The initial hopes that a global crisis might lead to a global ceasefire in warzones around the world seem to have faded. Heartbreakingly, the danger is that it can intensify a humanitarian crisis into a disaster. In western nations tensions and divisions easily boil over on top of an already troubled situation. Countries not troubled by war or civil unrest but still troubled by the virus continue to have significant challenges. As individuals, there may be many things that together seem to rob us of peace of mind and heart. Spiritually, there are many troubles and concerns. Is perfect peace a real and attainable possibility in such a troubled world?

Perfect peace is of course a phrase that comes from Scripture itself (Isaiah 26:3). Hugh Binning explains more of what this peace is and how to attain it. He was speaking in a time of war and unrest.

The news of such a peace might be fitting in time of war and trouble if we grasped our need of it. It is not a peace from war and trouble, but a peace in war and trouble. “My peace I leave with you,” and “in the world” you will have trouble (John 14:27 and John 16:33). What a blessed message, that perfect peace is attainable in the midst of the wars, confusions, and calamities of the times, public and personal. It is a perfect peace, a complete peace, even without attaining outward and worldly peace. Indeed, it is most perfect and entire in itself when it is stripped of them all.

What a privilege the gospel offers you! You only need to be made miserable if you choose to be. This is more than all that the world can afford you. No one can promise themselves immunity from public or personal dangers, from many griefs and disappointments. But the gospel urges you to total up all troubles and miseries that you can meet with in the world and yet assures you that if you heed wisdom, there is a peace that will make you forget that trouble. “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17). “I create peace,” God says, “I create it out of nothing” (see Isaiah 45:7). I will keep you “in perfect peace” (Isaiah 26:3).

There are three things we need to know: what this perfect peace is, where it comes from, and how to attain it. The fountain of it, the preserver of it, is God Himself. It is attained through trusting in God and staying ourselves on Him (Isaiah 26:3).

1. What is the source of this perfect peace?

The source of the peace that passes understanding is peace with God; peace of conscience and peace with others is a stream that flows from this. There is a peace of friendship when persons were never enemies, and there is a peace of reconciliation when parties at variance are made one. Here, then, is the privilege of a believer—to be at peace with God, to be one with Him. This indeed is life eternal, to be united to the fountain of life. In his favour is life; His loving-kindness is better than life.

Is not this a blessed condition? Whatever a man has done against God is all forgiven and forgotten, it will never come into remembrance. Are not angels blessed who are friends with God? Such is the soul whose sins are pardoned through Christ, —its sins are as if they never had been. The soul has not only escaped that terrible wrath of God but being at peace with God, it will partake of all the goodness that is communicable to creatures.

This sweetness of peace is found in God the tree of life. Faith puts up its hand and picks the fruit of the tree. Hope and dependence on God are like tasting that fruit and eating it. Then this perfect peace follows as the delightful sweetness that the soul finds in God, tasting how gracious He is. God Himself is the life of our souls, the fountain of living waters, the life and light of men. Faith and trust in God, draw out of this fountain or deep well of salvation. By staying itself on God, faith drinks of it until the soul is refreshed with such peace and tranquillity as passes understanding.

Trusting and staying ourselves on God is the soul casting its anchor upon him amid the waves and storms of sin, wrath, and trouble. The poor beaten sinner casts an anchor on the sure ground of unchangeable promises in Jesus Christ. Then the soul rests and quiets itself at that anchor and enjoys peace amid the storm. There is a great calm, it is not moved, or not greatly moved, as if it were a calm day. David flees to God as his refuge, anchors on the name of the Lord (Psalm 62:1- 2) and so he enjoys a perfect calm and tranquillity. “I shall not be moved,” because he is united to the rock, he is tied to the firm foundation, Jesus Christ, and no storm can dissolve this union. That is not because of the strength of the weak rope (faith); omnipotence surrounds it so that we “are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation.”

2. What is this perfect peace?

The Christian may have peace concerning their salvation and eternal things and about all things that happen in time.

(a) Peace concerning eternal things

This is when the conscience is sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. It gets a good answer to all the accusations of conscience, the law, and justice (1 Peter 3:21). It is when the Spirit of God shines into the soul with a new light to reveal these things that are freely given (1 Corinthians 2:12).

(b) Peace concerning all things that happen in time

What does the person lack concerning perfect peace who is reconciled to God and at peace within himself? When peace guards the heart and mind within as a castle or garrison, to keep out all fears of outward things, all the world may be troubled outside. The floods may lift their voice, but they cannot come into the soul. If they are the same in peace and trouble, prosperity and adversity, do not lament them in one more than the other.

It is the mind that makes your condition good or bad. All things are the believer’s, because they are Christ’s, and all are Christ’s, who is the possessor of heaven and earth (1 Corinthians 3:21). The godly person is at peace with all afflictions and comforts because of Christ’s blood, the sting and enmity of all ills are taken away by Christ.

Poverty has become a friend because Christ was poor. Hunger and thirst have become friends because Christ was hungry and thirsty. Reproach and contempt are at peace with the believer because Christ was despised. Afflictions and sorrows are reconciled to them, because Christ was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs. In a word, death itself is become a friend, since Christ subdued it. The worst things to a natural man have become best friends to the believer; the grave keeps their body and dust in hope. Death is a better friend than life, for it ministers an entrance into glory: it is the door of eternal life.

Christ has stamped anything you can think of with a new quality; it comes through His hand. If it is not good in itself, yet it is good in His appointment and use of it in providence (Romans 8:21). If it is not good, yet it works together for our good; it contributes to our good, because it is in His skillful hand, who can bring good out of evil, peace out of trouble. Such peace should be more to you than peace in the world. If you have it, your peace will be as a river in abundance and permanence; no drought could dry it up. It will run in time as a large river and when time is over, it envelops itself in eternity. That is the ocean of eternal peace and joy in which the saints are swallowed up above. Other people’s peace is like a mere brook that dries up in summer.

3. How can we attain this perfect peace?

We declare to you the way of obtaining perfect peace—peace as a river. If you abandon all trust in self, flee from self as your greatest enemy, and trust your souls to the promise in Jesus Christ. Lean your whole weight on Him and we assure you, your peace will run abundantly and perpetually.

(a) By trusting in God

Whoever trusts in created things, in uncertain riches, in worldly peace, in anything at all besides the only living and glorious Lord, we persuade him, that his peace will fail as a brook. All things in this world will deal deceitfully with you, like a brook that dries up (Job 6:15). But if you pour out your souls on Him and trust in the fountain of living waters, you will not be ashamed, for your peace will be as a river. Nothing can take your peace from you for it runs like a river. It may be shallower and deeper, but it cannot run dry, because of the living fountain it proceeds from. All beside this is uncertain; nothing besides this can give you satisfaction.

Trusting in God is the leaning the soul’s weight on God. The soul must cast its burden on the Lord and so find rest (Matthew 11:28). Leaning on ourselves and trusting in God are opposites (Proverbs 3:5). Trusting is casting the soul on God and lifting the soul to Him (Psalm. 22:10; Psalm 25:1).

When people have risked their souls on His word and trusted in Him, then they may trust in him for all things. He who has given His Son for us, will He not with Him also give all things? This, is the continual recourse of a believer. They travel from the emptiness and insufficiency they discover in self to the fulness and strength of Jesus Christ. Thus their strength may be perfected in weakness. When all things seem contrary, yet ought we to trust in Him (Job 13:15). Faith will always look always towards God’s Word, whatever is threatened to the contrary.

Constant dependence and staying ourselves on God flows from this faith in Him. They are stayed on Him because they trusted in Him. Faith considers His power, His goodwill, and His faithfulness. He is able and willing to do it, and He is faithful because He has promised. Staying ourselves on God is nothing else except the fixedness of believing and trusting (Psalm 112:7-8). It is expressed firstly in meditating on God, and secondly, in expecting all good things from Him.

(b) By meditating on God

Most people have few thoughts of God at all. Even those who trust in him do not consider sufficiently how great the one in whom they believe is. If faith were vigorous it would make us often think on Him, seeking to know Him in His glorious names. The mind would be stayed on this glorious, most mysterious, and wonderful one. People’s minds are strongly drawn to vain things but meditating on God is a burden to them. Any other thing gets more time and thoughts.

Meditation adds affection to contemplation. The soul is stayed on God when the soul’s desires are towards the remembrance of His name, then affection stays the mind. The mind gives only passing looks and limited thoughts, where the heart is not engaged. The soul of a believer should be constant and fixed in considering God until they are wholly engaged in admiration and wonder (Psalm 8:1). You all say that you believe in God, you know He is good, He is merciful, just, long-suffering, faithful, etc. But all this knowledge is only ignorance, and your light darkness, if it does not compel you to put your trust in His name.

Believers, should your hearts and minds be stayed on vain things, more than the living God? Our minds are in a continual motion from one thing to another, for nothing gives complete satisfaction. Time is spent in choosing and refusing, rejecting one thing and taking another, and again returning to what you have rejected. People are tossed up and down, and unstable in all their ways, as a ship without ballast. Faith and trust in God is the ballast and weight of this inconstant ship: it is the anchor to stay it from being driven to and fro. If you would consider Him and meditate on Him until your souls loved Him, would you not be ravished with Him?

This would fix and establish you in spiritual things. Here is One that is “past finding out.” The more I search and find, I find him the more above what I can search and find. Created things disappoint, but the Lord God is an everlasting fountain. He will never send any away disappointed that trust in Him because they will find more than they expected.

(c) By expecting from God

The soul that is stayed on God in meditation on Him knows Him and will be fixed in its expectation from Him. Our expectations from created things are disappointed because they change. But the Lord exceeds our expectations. The Lord has often done things we did not expect.

Three things disquiet us most: sin and wrath; future events; and present calamities. Faith establishes the soul on God in all of these. It will not allow it to be driven to and fro with these winds; it finds a harbour and refuge in God from all these. My conscience challenges and writes bitter things against me, yet I have an answer in that blood that speaks better things than Abel’s. If sins prevail, he will purge them away. His mercy and power are greater than all my sin. He has promised and will He not do it?

We are often perplexed about future events. This is great torment of spirit, cuts, and divides it. But those that trust in God are established in this (Psalm 112:7-8). They have committed their soul to Him, and why not their body? He cares for me, says faith. He has given his Son for me, the most precious gift which the world cannot match, and will He not with Him give all these lesser things? Thus, the believer encloses himself within the Father’s love and providence, and is fixed, not fearing evil tidings. For what tidings can be evil, seeing our Father has the sovereign disposing of all affairs and knows what is best for us? Pity the world around you, that do not know this peace.

Conclusion

Maintain your peace, do not grieve the Spirit who has sealed it. If you return to folly after he has spoken peace to you, I persuade you, you will not maintain this peace. There may be peace with God, but no peace in your conscience, as long as your heart is engaged with sin. Continuing in a course of sin, entertaining any known sin, will trouble your peace. If God has spoken peace to thee, you must not harbour His enemy in peace. Those who love God’s law have great peace (Psalm 119:165). Obedience and delight in it do not make peace, but it is the way of peace. Much meditation on the blessed word of God is the most excellent means to preserve this peace if it is secured by much prayer (Philippians 4:6-7). If you would unburden your hearts daily at the throne of grace, peace will guard and keep your heart, and then your peace will be perfect indeed.

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