A thunderstorm rolled through our area a few nights ago. It woke me up—a thing not easily accomplished. :)
One particular flash of lightning grabbed my immediate attention, and I waited for the thunder to follow. The interval of time in between the two events was the seedbed for a number of thoughts for a few moments. The visual proof of an electrical discharge in the atmosphere was immediate and short-lived. Had my eyes been closed, or even focused on something else, I might have missed it. The audible proof of an electrical discharge was both delayed and longer lasting. This is a result of the inherent properties of light and sound. They travel at different speeds. I thought about the speed of light as opposed to the speed of sound and the Lord brought the words “The Speed of Destruction” to my mind.
I have had a draft of a post about delayed consequences for a while, but it was buried under numerous other posts that I had been working on. My experience during the thunderstorm moved this one to the top of the list.
Actions have consequences. Some of those consequences are so immediate that the gap between the action, itself, and the consequence is virtually imperceptible—like lightning. Some of the consequences are not immediate. They take time—like thunder. In fact, some consequences take so much time that, if there are secondary actions that take place within the gap, the consequences that would have come without the secondary action taking place can be averted.
The speed of a society’s destruction is slow, mercifully slow. Because it is slow, it gives a society ample time to repent, though most societies do not. There comes a time when the interval between a society’s actions and its subsequent destruction becomes too small to accommodate the repentance necessary to avoid the impending destruction. While individuals may repent, the society as a whole cannot turn back what is, at that point, unavoidable. The Lord knows when this time is because he knows the hearts of men.
And we are there.