the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." - Matthew 24:35.
On the day when these words were spoken, had it been announced in Rome that there was one then speaking whose words would never pass away, some would have said, " It must be the Emperor, his words will outlive all." Others would have fixed upon a certain historian; others upon an orator; others upon a poet. But no one would have conceived that a despised Galilean seated upon a hill opposite Jerusalem, and conversing with his disciples, was speaking ’words that would outlive all others. The speaker died by the hands of men; he passed away from earth; but his words have been living in the world with a most tremendous life from that day to this. They smote Judaism; they went forth and assailed all religions of the earth; they returned and overthrew Jerusalem; they wrestled with Rome in her pride and overcame her; the mightiest systems fled from before them; they made the wilderness to blossom as the rose. After the lapse of eighteen centuries our report is this, that every day eight thousand copies of the Scriptures, the testimony of Jesus, are added to the many millions already existing in hundreds of languages.
Especially, had the philosophers of Athens and of Rome heard the words of which this immortality and universal victory were predicted, would they have deemed their fulfilment incredible. That he should be crucified and his doctrine be none the less promulgated; that his disciples should be hated of all men, yet should none the less spend their time and strength in preaching his gospel; that the Jews should be carried captive into all lands; and a multitude of other things of equally improbable realization, were distinctly foretold by him.
What a wonderful thing that we should be in the world along with these all-conquering words. A legion of angels would not effect such changes in the successive generations of men, as these words of the Lord Jesus. We have something that will outlive the heavens and the earth, and will judge us, you and me, in the last day.
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