The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1881, Page 25

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Che Autheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PusLisHED BY THE EvanceLicaL LurHeraAN SyNopicAL ConrerENcE oF NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. III.

St. Louis, Mo., July, 1881.

No. 7.

Are You Free?

“Free? Why, what do you mean? I am
as free as the bird in the air, I live in the
country where the Fourth of July is cele-
brated, where the flag of liberty waves over
the brave and the free’”’—Well, that is all very
well, my friend, I, too, thank God for all the
freedom we enjoy in this free country of ours,
but whenever I hear a man speaking of this
political freedom as the only thing needed, as
the only true freedom, I am reminded of Old
Uncle Brown’s Fourth of July oration. Uncle
Brown, you know, was a good speaker and his
neighbors always elected him ‘‘the orator of the
day.’’ Well, on a certain Fourth of July Brown
got up on the stump to deliver his oration.
His neighbors were all standing around. There
were the men and the women with their chil-
dren—all listening to the eloquence of Uncle
Brown. And Brown was an eloquent speaker.
He spoke of “‘the free sun rising over a free
people,”’ he spoke of ‘‘the free flag waving over
a free nation,’’ and raising his voice to the
highest pitch he cried out, “Yes, ladies and
gentlemen, I’m standing here before you on the
soil of liberty!’ ‘‘Oh, no!’’ cried out Smith,
the shoemaker, ‘‘you ain’t. You're standing in
a pair of boots you never paid me for.’’ The
folks laughed, and there was an end to Brown’s
speech. He found out that although he lived
in a free country, there was something wrong
about him.

Yes, my dear reader, a man may live in this
free country, and yet be a slave, a slave of sin
and of Satan. The drunkard, the miser, the
worldling, and all that wilfully serve sin, are in
the terrible slavery of sin. By nature all men
are in this slavery, bound by the chains of sin
to be thrown into the prison-house of hell and
to be lashed by the flames of God’s eternal
wrath. St. Paul says that we are «sold under
sin.’ Now, who can deliver us from this
slavery? Who can give us true freedom?
Jesus, the Saviour of sinners. He says, “If
thé Son shall make you free, ye shall be free
indeed.” (John 8, 36.) By His sufferings and
death He purchased true freedom for all sinners
necedom from the punishment of sin, from

© curse of the law, from the wrath of God.

This work of Christ is brought to all sinners in
the Gospel. The Gospel is the great Declara-
tion of Freedom. It tells us that ‘“‘God so
loved the world, that whosoever believeth in
Him shall not perish but have everlasting life,’’
John 3, 16. They who truly believe this Gos-
pel and take Christ as their Saviour, are made
the free children of God—free from the slavery
and punishment of sin, free from eternal dam-
nation. It is true, sin still dwells in their old
nature and tries to drag them into their former
slavery, but by the power of God’s Spirit, dwel-
ling in their new nature, they fight against sin
and keep the mastery over sin, until through
death they pass into the eternal city of the
free above where there is no sin and no slavery.
Oh, my dear reader, let- me ask you, Are you
still a slave of sin? Jesus bought true freedom
for you more than 1800 years ago with His
own precious blood. And this freedom is
brought to you in the Gospel. Take it with
the true faith of your heart, and you will be
free indeed.

0 + 0m

(For the ‘‘Lutheran Pioneer’’.)

Despise not the chastening of the Lord.

We must neither neglect the correction of
the Lord nor faint under it. Why not? Be
cause the hand of God is in it and He desires
us to profit by it. Affliction, if we make proper
use of it, will always prove the means of good
to our souls, inasmuch as it is a proof of God’s
fatherly love and shows His most gracious de-
signs towards us. Children of God must never
forget that their afflictions are not judicial
punishments, but salutary medicines and fa-
therly chastisements, intended only for their wel-
fare; not to satisfy the demands of justice, but
to purify them. They are exposed to various
and manifold distresses, even to temporal death
itself, But God does not send such trials in
order to show His wrath, but in order to deal
with them as children, for their own profit,
Hebr. 12, 7. 10.; that they may humble them-
selves under the mighty hand of God, deplore
their sin and pray for mercy for J esus’ sake—
“that they might be partakers of His holiness.
Afflictions are a part of God’s discipline, they
are seasonable expressions of His divine affec-

tion towards us. For whom He loveth He
chasteneth; love which is not conjoined with
reproof, is not genuine. But our heavenly
Father's love is genuine. Therefore, if we are
chastened, the very afflictions we endure are
signs and tokens that He kindly and affection-
ately thinks of us. ‘‘Blessed is the man whom
Thou chastenest, o Lord, and teachest him out
of the law,’’ Ps. 94,12. ‘‘When we are judged
we are chastened of the Lord, that we should
not be condemned with the world’”’ 1 Cor.
11, 32. Although the chastenings of the Lord
may not seem joyous but grievous for the pres-
ent: nevertheless, if we endure it as beloved
children, it will yield the peaceable fruit of
righteousness—because the blessing hand of
God our heavenly Father is in it.—Looking at
the correction of the Lord in the proper light,
we find many reasons why we should not
neglect it, but on the other hand, no reason
whatever, why we should be discouraged.
G. R.

An Old Man’s Word.

I met him one day on his way to the place
where prayer was wont to be made. He had
just passed the mile stone of life labelled
“Seventy years.’’ His back was bent, his
limbs trembled beside his staff; his clothes were
old, his voice was husky, his hair was white,
his eye was dim, and his face was furrowed.
Withal, he seemed still fond of life and full of
gladness, not at all put out with his lot. He
hummed the lines of a familiar hymn as his
legs and cane carried him along.

‘Aged friend,’’ said I, “‘why should an old
man be merry?’”

‘©All are not,’’ said he.

‘Well, why, then, should you be merry?”

“Because I belong to the Lord.”’

“Are not all happy at your time of life?’”

“No, sir,”’ said he, as his form straightened
into the statue of his former days. ‘‘Listen,
please, to the truth from one who knows, then
wing it round the world, and no man of my
three score years and ten shall be found to
gainsay my words—Zhe devil has no happy old
men!”

—s <+oaper oe

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