For Peace - July 19th, 2026

[FORMAL ELEMENTS / DESCRIPTIVE DATA]

[Central Idea of the Text: The peace-seeking psalmist, distressed by deceitful hostility, appealed to Jehovah on the strength of His reported answer, confronted the false tongue with severe arrow-and-coal imagery, and remained distinct from a company oriented toward war.]

[Proposition: When deceitful hostility resists peace, call upon Jehovah for deliverance and remain truthfully for peace.]

[Major Objective: Consecrative.]

[Specific Objective: I want my hearers to answer deceitful hostility by calling on Jehovah and taking one truthful, peace-consistent step, beginning with confession and repair wherever their own speech has deceived.]

[Structural Pattern: Combined Inductive—Deductive—Inductive]

[Fallen Condition Focus: When deceitful hostility wounds us, we are tempted to answer in kind, seize control of vindication, or abandon truthful peace.]

[Text-order structure: (1) Call upon Jehovah because He answers in distress (Psalm 120:1–2). (2) Face the deceitful tongue’s arrow-and-coal severity (Psalm 120:3–4). (3) Remain for peace among those oriented toward war (Psalm 120:5–7).]

[FOR PEACE — Psalm 120:1–7]

Psalm 120:1–7 (KJV) 1 In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me. 2 Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue. 3 What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? 4 Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper. 5 Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! 6 My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. 7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

[FOUR-PAGES | Page 1 — the problem: deceitful hostility creates distress and tempts retaliation.]

[VOICE | Begin with an unhurried, reverent reading. Let the inspired words establish the room.]

Please take your Bible this morning and turn with me to Psalm 120. We are going to read all seven verses.

The Bible says,

A Song of degrees.

1 In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.

2 Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.

3 What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?

4 Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.

5 Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!

6 My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.

7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

[TRANSITION | Move from the public Scripture reading to the ascent image and the sermon's burden.]

[H2 | Opening: The ascent begins in distress]

[VOICE | Warm, direct, and pastoral; do not rush the contrast between lies and peace.]

That is where this song of ascent begins—not in ease, but in distress.

The psalmist lives among people who hate peace. By the last verse, nothing around him has changed: he is for peace; they are for war. But their hostility will not be allowed to decide what kind of man he becomes.

The trouble around him remains, but it will not determine the allegiance within him.

The title of the message is For Peace.

False words can do real damage. A lie can enter a room before the truth arrives. Deceit can wound a name, divide friends, unsettle a home, and leave a person wondering how to answer.

And when deceitful hostility wounds us, we are tempted to answer in kind, seize control of vindication, or give up on truthful peace. We tell ourselves that one sharper word will set everything right. We begin to think that peace means keeping silent about wrong. Or we grow so weary that we wonder whether truth and peace can live together at all.

But this psalm will not let us put all the innocent sufferers on one side of the room and all the guilty deceivers somewhere else. Some have been injured by lies. Some have injured others with their words. Many of us know something of both sides.

The God who hears the wounded also searches every tongue in the room. We need a refuge that does not require surrendering the truth, and we need an answer that does not become sinful retaliation.

Let me give you just enough background to hear the psalm. We do not know the writer, the date, or the exact trouble behind these words—and we do not need to invent any of that.

Psalm 120 opens the fifteen Songs of Degrees. In their received order, these songs move from distress here toward Jehovah’s keeping in Psalm 121, and then toward Jerusalem and the house of Jehovah in Psalm 122. They were well suited to worshipers going up to Jerusalem.

But Psalm 120 is not one traveler’s diary. It is the inspired prayer of a worshiper who knows what falsehood and hostile company can do.

[Governing question and proposition — slow slightly and make the answer memorable.]

So here is the question that governs the message: How should a servant of Jehovah live when deceitful hostility resists peace?

Here is the answer: When deceitful hostility resists peace, call upon Jehovah for deliverance and remain truthfully for peace.

[H1 | Movement 1 — Call upon Jehovah because He answers in distress (Psalm 120:1–2)]

The psalm moves in three clear steps. Here is the first: call upon Jehovah because He answers in distress.

Look again at verses 1 and 2. The first verse gives testimony; the second gives petition. The psalmist looks back and says that he called unto Jehovah in his distress, and Jehovah answered him.

Then he turns directly to Jehovah and asks for deliverance. This is the prayer of a man who remembers an answer. What Jehovah has already done gives him confidence to call again.

Now notice the order of the words in verse 1. Before the psalmist tells us what he did, he tells us where he turned and where he was: unto Jehovah, in his distress, he cried.

Trouble pressed him, but trouble did not become his god. He did not begin by mastering the hostile party, managing everybody’s opinion, or sending back a more cutting answer.

He turned to Jehovah.

The verse does not tell us exactly what form the distress took. The rest of the psalm brings false speech, alien surroundings, hatred of peace, and readiness for war into view. But we are not told whether this began with an accusation, a threat, a broken relationship, or the whole hostile condition together.

We do not need to build a scene God did not give us. The broad word is enough. He was in trouble, and in that trouble he knew where to turn.

He says, “In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.” In the older use of our Authorized Version, “heard” means more than that sound reached God’s ear.

Jehovah attended to the cry. He answered. The prayer did not disappear into empty space. This man bears witness that the living God received his appeal.

Now I want to be careful here. Verse 1 tells us that Jehovah answered, but it does not tell us the form of that answer, how quickly it came, or how much of the outward trouble changed at once.

The lie may not have been immediately withdrawn. The damaged relationship may not have been immediately repaired. The threatening circumstance may not have been immediately removed.

In fact, the psalmist can report a real answer in verse 1, pray again for deliverance in verse 2, and still lament hostile surroundings in verses 5 through 7.

A real answer and continuing distress can stand together.

That truth steadies us in two directions. We must not assume that Jehovah is absent simply because the outward trouble continues. And we must not promise a suffering person that faithful prayer will force every other party to repent on our timetable.

Jehovah’s answer is real, even when He has not promised that every condition will change at once. Our confidence does not rest in our control of the outcome. It rests in the character of the God who answers.

Verse 2 turns from testimony to direct appeal: “Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.” This is an urgent request for rescue.

When the psalmist says, “my soul,” he is not asking Jehovah to rescue one isolated part of him. He is placing his life, his living self, his whole person before God. Deliver me. Rescue my life from this danger.

Two expressions name the danger: lying lips and a deceitful tongue. One speaks of falsehood; the other of speech designed to mislead.

The psalm leaves the particular form broad. It may have involved slander, accusation, betrayal, or something else—we are not told. What we are told is that words were being used against truth.

Verses 1 and 2 may fit together in either of two ways. Verse 2 may give us the prayer summarized in verse 1, or it may be a renewed prayer grounded in the answer already reported. The text does not force us to choose.

Either way, the spiritual movement is plain: remembered answer becomes the ground of dependent prayer. Because he has called and Jehovah has answered, he calls again.

[ILLUSTRATION | Text-grown sequence: distress, call, answer, petition. Use only the psalm’s own verbal picture.]

[VOICE | Give each of the four words room to land.]

Let the text give us a picture simple enough to carry home. Put four words together: distress, call, answer, petition.

Distress. Call. Answer. Petition.

The distress is real, but it becomes the setting of the call. The call does not disappear into empty space. Jehovah answers. And the answer does not end all further prayer; it gives the worshiper reason to petition again.

A child can carry the truth of these verses home: when hurtful lies bring trouble, call to Jehovah. He answers, so ask Him to rescue you.

That is not a story we have imagined about the psalmist. It is the movement God placed in the text.

[APPLICATION | Wounded hearers: name the injury, call upon Jehovah, refuse retaliation, and take a truthful step.]

Now bring that movement into the distress you know. If false speech has wounded you, you do not have to pretend the falsehood is harmless, and prayer does not require passive surrender.

Truthful correction may be necessary. Lawful protection may be necessary. Careful boundaries may be necessary. But the first moral movement is toward Jehovah. Place your endangered self in the hands of the One who answers.

Dependence comes before the frantic attempt to manage public perception. It comes before self-vindication becomes an obsession and before pain produces a sharper reply.

You may name the injury without becoming malicious. You may seek the truth without using falsehood as a weapon. You may pursue proper protection without taking private vengeance.

The psalm does not shame you for feeling distress. This worshiper felt it deeply enough to cry for deliverance. But the wound does not grant permission to become what wounded you.

[BLOCK QUOTE | Verified quotation Q-01 — John Goldingay.]

[APPLICATION | Turn the prayer toward the hearer’s own speech: confession, correction, and repair.]

And now the prayer turns toward every tongue in this room, including our own.

Commentator John Goldingay says it plainly: “We need to be delivered not only from the tongues of other people but from our own.”

We can read this psalm with somebody else’s face in mind from the first verse to the last. We condemn their lying lips while excusing our exaggeration. We condemn their deceit while defending what we concealed. We condemn their injury while minimizing the harm our words caused.

But “Deliver my soul” places the person praying beneath Jehovah’s rule. The God to whom we bring another person’s words is the God before whom we must answer for our own.

So let the question search us. Where has my speech concealed what should have been told? Where have I distorted what happened, exaggerated what I knew, or repeated a claim I had no right to treat as settled?

Where have my words wounded? Where have I protected myself by allowing somebody else to believe what was not true?

Repentance must become concrete. Confess the lie. Correct the false claim. Tell the truth to those who were misled. Begin repair where repair is possible.

Do not hide behind the word peace when what you really mean is that nobody should require you to tell the truth. Under Jehovah’s righteous government, truth and peace belong together.

The wounded hearer must not retaliate, and the deceiving hearer must not minimize. Peace must never become an excuse for the liar, and truth must never become permission for vengeance.

The psalmist turns to Jehovah rather than allowing the hostile company to dictate his response.

[Diagnostic question — ask it distinctly and leave a brief pause.]

What truthful, peace-consistent step must I take because Jehovah rules my response?

For some, the step is to call upon Jehovah before answering. For some, it is to confess. For some, it is to correct the record and begin repair.

You cannot control another person’s heart, but you can yield your own speech and response to Jehovah. Call upon Him because He answers in distress.

[TRANSITION | The prayer has named the danger; now the psalm confronts its severity.]

[H1 | Movement 2 — Face the deceitful tongue’s arrow-and-coal severity (Psalm 120:3–4)]

[FOUR-PAGES | Page 2 — the text’s answer: Jehovah answers prayer, deceit is severe, and peace remains the worshiper’s allegiance.]

The prayer has named the danger. Now the psalm makes us face its severity.

Having called upon Jehovah for rescue from false speech, the psalm turns and addresses the deceitful tongue itself.

Verse 3 asks, “What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?”

Verse 2 called it “a deceitful tongue.” Verse 3 uses the same expression, though the Bible now renders it “thou false tongue.” The subject has not changed.

The tongue that worked in hiding is brought into the light and addressed.

Listen to the pressure in those questions. What shall be given unto thee? What shall be done unto thee? These are not requests for information. They tighten the tension and prepare us for the answer.

What shall be given? What shall be done? Thou false tongue.

[Common-ground guardrail — preserve both viable readings of vv. 3–4. Do not name Jehovah as the grammatical agent of v. 3. The direction may remain open; the severity does not.]

Now I want to slow down here, because verses 3 and 4 are difficult, and we must not make them say more than they say.

In the Authorized Version’s main text, the false tongue is being addressed, but the one who gives and the one who acts are not named. Because this is a prayer to Jehovah, the questions naturally point us toward His righteous recompense.

But the Hebrew does not actually name Jehovah as the One acting. That is a reasonable inference; it is not a name supplied by the grammar itself.

The Authorized Version margin preserves another possible hearing: “What shall the deceitful tongue give unto thee? or, what shall it profit thee?” On that reading, the deceitful tongue is the one acting, and verse 4 pictures the severe harm deceit brings upon another person.

The marginal note does not remove every difficulty. It remains a subordinate possibility.

I am not going to pretend the wording settles more than it does. Under the main text, we hear severe consequence coming upon the false tongue. Under the margin, we hear severe injury coming from the false tongue.

Here is what both readings make plain: the direction may remain open, but the severity does not.

Deceit is never morally weightless. Falsehood either deals in piercing, burning harm or stands under piercing, burning consequence. The deceiver cannot say, “They were only words,” and the wounded person does not have to call the wound imaginary simply because no hand was raised.

[BLOCK QUOTE | Verse 4’s compressed answer: sharp arrows with coals.]

Verse 4 gives the concentrated answer: “Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.”

There is no verb in that answer. Verse 3 asks its two questions, and verse 4 lets the images land: sharp arrows and burning coals.

The force is in the pictures themselves.

First, “sharp arrows of the mighty.” The word behind “the mighty” is singular, so picture a mighty warrior with a sharpened arrow in his hand.

The verse does not say that the arrow is poisoned, and we do not need to decorate the picture. A sharpened arrow in a mighty hand is strong enough. It pierces. It drives its force into one place.

Then come “coals of juniper.” The coals accompany the arrows and add burning heat to the piercing wound. The plant is the desert broom, which our Authorized Version calls juniper, and the expression speaks of live coals.

We do not need to fasten the coals to the arrowheads or turn the verse into a lesson about ancient weapons. We do not need to calculate how long a coal might burn.

The words God gave us are strong enough: a sharpened arrow pierces, and a live coal burns.

[ILLUSTRATION | Text-grown image only: a lie strikes like a sharp arrow and persists like a hot coal. Do not add an invented personal story.]

That is how the psalm teaches us to feel the moral weight of deceit. A lie can strike in one concentrated place. A calculated half-truth can enter deeply. Words designed to mislead can keep burning after the speaker has moved on.

The arrow and the coal carry the burden. Deceit pierces. Deceit burns. Whether we hear chiefly the injury inflicted or the consequence received, false speech belongs in the company of severity.

[APPLICATION | Hold together moral clarity, protection of the wounded, repentance of the deceiver, and refusal to retaliate in kind.]

Hear this first if you have been wounded. You do not have to call deceptive speech harmless in order to be faithful. You do not have to say, “It was only words,” when those words damaged a name, distorted the truth, or entered the heart like an arrow.

The psalm does not shame you for feeling the wound. It brings the danger to Jehovah and tells the truth about its weight.

But honesty about the wound does not authorize retaliation. The psalmist has called upon Jehovah; he has not answered a deceitful tongue by becoming another deceitful tongue.

Tell the truth about what happened. Refuse a false account. Seek a truthful correction. But do not send another verbal arrow back. Pain does not make exaggeration righteous, and another person’s deceit does not place your tongue beyond Jehovah’s rule.

And if your own speech has deceived, do not use the difficulty of verse 3 to create moral ambiguity. The grammar may leave the direction open, but the imagery leaves the weight clear.

Ask the question before Jehovah: Where have my words misled or injured? Where have I concealed what should have been told, distorted what should have been stated plainly, or repeated what I did not know to be true?

The faithful response is confession, truth-telling, and the beginning of repair. Correct the false claim. Tell the truth to those who were misled. Begin repairing what your words have harmed wherever repair is possible.

And perhaps you want peace, but you can feel the retaliatory answer rising. Truthful peace does not minimize evil, and it does not defend itself by becoming deceitful in return.

Name the falsehood honestly, but refuse to embellish it. Refuse the clever omission that makes your side look clean. Refuse the counter-deceit that feels justified because you were hurt first.

Place your answer under Jehovah’s rule and take the next truth-consistent step.

The direction may remain open; the severity does not.

Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper. Those images confront the tongue, refuse to trivialize the wound, and search every one of us before Jehovah.

We must refuse deceit in both directions: the deceit spoken against us and the deceit that might rise within us.

[TRANSITION | Widen the scene from one false tongue to prolonged life among a war-oriented company.]

[H1 | Movement 3 — Remain for peace among those oriented toward war (Psalm 120:5–7)]

Verses 3 and 4 have shown us the severity of hostile speech. Now verses 5 through 7 widen the scene. The problem is not one piercing word or one burning lie. The worshiper has lived a long time among people oriented toward war.

So the next question is not simply, “How dangerous is deceit?” The question is, “How will this worshiper remain for peace when the people around him do not change?”

The answer is the third movement of the psalm: remain for peace among those oriented toward war.

[Meshech and Kedar guardrail — treat them as an alien-and-hostile company image; do not claim literal dual residence, Russia, or a proved historical exile.]

Verse 5 says, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!” That first cry is personal lament. He does not begin with, “Woe to them.” He says, “Woe is me.”

He tells Jehovah the truth about the burden of his life.

Meshech and Kedar were widely separated places in the ancient world. The psalmist was not literally living in both places at the same moment, and we should not force these names onto a modern nation, ethnic group, or political cause.

Together they picture far-flung alienation. Wherever the worshiper turns, he feels like a stranger among people whose moral direction is not his own.

The next two verses tell us what makes that alienation so painful: he lives with one who hates peace, and he stands among people ready for war.

Verse 6 says, “My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.” Once again, “my soul” means the speaker himself—his life, his whole person. This is the same man who prayed, “Deliver my soul.”

And this has not been a momentary irritation. He says that he has dwelt there long.

The verse first speaks of “him that hateth peace” in the singular. That may describe one individual, a representative person, or the kind of person among whom he lives. We can leave that question where the text leaves it. What we cannot miss is the long duration and the moral opposition: the speaker desires peace; the other person hates it.

Peace here is not soft sentiment or silence at any price. It does not ask us to call falsehood truth, surrender moral judgment, abandon wise boundaries, or keep silent when protection and fair process are needed.

In this psalm, peace stands over against war. It is the desire for right relation rather than hostility.

The searching question is whether the hostility around the worshiper will be allowed to change the man within him.

Then verse 7 brings the psalm to its climax: “I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.”

There is an explicit “I,” and there is an explicit “they.” Peace stands on one side; readiness for war stands on the other. The Authorized Version supplies “am for” so that we hear the speaker’s settled direction: “I am for peace.”

This is more than a mood he felt one afternoon. This is the direction in which he has set himself under Jehovah’s rule.

Now listen carefully to the next clause. It says, “but when I speak.” It does not say, “when I speak peace.” Peace-consistent speech is a natural inference from the contrast, but the object of his speaking is not stated.

We do not need to add words to feel the force of the verse. He speaks, and they are for war.

His faithfulness does not make them cooperate. His peaceful direction does not guarantee a peaceful response. The psalm ends with the hostility unresolved.

[BLOCK QUOTE | Verified quotation Q-02 — Daniel J. Estes.]

We are tempted to measure obedience by another person’s reaction. We think that if we say the right thing gently enough, the conflict must end. If we apologize sincerely, trust must return immediately. If we pursue peace faithfully, the other party must meet us in the middle.

But the psalmist can truthfully say, “I am for peace,” while they remain “for war.” Old Testament scholar Daniel J. Estes puts the limit plainly: “Peace in a relationship requires the cooperation of both parties.”

You are responsible before Jehovah for the truthfulness and peaceful direction of your conduct. You are not responsible for manufacturing another person’s repentance.

You cannot confess for somebody else. You cannot force another heart to love truth. You cannot guarantee reconciliation by trying harder.

Continued hostility does not necessarily prove that faithful peacemaking has failed. Sometimes obedience means continuing to tell the truth, refusing vengeance, praying, and standing for peace while the outward situation remains painfully unsettled.

[ILLUSTRATION | Reprise the psalm’s arrow-and-coal imagery without fabricating a personal illustration.]

The arrow-and-coal picture helps us feel that pain. Falsehood can strike quickly like an arrow, and its effects can keep burning long after the first words were spoken. The wound is real.

Yet the wounded worshiper must not become another arrow. He must not sharpen his own deceit or throw another burning coal into the conflict and call it faithfulness. Another person’s readiness for war does not release him from being for peace.

[APPLICATION | Address the wounded hearer, the frustrated peacemaker, the deceiving speaker, and the congregation in turn.]

If lies have wounded you, “Woe is me” gives you language for telling Jehovah the truth about your pain. Prayer does not require you to call the wound imaginary.

Remaining for peace does not forbid truthful records, wise counsel, appropriate boundaries, church process, or lawful protection. Those matters require wisdom from the whole counsel of God; Psalm 120 does not prescribe every procedure.

But it does rule out private vengeance and retaliatory deceit. Seek protection without hatred. Correct a false statement without exaggeration. Tell the truth about what happened without making your tongue another weapon of malice.

Perhaps you are the frustrated peacemaker. You have tried to speak truthfully, and the other person still answers as though you had declared war.

Do not accept false guilt for a response you cannot control. Examine yourself honestly, and welcome correction where you have sinned. But do not confuse another person’s refusal with proof that Jehovah has rejected your obedience.

Your calling is not to manufacture peace by compromising truth. Your calling is to remain truthfully for peace.

Perhaps your own speech has deceived. Then “I am for peace” must not become a badge you pin on yourself while blaming everybody else. It must become a confession examined before Jehovah.

Where have your words concealed, distorted, exaggerated, or wounded? Vague remorse is not enough. Confess the lie. Withdraw or correct the false claim. Tell the truth to the people you misled. Begin repairing the harm where repair is possible.

Forgiveness, consequences, restored trust, and immediate reconciliation are related, but they are not identical. You may be forgiven while consequences remain. Another person may forgive you without being ready to trust you at once.

Repentance does not demand control of the timetable; it demands truthful obedience.

And as a church, we cannot reward the fastest accusation. We must test what we hear, refuse gossip and factional retellings, and preserve truthful correction and fair process for both the wounded and the accused.

Enemy love is not moral confusion. Refusal of vengeance is not refusal of justice. Peace is not the silencing of truth.

Under Jehovah’s righteous government, truth and peace belong together.

The psalm closes with unresolved hostility, but it began with an answered cry. The worshiper can remain distinct because Jehovah is the One to whom he calls and the One under whose rule he lives.

Distress, call, answer, petition. Then arrows and coals. Then woe, long dwelling, peace, and war. The outward trouble has not disappeared, but Jehovah’s answer makes dependent prayer and moral faithfulness possible before the trouble ends.

[TRANSITION | Move canonically from the Israelite prayer to the Gospel without collapsing Israel and the church.]

[H1 | Gospel: the truthful, peace-seeking Christ and His saving work]

[FOUR-PAGES | Page 3 — grace: Christ’s deity and humanity, substitutionary blood atonement, bodily resurrection, and the gift received by repentance and faith.]

[PROMPT | Christological guardrail — present Christ as the later canonical exemplar and Savior, not as the psalm’s hidden first-person speaker or as a direct Messianic identification.]

Now we come to Christ carefully. This is an Israelite psalm, and the church does not replace Israel. We do not take national promises the text never makes.

Jesus is not the hidden first-person speaker of these verses, and the arrows and coals are not an allegory of the cross. The bridge to Christ comes through later revelation, not by forcing Psalm 120 to become a directly Messianic psalm.

But later revelation brings us to the same holy God, now fully revealed in His Son. And Christ brings us far more than an example of how to endure false accusation.

[H2 | The person and work of Jesus Christ]

[VOICE | Speak the Gospel plainly, without compression or insider shorthand.]

The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. He took upon Him true humanity without ceasing to be God.

He was falsely accused, yet no deceit was found in Him. He did not answer sinful hostility with sinful retaliation. He entrusted Himself to the righteous Judge.

But He did more than show us how an innocent man endures accusation. He lived the sinless life we have not lived. He went to the cross as the willing, substitutionary sacrifice for sinners. He shed His precious blood in the sinner’s place.

He died, He was buried, and He rose again bodily the third day.

The living Christ saves guilty people—including those guilty of wounding others with their words and those guilty of retaliating when they were wounded.

Salvation is by the grace of God. It is not earned by cleaning up our vocabulary, winning an argument, repairing our reputation, or becoming more agreeable. Better speech cannot erase guilt, and no amount of peacemaking can pay for sin.

God offers pardon and new life through His Son. The sinner must repent toward God and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

To repent is to turn from sin to God, no longer defending the deceit or vengeance that condemns us. To believe is to rest personally in Christ, trusting His finished work rather than our moral performance.

The risen Christ keeps every believer eternally, and the Holy Spirit works within His people to sanctify our speech and conduct.

Jesus Christ will return and judge the world in righteousness. Those who die in their sins face everlasting punishment; those who are in Christ await bodily resurrection and everlasting life with Him.

This is greater than winning one conflict. Every soul must answer to God.

Coming to Christ does not guarantee that every lie about you will be retracted, every relationship restored on your schedule, or every painful consequence removed. Temporal relief is not the condition or the proof of salvation.

The Gospel promises something deeper and surer: forgiveness before God, reconciliation to Him, and new life in the risen Christ.

Then the Holy Spirit enables the believer to walk in truth and peace—not to purchase grace, but as the fruit of grace already received.

[APPLICATION | Believers: identify one truthful, peace-consistent step under Jehovah’s rule.]

If you belong to Christ, what truthful, peace-consistent step must you take because Jehovah rules your response?

Perhaps you need to pray before retaliating. Perhaps you need to correct a false statement. Perhaps you need to confess deceit without excuses and begin repair. Perhaps you need to seek wise protection without private vengeance. Or perhaps you simply need to continue in truthful peace without accepting false guilt for somebody else’s refusal.

You do not have to answer every question in your life today. Take the definite step obedience requires now, and depend upon the Spirit of God to enable what He commands.

[H2 | Invitation to repentance and faith]

[FOUR-PAGES | Page 4 — response: call upon Jehovah, repent, believe the Gospel, confess deceit, repair what can be repaired, and remain for peace.]

[APPLICATION | Unbelievers: the first need is pardon and new life in Christ, not merely improved speech.]

If you are lost this morning, your greatest need is not a calmer tongue. You need pardon and new life.

You stand before God not only with the words spoken against you, but also with the words you have spoken, the motives you have hidden, and sins no human listener knows.

Turn to God in repentance. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ—the eternal Son who became truly man, shed His blood in the sinner’s place, and rose bodily from the grave. Salvation is by grace, not by works, religion, or moral improvement.

Come to Christ without bargaining for an easier week or demanding immediate relief as proof. Come because He is the crucified and risen Saviour of sinners. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

[H1 | Conclusion: For Peace]

[VOICE | Gather the three movements, then press the specific objective with pastoral steadiness.]

Being for peace does not guarantee that the people around you will lay down their weapons. It means that under Jehovah’s rule, you will not become what wounded you.

The psalmist called, and Jehovah answered. He petitioned for deliverance. He faced the arrow-and-coal severity of deceit. He lamented the long dwelling. He stood among people oriented toward war and still said, “I am for peace.”

[APPLICATION | Final summons — bring the wound to Jehovah; refuse deceit in both directions; take the truthful, peace-consistent step.]

So bring the wound to Jehovah. Refuse deceit in both directions—the deceit spoken against you and the deceit that may rise within you.

Tell the truth. Reject private vengeance. Confess and repair your own false speech. Seek wise protection where it is needed. Trust the God who answers even when another person will not cooperate.

And if you have never trusted Christ, repent toward God and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ today.

[VOICE | End slowly and cleanly. No added sentence after the final line.]

Call upon Jehovah; remain for peace.