"'How many anvils have you had,' said I,
'To wear and batter all these hammers so?'
'Just one,' said he, and then with twinkling eye,
'The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.'
"'And so,' I thought, 'the Anvil of God's Word
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon,
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The Anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone.'"
Now, fellows, those Scribes and Pharisees ought to have known better
than to try to tangle Jesus in His talk. Already they had been
astonished by the wise words He said, by the unmistakable "authority"
shown in His manner and teachings, by the power of His mere word over
diseases and devils. These men were the devil's own servants. There
are many such to-day, and they never seem to realize until too late
that _their_ master will allow them to walk right into a hopeless
fix--caught in their own trap.
Let's run our eye down the closing verse of this chapter of Matthew,
as it tells better than any other how completely squelched were these
critics of Jesus: "And no one was able to answer him a word, neither
durst any man from that time forth ask him any more questions."
But there is a kind of questioning which we do want to practise. One
of the wisest and finest things a fellow can do is to make it a rule
to ask Jesus _some_ questions every day in His Word.
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