Obtaining Peace: Ask Him

 Peace 6

          The world is not at peace. War, crime, strife, anxiety, worry, and confusion abound. To this problem/s, the world offers several bad solutions. It tells you to blame someone else (psychiatry). It offers to let you drown the unease of your soul in chemicals (alcohol/drugs). The smart ones do this via medication rather than illegal drugs but the aim/effect is eerily similar. Timothy Leary, the 60s counterculture apostle of LSD infamously said, “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.”  In other words, peace comes when you purposely allow your mind to drift into an altered state of consciousness. Still others practically practice hoarding, convinced that their survival skills and supplies will see them through whatever zombie apocalypse arrives. Some prefer to buy guns, the larger and more powerful the better. The world’s “solutions” for peace are as many and as varied as the devil can possibly provide.

          None of this should surprise any of us. After all, the lost world is going to act like unsaved people act and think like they think, by definition. What concerns me more is Christians who do not have peace. As God’s people we are called to it. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body (Colossians 3.15).  Everything I know about God tells me He is a just God. If He commands He explains how to obey and makes available to us whatever we need in order to fulfil that command. If we are called to let His peace rule in our hearts then how can we? What provision has He made? I do not mean the counterfeits offered by the world; I mean the actual provision of the genuine article by our Father. How can we obtain the peace of God?

          Over the next eight weeks on this blog I intend to answer that question. Today, let me offer you one simple idea: the peace of God comes when God gives it to us. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14.27). The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace (Numbers 6.26).

          Too often, we underestimate the simple method of asking God for peace. Thinking there must be some deeper or wider answer, like the alchemists of former ages, we pursue some magic formula, we search for some holy grail, we seek for some distant city of gold. In the next two months we will find many keys to obtaining the peace of God in Scripture, but surely the simplest and most basic one is to simply pray for it. Ye have not, because ye ask not (James 4.2).

          To be sure, you cannot violate biblical principle and obtain the peace of God. Understanding that, if we lack peace, beseeching the Lord for it ought to be our first and constant resort. John R. Rice, the twentieth century’s mightiest pen, said, “All of our failures are prayer failures.” I will take John Rice over Timothy Leary every day of the week.

          Are you harboring iniquity? Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me (Psalm 139.23-24). No? Then may I ask, how much time have you spent lately asking the Lord to give you His peace? Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James 1.17). Peace of mind and heart, the peace of God, is certainly a good thing, is it not?

          …so ask Him for it.

He is Our Peace

Peace 5

 

          Paul loved peace. He loved when the Lord brought it to him and when the Lord used him to bring it to others. He knew its blessings inside and out, and he desired such blessings for all of God’s people. In his peerless epistle to the Ephesian church he opens with it and closes with it. Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1.2, 6.23). He also dwells on it extensively in between.

          In his day, there was tremendous discord between the Jews and the Gentiles. This was caused by the anti-Semitism of the Gentiles and the racial/religious superiority of the Jews. This racial tension is repeatedly illustrated in the Gospels, and nearly destroyed the Early Church. When Paul would go into a city to start a church he would go first to the synagogue. If he could convert men to Christ there he could be way ahead in the church planting game. Such men knew the Bible, were loyal to it, and generally lived lives of charactered accomplishment. The problem, in this context, is that all those men were Jewish. And Paul was not about to limit his church plant to Jewish converts. Ergo, as he reached Gentiles and brought them into the new church too fireworks would ensue.

          So how does Paul address it?

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh (Ephesians 2:14–17).

          What is the solution to a racially motivated church split? Get both sides to Christ as fast as possible for He is their peace.

          If I have a piano that is in tune with a pitch pipe, and an organ in tune with the same pitch pipe, then the piano and organ will be in tune with each other. The same thing is true of a marriage, of a friendship, of the parent/child relationship, of the pastor/people relationship, of every relationship. If both sides would get in tune with Christ they would be in tune with each other. They would be at peace.

          The problem that inevitably comes in at this point is this: it is impossible for me to ensure that the other party in a fuss will come to Christ. I can come, but I cannot make them come. They can come, but they cannot make me come. Relationships are peaceful ones when both sides are rightly related to Christ. He is our peace. But what do you do when one side of the relationship is not rightly related to Him?

          I propose to you the answer is still the same – He is our peace.

          Allow me to illustrate.

          Music, especially classical music, is peaceful to me. I listen to a lot of it. Violins play a large part in most classical music, and the most expensive violins come from the little town of Cremona, Italy. There, in the early 1600s, a man named Nicolo Amati, who came from a long line of distinguished violin makers, took on two apprentices. Those apprentices, Andrea Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari, would eventually establish the best violin making shops in the world.

          In 1791, a German nobleman, Count Trauttmansdorf, who had heard music played upon one of these famous Cremona violins, sought to buy one but was rebuffed. Although he offered fabulous sums, he could not find one for sale anywhere. Some weeks later, an unknown man carrying a rather worn and shabby violin case appeared at the count’s castle, seeking admittance. When the servants refused him he said, “Tell your master that heaven’s music is waiting at his door.” The count agreed to receive him.

Upon entering the count’s presence, the old man took from his case a gracefully aged violin. It had been made in the early 1600s by Jacob Stainer, also a student of Nicolo Amati, and a peer of Guarneri and Stradivari. Picking up the bow, the old man played so beautifully Count Trauttmansdorf offered to purchase the Stainer violin on the spot. The old man countered with a curious offer. He agreed to sell the violin but only if the count agreed to let him play it once a day for the rest of his life.

Over the next two weeks, they hammered out a deal. The count agreed to pay the nominal sum of $150 at once, shelter for life, free light and wood, one new suit of clothes and two barrels of beer a year, a half-bushel of wheat and three dollars every month, a measure of wine daily, and all the rabbits the old man could eat. In exchange, the old man played that Italian Stainer violin every day for the count and continued to do so for twenty years until his death in 1811.

When Christ comes in, He brings with Him Heaven’s music. No, I may not now or ever be at peace with someone on the other side of a relationship. But with Christ in me, the hope of glory, I contain peace for He is my peace.

If you have Him you have peace. Around you? Not necessarily. Between you and someone else? Hopefully, if you both walk in tune with Him. In you? Absolutely.

Regardless of what is going on around you, bid Him speak peace to your soul. Most assuredly, He will.

You Will Never Have Peace

 Peace 4

          Thus far, in our blog series on peace, we have defined it eight ways. Peace is organization and order. Peace is the absence of armed conflict. Peace is the absence of noise, the presence of calm and quiet. Peace is the absence of worry. Peace is harmony in our personal relationships. Peace is freedom from unsettling thoughts or emotions. Peace is a quiet confidence that God will take care of you. Peace is our final rest in Heaven.

          Wicked people will have none of that wonderful list. None. There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked (Isaiah 48.22).

          This is not because God does not long to bring them peace. It is not that God is incapable of bringing them peace. Rather, it is that they will not follow the simple commandments through which God brings peace to men. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea (Isaiah 47.18). A river flows continuously, through all kinds of terrain, through all kinds of weather, day after day, week after week, month after month, assuming it is constantly being fed by springs or rain. That is what the saint’s peace is like – continuous, quiet, through all kinds of weather, assuming he is walking with the Lord and obeying Him. But if you do not obey His commandments, if, instead, you embrace a wicked lifestyle, you will have no peace.

          How does this happen? What robs the wicked man of any hope of peace?

          The first reason is that their conscience bothers them and the Holy Spirit convicts them. Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another (Romans 2.15). Our conscience is the God-placed innate sense within each of us that there is right and wrong. When we behave wickedly this conscience gets uncomfortable. It begins to hassle us. Quietly at first, but with gradually growing ferocity, it attacks our peace of mind and heart.

          We understand, scripturally and practically, that the conscience can be strengthened or weakened, corrupted or purified. But when the wicked weaken, corrupt, or sear their conscience in an effort to get some internal peace the Holy Spirit picks up the slack. When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment (John 16.8). The wicked person lives in an internal uproar that will not be stilled, stirred up by his conscience and the Holy Spirit.

          The second reason the wicked man has no peace is he imagines pursuit where there is none. The wicked flee when no man pursueth (Proverbs 28.1).

          Regardless of how the wicked man attempts to justify his wickedness, to find some rational reason to assert that it is not wickedness, he knows better. His conscience and the Holy Spirit tell him the truth. Deep on the inside, he knows he is guilty. When you are guilty, you are conscious at all times that justice just might catch up with you.

          The fight-or-flight response, first identified in the 1920s, teaches us that our bodies respond to stress by secreting certain hormones. These hormones enable us to better fight our way out of danger or run away from danger. I believe wicked people live with constant stress. They are always conscious that they may be attacked at any moment. They need to be ready to fight at any moment. They need to be ready to run away at any moment. No matter how much alcohol they ingest or illegal drugs they consume, they cannot rest. No matter how many guards they have, or how many layers of protection they think they have incorporated between themselves and being found out, they cannot relax. It is not that they are found out and must deal with it; it is that they are constantly worried about being found out.

          There is no peace here.

          The third reason the wicked have no peace is they are not doing what they were made to do. Paul tells us in I Corinthians 1 that he was called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. He says this is the will of God for his life. I believe for each of us, God has a specific, ongoing path He wills for us to walk. When we refuse to walk in that path we will not be at peace for we are violating the intent for which we were created.

          In my decades as a soul winner I have knocked on thousands of doors. It is quite common for a dog to begin to bark immediately and continue through all attempts of his owner to shush him. Why? That is his nature. He was made to warn. He was built to bark. If you try to quiet him, to muzzle him, to channel his nature in a way he was not built to go everybody will be frustrated. Can you train a dog to be quiet? Sure. But on the inside, he will still be barking. He will quiver and shake, even if he holds himself perfectly still. He is violating his nature and there is no peace inside of him.

          Every time I come face to face, personally, with an out-and-out homosexual or transgendered person I think of this. I hurt for them. In following their deceitful heart into sin they have twisted their nature or attempted to twist their nature into one impossible bend after another. There is always an air of desperation about them. No matter how cool and calm and collected they seek to portray themselves, it is not hard to see through. They are unsettled in their core. Their life, their heart, and their mind are in a constant never-ending uproar. They are violently violating what God made them to do and be, and they will never be at peace.

          The last and most important reason the wicked have no peace is very simply that God is after them. He will not allow them rest. The spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness: for the sword of the Lord shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh shall have peace. They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns: they have put themselves to pain, but shall not profit: and they shall be ashamed of your revenues because of the fierce anger of the Lord (Jeremiah 12.12-13).

          In our current state of cultural declension the police departments of America have a target on their back. Literally. More than at any other time in history, criminals are emboldened to assassinate police officers. Yet even this illustrates the point. When a police officer is wounded or killed, no rest is taken until he/she who committed the crime has been tracked down. Such fools purchase to themselves the open, active hostility of entire police departments. They picked a fight with the wrong enemy.

          The parallels are obvious, are they not?

          The verse I opened the post with is one of the rare verses in the Bible that is repeated, word for word, elsewhere. Why? Because God intends to emphasize the point – there is no peace for the wicked. It does not matter what you do, what you buy, what you scheme, what you invent, what you decide – if you live a wicked life you cannot and will not be at peace.

For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, And he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; And I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, When it cannot rest, Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. (Isaiah 57:17–21)

Peace and the Sovereignty of God

Peace 3

          God is sovereign. God does what He wills with whomever He wills. Doctrinally, this concept is birthed in the omnipotence of God. God is all-powerful. There is nothing He cannot do and no one who can restrain Him. Ergo, He is sovereign.

          How does this relate to peace?

          There are two underlying causes for the lack of a peace in a person’s life, inward causes and external causes. The latter, the external, consists of circumstances outside of us, things entirely beyond our control.

For example, two weeks ago our church scheduled a Sunday evening service at Washington Square Park downtown. We wanted to use it as an outreach event. While the park does have a gazebo it does not have a shelter to rent. You can, however, rent the entire park. So we did. And spent hours working on permits and insurance and bad weather evacuation plans, etc. As the day drew nearer, the weather forecast got increasingly problematic. In actuality, the rain became a line of thunderstorms that birthed at least one tornado that touched down in Dubuque County that night. Obviously, we canceled the event downtown and met in our normal location indoors instead.

I am at peace with that cancellation. Yes, it was disappointing to our church, but the weather is entirely and only within the control of God. We could do nothing about it. It was only in the control of God. He chose to allow severe summer weather for His purposes. I rest in knowing that.

Before we go any further, let me stress this peace that comes by way of an understanding of the sovereignty of God is not fatalism. Fatalism says, “Well, there is nothing I can do about it so I might as well not worry about it.” Christianity is not a fatalistic religion, even though we have a God who can do anything He wills. Why? Because God is perfectly willing to be moved, and to move others, on the basis of our prayers.

The weather is an example of external circumstances entirely beyond our control, but a better example is the authority figures in our lives that often make life difficult. We cannot change another person’s heart, especially one that holds power and influence and one that harbors hostility toward us. But we can ask God to change it. He has that capability. The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it withersoever he will (Proverbs 21.1). I am not sovereign. I am powerless to change the heart of authorities set against me. But God can change any authority figure’s mind and heart He wishes to. And He often does as a result of our prayer.

We see this from one end of the Bible to the other. For example, Psalm 106 opens with a long litany of the crimes Israel had committed against God. They did not understand Him. They did not remember Him. They provoked Him. They forgot Him. Their lives were filled with envy and lust. They rebelled against their God-appointed rulers. They worshipped idols. They despised the land He gave them. They complained. They obeyed incompletely. They intermarried with the heathen around them. Their sacrificed their children. Consequently, God poured out His judgment upon them using the nations around them.

Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, Insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance. And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; And they that hated them ruled over them. Their enemies also oppressed them, And they were brought into subjection under their hand. Many times did he deliver them; But they provoked him with their counsel, And were brought low for their iniquity. (Psalm 106:40–43)

          Yet the same God that moved those heathen authorities to punish His people was affected by the cries of His people for mercy. And God turned right around and moved the heart of those authorities to be kind to His people.

Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, When he heard their cry: And he remembered for them his covenant, And repented according to the multitude of his mercies. He made them also to be pitied Of all those that carried them captives. (Psalm 106:44–46)

          God is sovereign. He can do whatever He wills with whomever He wills, including with the king. Often, He does so in response to a request from me. Yes, I am powerless, but I am not fatalistic. It is not that nothing can be done about my situation. To the contrary, something can always be done – by God. So if God chooses not to do so and leave me powerless in uncomfortable circumstances I accept it. I am at peace with it.

          Perhaps the finest example of this in Scripture is how God changed Nebuchadnezzar, that proud heathen monarch. When we first meet in Daniel he is egotistical, vain, and mad with power. Yet we find Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4 humbly kneeling before Israel’s God, Jehovah.

Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you. I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation. (Daniel 4:1–3)

          Nebuchadnezzar’s heart had been changed. Curious, is it not, that this life changing experience led this man of warfare to wish for peace to be multiplied? Whatever changed his life led him to peace and to value peace. So what changed him?

          Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. In that dream a great tree was unceremoniously cut down, and someone watching the tree fall made the following announcement:

Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him. This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men. (Daniel 4:16–17)

          That the Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever He chooses is a perfect expression of the sovereignty of God. God does what He wills with whomever He wills, and no one can say Him nay.

          Daniel, in much astonishment, takes an hour or so to consider this dream. He then reveals to Nebuchadnezzar its meaning. The king himself is this great and proud tree, and God will cut him down to size so he will learn that God alone is sovereign.

That they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity. (Daniel 4:25–27)

          Daniel begs Nebuchadnezzar to accept the sovereignty of God, and promises him that with that acceptance comes tranquility. Nebuchadnezzar refuses, and correspondingly pays the price of his refusal.

All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty? While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws. (Daniel 4:28–33)

          Finally, with his reputation gone, his mind in tatters, and his kingdom ripped from him Nebuchadnezzar bows in the dust to the sovereign God of Israel.

And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? (Daniel 4:34–35)

          I am not asking you to be fatalistic about events beyond your power. God can do anything, and He is often affected by our requests to change people and things outside our control. I am, though, asking you to rest content in the sovereignty of God. He can change it, no matter how big. He can change them, no matter how powerful. If you ask Him to and He chooses not to do so rest tranquil in the knowledge that He is in perfect control. He designed this, or at least designed for you to endure it.

          He is in control when we are not. Rest in Him and be at peace.