NOT A WORD OF CHRIST’S SHALL
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EVER FAIL
By Dr. R. A. Torrey DEAN O F TH E BIBLE INSTITUTE O F LOS ANG ELES
of His shall ever fail has been substantiated. That th.e words of Jesus Christ shall never pass away is proven by the tests that they have already stood. 1. First of all the words of Jesus have stood the test of bitterest opposition. No sooner had these words fallen from His lips than they were hated. They have been hated through the nearly nineteen centuries that have elapsed since they were spoken. This hatred of the words of Jesus has been most bitter, most relentless, most energetic, most skillful, most wily, most powerful, but it has been utterly ineffective. This hatred manifests itself in literary attacks upon the words of Jesus, like that of Lucian, the greatest master of satire in his day; in philosophical attacks like that of the great philosopher Porphyry; in learned attacks like that of the great scholar Celsus; in physical attacks like that of the great Roman Emperor Diocletian, in which he summoned all the political and military powers of the empire, with torch and stake and prison and wild beasts, to obliterate from the pages of history the memory of Jesus Christ and His words. From those early days until this, this opposition has gone on, more than eighteen centuries of it. All the artillery of science, literature, philosophy, political intrigue, sarcasm, ridi cule, worldly ambition, force, all the artil lery of earth and hell, have been trained upon the words of Christ, and for centuries
N Matt. 23:35 Jesus Christ is recorded as saying, “Heaven an{i earth shall pass away, but
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my words shall not pass J ||§ f f | away.” The Lord Jesus here- asserts that His words are more stable and enduring than heaven or earth: that while heaven and earth shall pass away, His words shall not pass away. When we stop to consider the position that Jesus occupied when He made this extraordinary claim, it appears absurd in the extreme. He was an uneducated artisan of an obscure and despised people. Furthermore, it was only a few days before His crucifixion. The man who uttered these astounding words in less than a week was to be the butt of the scorn and ridicule of the jeering mobs as He ended His life on a gibbet only a ,short walk from where He was now speak ing. If these words spoken by such a man at such a time prove true, then He must be more than appears at fir$t sight; indeed, He must be, as He claimed to be, Divine. Heaven and earth are God’s own handi work, and if Christ’s words prove more stable than they, then He Himself must be Divine. I. C hrist’s words are sure. But these remarkable words of Christ, after the elapse of more than eighteen centuries, are proven to be true. This stupendous claim of Jesus that not a word
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