The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1900, Page 5

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

ee

ee

Che Autheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY

MONTHLY.

PusiisHep BY THE EyANGELICAL Lurueran SynopicaL CoNFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XXII.

He Never Says ‘‘Good-Bye.””

In pain, on a bed of weakness,
A weary woman lay,
Her face was pale and ghastly
In the twilight, dim and gray.
A friend, in that still hour,
Spoke of Jesus being nigh;
“Oh, yes!’’ she faintly whispered,
“He never says ‘Good-bye.’

He never leaves His people,
He ne’er forsakes His own;
He marks their path, though lonely;
Their wants to Him are known.
In sickness and in sorrow
He listens to their cry:
His arm is ever round them,
He never says ‘‘Good-bye.”’ bd

Earth’s joys may all, all vanish;
Earth’s music cease to cheer;
Earth’s brightness all be clouded;

Earth’s glory disappear;
Earth’s friends may all forsake us,
E’en a mother come not nigh,

But Jesus’ presence fails not:
He never says ‘‘Good-bye.”

Our pathway may be rugged,
And strewed with many a thorn.
But yet He shares its roughness
When we are faint and worn;
And then He takes His tired ones,
His arm doth strength supply,
He will not leave them helpless:
He never says ‘‘Good-bye.””

A dark, dark vale is near us,
The shades of death draw nigh,
. But even then He’s with us:
He never says ‘‘Good-bye.”’
No, for His hand still guides us
Through death to life on high.
And then He’ll aye be near us,

He'll never say ‘‘Good-bye.’’
Cc. A. S.
——s ~<a o-oo

_ You Need Salvation.

A poor old man, whose gray locks showed
that he was near the grave, was asking for
alms. ‘‘Do you expect to go to heaven when
you die?’’ asked one who dropped a coin into
his hat.

“Yes, sir,’’ said the old man, ‘‘I have always
a to make myself better with the help of

2”?

St. Louis, Mo.) February, 1900.

‘That is the wrong road, my friend,’’ said
the other, ‘‘help to make yourself better is not
what you need; you need salvation, and this
can be gotten only through the blood of Christ
which cleanseth from all sin. God has done
everything for the salvation of sinners in the
sufferings and death of His beloved Son, and
He now says that ‘whosoever believeth on
Him shall not perish, but have everlasting
life.’ ’”

The old man listened attentively as the way
to heaven through faith in the work of Christ
was shown to him. He soon saw the folly of
thinking of God’s help to make himself better,
while he was rejecting God’s salvation.

How many there are like this old beggar,
who are deceiving themselves with the false
thought that what they need is merely God’s
help to make themselves better. What they
really do need is salvation. For they are sin-
ners, born in sin, children of wrath by nature,
wholly depraved and rotten tothe core. ‘‘We
are all as an unclean thing, and all our right-

be justified by the law of Moses,’”’ Acts 13, 39.
When they preached to the Philippian jailer,
they said, ‘‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved,’’ Acts 16, 31. When
they wrote epistles, as moved by the Holy
Ghost, they said, ‘‘To him that worketh not,
but believeth on Him that justifieth the un-
godly, his faith is counted for righteousness,”
Rom. 4, 5; ‘‘For Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to every one that believeth,”’
Rom. 10, 4.

That is God’s way to heaven. Are you con-
tent to be saved in God’s way? God says in
His Word that He is so satisfied with the suffer-
ings and death of Christ as an atonement for
our sins, that those who believe in this Saviour
are ‘‘now justified by His blood.”” Are you
satisfied with the sufferings and death of Christ
as a sufficient atonement for your sins? If so,
you have what you need, you have salvation;
for God says that he that believeth on Him is
‘justified from all things.’’

—— s+

eousnesses are as filthy rags,”’ Is.64,6. ‘‘Who|”

can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not
one,”’ Job 14, 4. What folly it is to try to
mend°and to make better that sinful nature
of ours which God has pronounced incurably
bad!”

What the sinner needs is salvation. This
salvation is received by faith in Jesus, who
‘bore our sins in His own body on the tree,”
and in whom “we haye redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according
to the riches of His grace.’’ Jesus Himself
says, ‘‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
believeth on me hath everlasting life,’’ John
6, 47. And when the apostles went forth to
tell sinners the way to heaven they did not tell
them to make themselves better, in order to
get to that happy place. No. They told the
wondrous story of the cross, the death, and
resurrection of Jesus for the salvation of sin-
ners. When they preached to the Gentiles,
they said, ‘‘To Him give all the prophets wit-
ness, that through His name whosoever be-
lieveth in Him shall receive remission of sins,”’
Acts 10, 48. When they preached to the Jews,
they said, ‘‘By Him all that believe are justi-
fied from all things, from which ye could not

My Burden.

A pastor, when engaged in a work that
seemed to call on him for a more than usual
exercise of faith, received comfort from his
child.

His little daughter, who was a paralitic, was
sitting in her chair as he entered the house
with a package in his hands for his wife. Going
up to her and kissing her, he asked, ‘‘Where
is mother ?’’

“Mother is upstairs.”

‘Well, I have a package for her.””

‘*Let me carry the package to mother.’’

‘Why, Minnie, dear, how can you carry the
package? You can not carry yourself.”

With a smile on her face, Minnie said, ‘‘Oh,
no, papa, but you give me the package, and
I will carry the package, and you will carry
me.”

Taking her in his arms, he carried her up-
stairs, the little Minnie and the package, too.
But it came to him that this was just his posi-
tion in the work in which he was engaged.
He was carrying his burden, but was not God
carrying him?