Sometimes Silence is the Best Answer | Matthew 26:62-63

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman

[00:00:07] Hi everybody, welcome back to Daily Truths. We're in Matthew 26 and remember Jesus is before the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders of the day. It's about one or two o'clock in the morning. The leader of that group was a guy by the name of Caiaphas. And remember people were coming forward saying false things about Jesus.

[00:00:24] And then finally somebody came forward and said in verse 61, this man said he'll destroy the temple and raise it up in three days. Now we pick up verse 62 and this is what the high priest said.

[00:00:35] And the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent.

[00:00:47] Huh. That was in fulfillment of scripture. The book of Isaiah chapter 53 says that Jesus like a lamb before its shearers is silent. So he did not open his mouth.

[00:00:57] Here's the lamb of God, the son of God, the savior of the world, the one who created the universe, the one who fashioned and molded these individuals all there inside their mother's womb. This is the God incarnate who could do anything and say anything and blast them out with one voice, with one word. And yet he says nothing.

[00:01:19] Nothing. Why is that? Well, in part in fulfillment of scripture, we know that. Right. But also you think about people that have been persecuted down through the years. You think about the Jews during the Jewish Holocaust. Obviously, what did they do? They went silently to their graves. Historians tell us that they said nothing, responded with nothing.

[00:01:42] They did nothing as a result of being persecuted to that degree. They simply went to their deaths silently. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great reformer during World War Two, of course, was put to death because he was speaking out about the atrocities of the German leaders. He was put to death and it is told that he prayed right before he died out loud so that people could hear what he prayed. I'm not sure. But he basically went silently to his death.

[00:02:12] Think about that. You know, sometimes things are so egregious, so wrong, so offensive, so absolutely opposed to what is true. It doesn't even dignify a response. And that's what we're looking at here. I mean, these people were saying all kinds of things about Jesus that weren't true. And even when somebody says, hey, he said he's going to destroy the temple and raise it up in three days. We know what Jesus meant. We talked about that a couple of days ago. He's talking about his body. Right.

[00:02:41] Not the physical temple, but rather his body, the temple of God. Hmm. Well, so what does this mean to us? How can we apply this to your everyday life? There's times when statements are so ridiculous that are said about you or things are so ridiculous that are done to you. It doesn't and it shouldn't even dignify a response. Right.

[00:03:04] But there's other times when you need to defend yourself. And so how do you know the difference? Well, pray for discernment from God. Let the Lord lead and guide you. Obviously go to scripture and see how people responded to certain situations that are very similar to what you're facing.

[00:03:23] Also talk to those who are followers of Jesus, who have a good understanding of the word of God, who can give you good advice. I want to tell you, I've done that so many times in my life where I didn't know exactly how to respond.

[00:03:34] And so I talked to godly counsel, people who looked at life through the lens of scripture. And that really, really helped me.

[00:03:40] So, number one, when you don't really know how to respond, should you defend yourself? Should you stand up against those accusations? Or should you not even dignify what they're saying with any kind of response? That's hard to discern sometimes.

[00:03:54] So you've got to seek counsel from God. You've got to read his word. And you need to talk to other people to help you know exactly what is the best way to respond to this. Yeah. I hope you're not in those situations very often.

[00:04:07] Now, we know ultimately that Jesus didn't respond because he had to go to the cross. And we've talked all about that. That was God's will. Jesus was willing. All of that. He was willing to lay down his life for us because he knew our salvation was at stake.

[00:04:21] Now, tomorrow we're going to hear a proclamation of what Jesus did affirm or did say about himself because he was under oath. So I hope you look forward to that podcast tomorrow.

[00:04:32] So, have a great day in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is today's Daily Truth.

[00:04:38] Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Allman.

[00:04:41] Pastor Dave Allman is the pastor of Mount Hope Church in Boulder, Colorado.

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[00:04:56] Come back tomorrow for your next Daily Truth.