These simple words speak to one of mankind’s greatest longings and one of our most difficult challenges. The solution? Look to God’s word.
This song was written in 1955 by Jill Jackson-Miller and Sy Miller for the International Children’s Choir. Jackson-Miller had been suicidal after a failed marriage. She wrote the song after having discovered the “life-saving joy of God’s peace and unconditional love.” (Wikipedia)
Never in my life-time has there been a greater need for peace than the summer of 2020. We are faced with a worldwide pandemic that is unprecedented in the last 100 years. We are experiencing protests, civil disobedience and rioting that are creating a “house divided,” and we are experiencing political division and dysfunction that is crippling our country. We desperately need peace on earth and here in the U.S.A.
The issue of racism in America has received a great deal of attention in the last several years for a variety of reasons. Two of the more popular current books on this topic are White Fragility and Waking up White. These books and other materials offer concepts including white fragility, anti-whiteness, dismantling white privilege, and labeling groups as white supremacists as models of describing and possibly solving this extremely critical social issue. In contrast, the words to this simple hymn offer much wisdom regarding our current situation.
The Bible provides the only accurate statement of this problem and the only solution. In addition, the Bible documents the existence of human prejudice, to include racism, in various forms (including slavery) over a span of thousands of years. So, this problem did not begin with the emergence of America as a nation just a short 400 years ago. Looking deeper into biblical truth reveals the fundamental cause and solution to this horrific issue.
The cause is clear…humans are sinful creatures. In the words of the Apostle Paul,
“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Romans 1:21
He continues,
“Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity”
Romans 1: 28-29
Paul borrows from the Old Testament (Psalm 114) as he describes our condition in Romans.
“What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways,and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Romans 3: 9-18
So the problem of humans mistreating each other in a wide variety of ways is due to our sinfulness…our fallen nature. This human condition is pervasive…no individual and no group is exempt.
David, a man after God’s own heart, said it this way in Psalm 51: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me”. In this psalm David also writes the following, “against you, and you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight”. Now, David raped Bathsheba and had her husband murdered; but his sin was against God. Though our sins hurt others, they are against God…disobedience of His commands. The first act of disobedience of man against God occurred when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. As their descendants we all have inherited that propensity to disobey God as David indicates in Psalm 51.
Jesus made this very clear in Matthew chapter 15:
“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
Matthew 15: 17-20
The problem is our heart. The prophet Jeremiah wrote about this as he recorded the very oracles of God in chapter 17 verse 9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” He continues describing God’s omnipotence in verse 10: “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
God also spoke through the prophet Ezekiel regarding the problem of the heart:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
Ezekiel 36: 25-27
Jesus affirmed this approach throughout His teachings of the gospel. We see two classic examples of this in His interchanges with Nicodemus and the rich young ruler. They both had the same question. How can I be right with God? Jesus told both of them they needed a new heart even though they were meticulous followers of the Jewish law.
Specific to the issue of human prejudice, Jesus taught that the second of the greatest two commandments is “to love our neighbor.” He also taught the same concept in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7 when He introduced the “Golden Rule.” He indicated that this (rule) “sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
In summary, the despicable, evil ways in which humans have treated each other since the beginning of time has one origin…the sinful nature of the human heart. And, there is one and only one lasting, effective solution to that condition.
Spiritually we must have a new heart. This can happen by the grace of God, alone; through faith, alone; in Jesus Christ, alone. All of which is done for the glory of God, alone; according to the scripture, alone.
This hymn pleads for “peace on earth” and suggests the starting point…”let it begin with me.” The peace which we so desperately want and need begins with each of us examining our own heart because Jesus so correctly taught that our evil thoughts, words, and deeds come from within our own hearts.
When we are wronged . . . and some of us in this country have been terribly wronged . . . what does He teach? He teaches forgiveness regardless of the demographics of those involved. Pastor Anthony Thompson from Charleston, SC is a tremendous example of Jesus’ teaching (see Matthew 6:12 and Matthew 18:21). When his wife (along with 8 other African Americans) were murdered at a prayer meeting in Charleston in June of 2015, Pastor Thompson responded with forgiveness for the killer, Dylann Roof (a white supremacist), and told him what he really needed was Jesus.
So, let’s all pray for and work for peace on earth and let’s start with me!
H. Carter
Hymns for Him 