The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1903, Page 41

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Che Autheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LutHERAN SynopicaL ConrereNcE OF Norra America.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XXV. St. TeGuie Mo., November, 1908.

No. 11.

To Mission Workers.

“Oh, be swift who bear the message!
Oh, be generous, ye who stay!
Lavish gifts upon the altar,
Pray and give, and give and pray,
Till the multitude in darkness
In His beauty see the King,
And saved sinners come to Jesus,
And His praise and glory sing.’’

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“Middling.”

As we sat in the waiting-room of a Southern
station, a young man entered and greeted a
friend with the question, ‘‘Well, Henry, how
are you to-day ?’’

‘‘Middling,’’ was the friend’s reply, mean-
ing that he was not entirely well, nor yet se-
riously ill.

Soon after, a young lady entered and greeted
a friend with whom she soon had a dispute on
religious matters. She was a Roman Catholic
who tried to defend the errors of the Romish
sect. She gave as a reason for her belief in
purgatory that she was not quite good enough
to go to heaven, and she was sure that she was
not bad enough to go to hell. ‘‘Ah,”’ we
thought, ‘‘she also considers herself middling
—not very good and not very bad.”

Later on, as we sat on a box on the plat-
form, we had a talk with a colored uncle, who
told us that he worked on the railroad. We
spoke about the dangers to which railroad men
are exposed, and pointed out the importance
of being prepared for death at every moment
of life. ‘‘Well,’’ he said, ‘‘I’se not one of
those very good people, but I’se not very bad
neither.’’ :

‘©You belong tothe middling people, uncle?”

“Dat?s it, boss, just about middling.’’

“There seem to be many middling people
around here; I wonder where they come from.
Can you tell me who makes good men ?””

“God, sah.”’ 2

‘And who makes bad men?’’

‘The devil, sab.”

‘And who makes the middling men???

Our colored friend looked rather puzzled,
but soon replied, ‘‘Don’t know, sah.”

Yes, and there are many other things which

those don’t know who consider themselves
middling as to their spiritual condition. They
don’t know the Bible, and they don’t know
their own hearts. God’s Word does not speak
of middling men, but tells us that all men are
by nature sinners. ‘‘There is not a just man
upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not,’’
Eccl. 7, 20. ‘‘There is none righteous, no,
not one; there is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. They
are all gone out of the way, they are together
become unprofitable: there is none that doeth
good, no, not one,’’ Rom. 3, 10—12. ‘The
flesh,’’ the nature with which we are born into
the world, ‘‘is enmity“against God; for it is
not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed
can be,’’ Rom. 8, 7.

This is true, not only of some, but of all,
for the best of men ‘‘were by nature children
of wrath, even as others,’’ Eph. 2, 3. There
is no room for middling men, for in God’s
sight ‘‘we are all as an unclean thing.”

The Lord, therefore, tells us, ‘‘No man can
serve two masters; for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold
to the one, and despise the other.’”’? Again He
says, ‘‘He that is not with me, is against me;
and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth
abroad.” He surely leaves no place for the
middling men.

Therefore, the question of the salvation of
the most cultured and refined turns upon the
acceptance or rejection of Jesus, just as truly
as the salvation of the most ignorant, rude,
debased, and stupid. ‘‘He that believeth on
Him is not condemned; but he that believeth
not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only-begotten Son
of God. He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life; and he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God
abideth on him,’’ John 3, 18. 36. ‘‘This is
the record that God hath given to us eternal
life, and this life is in HisSon. He that hath
the Son hath life; and he that hath not the
Son of God hath not life,’’ 1 John 5, 11. 12.
Whatsoever else he may have in the way of
learning and wealth and social position, he
has not life, spiritual life, everlasting life, un-
less he has the Son by faith in His name.

‘Go ye into all the world and preach the Gos-
pel to every creature. He that believeth, and
is baptized, shall be saved; but he that be-
lieveth not, shall be damned,’’ Mark 16, 15. 16.
A man is either a believer in Jesus and on the
road to everlasting bliss, or an unbeliever and
on the road to everlasting damnation. There
is no middle road to some middle place, and
there are not middling men. As to health,
and wealth, and other things there may be
middling men, but as to their standing before
God there are no middling men.
— ~< oo >

Unbelief.

Unbelief has its seat not in the head, butin
the heart. Men do not want to believe the
Bible, because the mind of the flesh is enmity
against God, because the Bible lays an arrest
upon appetites and passions which they love
to gratify, because it utters the stern admoni-
tion of a reckoning in the future world for the
sins of the present, because it humbles them
into the dust by casting the highest not less
certainly than the lowest, the most cultivated
and refined not less surely than the most ig-
norant and degraded, upon the grace of God
and the atoning sacrifice of Christ for salva-
tion. Therefore all attempts to convert the
skeptic by argument must necessarily fail.
Every conversion is the result of the Holy
Spirit’s work in the heart of man.

0+ oo

Certainty of Salvation.

The believer’s certainty of salvation is
founded, not on his fitful feelings, but on
God’s Word. An aged Christian, when speak-
ing of the certainty of salvation, well said,
“Tf any one asked me how I know that I am
saved, I should say I know it better than if I
had heard an angel out of heaven say so; for
I might make a mistake about that, but I can-
not make a mistake about the Word of God.
The Lord Jesus said, ‘All that my Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” The
Father has made my soul a present to His Son,
and I know He will not take me away from
Him.” ;