These are troubled times. For some odd reason, even though we have achieved a standard of living never before known in history, having obtained that which was only hoped for by our ancestors, we have not found peace. On the contrary, we seem to have less peace than those who came before us. We are told that the reason their lives were filled with misery was because they didn’t have a nice home or a nice car, or a nice vacation. Their lives were filled with drudgery, disease and disappointment.

Now, we have plenty of paperwork jobs for women and men who find physical labor distasteful. We worry more about sexually transmitted disease than we do smallpox. We have vacations for everyone! When that fails to amuse us, we have lots of social technologists who direct us to meditation, medication, and Medicare. Now that we are approaching that brave new world where we are learning how to master the forces of nature, even the inner workings of the mind of man, are we at the threshold of finding inner peace, or are we just making things worse?

Life is miserable without inner peace. There is no need to belabor the point. Money can buy a lot of things, maybe even love, but it cannot buy inner peace. It may buy time or it may buy off bureaucrats, it may buy protection, but only for a while. It soon loses its power when we are dealing with inner peace. For every wave safely surfed, there are a million more waiting that can take us down. We suspect it and it is confirmed daily. The anxiety grows. Depression or despair are only some of the common symptoms of no inner peace. Feelings of guilt can hang over us even though we feel like we did nothing wrong. Or we may just give up on inner peace and seek pleasure in things that are twisted and destructive. We may spend a lot of time and money trying to prove we are right to assuage our evil conscience. But inner peace brings happiness as no outside comfort or pleasure can. Having said all that, is there a way to inner peace?

Of course, that is what psychiatry, philosophy, creeds, religion, and other such regimens are all about. They proffer solutions to, or escape from, an undesirable situation we call everyday life. Various ways of achieving peace are suggested or even commanded. One should go to doctor so-and-so and he knows the right drugs to give us. We ought to read all the sages and muse endlessly over their findings before we dare choose our course of happiness. One must live in a community ruled over by a beneficent monster ego. We must tithe and keep the Ten Commandments. One person feels that he just needs to "forgive himself"; another must perform acts of penitence, harming his body to atone for sin. Many just go to church to hear how God loves them no matter what. The list of ways man searches for peace fills the world until it seems there is an answer for everyone for anything, but there is no peace.

The "experts" know all the answers, but they are like shipbuilders who cannot build a ship that floats. They can build gigantic ocean-liners that have no hull to take the surf, and no engine, and no sails. Their "answers" do not get the ship out of dry dock onto the ocean of God's commerce. They are just sitting there, waiting untested, for the Big One, and they remain on shore, not seaworthy, full of ostentation and outfitted for entertainment, ready to capsize, and wholly sinkable. They chant "The ocean is our friend" over and over again, but they hate it and fear it. When reality sets in, and the tide comes up and over their decks, the wonderful non-seafaring vessels slide into the sea via the bottom, ending mockery and settling questions about correct shipbuilding.

When the soul has come to the place where it can no longer take it, it snaps. There are many souls who pride themselves that they can "take it." They spend their entire lives convincing themselves and others they are tough. They are tough. Their insides have become hardened. They have no peace, but they proclaim great peace with themselves and with others. That’s because they must prove it and if they say they have peace, that’s all the proof they need. They become very angry if you question their inner peace. They are the children of experts. They were brought up by the new thoughts coming from the new storytellers. But others, whose hearts have not become hardened, but merely overcome, become "mentally ill" and have to be put away. Perhaps their mental illness leads them to suicide, or murder. There are other forms losing control takes, but none of them are pretty to look at.

The civilized world is becoming full of people who are supposedly pursuing happiness, or peace, or love, or some such endeavor, but they are becoming more and more hostile and deceitful. They do not speak truth but cover up things with nice sounding buzzwords. They go to great lengths to convince themselves they are evolving, but their lives show degeneracy. This cannot be right, no matter how right or "nice" it seems up front. We assume the reader is sympathetic to the preceding, or else he would have stopped reading by now. If the foregoing pretty much sums up your experience, we feel your pain and we know what you’re going through. We are not experts, but we know the truth. Read on if you want deliverance.

If you want peace, you must go by the rules of peace. If you haven’t figured it out by now, most men care nothing for the rules of peace, even though they profess peace at any price. Look at Yasser Arafat who won the Nobel peace prize in 1994, and yet, the man is a terrorist and sympathetic towards violence. If he won the peace prize, then there can be no worldly rules of peace: somebody is lying to us. Most peace on this earth appears to involve a lot of lying, or as the shrinks call it, "denial." But this is false peace, at best. So, in order to obtain real peace we can say, rule number one for peace is: Stop lying to yourself, to others, and to God about peace. Confess at least to God your personal disregard for the rules of peace. If you can’t do this, then pride, a major cause of unrest and strife, will keep you in turmoil.

Rule number two: There is no peace for the wicked. Until we acknowledge this, there is no hope for us. In rejecting the idea that there are evil men and evil forces, and that we are party to them, we cut ourselves off from ever coming to any sort of treaty with goodness. We will be always stumbling around in confusion and uncertainty without this clear rule: There is no peace for the wicked. Peace can only come when all forces are reconciled, when all parties are satisfied, when all grievances resolved. That is why there can be no peace for those who won’t come to terms with the peace treaty. They may pretend to go along with the articles of peace, but they do so only to remain secretly wicked. Their just punishment is that they have no peace, no matter what remedy they apply, or how much denial they practice.

Rule number three: Peace is achievable only when the stronger party’s demands have been met. In a world of lies, we hear much about peace treaties not kept. We see a pretense of compromise between the strong and the weak, whereby the weak party has equal say-so in the terms of peace. This is a lie. If war ensues, the stronger party will eliminate, if necessary, the weaker party. Only when the weaker party has subjected itself to the terms put forth by the stronger, can peace be achieved. The wicked ones of the world say this is not right. They say that love can come without demands being met. They say that compromise can come between good and evil. There is no compromise, no "win-win," no mutually satisfactory terms between good and evil. The righteousness of God demands it.

Rule number four: In order for the demands of righteousness to be met, the wicked must be utterly destroyed. Fortunately for the human race, the stronger party in this contention between good and evil is good. He is love. Wickedness, although rampant throughout the earth, is the weaker of the two. Righteousness will triumph in the end. Wickedness will be utterly destroyed. Peace will come only when this happens. The world and its lies say this is just a pipe dream, or religious come-on, or just plain lies. Why wouldn’t the wicked call the truth a lie? Evil will be utterly destroyed some day.

But what about today? What about our lives right here and now on this present earth? We can have inner peace, even though everything about us is in turmoil and uncertainty. Our peace may not put us in some kind of reverie, the kind so sought after through drugs and thought control, but our peace will be genuine if we have settled with the stronger party. If we consider ourselves above this and we are convinced we can find inner peace through chanting, meditation, or medication, then we are just fooling ourselves and we will pay the price that denial costs. But we can have peace if we reconcile with the stronger party and on his terms.

The stronger party, God, has chosen the method for reconciliation. He has made the demands of peace hinge around one Point: The weaker party must completely give in. If the weaker party in his pride does not give in, God’s wrath hangs over that person until the day he dies. Everything he did will be accounted for on the Day of Judgment. The hanging point is this: Man is deserving of death according to the demands of the law. The terms of reconciliation can only be met by satisfaction of the law – that is, death to the lawbreakers. God himself has provided the payment by offering his own son, Jesus Christ, as full satisfaction for the terms of treaty. God has also assured us that by believing this, we can be fully reconciled. Peace is ours.

Dear Christian, if you are reading this and have no peace, realize that God is for you and not against you. Peace does not come easy when enemies and their lies surround you. Just because you call yourself a Christian and have memorized a few verses and go to church regularly, you may still be at war with God. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Search the scriptures, for you think that by giving a casual mental assent to some points made therein that you have eternal life, but remember Whom they testify of – Jesus Christ. He may have died for you on the cross, but he is also your judge. His grace is not to be taken lightly. Let us take Him very seriously, turn from our rank unbelief witnessed by our greed and anxiety, and find inner peace.

Do you suppose I came to bring peace on earth? No, but division. Luke 12:51.

My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, I give to you. John 14:27.

They superficially healed the wound of my people saying "Peace! Peace!" but there is no peace. Jer. 6:14.

Just as they are saying "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them. 1Thes. 5:3

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved completely and without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you , and He also will bring it to pass. 1 Thes. 5:23-24.

- Chris Simonson

We encourage you to email the author to prove or disprove, from the Scriptures, the intent, meaning, purpose or doctrine of this piece. email Chris