If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Psalm 46. We’re going to read the whole psalm, but we’re not going to base our sermon on this Psalm as we normally do; we’re just going to use this Psalm to launch today’s sermon, and then, as I sometimes do, go through various verses throughout.
So again, it’s the entirety of Psalm 46 this morning.
While you’re turning there, I saw a Glen Beck special on Wednesday night–it was recorded as Charlie Kirk was shot. Ironically, do you know what the subject of the special was? Social and political violence. I wanted to find the special on YouTube so that I could glean his statistics from it, but there has been an incredible increase in violence within the past 10 months–enough so that I had to ask myself, did this all happen this year alone?
What in the world is going on?
Well, I think you know the answer to that. It’s not a social problem, it’s not a political problem, it’s a spiritual problem.
Jesus said: 4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Now, I’m going to put a little personal interpretation here and say that, by the way this all runs together, I think what he’s talking about is a time period that includes pre- and post-Rapture, and through to the end of the Tribulation. So whenever the Rapture occurs, it will ramp up and get bad, and then it will get even worse.
And of course it will because the restrainer, which many believe to be The Holy Spirit, will be gone with the Church. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be Tribulation Saints who will come to Christ after they’ve woken up and realized what had happened. And so there will be an underground church, and maybe the Holy Spirit will be with them. But he certainly won’t be restraining the world at that time.
You think things are bad; imagine it unrestrained. Satan is on a leash now, but thank God we won’t be here when he’s unleashed.
But what does this have to do with my sermon today? I’ve said it many times, and I posted it on social media; thank God my ultimate hope is not in this world or its systems. We know that, as much as an honest attempt our society has at peace, it is missing one single ingredient, in fact, it is missing the most important ingredient of all: God. Why? You would think it’s so simple to come together in unity under Christ.
The only unity we can truly have as a nation and as a world is under Christ. But Christ came already, and what did they do? They crucified him and persecuted his followers, and in many countries around the world today, they are doing the same.
Our ultimate hope and our ultimate peace in a world gone awry is the hope that they neglect. Mankind is not god. We can’t save the soul through legislation and social programs, and ‘mostly peaceful’ protests. Government is not god. Society is not God. A political party is not God. We are not God. God is God. He is our hope, our strength, and our protector–if we let him. We must invite him. I think many of you have seen the painting of Jesus knocking on the window of the United Nations building.
That is so profound. If only the United Nations saw it as so. They will one day have their messiah–their so-called man of peace, but he will turn out to be a man of evil, destruction, and Biblical lawlessness.
We, however, have our Prince of peace. And let’s not keep that to ourselves. Let’s invite everyone to the Lord’s table.
Scripture:
If you’re turned to Psalm 46, let’s read that together:
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
That’s a very familiar chapter, and I’ve read it to you before, and I may have even given a sermon on it, but to be honest, I don’t completely remember if I had or if we just read it before. Either way, be encouraged: God is our fortress, our ever-present help in time of need.
He is our peace.
In Romans, 2 Corinthians, and 1 Thessalonians, Paul calls God “the God of Peace.”
The writer of Hebrews closes his letter by stating:
“20 Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
Even though our society may try with all good intentions to have peace without God, peace Biblically is not something that comes to us naturally. That’s why the world is in turmoil. It is something that God has to provide. And He promises to provide it because He knows it’s something that we need that we cannot provide for ourselves.
But again, we have to invite Him in. Another Psalm which I would encourage you to read in its entirety, because it goes along with today’s sermon as well, is Psalm 33. But let me read to you verse 12, which says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
We used to have that, didn’t we? Our God was the Lord, and look how blessed we were.
Don’t get me wrong. I am aware that our society, 50 or 100 or 200 years ago, wasn’t perfect. But in many ways, it was better, at least more God-fearing. Even more God-aware. And with that came a peaceful and prosperous nation. But now, we are not any more at peace, we’re less at peace.
Why?
Because peace comes from God.
We’ve sought to live in peace, but because we can’t naturally live in peace, we’ve regulated ourselves to living on eggshells. We’re politically correct–but not peaceful. We’re living in a form of slavery for the sake of living in peace. What do I mean by that? Political correctness or wokeism is a form of control, as far as I’m concerned. When people are under control, they’re not acting from the heart–they’re acting out of fear. Is true peace and love something that comes out of fear? I can’t find that in the Bible. Nor have I found it through experience.
They say that art imitates life. 50 years ago, our music, movies, and TV imitated an innocence and a sense of joy and peace. There’s very little of that now. And I think it’s because our songwriters and scriptwriters don’t know what peace, joy, and innocence are anymore.
Going back to Psalms 33:12 again–“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” Blessed. What does that word mean? In Hebrew, it means “happy.” Is our nation filled with happy people today?
They are few and far between. How often do you hear laughter anymore? How often are comedians funny anymore? Very few actually make you laugh anymore. It’s like the medicine has been diluted. The funniest comedians are the Christian ones–or at least the clean ones. If you go to drybarcomedy.com, you’ll pleasantly find out what I’m talking about.
It seems like everything has become political. Comedy, for one. It’s everywhere. Nothing is innocent anymore. We’re getting politically preached at from all sides. And it’s increasing the ire of those who are on opposing sides. It used to be live and let live, agree to disagree, but now, it’s beginning to literally kill us.
I can’t get away from Romans 8–as we studied in Sunday School, it’s the most important chapter in the Bible.
Romans 8:5-6 “5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”
The world is not living in life and peace is it? Now more than any other time in my life, our society is spinning into disorder. And the correlation between our society’s turn from God to the flesh, and our lack of blessing of peace and stability, is evident.
Peace Within
So if there is no peace in the world around us, then how can we have peace within? If peace doesn’t come through our efforts of societal change, or modified behavior through political correctness or legislation, or our universities’ and entertainment industry’s constant arm-twisting, then where does it come from? Does it come to us when we have our lives all put together just right–when we finally have the right job in the right city that has the right schools, and have the right house and right car and the whole American Dream?
You’ve heard the phrase, “The grass is greener on the other side.” I found out that’s an actual true statement. At least the perception of it is. I just thought it was a figure of speech that means a lot of people are never content with where they are. “If only I were somewhere else, I’d be happier.”
In her column, Ask Marilyn, Marilyn vos Savant gave an interesting perspective on contentment. One reader wrote about a unique experiment she had conducted after being dissatisfied that her neighbor’s yard looked better than her own. She did what few have done and walked next door to look back at her own grass. When she stood in her neighbor’s yard, the grass in her own yard now looked greener than theirs so she asked, “Why does this occur?”
Marilyn replied, “The grass looks greener on the other side because you’re not close enough to see the dirt.” Most of the time, things look better for others simply because we can’t see their dirt.
No matter where we are, no matter what we have, peace is always going to be something that seems to be something that has to be chased, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
I think I might have mentioned this before, but I remember when I worked at the Barnes and Noble here in Elmira, and someone came in, and this person looked like she didn’t have a friend in the world. She might not have. She was the most miserable person I had ever seen in my entire life, and it was the only time I had seen her, and it was just for a brief couple of minutes. But the impression she gave has lasted for well over 20 years.
She was agitated, depressed, but she was dressed like a million dollars. And when she handed me her credit card, I realized she did have a million dollars because I recognized the name on it. She was the wife of a former Corning Incorporated CEO. Why was she so miserable? She had everything, but she didn’t have peace.
It’s not something that comes to us with what we have, or what kind of day we’re having–we could be having a perfectly good day and still not be at peace. Like I said, peace is not something that comes to us naturally. It’s something that God has to provide.
John 14:27 “27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
A few chapters later in the same book, Jesus said,
John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Rom. 15:13 “13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
And from Job 22:21: “Submit to God and be at peace with him…”
None of that can the world provide. None of that can our circumstances provide. None of that we, no matter how much we will it or work for it, can provide for ourselves.
Isaiah 26:12 “Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.”
But once we have this peace from God, then it’s something that we can, to some degree, share with other people. We are not sharing with them our peace, but the peace that we have been given from Christ. We can even change the atmosphere of our surroundings and change people’s moods by our peace and our presence, and the personality that we have in Christ.
I’ve said this time and time and time again…and I’m going to say it time and time and time again:
Galatians 5:22-23 “22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.”
Notice ‘peace’ is a component of the fruit of the Spirit. Notice these other qualities that we can bring to those around us.
Charles Ryrie, in his book, So Great a Salvation said, “Every Christian will bear spiritual fruit. Somewhere, sometime, somehow. Otherwise that person is not a believer. Every born-again individual will be fruitful. Not to be fruitful is to be without faith, and therefore without salvation.”
To the Christian, the fruit of the Spirit becomes the fruit of our Spirit. When we enter a room, there should be a difference. Now, I know, it isn’t always going to be a huge difference all the time. Tomorrow, after all, is Monday. We all experience Mondays. But what if tomorrow’s Monday was different? What if, wherever you happen to be, even if it’s just at home, you intentionally bring with you God’s peace in you to share with everyone around you?
Even if you’re at home. Ministry begins at home.
So as we go about our week in our chaotic world–who knows what is going to happen next. We should not be shy or feel unworthy to receive from God the peace that he so freely offers. And then, let us be the conduit of God’s peace to the world around us. How can you be at peace with those around you this week? How can you change the atmosphere around you this week?
Two more verses:
Psalm 29:11 “The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.”
From Philippians 4:5-7 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
So let me do something different as we close today. I’m going to ask Tina to come up to lead us in our last song. And as she does, let me, instead of saying a prayer now as I usually do, let me read to you a blessing of peace. This is the same blessing that I concluded Jim’s graveside service with.
From The Book of Numbers: “‘“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’
Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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