A Reason to Give Thanks

His anger is but for a moment.
PSALM 30:5
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A Reason to Give Thanks
Let us be warned . . . and learn this: the longer God puts up with idolatry and other sins, and the longer He pays no attention to them, the more intolerable will His wrath reveal itself to be later on. Therefore we ought to consider it a great kindness if He does not permit our sins to go unpunished for a long time. Psalm 30:5 exhorts the church to give thanks because the wrath of the Lord is "for a moment" and because He loves life. It says: "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning" [v. 5]; and Psalm 89:30, 32: "If his children forsake My Law and do not walk according to My ordinances, I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with scourges." This is a wrath of grace, when the punishment comes quickly and calls us back from sin.

From Lectures on Genesis (Luther's Works 2:223)
April 11
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