The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1899, Page 5

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED BY THE HyANGELICAL LuTHERAN SynopicAL CONFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XXI.

St. Louis, Mo., February, 1899.

No. 2.

Whom I Serve.

Jesus, Master! whom I serve,
Though so feebly and so ill,
Strengthen hand and heart and nerve
All Thy bidding to fulfill;
Open Thou mine eyes to sce
All the work Thou hast for me.

Lord, Thou needest not, I know,
Service such as I can bring;
Yet I like to prove and show
Full allegiance to my King.
Thou an honor art to me,

Let me be a praise to Thee.

Jesus, Master, wilt Thou use
One who owes Thee more than all?
As Thou wilt! I would not choose,
Only let me hear Thy call.
Jesus, let me always be
In Thy service glad and free.

Selected.
_ Oo ee

Come to Jesus.

Let all weary and heavy laden souls come
to the Saviour in confidence, for He Himself
has said: ‘‘Come unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”’
With this invitation let them overcome all
timidity and doubt, and not be kept back by
anything in them, of them, or around them;
for He invites all the weary and heavy laden

_4nd promises to give them rest. Would He
break His Word? Would He let those who
trust in Him be put to shame? Would He
cast out him who comes at His command?
Assuredly not. Listen to what he says: ‘‘Him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’’
“Him that cometh to me’?—no matter who
he is or what he is—‘“‘him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out.’’

“But I am a great sinner, sayest thou?
L will in no wise cast out, says Christ.
But I am an old sinner, sayest thou?
Twill in no wise cast out, says Christ.

I have served Satan all my days, sayest
thou?

L will in no wise cast out, says Christ.
But I have sinned against light, sayest thou?
1 will in no wise cast out, says Christ.
. Ihave no good thing to bring, sayest thou?
Lwill in no wise cast out, says Christ.

Where Peace is Found.

Who would not like to find peace? Peace of
conscience, peace of soul, everlasting peace.
Where is such peace to be found? There is
One who came into this sinful world to bring
peace. It is Jesus. At His birth the angels
sang, ‘‘Peace on earth.’’ Of Him the apostle
says that He ‘‘made peace through the blood
of His cross.’’ As salvation, so peace is found
in Him only. He Himself says, ‘These things
have I spoken unto you, that in me you might
have peace.’’ It is in Christ, therefore, we
have peace, and not in ourselves, nor in any-
thing that we do or feel. Yet how many seek
peace in their prayers or in their feelings or
in their duties! If these are not what they
desire, away goes their peace, and down they
sink into the deepest dejection.

Surely they forget that it is not the work of
the Spirit in them, but the work of Christ for
them, a work finished more than eighteen hun-
dred years ago, which forms the sole ground
of their acceptance with God, and which can
therefore be the only ground of their peace.
If their prayers were ever so fervent, if their
feelings were ever so sweet, if their duties
were ever so faithfully done, all these could
not form the faintest shadow of the cause or
reason of their salvation or of their peace.
Christ’s atoning work is the only ground of
our salvation, and therefore the only ground
of our peace. That work of Christ is offered
to us as complete in the Gospel. —The moment
the sinner by faith takes it as his own, and as
long as he thus takes it, he has peace — a
peace resting, not on his feelings or on any-
thing he finds in his own sinful self, but on
that which Christ did for him when He bore
the punishment of our sins.

Yes, peace is to be found in Jesus only.
The apostle says, ‘‘Now, in Christ Jesus, ye
who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by
the blood of Christ. For He 1s our PEACE’’
(Eph. 2, 18. 14). Not He, and something else,
but He alone is our peace, and hence it is
written, ‘‘Being justified by faith [not feel-
ing], we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ’? (Rom. 5, 1). Not through
our feelings, which come and go like April

clouds, not through anything that we do or
suffer, which, even at its best, is imperfect
and blotted with sin, but through our Lord
Jesus Christ we have peace. ‘‘Now the Lord
of peace Himself give you peace always’’ by
faith in Jesus, who has ‘‘made peace through
the blood of His cross.’

—— + oo >

A well-founded Hope.

In Wittenberg Luther called to see a very
sick student, who had been somewhat frivolous
and indifferent as to his spiritual needs, and
asked him, ‘‘Should God call you out of this
world, what have you to take with you?”” To
this the student replied, ‘‘Everything good,
my father, everything good.’”’ ‘‘But how can
you, a miserable sinner, offer God anything
good?”? asked Luther. ‘‘Why, my father, I
will offer Him a broken and a contrite heart
that is sprinkled with the precious blood of
Jesus Christ,’? was the earnest and happy
reply. ‘‘Depart in peace, my son,’’ said
Luther, ‘‘God will receive you and welcome
you as His guest in heaven.”’ After all, how
simple is the plan of salvation, and yet how
difficult sin and unbelief do make it!

SS

“Take therefore no Thought for the
Morrow.” Matt. 6, 34.

“Sometimes,’’ says John Newton, ‘‘I com-
pare the troubles we have to undergo in the
course of a year to a great bundle of fagots
far too large for us to lift. But God does
not require us to carry the whole at once; he
mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us
first one stick, which we are to carry to-day,
and then another, which we are to carry to-
morrow, and so on. This we might easily
manage if we would only take the burden
appointed for us each day; but we choose to
increase our trouble by carrying yesterday’s
stick over again to-day, and adding to-mor-
row’s burden to our load before we are re-
quired to bear it.’’

2 + om 9

Though Christ permits us to sink down,

He will not suffer His to drown.
M. Luther.