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Untitled article

W. H. M.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 25, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 33

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This day upon which the text says Jesus of Nazareth entered into the synagogue and taught, as was his wont, is the antithesis of that day over which this editorial paragraph so strangely and inconsistently exults. Were the things which Jesus there taught as diverse? They were. These days are as antithetic as the mystery of iniquity and the mystery of godliness; for they are the standards around which gather the legions of darkness and the hosts of light for the last great conflict. But what was it which Jesus taught upon this Sabbath day in the synagogue, at Nazareth? He read from the prophet Esaias:—
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hathanointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he said to them that that day the scripture which he had read to them was fulfilled in their presence. But is there a diversity between those things for the teaching of which Jesus there read his commission, and the gospel of gain and of force of which the Sunday, legislatively triumphant, is the sign manual? There is. The one brings the gospel to the poor; the other offers promise of great gain to the hypocritically godly. The one comforts the broken hearted; the other exults in worldly power with the great of the earth, legislatures and Congress. The one preaches deliverance to captives and sets at liberty the oppressed; the other imprisons the innocent for a matter touching the law of their God and strives to make their burdens more than they can bear. There is this diversity. Happy is he who can see it. It is the fulfillment of scripture. In those days those scriptures were fulfilled in their ears. In these days other scriptures are fulfilled in our ears.
W. H. M.