Thank you again, Mark, for leading us. Good to have you back. I appreciate the hymns this morning; lively there for a while, that was nice. 

We're going to be in 2nd Thessalonians 1:6-12 this morning, and we're working through this epistle. We've kind of been back and forth with Romans and that, but we're going to look at retribution, rest, and the coming of Jesus Christ on that great day, and what that means for those who believe in Him and for those who will not obey the gospel. 

It's often a difficult thing for unbelievers, and really sometimes for us as believers, to understand and appreciate the righteousness and justice of God. We see so much suffering in our world, so much apparent injustice, and we sometimes wonder why. What is God doing? We read in the scriptures—such as in our text today—that judgment is coming, that those who do not know God will suffer eternal judgment, everlasting punishment, and we wonder how can this be? How do we understand it? The answer to this question comes with the right perspective. 

I was thinking about this as I studied this text and the perspective that we should have concerning who God is, who man is. One of the most liberating things a man can say is, "I don't know" or "I am wrong." It's a difficult thing to say because of unending pride, but the truth is, compared to what I do know, or what I don't know, I really know very little, and I'm wrong quite often due to my lack of knowledge and my errant perspective. 

The premise that must undergird my thinking is the absolute truth that God is just, and God is holy. He is omniscient, He is good, and He is working all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are the called according to His purpose. He's sovereign; He’s in control of all things. Sometimes in this world, it may not seem this way to us. We may not understand things; things are very difficult, but it’s a matter of perspective and a lack of knowledge on our part. 

I read this short little story the other day on perspective. A man wrote, “When I think of perspective, I’m often reminded of a conversation between me and my son in the summer that he turned four. That spring, Mark had asked for a spot in the family garden to call his own. He turned the soil up, he broke up the clumps, and he planted his favorite vegetable: corn. 

Toward the middle of July, Mark was concerned that his corn was not growing fast enough. I tried to reassure him that the corn was doing just fine by quoting him the familiar benchmark used by farmers: ‘Knee-high by the 4th of July.’ My lesson came with his retort as he looked up at me and said, ‘My knees are yours.’ 

I read about a canny Maine farmer who was approached by a stranger one day and asked how much he thought his prize Jersey cow was worth. The farmer thought for a moment, looked the stranger over, then he said, ‘Are you the tax assessor, or has she been hit and killed by your car?’ Life is a matter of perspective. 

Understanding why the world is the way it is, and why the judgment of the wicked is the right thing to do, begins with the right perspective of who God is and who man is. The humanists of our day see man as good, as the solver of problems, as a solution to all the ills of our world. But the truth is that no man is good. Jesus said only God is good. All men are sinners; they're born into Adam and are confined under sin, deserving of the wrath of God. 

We have such a tendency to give the benefit of the doubt, to assume goodness in men, even though the evidence pounds against this theory day after day in the world all around us. The truth is that men are sinful, that men are at enmity with God, with His Christ, with His gospel, and the hearts of men are desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, the Bible says. Who can know it? 

In contrast, God is holy; God is righteous; God is good. Who are we to question God? In Isaiah 45:9, it says, "Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘Why are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?" It’s a foolish thing to doubt and question the goodness of God—to take my finite mind, my flawed thinking and wisdom, and question the wisdom of God, the righteousness, and holiness of the Creator of the universe. 

And it’s always a matter of perspective. When Goliath came against the Israelites, the soldiers all thought, “Well, he’s so big, we’ll never be able to kill him.” But David looked at the same giant and thought, “He’s so big, I can’t miss!” How we see God and how we see man will determine how we interpret the world around us, how we understand the judgment of God, how we understand the reward for the believers, and the meaning of life today. 

It's vital that our understanding, our faith, our belief, and our actions are a result of the truth of the Word of God, and not the wisdom of men or the vacillating emotions that often rule our hearts and minds. He’s the God who cannot lie. He always tells the truth. He always does what is right, and in all things, I can trust Him. My endeavor should be to have His perspective, to think His thoughts so that I might have the right perspective on man, on God, and all that happens in this fallen world. 

Our text today is a difficult one. To think of the final eternal judgment of God against those who do not obey—the gospel is difficult to grasp, too difficult to imagine, but it is right. For those who believe in Jesus, there is rest and there is reward on that great day. 

Let's look at our text: 2nd Thessalonians 1:6. Paul writes, “Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power when He comes in that day to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe because our testimony among you was believed. Therefore, we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of His calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in Him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

I've given you five points on your outline: 

1. Just and holy is He? 
2. The sinfulness of man.
3. Rest in retribution.
4. It is only right.
5. Righteousness at the cross.

Well, I like to begin this morning by asking you to turn to Job 34 with me, please. Job, the oldest book in the Bible. In the ancient days of Job, this is what Job had to say in chapter 34, verse 12. 

“Surely God will never do wickedly, nor will the Almighty pervert justice. Who gave Him charge over the earth, or who appointed Him over the whole world? If He should set His heart on it, if He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust. If you have understanding, hear this; listen to the sound of my words. Should one who hates justice govern? Will you condemn Him who is most just? Is it fitting to say to a king, ‘You are worthless,’ and to nobles, ‘You are wicked’? Yet He is not partial to princes, nor does He regard the rich more than the poor, for they all are the work of His hands. 

In a moment they die; in the middle of the night, the people are shaken and pass away; the mighty are taken away without a hand. For His eyes are on the ways of man, and He sees all His steps. There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves, for He need not further consider a man that he should go before God in judgment. He breaks in pieces mighty men without inquiry and sets others in their place. Therefore, He knows their works; He overthrows them in the night, and they are crushed. 

He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others because they turned back from Him and would not consider any of His ways, so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to Him, for He hears the cry of the afflicted. When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble? And when He hides His face, who then can see Him? Whether it is against a nation or a man alone, God is just and holy in all His ways, and He rules over the affairs of men. 

In the book of Daniel, we see perhaps the mightiest king that ever lived, the sovereign over the great Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar. In chapter 4, verse 33, listen to what happened to this great king. It says, “That very hour the word was fulfilled concerning Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men and ate grass like oxen. His body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws. 

And at the end of the time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me. And I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever, for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’ At the same time, my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my honor and splendor returned to me. My counselors and nobles resorted to me. I was restored to my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added to me. 

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth and His ways justice. Now listen to this statement: “And those who walk in pride He is able to put down.” What a stunning statement! One of the most powerful men to ever live, the head of gold, the greatest king—and here is his summation of life: those who walk in pride God is able to put down. He is just; He is sovereign; He is holy. 

My friends, today is the day of men. God allows man to persist in evil and wickedness and allows suffering to continue in this time because it is the age of grace, the day of salvation. God does not make all things right in this world and eliminate evil because He is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish. He is calling on men to believe Jesus, to receive the gift of salvation through faith in Him. Jesus did not come to judge but to save in His first coming, and His patience is astounding. 

Think about this: as difficult as it is for us to see the injustice and the evil of this world, how much more for the perfect, holy, and righteous God of the universe? And yet He waits. He's working out His plan of salvation, offering His great grace and mercy to every man who will believe. But my friends, the waves of His wrath are pounding against the dam of His mercy, and the day is coming when His wrath will break out on this world, on the men of this world who would not obey the truth. 

Our text is clear. It’s a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, the believers in Thessalonica, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire to take vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are to understand this, to receive it by faith, and trust that it is right, Paul says it is a righteous thing—it’s a right thing to do. 

We must first understand who God is, that He is the Creator, the sovereign of the universe, that He knows all things, the end from the beginning, that He is right, holy, and just in all His ways, as Job said. We must also understand who man is, and I believe the confusion comes to us when we adopt man’s perspective, worldly philosophies, and a human-centered way of thinking. 

Man judges man in a relative, partial way according to his level of goodness or badness. Man compares himself with other men and judges on a relative basis; this is religion. So then, I can be good because someone else is so bad. And there is such a thing as relative human goodness. Everyone is not as bad as he could be, partly because he lacks opportunity. 

When we look back on Nazi Germany in the 30s and 40s, we wonder how the people followed Hitler, how they believed the lies and fell in line with whatever the government said. But if we had been there, there's an overwhelming likelihood that we would have not stood up against the evils of the Führer. There’s an almost certainty that we would have gone along with the state. 

Don't we see it today in our world? What makes us think that we would have done the hard thing, that we would have not been swept up in the massive pressures of the culture and the forces that be in that day? There was a village in Poland in 1941 where over 300 Jews were exterminated by their neighbors. These people had lived side-by-side for generations in a small village, 120 miles northeast of Warsaw. The Nazis had overtaken Poland and basically given the people permission to kill all of the Jews and take their belongings. They were neighbors living together side-by-side, and yet they killed those Jewish families. 

Why? Because they were given the opportunity. Because the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. Because of their selfish pride, the Nazis and the Communist propaganda that preceded this event told them that they were superior to the Jews, that the Jews were inhuman, the enemy of the state and of all that was good—that the Jews were the root of the problem. They made it a noble thing to rid them from the world. And the people complied. 

It's an amazing event in history. I just saw an article the other day about the leader of Poland apologizing at a ceremony commemorating this event—apologizing for what had happened. But it's one of multiplied millions of events in history that makes the humanist lie that man is basically good a very hard thing to swallow. Man is wicked to his core, and man is not judged by God with partiality. 

Turn over to Romans 2 with me, please. Romans chapter 2. This chapter follows a list in Romans 1 of the wicked of the world, the homosexual, the prostitute, the drunkard—what the world would call sinners. But then Paul turns to the religious man, and look at what he says in chapter 2:1. 

“Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge. For whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God—this is a stunning statement for man—the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. 

And do you think this, O man—you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? That in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds.” 

God judges according to truth, not like man, who judges according to relative goodness. The truth is that every man is born a sinner; every man manifests that truth out through his body, committing acts of sin, some great, some small—different in degree but the same in kind—sinners by nature, every one of us born in Adam. 

The amazing truth is that in light of the sinfulness, the wickedness of man, God has chosen to have mercy on all. Galatians 3 explains the sinfulness of man and his inability to keep any law for his own righteousness. Paul writes, “If there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” 

Romans 11:32, “For God has committed them all to disobedience that He might have mercy on all.” God has looked at the world of man, at every single solitary soul, and found them all to be committed to disobedience, to be slaves of sin; they are all confined under sin, and God has chosen to have mercy on all. He did not have to, my friend. He could have condemned us all; it is consistent with His holiness, His justice, to send every man to everlasting judgment because of his sin. 

God is also love; He is also grace and mercy. His desire is for every man to be saved, to become righteous in Christ, and be made fit for heaven to spend eternity with Him. Look at the lengths He’s gone to to accomplish this salvation. He’s given His only begotten Son, it was determined before the foundation of the earth. Jesus willingly became a man and took on flesh and died on the cross so that you and I could be saved from the wrath of God. But this cannot come by goodness, it cannot come by works, it cannot come by my human goodness or knowledge. Salvation comes only by the grace and mercy of God. 

So we see that God is holy and man is sinful. This is a right perspective. It is right for God to pay back those who do evil, to give tribulation, specifically, Paul writes here, to those who trouble you, who persecute the believers. And we know from the Scriptures that this is as sure a promise as any: that all who desire to live godly in this ungodly age will suffer persecution. 

The believers in Thessalonica were suffering a great persecution. Paul says it is a righteous thing for God to trouble those who trouble you. And that day is coming, my friends. And not just for those specific persecutors but look at verse 8 of our text and see the criteria for falling under the judgment of God. It’s not a relative-based partiality judgment. God judges according to truth. 

Who is it that will be judged? Verse 8: “in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The question is not whether you are Hitler or Mother Teresa. The question is, do you believe Jesus? Have you obeyed the gospel? Have you come back into a right relationship with God, received the very righteousness of God by grace through faith in Jesus alone for what He accomplished on the cross? 

In John's gospel, in the first chapter, he says, at verse 10, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, to Israel, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Have you received Him? That is, have you believed on His name? His name is all that He is. He’s God of gods. Don’t deny Him who He is. His name is all that He has done. 

He has accomplished, finished the work of my salvation on the cross in His one-time death, burial, and resurrection, satisfying the wrath of God for me in my place, in my stead. He was a substitute for me, an innocent man without sin, taking the penalty that I deserved. And my friends, it is finished—nothing to be added. God requires faith, and faith alone, just in what Jesus did for me. 

To know God is to know Jesus, and we only know Jesus by grace through faith. This is eternal life. In John 17, Jesus spoke these words. He lifted up His eyes to heaven, and He said, “Father, the hour has come, the hour of His crucifixion. Glorify Your Son that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 

I have glorified You on the earth, I have finished the work which You have given me to do, and now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 

We know Him by faith; we know Him by believing or obeying the gospel. And for those who do not know God, who will not obey, believe the gospel, there is no rest—only retribution. It’s a righteous thing with God to repay. He’s coming in flaming fire to take vengeance on those who do not know Him, on those who will not believe Jesus, who reject Him and suppress the truth. He shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power when He comes in that day. 

Rest is coming. We have peace now; Jesus is our peace. But there's a lot of unrest in this world, a lot of suffering, a lot of injustice, a lot of difficulty. There’s coming a day of rest when Jesus comes in that day to be glorified in His saints and be admired among all those who believe. Rest from suffering, rest from sin, rest from every tear and trouble, rest for those who believe Jesus. 

But for those who will not obey the gospel, for those who are against Jesus and His people, retribution. This is the truth. The author of Hebrews speaks of a willful sin, the sin of unbelief. Those people to whom he writes—those who were associated with the church, who had not believed, who had not gone on to perfection through faith in Christ—had more revelation than many. They had great understanding; they had intellectually received the gospel; they had assented that Jesus was the Christ, had even become part of the fellowship, but they had not believed. 

Heed this warning here if you do not know God, if you have not obeyed the gospel truth. In verse 26 of chapter 10, he says, “If we sin willfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth,”—if we know the truth about Jesus as the only sacrifice, and we willfully reject Him—“there’s no other sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.” He says, “Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which He was set apart a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. And again, ‘The Lord will judge His people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” 

Judgment is sure for those who reject Christ, who will not believe. This is a righteous thing for God to do. The righteous will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked. And rest is sure for those who love the Lord, who embrace His Son through faith, receiving the gift of righteousness by grace through faith. This is the promise to those who are being so forcefully persecuted in this small fellowship in this pagan city. 

And it is the promise for us. It's a promise for every believer of all time. The day is coming, and we must understand the righteousness of God and the sinfulness of man. Our faith, our trust must be in Jesus alone and His righteousness, not our own. We see in this text that God is holy; He's just. We see the sinfulness of man; we see rest coming for the believers, retribution for those who will not believe. It's only right. 

And finally, we see righteousness at the cross. Nowhere is the righteousness, the justice, and holiness of God more vividly displayed than at the cross. And nowhere do we see the great love and mercy and grace of God as vividly as we do at the cross of Jesus Christ. 

Turn over to Romans 3 with me, please, and we'll close in that text: Romans 3:19. We'll read down to verse 26. 

“Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, in order that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. That's the purpose of the law. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, by good works, no flesh, no person will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 

But now, but now, the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God. How? How can I receive the righteousness of God? How can I be perfect as God in heaven is perfect so that I can enter the kingdom as Jesus said in Matthew 5:48? Through faith in Jesus Christ. Who's it for? To all and on all who believe, for there’s no difference. We’re all vile, wretched sinners, and that’s good news, my friends, because there's no difference. 

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation—that's a full, satisfactory payment—by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed. To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness in order that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” 

Man is hopelessly religious. He has an innate desire to worship, but Romans 1 teaches us that man suppresses the truth of God, denying God and creating his own gods after his own likeness. He invents religion. The man, in all his conceiving and wild imagination in the religions he has created, in this he has not… he never conceived of the true salvation plan of God. Only God could create this plan. 

Only God could provide the perfect sacrifice, and only God could cause it to come to pass. Only God the Son, the perfect spotless Lamb of God, could come to die in our place and take our sin. He who knew no sin became sin for us in order that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, and this through faith in Jesus, faith alone. 

Notice the words of Romans 3:25 and 26. God set forth Jesus as a propitiation—fully satisfying His wrath. And He did this, it says, to demonstrate, to display His righteousness. He had not executed every sinner in the Old Testament. All men who had sinned, when they sinned in the past, He had passed over, allowed these sins to go unpunished. 

But at the cross, at the cross, these sins were punished. God was shown to be just and righteous because not one sin slipped by. Not one transgression went unnoticed, but all were laid on Christ on that cross. And because of His great love with which He loved us, He gave Jesus to be our substitute to suffer the judgment that we deserve. It was in this way—only this way—that God could remain just, punishing every sin, and at the same time be the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. What a glorious truth this is! What good news it is. 

Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow. My brothers and sisters, if you want to see the justice, the holiness, the righteousness of our God and Father, look at the cross. And if you want to see the love of God, His grace and mercy, look at the cross. Here we see love and justice meet in perfect harmony, displaying the character and nature of God and the need of sinful man. 

We have to stop asking how could God hate Esau? We have to start asking, how could He love Jacob? How could He love me, a sinner against Him, against His Son—He gave His only begotten Son for me? And perhaps this will give us a right perspective on the fiery judgment that will come when Jesus comes again. 

There will be judgment for those who do not obey the truth, the gospel, but for us, for those of us who believe Jesus, who put our faith in Him, there will be rest from all the struggles and trials of this life and this world and from the persecution that comes from this world of unbelievers. There will be rest, and there will be retribution. Where you fall in that, my friend, depends on what you do with Jesus and His transforming gospel of grace. 

Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful for Your Word. We're thankful that You tell us the truth. It's hard sometimes; it's difficult, but we're thankful that You always tell us the truth. And we're thankful for Your grace, Your mercy, and Your holiness, and Your justice. Thank You that You're not a corrupt judge. And thank You for the plan of salvation that on Jesus You laid the punishment for every sin to demonstrate Your righteousness—that You might be just, and Father, thank You that You are the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, who believes Him. Thank You for the promise of eternal life and of rest to come for us, for the saints who will be glorified together when He comes. In Jesus' name, amen.