Thought on Isaiah 32:17

"The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." (Isa.32:17).

There is no peace in the world today. Even the U.N. peacekeeping forces are armed with guns and armoured vehicles and find themselves the targets of both sides of the contending forces. Even if the great powers settled their differences and began to live amicably together, there are many lesser powers thirsting for war and conquest. Almost a century of League of Nations and United Nations has failed to achieve peace. How certain it is that the mutual rivalries, jealousies, and greed of Nations, great and small, is greater by far than their desire for peace. How clear that, left to man’s own efforts, peace on earth will never be achieved.

Yet it will come. "The LORD said…as truly as I live, all the (whole) earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD." (Num.14:20,21) A time has to come in human history when God intervenes to command the attention and allegiance of men. A world Empire there must be in which men are brought face to face with the realities of life and for a season have their war‑like and anti‑social impulses restrained whilst they are required to learn the laws by which, alone man must live. Men of God of olden time knew of this and foresaw such an era and described it in words that will never die. Christians today look for it and some perceive in the present well‑nigh hopeless state of human affairs the long‑foretold signs which herald the imminent dawn of that day, the Age in which the Kingdom of Christ rules supreme amongst men, and the vision of Isaiah quoted above becomes reality.

Bible Study Monthly, November December 1983

Since 1983 there have been conflicts beginning and ending. There was the end of the Cold War in 1989. Nevertheless there was the war in former Yugoslavia following the break‑up of that country; two wars in Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan.

In 2023 there is still no peace in the world despite the efforts of people everywhere. The war in Ukraine continues. The recent attack on Israel. Civil war continues in parts of Africa including military coups in Gabon, Niger and Sudan. The effect of the Revolution in Libya left that nation unprepared for the consequences of the recent storm leading to large loss of life, that one local man there compared it to the flood of Noah. The effects of civil war are still being felt in Syria and Yemen. One commentator said "is the United Nations fit for purpose?"