Peace or War: what do we deserve?

From a Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermon

Preached at the onset of The Second World War

now included in the book Why Does God Allow War? (pages 93-94)

"What right have we to peace?
Why do we desire peace?

How often, I wonder, have we faced this question? Has not the tendency been to take it for granted that we have a right to a state and condition of peace? Do we stop to ask what is the real value and purpose and function of peace?

This question, surely, should engage our attention. There are two passages, at least, in scripture which show very clearly why we should desire peace. The first is in Acts 9:31:

Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.

That is a description of what happened in the churches after a terrible period of persecution and unrest. We should desire peace in order that what is described there may happen amongst us also.

The other passage is in 1 Timothy 2:1-2:

exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks, be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

There we have the same emphasis again. It is not enough that we should desire peace merely that we may avoid the horror and the suffering of war, and all the dislocations and hardships and interference with ordinary life that are consequent upon it. Our real desire for peace should be based upon the further desire to have the fullest opportunity to live the godly and the holy life, and to have the maximum amount of time in which to build ourselves up in the faith.

Man's chief business in life is to serve and to glorify God. That is why the gift of life has been given to him. That is why we are here on earth; all other things are subservient to this — all the gifts and the pleasures which God gives us so freely. That is the chief end and object of man's life; and consequently he should desire peace because it enables him to do that more freely and fully than he can during a state of war.

But is that our reason for desiring peace?
Is that the real motive in our prayers for peace?

It is not for me to judge, but one cannot be blind to facts. Far too often, I fear, the motive has been purely selfish — merely the avoidance of the consequences of war. Indeed, it has frequently failed to rise even to that level, and one has felt that many have desired peace merely in order to avoid a disturbance of the kind of life which they were living and enjoying so heartily. What kind of life was that? In a word, it was almost the exact opposite of that described in our two passages of scripture.

Under the blessing of peace, men and women, in constantly increasing numbers, have forsaken God and religion and have settled down to a life which is essentially materialistic and sinful."

In Shocking Moments, Be Calm and Logical

Judges 13:23-23

"And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have shown us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these." (KJV)

"Seeing and observing her husband's collapse, his fear and his whimpering, and listening to his foreboding of evil and his dark prophecies and his doubtings of the goodness of God, she doesn't cry or shout, she doesn't give way to hysteria and finally collapse in a state of unconsciousness, she doesn't ask irreverent questions or utter complaints against God-- she thinks, she reasons, she ponders the matter, and with a magnificent logic she arrives at the only conclusion that is really valid."

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Why Does God Allow War?

pages 48-49

Justification and Nature Change

"Justification in the narrow sense refers strictly to God's forensic declaration. But the complex of justification in the wider sense involves other elements. This is important lest we fall into the antinomian error of assuming that God justifies people who are and remained unchanged. All who are justified possess faith. Faith abides as a necessary condition for justification. All who have faith are regenerate. Reformed theology sees regeneration as a necessary condition for faith. All who are regenerated are changed in their natures.

It is not the change in our nature wrought by regeneration or our faith that flows from it that is the ground of our justification. That remains solely the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. But that righteousness is not imputed to unbelieving or unregenerate persons. The change from the state of unregenerate to regenerate is a real and vital change in the nature of the person. The change from unbelief to belief is a result of a crucial change in the believer."

R.C. Sproul

The Forensic Nature of Justification,

in Justification by Faith ALONE, pp. 44-45

SDG Publications 1995