The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1886, Page 29

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Che Autheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PusBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SYNODICAL ConFERENCE oF NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. VIII.

God’s Facts and Our Feelings.

When, in His word, God states a plain fact,
it is ours to bow to it and believe it. Our
reason and our feelings have nothing to do
with it. Though we may not grasp it with
our reason nor feel it as a fact in our hearts,
it remains a fact all the same, and it is ours to
believe it, and that because God states the fact,
and God is the eternal truth. He is unerring
and whatever He says must be truth.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

If you take your Bible, and turn to the third
chapter of John’s Gospel, you will find, in the
last two verses, that God has there recorded
four present solid facts. Let us place them
side by side thus:—

1. “The Father loveth the Son.’

2. ‘And hath given all things into His

hand.”
“He that believeth on the Son hath ever-
lasting life.”’ f
“He that believeth not the Son shall not
see life; but the wrath of God abideth
on him.”’

Now, I repeat, these are four facts. They
are no mere human opinions, based upon any
feelings in us; they are unalterable facts. How
any fact, when believed, may effect you is
another thing. That is a matter of your ex-
perience. For instance, the news of the vic-
torious entrance of the German army into
Paris some years since produced, no doubt,
different experiences as it reached the ears of
different persons in different lands; but the
facts remained unalterably the same: The ex-
perience was produced by the fact believed,
but the fact did not depend upon the feelings
of any one.

And now, for the sake of any troubled rea-
der, let us look at these four facts in the third
chapter of John’s Gospel:

1. ‘‘The Father loveth the Son.”’

Now, do you believe that fact?

“Oh, yes!”” you say, ‘I do.”

But do you feel, then, that the Father loves
the Son?

«Tt isn’t what I feel,”’ you reply. ‘I know
He does, for the simple reason that God’s word
says He does. It is not a question of what I

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St. Louis, Mo., August,

think or feel:
lieve it.’’

2. ‘And hath given all things into His
hand.

‘Well,’ you say, ‘‘and I firmly believe that

fact also.’’

But is it because you feel it, or because you
see every thing put into His hand?

“Neither,’”’ you reply; ‘but I am fully as-
sured of it; God has declared it.’’

Now, then, pass on to the last fact.

4, ‘He that believeth not the Son shall not
see life; but the wrath of God abideth
on him.”

Again I inquire, do you believe that fact aiso,
namely, that the wrath of God abides upon the
unbeliever? And again you say, yes, I believe
it. But supposing the unbeliever doesn’t feel
it??? “Ah,” you say, ‘but the wrath abides
upon him all the same for that. His feeling
it would not make it true, neither would his
not feeling it make it untrue. There stands the
fact recorded, and the ‘word of God shall stand
forever,’’’ Isa. 40, 8. But you say that you
are not an unbeliever—that you really do be-
lieve on the Son of God as your Saviour.
Well then, just notice the fact which before
I purposely omitted, namely:

8. ‘‘He that believeth on the Son hath ever-

lasting life.’’

God says this, and it is a fact quite independ-
ent of your feelings. Believing on the Son of
God you have everlasting life. Receive the
true testimony of the unerring God and rejoice
over it. ‘‘He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life.”

—s+o-a oo

it is a fact, and as such I be-

Our Sins Erased.

At a village shop the old woman, into whose
debt her customers ran, would carefully mark
upon the back of her shop door how much each
one owed her. There, in white chalk, as well
as upon her memory was written the name of
each purchaser with the exact amount owing
beneath it.

Amongst the old woman’s customers was one
whose conscience sorely troubled her on account
of the debt of her sins, and who dreaded the

1886.

No. 8.

opening of the books when small and great
shall stand before the great white throne, and
be judged according to their works. Our
friend knew that her sins could never be
erased from God’s book by her own doings,
and that unless they were blotted out she must .
be everlastingly lost.

‘‘Why do you mourn thus over your sins?’’
said one to her. ‘‘Why do you not believe
what God says respecting those who believe in
the Saviour? Has He not told such that the
debt is paid? You never trouble about the
chalk marks on the shop door after the money
is put down. Can you not likewise rest in
what the blood of Christ has done in paying
the debt of sin, and satisfying the demand of
divine righteousness ?

“T will go to the shop and see what she has
against your name, and will pay the due; she
will then rub out the chalk marks, so that
when you next go there, she will tell you that
not a mark stands against your name, and you
will thankfully believe her. Yet, in this work,
you will have no part, save in the satisfaction
that flows from believing your debt is paid.

*‘And thus it is dear friend, with the terrible
debt of your sins over which you mourn, and
for which you own you have nothing to pay.
Justice is satisfied, for the blood of God’s Son
has been shed for our sins and not one sin is
left against our names. Jesus has paid the
price of them all in His own blood. Indeed,
justice has, as it were, by that precious blood,
wiped out all the debt of their sins: and we,
who believe God, can and do rejoice in freedom
from the debt of sin; and more, it is God’s own
joy to tell us that our names are no longer con-
nected with our sins, but that our names are
written in the Lamb’s book of life.””

God graciously owned the illustration from
her every-day life, and our friend believed,
and henceforth rejoiced in God.

OE 6

Joun RANDOLPH once said: ‘I should have
been an atheist if it had not been for one re-
collection—and that was the memory of the
time when my departed mother used to take
my little hands in hers, and taught me to say,
‘Our Father, who art in Heayen.’’’