God's Messengers Of Peace

by J. Miller, Ayr | Category: General | Jun 1964

How true are the words of the LORD through Isaiah to the people of Israel, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55.8, 9). Following these words, God compares the word that goes forth out of His mouth to the rain and snow from heaven that water the earth and cause it to bring forth, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Such as He would use in this work would go out with joy, and be led forth with peace (verses 10-12). The message of God's grace is one of joy and peace. The praise of the heavenly host to God at the birth of the Lord was -,

"Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace among men of good pleasure (or goodwill) (Luke 2.14 R.V. marg.).

Grace (charis) means "favour", and charis is derived from the verb chairo, which means to rejoice, be glad, be full of joy. Thus God's free grace is something pleasing, charming, beautiful, causing the heart to rejoice for what God has bestowed on unworthy sinners who have no merit of their own. Peace (eirene) means, amongst other excellencies, concord, unity. Peace was the salutation of the Hebrews and signified "happiness, every kind of blessing and good". The father of John the Baptist closed words of praise to God with the word "peace".

"The dayspring from on high shall visit us,

To shine upon them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death,

To guide our feet into the way of: peace" (Luke 1.78, 79).

Though the believer in Christ may have much affliction and tribulation in a world of sin and turbulence, he has a deep settled peace and joy as he meditates on his eternal portion in Christ his Saviour. His joy in, his Redeemer is like the sun mirrored on the surface of an unruffled lake.

The ways of God are truly seen in the choice the Lord made of the apostles. After being one night in the mountain in prayer to God (literally, "in the prayer of God"), the Lord chose the twelve disciples, whom also He named apostles. These were men who followed Him when He called them (Matthew 4. 18-22; 9.9). They were not lawyers, scribes, elders or priests. They were fishermen some of them. Matthew was a publican, who had, despite his occupation, so slight a grasp on money that he forsook all and rose and followed Him. Even so did Peter and his partners leave boats filled with fish, nets and all their gear and followed Him. Things are as nothing compared with following the Lord. Of such ordinary men He made the greatest men the world has seen in this dispensation - great by the choice and the call of the Lord. Even so it was with Abraham and also with his seed. Those whom the Lord calls to His service are honoured above all others, but these must serve Him in His way, not according to their own ideas.

Paul calls upon the saints in the church of God in Corinth to consider their calling.

"Behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God chose the foolish things of the world, that He might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that He might put to shame the things that are strong;

and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that He might bring to nought the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God ....

That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (I Connthians 1.26-31).

The instruments God has used have often been of the weakest and lowliest kind and the most useless in the affairs of men. Think of the story of the, cleansing of Naaman the Syrian. He was captain of the host of Syria, a victorious leader and a great man with his master the Syrian king. But he was a leper. All his glory would disappear one day as snow in a thaw, before the scourge of leprosy. Raiding bands of the Syrians had gone out into Israel and, amongst the spoil was a captive Israelite maiden, who waited on Naaman's wife. As she, saw the plague from which her master suffered, she said but a few, words, "Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! then would he recover him of his leprosy" (2 Kings 5.3). There was no fanfare of trumpets in her message, just a wish for the well-being of her master. She had suffered in that she had been carried captive from her people, her home and her land. But there was grace in her heart and lips, in that she thought of her master's plague more than her own sorrows of which the Syrians were the cause. She started a train of blessing which resulted in the cleansing of Naaman the Syrian, and he returned healed and cleansed from leprosy. The word of this nameless girl was a word in season which brought rich blessing in its time and the story has yielded many lessons for many people since her day. This incident was one which the Lord chose to confound the unbelieving people of Nazareth, and His reference to, the one case of cleansing of a', leper in the time of Elisha, and ,that of a Gentile, stirred up murder in the hearts of the men of Nazareth. But the Lord was not to die in the way they thought to kill Him,, for a bone of Him was not to be broken. The little maid had probably neither seen nor heard of a leper being cleansed, but she was confident that Elisha would cleanse her master if he went to him. She was certainly one of the messengers of peace in her day, though she was but a little maid. Could an army of people have done more than she?

Then we have in Elisha's day the story of the four lepers who brought good news to the besieged city of Samaria (2 Kings 7). The four of them sat outside the gate of Samaria, a picture of misery and helplessness indeed! They had neither provision, protection nor health. All hope for them was gone, it seemed. They said that if they sat where they were they would die, if they entered the city, where they were not wanted, and where some had turned cannibal, they would die there, and if they went to the camp of the Syrians they could but die there. They certainly had no hope. They arose and made their way to the Syrian camp. When they reached the camp there was no man to be seen. Their tents, the horses and the asses were there, but the Syrians had fled, for the LORD had made the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and horses and they concluded that the king of Israel had hired the kings of the Hittites and of the Egyptians to come against them.

The lepers entered one of the tents and ate and drank and carried forth silver and gold and raiment and hid it, and they came back to another tent and did likewise and went and hid it Then when they were satisfied they thought of the famine stricken city of Samaria and they said one to another, "We do not well this is a day of good tidings and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light punishment will overtake us: now therefore come let us go and tell the king's household." So they came with their good news to Samaria. They called to the porter of the city and told their story. The tidings were carried to the king. The king rose in the night but he had an explanation that his was a Syrian trap to get into Samaria He was however constrained to send and see whether the tidings were as good as the lepers had said. They came, they saw and were satisfied and that day the words of Elisha were fulfilled, that a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria. The captain on whose hand the king leaned who doubted the LORD'S word through Elisha saw the abundance but ate none of it for the people trod upon him in the gate.

Here were messengers of peace and plenty. But who were they? Just four poor dying lepers faced with death whichever way they turned. They went where God had wrought salvation for His beleaguered and famine-stricken people. The salvation they found they told to others, of the abundance at no cost to themselves Such is God's way still, that those who realize that they are appointed to death (Hebrews, 9.27), should wisely face their latter end even as Moses said,

"Oh that they were wise that they understood this

That they would consider their latter end! " (Deuteronomy 32.29).

David said of such a wise man,

"Mark the perfect man and behold the upright:

For the latter end of that man is peace. ---

The latter end of the wicked shall be cut off" (Psalm 37.37,38)

Those who have been satisfied with Christ and are perfect through His work, are under the obligation to tell others as did the four poor lepers of old.

These were some of God's messengers of peace.

J. Miller, Ayr | Jun 1964
General