GraceTrax

Utopia! Shangri-La! Just the sound of those words stir up emotions of happiness, harmony and unending tranquility. Yet while most people, I assume, long for peace that leads to lasting happiness, the kind of peace that is often sought after is not to be found in the world in its present corrupted state.  Multiplied attempts to produce such a serene society have not only failed miserably but have more often than not produced greater unrest and chaos.  Consider our immediate past alone with such “forward thinkers” as Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse-tung and Pol Pot whose promises of a cleansed utopian future produced some of the greatest atrocities ever known to man.

It is impossible to suppose that such futile attempts at peace will come to an end until Christ returns in clouds of glory, but these efforts will most certainly and ultimately fail, and will do so without remedy. Such an end, of course, will most likely leave the same wake of destruction that other feeble attempts at peace have left in the past.                 

The Bible is not silent about this matter of peace on earth. For instance, Jeremiah who wept his way through his salient prophesies, warned Judah before its fall in 586 B.C. of their forthcoming judgment, disaster, defeat and impending death for the nation. Granted, Jeremiah’s message during his first five years of ministry may have been the primary instrument in the great revival of 622 B.C., but, such spiritual awakening was short-lived. Wicked rulers followed such godly men as King Josiah and others who were friendly with Jeremiah’s message such as Ahikam, Shaphan, Gedaliah, and Achbor. And it must be noted that the prophets Nahum and Zephaniah certainly influenced the reformed movement that brought about a revival that created openness to Jeremiah’s early messages. However, as we move into the latter part of Jeremiah’s prophecy of warnings concerning the impending doom of Judah, persecution plagued his ministry.

One of Jeremiah’s most stern warnings came in chapter eight, where he informed Judah specifically about the scattering of the bones of the kings of Judah and its officials, priests, prophets and inhabitants. Perhaps, his most terrifying prophecy declares God’s pronouncement that “death would be preferred to life by all the remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them” (vs. 3).  He goes on to speak of their “perpetual backsliding,” failure to “relent,” turning to their “own course,” instead of God’s way. The fruit of which will be the lack of knowledge in the things of God (vs.7), shamed, dismayed and taken (vs. 9), wives given to others and their fields to others (vs. 10).

 This all culminates in chapter eight, vss. 10b-11. Because their prophets and priests are “greedy for unjust gain, they have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”  The key here is that the message was not true. “Peace, peace, when there is NO peace.” This is a prime example of the present and most prevalent approach to the preaching of the Word of God, that is, if you can call it the Word of God. These prophets of Judah were apparently giving a message that “healed the wound” of the troubled sinful people of Judah, but only because it met their perceived needs. The remedy these false professors prescribed was only skin-deep and failed to get to the spiritual cancer eating away at their souls. Of course, as it is in our day, the carnal lot of them readily received this damnable falsehood. These are the precursors of the “itching ears” of the Apostle Paul’s warning in 2 Timothy 4:3, when he states a forthcoming apostasy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.”

Therefore, the same people that accepted the false prophets’ lies rejected the true prophecy of Jeremiah. While the message of the naysayers was to ignore divine retribution and the prescribed remedy against it, Jeremiah warned them of impending ruination and eternal judgment if they failed to relent from their wayward rebellion against God. It is in that context that we have before us such contrasting proclamations, with such devastating consequences, for not only did they discard the truth of God outright, they received the falsehoods of the godless purveyors without a hint of reservation.

To understand their plight we must understand both their depravity as well as their residual cravings for peace. It is a vestige of the image of God that causes a sinful being to long for something they cannot fully understand. In this case it is peace, but such cravings are corrupted by the presence and power of the sinful nature. The sinner thinks he knows what he longs for, but he really has no idea. So, when a man seeks after what he longs for he willingly follows his nose to the flesh’s route of least resistance. In other words, until the flesh is dismantled and rendered powerless (though believers fight against the remnants of flesh) by a spiritual new birth, it contrives and deceives its way to its easiest perceived avenue of happiness. Furthermore, since this happiness, due to the wickedness of the depraved heart (Jer. 17:9), cannot abide its own dethroning or its own subservience to another’s allegiance, it rejects the notion of self-denial and death to self by way of the cross. Therefore the puny pontifications of self-appointed preachers which gives the flesh what the flesh desires is readily accepted by the sinful heart and justifies itself by way of religious deception.

The pursuit of peace is thusly explained when we see what the heart desires more than what God demands. Apart from the effectual calling of God in overcoming the stubbornness and deadness of the heart there is no sure remedy. But when God, who created man in His own image, restores our first Adam image (fallen Adam) with the last Adam image (Christ) our desires are sanctified in that we will not ultimately stand for the false shadowy promises of a fallen world. No, we will not abide such things, for now we truly desire the real substance of Truth, which alone can meet the deepest needs of a man’s heart. The temporal peace of man’s frail dreams of utopia no longer appeals to the regenerated heart. We are not into counterfeit visions that are in fact, nightmares. Our world is now another world, a world that by faith we now see though it is not yet fully in sight. The peace and only peace we are now ready to embrace is the peace that only the Prince of Peace can bring to us. It is not yet manifest on earth for all to see, though in the hearts of the redeemed it presently reigns. Of course, believers have not fully experienced it in all of its glory, yet there is coming a new heaven and a new earth where all that is good and godly shall rule and reign. Our joy and peace will be unalterable and everlasting where no man or nation can ruin its reality. Bombs and hatred, lies and godlessness have no place in that eternal realm. Only eternal bliss without end shall be the lot of the redeemed.

To conclude, I implore you to consider carefully your future and the road you take into eternity. Though promises of earthly peace abound in the world of politics, religions and philosophies, their pledge is not a reality. Consider the history of fallen humanity, traverse its course and look carefully at her boundaries and you will not be able to make out even a shadow of peace that lasted for more than a very short time. The heart longs for it, but the world and all that it offers has no storehouse that holds even a hint of lasting peace for the inhabitants of the earth. But dear friend, if you will but look upwards to Christ, you will find a universe of abounding grace and consequent peace, which comforts the heart, clears the conscience and makes a way through this troubled world. And finally, that inward peace within the context of the flourishing chaos of the present age will one day issue into a full society made up of a universe of joy beyond measure attended by the holy angels, redeemed humanity and the blessed Triune God. Furthermore, no evil thing, nor fear, nor death shall haunt you, for Christ will gather you under His wings and comfort you forevermore. This, and this alone is the only PEACE that last forever, all other attempts at peace are mere facsimiles that are fading away before our very eyes. Christ alone is the Prince of Peace and true peace abides only in His Kingdom.