PAST COLUMN #16

From the West Meadow
By Pastor Wesley Higgins

Peace...what an elusive thing. Everyone says he wants peace; the world over, people are fighting to achieve peace. Paul told the Thessalonians that the pursuit of “peace and safety” is really an illusion–that on their heads comes “destruction” (I Thessalonians 5:3).
The problem is, man’s understanding of peace is limited. We think of “peace in our time”, of peace man’s way. Man tends to define peace as the absence of war, and that is where we go wrong. True peace can not be defined as the absence of war, but as the absence of evil.

God’s word reveals the presence in this world of the evil one: “the deceiver”, the “prince of the power of the air”, the “ruler of the darkness of the age”, the “host of wickedness” (Revelation 12:9; Ephesians 2:2; 6:12)...”that serpent of old called the Devil and Satan”.
It was Satan, that serpent of old, who introduced the knowledge of evil into the world (Genesis 3:1-5), and we have been living with evil and without peace ever since.
Our Christ called us to pray for world peace–not by praying for the absence of war, but by praying for the removal of evil. We pray for God’s rulership of the world: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth, as it (already) is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). The vision we have of world peace can only come when evil is removed and the knowledge of God is everywhere. (Hebrews 8:10-12; Isaiah 11:6-9)

Our “God of peace” (Romans 16:20) will remove Satan forever (Rev. 20:10). Then “God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). There shall be peace.

May the God of peace be with you.

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