PEACE
It would seem appropriate, dear brethren, to speak a brief word about peace. It is very evident that it was prominent in our Lord’s mind when He arose from the dead: “Peace be to you “ (John 20: 19), so prominent that He repeats it: “Peace be to you” (v 21). It would not be the character of peace the world is seeking for. The world is seeking for peace, too, and will not find it until the King of Peace comes. The great anxiety of men employs their greatest ability to seek a formula for peace, and they will not find it. Even when finally someone says, “Peace and safety” (1 Thess 5: 3) it will be a terrible hour for this world: “sudden destruction”. We are living in such times. God could close up the history at any time. What should prevail in a Christian is peace, a settled peace, not invaded or spoiled by anything of this world. We have things in this world; we have tribulation. We have to find our way through; yes, we have to maintain righteousness. The Christian is to have an inward sense of peace that is superior to the circumstances we may find ourselves in as left in this world. We will come to that: the Lord says, “I give my peace to you”.
I have read from this Psalm. We would not read it all, of course. Someone set themselves to learn verbatim Psalm 119. It would be quite an undertaking. I think one verse is enough. Each verse brings out a moral quality. The Psalm really is the mind of God, the whole alphabet - it is the word the logos. It is the revealed mind of God, see perfectly in the moral glories of the Lord Jesus. I hope we have all read that book more than once. Keep it handy: ‘The Moral Glories of the Lord Jesus’. It is food for the Christian’s soul to pre serve us from all the temptations and the waywardness and the sinfulness of this wicked world. Let us keep apart from it! Do not steer a course as near as possible to it! We flee from it. “But youthful lusts flee”, 2 Tim 2: 22. It is a strong word. The deeper my love for the Lord, the more evident will be my distance from the world and the things of the world. The cross stands betwixt me and the world.
So this Psalm says, “Great peace have they that love thy law”. Now there is an adjective “great”, not an ordinary kind of peace. It is great peace. And where do we get it from? That is why I read from John 14. That is where we get it from. It is a wonderful thing, dear brethren, to experience conscious peace. We touch it in these occasions to ether. How wonderful that the fellowship of saints has been preserved in days so outwardly broken and in public ruin of the church that we can walk together in relation to the truth of the assembly. Let us value it! Dear younger brethren, value your place in the testimony! “Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord”, 2 Tim 2: 8. Value it! Do not jeopardise it! Keep in the full current of what the Lord is doing and saying amongst the brethren! It is a place of safety. It is a place of protection, and it is a place of enjoyment. It is a place of peace, and “great peace have they that love thy law”. What is the law? The words of Jesus. That is the law; not the ten commandments. That was the law under Moses, and if it proved anything it was that no-one could keep it, save the Lord. He made it honourable. The words of Jesus become the law for His lovers. If you love Me, He says, you will keep My word, keep My commandments. Practically the proof of your love for the Lord is that you keep His word. Plenty of people would profess to love the Lord. I remember a dear brother once startling us by saying he would walk with anyone who loved the Lord. We wondered what he was going to say next. What he meant was right. If you love the Lord, the proof is you do keep His word and you do keep His commandments, otherwise your words mean—I should not say nothing—next to nothing. Let us be real and true. The testimony of our Lord requires reality and definiteness and committal and zeal. There is very little time left. Let us make use of what is left! Let us be found vitally in the testimony of our Lord! We have not been given “a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion”, 2 Tim 1: 7. We need “wise discretion”. To face the things outwardly in the world we need to be wise in the way we regard them and handle the situation. So, “Great peace have they that love thy law”, and then it adds, “and nothing doth stumble them”. Beloved brethren, we have stumbled enough. “But to him that is able to keep you”, Jude says, “without stumbling, and to set you with exultation blameless before his glory”, v 24. Let us keep near the One who can keep us from stumbling! Let our path, our eyes, look right on! Let us be fully committed to the testimony of our Lord! There is no time to risk being stumbled. We look on; we look upward; we do not look back. That poor woman that looked back became a pillar of salt, see Gen 19: 26. What does that mean? Terrible witness to the folly of looking back! Let us look on, look for Him to come: “He that comes will come, and will not delay”, Heb 10: 37. There is no need to try and work out the dates like some are doing. That is virtually a waste of time because it will happen in any case. The very hour is fixed, and the Father has fixed it. Let us trust Him and trust the Lord. Someone said it is one of the most difficult things He has to teach us, to trust Him. Why? Let us cleave to Him, dear brethren, and cleave to the truth, cleave to one another and trust one another! How wonderful to be in a circle of affection where we can trust one another! How simple Christianity is if we will let it be simple. The more simple, the easier it works, so let us keep in the area of things where the voice of the Spirit is heard. The overcomers have heard what the Spirit is saying. Clearly, we are together on the basis of being overcomers. Let us maintain that! Have your own palm tree and dwell under it and you will find someone can join you and enjoy it together, and that brings about the practice of conscious fell ow ship. How wonderful this is! How the Psalm is full of the moral glories of the Lord Jesus; what He is doing is to impart a sense of peace, and He says it is not an ordinary peace: “Great peace have they that love thy law”.
Now, that brings me to John 14 because He says, “I give my peace to you: not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled”. He says, “my peace”: “I give my peace to you”. Now that is special; that is the peace He enjoyed that was never disturbed, save on the cross, we could say, in those three hours when He was forsaken by God for you and for me because of our sins. How we love Him for that! For three hours it was interrupted, the perfection of a peace with His God when He, ‘in solitary might’ as the hymn says (No.40), met the whole question of sin and sins, resolving it in divine righteousness in the very place of sin. Why? That we should know peace. So the peace He enjoyed He would impart: “I leave peace with you”. He has made peace through the blood of the cross. God is perfectly, absolutely satisfied with the work of Christ. This is the gospel. What could be greater than the glad tidings? But then He says, “I give my peace to you: not as the world gives” - you will not get it there. What you will get there is tribulation, not peace. He says, “I give my peace to you”, and then He says, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it fear”. He had already said that in the beginning of the chapter and He says it again. How wonderful, beloved brethren, if we could just complete our meetings today with a sense of peace on our spirits, restfulness, confidence, love among ourselves. Let it be deeper! Let it be expanding itself! The apostle in writing to the Thessalonians had no need to write about that: they did love one another, but he said, let it be more and more. It can always be more and more. The great bond is love for the truth - yes - and love among ourselves. Love is the life of heaven and it is the life of the assembly and it will hold us together in the enjoyment of eternal life. I sometimes think we may hear a little more about eternal life and we will learn it in the company of those who have peace, the Spirit of God springing up into eternal life. In fact, I wonder if the enjoyment of eternal life does not lead us directly into our understanding and experience of the assembly. It may be it works both ways, if you understand me. I do not think we will understand the assembly until we experience it and the enjoyment of mutual conditions of love among ourselves.
Well, I want to be brief. The Lord says, “I give my peace to you” - My peace. He has that wonderful gift of peace, and He wants us to have it. We do not know what is ahead. We are not foreboding. We would not do that. We would not know what may be ahead. It seems that things will not get easier. The sufferings of this present time are running on, entering into the final completing touches as to the assembly as the Lamb’s wife. She understands what the Lamb went through, His suffering. She enters feelingly into it; her formation is bound up with it. What a wonderful thing to share in the sufferings of Christ for His sake! How He feels the public breakdown of the church! Would He not have us enter feelingly, responsively into His own affections for the assembly, to be finally part of that vessel, the consort of the Lamb, the heavenly Man? Let us value every moment and turn it to account!
So the final scripture I read was let peace preside: “And let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts”. This is a solid position. Like the president, it is a fixed position: “And let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful”. This is what would obtain in a local meeting: peace. Let it be promoted. The son of peace is there. You would look for a son of peace. He is a safe man. He is a trustworthy man. You can trust him anywhere. He is safe in battle; he is safe out of battle. His company is very fine company. He is a son of peace. He is a son. Let us lift one another to the dignity that belongs to us as the called ones of Jesus Christ, called into sonship, sons by adoption, given the Spirit of God’s Son. Let us clothe the brethren with dignity, and let peace preside. It is in control. Nothing is out of control if peace is the president, and it is a question of our hearts. I think a safe way for the mind is through the affections: “the eyes of your heart” (Eph 1: 18)—that is extraordinary, the heart having eyes! The head has eyes. Spiritually, I think that is the safe course. So peace is in control: “And let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful”.
I just want to leave that for the dear brethren. Maybe we have not caught up too much today. It does not matter. If we get one feature of a moral glory of Christ, that is enough. Cling to that! Embrace it! If that is the One I am attached to, that is the One I love and I will keep His word and I get great peace in keeping His word, and then you find it comes directly and personally from it: “my peace”, and He says now I have a settled place in the local meeting where you enjoy these things. Well, may the Lord help us, dear brethren. We love another. There is a great deal of love among the brethren. Let us enjoy it! Let it expand itself! It will keep the enemy, I was going to say, at bay. No! It will disperse the power of what would intrude and spoil the peace of Jerusalem. Let us: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee!”, Ps 122: 6. For His Name’s sake.
GRIMSBY
9th April 1988
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