Daily Devotionals
Devotional: May 19th
" The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked." - Nahum 1:3.
Because the Lord is slow to anger, men suppose that they have nothing to apprehend from his anger. But, indeed, his anger is only the more terrible, because it is slow. He is slow to anger; this shows that his anger is something different from what we call anger. It is not an impulse; but moves with the utmost possible deliberation.
It would be of the greatest advantage to men if they would just take knowledge that the goodness of God expressed in the innumerable gifts of Providence that strew their paths, is not complacency, but suspended wrath. They lie down and sleep; in the morning they awake, give a careless thought to the circumstance that God has watched over them, and go their way. They embark in many enterprises, and meet with success. Comforts, honors, advantages, pour in from many quarters. Why? The reason is, say they, that God is well pleased with us. The question then arises, ’ Who is this God that daily fetches out of his treasury things, new and old, to bestow on hoary-headed sinners, whose life is dedicated to iniquity? What are we to think of a God who pays the salaries of the servants of Satan, and affords them facilities for doing his infamous will?" You know not God. He bestows upon you providential kindnesses, because he would attract you to his kingdom against which you are now in revolt; because he would have you hear the word of his grace, and escape the uplifted bolt of his vengeance. He prolongs the day of mercy, because he knows there is for you a lake of unquenchable fire, an eternity of woe.
It would be a fearful impeachment of the power of God, if the sinner, abiding in transgression, should after all come off victorious. Transgression is the assumption of power greater than that of God. Weak and contemptible is that legislator whose laws may be broken with impunity. Better a thousand times that he should make no laws at all. The sinner now for a while cajoles himself with the idea that he is greater than God; that he can contemn the commandments of God. But God is as great in power as he is in long-suffering; and tho imagined victory of man only prepares the way for the sublimer victory of God.
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