Description
Understanding God’s Patience and the Consequences of Ignoring Warnings
In this episode, we review the implications of N… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
Today’s verse reminds us of the patience of God but it also warns us what might happen if we play fast and loose with God’s grace. It’s Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 30 and here it’s the people of Israel talking to God and confessing to him. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your spirit through the prophets yet they would not give ear. Therefore, you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
In this prayer of confession, the people, the Israelites are saying, you warned your people time and time again. You warned them through prophetic utterances and through your Law, and they refused to listen.
And eventually, after this had happened so many times, God, eventually, you let the fate before them that you’d always warned them would happen. Instead of resisting all the evil of the people in the land that they were expelling, they succumbed to those evils. They were taken into captivity.
And so to what extent does this apply to us today? We’re all saved, aren’t we? God’s forgiven us. And yet, while we live in a sinful world, there are still consequences for our sins.
As far as God is concerned, we are right before him. But within this world, if we sin, if we break a good law, we’re going to be punished. Sin has consequences. Sometimes we reap those consequences in our bodies, in our minds, in our hearts, in our emotions.
Let us not be those that are presuming on God’s patience. Instead, let us continue to turn to Him. Let us listen to all the warnings He’s given us by His Spirit through the prophets in our Bibles. So that when we come to the end of our lives and when Jesus returns in his glory and accepts us into his kingdom, he will be saying to us, well done, good and faithful servants. Let us be faithful to his call right now and for the rest of our lives.
