The Beauty and Peace of God’s Laws

We are not saved by keeping God’s Law. That’s because none of us could ever keep it perfectly, and to break one law is to break them all. That’s why we needed a Saviour who kept the Law perfectly for us and then took the full brunt of God’s wrath against sin in our place. What a miracle salvation is! Praise the Lord.

What I’m writing about today is how true the Scriptures are, and how every time you watch the local news, the truth of God’s Word is confirmed. On Friday, a 39-year-old wife, expecting her third child, was driving home from school with her two children and one of their friends. This took place in Oconomowoc, a town ten minutes away from me. While she sat at a stoplight that had just turned green, a Cadillac Escalade SUV hit her so hard from behind that the vehicle landed on top of the car, pancaking it. The woman and her unborn baby died, so did her 4th grade daughter later at a hospital. Her son escaped harm, but the other child is fighting for life at Children’s Hospital. The driver of the Cadillac? A former, prominent surgeon, 55-years-old who had lost his physicians license two years ago for writing his own drug prescriptions. He had had his license revoked on Wednesday. This lawless individual took three lives so far and devastated many others, including her husband and 12-year-old son.

Think about how one man’s chain of sinful decisions have hurt so very many people. His rejection of authority in his life denuded himself of his medical license, hurting his own family, and then the ultimate act of lawlessness, to drive without a license while under the influence. This is the biblical definition of a fool.

This same man could have had a long and wonderful career of helping others with his surgeon’s skill. He could have had the respect and love of his family. He could have spent his life enjoying not only the material blessings of his medical profession but the regard of all of his colleagues and patients. He could have been the doctor healing the damage for those in accidents instead of taking the lives of innocent people and injuring little children. God’s ways are pure, clean and life-giving. It is only the enemy who comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

I thought of this again today while reading an article in the London Telegraph. People are lying awake at night in extreme anxiety in that country (and ours) because of their financial decisions to go into debt. The party is over for those living above their means and the ugly reality that people have bankrupted themselves to live lifestyles they could not afford is hitting home. Doctors are having to prescribe anti-anxiety, anti-depression medication to dull the effect of the consequences in people’s lives. When I read all the warnings in Scripture about greed, about lust and covetousness, about the dangers of debt, it makes me realize once again how Scripture contains the prescription for peace at night. Live within your means. Be content with those things that you have. Don’t envy others. Don’t be greedy. All of those things are taught in Scripture. We ignore those teachings to our own peril.

God’s ways are the ways of peace. There’s a hymn with these lines in it. It is one of my all time favorites. Note the emboldened words. “And let our ordered lives confess, the beauty of Thy peace”. The times I have been the least peaceful have been mostly times of my own making, times when I ignored the instructions of God’s Word. God’s Word is true. We need to believe that and with God’s help, obey it, knowing that God’s peace is found there.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!

Here’s the hymn being sung.