The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1911, Page 65

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The utheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PusiisneD BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN Synopicat ConFERENCE oF Nortn AMERICA.
R. A. BISCHOFYS, Eprror.

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

Vol. XXXITI.

Preach the Gospel!

Men grope amid sin’s hopeless ways
So wretched and so blind;

On them have dawned no Gospel rays,
No path of peace they find.

Go preach the Gospel! Christ has said;
Go all the famished feed —

To every creature give Life’s Bread,
O’er earth love’s message speed!

The Gospel of God’s Love.

“God so loved the world that He gave His only-
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life,”
John 3, 16.

This is the Gospel of God’s love, of which Luther
says every word “fully deserves, if it could be done,
to be written with golden letters into our hearts.”
“Every Christian,” he says, “ought to learn this
consoling text by heart, and should repeat it once
at least a day, so that we could know these words
well, and could readily apply them for our consola-
tion and the strengthening of our faith. They are
words which have power to gladden us when we
are sad, and to bring us back to life when we are
dead, if we but accept them earnestly in true
faith.”

Who is it that loved? It is the great God, the
most high, the most holy God. And whom did He
love? “God loved the world,” the world that hated
Him, the world of sinners, His enemies.

And how did God love? God loved as only God
can love. His love is beyond all speech and thought.
“God so loved the world that He gave His only-

begotten Son.” He gave Him under the demands

ST. LOUIS, M0., SEPTEMBER, 1911.

and the curse of the Law to fulfill those demands
and to bear that curse for us, the transgressors of
the Law. He gave Him into the most bitter suffer-
ings and death.

For what purpose did God do this? “That who-
soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.’ The word “whosoever” includes
the vilest sinner on earth. “Whosoever” — no mat-
ter who he is and what he is — “whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish” — not die forever, not
be lost forever. No. No. “Whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.” Not life for a few years only. No. “Ever-
lasting life.” Life that goes on and on in endless
joy, and bliss, and glory — “everlasting life.”

Blessed is he who receives this Gospel of God’s
love and says in true faith: “God loved me, too,
for I, too, belong to the world of sinners. He so
loved me that He gave His only-begotten Son to
bear my sins. I believe His Gospel to be true;
I accept His Son as my Savior, and I shall not
perish, but have even now, and shall have, while,
Jehovah exists, everlasting life.”

Such a believing sinner can at all times be of
good cheer. Trusting in this Gospel of God’s love,
he can without fear enter death and face the judg-
ment throne, as sure of salvation as he must be that
He who sits upon the throne cannot lie. It is He
Himself who said: “God so loved the world that
He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever be-
lieveth in Him should not perish, but have ever-
lasting life.” :

Precious Gospel of God’s love from the lips of
Jesus! Surely, there can be no more important, no
more blessed work for believers to do than to make
known to a sin-cursed world this Gospel, which is
their own hearts’ delight and their souls’ salvation.