The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1908, Page 49

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SyNODICAL CONFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA.

KR. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XXX. see

Faith.

“Faith is not what I feel or see,

It is a simple trust

In what God in His Word has said
Of Jesus Christ, ‘the Just.’

“What Jesus is, and that alone,

Is faith’s delightful plea;

Tt looks away from sinful self

To Him who died for me.
“His death redeemed me from all sin
And from the wrath of God.

By faith I stand in Him complete
And justified through blood.”

0

Believing.

A sailor was heard trying to explain to a ship-
mate of his what is meant by believing. Among
other things he said: “Mark you, it isn’t breaking
off swearing and the like; it isn’t praying nor be-
ing good. It is none of these; for even if they
would answer for the time to come, there is still
the old score, and how are you to get over that?

* Tt is not anything you have done or you-can do; .

it is taking hold of what Jesus did for you. There
is forgiveness and salvation because Christ let the
waves and billows go over Him on Calvary. It is
all offered to you in the Gospel, and it all is yours
by believing; and believing is nothing else than
taking God at His word. ‘God so loved the world
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever-
lasting life. ”

The old sailor knew what believing for, salva-
fion means. It means “taking God at His word.”
It means trusting in what God says about Jesus and

St. Louis, Mo., July, 1908.

No. 7.

His work of redemption. God says in His Word
that Jesus Christ tasted death for every man, Hebr.
2, 9. By trusting in these words you know that
Jesus tasted death also for you, and by believing
you then have redemption and eternal life. God
says in His Word that the blood of Jesus Christ,
His Son, cleanses us from all sin, 1 John 1,7. By
trusting in these words you know that the blood of
Jesus cleanses also you from all your sin, and by
believing you then have forgiveness of sin and ever-
lasting salvation.

“Lord, give us such a faith as this,

And then, whate’er may come,

We'll taste, e’en here, the hallowed bliss
Of an eternal home.”

————_>- --___—_-

Saving the Lost. |

Christ eame that He might save the lost. He
came not to call the righteous, but sinners to re-
pentance. When a sinner has “come to the end of
himself and takes the place of one utterly lost, then’
God can deal with him in grace.

«Why did you not rush after your friend when
he fell into the water?” was once asked, and the
reply was: “He was trying to save himself; if
I had gone to him ’at first, I could not have helped
him. I waited till he had come to the end of his
own strength, and then I rescued him.” You under-.
stand this. .When a man takes his place as-one
who is lost, and gives up all his self-righteousness,
and finds himself under sentence of death as a help-
less sinner condemned by the holy Law of God, then
he is thankful to be saved by grace. Having no
other refuge, he will be glad to find refuge in the
Savior of ‘sinners,’ steht fockohs