Why So Long, Lord?

If God says he’s going to do something soon, we mustn’t hold him to our standards of time. And, for that matter, our own standards of time show us the same thing.

Last evening, my family was at my Dad’s house, putting up a Christmas tree. Dad was sitting on the couch watching us, and I’m pretty sure what he saw brought back memories of last year when we were doing exactly the same thing. I think this, because of what he said as he was watching us.

“My goodness,” he said. “This year has really flown by. I can’t believe a whole year has passed.” He didn’t say much more on that topic, but I wondered if he didn’t look back further to evenings long past in his own lifetime, maybe to the the time my brothers and I were still little boys, helping to put the up Christmas tree in Amarillo, Texas, or Needles, California. That would have been 30, 40, or 50 years ago. And, yet, in some ways it seems like yesterday.

In fact, the one thing that is consistently reported by older people is how fast time flies. What do you think the past would look like to someone who has lived for 500 years? Or a thousand years? What do you suppose time looks like to someone who is eternal? The difference between us and God -- as far as time is concerned -- is important to keep in mind, and that’s why Peter says, “Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.”

But there is another reason for the delay. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward you, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

First of all, Peter is pointing to something that is everywhere evident in God’s Word – his extravagant patience with sinners. You remember no doubt that before the flood, Enoch preached for centuries, and then affixed a promise of the coming judgment on his son Methuselah by giving him that name, which means, “When he dies, it will come,” referring, of course, to the promised judgment. Noah spent 120 years building the Ark, and if that’s not a warning, I don’t know what is! By the days of Jonah, God’s reputation concerning sinners was well established, for Jonah said, “I I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.” (Jonah 4:2).

But there is more than God’s extravagant patience with sinners here. There is an amazing truth here that we need to slow down and look at, in order to understand it. And, that truth is contained in a three letter word: “you.” Peter says that it is not God’s will that any should perish. Peter further says it IS God’s will that all come to repentence. This is one of the places where the Calvinists make a point that I think merits our acceptance. This was first pointed out to me by one of my Greek professors, Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, who said to us, “Men, Peter here tells us that God’s patience is directed toward specific sinners: “you,” the beloved whom Peter addresses at the beginning of this chapter. Peter is saying that Jesus has not yet returned because he is waiting for all of you to come to repentence. Who is the “you” here? It was certainly those to whom Peter wrote. And, it is also those of us to whom this Apostlolic teaching applies, just as much as it did to those who were living while Peter was living.