I will not execute the fierceness of mind anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man. (Hosea 11:9)
The 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. ff 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 forever: 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, or 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.
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He was converted to Christ at the age of 16 and immediately began preaching. He preached in the streets and in the fields before he was 21. In his first church, he began with 100 members. It grew until he was preaching to 10,000 people in the Surrey Music Hall. His church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, seated 6,000 people. He withdrew from every movement among English Baptists which tended to criticize the Authorized Version 1611 in any way.
Before his death, he published more than 2,000 sermons and 49 volumes of commentaries, sayings, anecdotes, illustrations, and devotions.