Jeremiah 6:14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. I. A FALSE PEACE, WHAT IS IT? We do not mean, in describing a false peace, to depict the state of those who are utterly indifferent to religious claims and obligations. We are speaking of another class, in whose minds there has been at some time an anxiety concerning their state in the sight of God. They have felt that sin is within them, that sin is working out terrible results, and, unless some remedy be applied, must work their ultimate ruin. This anxiety has increased upon them; and at length they have found the anxiety soothed; its pressure has been alleviated, and at length it has departed. But it has been soothed by unsuitable means. To be in a state of false peace is to be in a state of composure — not of indifference, but of composure and satisfaction, in a belief that all is well when all is not well. And this may arise from various causes. 1. It may be that some are lulled into this false peace from the fact of never having had clear and scriptural notions of the true nature of sin. They have had their attention perhaps drawn rather more to sins and to sinning than to sin; and in their cases it may have happened that the course of sinning has not been a very atrocious course — that the habitude has never manifested itself in any very formidable way. Now, so long as our attention is fixed upon sins, and so long as our minds are drawing distinctions between the greater and the lesser amount of actual transgressions against God, we overlook the scriptural view of sin, as that fatal principle in the nature of man which taints every faculty, and which renders it utterly impossible that man should live in the light of God's countenance. 2. But suppose men do entertain scriptural views of sin, as a deadly principle within them, still they may have very inadequate views of the justice of God and of His perfect holiness. Many minds are very apt to measure God, as it were, by a human standard, as if God's mode of procedure would be governed on the same principles on which man's mode of procedure is usually governed; and the consequence is, that they invest God with a kind of mercy which is altogether unscriptural. If the sinner views God merely as a God of goodness and tenderness and mercy, and thinks His justice is not to have its full and unrestricted exercise, then we ask, what are we to do with those passages of God's Word which exhibit all His attributes in their just proportions, and their relations one to another? 3. False peace may also be produced by having obscure notions of the Gospel. If we could sum up the whole Gospel message, the whole of the rich provision of God's mercy and justice in Christ Jesus, in one sentence, we should say, it is a remedy for sin; but multitudes hear the Gospel, in all its simplicity and fulness, and yet come to the conclusion that the Gospel system only calls us into a greater familiarity of relation to God, that it sets before us a more spiritual walk than the people who lived under the Jaw were accustomed to, that it calls upon us for a higher moral bearing, and that if we do in the main adhere to that, as if it were a second form of law exhibited to us, then all shall be well; but they overlook the fact that there is in the Gospel a remedy for sin — that it contains a provision for the healing, the true healing of the wound which sin has made. 4. This false peace may arise, moreover, out of an imperfect reception of the true Gospel. The doctrines may be received; the matters of fact upon which the doctrines are based may be received; the economy of the Gospel may be received, as far as the intellect goes; but there may be no surrender of the soul to the Gospel — there may be no yielding up of all the perversity of the natural man to the sweet and precious operations of the Spirit of God, seeking to establish His truth in the heart as a remedy for sin. Now we believe, that wherever these four, or any one of these four causes exist, the result is a false peace. And let it be borne in mind, that most men are very much disposed to be satisfied with a false peace. When the testimony of conscience has been stirring, when the burden of sin has been felt to be a heavy burden, there is a disposition to embrace the first offer of peace that presents itself. And why is it so? Because the burden is heavy to be borne, and the anxiety it occasions is a distressing anxiety, which is to be got rid of in any way. Anything, therefore, that can silence conscience, or that can lessen the severity of its testimony, will be resorted to, and will be regarded as peace. II. THE REAL NATURE OF THAT ONLY PEACE WHICH CAN BE RELIED UPON. Let it be remembered, that true peace has relation both to God and to man; that is, it must be a peace on both sides — on the side of a just and holy God, and on the side of man with his "carnal mind" which is "enmity against God." There must be peace on both sides; and the peace on God's side must be a peace that shall be in the highest degree honourable to Himself; and in order to be strictly honourable to Him, it must be a peace that shall have magnified His justice, as well as given Him. a just occasion for the exercise of mercy. It is plain, therefore, that man himself cannot make and establish such a peace, either by sacrifice or by service. Then the truth is, that God has taken the whole matter into His own hands. He regards man as altogether helpless in this respect; and God undertakes for the establishing a peace that shall be in the highest degree honourable to Himself, and in the utmost degree suitable to man. In graciously revealing Himself, then, in Christ, God has come forth from the light and glory in which He has dwelt from all eternity, and in the person of Jesus, the Eternal Word, has manifested Himself in an attitude of peace — is at peace. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." In that declaration we "see the attitude of peace. God comes not forth, in the Gospel of His dear Son, as an avenger, but He comes honourably forth as a peace. maker. He comes forth, manifesting the strength and severity of His justice, and magnifying the perfection of His justice. He spared not His own Son." III. THE DANGER OF A FALSE PEACE. There is present danger, and there is future danger. So long as a false peace is soothing our anxieties in regard to our state as sinners before God, this helps to deaden conscience; it does not always satisfy, but it subdues the activity of conscience, and opens a way for the subtle workings of Satan. Moreover, this false peace disinclines the mind of the deluded one for the definiteness of the Christian state and the Christian character — makes all the peculiarity that marks the Christian and the Christian's walk distasteful — makes it regarded as too exact, as too minute, as going too far in its restraints upon the natural freedom of man; and the consequence is, that it is said, as it is sometimes said of some ministers of the Gospel, that their views are a great deal too high, that they expect a great deal more of people than they ought, that they are always raising a standard which makes religion appear so impracticable. Lastly, there is the danger of indisposing us to study the depths of the written Word, and to listen to those depths when they are brought out in the public ministry of the Word. So long as the imagination is pleasantly exercised, and the ministry of the preacher is like the song of one who hath a pleasant voice, and playeth well upon an instrument, there is contentedness; but when the depths of God's truth are brought forth, then it is regarded as a dry matter — a matter in which they have but little concern; and whilst this state of mind exists, the false peace makes the sinner to lie in a perilous abode, like a man whose roof is on fire, and who is pressed down by the weight of slumber. But the danger is also future. If we die in a false peace, then in the day of resurrection and in the judgment we meet God as an avenger, and an avenger during all eternity. (G. Fisk, LL. B.) Parallel Verses KJV: They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. |
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