Why does God allow people to mock Him?

How is it that God allows Himself to be thus continually insulted by His weak and erring creature? How is it that He seems content to be, from a human standpoint, continually worsted in a strife with His rebellious subjects? His terrible threatenings are, like His overtures of mercy, equally despised. His commands have been trampled underfoot, His servants murdered, His very existence denied, and in the silence of His mysterious existence His long-suffering refuses to let loose the thunderbolts of His wrath. Now can we account for this?

The divine warning having come to Dumah, his reply is to pour scorn upon the message, for in mockery he says, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” It was as much as to say, We have heard for a long time now of the coming judgment, but it has not come yet, what have you to say about it now? Dumah was in the Old Testament representative of those of whom Peer writes in the New Testament, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers…saying, Where is the promise of His coming?…” (2 Peter 3:3-4). To such the delay hardens their unbelief, although it is God’s mercy affording them time for repentance.

First, it is not because judgment is His delight. Let God be true, but every man a liar. "Say unto them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" If God expostulated thus with Israel of old, we may be sure He is no more willing to execute judgment now on Christendom and on the nations. Nay, where he foretells those judgments in the most solemn terms, He speaks of rising, "that he may do his work his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act." As to this very period which is passing over our heads, and in which He delays to strike the long threatened blow, it is thus the delay is accounted for: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." No; it is not that God has any pleasure in the destruction of any; but that men despise, alas! the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; after the hardness of their impenitent hearts treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Reader, is this the case with thee? If it be, O that the question may rouse thee from thy slumbers, to consider what thou canst do in the day that God shall deal with thee!

If the Lord's coming is to believers a blessed hope, to professing Christendom it is the end of hope. It shuts the door of grace, reserving those left behind for the terrible ushering in of the day of the Lord, when He comes to take "vengeance on them that know not God," and for the still darker hour when that day shall close in the conflagration of the world and the judgment of the great white throne. The apostle, speaking of professing Christendom, here foretells that in the last days the Lord's coming will be a subject of derision. Men will point to the world around, declare everything to be prosperous, and discern no sign of change. Alas! they are "willingly ignorant" that so it was before the flood. Did the mockery excited by the long warning prevent the deluge coming and sweeping the scoffers away? Nor will it stay the execution of judgment on the world in whose stability men are trusting. The delay may seem long, for God's measure of time is not like man's; but the Lord has not forgotten his promise. If He has delayed its fulfilment, it is that the despisers of His grace might be gathered in, not being willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. When the time is arrived, the promise will be fulfilled, and then the terrible day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night for the destruction of those who are left behind.

It is very remarkable that Jude should quote from Enoch, the first prophet that ever prophesied, and the burden of his prophecy was that "the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon the ungodly." A long time ago it is since Enoch uttered this prophecy. Six thousand years have elapsed since then, and the ungodly still vaunt themselves, and the tides of evil rise higher and the scoffers are saying, "WHERE IS THE PROMISE OF HIS COMING?" We must expect them to ask that question and to see them grow bolder in their sins because that coming is delayed. They do not understand that our God is long-suffering, and not willing that any should perish; they do not understand His infinite patience, or the immeasurable pity of His heart. They take advantage of His grace and turn it into lasciviousness. But the Lord is coming and He is coming to judge. Then will these ungodly sinners who have thought they could do as they pleased in the Christian circle, and who have pastured themselves there without fear, be brought to book, and their ungodly careers will be brought to a sudden end by the righteous judgment of God.

Nor is it folly only that is thus shown. The utter baseness, as well as ignorance, of corrupted nature here makes itself conspicuously manifest. God is despised on account of His goodness! The riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, instead of leading the natural man to repentance, only turn to the increase of human sin. Because the sentence of recorded judgment seems to linger in its execution, the unrepentant heart of man becomes more and more emboldened in the ways of sin (Ecc. 8:11). Long impunity in the ways and works of natural choice begets a feeling of security (2 Peter 3:3-4), which in its effect prepares the world for its last fatal slumber, which the advent of the Judge alone will break (1 Thess. 5:2-3). Men live a life of self-pleasing at the expense of Divine long-suffering and kindness (chrestotes), indifferent, meanwhile, to the testimonies which warn, and to the occasional acts of judgment which give yet more emphatic earnest of the day of reckoning which is to come.

But this is to treasure up wrath against themselves. God is not mocked, although He draw out long His patient sufferance of human evil. He must one day remind men that power belongs to Him, and not to them. He will convince incredulous sinners by the epiphany in glory of the Lord of judgment, that a life of carnal security is a life of rebellion against God; that to speak and to act as from themselves is to cast off dependence upon Him who formed them for Himself; that the utterance of the natural counsels of the heart, according to the assumed privilege of man's proper liberty, is the contumacious gainsaying of the word of Divine truth; and that their pleadings for themselves have been hard speeches (Jude 11, 15) against the God in whom they live, and move, and have their being. There is a day fixed for the righteous judgment of God. He will be just; and then woe to the man whose responsibilities have been left undischarged, through his obdurate contempt of the word of grace during the long-protracted continuance of the day of mercy and of salvation.

285 The very solemn point which is here put in evidence is that iniquity accumulates. The patience of God waits, and not only that, but it employs all means to recall to sincerity and to Himself those who possess the truth and who have at least its form. The most touching appeals, the most energetic warnings, the condescension which makes use of reasonings almost from equal to equal, all this is rendered useless by the obstinacy of men in despising grace and in practising iniquity. Finally, when God has exhausted all His means of calling to repentance, then comes the judgment that this divine patience had suspended. It is at last brought in by sin accumulated from age to age, and by the hardness of heart which has grown with the despite done to divine warnings and to grace.

The Lord is not slack, not lax or undependable, of which, by some men He may be accused; though He is marvelously patient. It is folly to mistake His patience for indifference. If indeed He is long-suffering, yet it is because of His concern for the souls of men, that they might have opportunity to come to repentance, and therefore escape the judgment that must necessarily fall upon a guilty world.

Thus we see that though this apostle survived Paul for many years, and certainly watched over the assemblies, in Asia Minor at least, dwelling, as it is said, at Ephesus, it was only in order to record the fact that the last time was already come, which was shewn by the presence of these antichrists, and by the apostasy of many. If it be asked why God waits so long before executing judgment, the answer is to be found in 2 Peter 3:9: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." To Him a thousand years are as one day. In the time of the Jews, judgment was pronounced (Isa. 6), eight hundred years before it was executed, that is, when they had finally rejected the humbled, but also glorified Son of God.

175 The Israelites despise the warning of judgment; the wicked take advantage of the delay; just as the like was to happen in the last days of the Christian testimony (2 Peter 3). But God does not hurry His counsel. He is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He knows well that He must judge at the end. Man attaches himself to his own wisdom, and as long as God does not chastise, man hardens his heart. God has done all for His vineyard, but this producing nothing but wild grapes He judges His vineyard on the earth.