What Peace Means | Page 3

were going up, and the
architect had one design for it, and the builder had another. What
perplexity and confusion there would be! How ill things would fit!
What perpetual quarrels and blunders and disappointments! But when
the workman accepts the designer's plan and simply does his best to
carry that out, harmony, joyful labour, and triumph are the result. If we
accept God's plan for us, yield to Him as the daily controller and
director of our life, our work, however hard, becomes peaceful and
secure. No perils can frighten, no interruptions can dishearten us.

Not many years ago some workmen were digging a tunnel, when a
sudden fall of earth blocked the mouth of the opening. Their
companions on the outside found out what had happened, and started to
dig through the mass of earth to the rescue. It was several hours before
they made their way through. When they went in they found the
workmen going on with their labour on the tunnel. "We knew," said
one of them, "that you'd come to help us, and we thought the best way
to make time pass quick was to keep on with the work." That is what a
Christian may say to Christ amid the dangers and disasters of life. We
know that He will never forsake us, and the best way to be at peace is
to be about His business. He says to us: "As the Father sent me, even so
send I you."
III. The Christian peace is the peace of being divinely forgiven.
"In every man," said a philosopher, "there is something which, if we
knew it, would make us despise him." Let us turn the saying, and
change it from a bitter cynicism into a wholesome truth.
In every one of us there is something which, if we realize it, makes us
condemn ourselves as sinners, and hunger and thirst after righteousness,
and long for forgiveness.
It is this deep consciousness of sin, of evil in our hearts and lives, that
makes us restless and unhappy. The plasters and soothing lotions with
which the easy-going philosophy of modern times covers it up, do not
heal it; they only hide it. There is no cure for it, there is no rest for the
sinful soul, except the divine forgiveness. There is no sure pledge of
this except in the holy sacrifice and blessed promise of Christ, "Son,
daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace."
Understand, I do not mean that what we need and want is to have our
sins ignored and overlooked. On the contrary, that is just what would
fail to bring us true rest. For if God took no account of sins, required no
repentance and reparation, He would not be holy, just, and faithful, a
God whom we can adore and love and trust.
Nor do I mean that what we need is merely to have the punishment of

sins remitted. That would not satisfy the heart. Is the child contented
when the father says, "Well, I will not punish you. Go away"? No, what
the child wants is to hear the father say, "I forgive you. Come to me." It
is to be welcomed back to the father's home, to the father's heart, that
the child longs.
Peace means not to have the offense ignored, but to have it pardoned:
not to the punishment omitted, but to have separation from God ended
and done with. That is the peace of being divinely forgiven,--a peace
which recognizes sin, and triumphs over it,--a peace which not merely
saves us from death but welcomes us home to the divine love from
which we have wandered.
That is the peace which Christ offers to each one of us in His Gospel.
We need it in this modern world as much as men and women ever
needed it in the old world. No New Era will ever change its meaning or
do away with its necessity. Indeed, it seems to me that we need this
old-fashioned religion to-day more than ever.
We need it for our own comfort and strength. We need it to deliver us
from the vanity and hollowness, the fever and hysteria of the present
age. We need it to make us better soldiers and workers for every good
cause. Peace is coming to all the earth some day through Christ. And
those who shall do most to help Him bring it are the men and women to
whom He gives Peace in the Soul.

II
Peace on Earth Through Righteousness
And the work of righteousness shall be peace: and the effect of
righteousness quietness and confidence forever.
--ISAIAH 32:17.
After we have found peace in our own souls through faith in God and
in His Son, Jesus Christ our