The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1899, Page 21

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

$$ a So eS |

Che Autheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY

MONTHLY.

Pus.isHep By THE EVANGELICAL Lurmeran SyNopicaL CONFERENCE OF Nortn America.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XXL

"St. Louis, Mo., June, 1899.

No. 6.

wicked; dead in-trespasses and sins. And
there is here no difference. ‘The flesh, the
corrupt nature of the most refined and culti-
vated is flesh, it is sinful just as well as the
flesh of the vilest sinner. Nicodemus was not
what the world would call a bad man. He was
a strict Pharisee leading an outwardly moral
life. Yet to this man Christ said that he must
be born again; for that which is born of the
flesh is flesh.

The flesh, the corrupt, sinful nature of man
cannot see the kingdom of God; it cannot
enter into the kingdom of God; it is utterly
unfit for the kingdom of God. Hence man
must be born again before he can sce the
kingdom of God. How is he born again?
Nicodemus said, ‘‘How can a man be born

The Missionaries.

Forth went the heralds of the cross,
No dangers made them pause;

They counted all the world but dross,
For their great Master’s cause.

Through looks of fire, and words of scorn,
Serene their path they trod;

And to the dreary dungeon borne,
Sang praises unto God.

In all his dark and dread array,
Death rose upon their sight;

But calmly still they kept their way,
And shrank not from the fight.

They knew to whom their trust was given,
They could not doubt His word;
Before them beamed the light of heaven,

The presence of their Lord. ~
Selected.

——~++ eo >

You Must be Born Again.

There are many that are content with ‘‘a
name to live” while dead; many that delude
themselves as to their real state before God.
They can give no better reason for their hope
of entering heaven than the fact that they
haye ‘‘united with a church” and that they
“do as well as they can.’”’? The Bible speaks
of such as ‘‘having the form of godliness, but
denying the power thereof,’ 2 Tim. 3, 5.
They seem not to know the truth that all
they do is utterly worthless and that they
must be born again if they wish to enter
heaven.

The Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus,
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a
man be born again, he cannot see the king-
dom of God,’ John 3, 83. When Nicodemus
wondered at this startling statement, Christ
said unto him, ‘‘Marvel not that I said unto
thee, Ye must be born again.’? And Christ
gives also the reason for this must be. He
says, ‘‘For that which is born of the flesh is
flesh.’’” This means that as every man is born
of sinful parents, he is sinful. Since the fall
of our first parents in Paradise every man by
his natural birth gets a sinful and corrupt
nature. ‘‘Behold, I was shapen in-iniquity ;
and in sin did my mother conceive me.’’
Ps. 51, 5. Man is a Lorn sinner, with a heart
deceitful above all things, and desperately

when he is old? can he enter the second time
into his mother’s womb, and be born?”’ Ifa
man could be born a thousand times .in the
natural way, that would do him no good. He
would then be born a thousand times with the
same corrupt nature, he would still be born
of the flesh, and ‘‘that which is born of the
flesh is flesh.’’

Christ therefore said, ‘‘Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God.”” We must
be born of the Spirit; for ‘‘that which is born
of the Spirit, is spirit.”? The Spirit does this
work of regeneration through the Word of
God in the water of Baptism and in the read-
ing and preaching of the Gospel. By the
Word of God the Spirit works faith in the
sinner’s heart. He brings the sinner to trust
in Jesus as his only Saviour. Thus a man is
born again, Besides the sinful nature which
he received by birth from his earthly parents,
the believer has a new, sinless nature by his
new birth of the Spirit. As by his natural
birth he became a sinful child of sinful par-
ents, he by this new birth of the Spirit has
become a beloved child of the holy God.
‘‘Ag many as received Him, to them gave He
the power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on His name; which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,”
John 1, 12. 13. It is said to believers, “Ye
are the children of God by faith in Christ

Jesus,’’ Gal. 3, 26. Those who take Christ
as their Saviour, who believe on Him, who
trust in Him, are born of the Spirit.

Are you born again? If not, you cannot
enter the kingdom of God. You may culti-
vate your flesh, your sinful, corrupt nature in
all the refinements of our age, you may carry
your flesh to church and practice all kinds of
ceremonies and profess Christianity with your
mouth, if you do not as a poor, lost, and con-
demned sinner believe in Jesus as your Sav-
iour, you are not born again; and if you are
not born again, you cannot enter the kingdom
of God. Are you born again? If not, then do
not resist the Holy Spirit, for of the Spirit
only you can be born again. He comes to
you in the Gospel of Jesus, to bring you to
faith in your Saviour and to make you a
happy child of God. ‘Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God,’’
1 John 5, 1.

We Must Bend—Not God.

If a man lay a crooked stick upon an even,
level ground, the stick and ground ill suit to-
gether, but the fault is in the stick; and in
such a case, a man must not strive to bring
the even ground to the crooked stick, but
bow the crooked stick even with the ground.
So it is between God’s will and ours—there
is a discrepancy and jarring betwixt them;
but where is the fault, or, rather, where is it
not? Not in the will of God, but in our
crooked and corrupt affections, in which case
we must not, like Balaam, seek to bring God’s
will to ours, but be contented to rectify and
order the crookedness of our own will, by the
rectitude and sanctity of the will of God,
which must be the ruler and moderator of our
wills; for which cause we are to cry out with
Dayid, ‘‘Teach me, O Lord, to do Thy will;””
and with the whole Church of God, in that
pattern of wholesome words, “Thy will be
done on earth, as it is in heaven;”’ never for-
getting that, too, of Christ Jesus Himself in
the midst of His agony and bloody sweat,
‘Rather, not My will, but Thine be done.’*

; Augustine.