Mark 14:9 Truly I say to you, Wherever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world… Human aggrandizement gives no permanent satisfaction. I had an aged friend who went into the White House when General Jackson was President of the United States, four days before President Jackson left the White House, and the President said to him, "I am bothered almost to death. People strive for this White House as though it were some grand thing to get, but I tell you it is a perfect hell!" There was nothing in the elevation the world had given him that rendered him satisfaction, or could keep off the annoyances and vexations of life. A man writes a book. He thinks it will circulate for a long while. Before long it goes into the archives of the city library, to be disturbed once a year, and that when the janitor cleans the house. A man builds a splendid house, and thinks he will get fame from it. A few years pass along, and it goes down under the auctioneer's hammer at the executors' sale, and a stranger buys it. The pyramids were constructed for the honour of the men who ordered them built. Who built them? Don't know! For whom were they built? Don't know! Their whole history is an obscuration and a mystery. There were men in Thebes, and Tyre, and Babylon who strove for great eminence, but they were forgotten; while the woman of the text, who lovingly accosted Jesus, has her memorial in all the ages. Ah! men and women of God, I have found out the secret; that which we do for ourselves is forgotten — that which we do for Christ is immortal. They who are kind to the sick, they who instruct the ignorant, they who comfort the troubled, shall not be forgotten. There have been more brilliant women than Florence Nightingale, but all the world sings her praise. There have been men of more brain than missionary Carey — their names are forgotten, while his is famous on the records of the Christian Church. There may have been women with vases more costly than that which is brought into the house of Simon the leper, but their names have been forgotten, while I stand before you tonight, reading the beautiful story of this Bethany worshipper. In the gallery of heaven are the portraits of Christ's faithful servants, and the monuments may crumble, and earth may burn, and the stars may fall, and time may perish; but God's faithful ones shall be talked of among the thrones, and from the earthly seed they sowed there shall be reaped a harvest of everlasting joy. (Dr. Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. |
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