Delayed Judgment

Have you ever heard a joke but did not get it right away, only to realize moments or even minutes later what was so funny about it?

This illustration gets us thinking along the lines of a delayed reaction. Another example is when you are trying to diagnose what food you might not tolerate too well. Because there is a delay between ingesting the food and the undesirable effects as the food passes through the digestive pipeline, it can be confusing as to what exactly is the cause of the problem. Tracking down the culprit may take time. The "consequences" of a certain food may not be felt for hours or even a day or so.

These illustrations of delayed reactions remind us that God does not always immediately judge sin. People are involved in a pipeline of activity, mixed with God's patient mercy and normal life circumstances. Difficult things may come despite good behavior, and good fortune may come despite bad behavior. This leads to a situation where you cannot exactly diagnose whether action A that you took yesterday leads to discipline B that you experienced today. Because of the delay between behavior and consequence, you can misunderstand God's work.

Jeremiah 44:17-18 says, "But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. 18 But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine."

The people of Israel were steeped in idolatry. This eventually brought God's punishment to Jerusalem and the surrounding cities of Judah (Jeremiah 44:1-3). God had sent His prophets to call the people back to righteousness, but they did not listen (44:5-6). God asked the people who now had fled to Egypt why they were continuing the same behavior as their ancestors which would end up causing themselves so much suffering (44:7-14). In hardness of heart they replied that they would not listen (44:15-16). Then they said the words quoted above.

Had they truly forgotten what happened to the others before them, and that is why they continued in idolatry? They did not answer the question directly, but they seem to imply that no, they did not forget. Rather, they had another line of reasoning. Their reasoning had to do with their political and economic situation at the time they were in their idolatry. When they were worshiping the "queen of heaven" idol, they experienced prosperity. Instead of attributing their well-being to God who made them and who was the true giver of all good things, they attributed it falsely to an idol. But consequences caught up to them, so that then, even if they listened to the prophet, they experienced a situation of lack. Their diagnosis was based on that short-term thinking that ignored the delayed effects of judgment.

What they failed to recognize was that they needed a better memory and a better way to diagnose the delayed reaction of judgment. What happened was that there was hysteresis, or carry-over, from a previous state of being. Their condition "lagged" the cause of the condition by, let's say, a number of months. It was something like this: while they were serving God somewhat well, God blessed them. These blessings continued even while the people started down the path of idolatry. They incorrectly assumed that the blessings were because of the idolatry. But really, the blessings were just carrying over from their prior state, lagging behind their current spiritual condition.

The blessings began to "peter out," and now, God sent them prophets and began to judge them. In response to the prophets, they briefly stopped their idolatry. But this did not immediately repair their temporal problems, because the prior judgment of God carried over for a while into their new present situation. The results of judgment continued even after repentance, because repentance does not always or immediately erase consequences. Their incorrect diagnosis: when we worship idols, we are OK, and when we worship God, the blessings stop and trouble comes.

Maybe when they stopped worshiping the idols, they had merely an external conformity to the prophets' message, without an internal heart response of repentant faith. If that were the case, no wonder God's judgment continued.

In any case, their diagnosis ignored the lag effect or delayed reaction, and thus they deduced an incorrect cause-effect relationship. They needed a longer memory and better thinking to realize that God's blessings do not turn on and off instantaneously. God uses normal means most of the time. They needed to think with the help of the Holy Spirit instead of with limited human logic.

Perhaps you have gotten yourself into some trouble. Please be aware of this delayed reaction idea so that when you begin to follow the Lord, you do not expect all the difficulties you have created to just immediately fall away. In fact, some things may get worse. But you can know that God is pleased with every faith-filled thought and intention to follow Him, regardless of your present circumstances.