# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1860_S233
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Instruction Against Doubt of the Divine Word and Its Truth. 233

and suppress it? But what does their great power accomplish, what do their manifold means achieve, what do their poisoned schemes bring about? Thank God, nothing — but this holy Word remains, through all of that, and it is rightly, rightly said: The Word they shall let stand, and shall have no thanks for it; He is well at hand among us, with his Spirit and gifts. Likewise: There fights for us the right Man, whom God Himself has chosen; do you ask who he is? His name is Jesus Christ, the Lord of Sabaoth, and there is no other God; he must hold the field.

Accordingly, all this testifies that God the Lord Himself plants, advances, and preserves this Word, protects it against its enemies, and thereby publicly proclaims and testifies it, before the eyes and ears of all the children of men, in deed, to be his true Word.

Eighthly, the hostile resistance of the wicked Devil against this Word likewise testifies it to be a truthful Word of the living God. For no one among all men in the world will be able to deny that God and the Devil stand at the utmost extremity, and indeed far more opposed to one another than heaven and hell, and that neither will ever suffer the doings of the other, but each sets himself against the other — as even the heathen, in their own way, have recognized this, so that even today it cannot be denied. Now it is plain to see how the hellish Satan has, from the beginning, been the fiercest enemy of this holy Word, has continually and at all times set himself against it, and still, with all his power, cunning, and malice, most horribly opposes it in countless ways — as, among other things, when he stirs up godless tyrants and arms them to attack this Word, thinking that he might destroy it by such violent means; likewise, when he brings forward heretics and fanatics, who must undertake and busy themselves with falsifying this holy Word and twisting it into erroneous opinion. By which he publicly testifies that this Word is hateful to him, and therefore is of God. For if this Word were not of God, and no divine Word, but false and a human invention, it would not be hateful to Satan, nor would he be so violently its enemy or so hostile toward it; rather, he would gladly let it remain unchallenged, and would rather, with joy, show it every furtherance, advancement, love, and goodness, so that, as a false human fable, it might run counter to God and his honor. But since it is hateful to him, and he correspondingly rages, storms, and rants against it, it is therefore a good, wholesome, and truthful, divine Word.

Ninthly, we have a strong ground in the punishment with which God has attacked and burdened the despisers and persecutors of this Word, thereby to demonstrate against them his fierce wrath and just punishment. And even if, in considering this, one now passes over all the examples of which Holy Scripture abundantly makes mention, there yet remain before our eyes the examples which history otherwise records, such as those of Nero,