# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1886_S29 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Che Autheran Pioneer, A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. PusBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SYNODICAL ConFERENCE oF NortH AMERICA. R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor. Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter. Vol. VIII. God’s Facts and Our Feelings. When, in His word, God states a plain fact, it is ours to bow to it and believe it. Our reason and our feelings have nothing to do with it. Though we may not grasp it with our reason nor feel it as a fact in our hearts, it remains a fact all the same, and it is ours to believe it, and that because God states the fact, and God is the eternal truth. He is unerring and whatever He says must be truth. Let me give you an example of what I mean. If you take your Bible, and turn to the third chapter of John’s Gospel, you will find, in the last two verses, that God has there recorded four present solid facts. Let us place them side by side thus:— 1. “The Father loveth the Son.’ 2. ‘And hath given all things into His hand.” “He that believeth on the Son hath ever- lasting life.”’ f “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”’ Now, I repeat, these are four facts. They are no mere human opinions, based upon any feelings in us; they are unalterable facts. How any fact, when believed, may effect you is another thing. That is a matter of your ex- perience. For instance, the news of the vic- torious entrance of the German army into Paris some years since produced, no doubt, different experiences as it reached the ears of different persons in different lands; but the facts remained unalterably the same: The ex- perience was produced by the fact believed, but the fact did not depend upon the feelings of any one. And now, for the sake of any troubled rea- der, let us look at these four facts in the third chapter of John’s Gospel: 1. ‘‘The Father loveth the Son.”’ Now, do you believe that fact? “Oh, yes!”” you say, ‘I do.” But do you feel, then, that the Father loves the Son? «Tt isn’t what I feel,”’ you reply. ‘I know He does, for the simple reason that God’s word says He does. It is not a question of what I 2 o. 4. St. Louis, Mo., August, think or feel: lieve it.’’ 2. ‘And hath given all things into His hand. ‘Well,’ you say, ‘‘and I firmly believe that fact also.’’ But is it because you feel it, or because you see every thing put into His hand? “Neither,’”’ you reply; ‘but I am fully as- sured of it; God has declared it.’’ Now, then, pass on to the last fact. 4, ‘He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Again I inquire, do you believe that fact aiso, namely, that the wrath of God abides upon the unbeliever? And again you say, yes, I believe it. But supposing the unbeliever doesn’t feel it??? “Ah,” you say, ‘but the wrath abides upon him all the same for that. His feeling it would not make it true, neither would his not feeling it make it untrue. There stands the fact recorded, and the ‘word of God shall stand forever,’’’ Isa. 40, 8. But you say that you are not an unbeliever—that you really do be- lieve on the Son of God as your Saviour. Well then, just notice the fact which before I purposely omitted, namely: 8. ‘‘He that believeth on the Son hath ever- lasting life.’’ God says this, and it is a fact quite independ- ent of your feelings. Believing on the Son of God you have everlasting life. Receive the true testimony of the unerring God and rejoice over it. ‘‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” —s+o-a oo it is a fact, and as such I be- Our Sins Erased. At a village shop the old woman, into whose debt her customers ran, would carefully mark upon the back of her shop door how much each one owed her. There, in white chalk, as well as upon her memory was written the name of each purchaser with the exact amount owing beneath it. Amongst the old woman’s customers was one whose conscience sorely troubled her on account of the debt of her sins, and who dreaded the 1886. No. 8. opening of the books when small and great shall stand before the great white throne, and be judged according to their works. Our friend knew that her sins could never be erased from God’s book by her own doings, and that unless they were blotted out she must . be everlastingly lost. ‘‘Why do you mourn thus over your sins?’’ said one to her. ‘‘Why do you not believe what God says respecting those who believe in the Saviour? Has He not told such that the debt is paid? You never trouble about the chalk marks on the shop door after the money is put down. Can you not likewise rest in what the blood of Christ has done in paying the debt of sin, and satisfying the demand of divine righteousness ? “T will go to the shop and see what she has against your name, and will pay the due; she will then rub out the chalk marks, so that when you next go there, she will tell you that not a mark stands against your name, and you will thankfully believe her. Yet, in this work, you will have no part, save in the satisfaction that flows from believing your debt is paid. *‘And thus it is dear friend, with the terrible debt of your sins over which you mourn, and for which you own you have nothing to pay. Justice is satisfied, for the blood of God’s Son has been shed for our sins and not one sin is left against our names. Jesus has paid the price of them all in His own blood. Indeed, justice has, as it were, by that precious blood, wiped out all the debt of their sins: and we, who believe God, can and do rejoice in freedom from the debt of sin; and more, it is God’s own joy to tell us that our names are no longer con- nected with our sins, but that our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”” God graciously owned the illustration from her every-day life, and our friend believed, and henceforth rejoiced in God. OE 6 Joun RANDOLPH once said: ‘I should have been an atheist if it had not been for one re- collection—and that was the memory of the time when my departed mother used to take my little hands in hers, and taught me to say, ‘Our Father, who art in Heayen.’’’