May 10, 2023: 2 Peter 3:15 - The Longsuffering of Our Lord is Salvation

“…and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation - as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you…” - 2 Peter 3:15

Moses, the man who had led God’s people, Israel, out of 400+ years of bondage in Egypt, went up to Mount Sinai a second time to receive the tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments of God, also called the two tablets of Testimony. The first time he had received them from God, when Moses came down from the mountain, he saw the people of Israel worshipping a golden calf they thought Moses wasn’t coming back from the mountain and they had turned away from God, quickly forgetting all that He had already done for them. They proclaimed it was the golden calf that they themselves had made that had brought them out of Egypt instead of giving Almighty God the glory. They returned to their sinful and idolatrous ways. Before Moses had come down the mountain, God had told Moses what the people were doing, and God wanted to destroy them and instead making a great nation through them, He would make it through Moses. However, Moses interceded for them, saying:

“LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’?” Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” (Exodus 32:11-13)

God did relent from pouring out His wrath on the repentant Israelites. Moses came down from the mountain, and when he saw the people and heard them singing and dancing around their false god they had made, Moses’ anger arose and he cast the tablets to the ground, breaking them in pieces. Moses burned with fire the false god they had made, ground it into powder, mixed it with water, and made the people drink it. Moses had those who were with him and were on God’s side to come to him. All but 3,000 were on God’s side and came to Moses. Moses commanded that those who had sinned against God and turned away from Him be killed, and they were. Moses then approached God the next day and atoned for the sins of those who stood with God. God then told Moses that He would use Moses to lead the people out of Sinai and into the Promised Land and that His presence would go with him. Then God instructed Moses to go up by himself the next morning to receive a new set of the tablets of Testimony. Moses cut two tablets of stone and brought them with him up to Mount Sinai. God then spoke to Moses, revealing His character to Moses:

“Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and children’s children to the third and fourth generation.’ So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. Then he said, ‘If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked [stubborn] people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.’” (Exodus 34:5-9)

Just as the Lord God was longsuffering to His people, the nation of Israel, so is He is longsuffering to us. He forgives all sin to those who repent - who turn to His Son Jesus Christ - believing in Him as their Savior. But for those who are guilty, and all of us are guilty of sin because are born with it, and do not turn to Jesus and choose to remain in their sin, some of whom may have continued in their rejection of Jesus’ free gift of salvation in multiple generations of their family, God will not clear their guilt; instead, they will die in it. Those 3,000 people who had experienced the goodness of God as He led them, through Moses, out of Egypt, freeing them from their chains of slavery, turned away from God and turned to idol worship, and given the chance to return to Him, they chose not to and received the due penalty for their sins: death. They chose darkness over light, just as people in the world today have chosen. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to offer each and every one of us the way out of our sins and that is by believing in Him as the only One who paid the price with His precious blood to redeem us of our sins. Sin Jesus’ first coming to earth, and when He died and resurrected and is alive today, all who turn to Him and believe in Him will be saved; we will no longer be found guilty of our sins but are pardoned of our iniquities. When He returns to earth a second time, it won’t be to offer salvation but to execute His righteous judgment on a sinful world that rejects salvation, chooses to remain in sin, and aligns with the darkness, with Satan. When Jesus comes again, for those not saved, it will be too late to turn to Him, and they, like the 3,000 in Sinai, will be found guilty and will die in their sin. All who have lived since Jesus came the first time and who rejected His free gift of salvation and died in their sin will never have peace in their eternity, only eternal torment.

So now, as we await the second coming of Jesus, there are many who mock and scoff at believers in Christ, saying He will not come again, but He will. God said it, and it will be done; you can count on it. Any delay is only because of His deep love for us and that He wants no one to perish but that all will turn to Jesus and be saved. As with the 3,000 in Moses’ day, you must make a choice: are you on the Lord’s side - with Jesus - are you against Him? The choice is yours alone to make.