The Bible is Indestructible

Through the centuries men have tried to destroy the Bible, but it is still here! It continues to be the best seller that no other book has ever come near and today it is available in more languages and more options with our language (translations) than ever before.

Jehoiakim, the wicked king of doomed Judah, cut the roll of the prophecy of Jeremiah to pieces with his knife and burned the pieces in !re at his winter house. He did not like the stern warnings and fearful predictions of the prophet. Jeremiah prophesied captivity in Babylon and Jehoiakim treated the message of the prophet and of God with utter contempt.

Two things should be remembered: the words of the prophet remain to this day and disaster fell upon the irreverent king. He died or was murdered and was un-mourned. God will not hold him guiltless who deals lightly with His word.

Near the end of the third century, the Roman Emperor Diocletian launched a relentless attack against the Bible. He ordered every Bible or portion of the Bible to be burned and thousands of Christians died rather than willingly give up their Bibles. At the end of two years the Emperor erected a monument on the ashes of a burned Bible with the inscription, Extincto nominee Christianorum — “Extinct is the name of Christians.”

Twenty years later the new emperor, Constantine, asked for copies of the New Testament and !'y copies were

brought out of hiding and presented to him within twenty-four hours. the name of Christians and the New Testament remain over sixteen centuries later Diocletian became “extinct.”

Voltaire, the famous French atheist, predicted that within one hundred years the Bible would be a forgotten book. Less than a hundred years later his own home was owned by the Geneva Bible Society, from which millions of Bibles were printed and sent to all parts of the world. the American agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll once held a Bible in his hand and declared to his audience, “In fifteen years I will have this book in the morgue!” Fifteen years later Ingersoll was “in the morgue” and the Bible was majestically marching on.

Hitler tried to banish the Bible from Germany and murdered countless New Testament Christians. But today

Hitler is gone, millions of Bible are in his Fatherland and Germany possesses one of the strongest contingents of New Testament Christians in Western Europe. Stalin and other Communists by education, law, ridicule and persecution sought to blot out all knowledge of the Bible from the Soviet states, but were unsuccessful. those who sowed the wind have reaped the whirlwind. Today we know many of the true stories of the growth of churches, Christians, schools of preaching, Bible studies and Bibles in that land.

Men may destroy the faith of men in the Bible, but they cannot destroy the Bible. “the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8) “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” (Matthew 24:35) God is today trustworthy and faithful just as He has ever been.

God’s word is also trustworthy and faithful, and if we will listen to it and obey it, His promise of salvation is ours. Let’s keep our faith strong and our love intact and ever growing as we serve the Savior.