Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Christ, speaking of the law, said, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished (Matthew 5:18). In another place He said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away (Matthew 24:35). Now, let us keep in mind that the only Scripture the apostles and Christ had was the Old Testament. The New Testament was not yet written. We can also call them the old and new covenants. Not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished – the old covenant; and then Christ comes and adds these words: Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away – the new covenant.
Notice how that has been fulfilled. There was no reporter following Him around writing down His words. There were no papers to print the sermons, and they wouldn’t have printed His sermons if there had been any daily papers; the whole church and all the religious world were against Him. I can imagine one of your modern freethinkers standing near Him, and he hears Christ say, Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. I see the scornful look on his face as he says, “Hear that Jewish peasant talk! Did you ever hear such conceit, such insanity? He says heaven and earth will pass away, but His words will not pass away.”
My friend, I want to ask you this question: have they passed away? There are more Bibles today than ever before in the history of the world. There have been more Bibles printed in the last ten years than in the previous eighteen hundred years. They tried in the Dark Ages to chain the Bible and keep it from the nations, but God has preserved it, and the British and American Bible societies print thousands of Bibles every day. One publishing house in New York sold one hundred thousand Oxford Bibles last year.
Notwithstanding all that skeptics and infidels say against the old Book, it continues to prosper. These objectors remind me of a dog barking at the moon; the moon goes on shining just the same. Atheists keep on writing against the Bible, but they do not make much progress, do they? It is being spread all abroad, silently, and without any blasts of trumpets. The lighthouse does not blow a trumpet; it goes on shining its light all around. So the Bible is lighting up the nations of the earth. It is said that a lecturer on secularism was once asked, “Why can’t you let the Bible alone if you don’t believe it?” The honest reply was at once made: “Because the Bible won’t let me alone.”
The Bible was about the first book ever printed, and today, New Testaments are printed in 353 different languages and are going to the very corners of the earth. Wherever the Bible has not been translated, the people have no literature. It will not be long before the words of Jesus Christ will penetrate the darkest parts of the earth and the darkest islands of the sea. When Christ said the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), He meant every word He said. The Devil and man and hell have been united for centuries in trying to destroy the Word of God, but they cannot do it. If you can stand on the Word of God, you have good footing for time and eternity. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. My friends, that Word is going to live, and there is no power in hell or on earth that can destroy it.
We need people today who believe in the Bible from the crown of their heads to the soles of their feet. We need people who believe the whole of it – the things they understand, and the things they do not understand. Talk about the things you understand, and accept the things you do not. We need to study the whole Bible. There are a good many Christians who are familiar with one book of the Bible, but do not know the rest of the Bible. When I went to Scotland, I had to be very careful how I quoted the Bible. They seemed to know all of the Bible there, and someone would tell me after the meeting if I quoted a verse wrong.
According to Wycliffe Bible Translators, as of 2015, more than 1,300 languages have access to the New Testament and some portions of Scripture in their language. More than 550 languages have the complete translated Bible. Up to 180 million people still need Bible translation to begin in their language (www.wycliffe.org/about/why).