The more you read the old testament, the more you realize the depth of God’s love and his patience. It seems God’s patience has its limits and that is shown in his judgement. But before judgement comes, God takes his sweet time because he does not delight in the death of the wicked; as a matter of fact, he does not delight in any death (Ezekiel 18:23). That is why prophecies for judgement take a long time to be fulfilled, because God gives time to his people to repent and turn to him. What we see as “a long time” for God to act is in fact his patience and love displayed towards us. As Peter reminds us “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)”. That is the heart of God. It really is hard to fully grasp such level of love to rebellious people. However, I have come to understand two things regarding God’s judgement: first it serves as God’s tool to enact his justice and second, it serves to display the glory of God.
In many passages of the bible, God says that he will judge Israel and Judah for their sins, their idolatry, their prostitution, and their lack of obedience. He repeatedly told his plans to his people through his many servants, the prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Amos, etc.). In telling his servants, he always hoped that his people would repent, turn away from their sins and come back to him, their first love but that was seldom the case. Surprisingly, that did not deter God from continuing with his pursue. I do not know anyone that is so tenacious with his love like our Lord is. Sometimes, his tenacity makes us think he needs us. We can get caught up in the fact that God loves us to the extent that we start believing the lie that He, the maker of heaven and earth needs us to survive or to have significance. Well, if his love has ever made you feel that way, let me caution you to come back to reason because this great and powerful God is self-sufficient. That is one of his attributes, it means God does not need anybody, or anything to have meaning. So no, His great love for you has nothing to do with you and your refusal of his love thereof. Whether you accept his love or refuse it, you do not add an iota to His person, or His being. His love is complete already because He is love. I know it makes little sense for someone to be pursuing you with such fervour and not need you, but that is the case with God. It is, however, not the case with man because when man pursues someone else with his love, it is because the love he will receive from the other person will fulfill him to some extent, or it will give him something in return (pleasure, status, self-worth, etc.). God’s love does not require anything from our part, we are not to work it, we are not to produce it, we are not to deserve it, we are simply to accept it. There in lies our problem; we have a difficult time surrendering to anyone; a difficult time receiving gifts because when we receive gifts, we believe we are in debt to the gift giver, and we do not want to owe anyone. In our thinking, we cannot just accept God’s love without giving him something as repayment, but the problem is that nothing we do can pay him back for the greatest display of love he did on the cross. Indeed, he died so we would not have to die, he was pierced for our transgressions, he took the chastisement that was ours and endured it on the cross. He did this, knowing we could reject him, yet he did it anyway. The price that was paid to bring you to God, to change your status from enemy of God to friend of God cannot be repaid so just surrender and accept it, stop fighting it.
Although this love is free and available for now, there will come a day when it no longer will be and what will be available will be the judgement of God. In Ezekiel, God says multiple times that he will display his glory through his judgement. That was the case with the judgement against Tyre and Sidon so that they would know that “he was the Lord and he is proved Holy” (Ezekiel 28:22). Through the judgement of God, rebellious nations would know that God is God and that He is Holy, that is set apart, not to be associated with other gods or with men. His judgement was also a confirmation to the punished nations and the world at large that He was Yahweh, and that besides him there was no other God like Him. That is what happened when God delivered Israel from the reign of the Egyptians or when God delivered Judah during the reign of king Jehoshaphat from enemies’ nations. Many of those nations were filled with fear (2 Chronicles 20:28) and recognized that the God of Israel was not like their gods who had ears but couldn’t hear or had eyes but couldn’t see. As believers, we need to realize that our part is simply to humble ourselves and let God be God because only Him deserves the glory for He is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5).
A Word Aptly Spoken 