# Der Junge Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Januar 1950_S1
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Young Lutheran

WE SHOULD RELY ON NOTHING NOR PRESUME UPON ANYTHING, EXCEPT THE LORD JESUS CHRIST † LUTHER †

Number 1

January 1950

Volume 3

It Is Later Than You Think

"And do this, knowing the time, that the hour has come to wake from sleep; for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed." Romans 13:11.

With a single motion the late sleeper springs out of bed, horrified to find that it is already much later than he thought; for he must not be late. How often has this happened to us, when we had overslept and yet had to be punctual for work or for the train. How important it is in our everyday life not to let the time slip away. How does it stand with this in our life of faith? Should what applies to the course of our day not have a far higher significance for the course of our life? Why does God's Word remind us so often that time hurries by so quickly? Why does it say in Psalm 90 that our life passes swiftly away, "as though we flew away"?

How Late Is It in Our Life?

Do you know how late it is in your life? A glance — not at the clock, but at the calendar — ought really to be enough. But what does that mean yet for many among us? They are still so young. Life still lies before them, so long and so full of promise. Is it already time to cast an anxious, questioning glance at the clock — the clock of life? Well — it is already later than you think. We are now writing the year 1950. Half a century has once again passed away. What has it brought the world? Still fresh in all our memories are the two most terrible wars the world has ever experienced. Between the end of the first and the outbreak of the second World War lies the short span of twenty-one years — exactly the time a person needs to come of age. And these two wars carried off the flower of youth across the whole wide world. Young people who still hoped to enjoy many more years of life suddenly had to perish, "like grass that flourishes early and soon withers." Did they not all have to recognize suddenly that in their lives it was already much later than they had thought? Their lives came to an end sooner than they had ever imagined. Will it be any different, and better, on earth in the next half century that we are now entering? To be sure, all the world longs for peace on earth not to be disturbed again. But do you trust this peace? Yet whether war or peace, that is beside the point for the question: "How late is it in our life?" There are plenty of other facts that ought to rouse us, at the threshold of a new year, out of our drowsiness and sluggishness, and tell us: "The hour has come to rise from sleep!"

Disturbing Numbers

Some figures may bear this out. In the year 1946, which was no longer a year of war, 29,877,120 people died on earth. That means that 82,080 people died every day, 3,420 every hour, and 57 every minute — that is, nearly one person every second. So with every tick of the second hand, somewhere in the wide world a human heart stops beating. When will your heart take its last beat? Or do you still believe you are too young to think about this, and to pray with the aged Moses: "Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom"?

Why does God's Word call out to us so urgently: "Today, as it is said, today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts"?

An Urgent Task

How late is it? We do not ask this only when we want to get up on time in the morning. We also often ask it during our work, to determine whether we still have enough time to complete the task set before us. And we are sometimes startled, too, when in the midst of urgent work we notice that it is already later than we thought. Will we still get the work done?

As Christians too, for as long as we live on earth, we have a task, and we are confronted — even now, already in our youth — with the admonition: "Redeem the time!" Let us think of the word of our Savior: "I must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; the night comes, when no one can work." He calls out to us: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Do we know how much longer it will be day for us, so that we can labor at the task set before us? And must we not think back with shame on the past year? How much precious time have we squandered uselessly? Or do we fail to recognize the greatness of the task set before us, imagining that we may be idle and slothful?

Numbers Again

It is estimated that the population of the earth is more than 2 billion people. Of these, about 700 million people are said to profess Christianity. If this is really so, then only about a third of all people are Christians — and even this does not yet say that all of them also carry the true, saving faith in their hearts; for how many today content themselves with bearing only the outward name of Christian. But 20 million people die every year without knowing anything at all of the way to eternal life — that is, of the 57 people who are called into eternity every minute, 38 people who do not know Jesus Christ. Why this ignorance among so many people? Is it not because most Christians everywhere in the world fail to redeem their time? You have, through faith in your Savior, the

[Image: Der Jüngling zu Nain — "The Young Man of Nain"]

certainty of eternal life. What are you doing, so that others too may hear and recognize: "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved"?

Before It Is Too Late

The "signs of the times" point ever more urgently to the fact that the day of Christ is near. From everything happening in our time we must recognize ever more clearly that this is now the time of which Holy Scripture says: "And when the thousand years are finished, Satan will be loosed out of his prison." And it is said of him, as a warning: "He has great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time." He knows what he wants.

But we ourselves stand in the midst of the great conflict and are still so sluggish and indifferent. We do not like to be reminded of disturbing facts, but gladly set aside all disquiet with the thought that it is not yet so late and that we still have plenty of time. But the Savior's question: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" ought indeed to make us very thoughtful, so that we examine ourselves and do not put off until tomorrow what we ought to take up and accomplish today: "Exhort yourselves daily," Scripture calls out to us, "while it is still called today." Out of the disquieting realization, "It is already later than we thought," there can suddenly arise, all at once, the terrifying realization: "It is too late!" Do you know the story of King Belshazzar? At a banquet, a mysterious hand wrote the words on the wall before his terrified eyes: "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" (Daniel 6:25–28). It did Belshazzar no good that he hastily had Daniel — who interpreted this mysterious writing for him — clothed in purple and adorned with golden chains. The story ends with the words: "But in that night was the Chaldean king slain." We too should not imagine that at the last hour we can still make up for what we have neglected for years. Therefore, let us not put off our youth in hope of old age, but instead carry with us into the new year the Savior's admonition: "Watch therefore, for you do not know at what hour your Lord will come."

Heinrich Huebener

"One should work as though one wanted to live forever, and yet be so minded as though we were to die this very hour."

Luther