Peace: True and False. 2
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In the ourth place, such tracts as we now reer to, and the type o teaching which they embody, betray a sad lack o acquaintance with Holy Writ. In Isaiah 27:5 we ind Jehovah Himsel saying, "let him take hold o My strength, that he may make peace with Me, and he shall make peace with Me." Why that repetition, but that God, in His omniscience oresaw the evangelistic errors o these perilous times! The same teaching is ound in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus declared, "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not irst sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? I he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way o and will ask or terms o peace. In the same way, any o you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:31-33), which means he cannot be a Christian—see Matthew 28:19, Acts 11:26.
"The way o peace have they not known" (Romans 3:17): not "known" in a practical way—neither approved nor trodden it. The primary reerence here is to an experimental ignorance o that way in which men must walk so as to urther the good o their neighbors, or "peace" makes or concord and riendship. It is man's erocity which has illed the world with animosities, murders, rebellions and wars. It has been truly said, "The most savage animals do not destroy so many o their own species to appease their hunger, as man destroys his ellows to satiate his ambition, his revenge, or cupidity" (Robert Haldane). Yet though the primary reerence be unto man's relations unto his ellows, these words "the way o peace have they not known" may well be given a higher application. The way o peace is the way that leads to peace.
There are many who have an intellectual acquaintance with the ground o peace with God (namely the perect satisaction which Christ made unto Divine law and justice), but it is greatly to be eared that the vast majority o them are total strangers experimentally to the way o peace. How ew today even perceive that there must be a zealous renunciation o all those things which have urthered estrangement between God and men. How ew today recognize the imperative necessity or casting away the weapons o rebellion against God, the bewailing o our highhanded crimes against Him, and the complete surrender o ourselves to His Lordship. "There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked" (Isaiah 57:21), and there never will be until they make their peace with their oended Maker.
By "making our peace" with God, we do not mean the perorming any works o merit, or doing something which entitles us to His avor. No indeed: that is utterly impossible. Instead, we mean that the sinner must heed the terms o such a verse as, "Let the wicked orsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return (having, in Adam, departed) unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, or He will abundantly pardon" (Isaiah 55:7). God certainly will not pardon our sins while we deliberately remain in them. By "making our peace with God" is meant that the rebel against God's holy Law must truly repent, and until this is done, all the "believing" in the world is useless and worthless.
Genuine repentance is a heart anguish or having despised and louted the authority o the all-excellent God. It is a ceasing to be at enmity against God, and a becoming at enmity against sin. There cannot be peace with God while we are at peace with sin! We must, by Divine grace, be resolved to war against the world, the lesh, and the Devil, which constitute the trinity o evil—the arch-enemies o the Blessed Trinity. Peace is the unity and concord o men with God, and it is a contradiction in terms to speak o being at peace with Him i I am still striving against Him.
But there are some supericial people who (to their great loss despise the study o "theology") imagine that what has been said above sullies the glory o Christ and detracts rom the eicacy o His "inished work." As well might they argue that His present intercession on High does so. What do these people suppose Christ came here to eect? To be the Condoner o sin? To render God less holy? To give a reprieve or the lusts o the lesh? To grant an indulgence or carnal walking? ar, ar dierent was the case. He came here to magniy the Law and make it honorable (Isaiah 42:21), to procure the Holy Spirit to regenerate and sanctiy His people (Gal. 3:13, 14), to leave them an example that they should ollow His steps (1 Peter 2:21).
Christ died not to reconcile God to our sins, but to bring us into the service, love, and enjoyment o God. True, our repentance and reormation would have been useless had not Christ lived and died; yet His atoning sacriice avails no man who does not repent and surrender to His Lordship. Christ is most honored when His servants teach that He died to save His people rom their sins, and (by His Spirit's work) enable them to live holy lives in this present evil world. "And you, who were (not "are"!) once alienated and enemies (to God) in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled" (Col. 1:21). How? By His Spirit overcoming their enmity, changing their hearts, turning them unto God.
True, our reconciliation to God is no cause o God's reconciliation to us, yet according to the method which He has settled upon as being most agreeable to His glorious Being, to His pure holiness, His hatred o sin, the justice o His government, and the truth o His Word, we cannot say He is actually reconciled to us, until we are to Him. We must learn to distinguish between reconciliation purposed by the ather, purchased by Christ, applied by the Spirit, and appropriated by us through repentance and aith.
"When they shall say, Peace and saety, then sudden destruction comes upon them" (1 Thess. 5:3). Those words have something more than a "dispensational" reerence: they have a practical application. There are many ill-inormed "evangelists" and "personal workers" who are saying "Peace and Saety" to those who give a bare assent to John 3:16, but "sudden destruction" shall yet come both on themselves and on their poor benighted victims.
O my reader, as you value your soul, examine well the "peace" which you ancy you are enjoying. Has it brought to an end your rebellion against God's law, your resistance to the motions o His Spirit, your love o the world, your living to please sel? I not, it is a alse peace. Throw down the weapons o your wicked warare against God. "Make peace" with Him beore His ury cast you into Hell.
"Take care, my dear riend, to clear away as ar as possible everything that would hinder your believing. Now you may depend upon it that going into sin hinders believing. You cannot continue in willul sin and yet become a believer: sin cherished in the heart is an eectual hindrance. A man cannot be tied to a post and yet run away at the same time; i you bind yoursel to your sin, you cannot escape. Withdraw at once rom evil company— it is very deadly mischie to young seekers. You hear an impressive sermon, but then you go away talking with idle gossips, and you all into rivolous chit-chat on the Sabbath aternoon: you cannot expect your soul to grow in the right direction under such inluences. Get to your knees, get to solitude, get to your God, get to Jesus Christ; this it is that will roll away the stone which blocks the door" (Spurgeon rom sermon on John 6:24).
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