Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1997
Delivered in the Autumn of 1886, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.”— 2 Peter 3:15.
JESUS IS WELL CALLED “our Lord,” let us at the commencement adore him. Let us each one cry to him, “My Lord, and my God.” It is a long, time since our Lord went up to heaven, and he said that he would come again. Evidently, some of those who best understood him misunderstood him, and thought that he would surely come again even in their lifetime. He said that he would come, and faithful ones in all ages have looked for him, and it is not possible that our Lord can have deceived us. Because he is so sweetly our Lord, our brethren have made sure that he will keep his word; and he will. But certain of them have gone beyond our Lord’s promise, and have felt sure that they knew when he would come; and they have been bitterly disappointed because the hour which they fixed passed over, and he did not appear. This does not prove that he will not come. The day is certainly nearer, and every hour is hastening his coming. “Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him.”
But why are his chariots so long in coming? Why does he delay? The world grows grey, not alone with age, but with iniquity; and yet the Deliverer comes not. We have waited for his footfall at the dead of night, and looked out for him through the gates of the morning, and expected him in the heat of the day, and reckoned that he might come ere yet another sun went down; but he is not here! He waits. He waits very, very long. Will he not come?
Longsuffering is that which keeps him from coming. He is bearing with men. Not yet the thunderbolt! Not yet the riven heavens and the reeling earth! Not yet the great white throne, and the day of judgment; for he is very pitiful, and beareth long with men! Even to the cries of his own elect, who cry day and night unto him—he is not in haste to answer,-for he is very patient, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
But his patience sometimes greatly puzzles us. We cannot make it out. Eighteen, nineteen centuries, and the world not converted! Nineteen centuries, and Satan still to the front, and all manner of iniquity still wounding this poor, bleeding world! What meaneth it? O Son of God, what meaneth it? Seed of the woman, when wilt thou appear with thy foot upon the serpent’s head? We are puzzled at the longsuffering which causes so weary a delay.
One of the reasons is that we have not much longsuffering ourselves. We think that we do well to be angry with the rebellious, and so we prove ourselves to be more like Jonah than Jesus. A few have learned to be patient and pitiful to the ungodly, but many more are of the mind of James and John, who would have called fire from heaven upon those who rejected the Savior. We are in such a hurry. We have not the eternal leisure of God. We have but to live, like ephemera, our little day, and therefore we are in hot haste to see all things accomplished ere the sun goes down. We are but leaves in the forest of existence; and if something is not done soon, and done quickly, we shall fade, and pass away amid unaccomplished hope; and so we are not patient. We are staggered when the Master tells us to forgive unto seventy times seven. When he forgives unto seventy times seven, and still waits, and still holds back his thunders, we are amazed, because our mind is not in harmony with the mind of the Infinitely-patient God.
We are all the more puzzled, again, because the ungodly so sadly misuse this longsuffering of God as a reason for greater sin, and as a motive for denying that there is a God at all. Because he gives them space for repentance, they make it into space for iniquity; and because he will not deal out his judgments immediately, they say, “Where is the promise of his coming?”
We have impatiently wished that he would break the silence. Have I not in my heart of hearts cried out, “O Lord, how long? Can this go on much longer? Canst thou bear it? Wilt thou not come with the iron rod, breaking thy foes before thy face, most mighty Son of God?” It is hard to have the days of blasphemy and rebuke multiplied upon us, and to hear the adversary say in every corner, “Where is now their God?” Yet, dear friends, we ought not to be affected by the hissing of these serpents. Surely we would not have our God change his purposes because of the foolish taunts of men. One said, “If there be a God, let him strike me dead”; but God did not smite him, and from this he argued that there was no God: from the same fact I argue that there is a God, and that this God is truly God; for, if he had been less than divine, he might have struck him dead; but, being infinitely patient, he bore with him still. Who was that speck that he should cause God to move hand or foot even to crush him? God is not easily moved, even by the blasphemies of the ungodly. He may be provoked one of these days, for longsuffering has its end, but for a while the Lord pauseth in pity, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.