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No obscurity hangs over this passage; the evil to which the Preacher refers is clear enough and common enough, while his condemnation of it is distinct and decisive.

I. A PALPABLE FACT IN THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD. The fact is that God often lets sin go unpunished, or, as we should rather say, partly unpunished. The tyrant is not dethroned; the fraudulent dealer is not convicted and sentenced; the murderer is not apprehended; the drunkard and the debauchee are not driven from the society which they disgrace; the hypocrite is not exposed and expelled; the men who fill their purses or satisfy their cravings at the expense of the property or even the character of their neighbors are sometimes allowed to remain in positions of comfort and of honor. And it may be that even their health and their spirits appear untouched by their sins, and even by their vices.

II. ITS MISINTERPRETATION BY MANY. What does it mean that God allows this to happen? The guilty are not slow to convince themselves that it means safety to themselves. It is, they think, that God does not concern himself with the small particulars of human life, and will not therefore visit them with his penalties; or it is that God is too "good," too kind, to punish his children for following the bent of their own nature; or it is that the world is not under the government of any righteous Ruler at all, but only subject to certain laws of which they may prudently make use for their ultimate immunity. It is that they may safely go on in their evil course without fear of consequences.

III. THEIR COMPLETE MISTAKE. They argue that because we always make penalty follow crime as soon as we can, and because our non-infliction of it argues our intention to condone it altogether, it is the same with God, and that his forbearance to punish is proof that he does not intend to do so. Thus they think that "God is altogether such a one as ourselves." But they are wrong; he "will reprove us and set [our sins] in order before our eyes" (see Psalm 1:21). We always make penalty pursue wrongdoing without any interval, because

(1) we are afraid the criminal will escape us, or

(2) we fear that we ourselves may be taken from the scene. But God is not hurried by such considerations as these. The guilty can never get beyond his reach, and he is ever present. Time does not enter into the account of him who is "from everlasting to everlasting." God's long forbearance is, therefore, no proof of Divine indifference or of the absence of a ruling hand from the affairs of men.

IV. ITS TRUE SIGNIFICANCE. What the Divine long-suffering really means is that God is patient with us in the hope that we shall repent and live (see Ezekiel 33:11; Romans 2:4; 1 Timothy 2:4; and especially 2 Peter 3:9). The truth is that

(1) while men do often seem to escape the retribution that is due to them, and while they do in fact enjoy a large measure of Divine forbearance;

(2) sin is always suffering, and is on its way to doom.

(a) If outward and visible evils are not attending it, inward and spiritual evils are.

(b) Sin always tends toward misery and shame, and is working it out, as the event will show. Even if it should escape the hundredth time, there is a number that will prove fatal.

(3) The righteous man has a distinct and immeasurable advantage. It is "well with them that fear God."

(a) Piety and virtue have the promise of the life that now is. Sobriety, chastity, uprightness, diligence, prudence, courtesy, kindness, - these are all making for health and for prosperity, and for the best friendship which earth can offer.

(b) They lead up to the gates of the heavenly city. - C.

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KJV: Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

WEB: Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.