Psalm 122:7 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.
8 For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.
9 Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good.
Peace is something that man has longed for since the fall. Adam and Eve tried to manufacture peace by sewing themselves fig leaves. When they heard the voice of God in the Garden they tried to hide themselves. They knew they were not at peace with God and they assumed they could avoid God. They discovered that there is no hiding from God.
God needed to deal with their sin, and part of that was providing coats of skin for their covering. Those coats cost the lives of the animals that were killed in order to harvest the skins. The blood of those animals was an atonement for Adam and Eve’s sins. The coats were a picture of that covering. Jesus Christ came later on to shed His blood to take away sin. Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden and prevented access to the tree of Life from that day forward.
Cain and Abel desired peace as well. Abel knew how to receive that peace, but Cain chose to reject the truth. He was a troubled man who hated his brother and killed him. He lied to God but that did not work. He finished his life as a marked man without the peace of God.
At the time of king David, Israel enjoyed relative peace. The Philistines learned that they could not win against king David and his army. David’s greatest enemy was himself. He lusted after women and went so far as to commit adultery with another man’s wife. He also committed murder to try to cover up the adultery. He caused himself much trouble but his sin also affected his family.
When king Solomon took the throne, he had peace in the land for a few short years. However, he too suffered from the sin of lust. He had many wives and they turned his heart away from the Lord. Eventually there were enemies within Israel and outside of Israel that caused him much grief.
We could go on, but the point is that peace is only possible when God rules.
Our country is struggling to find peace as well. The P.M. suggests that he knows how to make peace. His suggestion is for people to blindly follow his lies and just trust him to fix all our problems. He has brought about many of the problems this nation is facing and he has no intention of changing course.
His climate change hoax is just that. The president of Guyana recently put a reporter in his place. Guyana has not accepted the lies being promoted by the left. They are using fossil fuels. The reporter tried to put him on a guilt trip, but the president would have none of it.
The worship of ‘mother nature’ will never bring peace. There is no ‘mother nature’ and the Bible shows us the disastrous results of any nation that chose a false god over the true God. Israel is still suffering today because they forsook the true God and chose the false gods of the nations around them. They have not learned the important lesson from this yet. They will one day. King David wanted Jerusalem to know God’s peace. He wrote those words under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. At the beginning of the Millennium, there will be peace within the walls of Jerusalem. When the Lord destroys this old cursed world and creates new heavens and a new earth peace will rule in its fulness.
In our text, David continued to write about the importance of peace within the walls of Jerusalem. David had trouble with his son Absalom and with his son Amnon. Joab, his army commander was also a challenge for king David. He desired peace within the walls of Jerusalem, and he knew how to have that peace, but he had trouble maintaining that peace due to his fleshly desires.
Jerusalem is certainly not a place of peace today. The U.S. is interfering in the politics of that country and trying to find a way to overthrow the current government. They may succeed but if they do, it will not benefit Israel nor the U.S.
Israel also enjoyed a large measure of prosperity within its palaces in the days of David and Solomon. Solomon’s palace is described to a certain degree. Money was no object to him. However, he taxed the people so heavily that at his death the people desired relief from the huge tax burden they were under. Rehoboam was not a very wise king and did not listen to the wise counsel of his older counsellors. The nation of Israel was split due to his foolishness. We know that God had warned Solomon that the kingdom would be split after his death. The way it was split was not a surprise to God. God knew the heart of Rehoboam and thus the split would happen. Jeroboam was not a wise man either and he squandered the good will of God very quickly as the king of the newly developed northern kingdom.
The lesson we need to learn is that peace is an illusive dream when God is not in charge.
King David did not just want peace for himself. He wanted his fellow brethren to know God’s peace as well. God’s peace is important for all people.
King David understood that the only way there could be peace, would be through God’s hand. He understood the central part that the house of the LORD needed to have in the city. David was directed to begin this Psalm with the house of the LORD. He saw the benefit of having that house in Jerusalem. He was directed to end this Psalm with the conclusion that it was because of the house of the LORD that good would come upon them.
David was resolved to seek the good of the LORD. That was a wise decision for him to make. That is still a wise decision for each person to make. If the LORD is not central in your life, you will not know His peace. You may manufacture a pseudo peace and as long as those close to you are willing to play along with you, you may find some measure of peace. However it will not be a lasting peace. You will find an erosion of those things that are necessary for God’s peace to rule.
Jesus Christ told His disciples:
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Jesus was preparing His disciples for His departure. He had already promised them a home in heaven. He had also told them that He was the way, the truth and the life. No one would ever be able to come to God the Father if they rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. That referred to the majority of the Jews alive at that time. They rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.
However, Jesus was offering this unusual, but necessary peace to the eleven. Judas had already left them and he did not have this needed peace. His life would continue to spiral out of control until he would go and hang himself. His was a tragic end.
Every person has the opportunity to know the peace of God in their heart. We cannot control others, but we can know God’s peace personally. That peace comes through knowing the true God and walking humbly with Him. It is truly a blessing to know the peace of God in our hearts. As we noted yesterday, it is important for those who are saved, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Jealousy and hatred toward that nation will never bring peace. A two state solution will not bring peace there either. There will never be peace there until the Lord Jesus Christ rules in the hearts of the people.
That is a picture of the fact that no individual, Jew or Gentile, can be at peace with God until and unless they first of all know Him as their true God. When that is in place, then it is important to learn how to walk humbly and obediently with the Lord. There is no alternate way. Thousands have tried to develop some other way, but all have failed. God’s way alone works. Follow His way and be blessed in Him.
Pastor Bartel
