Lesson 13: God's Love is Patient With Our Continual Slavery

2 Peter 3:5-9 "For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the Day of Judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 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."

We have some good news and some not so good news. The not so good news is that God is not done punishing mankind for our wickedness.

The verses say the “first time” it was a worldwide flood but the “second time” it will be a worldwide fire. Praise God there is some good news as well. In spite of man's continual wickedness, God is patient with people, putting up with their wickedness day after day after day because He does not want them to perish. He wants them to repent and get saved. What we need to understand is that God is not only patient with our sins until we get saved, He is patient with our sins even after we are saved.

Romans 6:1-2, 6-7 - What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ... We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin."

Jesus not only came to forgive us of sin, but to set us free from it. This means that for the first time we have the ability through the Holy Spirit to just say “no” to sin. We are no longer slaves to sin! We can choose!

Even though God has given us the ability to sin less, we keep on sinning even more! You would think that someone who has freely been saved from eternal destruction in hell would naturally want to stop sinning against the person responsible for doing that, but even after all God has done, we do not just say “no” to sin. The Bible says this:

2 Peter 2:21-22 "For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: ‘The dog returns to its own vomit’….”

Even after we are saved, we choose vomit over God. It gets worse. In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul used a peculiar phrase to describe his joy about being set free from the slavery of sin. He said, "Praise be to God who rescued me from this body of death!" In order to understand Paul's comment here, we need to know that a murderer had the body of his victim strapped to his back so he carried the rotting body of his victim until that poison infected him and killed him.

I would not choose to walk around with a dead stinking body on my back! But when we keep on sinning again and again even after we are saved, that is exactly what we are choosing over God. The good news is that God is patient! Out of patience He not only forgives us of our sin, but He puts up with our sin again and again! After all He has done, He does not have to. That is love.

Thought Question: Can we imagine what the punishment of God will mean? Why not ask for His forgiveness?