Rabbi Schneider - The Patience of God
Hear the Word of God, Romans chapter 2 verse 4. "Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience? Not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance"? This is a Scripture in which Paul was saying you better understand that the gentleness and the kindness and the love that the Lord has extended to you in your life is designed to lead you to repentance.
You know, we are living in a generation today my friends that oftentimes is not hearing a message of repentance. The message that many in the world are hearing is coming from quote "the voice of Christendom" today is not a voice calling people to repent it's rather a voice that is just blessing everybody, telling them that everything's good, telling them that everything's great right where they are at, not calling people out of sin, not calling people to a higher standard, just telling people that God wants to bless them and make them rich and God's favor is on them without ever being called to repent but this is what Paul is talking about here. He said, don't you realize that the love and kindness and the patience that you've experienced in your life is to convince you of God's love for you and that your response to it should be to repent, turn to Him, to give Him your life, to surrender to Him, to commit to live for Him?
Beloved, we can't bless immorality, we can't bless selfishness, we can't bless everybody goes their own way and does what's right in their own eyes, we're called to repentance. John the Baptist's first words were, "Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand". Jesus' first words were "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand". We can't take this lightly friends. God will judge sin, God is not mocked. I want to encourage you, David said God's gentleness had made him great. David was a man that he knew sin. He had committed some atrocities in his life but David repented. David realized the wicked things that he had done and his response to it was to repent and in thankfulness David said to the Lord, "Your gentleness has made me great". He wrote Psalm, he wrote the Psalm all about the Word of God, "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, Thy Word is a light unto my soul. Renew me, refresh me with your Word".
I want to encourage you beloved, if there are things that are going on in your life that are crooked that Scripture says make your way straight for the coming of the Lord is soon. You can't put off God's lovingkindness in your life because if you harden your heart, you may find yourself being judged for your sin. That is not a pleasant place to be. so recognize that God has been patient with you this long, not because He is blessing your sin, but because He wants you to become convinced of His love for you in order that you will turn your heart over to Him and repent. Beloved, let's take this to heart, let's examine ourselves and let's ask ourselves, "What in my life, what in my heart, what broken places, what crooked places, need to be made straight"? because Jesus is coming back for you.