“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” Donald Trump said at his second inauguration. President Trump has probably tried harder than any president in decades to bring peace to this world. Yet no matter how hard he or any other would-be peacemaker tries, the world does not have peace. This has been true of man’s quests for peace throughout history.

Peace is a noble goal, but if it is pursued the wrong way, that effort achieves the opposite!

There is a hidden cause for why man cannot have peace today. This cause is revealed through one recent example of peacemaking that did actually bear fruit.

That example was an effort by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt with the support of Herbert W. Armstrong, editor in chief of the Plain Truth. They did something truly remarkable: momentarily restoring the way of peace for this whole world to see!

Much of this material I originally wrote for my booklet The Way of Peace Restored Momentarily. We first published this booklet in 2012, but the principles are even more relevant today.

President and Ambassador

After the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel was built up significantly as a nation and became a nuclear-armed power. But in late 1973, Egypt and Syria, plus many other allies in the Arab world and beyond, attacked again on Yom Kippur, the most solemn Jewish holy day, when religious Jews go without food and water for 25 hours. The Jews miraculously won this war, but at a high cost. After being caught off guard, Israel suffered 2,691 military casualties among others killed and injured. Though the Jews won, the war shook their national conscience.

President Sadat led Egypt against Israel in that war and was praised by his people for it. In his autobiography, Sadat wrote that Egypt’s performance “restored the self-confidence of our armed forces, our people and our Arab nation. It also restored the world’s confidence in us, and exploded forever the myth of an invincible Israel.”

Then something amazing happened in the mind of this man. He offered peace to Israel. He stood up against many of his own people, risking his life, to extend peace to the Jews.

In November 1977, President Sadat went before Israel’s lawmakers, showing that he recognized their right to exist as a state. In that landmark Knesset speech, he said, “You would like to live with us in this region of the world, and I tell you in all honesty that we welcome you among us.”

In the audience for President Sadat’s speech was Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin. These two men were unique in the history of Arab-Israel relations. And they were both friends of Herbert W. Armstrong.

Mr. Armstrong was known as an “unofficial ambassador for world peace.” He visited heads of state all over the world with a message about the true way of peace from the Bible. He not only knew both President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin personally but was also personally involved in this extraordinary situation. He called President Sadat’s speech a “genuine peace offer,” and he was in a position to know!

Virtually the entire Arab world harbored intense hatred for the Jews. Yet President Sadat traveled right to the heart of the Jewish state to address the Knesset in Jerusalem. Perhaps he didn’t fully realize how much hostility that move would create, but from that point forward he was a marked man. He had an ambulance following everywhere he drove because he knew many people wanted to kill him. His trip to Jerusalem triggered assassinations of other Egyptian dignitaries.

Was that not a sacrifice for peace? This man was most unusual. Anwar Sadat became one of a few great leaders in this world. He sacrificed his life for true peace. That is the mark of a great leader!

An Arab leader and a Muslim, President Sadat extended a genuine offer of peace to Prime Minister Begin at great personal risk. In 1978, these two men met at Camp David along with United States President Jimmy Carter—who was of yet another religion—and signed an agreement that kept peace for more than 30 years between Egypt and Israel—two nations that had previously been at each other’s throats!

This was a peace plan based on mutual goodwill and sacrifice, and it was endorsed by God’s apostle. I’m convinced God was behind it. In fact, I believe God engineered a lot of that to teach this world a lesson.

To understand the true significance of this peace initiative, it’s important to fix in our minds the stunning history of the location at the heart of this peace pact: Sinai, the mountain of God!

Where God Came Down

When God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, He brought them through the Red Sea and led them to this mountain through a series of awesome miracles. But of all the miracles He worked, perhaps the most spectacular and earthshaking was when God Himself came down to Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:18-20).

What a day! God came down and personally established the nation of Israel. No nation had ever had such a spectacular beginning.

Moses, their leader, ascended the mountain and talked with God! (verse 3). Imagine this unique event. This is beyond compare with the beginning of any other nation on Earth!

Islam, Judaism and Christianity all view Moses as a great ancestral prophet. It seems that fact alone should give these three religions some room for agreement and cooperation.

God instructed Moses to tell the Israelites, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. …” (verses 4-6). They were to teach and show the world how to have real peace.

Then God gave Israel an unparalleled gift: He spelled out His eternal spiritual law for them. This was a detailed, codified form of law that had existed from the beginning, just like the laws of physics and chemistry. This gift is a spiritual law. If we obey it, it brings dazzling blessings—if we disobey, it exacts a toll on our lives. This law distinguished Israel from every other nation on Earth.

This world views God’s law as harsh and oppressive, and people ignore it. Look at the suffering in this world because people won’t listen to God! That law gives people security and protection; it helps us avoid sorrow, misery, suffering, violence and death; it makes us happy and joyful!

Mr. Armstrong summed up God’s law in his magnum opus, Mystery of the Ages: “His law—His way of life—is the way of giving, not getting, which is the way of this world.” Further down he elaborated: “[God’s] character might be summed up in the one word love, defined as an outflowing, loving concern. It is the way of giving, serving, helping, sharing, not the ‘get’ way.

“It is the way devoid of coveting, lust and greed, vanity and selfishness, competition, strife, violence and destruction, envy and jealousy, resentment and bitterness.

“God’s inherent nature is the way of peace, of justice, mercy, happiness and joy radiating outward toward those He has created!”

God’s law is His way of life codified. He has always lived the way of peace (Psalm 119:165). He wants man to live this way of peace right now.

This is consistent with what Mr. Armstrong saw in the Camp David Accords.

Way of Give

In 1981, Mr. Armstrong wrote about a specific idea Sadat had: “He plans to build at the base of Mount Sinai a world peace center, emblematic of peace among all nations and religions. The concept is unique—a total departure from any previous peace undertaking” (Quest, May 1981; emphasis mine). This effort showed these two nations’ “extreme willingness to give extraordinary sacrifice in this start toward peace in their region,” he wrote. An artist’s rendition of the proposed edifice in the magazine showed a church building, a mosque and a synagogue. This was meant to represent peace among the three faiths that claimed a heritage with Abraham and with Moses.

I would say that idea is pointing in the right direction, wouldn’t you?

When Mr. Armstrong—God’s apostle—heard of Sadat’s proposal, he immediately donated $100,000 as a down payment on a total pledge of $1 million. God’s apostle saw real vision in this project and thought it could point people in the world toward real peace.

I believe this project was special because God’s apostle took part in it. What other comparable peace agreement have you ever heard of? This was huge! Mr. Armstrong wanted to encourage President Sadat in these efforts. He was called the ambassador for world peace without portfolio. He really was a man of peace. He knew how to have peace! And he knew that President Sadat was onto something really big in this world. I believe Mr. Armstrong’s involvement was God’s way of saying, This is an act of peace by a true peacemaker. You need to support him and help him and be a part of this. Leave that, at least, as an example. And what an example Anwar Sadat was, and Mr. Armstrong as well, to the world.

What was this “way of peace” that was taught at Mount Sinai? Mr. Armstrong spent considerable time in his article explaining the ingredient missing in the rest of the world: God’s law, given at Mount Sinai. That law reveals the way of give, which leads to peace.

Obviously Mr. Armstrong knew their efforts would not solve the world’s problems and bring world peace. He knew the prophecies: that this world will end violently, and true peace can only be achieved once the Prince of Peace returns. Still, he did all he could to represent peace and to promote peace, and he demonstrated his strong desire that all men work toward that end today.

Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat made serious sacrifices for this peace. Prime Minister Begin gave up the massive buffer territory of the Sinai Peninsula. And President Sadat gave his life.

A Condemning Example

Satan remembered Sinai too. He hasn’t forgotten, and Anwar Sadat’s peace plan really stirred his hatred. Satan loves the way of war and hates the way of peace. He didn’t want peace to take hold, and he moved quickly to destroy it.

On Oct. 6, 1981, Egypt held its annual victory parade to celebrate Egypt’s crossing of the Suez Canal in the 1973 war. President Sadat was there. He was offered a military escort, but he refused. He said, No—I don’t need it, and I don’t want it. These are my sons. His enemies—including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the very organization getting control of Egypt today—knew this, and they had it all carefully planned. As the Air Force Mirage jets flew very low, making it difficult to hear anything, a group of men led by one of Sadat’s own lieutenants jumped out of a military truck. The lieutenant, rather than saluting his president, threw three grenades at him as the other men fired assault rifles.

Within hours, the wounded Sadat was pronounced dead.

It was all professionally planned and precisely timed. Sadat should have known better, but apparently he didn’t have such loyal sons as he thought.

God allowed Sadat to be killed and that peace center effort to die. If nothing else, this gave the world a condemning example of how it hates the way of peace even on a letter-of-the-law level. What a witness against it!

After Sadat was assassinated, Mr. Armstrong looked to Hosni Mubarak to carry on with the planned peace center and said he would maintain his support for it. But the project broke down. Mubarak didn’t follow up as he should have and as God’s apostle had hoped. Mr. Armstrong believed Mubarak simply may not have been strong enough to carry on as Sadat did.

It really does take heroic commitment to sacrifice and giving to bring peace between nations or within a church or family. Anybody can let a marriage or a church fall apart. It takes strength and power to cling to the way of peace! It takes the very strength and power of God to sustain that way!

The Way of Peace

Don’t the nations today need peace? Think of the horrors endured by the prisoners Hamas held captive after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Soon, all people who aren’t divinely protected in a place of safety are going to live through far worse! The Bible describes a soon-coming global cataclysm as “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:21-22).

This world needs real peace. Mr. Armstrong and President Sadat showed the world an example of real peace decades ago. But the world could have more examples of that way of peace today.

The law given at Mount Sinai is the same law God expects His people to obey today (Hebrews 8:10). God wants His obedient people to be a light to the world today on how to have real peace (Matthew 5:14-16). We can live the way of give that was on display with the Camp David Accords.

God showed Mr. Armstrong deeply how to have world peace. That peace must begin in our lives individually. God’s people are about to teach the world the way of peace, so we ourselves must be at peace. We must have peaceful marriages, peaceful families, a peaceful Church—by applying the Ten Commandments God gave on Mount Sinai! We have to set an example for this world of the way of peace.

I truly believe that, for a moment, Mr. Armstrong really did restore the way of peace to this Earth! He knew the way of peace, and he knew and taught about the God of Mount Sinai.

If you bring this God into your life, you will have peace! If all parties look to this God, how can there not be unity and joy?

“And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3:18). The English Standard Version says, “And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” If we are to reap the fruit of righteousness, we must sow in peace. That is exactly what Mr. Armstrong did, and he showed us and the whole world how to do it. The more I consider this example, the more impressed I am.

Mr. Armstrong showed us, and showed the world, the way of peace. Look at the fruits! He brought peace to the Church, and momentarily, he brought it to this world. What an example. We need to follow it the best we can. This is how we qualify to teach the whole world how to have peace—as kings and priests in God’s Kingdom (Revelation 1:6; 5:10).

It won’t be long before he and Mr. Sadat will be together again. This time they will be teaching and practicing the way of peace, and saying, “Oh, how I love God’s law!” What a wonderful time we have to look forward to—and it is almost here. Soon that peace will fill this Earth!