James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
2 Kings 20:19
PEACE AND TRUTH GOOD FOR US
‘And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?’
If war was, to a great extent, sanctioned and even commanded under the Old Testament, peace is the very base and end of the New. War, viewed from every side, is a terrible thing. War is the great demoraliser—in savaging the human mind, and feeding the worst passions of our nature. It is the very hotbed of cruelty and crime. War turns the most beautiful gardens of our world into wildernesses. War outrages the very Empire of the Prince of Peace, and is rebellion against the great Fatherhood of God over all His creatures. To inflict death to prevent death is the only valid cause, and legitimate cause, for any war that is in the world.
And when ‘peace’ departs, is it too much to say ‘truth’ follows in its wane? The envenomed atmosphere of war is very killing to all that is true. War is itself half made up of falsehoods. I do not wonder that the pious King of Judah united peace and truth and made ‘truth’ and ‘peace’ mutually each the cause of the other, and their union the source of a strange and secret mingling of happiness: ‘Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?’
I. See how ‘peace and truth’ combine to rule in the Kingdom of God.—The great problem was, how in such a world as this, so sinful and so rebellious, ‘peace’ could be compatible with ‘truth.’ For God had said, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die.’ ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’
How then could any man, seeing all are wicked, not die? or how could any man on the earth be at rest? God must be true and His own Word verified.
In His marvellous wisdom and grace, Christ solved the problem. He—infinite in His Deity, yet perfect Man—became all men’s substitute, so that when He died, all that were His died too. Therefore, in very fact, we have died, and God has kept His Word. And, therefore, ‘peace’ can have a universal reign without the infringement of one iota of the Father’s justice. Forgiveness is justice, and ‘peace’ is ‘truth.’
‘Peace’ and ‘truth’ thus blend in the mind and government of God.
II. So the great originals become the patterns which all governments and all minds are, as far as in them lies, faithfully to copy.—First in a man’s own soul. ‘Peace’ and ‘truth’ make God’s kingdom there. If ‘peace’ be not built on ‘truth’ it is baseless; it must fall. And ‘truth’ grows out of ‘peace’ as necessary as a flower grows from its root. Just as fear is the certain mother of cunning and deceit, so the mind at rest with God, and the ‘peace’ which flows, are the sure authors of all ‘truth.’
This is the genealogy of ‘peace.’ ‘Peace’ with God begets ‘peace’ with the conscience; ‘peace’ with the conscience begets ‘peace’ with all men.
And, equally, this is the history of ‘truth.’ Be ‘true’ with God and you will be ‘true’ with yourself; be true with yourself and you will be ‘true’ with your fellow-creatures.
III. Then let me earnestly beseech you to be quite sure that you are at ‘peace’ with God.—It is the keystone of life. How may I know it? And if I am not, how can I obtain it?
Accept your ‘peace’ as freely as it is offered—a pure, instant gift of God.
In this war there needs no mediation but that which is already made; no terms, but simple acceptance; no payment, where all is paid. The compact is all drawn out, and waits only for you to put the one seal of faith.
Then, having ‘peace,’ be true. If I had to mention what I think to be the great failure in the religion of most of us, I should say, Want of reality. There are so many things concurring in the present day to make religion unreal.
Whatever you are, be real. Take care that your religion is the same wherever you are; and, wherever you are, a very practical thing—words and acts accurately representing the mind. Love neither simulating what it is not nor dissimulating what it is, compromising and concealing its reality.
Use plain words. Pray real thoughts. Be what you seem, and seem what you are. And let this be the double stamp on everyday life—‘peace’ and ‘truth.’
War is dear at any time, and ‘peace’ is worth any price—short of righteousness—at which it may he attained.
But begin with the true beginning. First, be yourself a man of ‘peace’; a man of ‘truth’ with God and man; and then lay yourself out to extend everywhere what you have proved and found so exceeding good to your own soul.
Rev. Jas. Vaughan
Illustration
‘Many an answered prayer has brought a corresponding leanness of soul to the one who would not leave the decision restfully with God. When King Hezekiah was unwilling to be sick unto death, he pleaded earnestly for recovery; and when a favourable answer was given to his prayer the issue showed that his prolonged life was no added gain to his character or to his career of usefulness. Some who have said that they must recover from sickness are the losers by the answer to their prayers; while others, who would not thus choose for themselves, are the gainers through continuing in sickness. We may indeed shrink from the presumption of deciding unqualifiedly that it is best for ourselves or for our dear ones to be recovered of a sickness that seems unto death; and it is important for us to know that such presumption is inconsistent with true faith.’