A very common spiritual misunderstanding in regards to God’s long suffering and His act of mercy

Due to the nature of sin in us and the total depravity of sin many have misinterpreted the very basic principles of faith to their own destruction. In the pitfalls of the false teachings of these final days many have their minds corrupted by the illusions of their futile minds. They are self thought and completely ignorant to the truth of the word of God. They cling to the false teachings of their own depraved mindset and are not willing to come to the truth of the word. They live with confused principals and are victims of their own delusions. One of these widespread fabricated lies accepted in the body of Christ is about the mercy of God that is this act of God’s long suffering is His approval of their continuation in their acts of sin.

Many in this dispensation of grace are somehow attracted to a false sense of security that makes them take God’s mercy for granted and they do not understand its intended purpose in their lives extended to them through the unmerited favor of God. Some even deliberately twist its meaning to serve their own crooked ideas of the stubbornness of their own hearts. Mercy or God’s loyal love to them extended in His long suffering means nothing but a second chance to repent. Nothing more and nothing less.

God’s tolerance of our sin by no means is His agreement with our sin, but that He is being long suffering and kind by extending us time to turn back from our lawless deeds.

To the woman sentence to stoning by her accusers He extended the hand of Mercy, but in it He said go and sin no more.

Go and sin no more means the mercy extended to us is an unmerited gift of loyalty of love to help us walk away from our habitual lifestyle of sin. However many think if God is silent after we sin for a while that He is fine with sin we leave in. But this is an absolute lie from the pit of Hell that has invited many in its self afflicted delusion. Even in the case of Apostle Paul when he was persecuting the Church of the Living God, when the Lord appeared to him on the road to Damascus the Lord stopped his madness through His mercy, yet in it he was asked to turn from his wicked way done in ignorance and turn to righteousness in repentance.

This is what Apostle Paul says about this own encounter with God and His mercy for him. In 1^st Timothy 1:16 “However for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.”

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God’s long suffering or patience is demonstrated in the act of His mercy, yet it is for one purpose only to give us time to think and turn from our wicked ways, not to live in them even more securely saying to our selves then God must be ok with what I am doing.  The word in Ecclesiastes 8:11 says “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”

This is so true, because of mercy that is extended in behalf of us we seldom think we would never reap what we saw in life. It is so dangerous that men can take God’s patience as His weakness or passivity in bringing judgment upon the wickedness’s of men. It is for this very reason that men persevere in their lawless deeds and feel a false sense of security when they see all things continues to remain the same way around them for a long time. In Luke the thirteenth chapter we read about the parable of the barren fig tree. Which says it in this way Jesus said “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground? But he answered and said to him Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig, around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well but if not, after that you can cut it down”. Here in this story as we see the long suffering of the Lord in an amazing parallelism between the Israel of God as His own vineyard and the temple worship as their religious duty to be fruit full. We read that the Lord is willing to remove the tree from its place or to cut it dawn, but he is giving them another chance.

Here again we see God’s patience and long suffering for thousands of years to see fruit from the temple worshippers in Israel and in Jerusalem, but did not find any, yet in sending Jesus our Messiah gave them another final chance before he completely cut them off in their state of barrenness. While they had the temple and all they needed for fruit bearing, yet they had failed miserably. Now He had send them a greater than their physical temple to stand in their midst and they had three years of extended mercy and long suffering to receive Him before they too would be completely cut off.

The earthly ministry of our Lord was this patience extended to Israel to turn from their rejection of God’s righteousness. This spoke of His loyal covenant of love for them and not His acceptance of their sin.

Patience and long suffering speaks of tolerance, but not approval or agreement.

Many even today as we speak take this divine virtue of God in a very wrong prospective and bank on something that soon would collapse.

These days many see God as an indifferent eternally tolerant being. A God who would do neither good nor bad, or actually maybe the one that would be doing well at all times regardless of our deeds and our response to His love. In this they totally have misunderstood and misrepresented Him to others, especially if they are ministers who minister to their congregations. Saying “My god is a very good god and would not send any one to hell, especially those whom he has called his own children”.

Statements like this totally misrepresent the true God that we worship. These are the false and fabricated teachings of these last days covered under the name of grace. In this way they exchange the truth of the word of God for a lie. Men like Apostle Peter and Paul who understood the mercy and grace of God in the true sense in which they were meant to be grasped stood as the eternal watchmen on the walls of God’s spiritual Israel by giving us heed through their inspired scriptures.

Like; 2 Peter 3:15 “Now know that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.”

Or

Romans 2:4 Do not despise the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; don’t you know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

Or

Romans 9:22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: These words of the Apostles of our faith best describe the

True identity of God in His sovereignty and grace both in one place. They never saw or preached a one sided gospel of a cheap grace, void of genuine repentance. To them God’s mercy meant only an undeserved chance to turn from their sin to God. They never took the grace of God for a license for continued immorality. To these men mercy and the grace of God were very important words. They were never to be taken for granted. To this group of truly godly men these words meant fear of God, but today unfortunately in today’s society none of these words make any sense. Events described by Apostle Peter like in  1 Peter 3:20 about the wickedness of men  in the time of Noah and their destruction are just sounding like fables. They cannot understand that the same thing is about to happen now. Many think just because their continual in sin has not affected them yet that it will never do. Remember the recent sudden floods and earth quakes and personal tragedies affecting the believers all over.

Oh yes God is always compassionate and good and full of mercy and grace, but for what reason? He does all of this to grant us a time and a space for repentance so that He does not have to appear as a judge to punish us for our deliberate sin. Yes His patience or long suffering only means a time period provided between our sin and its just punishment to repent and to turn away from it, not to take this time as a time continue deliberately in it.

Yes He is very compassionate as a loving father not wanting any one to perish, but taking this attribute of God and misusing it by remaining in our sin is even a greater offence to His eternal love offered to us in His Son The Lord Jesus Christ.

I pray after hearing this message tonight that none of you would go home in your own self assurances of your own hearts in regards to your position in Him that we all would examine ourselves by His Truth