The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1891, Page 9

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Che Lutheran Proneer.

A MI

SSIONARY MONTHLY.

Pous.isHep BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SyYNODICAL CONFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XIII.

St.

Louis, Mo., March, 1891. No. 3.

Who Loved Me.

Galatians 2, 20,

Three little sunbeams, gilding all I see;
Three little chords, each full of melody;
Three little leaves, balm for my agony.

“WHO”
He loved me, the Father’s only Son.
He gave Himself, the precious, spotless One.
He shed His blood, and thus the work was done.

“LOVED”
He loved—not merely pitied. Here I rest,
Sorrow may come—I to His heart am pressed.
What should I fear while sheltered in His breast?

“ ME.”
Wonder of wonders! Jesus loved me.
A wretch, lost, ruined, sunk in misery,
He sought me, found me, raised me, set me free.

My soul, the order of the words approve,
Christ first, me last, nothing between but LOVE,
Lord, keep me always down, TmysELr above.

Trusting to Thee, not struggling restlessly,
So shall I gain the victory.
‘‘T—yet not I’?—but Christ—‘‘ Who loved me.”
Selected.
———a@ ~- 0 0 ee

Our Suffering Saviour.

In the time of Lent we behold our suffering
Saviour on His way of sorrows. We behold
Him in Gethsemane, where ‘‘being in agony
He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was
as it were great drops of blood falling down to
the ground.’’? One of His disciples betrayed
Him; another denied that he had ever known
Him; they all forsook Him and fled. He was
dragged to the bar of the high-priest, where,
after a hurried trial, He was condemned to
death, and spit upon, and buffeted, and treated
Most shamefully. He was taken to Pilate, the
“toman governor, who, though finding no fault
1 Him, confirmed the sentence of death, the
People crying, ‘‘Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

© had been severely scourged and a crown
of thorns was pressed upon His head. A cross
re laid upon His shoulders, and He was led
nye to be crucified. With faint and weary
meat He walked beneath His heavy burden,

“unable to carry it longer. At length

Calvary is reached. He is nailed to the cross.
There He hangs on that fatal wood between
two thieves. He is mocked, He is scorned, He
is laughed at. In His thirst they give Him
vinegar to drink. God’s wrath is poured out
upon Him, and in His deep agony of soul that
piercing cry breaks fortli from His lips: “‘ My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”’
And again He ‘“‘cried with a loud voice, and
gave up the ghost.”’ ‘‘And when the centurion
saw what was done, he glorified God, saying,
Certainly this was a righteous man.’’

Now, why did this Righteous One endure
such great sufferings of body and agony of
soul? There was no fault in Him. Pilate,
the judge, before whom He had been brought,
said again and again, ‘‘I find no fault in Him.”
No fault in Him? No! He was the Son of
God, ‘‘holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from
sinners,’’ (Hebr. 7,26); He ‘‘did no sin, neither
was guile found in His mouth,”’ (1 Pet. 2, 22).
Of Him the Father had said, ‘‘ This is my be-
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased,’’ (Matth.
8,17). Why then did this beloved Son of God,
in whom there was no fault, suffer and die upon
the cross? Is it not written, ‘‘Cursed is every
one that hangeth on a tree?”” Why then was
He cursed in whom there was no sin?

Let the Bible tell you. ‘‘He was wounded
for our transgression, He was bruised for our
iniquities,”’ Isa. 53. ‘‘ While we were yet sin-
ners, Christ died for us,” Rom. 5, 8. “Christ
died for our sins,’’ 1 Cor. 15, 3. Christ has
redeemed us from the curse qf the law, being
made a curse for us, Gal. 3,18. “‘He hath
made Him to beasin for us, who knew no sin,”
2 Cor. 5,21. He ‘‘bare our sins in His own
body on the tree,” 1 Pet. 2, 24.

The same Bible that tells us that we as sin-
ners are under the curse and doom of eternal
death, tells us also that Christ suffered in our
place, that He as our substitute took all our
sins and the curse and wrath of God upon Him-
self and satisfied the claims of divine justice.
Thus He became our Saviour and finished the
; f our redemption.
au ao would aie this finished work of re-
demption, you must see in the suffering Christ

your Saviour;
that He suffered and

and condemned sinner, and that by His suffer-
ings and death you are saved. By this faith
you will enter into the gladness of knowing
that ‘‘there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus,’’ Rom. 8, 1.

_——> + emo -

God is Love.

By Dr. Martrn LUTHER.

If we will only consider Him in His works,
we shall learn that God is nothing else than
pure, unutterable love, greater and more than”
any one can think. The shameful thing is,
that the world does not regard this, nor thank ~
Him for it, although every day it sees before it
such countless benefits from Him;.and it de-
serves for its ingratitude that the sun should
not shine another moment longer nor the grass
to grow; yet He ceases not for one moment’s
interval to love us and to do us good. Language
must fail me to speak of His spiritual gifts.
Here He pours forth for us, not sun and moon,
nor heaven and earth, but His own heart, His
beloved Son, so that He suffered His blood to
be shed, and the most shameful death to be in-
flicted on Him, for us wretched, wicked, thank-
less creatures. How, then, can we say any-
thing but that God is an abyss of endless,
unfathomable love?

_—_—_—=»—. o <a> 0 —a

The Gospel.

I have tried the Gospel, I have put it to the
proof. I know what it is and what it can do.
Tell me that food does not strengthen the weak;
tell me that water does not refresh the weary;
tell me that light does not cheer the disconso-
late, and then you may tell me that the Gospel
does not help when all other help fails; and
then you may tell me that the Gospel is not
the thing above all other things with which
men can afford to part. Men might better give
up the sun than quench that light which was
brought from heaven, that light which cheers
the home and dispels the darkness of the tomb.

‘ou must believe in your heart sae

died for you, the poor, lost