#937

Peace Talks & Prophetic Time Bombs

Everyone Is Talking About Peace

Rumor has it that a new hostage deal in the with Israel and Hamas is close and US President Donald Trump is musing about even getting a peace deal between North and South Korea as we see in this quote from The Jerusalem Post:

Trump also said on Friday that he will "get the conflict solved with North Korea."

"I've had a good relationship with Kim Jong Un and get along with him, really great," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "So we'll see what happens."

"Somebody's saying there's a potential conflict, I think we'll work it out…”

I’m pretty skeptical about any peace deal with terrorists anywhere in the Middle East and Israel, but Trump is pretty good at making deals so I’ll take a wait and see approach to all of these whispers and hints at peace. But I do know that the Apostle Paul did tell the Thessalonians that fake peace would be a sign before the Rapture of the church:

When is all this going to happen? I really don’t need to say anything about that, dear brothers, 2 for you know perfectly well that no one knows. That day of the Lord will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. 3 When people are saying, “All is well; everything is quiet and peaceful”—then, all of a sudden, disaster will fall upon them as suddenly as a woman’s birth pains begin when her child is born. And these people will not be able to get away anywhere—there will be no place to hide. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-3, TLB)

These Thessalonians were a pretty hard to reach people because Paul had to tell them no less than three times about the Rapture not happening as evidenced by him saying in verse 2 that they know perfectly well about these things. And yet he needed to write to them over and over again about not missing the Lord’s coming in the air. And he also mentioned this elusive peace and safety.

A False Peace

Even leaving out the prophetic verses from Thessalonians we know that there is a false peace in the world now. Just like the wars and rumors of wars are a sign of the birth pangs so this false peace is as well. There will be more and more of this false peace and safety being heralded in many places because the spirit of Antichrist that will herald it in the Tribulation is setting people up with it right now. And of course the logic that a person is safe when they are far from it starts right from the proverbial top, Satan. It’s a ruse that has damned many a soul to Hell through the ages and the prince of darkness won’t stop using it until it stops working, which it won’t. How cruel is it to think you’re totally safe when it is far from the truth? I know from personal experience that the moment when you feel the most secure in your own works is the moment when things usually fall apart. It’s not the exact personification of Murphy’s Law but it’s pretty close. Now I’m not saying that this is the way things always go, but there are quite a few examples in the Bible when people thought they were doing swimmingly well and it simply wasn’t true. This is the essence of what Paul told the Thessalonians. But he did offer hope to these early believers.

Not In The Dark

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. (1 Thess 5:4-5, NKJV)

Now I’m not sure if Paul is saying this sarcastically or not because this community of Christians were prone to overthinking things, but it is good news. Yes, the sudden loss of peace and safety will be a harsh reality for those who are not believers in Christ, but we are in the light and should see clearly enough to not be taken by surprise. Or at least we should be that way. Will we know the exact time when the Rapture will take place? No, but we can live like it will happen at any moment which is the essence of what the Apostle John tells us in these verses:

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (1 John 3:2-3, NKJV)

Verse 3 is the key to the prepared believer. I hear more and more about preparing for the unexpected like say a power outage or storms causing all manner of outages. I’m not against doing any of that, but that will only help in this life. John was talking about a spiritual preparedness that no one outside of Bible believing Christians understands. The purity mentioned is from the Greek word hagnizó (hag-NEE-zo) and means to make clean, i.e. (figuratively) sanctify (ceremonially or morally) -- purify (self). I like this explanation for it:

Strong’s Greek 48 centers on the act of making pure—first in a ritual sense, then in an inward, moral sense. Across the seven New Testament occurrences the term traces a movement from ceremonial washings that prepared worshipers for Temple service to the Spirit-empowered cleansing of the believer’s heart and life. Each text witnesses to the unbroken biblical theme that God desires a people whose external worship flows from internal holiness.

Other Examples Of Purity

The same resource for the Greek word also tells us more from other Biblical authors starting with James:

James moves the term from ritual to heart renewal: “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded” (James 4:8). The outward and inward are wedded—hands (deeds) and heart (desires). Genuine repentance embraces both.

That gives hope as it encourages even carnal Christians to repent. Peter adds this:

Peter, writing to scattered believers, declares that conversion accomplishes an initial cleansing: “Since you have purified your souls by obedience to the truth…love one another deeply, from a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22). The perfect participle shows the completed work of God that now issues in ongoing brotherly love.

And going back to John we add this:

John unites purity with eschatological hope…The certainty of seeing Christ propels believers toward present holiness; the future vision shapes present behavior.

I like that last phrase. It really nails the reason that looking forward to the soon return of Jesus had present effects. Or it should.

How Are We Living?

So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Watch for his return and stay sober. 7 Night is the time for sleep and the time when people get drunk. 8 But let us who live in the light keep sober, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the happy hope of salvation. (1 Thess 5:6-8, TLB)

That version is good, but I also like this version of those verses:

So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation. (MSG)

The contrasts are pretty easy to comprehend, I think. I like how Bible teacher David Guzik elaborates on these verses:

Not sleep: Paul used a different word here than for the sleep of death mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 4:13. “The word sleep is here used metaphorically to denote indifference to spiritual realities on the part of believers. It is a different word than that in 4:13-15 for the sleep of death. It covers all sorts of moral and spiritual laxity or insensibility.” (Hiebert)

He then gives us some bullet points to make the distinction between physical sleep and spiritual sleep:

Sleep speaks of much that belongs to the world (the others), but should not belong to Christians:

  • Sleep speaks of ignorance.
  • Sleep speaks of insensibility.
  • Sleep speaks of no defense.
  • Sleep speaks of inactivity.

The Guzik gives examples from Charles Spurgeon:

In a sermon on this text titled Awake! Awake!, Spurgeon showed the folly and tragedy of the sleeping Christian with three powerful pictures:

A city suffers under the plague, with an official walking the streets crying out, “Bring out the dead! Bring out the dead!” All the while, a doctor with the cure in his pocket sleeps.

A passenger ship reels under a storm and is about to crash on the rocks, bringing near-certain death to the hundreds of passengers – all the while, the captain sleeps.

A prisoner in his cell is about ready to be led to execution; his heart is terrified at the thought of hanging from his neck, terrified of death and of what awaits him after death. All the while, a man with a letter of pardon for the condemned man sits in another room – and sleeps.

Well that certainly should be a wake up call to Christians who are not living like Christ is coming back at any moment, doesn’t it?

When I End My Day

I know that living a holy life is getting harder and harder as we are able to bring so much sin into our lives now. The Internet is a wonderful tool for accessing so much information, but it also opens doors into dark places far too easily as well. And it also connects us with people who will encourage us to sin just like they do. In many ways the true peace and safety offered to us in the Bible is being assaulted over and over again. However we can do more than survive the revival of filth all around us. We can, like so many believers like Noah, rise above it and build an ark for others to enter who can be protected from the increasing waters of evil. Politicians can boast about peace and safety all they want, but for this life and certainly for the life to come, Jesus is the answer for the world today as the lyrics to a Christian song I loved to sing a long time ago and it is as true today as it was when it was first written. Jesus told His disciples this to console them after telling them He was going to leave them:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27, NIV)

If you’re feeling unsafe and lacking peace, I strongly encourage you to go to the Peace Giver now. It doesn’t matter if you are a Christian or not, Jesus is more than happy to provide that peace that you can’t get from any other place. There may be wars and rumors of wars swirling around us, but regardless of whether they are global wars or personal wars, His peace will trump them all. At the end of the day, Jesus is the only source of peace that lasts.