Seite 52 - Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing (1896)

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48
Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing
of God. But for one to express faith in God’s pardoning love, while he
himself indulged an unloving spirit, would be a mere farce.
When one who professes to serve God wrongs or injures a brother,
he misrepresents the character of God to that brother, and the wrong
must be confessed, he must acknowledge it to be sin, in order to be in
harmony with God. Our brother may have done us a greater wrong than
we have done him, but this does not lessen our responsibility. If when
we come before God we remember that another has aught against us,
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we are to leave our gift of prayer, of thanksgiving, of freewill offering,
and go to the brother with whom we are at variance, and in humility
confess our own sin and ask to be forgiven.
If we have in any manner defrauded or injured our brother, we
should make restitution. If we have unwittingly borne false witness, if
we have misstated his words, if we have injured his influence in any
way, we should go to the ones with whom we have conversed about
him, and take back all our injurious misstatements.
If matters of difficulty between brethren were not laid open be-
fore others, but frankly spoken of between themselves in the spirit of
Christian love, how much evil might be prevented! How many roots
of bitterness whereby many are defiled would be destroyed, and how
closely and tenderly might the followers of Christ be united in His
love!
“Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath
committed adultery with her already in his heart.”—Matthew
5:28.
The Jews prided themselves on their morality and looked with
horror upon the sensual practices of the heathen. The presence of the
Roman officers whom the imperial rule had brought into Palestine was
a continual offense to the people, for with these foreigners had come
in a flood of heathen customs, lust, and dissipation. In Capernaum,
Roman officials with their gay paramours haunted the parades and
promenades, and often the sound of revelry broke upon the stillness
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of the lake as their pleasure boats glided over the quiet waters. The
people expected to hear from Jesus a stern denunciation of this class,
but what was their astonishment as they listened to words that laid
bare the evil of their own hearts!