The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1880, Sheet 50

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PuBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LutneRAN SyNnopicaL CoNFERENCE oF Nort AMERICA.
Edited by Prof. R. A. BISCHOFF. :

Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. II. St. Louis, Mo., December 1, 1880. _ No. 11.

Christ’s Coming. ject that lovingSaviour? Oh, my dear reader,
if you reject Him, you reject your own salya-
tion, and the wrath of a just and holy God
abideth on you. Receive the Saviour while
the day of salvation lasts! Receive Him with
the hand of faith! You will be happy and
blessed. Jesus will be yours and you will be
His. You then need not fear His coming at
the end of time. The hope of His coming in
the clouds of heaven will be a blessed hope to
you.

Christ shall come. He shall come to judge
the living and the dead. ‘‘They shall see the
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory; and He shall send
His angels with a great sound of a trumpet”
(Matt. 24, 30. 31.). That day will bea day
of great terror to all unbelievers. Those that
rejected Christ, their only Saviour, will then
be rejected by Christ, their Judge, and will be
sent into eternal woe. But it will be a day of
joy to all believers; for it is the day of their
redemption from earth and all its woes. They
will be taken into the mansions of their Father’s
house to be forever with the Lord. O day of
gladness and of joy! May we.by true faith in
our dear Saviour be prepared for that day of
Christ’s coming! May we as true Christians
on every day of our life live in full expectance
of the Lord, whose coming in the clouds of
heaven every setting sun brings nearer!
“Surely I come quickly. Even so come, Lord
Jesus!”’

insist that it is, are either giving expression to
their own desire for a sensual life, or they are
too shallowpated to have a thought on any sub-
ject. With the advance of culture we have
sensational preaching that carefully excludes
all gospel truth, “‘service of song’’ that prepares
the way for operas and theatres, popular minist-
ers boldly teaching the theories of “science
falsely so-called’, the exhibition in parlors and
drawing rooms of indecent paintings, and other
signs of ‘progress’? which are too surely the
forerunners of swiftly approaching ruin. The-
atrical plays are popular precisely in propor-
tion to their coarseness and lewdness, and the
fashionable world is prepared to welcome an
actress, who is a notorious prostitute. Society
is but repeating the history of ancient culture,
only with a more rapid march to certain and
unsparing judgment.

A careful observer can readily see that under
the burden of modern culture “Christendom”
is tottering to its downfall. May, the Lord
Jesus give His “‘little flock’’ the spirit of sepa-
ration from the whole defiled and defiling scene,
and wisdom to heed the solemn exhortation of
His word, ‘‘Arise ye, and depart; for this is
not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall
destroy you, evea with a sore destruction’”’
(Micah 2, 10.).

—_——»- oo

The four Sundays before Christmas are called
the Sundays of Advent. Advent means coming;
and in the season of Advent the Church dwells
upon those three great facts: 1. That Christ
has come; 2. That He is still coming; 3. That
He will come in glory and in power.

Christ has come. ‘‘When the fulness of the
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the Jaw, that we might
receive the adoption of sons’’ (Gal. 4, 4. 5.).
Such is the wonderful love of Christ. He, the

. Son of God, came into the world and became
man, in order to save all lost and condemned
sinners. He was made under the law and, in
our stead, fulfilled that law of God perfectly.
He took our place and suffered and died upon
the cross, bearing the punishment of sin and
the wrath of God, which we sinners deserved.
He finished the work of our redemption. We
are redeemed from sin, and death, and eternal
damnation. But this redemption must be
brought to us and we must take it. Christ
and His merits are brought to us in the means
of grace.

Christ is still coming. He comes to every
sinner with all his blessings in the Gospel and
in the Sacraments. The Gospel is not a mere
sound of words. Oh, no! In the Gospel
Christ Himself comes to us to enter our hearts
in mercy and in love, and to give us forgiveness
of sins and life everlasting. And the Holy
Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper,
are not mere.signs and ceremonies. Oh, no!
They are the means of God by which Christ
and all His blessings are offered unto us.
Whenever the Gospel is read or preached, and
whenever the Sacraments are administered,
Christ Himself comes to the hearts of sinners
and says, ‘‘Behold, I stand at the door and
knock: If any man hear my voice and open the
door, I will come in to ‘him, and will sup with
him, and he with me” (Rey. 3, 20.). Thus
Christ, our dear Saviour, still comes to us in
the means of grace. Oh, wonderful love!
Christ has not only secured eternal salvation
for us; but He also comes in His blessed Gos-
pel with all His blessings to reign in our hearts
as our merciful King and Lord. Will you re-

Tue Lorv’s Deatincs.—Let us not promise
to explain all the Lord’s dealings with us—His
ways are past finding out (Rom. 11, 33.).
Faith knows that He is leading us “‘by the
right way’ (Ps. 107, 7.), that all His paths are
mercy and truth (Ps. 25, 10.), and that all
things work together for good (Rom. 8, 28.).
Faith interprets all by the cross of Christ—
‘‘He that spared not his own Son, but delivered
him up for us all, how shall he not with him
also freely give us all things?’’ (Rom. 8, 32.)

Tr is only when we begin, continue, and end :
our work at the Master's feet, that our service =
will be of the right kind.

4 + oo pe

Modern Culture.

Men often say that;the education and culture
of our times can take the place of Christianity
and that the Gospel of Jesus is no longer needed.
Such thoughts are foolish. The old Greeks and
Romans were nations of high culture; but their
culture did not save them from ruin. An emi-
nent living divine says about our modern
culture:

Alas! that professedly Christian nations find
their models in the love of pleasure, the luxury,
the divorces, the laxity of morals, the corrup-
tion of women, the vices that bore the gigantic
government of Rome to the earth. Culture is
no substitute for Christianity, and those who

Many persons look upon themselves: as
struggling to benefit the world, when, in fact,
the world looks upon them as struggling only
to benefit themselves.

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