# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1887_S5 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Che Lutheran Pioneer. A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. PUBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SyNopicAL ConFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA. R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor. Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter. Vol. IX. No. 2. St. Louis, Mo., February, 1887. A Prayer. The way is long and dreary, The path is bleak and bare; Our fect are worn and weary, But we will not despair: More heavy was thy burden, More desolate thy way ;— O Lamb of God, who takest The Sin of the world away. Have mercy on us. The snows lie thick around us In the dark and gloomy night; And the tempest wails above us, And the stars have hid their light; But blacker was the darkness Round Calvary’s cross that day ;— O Lamb of God, who takest The sin of the world away. Have mercy on us. Our hearts are faint with sorrow, Heavy and hard to bear; For we dread the bitter morrow, But we will not despair: Thou knowest all our anguish, And thou wilt bid it cease ;— O Lamb of God, who takest The sin of the world away. Grant us thy peace. Selected. —_=»——- o> 0 ee Christ or Hell? All the world are guilty before God (Rom. 8,19). Death, to the sinner, is the door to eternal woe. All who have died without faith in the Saviour are in woe now. It is true they will be raised to judgment, but already their spirits are in eternal misery. Millions are in misery now, fixed, eternal. Many, alarmed at this dread reality, fall into the devil’s snare, and close their eyes to the terrible future at their door. They love themselves, the world, their sins, their pleasures. They love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil, and, blind-folded and duped, rush on to an eternity of woe. They pass the only way of escape, spurning God’s provision of grace. Christ, if even professed with the lips, is re- fused as a present Saviour. They know they cannot have Christ and sin, and they love sin best. Again and again God’s Word sounds the warn- ing note. Stop on your mad career; you are rushing to hell’s brink. Your back is towards God and His love. And yet he pleads with you to stop. There is one way of escape, and only one—God’s way. ‘‘God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not per- ish but have everlasting life,’’ John 3, 16. ‘©We all know that,’’ you say. So much the worse for you, sinner, if you heed it not. The greater your light and knowledge, the greater your responsibility. God will judge in right- eousness, and it will be better for a poor igno- rant heathen than a nominal Christian in that day. I press it upon you again—you may die to-day. Die to-day, and pass to-night in hell— your doom sealed, sealed to all eternity. You, who probably meant to be saved some day—lost, eternally lost. Your life hangs upon a thread. The glory of man surrounds you on all hands, but man and all his glory are going to the grave. Which is it to be with you? Christ or hell? With the Son of God’s love and His redeemed, or with the devil and his angels? Eternal glory, or the lake of fire? Eternal bliss, or eternal woe? Worshiping round the throne, or wailing in hell? Singing the new song, or weeping and gnashing of teeth? In! marvellous light, or the blackness of darkness? It is one or the other for all. If you will have self, the world, and sin now, you must have hell hereafter. If you accept Christ now, you shall have glory with Him forever. Which is it to be? The pleasures of sin for a season, or pleas- ures at God’s right hand for evermore. commits tous. Health, wealth, time, strength, position, powers of mind, etc., are all so many talents, of which we shall have to give an ac- count on the day of the Lord. We have no hard Master to deal with. He knows exactly how much He has committed to us, and it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not, 2 Cor. 8, 12. If He has given us money, we are respon- sible to use it for Him. So with ourtime. It is the Lord’s, and should be laid out most care- fully in His service. . So with influence, position in life. AI] may be used for Him. They belong to Him, and we are robbing Him if in any way we use them to exalt and glorify ourselves. Mental gifts and powers are the same. If we use them for self, to get praise from man, we are wasting our Lord’s goods, and we shall be eternal losers. Let us judge ourselves, our circumstances, our powers, and see whether we are being good stewards—whether the Lord will be able to say to us, ‘‘ Well done, good and faithful servant !’” and, if not, let us gird our loins at once, and seek henceforth to spend and to be spent for Him. We have only a little while left. Let us make the most of it, and see how much time, strength, money, influence, powers, we cand send up to heaven, 1 Tim. 6, 17—19. o<—_e Avoiding Anxiety. Payson, on his dying bed, said to his daugh- ter, ‘You will avoid much pain and anxiety if you will learn to trust all your concerns in God’s hands. ‘Cast all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.’ But if you merely go and say that you cast your care upon Him, you will come away with the load on your shoulders.”’ —— OE 0 OED ee Stewardship. “Every one of us shall give account of him- self to God,’ Rom. 14, 12. Salvation is the free gift of God through Christ Jesus our Lord; ‘‘ not of works, lest any man should boast.’”? But after we are saved, we are no niore our own; we are bought with a price, and everything we have belongs to Christ. Thus we are stewards and responsible to Him for the use we make of everything He Ir is not to be borne that Christian people should say, We cannot know whether God is favorable to us or not. On the contrary, we should learn to say, I know that I believe in Christ, and therefore that God is my gracious Father.—Juuther.