Chapter 24. Use 5: Those Who Have Assurance of Their Peace with God Should Highly Prize It
This is the way to obtain peace. And certainly, if the blood of Christ was able to make such a peace between us and God that is firm and lasting, it will also be able to make peace in this poor nation, a peace that will be firm and lasting too.
Thus, we are encouraged regarding our external condition, in regard to the peace of our land, that seeing God has done the greater work,
He is able to do the lesser. Seeing that God has reconciled mercy and justice together and made peace between heaven and earth when the breach was so great that all the men in the world and the angels in heaven could not find a way to resolve the difference and mend that breach, yet He has done it. Surely, He can also resolve the differences and mend the breach that is among us.
Chapter 24 Use 5: Those Who Have Assurance of Their Peace with God Should Highly Prize It Hence, if our reconciliation with God is as it has been explained, and if it has been accomplished in such a manner, then another use we may make of it is this: that all those who have any comforting assurance that their peace is made with God ought to prize it highly and not easily or lightly lose the assurance of it.
Why? Because it has cost as much as it has, and it has been wrought for them in such a strange and wonderful way as it has been—the greatest work that God has ever performed, where His wisdom,
goodness, and power have been displayed. Now, that which God has set Himself to work so powerfully upon to accomplish, and that which has cost so dearly, containing so much of the mystery of godliness—surely, if we have obtained the assurance of it in ourselves, we should highly value it. We should seek to preserve it and not lose it carelessly or without regard.
I recall that when we discussed the excellence of our reconciliation with God and the admirable fruits that flow from it, we had a similar use mentioned: because it is so excellent, we should preserve it and not let it go lightly. But now, this use is drawn from the way of reconciliation, that it is a reconciliation in Christ. Indeed, the argument bears more strongly upon us here than it did before.
Previously, the argument was that we should prize it because of the comfort we find in our reconciliation—because of the admirable fruits that flow from it, because it is able to carry us through all the troubles of the world. But now, we must seek to preserve it because we have it in Christ; because it is something that cost more than ten thousand worlds are worth, because God has worked so wonderfully to bring it about.
Has God, therefore, spoken peace to any of your souls? Take heed that you do not turn again to folly. As Psalm 85:8 says: "I will hear what the Lord will say, for He will speak peace to His people and to His saints; but let them not return again to folly."
Have you gained any comforting persuasion that the Lord is reconciled to you in Christ, and has God made you aware that reconciliation with Him was a difficult work? Perhaps it cost you many tears, prayers, and much trouble before you could attain it; perhaps you spent a long time seeking it in a legalistic way, crying out to God for His mercy to pardon your sins, and seeking Him in