The Word of the Lord Stands Forever

Posted by Jordyne

I had this thought today that it is IMPOSSIBLE for Scripture to be lost now. God promised that his word would never fade away, and he protected it from being lost even when there were not yet any manuscripts, but only the original autographs. And after that when there were just a handful of copied manuscripts, God protected his word and made sure that it was not lost.

There was once a day when we couldn’t quite see how God was preserving his word. But today, we can see exactly how he has done it and continues to accomplish it.

There are SO many copies of the Bible, not only in the original Greek and Hebrew, but in hundreds of languages all throughout the world. More copies of the Bible are printed, sold, and distributed than any other book in the history of the world.  There are not just Bibles in churches, as it once used to be, but in countless homes, bookstores, dollar stores and Wal Marts across America. There are ones in libraries and storage sheds and in the backs of closets that have not been sorted through in decades. There are old ones in antique stores and thrift stores, and museums, and private collections. There are Bibles in hospitals and printing presses and missions agencies and in the bedside drawer of countless hotel rooms. Bibles left in the trunks of cars and in glove compartments and backpacks. There are copies in schools and business offices. Bibles in shipping containers and underground churches, and Bibles buried with the dead. The numbers are in the billions.

And those are just the complete Bibles….we have said nothing of Scripture that has been quoted in other books. Even if SOMEHOW all of the whole Bibles (or those sad New Testament + Psalms combos) were lost forever, we could reconstruct every single word of Scripture (and put it in the right order) by using books that have quoted even just one passage of Scripture. Not just books, but newspapers, tracts and magazines as well.

And if THAT weren’t enough…. let’s just say that somehow...SOMEHOW every single Bible and every single publication that ever quoted Scripture in any language was wiped off the face of the earth. What would we do?

Well then there’s the handwritten copies.  Portions of the Bible found in journals written by saints, church folk, and seekers alike. Memory verses carefully written on index cards. Encouraging passages mailed in letters. Words of truth and hope scribbled on fragments of scratch paper in a moment of desperate need for something to cling to.

And what if by some unimaginable, absurd, and ridiculously impossible chance EVERY.SINGLE physical copy of the Bible, whether complete or partial disappeared from the Earth? Where would we go to find his Word?

You guessed it. The Internet. 

You can find digital copies in the form of ebooks and apps and a variety of Bible websites such as Bible.com or Bible Gateway. But you can also find it on church websites, and websites of missions organizations. There is a New Testament scholar who is working on making a digital copy of every single ancient New Testament manuscript we have. You can find passages of Scripture on blogs, people’s Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and Tumblr. You can find passages of Scripture decoratively painted and printed and hand-lettered on any number of Pinterest boards or Etsy shops. And each and every one of these digital forms has been transmitted and retransmitted so many times, our brains cannot conceive of the number. The only way to get rid of them all would be to get rid of the Internet entirely or all electricity and technology, like in that TV show Revolution. 

And what if somehow that really did happen? Well then, may I direct your attention again to the immeasurable wealth of physical copies mentioned above.

It would seem that Satan has suffered a crushing defeat!
There is absolutely no way that the enemy can take God’s word away from humanity.

Unless...

Unless he can convince us that the Bible can’t be trusted, that it’s been corrupted. Or that it has no relevance or power to speak into our lives. 

Unless he can convince us that it’s not worth our time to study it, or simply that we are too busy to read its pages.

If he can convince us of that….

Well if he can convince us of that, then all the copies and access in the world wouldn’t matter a bit, would they?

Maybe the defeat wasn’t so crushing after all.