The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1885, Page 25

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PusiisHeD BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SyNnopicAL ConFERENcE oF NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. VII.

St. Louis, Mo., July, 1885.

No. 7.

““Come and See!”

Twice we read these words in the first chapter
of the Gospel according to St. John. They were
first spoken by the Lord Jesus. He gave the
invitation to the two disciples of John who heard
that He was the Lamb of God. ‘Jesus turned
and saw them following,’’ and spoke to them.
Then they asked Him where He dwelt, and
He said, ‘‘Come and see!’’ One of the two
that accepted the invitation was Andrew, Simon
Peter's brother. Having found the Messiah,
he longed to bring others to Him. When he
met his brother Simon, he said unto him, ‘* We
have found the Messiah.’’ And he brought
him to Jesus. The day following Jesus found
Philip and said unto him, Follow me.- And
Philip obeyed and thus found Him of whom
Moses in the Jaw, and the prophets did write.
Having found Christ himself, he longed to bring
others to the same happiness. He at once told
his friend Nathanael about Him, and said,
‘‘Come and see!’’ :

The invitation still goes out to every sinner,
‘‘Come and see Jesus in the Gospel!’’ Come
and see what He has done for you; see how
He loved you and gave Himself for you; how
He lived, and suffered, and bled, and died for
you! Come and see what gifts He has for you,
forgiveness and peace, His spirit and His grace,
His love and His everlasting joy! Come and
see how ready He is to receive you, to take you
up in His arms and bless you! Thousands
have come and seen and found their Saviour
in the Gospel, and by the power of that Gospel
their hearts were won for Him whom they for-
merly hated and despised. !

A Jew, by the name of Gerson, lived in West-
phalia in the beginning of the seventeenth cent-
ury. He was a bitter enemy of Christ and
His Church. One day a poor Christian widow
pawned a copy of the New Testament in his
shop for a small sum of money. Gerson invited
two of his Jewish friends to his house and began
to read to them ‘‘the book of the Christians,”
and they together made merry over its con-

tents. © But the farther Gerson read the more

restless he became. ‘The power of the Gospel
took hold of his heart, and he was convinced
that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the

promised Saviour of sinners. ‘There,’ he him-
self says, ‘there I found such a light that I
must ever give thanks to God.”” He had come
to Jesus and had really tasted and seen that
He is gracious, and from that time on he
brought to others the invitation, ‘Come and
see!’’ He became a preacher of the Gospel.
When you, my dear reader, have come, when
you can say like Philip, ‘‘We have found Him!”’
will you not say to some one else, ‘‘Come and
see?’”? You will wish every one else to come
to Him, and you have His word to bid you try
to. bring them: ‘Let him that heareth say
come!’’ Will you not say ‘‘Come”’ by telling
others of Jesus’ love and by helping us in our
mission work by which the story of that love
is brought to poor dying sinners? There is no
sweeter invitation for you to hear and no sweeter
invitation for you to give than ‘Come and see’’

Jesus!
—__— - o<z -

How a Believer Knows He is Saved.

Do you still ask how you may know that you
are saved? [still reply, by believing the sure
testimony of God’s word. You know you were
a condemned and ruined sinner by believing
that word; you know Christ came to die for
a lost world by believing that word; and you
may know you are saved if you trust in Jesus
Christ, by believing the same word. Let me
ask a few plain questions that may present
this important subject in a clearer light to your
mind. How do you know that the law of God
has pronounced a curse against every one who
continues not in the strict performance of all
the Divine commandments in all their extent,
reaching to the most secret emotions of the
soul? You know it only by believing His
word. How do you know that the Son of God
was born of the Virgin Mary, and performed
many wonderful miracles and preached many
sublime and sweet truths, and died upon the
cross and rose from the tomb and ascended up
to heaven? ‘You know it only by believing
His word. How, then, do you know that, not
relying upon yourself, nor upon forms and
works, but upon Christ alone, you shall cer-
tainly be saved? Obviously, in the same way
—only by believing His word.

You cannot feel that the Saviour was born
in Bethlehem of Judea, and that He suffered on
Calvary, for this occurred more than eighteen
hundred years ago; but you can know it upon
the unimpeachable testimony of God. And
so you are not called to feel that you can be
saved in order to obtain assurance of salvation,
but to know it upon the sworn testimony of
God, revealed in His word, or, to put it in
another shape, you cannot know that you are
saved because you feel it, but you will feel it
because you know it. If you hear good news,
you do not first feel that it is true, and then
believe it, but you first believe it and then feel
happy. If you are anxious to obtain a favor
of a friend who promises to grant your request,
you do not first feel that he will do it, and
then believe him, but you first believe him and
then feel glad and grateful. In like manner,
if you would know that you are saved, you
must fix your gaze upon Christ, and listen to
His precious declarations in the Gospel, instead
of asking for comfort amid the darkness and
disease that not only belong by nature to the
‘old man,’’ but will continue to cling to it
until it is laid down at the grave or left behind
at the coming of the Lord.—I. H. B.

~~ o<mo ——e

Look to Christ.

When Luther once saw a man very much
depressed, he said to him, ‘‘Man, what are you
doing? Can you think of nothing else but your
sins, and dying and damnation? Turn your
eye away, and direct it to Him who is called
Christ. Cease to fear and lament. You really
have no reason for it. If Christ were not here,
and had not done this for you, you then would
have reason to fear: but He is here, has suffered
death for you, and has secured comfort and
protection for you, and now sits at the right
hand of His Heavenly Father to intercede for
you.”” ; ;

Baxter used to say that if the Bible had
said, ‘‘Richard Baxter may take the water of
life freely,’’ it would not be such good news as
when it said, ‘‘Whosoever will,’’ because there
might be some other Richard Baxter who was
meant. ;