The Mystery of Patience
God’s patience is known to have limits. Noah did some righteous preaching for 120 years and then God’s patients ran out. Just like then we don’t know when He will once again hit His limits. This is even a mystery to Jesus who doesn’t know when is the day of the Lord. Only the Father will know when He has had enough, but that’s not the mystery I want to call to your attention.
What did the Spirit of Jesus proclaim to the spirits imprisoned for their disobedience? Rebellious spirits would not believe, so their bodies were destroyed in the flood and their spirits imprisoned. They ignored God’s warning, “Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.'” (Genesis 6:3NASB) He gave them time to repent.
“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, ………. having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, ……… who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, ……. in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” (1 Peter 3:18-20NASB)
What did Jesus proclaim? We can only guess, but we don’t have to guess about Noah. He believed and was saved.
His Family Table 