What the Bible says about Peace Peace when there is no Peace
(From Forerunner Commentary)
We could call Jeremiah 6:10-15 and I Thessalonians 5:1-3 “signs of the times” scriptures. They tell us that times of great crisis, particularly the coming day of the Lord, are often preceded by a concerted effort to minimize just how bad things are. We see this in the two phrases, “'Peace, peace' when there is no peace,” and “they say 'peace and safety,' and then sudden destruction comes.”
The Day of the Lord, which may be just a few years ahead, will seem from the outside like the world shifting from relative peace to total war in the blink of an eye. That is the way it will seem to unaware and non-Christians. In both cases—in Judah's day of the Lord and this coming Day of the Lord—the result is inescapable destruction.
What God brought upon Judah in Babylon, by the Chaldeans, affected everybody in Judah. The book of Lamentations shows how deeply it affected them. The same will happen with the coming Day of the Lord. It will affect not only all of Judah or even all of the church but every last person on earth. No one is going to escape.
These two prophecies go hand-in-hand. They are typically framed in the sense that “relative” peace reigns—that is, major martial conflict is absent. There is always war happening somewhere. But people have a way of saying, “Well, that there is war here and war there is not too bad. At least it's not affecting me. I am at peace.”
But there will be a definite time when that peace ends very suddenly, and the world will be plunged into war. That is how Jeremiah and Paul present it in these prophetic passages, and this is most scholars' primary interpretation of them.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Peacemakers
Many of our leaders are like those who proclaim, "Peace, peace! when there is no peace" (Jeremiah 8:11; 6:14; Ezekiel 13:10, 16). God speaks this to the prophets and priests - the leaders - of Israel and Judah who failed to warn the people about their backsliding and the coming punishment in the form of national invasion. This failure in leadership has been the norm in our Western nations for many decades now, and society has backslid just as Israel's did. And what do we have to look forward to? The same imminent punishment they expected - and received.
Since September 11, 2001 - and frankly since long before then - the Western and Islamic worlds have increasingly collided. These clashes have sometimes produced sparks, sometimes brushfires, and sometimes raging infernos, but always something fiery - even the words that fly from them are hot and angry.
At the base of this conflict is opposition, not just the fact that the West is one side and Islam is another, but also that at their most fundamental levels these two antagonists are polar opposites in nearly every respect. Due to this deep-seated difference, there is little hope of any individual or any nation bringing this conflict to a peaceful resolution.
As time progresses through the asymmetrical war that pitches these two major civilizations against each other, those of us here in the West are beginning to learn more about the Muslim mind. This is the best we can do; we can never hope to understand it because it is just too alien to us. It would be like a dog trying to fathom a cat's rationale. We can certainly try to understand why Muhammad's disciples act as they do, but we will never truly grasp the calculus of the Islamic mind. We may know what but never why to our satisfaction.
However, we have learned a few facts through tragic experience with Islamic fundamentalism. Generally, radical Muslim fundamentalists:
- believe Allah requires them to conquer the world and place it under Islamic law, called Shariah. In other words, jihad is a major component of their religion, and they will not stop until it is accomplished or they are dead. In fact, their latest thinking is that wherever Muslims build a mosque, Islam has de facto claimed the region for itself, and jihad will proceed there through whatever means necessary.
- cannot be taken at their word, as they will lie to non-Muslims with impunity to further jihad. Sadly, due to self-interest, most people in the West share this trait with them, making "constructive dialogue" a futile exercise.
- set a low value on human life, even their own, which they will seemingly gladly sacrifice in Allah's service.
- place no value on Western lives, as we are infidels. To them, killing a Westerner has the moral equivalence of stamping on a cockroach.
After 9-11, the Bush administration engaged in a public relations offensive to curry favor with the American Muslim community. The key message of that campaign was "Islam is a religion of peace," an idea that has correctly been maligned and lampooned ever since. Perhaps the promise of peace appears in the pages of the Koran, but only for adherents of Islam - and there is little evidence that even they have experienced it throughout Islam's 1,400-year existence. A brief examination of Muslim history shows a series of wars, infighting, and general mayhem ever since Muhammad sent his hordes out of the Arabian desert to slay the infidel.
Unfortunately, too many Americans - in fact, too many Westerners as a whole - fail to realize the life-and-death struggle in which our civilization is engaged. We are complacent, thinking nothing in this conflict affects our daily lives, and besides, the Islamofascists best efforts are only bee stings compared to the full might of Uncle Sam.
We forget that under the right circumstances, even bee stings can be fatal. Many more of us need to wake up to the fact that our societies have a relentless enemy who is full of pent-up hatred, motivated by religious fanaticism, and unfazed by the Western values of life, liberty, fair play, tolerance, and compassion. He spits on these as proofs of Western weakness.
Why, then, are we vulnerable to the attacks of radical Islamic fundamentalists? Because we are spiritually weak, blind, and complacent! We are retreating before the Islamic thrust into our nations because we do not have the internal fortitude to resist with force and conviction. Our leaders, political and spiritual, have led us down paths of liberalism and humanism, and we have blithely followed. We have come to the point in our downward spiral that we cannot even differentiate between peaceful and bellicose attitudes among our bitterest foes!
If fundamentalist Islam were a religion of peace, its adherents would behave peacefully. They do not. Their religion motivates them to kill themselves and others to advance Islam. Therefore, Islam is not a religion of peace but one of war and death. It is time we recognized this and turned to God for forgiveness for allowing ourselves, our cultures, and our civilization to descend into immorality, relativism, and spiritual lethargy. It is the only true way to avoid the coming conflagration and to find the way to real peace.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Peaceful Is as Peaceful Does
These verses actually repeat Jeremiah 23:19-20 almost word for word. This repetition is significant because Jeremiah 23 is a warning against false prophets. In particular, it is about men, claiming to speak for God, who tell the people—whose lives deny God—that, "The LORD has said, 'You shall have peace.'" These prophets say to the people, who were walking according to the dictates of their own hearts, "No evil will come upon you." In essence, they deny God's justice, and the fact that sin has consequences. They are telling the people not to worry about God's judgment upon them—everything would be fine; no change of course would be necessary.
However, the people, in reality, have declared war on God and His way of life through the conduct of their own lives. Whether or not they realize it, their carnal minds hold great enmity for God's way of doing things. They can never have peace with God until they repent and change.
God always desires peace, but if the sinning party is unwilling to face reality and repent, then His response will be a painful one. There will be peace with God only when the sinner is broken and submits to God. Yet, the false prophets insinuate that God does not care and that it does not matter how one lives. Nevertheless, these verses show that God destroys those who promote the idea that sin does not have consequences, who say God's justice is of little concern. These ideas keep getting Israel—indeed, all of mankind—into trouble.
The symbol of the whirlwind, then, represents God's fury and anger. Just as no man can control or divert a tornado or hurricane, so God's anger at the sin of the wicked cannot be resisted. It will continue until He has performed the intents of His heart. In the latter days, which we are in, God says we will consider it, meaning that Israel and Judah have not yet learned this lesson. However, when that chastening is over, Israel and Judah will be restored to the land, and, more importantly, they will be reconciled to God and able to live in peace.
David C. Grabbe
The Second Exodus (Part Two)Related Topics: False Prophet | God's Anger | God's Wrath | Peace | Peace Peace when there is no Peace | Repentance | Whirlwind, Symbol of God's Fury and Anger
These verses lead into Christ's teaching on false prophets. From its context, it appears that Jesus says that false ministers will neither acknowledge or teach the narrow way that leads to life, the narrow way that leads to persecution. Instead, they will do just what God shows the Old Testament false prophets did: They will teach "peace, peace"—the smooth, easy, and broad way.
In other words, they will teach that Christians need make no sacrifices in their obedience to God. It is so interesting that, in the last few years in the church, so many things have been liberalized. Are we getting away from the straight and the narrow, the difficult and the sacrificial way?
John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 2)