“There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early.” “Unto the upright, there ariseth light in the darkness.” The bright and morning star, shining upon their pathway, cheers them in their journey home to their Father’s house. And when they come to pass over Jordan, the Sun of Righteousness shall have risen upon them, with healing in his wings. Already they see the tops of the mountains of immortality, gilded with his beams, beyond the valley of the shadow of death. Behold, yonder, old Simeon hoisting his sails, and saying—“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” Such is the peace of Jesus, sealed to all them that believe, by the blood of his cross.
When we walk through the field of battle, slippery with blood, and strewn with the bodies of the slain—when we hear the shrieks and the groans of the wounded and the dying—when we see the country wasted, cities burned, houses pillaged, widows and orphans wailing in the track of the victorious army, we cannot help exclaiming—O, what a blessing is peace! When we are obliged to witness family turmoils and strifes—when we see parents and children, brothers and sisters, masters and servants, husbands and wives, contending with each other like tigers—we retire as from a smoky house, and exclaim as we go—O, what a blessing is peace! When duty calls us into that church, where envy and malice prevail, and the spirit of harmony is supplanted by discord and contention—when we see brethren, who ought to be bound together in love, full of pride, hatred, confusion, and every evil work—we quit the unhallowed scene with painful feelings of repulsion, repeating the exclamation—O, what a blessing is peace!
But how much more precious in the case of the awakened sinner! See him standing, terror-stricken, before mount Sinai. Thunders roll above him—lightnings flash around him—the earth trembles beneath him, as if ready to open her mouth and swallow him up. The sound of the trumpet rings through his soul—“Guilty! guilty! guilty!” Pale and trembling, he looks eagerly around him, and sees nothing but revelations of wrath. Overwhelmed with fear and dismay, he cries out—“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me! What shall I do?” A voice reaches his ear—penetrates his heart—“Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” He turns his eyes to Calvary. Wonderous vision! Emmanuel expiring upon the cross! the sinner’s Substitute satisfying the demand of the law against the sinner! Now all his fears are hushed, and rivers of peace flow into his soul. This is the peace of Christ.
How precious is this peace, amid all the dark vicissitudes of life! How invaluable this jewel, through all the dangers of the wilderness! How cheering to know that Jesus, who hath loved us even unto death, is the pilot of our perilous voyage; that he rules the winds and the waves, and can hush them to silence at his will, and bring the frailest bark of faith to the desired haven! Trusting where he cannot trace his Master’s footsteps, the disciple is joyful amid the darkest dispensations of Divine Providence; turning all his sorrows into songs, and all his tribulations into triumphs. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.”
II. The victory of Christ over the world, the source of comfort and joy to believers. “In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
The world is the great castle of Belial, containing three temples; “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life;” in one or another of which every unconverted soul is a worshipper. But Jesus has demolished that castle, and abolished the service of its several temples.
The world has two modes of warfare. Sometimes it puts on the apparent mildness of a lamb, and allures to destruction with the song of a siren. Again it leaps upon its prey like an angry lion, or pursues its victim like an exasperated dragon. Its frown has destroyed thousands; its smile, tens of thousands.
A certain man has laid it down as a rule, that all must take the world as it is. But all general rules have their exceptions. Christ is the exception here. Christ conquered the world. The Prince of this world met him in the wilderness, when he was alone, in poverty and distress—weary, hungry, and thirsty—and offered him all the kingdoms of the world, for which have been fought so many battles. But Jesus refused the offer; choosing rather to be poor, that we might be made rich. He detected the lion in his affectation of the lamb, and stripped from the angel of darkness his garment of light.
Then the enemy assumed another aspect—assailed him with the rage of a wild beast, and the malice of a fiend. No sooner had he preached his first sermon, than there was an attempt to hurl him down the precipice. “The archers sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him.” Judea became to him a mountain of leopards, and humanity seemed infernalized. He was stigmatized as a hypocrite—an impostor—a demoniac. He was falsely accused before rulers, and insult was added to perjury. “But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.” “He was tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin.” “He did no iniquity, neither was guile found in his mouth.” He went through the wilderness without contracting any of its defilement.
But this was comparatively a small part of his victory. A more glorious conquest of the world was achieved by his death upon the cross, and his resurrection from the grave. It is here we behold him “glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength,” trampling the hosts of hell, till his raiment is red with blood. It is here we behold him “spoiling principalities and powers, and making a show of them openly—triumphing over them” in his atonement. It is here we behold the Prince of this world cast out and judged. The Prince of Peace has broken his sceptre, demolished his throne, and established upon the ruins of his empire an everlasting kingdom of grace.