It is maddening to think of the sure decay and dissolution of all human strength, beauty, wisdom, unless that thought brings with it immediately, like a pair of coupled stars, of which the one is bright and the other dark, the corresponding thought of that which does not pass, and is unaffected by time and change.  Just as reason requires some unalterable substratum, below all the fleeting phenomena of the changeful creation—­a God who is the Rock-basis of all, the staple to which all the links hang—­so we are driven back and back and back, by the very fact of the transiency of the transient, to grasp, for a refuge and a stay, the permanency of the permanent.  ’In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne’—­the passing away of the mortal shadow of sovereignty revealed the undying and true King.  It is blessed for us when the lesson which the fleeting of all that can flee away reads to us is that, beneath it all, there is the Unchanging.  When the leaves drop from the boughs of the trees that veil the face of the cliff, then the steadfast rock is visible; and when the generations, like leaves, drop and rot, then the rock background should stand out the more clearly.

Zechariah meant by the ‘word of God’ simply the prophetic utterances about the destiny and the punishment of his nation.  We ought to mean by the ‘word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever,’ not merely the written embodiment of it in the Old or New Testament, but the Personal Word, the Incarnate Word, the everlasting Son of the Father, who came upon earth to be God’s mouthpiece and utterance, and who is for us all the Word, the Eternal Word of the living God.  It is His perpetual existence rather than the continuous duration of the written word, declaration of Himself though it is, that is mighty for our strength and consolation when we think of the transient generations.

Christ lives.  That is the deepest meaning of the ancient saying, ’All flesh is grass....  The Word of the Lord endureth for ever.’  He lives; therefore we can front change and decay in all around calmly and triumphantly.  It matters not though the prophets and their hearers pass away.  Men depart; Christ abides.  Luther was once surprised by some friends sitting at a table from which a meal had been removed, and thoughtfully tracing with his fingers upon its surface with some drop of water or wine the one word ‘Vivit’; He lives.  He fell back upon that when all around was dark.  Yes, men may go; what of that?  Aaron may have to ascend to the summit of Hor, and put off his priestly garments and die there.  Moses may have to climb Pisgah, and with one look at the land which he must never tread, die there alone by the kiss of God, as the Rabbis say.  Is the host below leaderless?  The Pillar of Cloud lies still over the Tabernacle, and burns steadfast and guiding in front of the files of Israel.  ’Your fathers, where are they?  The prophets, do they live for ever?’ ’Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day and for ever.’