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)
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