World Peace: Is It a Possibility?

Everyone wants it, but no one seems to know the way to peace. Will peace really come to this earth?

Over the centuries, men and women have yearned for a time when war becomes obsolete and when peace prevails over the earth.

Is that a possibility? Will peace really come to this earth? There are hundreds of websites that promote world peace. Sincere people often work for its implementation.

An admirable example

One educator, John Hunter, invented a game in which his fourth-grade class actually made strides in understanding how world peace could be achieved. The game is highlighted in an award-winning film found at: http://rosaliafilms.com/about.htm.

“World Peace … and other 4th-grade achievements interweaves the story of John Hunter, a teacher in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his students’ participation in an exercise called the World Peace Game. The game triggers an eight-week transformation of the children from students of a neighborhood public school to citizens of the world. …

“The children learn to collaborate and communicate with each other as they work to resolve the Game’s conflicts. They learn how to compromise while accommodating different perspectives and interests. Most importantly, the students discover that they share a deep and abiding interest in taking care of each other. ...”

We appreciate the efforts of those who work toward cooperation and peace within the human community. However, it will take more than human effort to bring real peace about.

Why there is no peace

First, why do wars even occur? The apostle James answers that question quite succinctly: “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:1-2).

This world is based upon selfishness and greed so that the love of many has grown cold (Matthew 24:12). So, where does that attitude come from? Notice Ephesians 2:2-3: “In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit [the devil] who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”

Dr. Charles Malik, the first Lebanese representative to the United Nations in 1948, made the following revealing statement during an interview in June 1985 with Herbert W. Armstrong:

“There’s an old wisdom in the Middle East with which we are fully acquainted. … One of the basic things that you find everyone believes in. Everybody without exception in every village in Lebanon, in every village in Egypt, everyone. …

“Now you [in the Western world] have outgrown this old wisdom of the Middle East. One of the important things that we talk about is the devil. I’d like to see one man speak of the devil. Now the devil has penetrated human hearts everywhere. We believe that the devil is at work in the midst of all these events. And while the devil is at work and has not yet been completely conquered, vanquished, we will never have peace. You think the United Nations is going to bring peace so long as the devil is around?”

World peace will come

There is coming a time in which Jesus Christ will intervene in world events and will save us all from ourselves and from the devil. The Bible often speaks of this time as the Day of the Lord. It culminates at His return to this earth (see Revelation 19:11-16; 20:1-3).

The end result of His mighty intervention will be to usher in a world of peace: “‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’ Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And He said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful’” (Revelation 21:4-5).

What a wonderful world this will be. The prophecy of Isaiah 2:4 (which is inscribed on a statute in front of the United Nations building) will really happen: “He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Peace will finally prevail—for all peoples, including the fourth-graders in Mr. Hunter’s class. Humanity will truly live in a world without fear and without war. May God speed that day!

Learn more about the wonderful Kingdom Jesus Christ will bring at His second coming. See our exciting new e-book The Mystery of the Kingdom.

John Foster is the pastor of the Princeton and Charleston, West Virginia, and Roanoke, Virginia, congregations of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.