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PEACE, PEACE

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 12, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 19.

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“PEACE, PEACE.”

WE would not be among those that cry, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” nor would we say, “Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.” But when God has spoken peace, then would we proclaim peace.
There is no peace in this world, for simply one reason: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Isa. 57:21. Wickedness is rebellion against God; and there is no peace where there is rebellion. Men in Cuba and the Philippines have been in rebellion for years; there is no peace between them and the home government, Spain.
The world, and every one who chooses its perverted ways, are in rebellion against “the God of peace.” There can be, therefore, no peace to the wicked. “The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it can not rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” Isa. 57:20. Having cut loose from God, men have no stay, no staff, no anchorage; but, like the waves of the sea, they are driven by the winds of desire and false hope and unsatisfied ambition, and longings of carnal security; but peace and rest never come.
And yet in the midst of all earth’s turmoil, false prophets, professedly of God, cry, “Peace, peace,” even as of yore. Says the Lord, “They say still unto them that despise Me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.” Jer. 23:17. Even thus it is to-day. The world is preparing for the great battle of Armageddon, but the false prophets are falsely saying that the “Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace.” There is no peace to the wicked; and the wicked know it, if they would not be willingly deceived by those still blinded by sin, albeit they are called ministers of God. The false cry of peace to a sin-laden world in times of peril has ever been characteristic of false prophets.
But is there not a proclamation of peace? Has not God said, “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him”?—Yes, God has said this. He is the “God of peace,” and He sends forth messengers shod with sandals of peace, to proclaim “the Gospel of peace.” But God’s peace does not come from the world. Said Jesus, the Representative of the Father, “My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” John 14:27.
What peace then does He give? How does He give it?
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Ps. 21:1. This is a great foundation truth; all came from God’s hands, all—earth and mankind upon it—belong to Him. Not only is all His by creation, but all is His by redemption. Jesus Christ gave Himself, and purchased back that which man sold into sin, and for which man received only misery and death. Isa. 43:1, 3, 11; 44:6, 24; 1 Peter 1:18, 19; Luke 19:10. All belong to the Lord by creation, all belong to Him by redemption. For all He ordained His holy and immutable law; and all who do not acknowledge His authority and yield to His righteous requirements are rebels, either knowingly, or willingly ignorant. They are therefore not at peace with God.
This ownership, this kingdom of the Lord’s, extends to the closest relations of life. It includes every power of our being. It includes not only our hearts and souls, but our bodies, with their various members. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Cor. 6:19, 20. God designed that His Spirit, His very life, should reign in us. His kingdom must reign in each individual heart. Before we can truly acknowledge God’s reign in the earth, here or hereafter, we must acknowledge it in our own heart.
But it is right here that man has rebelled. Here Satan entered in the beginning and took possession of Adam’s heart by the key of doubt or unbelief. Adam gave him entrance, yielded the kingdom—his heart—which he held in trust from God, to Satan, the usurper, and sin became incarnated, infleshed, dominant in man. The mind yielded to it, and the mind was perverted, carnalized. And that carnal, or fleshly mind, that perverted mind, which turns all things in to self instead of yielding all to God, that “carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh can not please God.” They, therefore, are not at peace with God. How may that be?
It is thus expressed in the words of the Idumean emir:—
“Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee. Receive, I pray thee, the law from His mouth, and lay up His words in thine heart. If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles.”
It is thus stated by the Hebrew prophet:—
“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
It is thus implied in the words of the great apostle:—
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.”
“For He is our peace who hath made both one.”
The story of all is one. They simply mean that we should yield all, give up all, to Him who bought us; yield the sins, the wickedness, the guilt, the despair, the restlessness, that He may take them all; for He died to take away our sins; yield the carnal mind, crucified upon His cross, that He may put within us His own mind; yield the heart to Him, that He may come in and dwell there, bringing the fulness of His peace with Him. This is the meaning of faith.
Thus only by yielding to God, do we come to know Him. We can never know that with which we not in harmony. Praise God, we may be in harmony with Him simply by yielding all to Him, and inviting Him, a welcome King, to reign within us.
Then there is peace in the soul. Strife may rage about us; the din of the world’s fierce contests, combats, and fiercer conflicts may be on every side; but our souls are swept with the divine waves of harmony which flow from the heart of God. In the world we may have, “shall have tribulation.” The threshing sledge of trial will separate the grain from the chaff; the furnace heat will refine the silver and gold and purge the dross; but if we are loyal to God, there abides “peace as a river,” ever flowing on and out to the thirsty, weary, waiting souls of the world.
This is the peace which God proclaims to all, near and far; and there is none other that will satisfy.