THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD OF GOD

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” (Matthew‬ ‭24‬:‭35‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

The infidel Voltaire once impudently boasted that, “Fifty years from now the world will hear no more of the Bible.”  How ironic that on the day the British Museum paid over $500,000 for a manuscript of the Bible, one could purchase a first edition of Voltaire’s works in Paris for about eight cents!  I doubt many of you have read (or even heard of) Voltaire, but the Bible is still a best seller, even in this secular society.

No book has ever been so scrutinized and dissected as the Bible.  It has suffered constant attack.  Satan hates the Word of God and has countless minions who despise the truth also, ready to launch a fresh salvo at the Scriptures.  Sovereigns and skeptics have tried to destroy it, but the Bible has outlasted the kings and the critics.

One ruthless pagan persecution against God’s people and His Word took place around A.D.300, instigated by the demonic Roman emperor Diocletian.  This murderous man butchered so many believers and burned so many Bibles that he put up a monument declaring, “Extincto Nomine Christianorium” translated, “The name of the Christians has been extinguished.”  But the light of truth could not be snuffed out.  In only a few years, Constantine became emperor and in A.D.325 at the First Council of Nicea, decreed the Bible as the only infallible judge of truth.

But the union of church and state, while bringing temporary relief from persecution, led the church to dilute its message and pursue political power and earthly wealth.  The clergy became the custodians of the Bible and the common man was denied from reading and interpreting it.  Not pagan Rome, but the Roman church, began the next persecution.  They had set themselves up as the only ones capable of interpreting the Word of God and twisted the truth to fit their thinking and traditions.  The Dark Ages came and it seemed that the light had gone out.

But beneath the ashes were the hot coals of Holy Writ.  God breathed on them and a monk named Luther fanned the flame that became the Reformation.  At the heart of that move of God was the Word of God.  The cry of the Reformers became, “Sola Scriptura”, the Scriptures and the Scriptures alone. 

More recently, attacks of the rationalists, evolutionists, atheists, and the like, have sought to excise the Bible, like a cancerous tumor, from modern civilization.  In their quest to build a utopia without God, they know the need to obliterate His revelation.  But despite all the effort—the Word of God prevails!  A generation of skeptics rises and falls—they give birth to another assault on truth and with their last breath curse the light before they plunge into darkness.  But the light still shines!

One day, the heavens will melt and the earth burn to a crisp—the very molecular structure coming apart and being reconstituted into new heavens and a new earth.  All that we see and touch—gone up in smoke.  Yet the Word of God goes on and on and on—immutable, invincible, and indestructible.  His Word shall stand.

In the eternal Word we encounter the eternal God. 

Pray with me:

Jesus,

Your words will never pass away.  I hold to Your promises.  Though this entire world seems to be coming apart at the seams, I rest in Your revelation—the enduring Word of God. 

In Your Name,

Amen.

Yours for Truth,

Dennis Thurman, Mission Strategist