Peace

Good morning, everyone! Good to see everybody here. Mr. Myers contacted me this week, said in a semi-mysterious way, he said, would you like to trade places for speaking from May 11th to today? And I'm just such a good sport, you know. He wanted both Mr. Fentral this afternoon and myself to trade places with him, and I'm just getting afraid to say no. So I just said, okay, I will, and so I'm here. Anyway, I whole appreciated the special music. I appreciate music that praises God in that way. Last Sabbath, in fact, this past week, we had one of our area conferences, and this one was in the northwest, and we held in the Portland, Oregon area, actually in the city of Vancouver, Washington, which is across the river. And we had more than 40 of us ministers, elders, and their wives, and just had wonderful parts of three-days meetings. This was the first area conference that they have had there since 2007, and it was just like a family reunion. It's a very strong area, not a single elder, not a single pastor, I should say, left, and so the congregations are far more stable than they are in other parts of the country where the minister was not faithful. But we have been, we just really appreciated very, very much the time that we had, the socializing, and so forth. But I wanted to tell you a little bit about Last Sabbath. Last Sabbath, I went to services at one of the Sabbatarian churches of the Ukrainians, actually Ukrainians and Russians, and I had been in contact with and have traveled many times to Ukraine and have met with Sabbatarians going back to 1992. And I've written all about that and so forth, but I have never really gone, well, this is the second time that I've actually gone to Portland to one of their services. And the first group I went to was called churches. Their names are a little bit convoluted sounding. This is Christian Churches of the Seventh Day. And this is a group that I hadn't even really heard of before, but they were following us on the internet and they said, we have researched you very, very well. I said, okay. And sometime back, about two years ago, they said, we want to do something for your church. We want to do something for your people. And they said that because you have done so many good things in Ukraine in helping Sabbatarians over there, we want to do something nice for you in Africa. I said, well, that's very fine. That's very kind of you. And so what they did was provide money, about $7,000, to put a borehole in Zambia in a very, very difficult spot. A spot that we wanted to put a well in or had been getting requests to put a well in for our members for more than 12 years, ever since the year 2000. And it's an area where they had drilled before, they hadn't been able to find water, the ground is very hard, the water table is very low, and so we never really took. But we decided, let's take a chance. Here's the money being provided, and a rig was sent out. Believe me, it's extremely remote. And they found water just within a few hours. And our brother rejoiced. In fact, they had the whole community surround the well project, and the water was struck. The whole group just cheered. It was very, very exciting, as we were told.

But in any event, we went, they said, please come to our services. So we had services at, I believe, 11 o'clock last Sabbath. And they said they don't drive to church, they walk. And they have 800 people in their church. But they had three different services on the Sabbath because they couldn't accommodate 800 people in one service.

So we went to the one service, which was in a building that they bought, which was an ex-racketball health club.

And they said that they really weren't licensed to have a church service there. But they were licensed to be a Bible school. So for part of the service, they had kind of like a Q&A, like a lecture thing to make it a class. But there were services on either side of that, you know, with songs and so forth. Anyway, I said that we had to drive because we were 15 miles away. They said, oh, that's fine, you're doing God's work. So our little vehicle was the only one in the parking lot. And, you know, people came to services. And they told me that I could speak in English because they would, a lot of the people speak English, they said.

And then once I got there, of course, my wife was there, too, Bev, who doesn't speak Ukrainian. And I had another member, Kalin Hofer, who is of Ukrainian descent. And they said, well, for their benefit, perhaps, you know, you can speak in English. Well, when I got there, the translation thing got mixed up. Oh, that's, you know, we speak in Ukrainian. They said, Brother Victor, speak in Ukrainian. So I gave my sermon in Ukrainian last Sabbath and talked about who we were, talked about our commonality of belief in the Sabbath.

This group is beginning to understand the Holy Days, and we brought a sample of much of our Russian literature over there. Natasha Teague has been overseeing the translation of some of that material, some of the good newses that we have had translated into Russian. I brought all that over there. So anyway, a pastor of Vladimir had me sitting up front.

And part of the service, during one of the parts of the service, they had little children come up. I mean, children like from 8 to 12, I would guess, who came up and recited the Psalms. There was about five or so. And each one had a number of verses from different Psalms.

It was very, very sweet and very wonderful. It involved the church. They had special music, you know, a couple of times through the, well, only about once, I think, through the service. And they had an opening and closing prayer on each end of the service. Actually, in many ways, very, very similar to what we have as our service. And then there were two other sermons.

I spoke about 20-25 minutes, and the other two speakers spoke about 20-25 minutes each. And then there was this Bible study segment that was in the middle of the service. After services, we went over to the pastor's nephew's home, which is a beautiful home. The Sabbatarians that have come from Ukraine, most of them, most of the men have been involved in the building trades. And they really know how to build things and finish things off very beautifully.

This home was just gorgeous. And so we went there with a couple other families, and then two other pastors came over. And we spent the entire afternoon talking about our beliefs, about the Holy Days and why we observe them the way we do. And we're finding out, even now, that some of the flaws they have in understanding the Holy Days, which really is a stumbling block. Because some of them that are keeping the Holy Days are calling the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah and the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. Now, which I say, we don't call that this for us. I mean, that's the way the Jews refer to those days that we keep commonly.

But for us, we turn to the Book of Leviticus. You don't find those terms there. Leviticus 23. You know, it's the Feast of Trumpets, it's the Day of Atonement, it's the Feast of Tabernacle, not Sukkot, you know, or the word that they use for Pentecost. But we had very, very good discussion. We talked about marriage and divorce. You know, as more of their families, the churches get bigger, you know, inevitably somebody will get a divorce.

And they talked about some of the technicalities we have in understanding binding and unbinding marriages. And we talked about a lot of other doctrines as well. So they have three groups that total 800 people, all within walking distances of even one another, that meet on the Sabbath day. Then in the evening we went to another church. And actually I did not go to the service because it would have been another two-hour, two-and-a-half-hour service. And we pretty much, you know, I had enough, you know, pretty much for the day. And however, I did meet with a pastor who I've had been in contact with for about 14 years now.

His name is David Klassen, who is from Tajikistan. And interestingly enough, in both of these churches there are people from Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, from Siberia, from Eastern Europe and other countries as well.

And it was just fascinating to see them all come together and worship God as commonality of Sabbatarians. So this hall is called the Home of God Church has about a thousand members. This is another Sabbatarian group, completely different. And actually it's the one that we have worked with most. And they have a thousand members, but about 600 meet on the Portland side. And they just built a brand new building on the Vancouver side, a gorgeous building that seats 700 people, has a big reception hall.

And again, beautiful worksmanship in stone and wood that they have made for their church. So I met with those people. Then on Tuesday night I met with the leaders of that church this last week, their treasurer. And we had a very, very good evening, again, talked about the Holy Days.

This second church is a little bit more resistant to the Holy Days. I've talked to them a lot about the Holy Days. In fact, they started believing that they should be kept after I gave a sermon in Ukraine in 2006. It was right after the Day of Pentecost. And I basically gave my Pentecost sermon that I gave in the U.S. the next week in Ukraine. And I spoke about the fact that the church, that Christ's church was not started really on a Sabbath. It was started on a Holy Day. It was started on the Feast of Pentecost, which can never fall on a weekly Sabbath.

And talked about how the Holy Days, all of them, starting with the Passover Days of 11 Bread Season, are all about Christ and events that lead to Christ. The establishment of the church is all about Christ. The Feast of Trumpets, which are a little bit fuzzier to them as you get out to the latter Holy Days. Talk about the return of Christ, about the Kingdom of God on the earth and so forth.

And I just talked about how they all are about Christ, and they are not Jewish. And one of the fears and one of the phenomenon that has occurred with some who have adopted the Holy Days, that they adopt Judaism kind of as a package deal. The men start wearing long sideburns and black caps to services, and they don't want that. You know, the people are scared to death of not becoming Christian.

They say, we want Christ. And I say, well, you've got Christ. That's what the Holy Days are about. They picture Jesus Christ from personal reconciliation with Him to His rulership on the earth. So the second church actually has what they call a church within a church. The pastor has allowed this contingent group of Holy Day keepers to keep the Holy Days.

And he said he doesn't really like them himself, but he allows for it. And they've developed a philosophy of the Gamaliel philosophy. If it's of God, it'll stand. If it won't, it'll collapse. So he says of this church of 600, about 100 of those people keep the Holy Days. And he showed me the special program. And these are people that I've known for a long time. So it was a very wonderful weekend of visiting with these people. We had been sending literature to some of these people, and then I said, well, where is so-and-so?

They said, oh, he's yet part of another group that I hadn't even heard about. So there's still another group. And then one of the sons of the treasury says his son married a Moldovan girl. And he said that's yet another Sabbatarian church.

Now in Portland, there are 80,000 Russians. Russian is probably the second most spoken language in Portland. There are two full Russian AM radio stations. They're continually going. One is the Sabbatarian station and one is the Pentecostal station. And they just go all day long with discussion, calling, program, and everything. And when my wife and I were walking down the street from that one church for lunch, she said, are we in Portland? Are we in the U.S.? Are we back in Ukraine?

Because down the street, there are people walking back and forth. They're walking out of services. It's just like this group here, just walking down the hill. All together, they're all speaking Ukrainian and they're speaking Russian. And you see, are we really in the United States? And then there was another person walking our direction. And the pastor who I was standing next to, he says hello to him in Russian and so forth. And the pastor says, well, he's really from Transcarpathia.

He says, is he part of this group? And he says, oh, no, no, he's something else. The person overheard him and said, yes, I am. I'm part of everything here. Just a commonality of spirit. And it's interesting as far as unity and doctrinal unity that they practice.

I'm not saying it's perfect because we want to make sure that we have everything exactly correct and that doctrinal deviancy is looked with suspicion, which it should be. And we have our fundamentals of belief and we hold to them. These people, because of the way that they operated under the USSR pre-1991, had to operate very, very loosely and they had to stick together.

They weren't allowed to meet. They weren't allowed to own Bibles and so forth. And the only public meeting that was allowed was a wedding. So whenever anybody got married, about two, three thousand of them got together and they stayed for a whole week. I mean, that's the only way that they could assemble. They would just talk and have quasi-services and so forth, all as part of this wedding feast. But he said that they tried to, when they have a new direction from God, and one of the biggest was the Sabbath itself, which came to these people in 1947.

This is back yet under Stalin. And he said it didn't come just all of a sudden to where the whole church just converted and people became Sabbath keepers. It came one by one. It came with little pockets of people. And so that's the process that they have adopted to look at the Holy Days, where they have a church where part of the church observes the Holy Days. The others either are resistant to them or are ignorant of them. But they said we really want to stay together, so we don't want to divide over doctrine.

You know, we don't want to divide over doctrine. So it was just very interesting to see their philosophy and how they operate. I don't think we'll ever get everything done just right, because one group dabbles a little bit in speaking in tongues. The other one is resistant to them completely, which we felt were comfortable with. But we got together with both groups and talked to them. This has been just a very, very interesting experience, and I have been very much involved in it since 1991, when some of these Sabbatarians landed in the U.S.

and attended our services at that time. And that's how I got to know them. Okay, that's my introduction. I thought that you might want to hear about that. But what I want to talk about today is the subject of peace. Everybody wants peace. You want peace. You want everything from peace of mind to peace with your mate, to peace with your kids, to peace with your parents, to peace with your boss.

You just plain want peace. People will pay a counselor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, big money for peace of mind. I just am troubled. I want to be at peace. Please help me. People will join peace movements to have peace. People will join a church for peace. People will go to war for peace. This is a just war in order to protect and maintain world peace. People will willingly believe lies in order to have a sensation of peace. At Christmas time every year, the biggest slogan that you probably see is, Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards men.

It doesn't really affect. Probably less peace at that time than any other time. It's a nice platitude, but certainly not something that's practiced. Religious leaders proclaim peace. Politicians campaign on a platform of peace, of national security. I campaign to be the president of the United States because I am the one that will guarantee peace. Or I'm not going to be a hawk like this one here, who wants to go to war, or wants to provoke things in the Middle East.

I will negotiate, whatever. I remember so well, back when I was still in high school, the election between Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson. Barry Goldwater was the hawk. He's the one who wanted to go into Vietnam, and he wanted to aggressively win the war. Lyndon Johnson is the one who wanted to stay out of the war. Lyndon Johnson won on that platform, but he got a half a million American troops mired down in a very, very costly and divisive war in Vietnam.

We live in a world where peace is elusive. It's like an illusion. It's like when, just a couple days ago, it was a very warm day that you see down the highway, it looks like there's water down the road, maybe a quarter mile ahead or so. And you get closer to it, and it vanishes. And that's the way peace is. People want it, they kind of see it, it's an illusion, but they can't seem to ever get to it, and it just vanishes away.

The history of our nations is usually a chronicle of wars. When I was in eighth grade, our history teacher told our class, I remember so well, I want you all on a sheet of paper to write the history of the United States. Write down the main events that have happened in the United States. Almost every single one of us started with the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, with the Civil War. It was all wrapped around the wars that this country has.

And if you study the history of any nation, its history is all wrapped up around wars. My wife and I have been listening to E-verse on the Bible as kind of our morning Bible studies. We actually have wanted to hear the books of the Bible. And it's actually been discouraging as we have gone through some of the Pentateuch and Joshua and Judges, for example. They're just books of violence, they're just horrible things. And I sometimes even say, why in the world is this all here?

And the only rational thing that I have to explain that is that God wants to show us what mankind has brought upon Himself and the horror of it and the waste of it and the heartbreak of conflict and war. Because Jesus Christ's ministry is that one of peace, as we will be looking into this.

But the biblical chronology is a book of a lot of violence. You would think that if man wanted peace so badly, which probably if he were to go down the street and ask the man on the street, you know, what is it that he wants for himself and his family? He would probably say that he wants to have peace of mind and peace in some form or another. And you would think that if mankind wanted peace so much that he would find a way to do it. He seems to find a way to do anything else. Some of the great engineering marvels of the world, like the tunnel between France and Britain. Mankind has been wanting for years to do that, but he finally figured out a way to do it and put in that very, very dramatic tunnel. He wants to send a man to the moon. He's done it. You would think that mankind would develop some kind of an app, you know, for peace. You know, something that would... Here, we found a way. Here's how to do it. It seems so close, so near, so desired, but so elusive. And what he does is a thing that he really doesn't want to do. And we live in a world that suffers the consequences of it, and something that will require the direct intervention of Jesus Christ, because mankind would ultimately destroy himself in ultimate war if it wasn't for Jesus Christ's return. And those of us who are Christians, we're on the edge ourselves. What kind of a history do we have of living at peace with one another, living by rules and concepts of those factors, and things that will guarantee peace? Oh, yes, I think that many of us, you know, have certain values where we stay peaceful and live peaceably with one another. But generally, even as a church, we have had our heartbreak and misery since the start of the church, or the start of United, whatever. We have had very, very... a lack of success.

In Romans chapter 3 and verse 17, the Apostle Paul is quoting Isaiah chapter 59 and verse 8. Romans chapter 3 and verse 17. And this is such a true statement about the fact of where we are, and maybe where we all are, unless we really dig in on how to find a way to make this work. The way of peace, they have not known. They just don't know how to get it together to have peace, to maintain peace, to keep peace, to spread peace to another generation. One generation after another repeats the mistakes of the generation before. And even with World War I and World War II, where statements of, never again, we'll never do this ever, ever again, but happen in World War I, it happened all over again, just another 20 years later, even worse. And I'm convinced that we probably would have had a war a lot sooner, some type of world war, if it wasn't the deterrent of the fact that everybody knows that the next war is the last one. I mean, when nuclear weapons start flying between nations, or if certain nations start nuclear war, others get on the bandwagon, it's curtains. The anniversary of Chernobyl was celebrated again yesterday. Here we have just a relatively minor, it was a big accident, you know, nuclear top blowing off a reactor that has had its effects on a couple of generations now. What would happen if India and Pakistan were to unleash nuclear weapons against another, one another, which they are poised to do? And they know that in the initial attack, 15 million people will burn to death. They know that. And believe me, that's going to upset the environment of the entire world, just a war that we don't even know about, don't want to hear about, and, you know, are not interested in. Or what about that strange leader in North Korea? You know, if he gets, you know, his way, if he slips a bomb somewhere and explodes some type of nuclear weapon, even in his own land or country. And what would the effects of that be? The next exchange, the next war, is the last one. In fact, it's the reason for the kingdom of God coming to this earth, at least a timing of the kingdom coming, because this world cannot sustain a nuclear world war.

It will be destructive environmentally. It will be destructive in every conceivable way, where nobody will win. The way of peace, they do not know. Wars have engendered a tremendous amount of misery.

I'm the product of war. My parents were refugees, surviving refugees who lived in Germany during World War II, who lived, my mother, in a work camp, and my dad in a work camp, and later a concentration camp, the last months of the war. And they survived, where many of their friends didn't. And I was born in a United Nations refugee camp. I'm just plain lucky to be a survivor. There's lots of people like me who never made it, never have a story to tell.

I've always been fascinated by human stupidity in the inability to resolve conflict. And I've asked myself, why can't people really figure this out? And one of the wars that in particular has fascinated me has been World War I, because it was the last of the big land battle wars of frontal assaults and huge carnage among soldiers. And when we went to the feast in 1986, I believe it was, in Europe, we actually went to Brno in Czechoslovakia.

We went to France. We went to Eastern France, where some of the battle lines and battlefields were solid for a couple of years, where some of the great battles, like the Battle of the Somme and Verdun, were fought, that casualties mounted in the millions. It was a terrible war for the average soldier. We went to Verdun, and actually there's a village called Fleury, where they have one cemetery.

This is one French cemetery with 175,000 grave markers, crosses. I mean, they stretch as far as you can see. You can't see the end of them. That's just the French ones. There's 165,000 German ones as well. And they're kind of interspersed in little cemeteries here and there. You kind of look at that and say, this is just one battle in World War I.

We walked through one of the museums, which I thought was very interesting, because it was actually a real trench that you had sliced through the middle, and all things were in it just the way they were in the times of the Battle of Verdun.

We walked right by it to see the men, see the mud, see how they lived, you know, and so forth. It was grotesque. And here you have French Catholics, you've got German Catholics. They're all praying to the same God, they think, and they all are asking God to vindicate their righteous cause.

In the meantime, they're killing one another. It is insanity. It is mental illness. And the human race basically is mentally ill when it comes to conflict. It just doesn't know what to do. It's like a deer caught in the headlights. They just don't know what to do as far as how to resolve conflict. One thing that was very interesting to us is that Bev's uncle, Edwin, was killed in one of the battles.

He actually turned out to be the Battle of the Argonne in France. And we didn't know which cemetery he was in, but it was not too far away from Verdun, and we saw an entrance to the American cemetery. And so we thought we'd go in there and see if Edwin Scogin was registered. And sure enough, the keeper of the books there at the cemetery opened a big book, and sure enough, that was the cemetery that he was in. He said, if you're lucky, there are 45 American military cemeteries in France, from up north, from D-Day all the way down to the World War I cemeteries.

And so we went right up to his grave, and we found that there was somebody else from the family that signed in decades ago or sometime back, but we went to see his grave. And we saw one of his grave right next to just one after another after another. They're all killed the last two months of World War I, virtually all on the same day, you know, this one particular cemetery from one battle. And you say, how do people who consider themselves to be civilized treat one another this way?

And I have a further question. How do we as Christians, you know, I thought the sermonette was so excellent that talks about insane things that people say that engender strife and conflict and hatred and division and so forth. And while we haven't killed each other in the conflicts that we've had in the Church, we have destroyed family relationships, we have destroyed churches, we have destroyed our mission and have set ourselves back.

Can't we do better than that? Is there a way out? Being from a Soviet culture and my parents who came from the USSR, it is just astounding what the people on that side of the world have gone through. And you wouldn't, I'm not even going to cover what the Chinese have gone through. Losses in the tens of millions, like the wars between the Japanese and Chinese that ended up in tens of millions of people killed. But the Soviet people lost 30 million people in World War II.

That is 60 times as many as were lost in the United States. 60 times, a factor of 60 times. Those who went into the Soviet army at age 19, only one in a hundred returned. It was an absolute slaughter of a nation and of a people. One thing about the Soviets, they don't respect, they don't love their people really while they're living, but they sure have a lot of respect for them when they're dead.

And we were just amazed as to the massive cemeteries that the Soviets had. A huge cemetery on Mamyev Hill in Stalingrad, where the Russians had a cemetery for 1.5 million who died there. In Kharkov, the city where my mother was from, or near where she was from, we found an interesting cemetery, because here's a cemetery with all these stones and everything, and you look on each stone, and each stone represented 14,000 dead.

Not one, but 14,000. Four stones would have equaled what we lost in Vietnam. Anyway, enough of that. We can talk about the horrors of war, and I just shrivel, and just wonder why do people shoot at each other and destroy each other, people who, at another moment, can just rationally talk and play games and play a soccer game, and have discussion and trade literature, but then they have episodes where they kill each other.

And you say, isn't this insane that you would destroy somebody else's life, that you would destroy somebody else's property? This is insane. It's interesting, too, that the sign for the end of this age, one of the signs for the end of this age is found in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5 and verse 3.

And it's like a practical joke, that one of the signs of this world about to blow up is the fact that there will be some kind of peace. There will be some kind of illusionary aspect of peace that will erupt. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 1, with Apostle Paul in one of the prophetic epistles that he has. Paul didn't prophesy too many things. That's pretty much left to John in the book of Revelation, but he does talk about prophetic things about the man of sin.

He talks about things before Christ's return. And it's interesting what he says. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5 and verse 1, Concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in a night. For when they say peace and safety, when there will be some type of pronouncement by East and West, when the president of Iran, the president of the United States, and the Europeans do a high five, when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape.

So it's interesting that when we look for horrible wars and things before the end of time, the thing to really look for is peace, because just when that time, that we finally got it together, we finally have all these nations, or all these key leaders that have really seen the light. We see the Jews and the Iranians that are happy again. People who have hated each other intensely now all of a sudden recognize each other.

And believe me, that hatred runs deep. We had a speaker one time for a Rotary Club in Indianapolis, and Indianapolis is a city where one of the oldest map makers in the United States has their business, and he was the vice president of this company.

And they do all kinds of special orders for people all around the world. They do upside down globes for the Australians, you know, and he said one interesting thing they have, though, is that they have orders for Middle Eastern maps from like Saudi Arabia and other countries, and they don't want Israel on the map. It doesn't exist. In fact, they want to make sure that when that globe or that map is shipped, that it doesn't go through any Israeli port, anywhere near. I mean, this is how they feel about those people. They are nothing. They are not worthy of anything. They don't exist as a people.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness. This is what I say to all of us, so that this day should overtake you as a thief, you know, where it catches you unexpectedly.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep for six, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

This is a grim reminder of the fact that the last haha of this world will be that it will pretend it's at peace before everything happens.

Well, what can we do? We can sit here and lament about the fact that we don't have world peace. We can say, well, what's the use? You know, kind of dig into our own shell, say whatever will be, let God's will be done. Is there anything that I can do? Can I be a better me? Just as a starter. Now, what can I do? General Douglas MacArthur made a statement in a speech.

I believe it was to the United Nations after World War II. A statement that's been oft quoted by us, not in some time. But he talked about the fact that war must be stopped. And of course, he was very well aware of the fact that nuclear weaponry changed the playing field completely, because he had just seen two atomic bombs drop on the Japanese people that destroyed 300,000 people, more than 300,000 people, on two bombings. And he said, and this is such a true statement, it must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

He said this concerning peace and the survival of mankind. The answer is not found in physical thinking. It must be of a spirit, which he probably didn't fully understand the complete gravity of what he said, because that is absolutely true. And indeed, this is where we must look. We must look in ourselves, in our church, in our outlook to others.

Peace is of the spirit. In Galatians 5, verse 22, where we read about the fruits of the spirit. These are the outcomes of somebody who is practicing and exercising the spirit of God. These are the things that are the outcomes. Number one, love and joy. Loving and just being joyful. But thirdly, the third fruit of the spirit is peace. It is something which is generated by the spirit of God, along with patience, kindness, goodness, and the other fruits of the spirit that are found.

Peace is not rooted in negotiations, in treaties, in disarmament. You've got 202 fighter planes. Okay, I guess we'll have the triamires from 220 to 202. Okay, now we're even. Thank God we're at peace. Nonsense. Before World War I, they had all these times where the nations compared their arsenals, and oftentimes they would cheat in one way or another. But all that was something that didn't bring about peace. Or do we really think there's peace between North Korea and South Korea because you have a DMZ and a standoff, or as it was in Vietnam, or East and West Berlin? Just because there's no shooting does not mean that there's not a lot of ill will, and it wouldn't take much to set off and spark a reaction that could be destructive.

The reaction is building, building, building, so that when finally it blows, it blows in uncertain and ultra-destructive ways. Peace is the mindset of God Himself. When John said, God is love, he could have really gone on because God is more than just love. God is also joy, and God is peace. And the entirety of what the kingdom of God is all about, and the images we have of the lion and the lamb, and the imagery that we have of a world at peace with...

there will be peace without end in Isaiah chapter 9, talking about a child is born to us, certainly shows that to be a very, very much a part of what God is. God is love. God is peace. That is part of what He is. In James chapter 3 and verse 17, this was a theme scripture for Winter Family Weekend about, oh, three or four years ago, because I know I was assigned one of these.

I can't remember which ones. Maybe it was peaceable, but I can't remember. James chapter 3 and verse 17. And the theme of the Winter Family Weekend was wisdom, but it was broken down to exactly what components make up wisdom. But wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. I mean, the mindset of God and wisdom, and a person who lives with wisdom and one who is proficient with wisdom, is a person who is first pure, is not two people, is not a polluted person, not a contaminated person, but a pure person, and is a person who is peaceable.

That is one of his traits, one of her traits. Gentle, willing to yield. Actually, these other traits of godly wisdom follow along in the same genre of qualities as peaceable itself. Full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy. Peace begins at the Passover, a reconciliation between God and man. And actually, you can see the whole peace process. The whole peace process is shown by the Holy Days.

I'm not going to get into the Holy Days. I'm showing you that God is trying to teach us and bring peace to us. And the first act of interaction between man and God that you and I did when we were baptized and then were able to take the Passover, where we became at peace with Jesus Christ, we were reconciled to Him.

When you take a look at the other Holy Days, when you look at Pentecost and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, you already have peace there, too. And we have Jesus Christ returning to this earth in the Day of Atonement, which is a reconciliation of man and God on a bigger scale than just individually.

And then when you have the vision of the world tomorrow, the Kingdom of God, it's the world at peace. And you finally have peace in the White Throne Judgment period. But you see the whole peace process that God is developing, but it begins with a peace that develops between us and God. There must be peace between man and God before there is peace with man and man.

There must be a peace with God. Colossians 1, verse 20, where Paul makes a dramatic statement of the reconciliation of all things to God the Father. Colossians 1, verse 20.

Talking about Jesus Christ and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself. By Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

Peace is made between man and God through the blood of Jesus Christ. And that's the beginning of the peace process.

So when we left here, and I did feel at peace, as I commented, I'm not sure if it was here in the sermon or somewhere else. This was a very meaningful Passover to me. Very, very meaningful because it's the first time in probably, who knows, 30-some years where I didn't have to do anything for the Passover. I wasn't figuring out what the deacons here is, the wine here is, you know, cloth covered. I mean, I do the Passover and officiated year after year after year, but this year I really had time to think.

And I'll have to say that it was a peaceful Passover. I left in a state of feeling at one with my God, totally at peace. The only thing that went wrong in the Passover this year is I dropped the sock of the person who was watching me, the foot from into the water. But he said it made him—and people parked next to each other in the parking lot—he said it made him alert for the reading of the Scriptures. Interesting that Jesus Christ's ministry began with a call to peace. His first published sermon, Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes section, which is at the very beginning, Christ says in Matthew 5, verse 9, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. This was important to Christ. And notice that it's not just peaceful people or people at peace, but blessed are the peacemakers, people who actually manufacture peace and keep it going.

And in Christ's last words, before he was taken to the events leading to his death, is found in John 14, verse 27. John 14, verse 27, where Christ said, And here he is, about to go through some of the most horrendous punishment and pummeling and torture from that evening all the way through the night, all the way through the morning, and then finally dying the next day.

And he says to his disciples, Peace, I leave with you, my peace, the peace that comes from a reconciliation between man and God, where he has given his life for us. He loved us so much that he gave his life for us. And I love you. I want to be at one with you. And let's work this properly, the way we live, the way we coexist.

Not as the world gives, do I give to you.

And in John 16, verse 33, as part of the same speech, as part of the same discussion he had with his disciples, John 16, verse 33, These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In all the things that he said from John 13 up to this point, I am in the Father, the Father is in me.

I ask that you bear more fruit. In all the things that he said, these things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation. And believe me, in the world we do have tribulation, but in the church and in our lives we don't, and we shouldn't. And we should live at peace.

The world has got tribulation on the job. We have tribulation when we pick up the newspaper. We're going to have tribulation when we take a look at the stock market. We have tribulation as we take a look at everything that's going on in the world.

But he said, In me you have peace.

Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

So here we have a peace between man and God. Now let's take a look at peace between man and man. In Ephesians 2, here's a very, very interesting comparison that the Apostle Paul brings to our attention. About Jews and Gentiles getting along. We might say, man to man.

It's about this man to man thing. There was one Polish proverb that I really like. It expresses man to man relationships.

When they spoke about capitalism and communism, they said, Under capitalism man exploits man.

But under communism, man exploits man. But under capitalism, the opposite is true. The opposite is true.

Ephesians 2, verse 11.

Where he's writing to a church that is part Jewish, but very heavy into the Gentiles. The Greek, the Hellenists. Ephesians 2, verse 11. Therefore, remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh, and there were still Gentiles in the flesh, we become spiritual Israelites when we come to conversion, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands.

Verse 12. That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. He's showing, and what he's doing is comparing the relationship the nation of Israel, the circumcised ones, had with God. It was a relationship of God living with them. Now, without the Holy Spirit, even that was a failure. It really was a big failure. Israel has a horrible history of faithfulness to God. Because under the Holy Spirit, we are faithful. But nonetheless, the Gentiles had no hope. They had no covenants. They didn't have the Abrahamic covenant. They didn't have any of the covenants to protect them as a nation. There was no covenant of the Exodus 20, 21 to 24, where the relationship between Israel and God was established. The people said, whatever God says, we will do. You had none of that. You didn't even know about it. You were ignorant.

He had no hope, no promises, and without God. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ. He said, how fortunate that you have been right up to having equal status with the Jews. And as to the blood of Christ, that's where peace comes. For he, verse 14, Ephesians 2, He himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of division between us. Now, this is the part of the statement that is very significant.

In the temple, there was like a semi-circle of rooms that were more exclusive. The most exclusive room in the temple was the Holy of Holies, that only one person could enter in, and that's once a year. That was the high priest on the Day of Atonement, and that was shrouded by the veil. Then there was the Holy Place, that's where the Levites worked. And only Levites of a certain classification who did the sacrifices were allowed there. Then there was the Court of Israel. There was the Court of Israel, where only Israel, no Gentiles were allowed in that court. I believe they had also a court of the women, that was kind of a separate court.

But then there was the Court of the Gentiles, where there was a wall of partition. And even to this day, I'm not sure, but when I was visiting the Temple Mount, this was back after college, the last time that I was at the Temple Mount, there was a sign up there that of course nobody followed. But they said, if you pass this point as Gentile, you will be stoned. In other words, you weren't allowed as a Gentile to go there.

Because at one point, Gentiles were not allowed past this middle wall of partition. And so what the Apostle Paul is saying here is that with Jesus Christ, we knock this wall down, where the Gentiles are part of the Court of Israel. How beautiful! I mean, showing that they have equal access to the Temple and all the benefits of the Temple.

Having abolished in His flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances and so forth, that He might, verse 16, reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. Verse 17, and He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Here is the peace process. It doesn't come from having retreats. It's not by having your friendly, you know, Jews come over and go into Camp David and to talk about things, or have the Islamic people go to Camp David again and talk to them, then bring in people from Israel, then bring in people from who knows where, with funny headdresses and so forth, and to just talk about peace with them and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. None of that will work. But this is what's going to work. And the Apostle Paul makes it very clear. We have had peace brought to our lives, to all of your lives, to the blood of Jesus Christ. The Jews and the Gentiles have had the wall of partition broken down before them with Christ. And really, peace will not come until you have the Jews kneel down to Jesus Christ, or you have a him in a job kneel down to Jesus Christ, or that goofy North Korean leader kneel down to Jesus Christ, which is highly unlikely. And it's because of the acts of these people that there will be no peace. Unless a discipline of treating the mind begins with this foundation, you will not have peace.

Now how can we practically achieve peace? Of course, this is a big subject. I just wanted, if anything, to establish some of the real ground rules and the real groundbreaking concepts about where peace comes from. Peace is a function of the Spirit of God. That's why the most brilliant of scientists and physicists who can send all kinds of things to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond our solar system can't figure it out. But you know something? You can. With the Spirit of God, you can. You can ask for the flooding of the Holy Spirit to come into your life, and as we practice the Passover year by year, give me peace. I want peace. And that's the way where nations will establish peace.

It won't just be a banner scrolled in in the world tomorrow saying we're at peace. It will happen because the middle wall of partition is broken down and Jesus Christ becomes our peace. Because God is love and God is peace. He will bring that to us.

One of the jobs that I have had from time to time, and there are times I do it more than others, is to try to resolve conflict. Between people, sometimes between ministers, sometimes ministers and members, sometimes between deacons and members, sometimes between members. And I actually enjoy that kind of work. The part that I enjoy about it is that when there's a good outcome, there's nothing like reconciliation. There's nothing like people making up and really going on.

And I've seen one of the strategies, one of the objectives in our strategic plan for ministerial services, as far as qualifications of ministers, is that ministers need to be competent in being peacemakers.

We had that term first called conflict resolvers, but I said, now let's get back to more basics. Peacemakers. To create an environment of peace.

There are certain barriers to peace. And there are certain things that are very much success factors for peace. The biggest success factor is the spirit of God. Where you feel at one with God, you feel that you have found peace with Him, and that you have peace with any human being because they have also found peace with Christ. That's where real peace comes from.

But I find that number one barrier to peace is pride and conceit and self-orientation.

There are certain things that we have a hard time with, and I don't know of a conflict that doesn't have a factor of pride that stokes it, that keeps it going.

I traveled with a group of four guys when we were seniors in college. Four of us got year-rail passes, and in the summer, between our junior and senior year, decided to go through about nine European countries and travel together as a foursome.

We pooled our money for food for the day. We would go to the market and buy bread and fruit and things, and we traveled. But we had no real set program. We just kind of traveled as a group. We started in France, and we headed down to Spain, and went up to Switzerland, and so forth. But very quickly, into the trip, four or five days, sparks started flying between our two groups.

In Italy, at one of the cities there, I think, it was in Venice, I don't know if it was Florence, it doesn't matter, does it? We had a real blowout where we said, we can't go on anymore. You guys want this, you guys want that. Let's split up into two groups.

And so me and this other fellow headed north. We wanted to go to Norway, the other group, I don't know where they wanted to go. We didn't care where they wanted to go. We just wanted to go where we wanted to go. And my friend and I had a Bible study on the train.

And we came across Proverbs chapter 13, verse 10. And he always said, you know something? This is the reason that we aren't traveling as a foursome anymore.

This is the reason why we are split up the way we are.

By pride comes only contention. That pride will always engender contention.

That means a non-peaceful episode where it starts rumbling and starts moving and starts moving towards some type of...

Unless it's resolved, unless you have a decrease in pride or you have some type of treatment to it, it won't. It will go on to something worse.

In human conflict, if not treated properly, when you have several people involved, and just like when the excellent sermonette here today, we have rumors start flying and people start saying things and people's feelings get hurt, which is some manifestation of pride being established.

Then people start talking to other people about it. And then you have another level of conflict as you have sides drawn up.

You have sides drawn up. That's a very dangerous state in things.

I like to have amber alert signs put up at the home office, you know, that if sides come up, you know, we have amber alert, you know, go off.

We can't let this go. We've had such a wonderful three years of peace. I can't tell you how beautiful it's been.

But we don't want a conflict to come to being a stage four conflict, you know, where it's over with. The feelings are so entrenched and the reasons are all up in the air.

And one thing that a counselor knows about what the people say in the conflict, you will never know the truth.

What one person says, what the other person says, if you want to sit and have this all transcribed and have pages and pages and volumes of what they say, you will never know the truth.

Things are left out. Things are twisted. Things are skewed. Things are added to. Things are forgotten. Things are invented, you know.

You'll never find the answer. The only way that you could really come to a conclusion is to relieve those things that cause that, that permeate that conflict, that keep that conflict going.

And if we have pride that doesn't decrease or are resolved to kneel down before Jesus Christ as our Savior, to say, let's break down the wall of conflict between us, the conflicts will continue.

And it will continue in the church. I believe that Christ has been teaching the church lessons.

At one time we had peace in the church because of unity that was somewhat enforced and people didn't see the small things.

God took away some of the barriers there where people were able to do things on their own. Now He's teaching us what will we do when we have the ability to create an environment of peace or no peace, an environment of working together or contention.

He's really testing and trying us to see what we do.

In order to have peace, we need to give in. We need to let go, give up. And we need to have respect for one another at all times.

For those in charge to everybody that is around you, to those who are peers one to another, and us to those who are over us. Always. Always to be peaceful, to give in, give up, let go, and give the other the benefit.

You gain peace when you reduce pride. Always. It's easy to say, but it's hard to do because this is of the spirit.

How many of us really want to admit to the fact that we continue hurt, we continue an argument because of pride, because of our ego.

Whether it's in a marriage, whether it's on the job, whether it's between nationalities, whether it's on the world level.

We have to work together. We have to be able to give in to one another.

Isaiah 58. A conflict-reducing scripture. Isaiah 58.

One of the purposes of fasting is brought out, and fasting has sometimes been used for wrong purposes. Fasting is never to get your own way.

Fasting is for you to understand yourself better and to see what part you have in conflicts.

Why have we fasted, they say, you have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and you take no notice?

In fact, in the day of your fast, you find pleasure and exploit all your labors.

Fasting has always been a part of so many cultures and even religions, like writing to the Jews here.

He's saying that you fast, verse 4, for strife and debate, and to strike with a fist of wickedness.

You want to fast so that you can do something, and always that cringe.

We say, we will fast so that, and usually that so that part is not really correct, because it's about wanting something to happen in a way that you want it to happen, rather than for the purposes that this chapter explains.

You will fast, verse 4, for strife and debate, and to strike with a fist of wickedness, to get your way.

I'm hungry, I'm agitated, and my benefit out of this is that I'm going to get my way.

You don't necessarily say it that way, but you want to get your way, whatever that way is. You will not fast, as you do this day, to make your voice heard on high.

Why don't we read that verse more? You will not fast to make your voice heard on high. You're not going to fast to get your way.

You're going to fast to discover and to unearth and to understand God's will.

Verse 6, here's a proper result of fasting.

Is not the fast that I have chosen to loose the bonds of wickedness?

No. We all are bound with something that isn't right about us, something that we do wrong, personal sins, personal habits, personal manners.

The purpose of fasting is to loosen those rubber bands, those bungee cords around us that keep us from doing the things that we should, or personal sins that tie us down.

To undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke.

So those things that you cause, that we are responsible for, are loosened, are lessened, are lifted, taken off our shoulders.

Verse 9, then you shall call and the Lord will answer, and you shall cry, and He will say, Here I am.

At that point, when you see your part, when you get off of people's backs, verbally, in relationships, on the job, or wherever, then the Lord will say, Here I am.

And one more thing. If you take away the yoke from your midst, and one of the yokes is this, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness.

This is Clint's sermonette.

Pointing the finger and speaking wickedness, not being judgmental and critical. Sometimes we don't realize just by being critical, just by being negative and being non-supportive, just how much of a burden that is on somebody else.

Are we people who are ready to do those things?

We could do a whole course, and I'm not intending to do a whole course, I can't do that in the next few minutes.

But the Bible has so much to say about being a peacemaker, from the beginnings of Christ's ministry to the end, to the Apostle Peter, who said in 1 Peter 3, in verse 8, Seek peace and pursue it. Seek it. Seek it. And I was trying to find it, suggesting that you may not know the way to peace. Seek it.

This is what we should counsel the world.

Seek peace.

The peace process continues as we first find peace with our Maker, our God, with Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior.

Peace comes when we break down walls of partition between us and those outside of us, other human beings.

The peace process continues when we find the barriers to peace, our ego, our vanity, our lust.

I didn't even cover these passages in James.

Why do wars come before you? I did an essay one time in my English class in college.

Where do fighting come from among you in James 4? Is it not because of your lusts that you want things that can't have them?

And so you will do something evil, non-peaceful, something violent to get it your way?

We make peace with those around us.

And ultimately, world peace will be something that's built up from the very bare bottom to a collective of peace that will go on forever.

Peace is like a mustard seed that begins very small and grows into something very large.

Isaiah 9 and verse 6.

Isaiah 9 and verse 6. I'll conclude here in this chapter.

A prophecy of Christ.

And one of the most beautiful things said about His rule.

Isaiah 9 and verse 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder.

Talking about the government of the kingdom of God. And we focus on that.

But the rest of it is also very important as to what are the qualities of that government.

And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and finally, the Prince of Peace. The Prince of Peace. Verse 7. Of the increase of His government in peace, there will be no end.

The study of peace, to me, is very special. The study of peace is very beautiful.

The study of peace is essential to us as Christians. We're being tried on an individual basis right now as to how peaceful we will be with those around us.

How we spread peace based upon the relationship that we have with Christ and the relationship that we have with the Spirit of God that motivates that peace and makes it one of the fruits.

So, let's live at peace. Let's be peacemakers.