8:11Ecclesiastes 8:11

When punishment for wrongdoing is not carried out quickly, human hearts become fully set on doing evil, growing bolder and more firmly resolved to continue.PK 78.3+2 The delay is misread as permission to persist, as proof that repentance is not needed and judgment will not come, so that forbearance meant to soften instead hardens in stubborn rebellion.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+2 The delay comes from God's long-suffering mercy, patience and love, which leaves men free and gives them probationary time to learn truth and turn to repentance.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+2 Mercy and forbearance have a boundary line, and when presumption and refusal of light continue, long-suffering is exhausted and God intervenes in judgment.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+2 Delayed punishment does not mean escape, for God sees every hidden sin and keeps a reckoning, and will surely punish transgressors with still more severe retribution.Lt 223, 1904, par. 4–5+2

When punishment for wrongdoing is delayed, human hearts become fully set to do evil, growing bolder, more determined, more firmly committed and more firmly resolved to continue.PK 78.3+4 The delay does not mean escape from justice, for wrongdoing inevitably brings misery, ruin and retribution, yet the guilty presume on forbearance and bring still more severe retribution on themselves if they persist.CET 185.3+4 Punishment for dishonest dealings and every other evil practice is certain even when it does not come at once, and forbearance should lead to seeking forgiveness so that sins can be canceled from the heavenly record.CET 185.3+2

The delay is misread as license and permission to persist more boldly in sin, as proof that there is no special need for repentance, that judgments may be sneered at and denied, that judgment will not come, and that resistance and transgression may continue.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+4 Mercy, long-suffering patience and forbearance are meant to soften and subdue and to strive to save, but hardened, depraved hearts abuse mercy, trifle with law, build themselves up in assurance, and turn patience into encouragement for greater carelessness, perversity, stubborn rebellion and counterworking of God's work and Word.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+4 The evil worker knows better than anyone but himself how much guilt is still retained and how much evil is still practiced, and this warning applies in the church to acknowledged believers who continue in wrong while presuming on delay, to those who disregard warnings to scatter gatherings centered in institutions in Battle Creek, and to a professedly Christian world that with Satan would make holy law of no effect, resist light, throw off restraint, erect a counterfeit standard and hate even to hear the law mentioned.Lt 243, 1904, par. 3–5+2

Because punishment does not follow at once, evildoers conclude that God does not notice, is indifferent, or is not in earnest, even while bringing defilement into worship.2RED 85.2–86.1+3 This is seen in professed Christians and ministers who persist in tobacco and liquor, praying and preaching with defiled lips and dulled nerves while thinking God overlooks it, but He does notice and no more receives sacrifice mingled with tobacco and liquor than He received the strange fire of Aaron's sons.2RED 85.2–86.1+2 The delay does not mean He is not in earnest, for He lives and reigns and will not always keep silence but will be true to His Word, and warning and escape must be given now before He arises in majesty to shake terribly the earth.CET 185.3+1

Absence of immediate harmful consequences, apparent worldly prosperity, and success in hiding sins from others are taken as proof that disobedience is safe or right, while conscience is violated, the heart hardened, the neck stiffened, and God, who is not deceived, is yielded to Satan.CH 108.3–109.1+3 People follow their own inclinations despite plain commands and even pray for approval and permission for what is forbidden, letting personal feeling and experience overrule positive warning, as Eve ate the forbidden fruit and felt new pleasurable life instead of dying on the spot, so Adam let her experience overrule God's warning, and the same delay now leads the religious world generally to keep transgressing.CH 108.3–109.1+2 A claimed religious experience does not validate disobedience, for true experience agrees with natural and divine law and the laws of life and God's precepts, while false experience opposes them.CH 108.3–109.1+1 Though a sinner repeats evil many times and prolongs life in this world, it will be well only with those who fear God and not well with the wicked who does not fear Him, for long life here does not mean continued life in the new earth, where the wicked cease to exist and the meek inherit.PK 78.3+1

Because punishment does not follow at once after breaking law, there is less fear to sin, and the sinner can persist months and years in a hellish course with no awakening to repentance, no bitter remorse, and no dread of vengeance, content if sins can be covered from human eyes by deception and lies.Ms 9, 1880, par. 9–13 Light is first hated and then resisted because it exposes the wicked course in the light of law, until all sense of right and wrong dies and conscience becomes seared and stupefied and ceases its functions.Ms 9, 1880, par. 9–13 What is sown will still be reaped, and a harvest remains that will horrify the sinner to gather.Ms 9, 1880, par. 9–13 The same principle works in the family, for when parents and grandparents indulge, sympathize with and excuse a child's wrongs instead of restraining and subduing him with an even hand and decided discipline, evil strengthens with his strength.Ms 4, 1860, par. 16 Correcting and reproving faults at one time and neglecting them at another, with lack of decision, and with great severity from the father reacting against that indulgence, leads the child to think his father too severe, to despise parental authority and be impatient of restraint, and to have his heart fully determined to do evil and to have his own way until Satan controls his mind, and God notices these things.Ms 4, 1860, par. 16

The delay does not come from indifference but from long-suffering mercy, patience, compassion and love that strives to save and draws by love because unwilling service is not wanted.Lt 123, 1897, par. 18–23+2 Nothing is left undone to lead sinners to repentance and reconciliation, to acknowledge that man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and to turn to Christ through the love shown in sending Him to die for them.Lt 123, 1897, par. 18–23+2 That goodness and patience are meant to soften and subdue, and they do lead many to repentance.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+2 Yet hardened hearts turn that forbearance into encouragement for stubborn rebellion and transgression instead of hating the evil that made Christ's death necessary to save the sinner from transgression, not in it.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+2

God has deliberately arranged to leave man a free moral agent through a probationary time, discerning all works yet compelling no service.Lt 123, 1897, par. 18–23+1 He bears long with His rebellious family and gives all time to learn truth from His Word, to be tested, and to have every opportunity to repent and turn to Christ.Lt 123, 1897, par. 18–23+1 The death penalty commanded for defiling the Sabbath is therefore not executed speedily now, though immediate execution would deter willful transgression.Lt 123, 1897, par. 18–23+1

That deferral was purchased by Christ's death in man's behalf, giving sinful people another opportunity and a second probation to return to loyalty.Ms 141a, 1897, par. 18–22+1 As after the Flood, when the world was given a second probation, men are now given greater and still greater opportunities to repent.Lt 83, 1904, par. 9–10+1 Those who refuse to obey rank with transgressors and bear the sign of disobedience by doing their own work on the Lord's holy day, and must at last bear the death penalty.Ms 141a, 1897, par. 18–22+1

Immediate punishment would change His moral government by producing obedience only from fear of sure consequences.Ms 24, 1901, par. 15–18+1 His wonderful forbearance therefore puts constraint on His own attributes and holds back Omnipotence while divine compassion flows, though stubborn hearts beat it back, despise His goodness and patience, and presume on His mercy.Ms 24, 1901, par. 15–18+1

Mercy and forbearance have limits and a boundary line that can be passed, for continued presumption, blasphemy, defiance and refusal of light can exhaust long-suffering patience until forbearance will do no more good and judgment must intervene.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+4 Patience meant to soften and subdue and lead to repentance is too often turned into boldness, carelessness, perversity and resistance, with hardened hearts taking delay as license and permission to press on in transgression and trifle with law.Ms 183, 1897, par. 1–2+4 Belshazzar is the example, for though he knew how a kingdom was given to Nebuchadnezzar and then taken away for pride until he learned that the Most High rules, he closed his eyes to light, refused to humble his heart, and lifted himself against the Lord of heaven.Ms 50, 1893, par. 27–30 Those who continue in sin will at last reach that boundary where mercy must give place to punishment according to the aggravating character of defiance and rebellion, since honor will not allow law to be treated with indifference and defiance without answering punishment.Lt 123, 1897, par. 18–23+3

Delayed punishment does not mean escape, for every transaction is seen, every perversion of reason, speech and talents is witnessed, every hidden sin is discerned, and a reckoning is kept with individuals and nations that will surely be called to account.Ms 55, 1902, par. 3+3 Long forbearance in striving to save is misread as proof that repentance is not needed and that judgments may be sneered at and denied, yet those who disregard the Word, counterwork the work, and resist warnings meant to scatter crowded centers such as the institutions in Battle Creek bring upon themselves still more severe retribution if they persist.Lt 223, 1904, par. 4–5+3 This is plain in courts where jurors, senators, lawyers and judges pervert justice for gain by fraud, false oath, falsehood and bribery, causing the innocent to suffer and the guilty to escape and growing bold because judgment is delayed, though every injustice will be brought to the bar.Lt 89, 1898, par. 20–22 Disrespect for holy law has made the world a second Sodom upon which wrath is pouring out, and the Lord will punish transgressors of His law and do terrible things in righteousness, with dishonest dealings and other evil practices made certain to meet forgiveness only through seeking pardon so sins can be canceled from the heavenly record.Ms 55, 1902, par. 3+1

When the limits are reached honor is vindicated and law is magnified before the world as holy, just, good and unchangeable as the character behind it, no longer met with silence but with majesty arising to repress iniquity, shake the earth terribly, and punish transgression.CET 185.3+4 The delay does not mean lack of earnestness, for He lives and reigns and will be true to His Word, and warning and escape must therefore be given now before obstinate rebellion passes the boundary.Lt 76, 1898, par. 12–15+1 The course now fast approaching those bounds set by long-suffering is to make law of no effect, throw off its restraint as the rule of life, erect a counterfeit standard, manifest cruel attributes, trample holy law underfoot, make human laws supreme, hate even to hear the law mentioned even in the professedly Christian world, and find the only bond of union in that trampling in cooperation with evil angels.Ms 125, 1901, par. 25–28+1 In that condition hatred strikes deep roots and goes to still greater lengths in war, bloodshed and rebellion to an aggravating pass many do not think possible, ripening the harvest for the sickle until He comes out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth.Lt 76, 1898, par. 12–15+1

In the last days wickedness, rebellion, defiance, violence and crime work with deeper and broader power, religious restraint is thrown off, contempt is placed upon law, and trampling of the holy law by tradition and inventions reduces it to a dead letter by transgressing the Bible Sabbath and putting an idol sabbath and the common in place of the sacred memorial of creation, until iniquity swells to terrible proportions and reaches unto heaven like the old world.Ms 127, 1897, par. 20–21+2 The cry of the suffering and oppressed rises for justice, and fires, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, the fury of the great deep, railroad disasters and calamities by sea and by land warn that the Spirit will not always strive and that a sudden change and visitation to judge the earth is near.Ms 127, 1897, par. 20–21+3 Hearts fully set will not repent even when these disasters come that should cause fear, but regard them only for personal safety and that of connected friends, and without vital connection and protection they are left to hostile power and wrath and violence, with these calamities only the beginning.Lt 3a, 1883, par. 2–3+2

Jerusalem fulfilled this truth by refusing light and resisting every measure ordained for peace and salvation, keeping on refusing and rejecting with loving-kindness mocked instead of softening, until mercy exhausted its last resource and fast filled up the figures of the reckoning kept with nations and individuals.Ms 40, 1897, par. 41–44 When men throw off all restraint, make void law, establish their own perverted law, and try to force the consciences of those who honor God and keep His commandments to trample law underfoot, they will find tenderness exhausted and the arm strong to support, shield and save strong to execute judgment.Ms 40, 1897, par. 41–44 The scenes at its destruction will be repeated in the great and terrible day upon the world, but in a more fearful manner.Ms 40, 1897, par. 41–44

France illustrates the same working, for rejection of God and His law and of the Bible did not bring instant judgment, but centuries of wrongdoing accumulated until misery and ruin plainly revealed the consequences of rebellion.GC 285.4–286.1+1 There the delay emboldened firmer resolve to do evil, yet sin against righteous law inevitably brought retribution, and in the Reign of Terror the wicked reaped what had been sown.GC 285.4–286.1+1

Eve ate the forbidden fruit and did not die on the spot but felt new and pleasurable life, so Adam let her experience overrule God's positive warning.CH 108.3–109.1+1 The same delay in judgment now leads people generally to treat lack of immediate harmful consequences as proof that disobedience is safe or right, to follow inclination despite plain commands, and even to pray for approval of a forbidden choice.CH 108.3–109.1+1 A claimed religious experience does not validate such disobedience, for true experience agrees with natural and divine law while false experience opposes the laws of life and God's precepts.CH 108.3–109.1

Tower-builders in the present time show what happens when judgment is delayed, constructing theories from supposed deductions of science, rejecting revealed truth, presuming to judge God's moral government, despising His law, and boasting of the sufficiency of human reason.PP 123.4 The world given a second probation after the Flood likewise forgot God, stood at enmity with Him, cherished the principles of sin, and strengthened itself in transgression and apostasy with no sense of what was due Him and no respect for His law, living disobedient, unthankful and unholy while trampling His sanctified seventh-day Sabbath and enforcing a false sabbath.Ms 141a, 1897, par. 18–22 The inhabitants of the old world revealed the same fully evil heart, with deep infernal enmity striking roots until vice was concentrated in all its forms, men turned from God to satanic attributes, trampling His law as the only tie of union while hatred to Him became the only bond among transgressors, so that anyone inclined to return to God and keep His commandments was denounced as treacherous and dealt with as a traitor.6MR 392.2–3

Belshazzar illustrates the same hardening, for though he knew how God gave Nebuchadnezzar a kingdom and then deposed him for pride until he learned that the Most High rules, he closed his eyes to light, refused to humble his heart, and lifted himself against the Lord of heaven.Ms 50, 1893, par. 27–30 Delay hardens men until iniquity swells to terrible proportions in trampling God's holy law, reducing it to a dead letter by traditions and inventions, transgressing the Bible Sabbath and putting an idol sabbath and the common in place of the sacred memorial of creation.Ms 127, 1897, par. 20–21 With Satan men are thus emboldened to stubborn resistance to light, contempt for the law as the rule of life, throwing off its restraint, erecting a counterfeit standard, manifesting cruel attributes, and intensely hating even to hear the law mentioned, even in the professedly Christian and so-called Protestant world.Ms 125, 1901, par. 25–28

The same principle emboldens jurors, senators, lawyers and judges who forget God, pervert justice for gain by fraud, false oath, falsehood and bribery, cause the innocent to suffer and let the guilty escape, and grow bold because judgment is delayed.Lt 89, 1898, par. 20–22 That delay is not escape, for God is party and witness to every transaction, sees all perversion of reason, speech and talents, and will surely call them to account and bring every injustice to His bar.Lt 89, 1898, par. 20–22 It likewise explains professed Christians and ministers who persist in tobacco and liquor, praying and preaching with defiled lips and dulled nerves while concluding from delayed punishment that God does not notice, is indifferent, or accepts their indulgence.2RED 85.2–86.1+2 God does notice, and He no more receives sacrifice mingled with tobacco and liquor than He received the strange fire offered by Aaron's sons.2RED 85.2–86.1

In the church the delay is mistaken for proof that repentance is not needed, so acknowledged believers continue in known wrong while presuming on forbearance, the guilty soul building itself up in assurance though none knows so well as himself how much guilt is retained and how much evil is still practiced.Lt 243, 1904, par. 3–5+1 Unconsecrated professors cherish known sin without confession and repentance, succeed in hiding it from others, and mistake absence of visible judgment and apparent worldly prosperity for safety, while violating conscience, hardening the heart, stiffening the neck and yielding to Satan, but God is not deceived.2T 447.2 Sinners flatter themselves in impenitence that because wrath is not awakened against their wicked inventions they are free to be ambitious and follow their own way with nothing to molest them, planning to repent at some future time while asleep watchmen say it shall be well with them.Lt 60, 1893, par. 15 This applies to those who disregard God's Word and work against His work, who sneer at His judgments on the institutions in Battle Creek sent to scatter the people gathered there, and to domineering, hypocritical leaders persisting despite repeated reproofs, presuming on mercy while it still strives to save them and thereby bringing still more severe retribution, for patience must not be mistaken for approval.Lt 243, 1904, par. 3–5+2

Delayed judgment does not make wrongdoing harmless but exposes and feeds what is already in the human heart, which is full of evil, and those left to themselves pursue many schemes and grow more firmly determined to continue in wrong.PK 78.3+1 That delay allows a deep, infernal enmity and hatred toward God to strike ever deeper roots in depraved hearts until it reaches an aggravating height of war, bloodshed and rebellion against His law beyond what many think possible, with vice concentrated in all its forms.6MR 392.2–3 Men thus turned from God take on satanic attributes, trampling His law becomes the only tie holding them in union and harmony, and hatred of God becomes the only bond of affinity among transgressors, so that anyone showing inclination to return to God and keep His commandments is denounced as treacherous to earthly governments and dealt with as a traitor in the camp, as was revealed in the inhabitants of the old world.6MR 392.2–3

Though a sinner does evil repeatedly and prolongs life in this world, it shall be well only with those who fear God and it shall not be well with the wicked who does not fear Him.PK 78.3+1 Unconsecrated professors who cherish known sin, refuse confession and repentance, and succeed in hiding their sins mistake the absence of visible judgment and their apparent worldly prosperity for safety, while violating conscience, hardening the heart, stiffening the neck and yielding to Satan, but God is not deceived.2T 447.2 Long life here does not mean continued life in the new earth, where the wicked will cease to exist and the meek will inherit.2T 447.2

Lightly regarding the law and perverting right principles is transgression that brings condemnation, for Christ's righteousness cannot cover one unconfessed sin.Ms 124, 1901, par. 16–17+1 Loyalty to God and acceptance by Him require obedience to His law, beginning with self-examination in the light of the law to discover the penalty of transgression and purifying the soul by advancing into clearer and still clearer light.Ms 124, 1901, par. 16–17+1 Sins cherished in defiance of His justice are obnoxious to Him and lead others astray, and putting them away requires reconversion, repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.Ms 124, 1901, par. 16–17+1

Lack of immediate harmful consequences can lead people to treat personal feeling and experience as proof that disobedience is safe or right, as Eve did after eating the forbidden fruit, following inclination despite plain commands and even praying for approval of a forbidden choice.CH 108.3–109.1+1 A claimed religious or spiritual experience does not make such disobedience valid.CH 108.3–109.1+1 True experience agrees with natural and divine law, while false experience opposes the laws of life and God's precepts and commands.CH 108.3–109.1+1

Hearts thus fully set to do evil continually will not repent, and no reformation is wrought.Lt 3a, 1883, par. 2–3+2 Even when tornadoes, railroad disasters, calamities at sea and other disasters come that should cause fear, those so set do not turn to God but regard them only from fear for personal safety and that of those connected with them.Lt 3a, 1883, par. 2–3+1 Without vital connection with God and His protection they are left to hostile power and to Satan's wrath and violence, for He does not work a miracle to protect those constantly working against Him and strengthening the powers of darkness, and these calamities are only the beginning.Lt 3a, 1883, par. 2–3+1 In this day God bears long with the transgressor, but if sudden retribution followed transgression now as heavily as when punishment fell on Israel, a wonderful reformation would be wrought.Ms 58, 1900, par. 27–28