Like this famous Megadeath album cover reads, “Peace sells but who is buying?” If there is one thing that history has taught us, it is that man’s attempts at peace don’t last. The history of the world is actually just a history of wars occasionally interrupted with temporary peace treaties that always end up being broken.
Why is this? Why can’t we all just get along? Like the famous song from War asks, “Why can’t we be friends?” Is international, permanent peace possible on this planet? If you are delusional or “a-few-fries-short-of-a-happy-meal”, you will probably answer “yes” (and no doubt with a fake, plastic-like Joel Osteen smile while answering). If, on the other hand, you are even remotely paying attention, you’d ask yourself, “What’s wrong with the world?!” Why all the hate, domestic violence, columbine-like shootings, thefts, robberies, rapes, suicide bombings, increasing suicides, depression, fathers locking daughters up in their basements as sex slaves, massacres, genocides….and the list goes on!!! Do you HONESTLY think the world is getting better and people are morally improving?! Get your head out of the sand!! As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We have guided missiles but misguided men.” And education is not the main answer. You are only teaching a thief how to be a better thief!
So what’s wrong with the world?! The answer is simple. I AM! YOU ARE! It’s easy to look at the world (others) and say, “Man! THAT’S screwed up!” and yet fail to look in the mirror and realize that you and I are pretty messed up ourselves and are capable (apart from the grace of God!) of some pretty heinous things! As Jesus said (and still says!) in Matthew 15:19: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:” So the answer from The Holy Bible is that man is sinful and wicked and can’t find peace with his neighbors because he doesn’t, first and foremost, have peace with God. Unregenerate man cannot live at peace with others. We need a NEW HEART! To be BORN AGAIN (John 3:3). Only then can there be peace and goodwill among men. Unfortunately, the enemy has blinded the eyes of most earth dwellers and as a result, there are many competing false world philosophes (Colossians 2:8) guaranteeing that the utopian ideal of a world at peace will never come as long as man is in control.
This is why peace can only come when The Prince of Peace, Jesus, returns. He is the only one in world history prophecied to come through virgin birth and fulfilled in the flesh; The only sinless man to walk the earth to bring us into the path of peace which is Himself (John 14:6). Every other man who has EVER lived in history was sinful and needs/ed a Saviour. The peace we need was accomplished on the cross. (Colossians 2:15) I STRONGLY believe that 2009 will be the year of the LORD’s coming for His church in the clouds (known as “the rapture”)-1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 before the 7 year tribulation period made famous by the book of Revelation. (More of that and the reasons in a future post, God willing.) After, Christ will return in wrath on an unbelieving, Christ-rejecting world. The ultimate question is “Are you prepared to meet your maker?” If you know the answer is “no” for you, why not make 2009 the year you are reconciled to God?! (2 Corinthians 5:10-21)
