# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 03 01_S121
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall now and nevermore pass away."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 4.

St. Louis, Mo., April 4, 1848.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the annual subscription price of one dollar for subscribers living away from St. Louis, who must pay it in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single issue is sold for 5 cents.

Only letters containing contributions for the paper are to be sent to the editor, under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.; but all others, containing business matters, orders, cancellations, moneys, etc. ...

Sermon,
delivered on the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, 1848, in the Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church, St. Clair Co., Illinois, by P. A. Schieferdecker.

There is a shipwreck which, of all shipwrecks, is the most dangerous, and against which Holy Scripture itself therefore warns us: that is shipwreck of the faith. For thus says St. Paul: "This charge I commit to you, my son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you might wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some have thrust from themselves and thereby suffered shipwreck concerning the faith; among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, that they may be chastened, no longer to blaspheme." In his second letter to Timothy the apostle again complains of these same two men, that their word — that is, their error — eats about it like a cancer, and infects many upright souls; there too he names their error specifically, namely, that they taught that the resurrection of the dead had already taken place. From this, my friends, it appears what shipwreck of the faith is. Those two men had put forward a new doctrine which contradicted a clearly revealed article of the Christian faith, namely the article of the resurrection of the dead. It was therefore a fundamental and soul-destroying error. Since they would not desist from this error, despite the apostle's repeated admonitions, but rather defended and spread it, they suffered shipwreck of the faith — not they alone, however, but also all who followed them; for their word, says the apostle, ate about it like a cancer, like that dreadful disease which begins with only a small beginning, but then spreads ever further, and even upon the healthy parts spreads destruction and ruin. It may indeed seem that one ought not to judge so severely when an unlearned man is led into error by others who pretend to great wisdom and learning. Yet poison remains poison nonetheless, and retains its deadly effect both in one who takes it knowingly and willingly, and in one to whom it is administered by treachery. Whoever, therefore, accepts an error which leads away from the eternally true Word of God, through which alone we are saved, and from the right trust in the sole Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and who moreover spreads that same error and, despite repeated admonition and instruction, holds fast to it, suffers shipwreck of the faith. Yet it is not only false doctrine but also sin against conscience by which one suffers shipwreck of the faith; for the apostle says: "who have thrust from themselves faith and a good conscience." Whoever sins against better knowledge and conscience loses his good conscience and suffers shipwreck of the faith. Yet the first kind of shipwreck is more dangerous than the latter; for false doctrine and false faith are not held to be sin by those who are caught up in them, but are defended as truth, and because they wish to be right, they must revile the good, wholesome doctrine; whereas those who have fallen into sins and faults of life and have wounded their good conscience can be helped up again, because they do not reject Christ and his Word. Experience, too, teaches this: those who have suffered shipwreck of the faith through error and false doctrine come back to their senses with far greater difficulty, and are far harder to help, than those who have been shipwrecked in the faith through sins of life. Just as shipwreck at sea is bound up with danger to life and property, so also shipwreck of the faith is bound up with danger to eternal life, with the loss of the soul. And just as from a bodily shipwreck some still come away and save their lives, yet must abandon ship, goods, and possessions, so too from shipwreck of the faith some do come away and save their souls, but in such a way that they see the ship of their false faith — which they had built for themselves out of their vain delusion and imaginings — go to pieces, and must abandon it together with the good works on which they had built, and cling naked and bare to the eternal Rock of salvation, which is Christ. In order to avoid such a perilous shipwreck, we must betake ourselves to the ship which safely carries us through all the waves and billows to the harbor of eternal blessedness, because it cannot sink; and this ship is the Church of Christ, which keeps his Word pure and unadulterated in firm, unshaken faith, as today's Gospel teaches us. We ask for God's gracious help toward the blessed consideration of the same.

Text: Matthew 8:23–27.

This Gospel teaches us not what we are to do, but what we are to believe, when we are in distress and temptation. For in this Gospel nothing is said of good works that we are to do; rather, it teaches us alone what our comfort and confidence should be when it appears as though we are to be lost and utterly perish. Let me accordingly set before you:

That we can be undismayed in all distress, when we have Christ with us.

1.) This the disciples experienced on the sea;
2.) This the Church has experienced at all times.

"And he entered into the ship, and his disciples followed him." The sea was calm, the sky clear, the sailors suspected no storm, otherwise they would not have ventured out upon the sea. But "behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves." St. Mark and St. Luke, who tell this same story, call it a great whirlwind, which is far more dangerous than an ordinary storm, because it spins the ship around in a circle and throws it off balance, or even overturns it and drives it into the depths. The calm elements suddenly...