St. Paul sure is mean and judgmental. Look at how he writes in this letter. He writes about how "God will repay with tribulation those who trouble you," and "in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God," and "these shall be punished with everlasting destruction." Surely Paul must be exaggerating the judgment of God against sin and sinners. Surely he must not mean these terrible words. He must just be trying to scare people with stories in order to get their attention.

That is what some would have you believe. Many want to water down the message of judgment in the Bible. They will do so in many ingenious ways. Some will try to say these words of Paul are really not God’s Word, but only Paul’s opinion. Some will redefine sin so that their particular sin is not included in those things that God hates and condemns. But all of these attempts are merely ways for a guilty conscience to avoid the true demands of the Law.

The Law is not nice to us. The Law does not take into account our feelings or our desires. The Law just says: you shall not.... The Law also says, if you continue to do what is against God’s will, you will receive the punishment you deserve, instead of the forgiveness God has provided for you.

God’s grace is not automatic. While God loved the world and Jesus died for all, this love can still be rejected, unused, supposedly unneeded. Therefore we must listen to God’s Law again and again. We must use it so that our most cherished sins are cut out and exposed to the truth of what God says about them.

We prefer when the Law is used like a butter knife, just sort of scraping at the surface, never getting to the sickness that lies deep within us. But the Law is powerful, cutting to the very joints of our bones, deep into our flesh, in order to show us that our lives are not worthy of heaven.

Paul’s letters, and notably here in 2 Thessalonians, proclaim a powerful law, a true and frightening judgment. He means it when he writes about the judgment, the vengeance, the flaming fire and the everlasting punishment. These are the wages of sin, the well-deserved consequences for all who reject Jesus Christ, who refuse to turn from their sin, who do not believe.

There is a reason our Lord Jesus teaches us to pray the Seventh Petition. I have printed it in the bulletin this morning, and I would like you to read with me the answer to the "what does this mean."

We pray earnestly for a "blessed end" because we know that such an end to life is not guaranteed. Here we are not praying for only a quiet death, but for a death that comes as we believe in our Savior Jesus Christ. He is the One who delivers us from all the evils of body and soul, property and honor. Satan, on the other hand, is the one who desires us to join him in the flaming fires. He knows his end and that he cannot escape it. He hates the fact that you can escape it through faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore he will attack your trust in God’s Word; he will seek to blind you to its truth, to make you deaf to God’s Law so that you will not turn away from sin and be forgiven. Satan prefers that you never hear the Law, so that you will think you never need the Gospel. But if he can’t turn off the Law, he’ll try to keep you from hearing of your Savior. If that doesn’t work, then he’ll keep trying to cover over the work of Christ by pointing you to your own holiness, or other ways to diminish the work of Jesus.

One Lutheran recently wrote:

WWe are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other, ⁴ so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, ⁵ which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer; ⁶ since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, ⁷ and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 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. ⁹ These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, ¹⁰ 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.e need to hear about God’s clear judgment of eternal damnation for all sin, even those things which we wish weren’t sins, but are. Those around us need to hear this clear word also. But the purpose is so that we and they may live lives of repentance, confessing our sins, drowning our old Adam daily, and recalling the promise of Baptism, the washing away of sins, receiving the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.

Paul understood well the constant struggle of the Christian against all the forces which were arrayed against the Son of God, and which now are pointed at the Christian. The reality of that battle, that on-going spiritual struggle, is why Paul’s words sound harsh at times. But battle is not a place for half measures, or compromise. It is the time and place for a clear description of the enemy, the weapons he will use against you, and the way by which victory is won. To fail in any of these ways is to open the door for defeat. The Church needs the clear trumpet of truth again and again. Those outside the Church, who continue in sin, who are unrepentant, need to hear the sound of coming judgment so they may turn from their sins and live in the mercy of God. The unbeliever and backsliding Christian will not like that clear sound of repentance. But that is never a reason to back away from making that call. It must be done, for the sake of souls, for the eternal welfare of the world bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.

God help us to keep our own ears and hearts open to the law we need, so that the sweet sound and power of the Gospel may comfort us in all our temptations and trials. And God help us all to live and speak in such ways that those around us may learn of sin, and hear the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ, the redeemer of the world.

God grant this to you all, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.