The Day of the Lord's Appearing

There is a general tendency amongst men to believe that when judgment is deferred or put off, it means that it will never come. So that if we are not immediately destroyed by doing something, it means that we never will be. You see this in the way that men approach sin, it is rarely the case that if you sin you will be immediately destroyed. So that one can get away with a period of drunkeness or debauchery and appear to have gotten off scot-free.

But the witness of scripture is that we should not think that a delay in judgment is an indication that it is not over the horizon. Judgment is not metted out instantly, for the pattern that the Lord has established in his dealings with men is one not of "instant karma" as the world puts it, but of longsuffering. What is perhaps saddest is that men routinely abuse this period of longsuffering, allowing it to pass by until the period of grace is exhausted and all that is left is the time of judgment.