PEACE WITH GOD
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" Romans 5v1.
There is today as in every age a great clamour for world peace; but it has never been achieved, and never will be while the world is out of touch with God. The last verses of Isaiah chapters 48 & 57 make this clear "there is NO PEACE saith my God to the lawless." We want to rid the world of the consequences of sin, without dealing with the causes of sin. God works the other way round and He clearly tells us there is no peace either individually or nationally while men are godless. Paul now focuses on the first of the blessings to result from justification. This is stated as "peace with God" and from this stand point all other blessings flow. There is no progress, or flourishing in a time of war, and much as many wish to avoid the stark reality, this the world is at war with God, and vice versa and peace will only result when this position is changed. The bible is clear that spiritually speaking we are in a war zone and we consider it in two ways:
man's antagonism against God and then God's antagonism against men.
- Romans 5 v 10 "If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,"
- James 4 v 4 "Know you not that friendship with the world is enmity against God."
- Psalm 2 v 1-2 "Why do the nations rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take council together against the Lord and against His anointed."
We could go on, but the history of this world is one of constant rebellion against God, and things are no different today. The passing of laws contrary to His will, the corruption in high places being ignored, the selfishness of the rich against the poor, with which the Almighty is unhappy, and so on, all reveal the true state of the human heart. We still live in a largely godless world and search out ways to bring world peace without God, but it will never happen; indeed the opposite will happen, and the bible predicts that the world will reach the brink of self - annihilation, and will only be saved from this by the return of Jesus Christ.
There is a more solemn aspect of this, not only do we live in a world where man is against God, but God is against man.
- Psalm 7 v 11-12 "God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not he will whet his sword."
- Genesis 3 v 24 "So He drove out the man and placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the tree of life."
- Genesis 6 The global flood.
- Genesis 19 The destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah.
- Exodus 4 - 12 The plagues in Egypt.
- Numbers The destruction of an entire generation of rebellious Israel.
The rise and fall of empires at the Divine will, BABYLON, GREECE, MEDO-PERSIA, ROME. All these raised by God and then cast down because of human pride and disregard of the Almighty who put them there, the same will go on till the end of the world. Because of the presence of sin in the human heart, we all have to wake up and realise that both individually and corporately our biggest problem is not the various ills in the world, our biggest problem is God!
Pail began this epistle by stating (chapter 1 v 18) "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness;" unpopular as it is the reality is that we are facing a God who is against us in our sin, and the chief characteristic of the present world is the absence of the fear of God. We need to recover this quickly, we need to understand we are accountable to God, we will face Him one day in our sins, and despite the arrogance of some, we are no match for God. Jesus who came to save us, who had come from the very presence of God left on record a stark message "fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10 v 29
The first thing justification by faith brings is PEACE WITH GOD. The enmity has gone, the offence has been removed, sin past, present and future has been forever put away; instead of God being against us, He is now for us. Instead of all the power of heaven and the resources of heaven arrayed against us the blessings of heaven are there for us and we are at rest, we are at peace with God. We exchange enmity for friendship, we exchange wrath for love, God becomes our friend. This does not necessarily mean we will be at peace with all men or that we will be at peace at home, or with our neighbours. It is more likely than before, but the great blessing is to be at peace with God. One moment of unsullied peace with God is worth more than the entire treasures of this world. This blessed situation leads to much more as we shall see, but if all we had was this it would be enough.
This first blessing of God's salvation has dealt with all our past guilt, will greatly help us in our present life and guarantees our future glory.
GET RIGHT WITH GOD AND DO IT NOW!
Tomorrow d.v. we continue in the great theme.
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