February 16

“I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man.” — Hos. xi. 9.

Lord thus makes known his sparing mercies. It may be that the reader is now under heavy displeasure, and everything threatens his speedy doom. Let the text hold him up from despair. The Lord now invites you to consider your ways, and confess your sins. If he had been man, he would long ago have cut you off. If he were now to act after the manner of men, it would be a word and a blow, and then there would be an end of you: but it is not so, for “as high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are his ways above your ways.”

You rightly judge that he is angry, but he keepeth not his anger for ever: if you turn from sin to Jesus, God will turn from wrath. Because God is God, and not man, there is still forgiveness for you, even though you may be steeped up to your throat in iniquity. You have a God to deal with, and not a hard man, nor even a merely just man. No human being could have patience with you: you would have wearied out an angel, as you have wearied your sorrowing father; but God is longsuffering. Come and try him at once. Confess, believe, and turn from your evil way, and you shall be saved.