".....My Words Shall Not Pass Away"

Over the centuries, many men have tried to destroy the Bible. In A.D. 303, the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an edict to destroy Christians and their Bibles. The persecution that followed was brutal.

Over a burned Bible, he built a monument on which he wrote these words,

"Extineto nomine Christianorum" (the name Christian is extinguished).

Twenty years later, Diocletian was dead and the new Emperor, Constantine, commissioned forty copies of the Bible to be prepared at government expense.

Voltaire, the French philosopher, did much to destroy the Bible.

In his article entitled, "The Holy Scriptures - Indestructible", Brother Wayne Jackson writes (with sources):

"No one in Europe did as much to destroy faith in the Word of God as Voltaire. France rejected the Scriptures, tied a copy of the Bible to the tail of a donkey, and dragged it through the streets to the city dump, where it was ceremoniously burned. But, as Coffman notes, “since that time, the government of France has fallen thirty-five times” (1968, 343-344). Voltaire predicted that within a hundred years of his death (1778) Christianity would be swept from existence and pass into history (Collett n.d., 63), yet two centuries have come and gone, and today, rare is the person who owns a copy of Voltaire’s writings, while almost every home is adorned with a Bible."

It is truly distressing to read what men have tried to do to pervert, distort, and destroy God's Word. However, our Lord, knowing the eternal nature of His Word, declared:

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).

Dear reader, along with the inspired writer John, let us declare, "Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints" (Revelation 15:3 KJV; cf. Psalm 92:5; Psalm 111:2).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets