What does "peace, peace, when there is no peace" mean in Jeremiah 8:11?

The prophecy delivered by Jeremiah in the gate of Jehovah's house is continued from Jeremiah 7 to the end of Jeremiah 10. In Jeremiah 8, the Lord reproaches His people that they were more dull than the very animals and birds which are not remarkable for their wisdom. "Yea, the stork in the heaven knows her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of Jehovah" (Jer. 8:7).

The people did not know the time: they did not know His judgment; they were going on in self-security. They thought that perhaps things were not quite as right as they appeared to be, but were not so bad as this troublesome man, Jeremiah, said. And so they were crying "Peace, peace," where there was no peace. They were not even ashamed when they had committed abominations. The prophet could only give himself up to sorrow over them. "Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?"

Now it will, I believe, strike you in looking at it, how John's testimony exactly brought out what the prophet Jeremiah complained of in chapter 8. You remember what the prophet says of this subject. Let us never forget it, for it is amongst the most touching words of the Old Testament scriptures. It is the lamentation of the prophet over the condition in which the people of God were during the time of his ministry. "They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, where there is no peace." The prophet brings home this great fact to them; there is a wound there, and there were ecclesiastical nostrums and quacks of that day who attempted to heal slightly that wound. And how? By presenting a message that was not in keeping with the state. If God comes and deals with us, beloved friends, He must have reality, He could not add to a festering sore or wound, if it is there, in our moral being. "Peace, peace," was building up a rotten order of things, and God is too faithful, and too holy, and too gracious not to meet exactly the condition of things as it really is before Him. Hence John's ministry was in that sense preparatory to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah 6. This concluding portion of the charge adds to the terrors of the scene, first, by the call to the Benjamites to quit the doomed city. Zion was but a comely and delicate woman, incapable of defending her neighbours. Next, the prophet commissions the besiegers to come against Jerusalem; and this for universal covetousness and deceit. Such would be the eagerness of her wasters, that neither the heat of noon would delay them, nor the darkness of night, to the deep discouragement of those beleaguered. No: Jerusalem would not be instructed. The word of Jehovah is to them a reproach. Wounds were slightly healed with a "Peace, peace," where there was none. They would neither go the good old way, nor attend to the warning of new woes. (Ver. 1-17.) "Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened to my words, nor to my law, but rejected it." (Ver. 18, 19.) Their offerings were not acceptable. The northern foe is coming. Let Jerusalem gird herself with sackcloth. But if the Lord makes Jeremiah a fortress, the people are no better than reprobate silver, rejected of Him.

When the people of God go wrong, there is always the spirit of false prophecy which would make them believe that all goes well. Men in authority love that they should not be discouraged: see the opposition to Jeremiah in Jerusalem. To this the false prophet lends help, to hinder the conscience from turning back to God, who would by chastening bring the conscience into direct contact with Him. The spirit of falsehood would persuade that they are very happy. They that call them blessed are the misleaders. Those that are so called and believe them are swallowed up (v. 16).

Two preachers of peace are seeking to gain the attention of the children of men. Both are in earnest? and in each case the preaching is intended to produce eternal results. These preachers are Satan and Christ. Neither is, of course, in person upon the earth speaking with audible voice. Both make their appeal to men by means of human instruments. There are thus two orders of preachers amongst us, both energised by supernatural power, and both preaching peace to men. Hell energises the one; heaven energises the other. The one order proclaims a false peace — a peace resting upon rotten foundations, and from which there must sooner or later come an awful awakening; the other proclaims a true peace — a peace founded upon the immutable basis of the Saviour's atoning blood.

Hezekiah says in Isa. 38:17, "Behold, for peace I had great bitterness." It is a mercy from God when a false peace is smashed up. The "great bitterness" which results is not pleasant, but it is nevertheless the way to God. See Saul of Tarsus in Acts 9:9 three whole days unable to eat and drink. When a man goes off his food thus his mind must surely be deeply agitated. The fact is, Saul had made the fearful discovery that with all his blamelessness of life and his religious zeal he was at heart an enemy of God and His Son. The best man of his time saw himself to be "the chief of sinners!" Oh, the bitterness of it? Have we been in the depths thus?

Our first text thus speaks of a false peace; our second tells us of a true peace, proclaimed by the Christ of God. "He came and preached peace," says the apostle, "to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh." He is manifestly speaking of Christ in resurrection. But what lies behind resurrection? Death. Christ has been down into death, and this on behalf of sinners. At Calvary the storm of divine judgement broke upon His holy head. All the waves and billows of God's wrath rolled over Him. But the storm has spent itself now; sunshine has come, and the Christ who died is alive again from amongst the dead, and glorified on high. The God of peace has brought back from the tomb the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant. He is now righteously able to preach peace to men everywhere. The peace He proclaims is not a mere soporific for the conscience, but the blessed knowledge that every question has been equitably settled by His atoning blood, and that, in consequence, every storm cloud has been dispelled for ever. "He is our peace," says the apostle. The very fact that He is now accepted in heaven is the public proof that the horizon Godward has been cleared once and for all for those who believe in His name

Hence the absurdity of bidding a man make his peace with God. The thing is impossible. No man can of himself get rid of a single sin. But in truth there is no peace to make. Christ has "made peace through the blood of His cross" (Col. 1:20), and this He now proclaims to all in the Gospel by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. He "was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 4:25; Rom. 5:1).

Nevertheless, Jeremiah spreads before the Lord that which misled the people most and was the chief source of difficulty to himself. "Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold the prophets say to them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place. Then the Lord said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake to them: they prophesy to you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart. Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them." The false prophets must be the first to fall by the very ill from which they promised the people exemption, and the people must learn the folly of heeding man's promises by their own righteous ruin.

Covetousness—loving self, money and pleasure—and violence and hatred mark the close of this period. The Lord will bring judgment upon it all. The way of deliverance, however, is always the same; it is found alone in Christ. In Jeremiah 6 we find the same state then: “Every one of them is given to covetousness” (v. 13). As in 1 Thessalonians 5:3, just before Christ comes, so here, they say, “Peace, peace” (Jer. 6:14). Earnestly the prophet seeks to awaken them as to the old paths, the good way, where they should “find rest for their souls; but they said, We will not walk therein” (v. 16). When the blessed Lord was here upon earth, He graciously invited them to come to Him, and they should find rest for their souls; but man will not take that way. He chooses other ways; so he finds no real rest. Like the troubled sea in its agitation and tossing, he knows no abiding quietude of heart, no peace of mind, no divine tranquillity.

There are not wanting those who prophesy smooth things. In Jeremiah's day some said "Peace, Peace" while Jehovah's sword hung suspended over the land, and we have similar false prophets amongst us at the present time. If such may be believed, the upheavals that are going on in every sphere are the birth throes of a new and better day. Man is emerging from the chrysalis stage, and will presently be a more glorious being than ever before. All who speak thus are deceivers of men's souls. More to the point are Isaiah's words in Isa. 57:20-21: "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, said my God, to the wicked."

Jeremiah of old bitterly complained: “They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is NO PEACE” (Jer. 8:11).