Isaiah 40:8 The grass wither, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. I. Since the Word of our God shall stand for ever, the BIBLE WILL REMAIN. 1. Think of the Bible as history. "The Old Testament is supported by the exhumed records of the kings of Egypt and Babylon and Nineveh and Moab. We are now shown in the Boulag Museum at Cairo the very body of the Egyptian king who oppressed Israel. At a hundred points confirmatory evidence has been dug out of the Assyrian ruins. In the day when the Bible was attacked by unbelief, there appeared out of the very ground hosts of defenders. God's Providence supports His Book." 2. Think of the Bible as to philosophy. John Stuart Mill will tell us, "It is impossible to find in the ideas of any philosophy, even the latest, a single point which is not anticipated and ennobled in Christianity." 3. Think of the Bible as to science. It is true, as one has said wisely and wittily, that "the intention of Holy Scripture is to teach us to go to heaven, and not how the heavens go." And yet the great astronomer Sir John Herschel will tell us: "All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truth contained in the Sacred Scriptures." 4. Think of the Bible as to morals. Those words of James Russell Lowell, spoken so bravely at a dinner in London, before a company of sceptics, are well worth treasuring: "The worst kind of religion is no religion at all. And those men, living in ease and luxury, indulging themselves in the amusement of going without religion, may be thankful that they live in lands where the Gospel they neglect has tamed the beastliness and ferocity of the men who, but for Christianity, might long ago have eaten their carcasses like the South Sea Islanders, or cut off their heads and tanned their hides like the monsters of the French Revolution." This Bible, the Word of God, which history substantiates, which philosophy cannot anticipate, which science reinforces, which is the source of all true morals and secure civilisation, is to abide. II. Since the Word of our God shall stand for ever, THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST IS TO ENDURE AND CONQUER. For the very heart and kernel of God's Word is the revelation of the certainly vanquishing kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. III. Since the Word of our God standeth for ever, HEAVEN WILL SHINE ON US AT THE LAST. (W. Hoyt, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.WEB: The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever." |
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