The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1904, Page 73

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY

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MOONTHLY.

Pusuisnep By THE EVANGELICAL Lurieran Synopicar ConFERENCE or Nortn AMERICA.

R. A. BISCILOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XXVI.

Forsake Us Not.

“Yorsake us not—O Lord! be near

Thy Church, when low’ring clouds appear;
That heav’nly light, Thy Word divine,
Continue in our midst to shine.

“While sin and death around we sce,
Oh! grant that we may constant be,
And pure retain, till life is spent,
Thy precious Word and Sacrament.

“Dear Saviour! help—Thy Church uphold;
For we are sluggish, thoughtless, cold—
Endue Thy Word with power and grace,
And spread its truth in ev’ry place.’

oo

Reformation Day.

The 31st of October is Reformation Day. -It is
a day of joy and thanksgiving. It reminds us of
the great blessings which God bestowed upon His
Church through His servant Dr. Martin Luther.

The greatest of these many blessings is the

knowledge of the way of salvation by grace through
faith in Jesus, the Saviour of sinners.

This true way of salvation is clearly revealed in
the Bible, and the Bible existed before Luther’s
time. But during the dark reign of popery God’s
blessed Book was hidden from the. people. Even
those who claimed to be the teachers of the church

_ had mostly never seen it, much less had they ever

read it. They did not teach and preach God’s

-Word, but man’s word; not the comforting Gospel

of Christ, but the false doctrines of the pope and

- his priests, which could give the troubled heart no
_ peace and no comfort.

Jesus was preached, not as
the loving Saviour who invites all heavy-laden sin-

hers to come unto Him for rest, but as the severe

and cruel Judge from whom sinners must flee.

St. Louis, 2 “Mo., C @otoben , 1904.

No. 10.

Luther says that he trembled and fvas frightened
whenever he heard the name of Jesus. The anx-
ious sinner was not told to trust in the finished
work of Christ for salvation, but he was told to
trust in his own works, in his prayers to the saints,
and in the mass said by the priests. He was told
to rely, not on the righteousness of Christ, which
alone avails in the sight-of God, but on man’s right-
eousness, which, as the prophet says, is but ‘‘filthy
rags.’? Thus the people were led, not in the true
way of salvation, but into the ways in which they
must be lost.

Luther himself passed through much agony be
fore he found the true way of salvation. He went
the way the Romish church told him to go, and
tried to merit salyation by his own works and to
get to heaven by his own righteousness. But he
found no peace until God opened to him the Bible,
from which he learned that sinners are saved, not
by their own works and holiness, but by grace
through faith in Christ, the only Saviour. By faith

‘in the Gospel he found peace, and rest, and happi-

ness; and this Gospel he made known to the people
and defended it against all its enemies. He became
God’s messenger, ‘‘having the everlasting Gospel to
preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to
every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.”
In all his preaching and writing it was his aim to
make plain the Gospel way to salvation by grace
through faith in Jesus. In this Gospel light many

thousands, who had been groping in the darkness
of popery, rejoiced and gaxe thanks unto God for
His great mercy. -

We still have the Goanals which is ‘the power
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth,””
and well may we, on Reformation Day, rejoice Fal
thank God for restoring to His Church the pure!