Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.If the consequences of evil are not visited immediately upon the perpetrator, the commitment to do wrong increases exponentially. When threats appear on the horizon (war, famine, disease, illness) the wicked become more circumspect, diffident, and cautious.
Ecclesiastes 8:11
“Getting away with it” leads to boldness in doing evil. Our text says, when judgment is delayed, hearts are given fully to evil.
However, two unalterable realities remain. Firstly, nothing gets past the gaze of the Living God. Psalm 11:4 says, “The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.” Secondly, the Lord's justice is stored, never forgotten, and ultimately executed. Every moment brings the wicked closer to the day of reckoning.
When evil is so destructive, causing such suffering and harm to others; when God's honour and Name are being mocked on every hand, why does the Lord delay? Particularly, why does He delay when holding off judgment exponentially increases the boldness of wicked men to do yet greater and greater wickedness?
Once again the Scriptures are clear on this. The Church in the days of the apostles was living on a knife edge of cataclysmic judgment. Israel, as it had been foretold by the prophets centuries before, had been honoured with the very Son of God coming amongst them as Messiah. Yet Israel as a covenant people had rejected Him. Therefore, judgment was to fall within the generation of the apostles. We now know that the fateful date was 66-70AD, when the Roman armies decimated Judea and Jerusalem. But during the ministry of the apostles, while they knew the cataclysm was coming, it was not yet. It was still some months and years off. Many apostles went to their deaths without seeing the fateful day when the Son of Man came upon the clouds of heaven to Jerusalem.
People were asking, how long? When is it all going to take place—this judgment that would change the world forever, such that things would never be the same? The apostle Peter writes to Jewish Christians living as on the knife edge with the following advice:
But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.The world as they had known it was about to end forever, burned up in the conflagration of Judea and Jerusalem, as the Lord rejected His people of old, cutting them off from the holy Covenant. But the delay was vital—it was to allow time for all who had been chosen to come to repentance. It was to allow time to snatch the brands from the burning.
II Peter 3:8—10
This then is a central reason why judgment for the wicked is held off: it is for our sake and the sake of the elect that they all might have time to come to repentance.
But this is not to imply that we must sit passively by while these things play out. Peter goes on to say that the Lord's people can hasten the coming of the day, provided we live in holy conduct and godliness (II Peter 3:11). The context of the passage suggests that as the Lord's people live in holy dedication to their duties and tasks the effectual call of the Gospel will come more quickly to those chosen, drawing them to repentance, thereby hastening the coming day.
We have said that every passing moment brings the wicked closer to the day of exacting account. To this we can add, every repentant sinner, by their conversion, also hastens that great and terrible day of the Lord.
Even so, maranatha—come quickly, Lord.
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