“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.’”
John 11:25
“Thus passes the glory of the world” when, as John Newton wrote, “Mortal life shall cease.”
“I have a remembrance of an account I read … of an ice palace, built one winter…. Had the frost continued, the palace might have been standing; but with the returning spring it melted away.
“There should have been one stone in the building to have retained the inscription, Sic transit gloria mundi! For no contrivance could exhibit a fitter illustration of the vanity of human life. Men build as if their work were to endure forever; but the wind passes over them, and they are gone. … This truth is too plain to be denied, but [most] act as if they were convinced it was false.
“What cause for thankfulness have they who are delivered from this delusion and who, by the knowledge of the glorious gospel, have learned their true state; are saved from the love of the present world, from the heart-distressing fear of death; and know that if their earthly house is dissolved like the ice-palace, they have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
“I have a remembrance of an account I read … of an ice palace, built one winter…. Had the frost continued, the palace might have been standing; but with the returning spring it melted away.
“There should have been one stone in the building to have retained the inscription, Sic transit gloria mundi! For no contrivance could exhibit a fitter illustration of the vanity of human life. Men build as if their work were to endure forever; but the wind passes over them, and they are gone. … This truth is too plain to be denied, but [most] act as if they were convinced it was false.
“What cause for thankfulness have they who are delivered from this delusion and who, by the knowledge of the glorious gospel, have learned their true state; are saved from the love of the present world, from the heart-distressing fear of death; and know that if their earthly house is dissolved like the ice-palace, they have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
Scripture Focus
Psalm 16
Insight
“Lord, open sinners’ eyes,/ Their awful state to see;/ And make them, ere the storm arise,/ To Thee for safety flee.” (John Newton, 1725-1807)
Bible In A Year
- Isaiah 41-42
- Psalm 91
- Acts 14
