2 Thessalonians 1:6-7 “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.”

God will pay back trouble to those who trouble you. Do we know what to do with a statement like that? Is it hard to decide how that should strike us? Is it wrong for us to be happy that the Lord will punish them?

We know that Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). In his letter to the Romans this same Paul says, “Do not take revenge, my friends,” (12:19). We know that God our Savior wants all men to be saved, and to come to a knowledge of the truth. If our desire for payback springs from personal hatred and resentment, if it leads us to love such people less than fully and unconditionally, we are guilty of a grave sin, and in danger of the same judgment Paul is describing here.

But what if, after all our efforts to repay their insults and injuries with kindness; what if, after all our attempts to show them the error of their ways and lead them to repent; what if, after all our preaching of the full and free forgiveness Jesus has won at the cross they WILL not repent? They WILL not believe? They WILL not receive God’s gift of grace and stop fighting against Christ’s people? At that point would it be right for God to say, “Oh, well. We tried to turn you around. Come and be happy in heaven anyway”? Would God still be just if he did?

Is it just our sinful flesh, and an evil desire for revenge, then, that agrees with God when he promises, “I will pay back trouble to those who trouble you”? Or doesn’t our faith also teach us that God is being just when he punishes the wicked? We may even find comfort in knowing that he will! We must agree that God’s judgment is right.

Maybe it will help us to look at this from God’s point of view. Even in secular society, people understand that certain crimes merit an appropriate punishment. Failing to do so insults and devalues the victim. When a man rapes or murders, and the courts let him go with little more than a slap on the wrist, they are doing more than putting innocent people at further risk. They are saying to the victim and her family, “Your body, or your life, aren’t worth very much in our opinion.” That is a miscarriage of justice.

Now God looks down from heaven on the dear children whom he has redeemed and adopted. They did not deserve his grace. Purely out of love and mercy he sacrificed the most valuable thing he had, his own Son Jesus Christ, to purify them of their sins and make them fit for his family. He so treasures these people that he paid an unspeakably horrible price to make them his own.

Then he called them with this message of free forgiveness and unconditional love. He overcame their natural fear and resistance and made them his very own by faith. This is the great value he has placed upon them.

Now when their enemies, to whom he made the same offer of grace, come along and trouble his blood-bought children; when they ridicule them for trusting in God’s love; when through shame or violence they try to tear them from their Lord’s loving arms, is God unjust if “He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you”? These men have nothing less in mind than to murder the souls of God’s people. He is just, and his judgment is right, to pay back trouble in the end.