Matthew-002

Today by the Lord’s grace, I would like to expound Luke 2:14, which is the finale of the important message announced by the angels to the shepherds watching their flocks in the field at night. The word “angel” is actually a transliteration of the Greek, angelos, which means messenger. For example, John the Baptist is called in the Greek, angelos in Matthew 11:10. So the appearing of angels is not extraordinary when there are important messages to announce.

Here in Luke 2:10-14, the angels announced the joyous message that the Savior, the Christ sent by God is born! And the sure sign is that he is the baby in a manger – a box from which animals eat their food.

 

“Men of good will” (nominative), “men with whom God is pleased” (genitive)

We are very familiar with these words. The only trouble is I have never heard any exposition on them in my Christian life. I wondered exactly what this message means, and now that I have studied it, I understand why not too many preachers like to expound this passage. When you look at the second part, “on earth peace, among men with whom he is pleased,” and in your margin you read, “peace, good will among men,” that means to say there are two ways of reading this text. And no preacher likes to handle a text where you have this type of problem.

What I should explain to you is this. The reason for this is that the Bible had to be copied by hand and passed on from generation to generation. That is, one person, or a group of people would copy the Bible by hand and pass it on to the next generation; then that generation would copy the original text again by hand. It was very hard work before the days of printing. Imagine trying to copy the whole Bible by hand! You try it sometime, and you will see what problems are involved.

Today, our brothers and sisters in China often have to write out the whole Bible by hand, because they cannot buy Bibles. This is indeed a tremendous amount of work. It is often very easy to make a mistake in copying at the end of the day, or even in the wee hours of the morning when you are not entirely very wide awake. Just try copying sometime when you are exhausted, and you will see what will happen. Even with our modern technology and system of proof readers, I often still find mistakes in printed books when I read. Very often, a wrong reference is given, or there is misprint and error of one kind or another. So we can be very understanding of people who have to copy out the whole Bible by hand.

What is in this text? In the Greek hand-copied texts, there is a difference of one letter “s” in eudokia, which means pleasure, good will, and this is what makes all the difference. By adding on a letter “s,” you change a nominative eudokia into a genitive eudokias. The nominative of the word eudokia explains the men, and we would have the reading, “men of good will” or “good will among men.” But a genitive eudokias, would read, “men with whom he is pleased,” which means men of God’s good pleasure. That is what the Revised Standard Version has, and it is the preferred reading.

Which is right? What is remarkable is that in spite of this transmission, which people have described as “little errors” in their copying, no Scriptural doctrine is affected by these slight variations in one case or another.

 

Three spiritual laws of peace

Today, I would like to expound three basic spiritual laws, because I want to talk about the laws of the spiritual life. We study physics so that we understand how things work in this world, and be able to make better use of the things which are provided for us in the world. But we must study spiritual laws if we are going to honor spiritual power, and not make fundamental spiritual mistakes.

 

1. First law: Where there is holiness, there is peace and eternal life

The first spiritual law that I would speak about is that peace can never be separated from righteousness or holiness; peace and righteousness go together. In other words, where there is no righteousness, there would be no peace. Only where there is righteousness or holiness will there be peace. When you understand this spiritual law which is found throughout the Bible, you will understand why I say that the meaning is exactly the same in the original (Greek), whether it is a genitive (there is “s”) or a nomina­tive (there is no “s”) makes no difference at all. This is because God only takes pleasure in righteous people. So whether you say “men of good will” or “men in whom God takes pleasure” makes no difference at all, because if they are “men of good will,” they are men of righteousness; and if they are “men in whom God takes pleasure,” they are also men of righteousness. Either way, there is not the slightest difference in meaning because God only has pleasure in people who are righteous. Let us get this principle very clear. God does not have pleasure in those who enjoy sinning. God does not have pleasure in those who live in wickedness.

 

The word eudokia is reserved for Jesus Christ the righteous

The word we are talking about here is “pleasure,” not love. God may love a sinner, but he does not have pleasure in his being a sinner. The Greek word for “pleasure,” eudokia, is generally reserved for the Lord Jesus. God is pleased with Jesus. For example, at the Lord’s baptism in Luke 3:22, God’s voice came from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Or the word is used when the Lord Jesus was transfigured upon the mountain in Matthew 17:5, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

Why is God pleased with Jesus? It’s because Jesus is the righteous one. In fact, it becomes a title of the Lord Jesus in 1 John 2:1, he is called “Jesus Christ the righteous.” He lived spotlessly and sinlessly in the world. He is the holy one of God. No wonder God is pleased in him. The Lord Jesus says, “I always do those things which please him.” (Jo. 8:29). His whole life was lived to please the Father, and the Father was well pleased.

The important thing to understand is that holiness is a life that is pleasing to God, a life lived in obedience to him; a life lived in accordance with his will. Now if you live a life like this, you will become pleasing to God, become a man of God’s good pleasure. This is the meaning of these words in Luke 2:14 – “Peace on earth to men in whom God is pleased”; or peace to men of God’s good pleasure.

 

A Christian enjoys deep peace if he is obedient to God

Are you able to enjoy deep spiritual peace? You will not understand peace in its richness, its depth, and its fullness until you learn to live a life that is pleasing to God, until you commit your life totally to him, living in his way, walking in his path. I never understand why a Christian says to me, “I am a Christian, but I don’t have any peace.” Why don’t you have peace when you become a Christian? It depends on what kind of Christian life you live!

Peace is not unconditional, that all you have to do is get baptized and you will have peace. Baptism is like walking through the door of the kingdom of God, but you still have a long way. You don’t just stand inside the door, you must live the life of a subject of God’s kingdom, or a member of God’s family. If you make it your aim in life to say, “I will live a life that is always pleasing to him; I have come to do your will, O God,” as the Lord Jesus is quoted as saying in Hebrews 10:7, you are filled with deep inner peace. A very important spiritual law to understand is: Where there is holiness, there is peace. That means to say, if you are not enjoying peace in the depth of your being, you are hiding sin somewhere in your heart, and sin is a very disturbing element. The negative side of this spiritual law is: Wherever there is sin, there is turmoil.

You just cannot buy peace with money even if you are a millionaire. There is no way you can get peace so long as there is unholiness, unrighteousness in your heart. The message of the angels is that peace is to those in whom God is pleased. There is no other way you will find peace. Yes, if you have money, you can drug yourself with sedatives until you can’t think anymore. If you can’t get sedatives, you can drown yourself in alcohol. The next morning, you will wake up with a terrible headache, and your peace is gone again until you grab hold of the bottle. You do not get peace with drugs, alcohol or money. Deep inner peace comes only through holiness. Strangely enough, this is a spiritual law that is simply not being expounded in the churches today, for reasons which we shall see in a moment.

 

Peace and holiness are inseparable

Let us understand very deeply that in the Bible, whether in the New Testament or in the Old, peace and holiness always go together; you cannot hold them apart. If you want peace, you must have holiness. If you have holiness, you will have peace. They are intertwined. Let me give you some references to study.

Take for example, Hebrews 12:14, “Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Without holiness, you will not see God; without peace you will not see God. Peace and holiness are inseparably tied. As a Christian, you know very well that whenever you commit a sin, your peace is lost immediately! You become restless, irritable, nervous, tense and upset. In fact, the moment you disregard holiness and righteousness, you become mentally unbalanced. Have you ever experienced that?

If you bring back holiness and righteousness into your life, you don’t need sedatives, alcohol, or a psychiatrist, because the peace of God immediately floods into your heart and guards it. This is beautifully expressed in Philippians 4:7, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Let us clearly understand this principle.

Or consider 2 Timothy 2:22a, which especially addresses young people. They might be careless about their sexual desires and, as a result, lose their peace due to sudden uncontrollable impulses.

Notice again, righteousness is at the beginning of this list of four virtues, and peace is at the end. Righteousness and peace always come together, with faith and love in between. And this verse con­tinues, “along with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart.” This righteousness that Paul is talking about is the right­eousness of a pure heart. Only the person with a pure heart shall see God.

2 Peter 3:14 is another passage which speaks about peace:

When you are waiting for the new heaven and the new earth, strive to be blameless, pure in heart, loving righteousness, then you will find that peace. You will see throughout the Scriptures, you cannot separate this peace and this righteousness. The apostles Paul and Peter use expressions like “pure heart,” “spotless,” or “blameless,” which are just different terms for righteousness and holiness, so that we don’t try to use theological explanation to get away from practical holiness.

The New Testament so clearly states to us that God is pleased with the righteous. And the message of the angels is in line with the teaching of Scripture, that peace on earth is for those people of God’s good pleasure. I have more references on this principle if you would like to have them. I take pains to look at these passages to help your faith be founded in the Word of God, so that you don’t accept what I say to be true.

In Romans 14:17 we read:

Joy and peace are inseparable companions. Where you have peace, you will have a deep inner joy. Where there is no peace, you can never have joy. There is no way you can buy joy any more than you can buy peace. The trio of righteousness, peace, and joy are insepa­rable companions.

Or take for example, 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and 7 which tell us that we are called to holiness. And Colossians 3:15 says that we are called to peace. So we are called to peace because we are called to holiness. Did you know that Christians are called to peace? Are you living in your heritage? Not unless you also understand that you have been called to holiness. That is the clear teaching of Scripture.

When we go back into the Old Testament, you will always find righteousness and peace together, for example, Isaiah 32:17 or Isaiah 59:7-8.

No wonder we read in Isaiah 57:21 [NJB], “No peace,” says Yahweh, “for the wicked.”

The wicked cannot find peace anywhere in heaven or on earth, or under the earth. To those who do not love righteousness, there is no peace.

Oh! What turmoil! What wretchedness! What inner restlessness this world is in! People are buying sedatives not in millions but billions, of which Valium is said to be one of the biggest of all time that is being sold over the counter! This tells you what state the society is in. It is precisely in Canada and in the United States, where you have some of the highest standards of living, that they sell the most tranquilizers. Where is peace? You cannot buy that with a high standard of living.

Therefore, we find those beautiful words in Psalm 85:10b,

Righteousness and peace are like love words just wonderfully united in Scripture. You cannot take them apart. That is the fundamental principle in Scripture.

 

God is not pleased with a “Christian” who desires sin

Let us look at this amazing conjunction of peace and holiness again, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

God is the God of peace because he is the God of holiness, of right­eousness and he sanctifies us. He keeps our spirit, soul and body holy.

God of peace and holiness is not pleased with a “Christian” who desires sin. Remember also that even if you are a Christian, even if you are the chosen people of God, he will certainly not be pleased with you if you love sin. This is what the apostle Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 10:1 and 5, which deal with the destruction of the Israelites in the wilderness:

The word “pleased” is exactly the same word as in Luke 2:14 – “peace to men in whom God is pleased.” God was not pleased with the chosen people who had been saved miraculously out of Egypt, and they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Likewise, I am afraid God is not pleased with the majority of the Christians today, and Paul is speaking to Christians. That is why he says in 1 Corinthians 10:6,

So to us who have been saved, bear these carefully in mind. Why was God not pleased with the chosen people who were saved out of Egypt to become the people of Israel? Because they desired evil.

Evil and peace cannot go together. Sin and peace just do not go together. That is the fundamental spiritual law you must understand, and only so will you understand the message of the angels. Why did they not say “peace on earth”? No! There would not be peace on earth, but “peace to men of good will” or “to men in whom God is well pleased,” or “to men in whom God takes pleasure.” Why? Because they love righteousness. Now understand this Scriptural principle very clearly.

In fact, even if you are righteous now, but if you draw away from purity of heart, God will not be pleased with you. What happened to those Israelites in the wilderness with whom God was not pleased? Just read on in 1 Corinthians 10:10, and you will see that some of them grumbled and were destroyed by the Destroyer. They were saved out of Egypt, but they were destroyed in the wilderness. Paul says, “I would like you to remember that those things were written for our warning.”

In Hebrews 10:38 [CJB], the writer of the Hebrews says,

If the righteous man draws back from righteousness, from God, God will not be pleased with him. His end will also be destruction.

 

When you have peace, you have eternal life

In the Bible, peace is always associated with life. Life and peace go together. For example, Romans 8:6 says, “To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Or in Malachi 2:5, God establishes “a covenant of life and peace.” Therefore, the first spiritual principle I would like you to understand deeply is: You do not have peace without holiness; and when you have peace, you have eternal life.

 

2. Second law: Peace is found only in Christ, who died on the cross

The God of peace, holiness and eternal life is not pleased with a “Christian” who desires sin. Then how are we going to achieve this holiness, this righteousness? The second spiritual law is: Peace is found only in Christ. Christ is our peace because he is our righteousness. Even in this second principle, the first principle is active – you cannot separate peace and righteousness. For example, Ephesians 2:14 says,

In 1 Corinthians 1:30 we read,

He is our peace because he is our righteousness and sanctification.

How did he become our peace and our sanctification? What do those beautiful words in Isaiah 53:5 in the Authorized Version, “the chastisement of our peace was upon him” mean? They mean he suffered punishment for our sin in order to establish peace for us. The onus for our peace was upon him. He was the one who made peace possible. There is no hope that we shall ever have peace because we are sinners, but the beauty of it is that he came to make it possible for the sinner to become righteous, and so have peace. You cannot give peace to the sinner unless you also give him righteousness. You must have righteousness in order to get peace. That absolute law stands, and it is precisely the explanation why Jesus had to die. Unless he accepted the chastisement, the penalty for sin, we could not have peace. We would be condemned to restlessness, condemned to death.

How does the Lord Jesus secure this peace for us? By his cross he made peace for us. That is what chastisement means. For example, Romans 5:1b says,

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Colossians 1:19 [CJB] and verse 20 [ESV] say,

 

Christ died to save us by transforming us to be new and holy

Christ does not just do a legal work on the cross by which he can cancel our death, because that righteousness is still external to us. If righteousness is external to us, peace is also external to us. Let’s say, if I am declared to be legally righteous, it means I am acquitted. I am in a new legal position. That is a wonderful position for a criminal to be in! He is declared innocent! However, if he still doesn’t want to be transformed in his criminal mentality, his old nature, he will commit sin again, he will be back in the court room for the next charge. That is not a very happy position to be in.

Today, the preaching in the churches often concentrates only on salvation as forgiveness. Forgiveness is wonderful, but that would not be enough. Take the person who is a habitual murderer. If you say, “I will pay the penalty of his sin, and he is forgiven,” would you dare to let that man out on the street again? I think any person who lets that man out on the street is utterly irresponsible, because he is going to commit murder again. Or take the person who is a compulsive stealer. What happens when you forgive him and let him out? He is going to steal again. That salvation will never be the end of the story, yet that is the salvation that is often being preached to us in the churches today.

Salvation is much more than that. The Bible tells us that to be saved is to be made into a new person; it is transformation. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). It is what born again means, to become changed, to have the beauty of salvation. So not only are we acquitted, which is called “justification,” not only are we declared righteous, but God also makes us righteous. In Ezekiel 36:26, he would plant into us a new heart. He would take a heart of stone out of me and put in a new heart of flesh. The dead heart is taken out and a living heart is put in. That is a genuine heart transplant! We are totally transformed. We are made righteous. That is why the apostle John says in 1 John 3:9, that whosoever is born of God does not commit sin. That new nature in you does not sin. You have been transformed. That is wonderful!

However, transformation is a process. We don’t become totally new in one day. As Christians, you know you have not yet completed your struggle against sin. The writer of the book of Hebrews says in Hebrews 12:4, “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” We are fighting against sin day by day. We are not yet perfect, as Paul says in Philippians 3:12, “not as though I am already perfect, but I press towards the mark.” This means to say, sometimes in your struggle with sin, you will find that your peace is being disturbed. For example, if you allow sin to creep into your life and you don’t overcome it, you are going to lose that inner peace. Your reconciliation with God stands, that external peace is there, but the internal peace is lost if you don’t determine to be victorious in your struggle with sin.

It is the worst thing for a Christian not to make up his mind. For example, if you toy with a certain idea of sin, and enjoy it for a moment, then suddenly, you’ll discover that all your peace is gone, and there is turmoil. Have you discovered that? Suddenly, you will find that you cannot enjoy that sin that you formerly did because it is bringing you wretchedness and misery. You have allowed unholi­ness into your life, and have lost the peace you have a right to in Christ.

That is why we must ever depend upon God’s Holy Spirit to constantly bring back that holiness and that peace into our life. God’s Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of peace. For example, in Galatians 5:22 we read, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.”

I would like to read you a beautiful verse, Psalm 119:165.

It’s wonderful if you can love God’s law! Now what is God’s law? The previous verse, verse 164 tells us:

God’s law is his righteous ordinances. This means anyone who loves God’s law loves righteousness. And the person who loves right­eousness and hates evil has great peace, not only peace. Determine to love righteousness, by the grace of God, then you will find God’s peace flooding into your heart.

 

No holiness, no peace, no salvation

The great problem today is that salvation is often preached with no regard to holiness. Take for example, a very familiar verse, Romans 6:23 to long-time Christians:

On the one hand you have sin and death, and on the other hand, you have God’s gift, eternal life in Christ Jesus. I’m certain that you have listened to many preachers who repeatedly deliver sermons on this topic, but they have left out one vital element in their preaching, which is why so many Christians today think they are Christians but have no peace at all. What is the vital element? The way salvation is preached by these preachers is that God gives you eternal life in Christ Jesus through faith, regardless whether you are righteous, or whether you love holiness. Holiness is just thrown out because it is interpreted as good works. That is the biggest error! If you commit that error, you are going to be among those unhappy people who are “Christians” by name, who have no idea what peace is all about. For them, “great peace” that the psalmist talks about is only hearsay, not actual experience because they have not learned to love righteous­ness.

If you ever quote that verse to someone, you should be absolutely responsible to quote the verses that go before it. That is the basic principle of Scripture. Never quote a verse out of its context. What does the context say? Romans 6:22, the previous verse reads:

You don’t have eternal life without sanctification or holiness. You don’t have peace without holiness. It is absolutely essential for you to understand this first spiritual law I have expounded to you today. Otherwise, you are going to make all kinds of fundamental mistakes. Imagine what kind of disaster you will have on your hands if an engineer doesn’t understand the first law of thermodynamics! Yet, too many preachers of the gospel today don’t understand the first law of the spiritual life! Never preach salvation as though God gives you the gift of eternal life so long as you believe in him, regardless whether you continue to wallow in sin! There is no Bible teaching to that effect!

Read Romans 6:22 again. Paul is speaking to Christians in Rome, to slaves of God, not to non-Christians. The result of being a slave of God is holiness, and what is the end of sanctification or holiness? It is eternal life. Get it clear that this gift of eternal life is given to the people who are slaves of God, who have been set free from sin by the grace of God.

Let us understand the first law of spiritual life, that only when there is holiness, there is peace, and where there is peace, there is eternal life. There is no way you will get around Scripture.

I have said that the second law is: Peace is found only in Christ. That means eternal life and salvation are only found in Christ. When I have died with Christ and also live with him as the new man, God sets me free from the bondage of sin, He transforms my life internally, so that I become his slave and delight to do his will. Then, God’s gift of eternal life is at the end of this process of sanctification. That is what Romans 6:22-23 is saying. Read it very carefully for yourself. The Word of God is always consistent. It never contradicts itself. God’s spiritual laws are coherent just as his physical creation is. We expect the spiritual world to function with the same precision and order as the material world, because God is the Creator of both the spiritual and the physical.

 

3. Third law: Good and evil can never co-exist

The third and final spiritual law is this: Righteousness is bound to be opposed by wickedness. Or, good and evil are irreconcilable oppo­sites. You can never put good and evil together, neither in a person nor in the world. In Chinese, we say, these two powers cannot both stand at the same time; one or the other must fall. That is the reason why you can never have peace if you allow righteousness and wickedness to co-exist in your life.

That is why I have constantly told you that the requirement in Scripture is total commitment. No one is as miserable as the person who is not totally committed. Such a person is partially committed and partially not committed; he is partially good and partially bad; he is partially in the light and partially in darkness; he is neither here nor there. Such a person lives in utter wretchedness. It’s not fair to tell any person that he can become a Christian without telling him that he must choose where he stands once and for all. Just as Elijah said to the Israelites, “If God is God, then serve him. But if Baal is god, then you serve him. Don’t stand in between and try to serve both” (cf. 1 Ki. 18:21). If money and your desires for other things are your god, serve them. But if the living God is your God, serve the living God. If you try to do both, you are going to be in such a mess that you would wish you didn’t believe in God!

This third law in the Scripture says that good and evil can never coexist. They would always struggle against each other. You must understand that if you allow good and evil to exist in your life, your life would become a battlefield. Do you want your life to be a battlefield between good and evil? Do you want Satan and God’s Holy Spirit to fight over you all your life? Do you know what happens in battlefields? Buildings are bombed out, fields are burned, everything is in ruins. I have seen too many Christian lives simply in ruins because the warfare has see-sawed back and forth. It’s absolute disaster! I have lived in wars. I have had war fought right over my head – machine guns, canons and tanks blasting all around. People lay dead on the streets. I have witnessed these scenes with my own eyes. I know what war does. Satan wants to turn your life into a war zone!

If you don’t want this, then become totally committed. Decide where you stand once and for all, and say, “God, by your grace, I will stand firm.” The word “stand” is the favorite word of Paul. He says to stand fast in the full armor of God. Stand your ground and don’t ever compromise with evil. This is a fundamental law, and I want to share this with you at Christmas time, because it is a time when God proclaims the good news of peace to the world. I have seen too many Christian lives become a disaster because they want to compromise. There is no peace because there is no holiness.

 

No peace on this earth of evil until God’s kingdom reigns

One thing we must understand is that there will never be peace in the world we inhabit. Why? If you understand this third spiritual law, you will know that evil is struggling with good in this world. That is why whatever the politicians say, whatever military deci­sions are made, there will always be wars. There will be evil until God’s kingdom reigns on earth and eradicates it.

A Christian is a realist. Anyone who preaches a social gospel has not understood the problem, because he thinks you can use external means to establish peace in this world. You cannot drive out evil any more than you can establish good by force of arms. I have thought these things over. I was a person concerned about the world we live in. As many of you know, my ambition was to become a military man, hopefully a great general, a field marshal, a commander-in-chief, so that I could establish peace on earth with military power. I was naïve like so many politicians. There is no way you can establish peace on earth by military power, not even by economic power. You have already seen that the advanced countries with the highest standard of living have the highest suicide rate that not even poor countries can compete with. Isn’t it strange that such is the state of mental disturbance where there is advanced economic growth? Man simply doesn’t have the weapons to deal with evil. He can make a hydrogen bomb, a cobalt bomb, or whatever bomb, but he simply cannot make any weapon that can fight evil.

That is why this brings back this second spiritual law: there will be peace only in Christ. This truth is well expressed by Lars Hartman in his book, Into the Name of the Lord Jesus: Baptism in the Early Church, page 80:

It is commendable that we want to do something about this world. I hope all our young people are concerned about the world we live in, but we must also be realists. There is no way that there will ever be peace in this world so long as evil exists in it. Therefore, whether it is in your own life, or in the world as a whole, this fundamental law will always hold. We can effectively have armistice for a time, but we will never have peace in the genuine sense of the word “peace,” because no one is strong enough to beat the power of evil.

That is why in Matthew 10:34, the Lord Jesus says,

This statement almost seems to contradict the message of the angels, but it doesn’t at all. This statement is expounding precisely this third spiritual law. Remember, the message of the angels is: “Peace on earth to men with whom God is pleased,” not “peace on earth.” Anyone who quotes Scripture in such a manner is distorting its true meaning. Scripture never promises peace on earth, but peace on earth to men of good will, to men with whom God is well pleased, to men who love righteousness.

When Jesus came into the world, the conflict between good and evil became even fiercer because a greater powerful good has come into the world. And the reason why the conflict becomes fiercer is because “men love darkness rather than light,” as the Lord Jesus says in John 3:19. People in the world today tend to prefer darkness. That is why you cannot change the situation in the world to have peace so long as men are not changed. Therefore, Jesus does not come to bring peace but a sword, because good and evil can never be reconciled. If you understand this third law of the spiritual life, you will understand perfectly what the Lord Jesus is saying in Matthew 10:34, and not be puzzled by it as many people are.

It’s no use trying to change a country without changing its people. You can change economics, military balance, educational positions, but as long as the man himself is basically evil—he is still a sinner even though he is educated—there will never be peace on the earth. Yet, there will be peace when God’s kingdom comes. That is why we pray for “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as in heaven,” when man no longer does evil because they love darkness rather than light, and God’s will is done.

 

Righteous Christians will disturb evil and suffer, but will have inner peace

What is our position as Christians in the light of this third spiritual law? When you understand this position, you will understand you are bound to suffer in the world as a Christian. The more righteous you are, the better person you are, the more you will face opposition, bitterness and persecution. And thank God for that, because that means you are being counted for good! You are disturbing evil, so evil is rising up to attack you. Therefore, any Christian who understands this third spiritual law is not puzzled when things are going wrong. A brother has been discovering by his own experience that when he wants to make a film for God, everything goes wrong. When you understand this third spiritual law, you will understand it is bound to happen.

I say to every young Christian: Every person who has made a stand for God and for Christ expects trouble, because there is this law that good and evil cannot be reconciled. The better you are, the greater the opposition. Such was the opposition against the Lord Jesus that he was put to the worst form of death ever imagined by man: crucifixion. None of us has been so good yet to receive that kind of persecution. But remember well, the more righteous you become, the more you are filled with God’s holiness, the greater will be the opposition and hatred against you. As the Lord Jesus says to his disciples, “Because the world has hated me, it will hate you. So be prepared. Don’t be surprised when these things come” (cf. Jo. 15:18-19). The apostle Peter also said to the Christians, “Don’t think something strange has happened to you when various persecutions come upon you” (cf. 1 Pet. 4:12). Understand this spiritual law that good and evil stand irreconcilable.

Yet this situation is a blessing! Although the conflict outside is fierce, the peace inside is wonderful. That is why the Lord Jesus said to his disciples, “In the world, you will have tribulation (suffering, persecution), but in me, you will have peace” (cf. Jo. 16:33). They will enjoy this deep inner peace in Christ. There are problems, conflicts, difficulties, bitterness, criticisms outside, but there is a peace inside you that no man can take away. I thank God for this wonderful peace inside! That is why the apostle Paul is rejoicing while he is sitting in prison. The key word of Philippians is “joy.” In Colossians it is “thanksgiving.” Why can you give thanks when you are sitting in prison? Because of this wonderful inner peace. Outside, the world is falling apart, but inside, your heart is defended by the peace of God like a fortress. Paul says in Philippians 4:7,

 

Apply these 3 spiritual laws and enjoy peace

Can you honestly say you enjoy this peace today? Do you want it? Then understand and apply these three spiritual laws:

First, understand that you do not have peace without holiness. You do not have eternal life without holiness. So get right with God. Confess every sin and say, “God, change my attitude. I love what is sinful. Make me love what is good and righteous.”

Secondly, understand that peace is found only in Christ through his death on the cross. Therefore repent of your sins, and ask God to forgive you through being cleansed by Christ Jesus’ blood. When Christ has reconciled us to God, draw very near to God and take hold of him, for without him you will never have peace.

Thirdly, understand that peace comes to this world only in your heart because there is evil in the world. Good and evil will always be in conflict. Be prepared for conflict, and rejoice in it, because you know that you are standing on the side of good. Your firm stance is making a significant impact, which is why evil forces are opposing you in the way they do.

However, I implore you once again to ensure that your life does not become the battleground. Let the conflict be outside, not inside, because that is unbearable! When you have peace inside, nothing else matters.

When I first met with God in that prison courtyard in Shenzhen, China, just across the border from Hong Kong, when he responded to my call for help, I experienced indescribable peace! I did not understand these spiritual laws at that time, but now I understand what it all meant, that when you meet with God, you enter into peace for the first time.

I hope that you will often think about these three spiritual laws. They can transform your life, and you will not go wrong spiritually. Then, the message of the angels will become a reality to you: “Peace on earth to the men of righteousness—who imitate Jesus Christ the righteous—in whom God has pleasure!” In this way, God will be glorified!