shadow of turning, until the end comes and time shall be no longer.

II. Keeping in mind this fact that time is a gift of God to the creation, reflect, secondly, that what we know as time is only the particular rate of motion to which our life on this earth has been adjusted. For example, you can easily imagine that the human race might have been put to school upon a planet of swifter revolutions than our earth, and all our vital powers adapted to the more rapid succession of day and night upon that orb--our pulses made to beat proportionally quicker, and the whole mechanism of life and thought made to run more swiftly--so that the same human history might be lived through upon that faster world. So, on the other hand, God might have graduated our rate of living and thinking to the motions of a slower planet than this earth, and still our consciousness of the duration of the years, our sense of time, have remained precisely the same. Time, then, is only a relative thing, the rate of motion of the mechanism; nothing of absolute determination or worth in itself. God has chosen this earth for our time-keeper, and adjusted our consciousness of life to its rate of motion; God has determined the existing time-rate of human history for us, out of many possibilities of different time-rates, for reasons which He thought best, and which we do not know. I may make this idea of the relative nature of time still plainer by reminding you how often in our own experiences we escape from the ordinary course of the world’s time, and in a sense make our own time for ourselves, as we live in memory or in anticipation. Fear and hope, sorrow and joy, thought and action, when intense, have a certain witchery and mastery over our time; and not the revolutions of the earth, but the beatings of our spiritual pulses, and the life of our hearts, make our days short or long upon the earth. We mortals are all of us swept along in the flood of the years; yet it seems as if we have power in sudden upspringings of thought to leap, as it were, out of this stream of time and change, and to catch some gleam upon our spirits of a higher element of existence, like God’s eternal light, and then we fall back again into the hurrying stream which is our proper element of existence now. All this superiority of soul to time in memory, thought, and hope, means that there is something timeless and deathless within us--something of the being of the Eternal in the living soul of man. You and I are made of the dust of the earth; but within these bodies bound to the earth, and destined to-morrow to return to its dust, is a godlike something which refuses to measure its life by the revolutions of the stars; a something which sinks back into its own consciousness of being, and in its brooding thought and love forgets the passing hours and separations of this mortality; a mystery of spirit within man which by its own thought of God and immortality proves itself to be above the course of nature, and possessed of a Divine birthright. First of all, let us take the help for faith in God’s character which the text was intended to give. We wonder how God can live these long ages in the calm blessedness of His presence around our human history of sin and death: where is the promise of His coming? But be not ignorant of this one thing--God does not measure His times by our clocks; a thousand of our years is as one day to Him. Everything depends upon the point of view from which things are judged; and God looks from eternity to eternity! You look out in the morning, and see a cloud overhanging the top of a mountain. At noon you glance up, and the south wind still leaves its vapours upon the mountain. At evening you may notice that the cloud is still there, though beginning to be changed by the setting sun into a glory. It has been a short day to you in your business and your pleasures. But had you been on the mountain waiting for the cloud to lift, and hoping for a clear broad view, the hours would have lengthened, and as you watched the time and the shiftings of the mists, the day would have seemed almost endless. We are now under the cloud--a very little cloud of sin and sorrow, it may be--a passing cloud--in the large, bright universe of God! We are waiting for the hour of clear revelation; and this world-age seems long. But what is it to Him who inhabiteth eternity--who sees all around? Again, these reflections may serve to teach us afresh the real value of time to us. Time, I have said, is simply the rate of the mechanism; hence it is worth in any life simply what it is used for--what is worked out in it. We should look upon our lifetime as a means towards an end--time the means, and a Christlike character, worth God’s keeping in His own eternity, the end of our life here. The one thing needful is that the soul go hence clothed in Christ’s wedding garment; not how long a time God gives us to dress our souls for that perfect society. Has He not already given us time enough? (Newman Smyth, D. D.)

God’s eternity considered in reference to the suspension of His promised purposes

I. Endeavour to illustrate their import, and establish the truth of the proposition which they contain. These words are designed as an answer to the objections which irreligious scoffers advance against the certainty of the accomplishment of the Divine declarations, founded on its long delay.

1. Every portion of duration is something real, and has a true and proper existence; but the epithets great and small, when applied to this (as well as to anything else), are merely comparative. We should consider fifty years as forming a very large portion of human life; but the same number of years in the history of an empire would be justly considered small. Thus is the same quantity either great or small, as you place it by the side of something much inferior to it in magnitude, or much superior.

2. Hence it results that absolute greatness belongs only to what is infinite; for whatever falls short of this, however great it may appear, its supposed greatness is entirely owing to the incidental absence of another object that is greater.

3. In duration, absolute greatness belongs only to eternity.

4. We must then conceive that He who has subsisted throughout eternal ages; who knows “no beginning of days, nor end of years”; who possesses eternity; to whom all its parts (if we may be allowed so to speak) are continually open, both past and future; must have a very different apprehension of that inconsiderable portion of it we call time, from creatures who are acquainted with no other. Nor let any one object, and say it must appear as it is, and therefore there is no reason to suppose it appears to Him different from what it does to us. No doubt it appears to Him exactly as it is. His apprehensions are, unquestionably, agreeable to the nature of things; but it does not follow from thence that it must appear in the same light as it does to us. That each portion of duration appears to Him real, we admit: we are not contending for its being annihilated in His view. Something it is, and something it appears, unquestionably, in His eyes. The measure by which God estimates time is, consequently, quite different from that which we are compelled to apply in its contemplation. We measure one portion of duration by another; He measures time by eternity. How inconceivably different must be the apprehension arising from these different methods of considering it!

II. The use to which the doctrine of the text may be applied.

1. It removes the ground of objection against the fulfilment of the Divine declarations, arising from the accomplishment being long delayed.

2. It accounts for the peculiar cast of Scripture language, when employed in announcing the coining of Christ, and the end of all things.

3. Though we cannot immediately change our senses, let us endeavour to conform our ideas and convictions to the dictates of Infallible Wisdom on this subject. Let us consider the whole duration of things here as very short. (R. Hall.)

Heaven’s clock

goes at a different rate from our little timepieces. (A. Maclaren.)

God’s calm view of events in time

is one of the marks of Divinity. For not only is it true that a thousand years are to God as one day to us, but it is also true, as St. Peter tells us, that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years” are with us. We know what the effect of a thousand years past (for of a thousand years to come we cannot know the effect) is upon the human mind. We regard things that happened a thousand years ago very calmly, without any of the passion which thrilled the breasts of the men who lived when the events we now read of in history were taking place. That is the way in which God regards events the very day they happen. They are to Him as if they had happened a thousand years ago; so calm is the Divine temper, so far from the impatience and haste characteristic of us men who live for threescore years and ten. This comes of His being the Everlasting One. Yet, strange to say, while God takes things so calmly and never hurries, He at the same time never forgets. A thousand years are to Him as one day to us. He is as much in earnest in His purpose at the end of a millenium as we are with ours the day we form it. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

The Lord is not slack … but is long-suffering.--

Reasons why God delays the punishments of wicked men

I. That men may re brought to a sense of their condition, and led to use those methods which may serve to avert God’s anger.

II. That in many cases ready punishment cannot be inflicted on bad men without laying a considerable share of it on the good, and therefore God spares them for the present that the righteous may not be involved in the calamities of the wicked.

III. the agency of ill men may be made use of in order to liking about many great designs of providence, and, in particular, the delays of vengeance on some ill men may serve for the chastisement of others.

IV. But it is much one, with respect to the divine being, when punishment is inflicted on ill men if it be inflicted at all: one day is with Him as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Nor can the sinner, if he reflects, take any great satisfaction in thinking that those punishments are distant which are yet certain.

V. That the present delays of vengeance, if they do not work their proper effects and lead men to that repentance they were intended to produce, will but aggravate their ruin. (Bp. John Conybeare.)

God’s forbearance to sinners

I. I am to give some account and to assign some reasons of God’s forbearance to sinners.

1. That the delay bears no proportion either to the eternity of His own or to the future continuance of our being.

2. God never intended this world for the place of our final recompense, and therefore is the less concerned to interpose with frequency for the immediate punishment of the sinner.

3. We may presume it designed in much mercy to sinners that He does not catch at every advantage.

4. It is designed to lead us to repentance. There are critical junctures in religion, as well as in life and fortune.

II. The long-suffering of God is no reason to believe he will never take vengeance. The reasons which account for His forbearance destroy that inference.

1. If the end of the world and the dissolution of all things be the vengeance expected, it was no way proper to raise so vast a fabric except it had been designed for some ages’ continuance.

2. For if sin could never be committed without immediate vengeance closely pursuing it, there could be no proper foundation of reward to our obedience.

3. Whatever continuance the world may seem made for, yet the lives of particular men are short and uncertain.

III. The delay of His vengeance can be no just reason for our continuance in sin. It does not lessen the danger; it gives no colour to the notion that God is an unconcerned spectator of wickedness. But now His present forbearance makes proof that He will hereafter pursue the wicked with His vengeance.

IV. His long-suffering is much rather an argument to us to forsake sin, and to proceed henceforward in all holy obedience.

1. It is so in point of gratitude, because we have seen that it is an effect of His mercy.

2. But if the motives of gratitude fail of persuading us, we should at least consider that our interest is very deeply concerned in this matter. For it is a very great aggravation to turn the means of grace into occasions of sin. (N. Marshall, D. D.)

The long-suffering of God a proof of His power

Suppose I were one of those scoffers, what should I be most inclined to doubt from observing how God’s threatenings did not take effect? I suppose the power of God. I should be inclined to say, “God has threatened what He is not able to perform; hence, the reason why sun, moon, and stars still rise and set in their appointed order.” Well, if this were my way of arguing, would it be any answer to me to say, “The Lord is long-suffering to us-ward.” Yes, indeed it would. There is no proof of the Divine power so great as the Divine long-suffering. How beautifully does one of our collects express this truth! “O God, who declarest Thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity.” Now, before beginning to prove to you that long-suffering is a great proof of the power of God, we would allow this idea to be at variance with that most commonly entertained. We have only to make mention of the power of God, and the thoughts are instantly far away amid the fields of immensity, busying themselves with accumulations of the workings of Almightiness--star upon star, and system upon system. And, from the fact of creation, we pass onward to that of preservation: we tell you that the complicated machinery of the universe is superintended and upheld by God. Far be it from us to imply that such a mode of demonstrating the power of God is other than correct. But it would appear to be possible, that whilst searching through the universe for evidence of the power of God, we may pass by the more signal demonstration lying individually in ourselves. We speak not of the testimony which is undoubtedly given by the construction of our bodies, and by the surprising manner in which the material incloses the immaterial. But there may be evidence which is still more overlooked, and that, too, an evidence which each may fetch from his own experience and his own habits. Towards each transgressor there has been an exercise of long-suffering on the part of the Almighty; so that if the greatest demonstration of God’s power be God’s long-suffering, then each of us may find in himself that great demonstration in all its completeness. With an hatred of sin which outruns our conception, and much more our imitation, God is looking down on every misdoing by which the earth is polluted. He is present at the perpetration of each species of crime--standing by the blasphemer whilst pouring out his curses, and by the murderer whilst bearing down on his victim. If this fact be pondered, it must always startle us. And yet He strikes not. We just ask you to imagine a tender-hearted man standing by whilst some monster of his species was foully ill-treating some fellow-creature or animal. Suppose him possessed of the most perfect ability of putting a stop to the cruelty, and awarding due punishment. The first impulse would be to exercise this ability. And if, in place of yielding to the impulse, he should reflect within himself--If I spare this guilty one awhile, if I visit not on him, on the instant, his iniquity, he may possibly repent--why we do not deny that, by a great effort, reflection might carry over the impulse, and the man might pass on in the hope of future amendment, resolved to administer no present correction. We allow that there is no actual impossibility against the exercise of such forbearance. But we think you will all agree that a vast moral effort would be needed for the repressing his feelings. Long-suffering is power over one’s self. If, then, it be reverent so to speak, God’s long-suffering is power over Himself. And assuredly God’s power over Himself must be greater than the power which He puts forth when He deals with what is material and finite. You may read of such instances as of a man in the hardihood of his Atheism challenging, so to speak, the Deity to prove His existence by striking him to the earth. “If there be a God, let Him show Himself, by smiting me, His denier.” Now you can hardly picture to yourselves a Being exercising over Himself so much control as that, with all the apparatus of fiery reply at His disposal, He should not answer the challenge by levelling him who utters it with the ground. Can you measure to me the effort which it would be to the Creator to keep back the thunderbolt and chain up the lightning? Yet the Atheist is allowed to depart unscathed. What lesson does the believer in God derive from this absence of all anger. He learns God’s might a hundredfold more from the unbroken silence of the firmament than he would do from the hoarse tones of vengeance rushing down to the destruction of the rebel. The Atheist overthrown is as nothing to the exhibition of the Atheist spared. We shall probably arrive at right apprehensions of God’s long-suffering as connected with God’s other attributes, if we carefully review two simple facts. The first is that God can punish every sin; the second, that God can pardon every sin. It is essential to the long-suffering of God that each of these assertions should, in the largest sense, hold good. Unless there be the power of punishing, there can be no long-suffering; for long-suffering necessarily pre-supposes that the Being, who might on the instant take vengeance, passes over for a while the iniquity. On the other hand, unless God can pardon every sin, what is there in His long-suffering? We can have no idea of long-suffering except as exhibited in our text--that it is bearing with the offender in order that, time being given him to consider his ways, he may yet by repentance turn away punishment. If we can satisfactorily show that God is pre-eminently powerful, inasmuch as He is both the punisher and the pardoner of sin, we shall have established the point under debate--that God’s long-suffering is a great measure of His power. You will readily admit that it is proving God powerful to prove Him superior to every creature, so that were the whole universe banded against Him, it would have no power in trenching upon His sovereignty. But how can we more thoroughly assure ourselves of God’s superiority to every creature than by ascertaining that over every creature who swerves from obedience God can exercise the office of avenger. Whoever the creature who apostatises from God, whether standing high or low in the scale of intelligence beyond all question the power of God can reach to restrain or crush this creature. It may indeed be that the creature is permitted to go on in rebellion; and thus no direct evidence is given of the supremacy of God. Wherein, then, would be the proof of God’s power? Simply in God’s long-suffering. Long-suffering is the greatest exhibition of power on this side the day of judgment. It is our evidence that God now possesses all that God shall then exercise. And when I am told that God is long-suffering, and no limitations are placed on the attribute, you bring before me a picture as overwhelming in its details as stupendous in its outlines, I see at once that if God can be long-suffering, then God can punish every sin. He could not be long-suffering unless He could punish; He could not punish unless He were supreme. And then observe, secondly, that God can pardon every sin. Of all extraordinary truths, perhaps the most extraordinary is that sin can be forgiven. It may be a bold thing to say; but if you examine carefully, you will see that there is a strong sense in which it may be said that long-suffering is not natural to God. For was God long-suffering without effort? Could He be long-suffering without a preparation? He could be long-suffering only as He had resolved to give up His well-beloved Son to the fiercest agonies and the foulest wrongs. And when I think of the difference between God, the Creator of worlds, and God, the Pardoner of sin, the one done without an effort, and the other demanding an instrumentality nobly sublime; the one effected by a word, the other wrought out in agony and blood oh! the world created is as nothing to the sin blotted out! That God can pardon is the very summit of what is wonderful; and, therefore, O Lord, do I most know Thee, the Omnipotent, when I behold in Thee, the Long-sufferer! (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The patience of God

I. Consider the patience and long-suffering of God towards mankind, as it is an attribute and perfection of the divine nature: “God is long-suffering to us-ward.”

1. The patience of God is His goodness to sinners in deferring the punishment due to them for their sins; and the moderating as well as the deferring of the punishment due to sin is an instance likewise of God’s patience; and not only the deferring and moderating of temporal punishment, but the adjourning of the eternal misery of sinners is a principal instance of God’s patience; so that the patience of God takes in all that space of repentance which God affords to sinners in this life--nay, all temporal judgments and afflictions which befall sinners.

2. It is not necessarily due to us, but it is due to the perfection of the Divine nature; it is a principal branch of God’s goodness, which is the most glorious perfection of all other; and therefore we always find it in Scripture in the company of God’s milder attributes.

3. Give some proof of the great patience and long-suffering of God to mankind.

And this will evidently appear if we consider these two things--

1. How men deal with God. Every day we highly provoke Him; we grieve and weary Him with our iniquities (Isaiah 43:24).

2. The patience of God will farther appear if we consider how, notwithstanding all this, God deals with us. He is patient to the whole world. He “presents us daily with the blessing” of His goodness, prolonging our lives and vouchsafing many favours to us. But the patience of God will more illustriously appear if we consider these following particulars--

(a) God’s unwillingness to punish appears in that He labours to prevent punishment; and that He may effectually do this He endeavours to prevent sin, the meritorious cause of God’s judgments; to this end He hath threatened it with severe punishments that men may fear to offend.

(b) He is long before He goes about this work. Judgment is, in Scripture, called “His strange work”; as ii He were not acquainted with it and hardly knew how to go about it on the sudden (Deuteronomy 32:41).

(c) When He goes about this work He does it with much reluctance (Hosea 11:8). He is represented as making many essays and offers before He came to it (Psalms 106:26). God withholds His judgments till He is weary of holding in, as the expression is (Jeremiah 6:11), until He can forbear no longer (Jeremiah 44:22).

(d) God is easily prevailed upon not to punish, as in the case of Nineveh. With what joy does He tell the prophet the news of Ahab’s humiliation!

(e) When He punisheth He does it very seldom rigorously and to extremity, not so much as we deserve (Psalms 103:10).

(f) After He hath begun to punish, and is engaged in the work, He is not hard to be taken off (2 Samuel 24:1-25.). Nay, so ready is God to be taken off from this work, that He sets a high value upon those who stand in the gap to turn away His wrath (Numbers 25:11-13).

5. The patience of God will vet appear if we consider some eminent instances of it. His forbearance is so great that He hath been complained of for it by His own servants. Job, who was so patient a man himself, thought much at it (Job 21:7-8). Jonah challengeth God for it (Job 4:2).

II. That the patience of God and the delay of judgment is no ground why sinners should hope for impunity: “God is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness.”

III. The true reason of God’s patience and long-suffering to mankind: “He is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” This is the primary end of God’s patience to sinners; and if He fail of this end through our impenitency He hath other ends which He will infallibly attain; He will hereby glorify the riches of His mercy and vindicate the righteousness of His justice; for God does not lose the glory of His patience, though we lose the benefit of it, and He will make it subservient to His justice one way or other. Lessons:

1. That nothing is more provoking to God than the abuse of His patience.

2. That the patience of God will have an end.

3. That nothing will more hasten and aggravate our ruin than the abuse of God’s patience. (Abp. Tillotson.)

Man’s external universe as maintained by God for a moral purpose

I. That man’s external universe is maintained by God.

1. However long He may continue to uphold it, He does not overlook the claims of His justice. There are before Him “a day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

2. However long He may continue to uphold it, duration is nothing to Him. “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” He is not limited to time as we are.

3. However long He may continue to uphold it, He does not forget His promise. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness.”

4. However long He may continue to uphold it, His forbearance is manifest through the whole. He “is long-suffering to us-ward.”

II. That man’s external universe is maintained by God for a moral purpose. “Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” What is the purpose? Why is this world kept in existence for so many ages? Is it that men might luxuriate amidst animal gratifications, revel amidst the elements which minister to the senses, and pander to the passions? Is it that they might train the intellect to think, and to fill the mind with knowledge? Not even this. It is the moral restora tion of man. “That none should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

1. This moral restoration of man requires “repentance.”

2. This moral restoration of man is according to the Divine will. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

God true to His purpose

Sometimes in architecture and sculpture designs are formed as an exercise of skill, without any intention of embodying them in work. And sometimes politicians frame schemes which are intended only for Utopia, and for’ the carrying out of which no attempt will be made. But God’s design is for execution and His scheme for embodiment. A purpose to work out His design has firm hold of every portion and feature of that design. (S. Martin.)

That all should come to repentance.

The rules and directions for the right performing the duty of repentance

1. The first is this, implore repentance at the hands of God (2 Timothy 2:25).

2. Have due regard to the sacred Word. Suppose we were travelling in the dark, what could we do better in such a case than procure a light to guide us? Naturally we are in the darkness of ignorance and mists of error, and want to be illuminated in the right way (Psalms 119:105; 2 Peter 1:19). And that the Holy Scripture has a peculiar efficacy to purify from sin, which is done by repentance, is evident (Psalms 119:9).

3. Consider the nature of God. As His word rightly heard, so His nature duly contemplated, will be not only a mighty antidote against sin, but as strong an inducement to repentance. Now the nature of God we may best learn from His glorious name (Exodus 34:6-7). God in His nature is holy and even essentially and infinitely holy (Isaiah 60:3). And can we endure to rest in wilful sin when it is an evil abominable to God, and makes us as odious to Him as it is in its own nature? Reflect then seriously again, that He is just too. And as His perfect purity sets Him against sinners, so His absolute justice inclines and constrains Him to punish all that persist in it. And then we may consider further that He is powerful too, and armed with omnipotence. And so He is able to punish us (Psalms 76:7).

4. Place the promise and assurance of pardon before your eyes (Ezekiel 18:30; Luke 24:47; Acts 3:19; Acts 5:31).

5. Fix your thoughts upon Christ’s sufferings. They were various, sharp, and terrible; but all for our sins. (R. Warren, D. D.)

God’s willingness to pardon

I. That God is “not willing that any should perish,” appears by His own positive declarations.

II. That God “is unwilling that any should perish,” is illustrated by the invitations with which the sacred scriptures abound.

III. The same truth is still further illustrated by the encouragement God everywhere presents to those who show an inclination to return.

IV. The same truth is illustrated by the threatenings and warnings which are given to persons and nations before destruction comes on them.

V. The delay of judgment illustrates my text.

VI. The most notorious characters are specified in the offers and invitations of mercy which we find in sacred scripture.

VII. The death of Christ is an illustration of the proposition in the text.

VIII. The means employed to keep up the gospel of Christ before the world and the Church declares the same truth.

IX. The pains taken to remove distrust prove that God is “not willing that any should perish.” He not only gives us His declaration that He is not willing that any should perish, but He gives us His oath.

X. The proposition contained in the text is illustrated by many examples: Manasseh. Thief on cross. (W. Freeland, LL. D.)

God’s unwillingness

I. What does the apostle mean here by the expression “perish”? What is it to perish? This will be most appropriately answered in the words of Holy Scripture. Paul called it “Being punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). “Sudden destruction” (1 Thessalonians 5:3). “Swift destruction” (chap. 2:1). “The vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7).

II. What reasons have we to conclude that any will thus perish?

I. Fallen angels have perished (Jude 1:6).

2. Sodom and Gomorrah have “suffered the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7).

3. Other men deserve to perish. “The Scripture hath concluded all under sin.”

4. That part of the punishment which consists in natural death is daily being inflicted before our eyes.

5. God has said that some characters shall perish. “He that believeth not shall be damned.”

III. But WHO are thus in danger?

1. “Despisers” (Acts 13:41).

2. profane persons, and all who “forget God” (Psalms 9:17).

3. All the impenitent (Luke 13:5).

4. All unbelievers (Mark 16:16).

IV. How are we to understand the expression God is not willing that any should perish? Hell does not exist without His permission! Death is His messenger! The judgment of the great day will be held by His appointment! But then--

1. God will not punish without occasion. Nor

2. Till the guilt of man has rendered it necessary. Nor

3. Without having provided a remedy:--the best possible remedy. Nor

4. Without having authorised the publication of that remedy. Nor

5. Without having implored men to accept it. Nor

6. Without having given space for repentance.

7. Nor will He inflict eternal judgment on one soul which has not proved its filial enmity to Him, to truth, to holiness.

V. What evidences have we that God is “not willing that any should thus perish”?

1. The evidence arising from His character.

2. From His word.

3. From His oath (John 3:16).

4. From the gift of His Holy Spirit.

5. From the revelation of His truth.

6. From the exaltation of Christ as a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance.

7. From the promise of the personal help of the Holy Spirit--to them that ask it.

8. From every instance of true repentance which has occurred.

9. From sparing mercy from day to day.

10. From warnings, exhortations, invitations, directions, promises, etc., without number.

VI. What is the imperative and only alternative that men may not perish? We answer, “repentance.” (The Evangelist.)