Tag Archive for Matthew 24:35

Words That Never Pass Away

John 14:24; Matthew 24:35 

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Matthew 24:35, NIV)

Have you ever stopped to consider these words of Christ? How incredibly, unbelievably bold a claim!

In August 2010 Google estimated that there were nearly 130 million different books in the world. Millions more are released each year. That’s right, millions! Visit any used bookstore, and you’ll get a tangible, sobering view of the fate of most published words. Walk past the dusty shelves and peruse the dated, decaying books. Welcome to the graveyard of human “truth”! With lots of focus, hard work, and “luck,” publishers occasionally get a book that survives in active circulation for a few decades. Rarely does anything last beyond that.

Here is a Jewish peasant in a tiny corner of the world, never published, never holding any position of influence in society, many centuries before the printing press, with absolutely no means of mass communication, simply speaking words out into the air. Only a handful of His closest friends were listening, and in society’s eyes they were as unlettered and unimportant as He. Yet He claimed that His words would never pass away, even when heaven and earth were long gone. Not even the greatest human classics could pretend to such a status.

How could He say that?

“These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” (John 14:24, NIV)

Jesus’ confidence was in His Father. He knew that the word of the sovereign Lord of all reality would never pass away. He speaks, and it is so. Matter obeys His will. No force can oppose Him. No change touches Him. As long as Jesus spoke the Father’s word, His words would never pass away.

God’s Word is our confidence as well. The very best of human “truth” is permeated with ignorance and weakness, selfishness and change.

Do not put your trust in . . . human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing. (Psalm 146:3-4, NIV) 

God’s Word is pure, sovereign, and unchanging. As we trust Him, we are on immovable ground.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Your Sovereign Word
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