Долготерпение Божие

Great is God's goodness and long-suffering. People commit lawlessness before Him and do dishonor and annoyance to Him, but He does not immediately execute them, but is patient and waits for them to repent. What meek king, seeing the outrage shown before him, will endure? Soon human meekness turns into rage. Our God is not like that: He sees the iniquities committed before His Face by man, He sees and is patient, not wanting the lawless to perish, but wants everyone to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). How great is the forbearance of God, Who endures the sinner and blasphemer who dishonors Him and does not immediately execute him! What earthly monarch is so patient and meek, who would endure his servant, such a man, who was outrageous and dishonored before him? Haven't heard of this anywhere. Human meekness quickly changes and becomes inflamed. Our God is not like that. He sees, and endures, and waits for the sinner’s repentance. Many Christians, when their fathers, or authorities, or masters do not punish them for a crime, rejoice, are comforted and thank them, but to God, Whom they sin every day and hour and are honored with His infinite mercy, so that the mercy of those, compared with this God's mercy, is nothing, but they do not thank Him. Judgment, wrath and human punishment concern only the body, but cannot harm or destroy the soul, but God’s judgment and wrath can cast both soul and body into fiery Gehenna (see Matt. 10:28). But the blind sinner does not see this and thanks the person who shows him small mercy, but does not thank God, who shows him endless mercy every day and hour. Oh, if every sinner opened his inner eye and knew how much before the greatness of God he sins, annoys, and offends every day in word, deed, and thought, and what kind of mercy he receives from Him, then he would continually fall before Him with a humble and grateful heart! Lord for us! What kind of King is so merciful and meek that, seeing his law being destroyed before him, he can tolerate the destroyer? Soon human meekness turns into anger and rage. God constantly sees His holy law, unchangeable and eternal before Him as a sinner is destroyed, sees and endures - and not only endures, but also protects the sinner from his enemy the devil, who is always close to the sinner and wants to capture his soul and cast him into hell. Oh, Thy love for mankind towards us sinners, our God! Who can research this or understand it with their mind? But the sinful soul does not understand this and does not thank God the Lover of Mankind. God’s long-suffering desires and seeks the salvation of the sinner, as the apostle teaches: Consider the long-suffering of our Lord salvation (2 Pet. 3:15). For the goodness of God leads him to repentance (Rom. 2:4). And if an unrepentant sinner despises this kindness, the long-suffering of God, in heart, then all his bad deeds, sins and iniquities will be exposed and presented to him on the day of judgment, as God says to the sinner: I will reprove you and bring your sins before you (Ps. 49:21). And then he will feel the judgment and wrath of God on himself; and the more you have sinned and experienced God’s forbearance, the more you will experience the wrath of God, as the apostle teaches: by your stubbornness, O sinner, and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and the revelation of righteous judgment from God (Rom. 2:5). Understand this, you who forget God, so that He does not take you away, and then no one will deliver (Ps. 49:22), says the prophet to sinners.