Sermon

November 11, 2001
2nd Sunday of End Time
2 Thessalonians 1:5-10
Pastor Joel Zank

GOD'S JUDGMENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT!

(2 Thessalonians 1:5-10) All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

In Christ Jesus whose glorious return draws near, dear fellow redeemed,

Have you noticed how many armchair generals there are in our country these days? Ever since our nation declared war on terror there has been no end of people willing to offer up an opinion as to how this war should be fought on the home front and overseas. At news briefings and press conferences every day the decisions and judgments of our leaders are called into question. And nearly every day I see some military analyst on one of the news networks explaining how he would be doing everything different if he were the one in charge.

All this takes place, of course, because we live in a democracy that grants us the freedom and even the right to question the decisions and judgments of our leaders. This is a good thing, because our leaders like us are sinful human beings who can make mistakes. Knowing that they are accountable to us ought to be enough to lead them to make the best, most considerate judgments they can.

But let me ask you this, should the decisions and actions of our God be placed under the same scrutiny? I would guess that we would all say no. The Almighty Creator of heaven and earth is not accountable to us, his creatures. And yet how often don't we criticize the Lord for the way he is conducting his war against Satan and this unbelieving world. Today the Apostle Paul has something to say to all of us arm-chair generals, something that will silence our criticism and at the same time bolster our faith. For Paul tells us, GOD'S JUDGMENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT! It is right this day and it will be right on the last day.

Paul first wrote these words to people who may have thought that they had good reason to question God's judgment. The Christians of Thessalonica were brand new Christians. The Holy Spirit had just recently taken up residence in their hearts through Paul's preaching of Christ-crucified for sin. But no sooner had God brought them into his kingdom and these Christians were under attack from all sides. In Acts 17 we're told that jealous Jews from the local synagogue accused the Christians of treason, convincing local authorities that by claiming Christ as their King, these Christians were openly rebelling against Caesar. You can well imagine that such hatred stirred up all kinds of doubt and fear in the hearts of these Christians.

I say you can well imagine it, because you face the same kind of hatred every day. The truth we believe and proclaim-that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven is not popular in a world whose people either want to deny heaven's existence or want to believe that there are other ways of getting there. Tell someone that without Christ they will perish and you may well be mocked as an insensitive bigot who ought to keep your politically incorrect opinions to yourself. Even within Christianity we confessional Lutherans are ridiculed. There are Christians who laugh at us because we insist that every Word of Scripture comes from God, and that the Bible is his book without any errors our mistakes in it. We're considered snobs because we hold to what the inspired Scriptures say about fellowship. We're thought of as backwards because we seek to live within God's roles for men and women. All this ridicule, mockery and laughter-it all flows from the hatred others have for us-hatred that fills us with doubts and fears.

The same doubts and fears that lead us to question the truth of what we believe. Are we sure we're right? And if we are, why isn't God doing something about it? Why doesn't he silence our critics? He shouldn't let things go on like this, not if he loves us. But it's right here that Paul interrupts these thoughts of self-pity, saying, "All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering" (v.5).

"All this" is a reference to the world's hatred for Christians and to the way God sustains the faith of his people in the face of that hatred. In fact Paul goes so far as to say that the world's hatred for us is proof that God's judgment is right. What judgment is his talking about? The judgment God has made on your behalf. Back in eternity God made a judgement to choose you to be one of his dear children through faith in Jesus. You didn't do anything to picked by God. God made a choice to show you love that you, a condemned sinner, would never deserve. He did this because he is love. In time he acted on his loving choice, putting the name of Jesus Christ on you in baptism, giving you credit for the perfect life Jesus lived for you, proclaiming your sins forgiven and forgotten for the sake of Jesus' sufferings and death on the cross, and working in your heart faith to believe that after living and dying for you, Jesus has risen from the dead and now rules over this whole universe with one purpose in mind, to bring you home to heaven. And how can we be sure that God's judgment made so long ago is right? In other words how do we know that his choice is effective and that we enjoy this saving relationship with Christ this very day? Our answer is found in the world's hatred of us. The world hates us the same way it hated Jesus. Listen to what Jesus himself had to say about this: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you" (John 15:18-19). As a result of God's eternal choice, as a result of all that Jesus did to save us, you and I, to no credit of our own, will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God.

Isn't this something, my friends! The very hatred you and I would look to avoid is the very evidence that God's judgment on our behalf is right this day. God's judgment is always right. This truth is meant to encourage us as we look ahead to the future. God wants us to know that his judgment that has made and kept us his people to this point in our lives will never fail us. With this truth in mind, Paul tells us that God's judgment will be right on the last day.

Oh how we need to hear this powerful truth again and again in order to keep life in its proper perspective. It so tempting for us Christians to avoid the criticism of those who hate us by either abandoning our beliefs or at the very least keeping them to ourselves. To our great shame we so often treat the wonderful truth God has given us as some kind of awful burden that we must bear in disgrace, all the while envying those who live life without this handicap. We consider them the lucky ones because their days seem trouble-free and they appear to get away with murder. The psalmist, Asaph felt this way about the unbelievers of his day. He said in the 73rd psalm: "I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.... They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth... When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny" (Psalm 73:3-6, 8-9, 16-17).

It was in God's house that Asaph learned God's truth, the same truth we are learning today, the truth that unbelievers aren't getting away with anything. Don't worry, says the Apostle Paul, "God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels" (vv. 6-7). Paul doesn't tell us this so that we may gloat over the enemy or decide to withhold the gospel from them. Instead he's giving us encouragement so that we may continue to share the gospel even in the face of hatred. He's telling, hang in there! Relief is on the way because the Lord Jesus is coming back, perhaps today and when he comes the mouth of every mocker will be silenced as all who hated God come face to face with the blazing fire of his wrath. Paul describes the fate of God's enemies, saying, "[God] will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power" (vv.8-9).

What horror awaits those who do not believe in the Triune God of Scripture. Such people will not live in heaven. Nor will those who claim to know God, but fail to obey his gospel, that is, fail to listen to and believe his promise that salvation comes as a free gift through Christ alone. Their punishment will be everlasting destruction, unending torture. They will face an eternity without God's grace and without God's power to help them. They will know only his anger. And be assured of this, the judgment God will pronounce on these souls will be right, for in their unbelief they have rejected Christ's payment for their sin. Having forfeited the gospel's gracous gift, they will have to spend all eternity paying sin's wages for themselves.

As we consider all the times we have turned our back on the gospel, doubting or despising its promises, all the times we have questioned the wisdom of God's judgment or the sincerity of his love, we shudder to think how we deserve to hear him sentence us to hell "...on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people..." (v.10). But instead of hearing his condemnation that day, he will declare us innocent of these and all our sins and we will be numbered among the holy. God's judgment of us that day will be right, not because we never sinned or because we somehow managed to pay for our transgressions. That could never be. No, his judgment will be right because through the faith he gave us and preserved in us we will be washed clean of our sins, purified by the blood of Christ. On that day, God's people will marvel at grace so powerful, so divine that it saved them even from their own self-destructive ways. This includes you, my friend, you'll be marveling too because you believed our testimony to you that you are saved by grace alone through faith in Christ Jesus our dear Savior from sin. Amen.

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