A SOLEMN WARNING by Alexander Maclaren

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 6, 1907

A SOLEMN WARNING.

By Alexander Maclaren

(From an article in the Sunday School Times, by Alexander Maclaren.)

People dispute whether the Sermon on the Mount is to be taken literally when it enjoins non-resistance to evil. Is Christ's example not His own commentary on His own precept? But His silence [before Pilate and Herod] has another aspect. Neither Pilate nor Herod were thought worthy to hear words from the lips into which grace was poured, and which had been wont to pour out that grace so freely on all. Because He saw that neither had ears to hear, He was silent to both. To have spoken would have been to waste His words and to increase their guilt. His silence was judicial, but it was merciful, too. It was a commentary on that other place in the Sermon on the Mount which forbids giving that which is holy to dogs.

That silence is eloquent, for it warns us to take heed lest by levity or neglect we make ourselves deaf and Him dumb.