PERVERSIONS OF PEACE

“They have healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is NO PEACE” – Jeremiah 6:14

The Prince of Peace is the Author of Perfect Peace. Outside of Him are PERVERSIONS of PEACE: “They have healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace” (Jer.8:15). The Lord Jesus Christ assures His own: “Peace I leave with you, My Peace I give to you: not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (Jh.14:27). For every good gift that comes from the “Father of lights,” Satan tries to offer humankind carnal counterfeits, perversions of the real thing from his realm of darkness (Jam.1:17). The gift of peace is no exception.

The Lord Jesus Christ spoke in John 14:27 of “My Peace.”  This implies that the world will try to offer its own packages of false peace, but the difference is always clear. The world’s offer of “peace” is rooted in covetousness and corruption, and will always end in crisis and heartache! Satan and his evil world system offer humankind a perverted peace which has its root in corruption, greed, and covetousness. 2 Peter 1:4 confirms that there is a “corruption that is in the world through lust” that every human being needs to escape from.

Jeremiah 6: 13-14 and 8:10-15 paint pictures of perverted peace. First, it is born in greed and covetousness. It is peace for sale – spiritual merchandising: “…everyone is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the preist…” (v.10b). 2 Peter 2:3 describes such spiritual merchants: “By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words…” The King James Version says: “through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you…” Perversions of peace are sustained by falsehood and deceit: “…everyone deals falsely” (v.13c). In offering his “peace” for sale to gullible humanity, Satan employs and fabricates a variety of gimmicks and glossy, glittering garments, including the cloak of false religion.

Perverted peace offers only surface healing: “They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly…” (v.14a). It is like cutting off leaves while leaving the roots untouched. In today’s Christendom, we witness the tragedy of “ministers” who offer spiritual tranquilisers to God’s people, rather than the liberating, but sometimes bitter Truth: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa.5:20). God never lulls the saints to slumber in “ease in Zion” (Amo.6:1). True peace rests on righteousness and truth: “The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever” (Isa.32:17). The next verse says: “My people will dwell in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.”

The world has nothing better to offer than tribulation: “These things I have spoken unto you, that IN ME ye might have PEACE. In the world ye shall have TRIBULATION: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (Jh.16:33). In Christ, we possess peace; whereas the world is characterised by tribulations, troubles, pressures, problems, pain, and misery. The world doesn’t have a “pint of peace” to give. Therefore, those who strive and struggle to “gain the whole world” at the expense of the riches in the spirit, are the greatest of fools (Mk.8:36-37). It is tragic how some people reject or abandon “the fountain of living waters” and hew out “cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer.2:13).

What the world calls “peace” inevitably ends in despair, whether this is perverted music, corruptive entertainment, sexual addiction or destructive drugs. The “pleasures” Satan offers for sale or even for free always lead to untold problems, perplexities, and pain. Backslidden Israel lamented, “We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and there was trouble!” (Jer.8:15). Such are the wages of wickedness: “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, “There is NO PEACE,” says my God, “for the wicked” (Isa.57:20-21). But to the righteous, God says: "It is well!"