He makes wars cease

“He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.” (Psalm 46:9)

 

People say, the history of mankind is the history of war. If so, how to deal with the inevitable war, this is life’s task. It’s war that people have no choice but to dislike or like or fight, but sometimes it’s war that they should avoid if it possible. There might be militant peoples and countries, but there are times when people have to fight to keep peace, even if they are not belligerent. The endless hardship of life is like even the situation of war that anytime go through personally. Even though we always want to live in peace, we can’t help but suffer hardships coming to us. But we must not to worry, for whenever we have trouble, God helps as our refuge and strength.

 

Fights have mostly occurred in relationships between individuals, or countries and peoples. However these days, the fight between humans and the natural environment is getting bigger. It’s not people had not a fight with nature also in the past, but the frequency and scale of situation has been much greater than before. Lands change and mountains shake and those things fall into the sea, is the situation by such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The fierce waves of the sea and the mountains’ shaking by overflowing of sea water are originated from the phenomenon of earthquakes and tsunami in the sea. Due to the increase in population, the earth has been plagued by destruction of natural environment and air pollution, as the result the imbalance in nature has been becoming much severe.

In the beginning, God created the universe and the order was formed from the chaos by the word of God. After God had said “Make light be.” the day and night of light and darkness was divided. And the space between the upper parts of water and the lower was called the sky, and the land was revealed with the gathering of water under the sky. That whole process is the formation of order given to the universe. Κόϭμο?(Kosmos) a Greek which means the universe or the world signifies order, and the world and universe shows a phenomenon of the order given by God’s word. Gradually increasing occurrence of disproportionate events in the natural environment is a phenomenon that tells us that the creation of God is more being destroyed.

Such those changes of nature is not irrelevant to the spiritual state of human. God Jehovah is the Ruler as the Creator of people. And yet He didn’t make a human being like just a machine. God the Lord had made man, which is the greatest being over all the created things, along His own holy and righteous image. Therefore, when a man obeys the word of God, he can maintain the safety and prosperity in life. In other words, it means a man’s duty is to praise God by drinking the water of life flowing from Jerusalem the Holy City. Everyone need to live drinking the water of life for salvation in the faith of Jesus Christ. But natural people without faith don’t want to accept the way. Rather, they drink evil like water and try to confront against God.

The worldly situation is getting worse and more complicated, just like the word ‘approaching the climax.’ People seems to be more eager to condemn and hate others than to keep a warm heart. New weapons and nuclear weapons are increasing the crisis of war between countries. And the natural environment worsens, causing severe destruction due to heavy rain, floods, and earthquakes. Moreover the air becomes extremely bad, making it hard to breathe, and the spread of disease gets the clouds of death call more, but any solutions is not made definitely yet.

How should we deal with all these hard situations? “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Amen!” This is the right answer. Our Lord God is the God of all the things of the universe. Accordingly even any of people, nor any one of the natural things, cannot be exist just vaguely. For the Lord, who rules all those, is always with us and any of nature. Although if all the world is noisy and the universe shakes, if the Lord scolds those it will be quiet at once. Almighty's such the influences can be fulfilled in my life by the hand of the Lord, through my life who worships Him. That spiritual energy is staying within my spirit renewed by faith in Christ.

 

All the People on the earth are fighting in sweating to overcome the COVID-19 in these days. Nations are fighting hard for their own interests against others. They continue to fight reckless battles in all areas of food, science, culture, art, military, weapons, nuclear, religion, race, and etc. So people are living always in many anxieties, both during the sleeping and awaking. Though, we must not worry about it at all. The Lord will stop the war, break the bow and spear, and burn the cart of war, because of our believing in Jesus.

 

(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Aug 23rd 2020)