# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1896_S41 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Che Lutheran Pioneer. A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. PusiisHEeD BY THE EVANGELICAL LuruerRan SynopicaAL CoNnFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA. R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor. Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter. Vol. XVIII. Thanksgiving. “Sing to the Lord of harvest, Sing songs of love and praise; With joyful hearts and voices Your alleluiahs raise. “By Him the rolling seasons In fruitful order move. Sing to the Lord of harvest A song of happy love.’’ Are You Ready? ‘Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh,’’ Matt. 24,44. Of these words of our Saviour we are reminded by the lessons of the last Sundays of the church year. He that comes to us throughout the year as our Re- deemer in His Word and Sacrament will come ‘visibly in the clouds of heaven as the Judge of the quick and the dead and as the Bride- groom that comes to lead His bride to the Inarriage supper of the Lamb. Are you ready? How important this question is, since Christ Himself says that He will come in such an hour as we think not! How foolish it is for people to put off their getting ready from Sunday to Sunday. As the church year comes to an end, so their time of grace may come to an end at any moment; ‘‘for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.’? Are you ready? In the book of Revelations we read that the bride is “ready’’ for the marriage supper— “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.’ This wedding garment is ‘‘the righteousness of the saints’” procured for them and given to them by Christ. Have you this wedding gar- Ment? A wedding garment so white and clean, that He who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity can detect upon it no spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. Have you this wedding garment on now? Remember, ‘in Such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.’” Though you may deceive your pastor in this matter, though children may deceive their parents, and husbands their Wives, and ‘wives their husbands, and friends their friends, yet the solemn truth remains the same, that at the coming of the Son of Man every refuge of lies will be forever St. Louis, Mo., November, 1896. swept away, and our self-made garments will appear but as filthy rags before the searching eyes of Him with whom we have to do. The wedding garment, suitable for every sinner, was wrought out and fashioned cen- turies ago by the life, sufferings, and death of the Saviour. Therefore the Bible tells us again and again that salvation is a gift from Him who gave His only Son for lost and ruined man. We read in its sacred pages that the ‘‘wages of sin is death,’’ but we nowhere read that the wages of our righteousness is eter- nal life. No. The Bible says, ‘‘The gift of God is eternal life.’’ It tells us that we are justified freely by His grace through the re- demption that is in Christ Jesus. Yea, that by the righteousness of' One, namely, of Christ, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. How amazing then, that any should try to work out a righteousness for themselves, when they are told that God’s Son was Himself made sin that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Does our reader say, ‘‘Yes, I see that sal- yation is a gift, that the wedding garment is freely offered, but how am I to lay hold of it?’ By the hand of faith, is the Bible’s answer. God is fully satisfied with the work of His Son, the law is satisfied, and on Cal- vary’s hill the Lord Jesus made an end of sins, and brought in everlasting righteous- ness. This rightcousness is offered to you in the Gospel without money and without price. It is offered to you freely. The moment you take it and as long as you keep it, you are prepared and ready for the coming of the Lord. Take, then, with the hand of faith what the Gospel offers to you, and though you be the chief of sinners, you become a child of God, are clothed with a righteousness of His own, and will be a welcome guest at the marriage supper of the Lamb. The church year closes. And every Sun- day, yea, every day and hour brings you nearer to that great event—the coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven. Soon the cry will be raised, ‘The Bridegroom cometh!’’ See to it that you as His bride stand ready, “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white’? — the righteousness of Christ! No. 11. “Instant in Prayer.” Stonewall Jackson was once asked what was his understanding of the Bible command to be “instant in prayer’’ and ‘‘pray without ceasing.’’ His reply was, ‘‘I can give you my idea of it by illustration, if you will allow it, and will not think Iam setting myself up as a model for others. I have so fixed the habit in my own mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without lifting my heart to God in thanks and prayer for the water of life. Then when we take our meals, there is the grace. Whenever I drop a letter in the post-office, I send a petition along with it for God’s blessing upon its mission and the per- son to whom it is sent. When I break the zeal of a letter just received, I stop to ask God to prepare me for its contents, and make it a messenger of good. When I go to my class-room and await the arrangement of the cadets in their places, that is my time to in- tercede with God for them. And so in every act of the day I have made the practice habitual.” ‘‘And don’t you sometimes forget to do this?’”’ asked his friend. “T can hardly say that I do,’’ replied Jack- son, ‘‘the habit has become almost as fixed as to breathe.’’ : —_—s-o-<—P o-oo Believe all Things are Ours. Dr. Arnot tells a story of a father moving into a new house and furnishing it far more elegantly than his former dwelling, and his little boy was wonderfully excited and ran through the new house, saying, ‘‘Father, is this ours?’”’ He felt that that which belonged to his father belonged to him; and this pleased the father very much. So should Christians believe—that that whieh belongs to God, their Father, belongs to them. And this is true, for the Bible declares, ‘‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. ——.>- o> - SLANDER would yery soon starve and die of itself if no one took it in and gave it lodging.