The Psalmist asks a penetrating question. “Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? He hath said in his heart, thou wilt not require it” (Psalm 10:13). In modern day vernacular, the sinner does not fear the judgment of God. He believes that God will not judge. So he or she readily dismisses the warnings from God’s word and his messengers as irrelevant. In short, such warnings are despised and held with contempt.
What a tragic misconception about God and his attitude toward sin. The sinner foolishly thinks that because God has not judged, he will not judge. Man willingly fails to understand the implications of God’s sovereignty. His sovereignty over all things means that he can wait to judge until doing so fits the context of his eternal plan. While his holy character demands that every sin must be addressed, the Lord is not constrained to act immediately against the unrepentant sinner to vindicate his holiness. His omniscience prevents any sin falling “through the crack” and left unaddressed. Furthermore, his righteous character coupled with infinite wisdom assures judgment that is both righteous and commensurate. The bottom line is God can wait to judge because of who he is. But, make no mistake, he will judge. Denying that he will do so is tragic because it leads to certain destruction.
It is God’s great patience with the sinner that is vastly misunderstood. The Scriptures teach “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared” (Psalm 130:3). God knows the sinner’s sins, all of them, but he waits. He waits for the sinner to repent, to come to him, to seek forgiveness. The love of God restrains his just wrath because he “is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
God demonstrated his response to sin and love for the sinner when Jesus bore our sins on the cross of Calvary. There God poured out his wrath against sin for all mankind. It is there “God commandeth his love for us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God’s just and holy wrath was satisfied by our Savior’s sacrifice for us. And all who trust in him “have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14). But we must trust in him. Christ alone is the safe harbor in the sea of God’s wrath upon sin.
So for now God waits. But there will be a time when waiting ends and judgment comes. God in his sovereignty “hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31). “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged…every man according to his works. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:11-15).
Why do you wait? “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).
From the Chaplain 