Perfect Peace.
xxvi. 3–4. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, &c.
Our text points to the infallible remedy for the worst of all forms of human ills, a burdened and disconsolate spirit—“perfect peace.”
I. The Author of this peace is none other than God Himself. The mind of man is too active and capacious ever to find rest, unless it be in its Maker. This is the testimony of experience as well as of Scripture. Earthly honours, riches, friendships, leave the heart devoid of enduring peace, because they can do nothing to dispel the sense of guilt and the consequent apprehensions of the future which ever and anon disturb those who possess them most abundantly. We cannot have peace unless we have God for our portion. But how can God, the righteous governor of the universe, be at peace with us sinners? To this question a complete and glorious answer is found in the Gospel, and there only. God Himself, at infinite cost, has opened a way of peace by which we may return to Him. Peace is offered to all who will receive it as His gift, through our Lord Jesus Christ; but only from Him and thus can it be obtained.
II. The peace which God imparts to His people is “perfect.” 1. In its source. This determines its quality. The laws of the human mind are such that our happiness will partake of the character of the object from which it is derived. If it be from an uncertain and unsatisfying world, it will be just as uncertain and unsatisfying; if from the eternal and immutable God, it will be undisturbable. As to both his temporal and eternal necessities, the believer’s Helper is omnipresent and all-merciful. What, then, can he fear (Ps. xxvii. 1)? 2. In its measure. It rises like a river, and swells and rolls onward until it bears sin and sorrow away into the land of forgetfulness. 3. In its adaptation to our needs. These do but afford the occasions for its triumphs. It comes in when all other joys go out, and erects its brightest monuments on the ruins of earthly hopes. There is no trial which it cannot enable us to endure.[1] No wonder that Jesus calls it His peace (John xiv. 27), and bequeaths it to His disciples as the best legacy which it is in His power to bestow. That very repose in God which so filled and cheered His own bosom He delights to share with all who love Him.
III. If this perfect peace is to be ours, we must link ourselves on to God by a simple, earnest, childlike faith. As sinners we must begin by the exercise of a personal faith in His Son as our Saviour. 1. This is essential. Nothing else will answer the purpose. Whatsoever was the strength of the ark built by Noah, or its fitness to float on the water, it could save from the deluge those only who entered it; and so Christ’s death on the cross to procure peace for us will avail us nothing unless through Him we seek reconciliation with God. 2. This is sufficient. Let this be done in the first instance, and be repeated as often as clouds overcast the mind and doubts arise in the heart, and there can be nothing to hinder the enjoyment of peace. Nothing more is needed. Once let a simple trust in the merits of the Saviour take possession of the bosom, and it will go further to produce abiding tranquillity than all the tears and vigils of the most perfect devotee. The peace thus coming to us will never end. Let the penitent sinner but stay himself on the Lord and trust in God of his salvation, and though he “walk in darkness, and see no light,” he is just as safe for both worlds as the power and grace of God can make him.
IV. We have to acknowledge that many who hope for salvation through Christ are not possessed of “perfect peace.” Many believers are “in heaviness through manifold temptations,” and their peace is more like an uncertain brook than a perpetual river moving calmly into the ocean. Why is this? 1. Sometimes, though rarely, because God has been pleased to withdraw the blessed feeling of undisturbed tranquillity, in order that He may produce a deeper sense of dependence on Him. In such cases, peace will be reached again through humble submission to the Divine will concerning us, and trust in the unchangeableness of the Divine love. We must not give way to despondency. We must be on the alert to hear God speaking comfort to us through His Word. 2. Sometimes the believer’s peace is interrupted by a derangement of the physical or mental system. Let us remember that while we are in the flesh we are liable to such trials, and that our salvation does not depend on our feelings, which are changeable as the clouds, but on the Rock of Ages. 3. Sometimes we permit our attention to be turned away from God and engrossed by our trials. It is with us as with Peter (Matt. xiv. 30). But then, like him, let us cry to the Lord, let us obey the exhortation of our text, and we shall find that He can give us both deliverance and peace. 4. Sometimes, alas! we forget that the faith to which peace is promised is a faith that shows itself in “patient continuance in well-doing” (Rom. ii. 7; James ii. 26). Let us not be surprised if, then, our peace departs. Let us return unto the Lord, and beseech Him to heal our backslidings. Restored to the paths of righteousness, we shall find that they, and they alone, are “paths of peace.”
V. It is the duty, as it is the privilege, of all believers to seek for “perfect peace.” With any lower measure of this blessing, we should not be content. 1. Without it, we cannot possess the comfort which God desires that all His people should enjoy. 2. Without it, we cannot help our fellow-men as we ought. It is our duty to reveal to them the power of the grace of God; and in few ways can we so effectually stimulate our fellow-men to seek Him whom they need, as by manifesting that tranquillity they so much desire, and can find only in Him. 3. Without it, we cannot glorify God as we ought. What we are should move onlookers to praise Him, as a lovely landscape uplifts the thoughts of beholders to the Creator of all; but this can be only when the purposes of God in regard to us are fulfilled, and we are rejoicing in the possession of purity and “perfect peace.”—David Magie, D.D.: American National Preacher, vol. xxv. pp. 221–231.
I. All true spiritual peace originates in reconciliation with God. The grand object of the Gospel is to bring about this peace (Luke ii. 14). Jesus Christ is designated “the Prince of peace;” the Father, “the God of peace.” God is really reconciled, i.e., is peaceably disposed towards us, “waiting to be gracious;” but men are not reconciled, not willing to renounce their rebellion and yield themselves to Him. They can have no true peace until they cast away their sins and cast themselves on the Divine mercy, as it is offered to us in and through Jesus Christ. But doing this, it and all other spiritual blessings shall be theirs (Isa. lv. 7; Rom. v. 1).
II. We attain to true spiritual peace precisely in proportion as we attain to perfect harmony with the Divine will. When we first become at peace with one with whom we have previously been at variance, it does not follow that we can at once fall in with all that is required of his household, however justly. So the peace of the regenerated man is not at first perfect, because his submission to the Divine will is only partial. Afterwards, when he can truly say of all God’s proceedings, “Thy will be done,” and his mind is fully “stayed on God,” even when perils threaten and sharp sacrifices are demanded, then his peace “flows like a river,” and grows into “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.”