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Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and

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faith. Today, at this Christmas season, what is the nature of true peace? Ah, peace on earth,

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goodwill towards men, the angels declared right to the shepherds at the birth of Christ.

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If you could name for me anything that the human heart longs for above everything else,

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what would it be? Well, I dare say it would be peace in some way, shape, or form. Externally,

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we are terrified of random violence and destruction coming upon us from hostile sources over which we

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have no control, and also wars and rumors of war, war in Ukraine, war in Palestine, or internally,

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turmoil and turbulence that churns within our own souls and then bubbles over into our personal

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relationships with our spouses and children. Despite our best intentions, we seem to mess up,

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right? Whether it be in international politics or our own personal relationships. In other words,

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whether coming or going at home or abroad in our individual soul or our collective soul as a race,

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genuine peace seems to elude the human family. This is all the more poignantly brought home to us at

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Christmas season, when the words of the angels from heaven to the shepherds ring in our ears, right?

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Peace on earth and goodwill to men on whom God's favor rests. Oh, that there would be peace on earth.

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Why does genuine peace seem to elude the human family no matter what we do? Is genuine peace even

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possible? Or will it always dangle one step ahead of our grasp? If it is possible, then how is peace

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achieved? Well, to answer these questions, let's look first at the three spheres in which the human

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heart longs for peace, and then examine how it is achieved. First of all, number one, the first sphere,

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the human heart longs for peace among nations. This is what we think of first, many of us. President

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Woodrow Wilson, son of a Presbyterian minister, got us into World War I to make the world safe for

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democracy, he called it, which war only led the groundwork for the rise of Adolf Hitler in World

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War II. And Neville Chamberlain, prime minister in England in 1939, returned from Berlin with a

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worthless piece of paper after negotiating with Hitler, stepping down from the airplane, exclaiming he had

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achieved peace in our time. What he really had done was sell out Czechoslovakia for a promise from Hitler

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that there would be no more war, and Neville Chamberlain's name has become synonymous with appeasement

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ever since. Well, my generation, the me generation of the 60s, who so self-righteously protested the

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Vietnam War, derisively referred to as peaceniks we were, we carried banners that exclaimed peace in

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Vietnam and proclaimed that peace had finally come to Vietnam when our troops pulled out in 1975. And as

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we turned our backs on Vietnam and the hundreds of thousands of those who helped us, anything but

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peace ensued. Millions were butchered in reprisal in both Vietnam and Laos, which was renamed

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Kampuchea when the Communists took over there, too. In fact, the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea became known as

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the Killing Fields because so many millions of Laotians were slaughtered in the re-education camps under

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Pol Pot. Peace, indeed. Well, it becomes apparent that the peace movement of the 60s had a very selective agenda

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for peace, that Marxist-Communist forces might have their way in war and violence in Southeast Asia, and that the

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peace of the grave might settle over the killing fields of Laos. In every generation, hope springs

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eternal, and naive and well-meaning people seem to get a glazed look in their eyes and lose all contact

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with reason and begin protesting for peace, and sometimes protesting, ironically, very violently,

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wishing and hoping with all their might that they will finally get it right, and all mankind will see the

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justice of their cause, lay down their arms, join their hands and sing kumbaya. But in the end, we are

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far more like Charlie Brown, who, when promised by Lucy that she'll hold the football for him to place

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kick this time, well, we find that she pulls it away at the last minute again, and thwomp, down goes

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Charlie Brown. In reality, the Bible never promises or sanctions the kind of peace between the nations

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that characterizes this kind of mindset. It is a naive misreading of the Bible to assume that God

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either wants or allows unrelenting peace between the nations. No, from the very beginning, when Adam and

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Eve fell in the garden, God cursed them and the whole earth, promising that there would be enmity,

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that is hatred, between you, that is the serpent, and her offspring, that is Eve's children. Us!

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In fact, so certain and irrevocable was this curse that brings hatred and alienation, that the two very

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first sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, were embroiled in hatred, such that Cain murdered Abel.

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Very few people today take seriously this and other texts. Even Jesus promised that wars and rumors of

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wars would characterize the period that we are living in even now. Peace between the nations

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as an ideal to be striven after and achieved in our own day is a fool's errand. In fact, such a mindset

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can produce just the opposite of what it intends. Neville Chamberlain is a case in point. His craven

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peace at any price appeasement of Hitler, rather than bringing peace, only emboldened his aggression

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into Poland, plunging the world into war. And in more recent times, former President Jimmy Carter,

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many of you remember him. He exemplifies the naivete and danger of this peace at any price mindset.

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Jimmy Carter is the man who will be known to history as the president who sacrificed Iran

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through the radical Muslim revolution in 1979, where the Ayatollah Khomeini returned triumphantly

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from exile, toppling the Shah of Iran and installing a radical Shiite Muslim theocracy

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in its place. Murder, blood, many lives, radical mullahs safely ensconced in power into Tehran.

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It is certain that thousands of men and women have done and will die in thousands of places because

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they have promised jihad until the end of time. And Carter, like so many other naive and sentimental

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people, failed to realize the times and seasons to unsheathe the sword. Do you remember the 1960s

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hit song, Turn, Turn, Turn by the Birds? The lyrics are taken directly from the Bible,

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from the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, and it was considered a peace song since it concludes with

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the words, a time to love, a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace. The emphasis was

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on peace, of course, although the song never gets into the fact that the whole point of balancing

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these opposites in the Bible, love and hate, peace and war, was to present the reader with a situation

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of using God-given wisdom to determine which time was the right time to mourn or dance, to keep or cast

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away, to make war or peace. There are times for war. There are times for peace. Biblical wisdom is the

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gift from God that helps the godly ruler, oh, in particular, right, helps the godly ruler decide which

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time this particular day is. But Carter had only one button on his control panel, the peace button,

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and he pressed it and pressed it and pressed it, didn't he? I find it very ironic that the man who

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was responsible for the unchecked violence and spread of radical Islam in the world, Jimmy Carter,

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won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. It goes to show that even the Nobel Prize Committee is taken

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by the naive, sentimental notion of peace that only traps a fallen world into an endless cycle of war,

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misery, despair, and suffering. Oh, and as long as the world follows men like Jimmy Carter and the

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Nobel Peace Prize Committee, men will continue to cry, peace, peace, but there will be no peace.

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The crucial thing to keep in mind in all of this is that the Bible nowhere guarantees or encourages the

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kind of naive, sentimental, peace-at-any-price mentality that has so overwhelmed the world and

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its thinking. The Miss USA contestant may stare blankly into the TV camera and exude,

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my wish for mankind is for world peace. But the Christian should have his head squarely on his

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shoulders and know to his toenails that there is a season, a time for love, a time for hate,

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a time for war, and a time for peace. Well, secondly, the second place we long for peace,

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the human heart longs for peace with his neighbor and his friend and his relatives. Our Savior himself

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commanded us to love thy neighbor as thyself, and I am expected to obey this command and conform my life

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to its dictates, right? How easy this is in the pronouncement, but how difficult this is in the

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fulfillment. Jesus never lived next door to a neighbor who played rap music at full volume at

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11 p.m. at night. Jesus never had a neighbor who took the liberty of cutting down your whole apple tree

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because a branch grew over his property line and dropped apples into his yard. I have members in my

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congregation for whom these actual situations exist. In other words, hostility and alienation exist not

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only between neighboring peoples, but also between people who are your neighbors. This includes our

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workmates and relatives, too. Personally, I remember working in my 20s with a subordinate who wanted my

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job and salary and would stop at nothing, including lying and cheating to get it. Several times I almost

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lost my Christian demeanor to beat the crap out of that person. Well, how do you respond to such a

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neighbor? Additionally, we find alienation and hostility in our most intimate of relationships,

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that is, our marriages and families. Untold, grief and suffering have been inflicted over the centuries

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as husbands brutalize and dominate their wives. Wives harp and nag their husbands. Both spouses

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chipping away at one another's self-worth. Children are abused and neglected, ignored and shuttled from

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foster home to foster home, and they grow up never knowing what love is or what a secure mother or

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father-to-parent nuclear home might look like. Divorce rates soar, and the church in particular seems

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unable to do anything to alleviate the situation. How many men and women live and die in silent despair

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in anguish because they do not know how to overcome the alienation that exists in their personal

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relationships? I'm reminded of the life of one of the foremost advocates of peace in my generation,

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John Lennon. Perhaps you remember his song, Give Peace a Chance. And of course, the refrain says,

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all we are saying is give peace a chance. Oh, how sentimental and genuine this sounds. On the surface,

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John Lennon, such a guru of peace and light, all he wanted was to see war end and peace reign among

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the nations. Who among the Beatles was more troubled, though, when you look closely, whose life

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was filled with more alienation and turmoil than John Lennon's? His own heart was in a constant state

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of trouble and anxiety. He was divorced and alienated from his first wife, Cynthia, and from his only son,

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Julian. His relationship with Yoko Ono was single-handedly responsible for the breakup of

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the Beatles. In fact, observe how he died violently at the hand of an assassin who shot him to impress

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yet another celebrity. John Lennon, of all men, should have given peace a chance to rule in his own

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heart and life. Instead, he was a hypocrite of the first order, prescribing peace in the world for all

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of us, chiding us all for our lack of peace, when his own heart was a cesspool of hatred and strife.

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The human heart longs for and aches for peace between brothers, but is unable to find it. If I had a

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magic wand, I would wave it over the personal lives of every American so that he or she might learn to

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love thy neighbor as thyself. But alas, this is not to be either. The curse of God under our first

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father Adam guarantees that there will be enmity, that is hatred, between one seed and another,

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and that not only will Cain murder Abel, but even our hatred will be as murder, even as Jesus declared

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to us in the Sermon on the Mount, you have heard it said to those of old, you shall not murder, but I

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say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to the judgment." Unquote. Right?

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Hatred is murder, though not carried to the logical extremity, but the root and seed of war

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lurks there, nevertheless. The third area where the human heart longs for peace is in his own soul.

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The human heart longs for peace in his own soul. The place where all this starts is the individual

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human soul. If there's no peace here, there will be no peace there, that is on the outside,

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with neighbor or nation. Man is alienated from himself, from his own nature and being as it was

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created in fullness and beauty in the Garden of Eden. Well, if that's the case, what hope is there

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for any sense of peace in the world? People commit suicide because life becomes impossible within their

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own souls. A man cannot live in his own skin. He's alienated from himself. Well, if I am so in conflict

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with myself, with my own soul, how can I be expected to be at peace with the outside world?

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Oh, one of the great weaknesses of the human condition is the tendency to project, that is,

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to attribute to others what is true of us. Therefore, if I am suspicious of my own motives

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and intentions, I will project the same suspicion onto others around me. Oh, dear listener, we find this

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to be the case with even the most peaceful of men and their agendas. One of my favorite examples is

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the guru of peace, Mahatma Gandhi. Now, when you watch the movie Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley, who won

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an Academy Award for his portrayal, when you watch the movie or listen to the biographies of Gandhi,

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you get the impression that he was this peaceful, meditative yogi that had reached nirvana.

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But when you talk to his children and those who were close to him, you find that Mahatma Gandhi

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had an outward persona of peace and love. He was actually a surly, egotistical son of a gun who was

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mean, selfish, and cruel to all of those around him. His wife was a brow-beaten woman, someone who caused

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the modern feminist wood take up, and his children grew up to hate him. And they saw a side

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of him that the press and the outside world never did. Gandhi was a man who was devoid of peace in

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his soul, though he prescribed peace for every soul with whom he came in contact. Hypocrisy is not a

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fault limited to Christianity alone, dear listener. What are we to make of all of this? If this is the

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case, that there never will be peace among the nations or with one another or in our own soul,

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well, barring a miracle, then what are we to do as those who desire true peace? Well, this brings us

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to our source of true peace. We're not left hopeless. We're not left without remedy, dear listener. What

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is that remedy? Number one, the first order of peace in the affairs of mankind is peace with God. This

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cannot be overstressed. The first order of peace in the affairs of mankind is peace with God. Here's the

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beginning, middle, and end of true peace. We are at one with God and one another in the Garden of Eden

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prior to man's rebellion. We were at peace with God. But Adam's sin plunged him and all of us into a state

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that the Bible calls alienation. That is where there's separation, hostility, and hatred between

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the parties alienated. And Paul describes it in part as the natural condition of our hearts and minds,

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where, although you may not even be aware of it and may even resent my telling you that your default

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setting is one of hatred and hostility towards God. But that is what the Bible indicates, not me.

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For example, Paul says in Romans 8, the mind that is set on the flesh, that is your natural default

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setting of human nature, the mind that is set on the flesh, Paul says, is hostile to God, for it does

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not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, unquote. And

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because this is the case, we are naturally alienated from God. Paul warns us again and again that we are,

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as he says, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in us due to our hardness

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of heart, unquote. Well, owing to this alienated state from our creator and sustainer, is it any

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wonder that all descends into chaos and anarchy? Because we are alienated from God and at war with

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him, we are alienated from our true integrated self, our immediate human family, and between nation,

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tribe, and people. And until the alienation from God is taken away and our bond and fellowship with God

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restored, there will always be the fallout from the original alienation in hostility, suspicion,

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and conflict with one another. There is no escaping it and merely rising up against this notion and

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shaking a fist at the sky, determined that this time we'll get it right, will only confirm you in

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your present rebellion against God and your hatred of him. There's no escaping without deliverance from

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the outside. We are like the man trapped in quicksand who proudly determines to struggle out

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of his condition. But, of course, the harder you struggle in quicksand, the farther and faster you

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sink into it until the very crown of your head bubbles and engulfed and all that is left of you

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are those few passing bubbles. So it is with all of those who presume to find peace for themselves

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and the world by their own efforts. Their very alienated condition guarantees that they will fail

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and sink further into the quicksand of hostility, alienation, and warfare. How then are we to be

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reconciled to God? That brings up point number two. We are reconciled to God through his Son,

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Jesus Christ. One of the inestimable benefits of redemption in Christ is reconciliation with God the

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Father. Reconciliation, what a beautiful word. Reconciliation means that the hostility and

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alienation that used to separate two parties is now taken away, and love and peace now bind them

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together. Christ's death upon the cross satisfied the Father for the sin that separated you and me from

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God. While believing in faith that this was done for you and that no effort or work of your own could

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have possibly reconciled you to God, this reconciliation is yours. Dear listener, there is no

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more blessed gift to give and receive at this Christmas time than the gift of true peace that

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begins with reconciled enemies, you and God. And it is my fondest wish for you this day that what Paul said

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that the Colossians might be true of you. He said, you who once were alienated and hostile in mind,

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doing evil deeds, he has not reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. Unquote. If you have ever

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been reconciled with a friend or relative, oh, you know the blessedness of that reconciliation. Multiply

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this manifold times with God. Christ labors to make you just and right before God were successful.

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This, the Bible calls justification and it has brought you peace. As Paul says in Romans chapter

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five, therefore, since we have been justified, justified, excuse me, by faith, we have peace

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with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God. True peace works from the top down. If you have

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peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, then your other relationships will reorder themselves

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according to it. Paul describes the consequences of this reconciliation for Christians when he tells

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the Thessalonians, you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another for that indeed is what

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you are doing. Oh, the third thing indeed that brings peace, true genuine peace. Number three,

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God himself will bring true peace upon the earth at the end of time. Oh, when we pray in the Lord's

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prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are looking forward to the day

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when God himself will consummate his kingdom in its fullness. And this he will do when Christ returns

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to bring an end to time and the world as we know it. Only then will there be true, complete and utter

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thorough peace. The kind of peace seen by the prophet Isaiah, where he says in Isaiah 11,

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the wolf shall lie down with the lamb and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall

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play over the hole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put his hand on the otter's den. They

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shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the

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Lord as the waters cover the sea, unquote. The kind of peace of which the Bible speaks is shalom peace,

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which far transcends our Western notion of peace. We conceive of peace as an absence of war,

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whereas the Bible conceives of peace as shalom, where the entire creation is reconciled to its

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creator, the God of the Bible. With shalom, we thrive in health and strength and prosperity. With

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shalom, our work is productive and death, disease, and war are banished from the realm. This is the sense

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of biblical shalom. This is the kind of peace that is in store for those with faith in Christ who has

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reconciled us to God. And there's only those who have been thus reconciled to God who will experience

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this peace, right? Ah, we hear from the angels, peace on earth among those with whom he is pleased.

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The very context of this verse is that peace has come to earth in the baby Jesus who will reconcile

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men to God, and that that peace is existent among those with whom God is pleased, that is, those who

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receive that reconciliation of Christ by faith. All others remain alienated and enemies of God

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outside of Christ. No Christ, no peace, dear listener. But if you know Christ, you know peace.

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Oh, Christians have known this peace from the birth of the church, and you too can know the peace of God

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that transcends understanding so that no hostility or war or alienation that the world can throw at you

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harms you. True peace on earth can be had for faith in Christ. A Christian, as he matures in his growth

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of discipleship, develops a spiritual poise that helps keep his head in the turbulent, strife-ridden

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world. He is reconciled in the first place with a God who loves him and made him, and the promise of the

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Bible has come true for him, that is, God will dwell with him, and he will be God's own, and God

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himself will be with him as his God, unquote. Oh, dear listener, at Christmas, what greater joy can there

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be? And additionally, that believer is now equipped to bring peace to others around him, preaching

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reconciliation in Christ and living a life of love. He follows the Apostles' exhortation from Hebrews,

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which says, Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no man will see the

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Lord. Therefore, if this is the case, oh listener, make this Christmas when you find true peace to your

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very soul. The world's peace is a fool's gold and an illusion. You will only find the peace of Cain,

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the peace of the grave in death, and even then you will one day face the hostility and alienation of the

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life beyond. Only in the one whose life and birth we celebrate at Christmas will you find true peace,

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Jesus Christ. And I exhort you to it in this day, and pray that you might be one of those who receive

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this reconciliation and peace in Jesus Christ. And God will thus be pleased with you, and of you it may

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therefore be said, peace on earth among those, that is you, with whom he is pleased. This has been Pastor

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David Bassett, New Geneva, with a moment of truth. We meet for holy worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at 101

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4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Come and join us. Call us at area code 208-523-0196.

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208-523-0196.