The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1915, Page 43

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

43

gard’ to man, which she had not doubted before,
Satan, that old serpent, now appeared to her, and
perverted God’s Word in a foul manner, saying,
“Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every
tree in the garden?” as if God begrudged them the
fruit. ‘The woman replied, “We may eat of the
fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden
God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall
ye touch it, lest ye die.” TFlatly denying what the
Lord had said, and thereby declaring Him to be
a liar, the serpent answered, “Ye shall not surely
die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Now
the woman sinned in desire, thought, word, and
deed, and her husband consented to sin with her.
They were not forced to disobey their Benefactor,
but of their own free will suffered themselves to
be misled by the enemy. Tye sinned in desire,
and thought; for she saw- that the tree was good
for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and
a tree to be desired to make one wise. She sinned
in word; for she told Adam what the serpent had
said, and thus enticed and induced him, to eat of
the forbidden fruit. She also committed the wicked
deed; she took of the fruit, and ate, and gave also
to her husband, who also ate of it.

Immediately’ after their shameful fall Adam
and Eve became aware of their nakedness, of
which they now felt ashamed. ‘They were also

haunted by the fear of God’s punishment. There- _

fore they made themselves aprons out of fig leaves,
and hid behind trees when God walked through
the garden in the cool of the evening. Conscious
of’ their gilt, they were now tortured by an evil
conscience. The divine image had now been lost.
Man was now deprived of his concreated righteous-
ness, inclined to all that is evil, and subject to God's
wrath and displeasure, temporal death, and eternal
damnation. By means of their natural birth all
men have inherited original sin, this total depravity
of the whole human nature. “By one man sin en-
tered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned.” (Rom. 5, 12.)

That same evening the Lord God pronounced
the punishment on our first parents. Driven out
of Paradise, they henceforth had to eat their bread
sorrowfully, in the sweat of their, brow, till they
would return to the ground from which they were
taken. A cherub with a flaming sword, which

‘that it was genuine.

turned every way, guarded the way to the tree of
life, so that they could not reenter the garden. —

This is the sad story

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.

The last words of these lines, with which Mil-
ton’s great epic poem, “Paradise Lost,” begins,
point to our redemplion from sin by Christ, our
Lord. ‘True, man’s disobedience turned the golden
age of the human race into a hateful, unfortunate
time, so that St. Paul writes: “The days are evil.”
Yet we should also regard the present time as being
very precious, it being the season of grace, as the
same apostle writes: “Behold, now is the accepted
time, . . . the day of salvation.” Already in the
garden of Eden our merciful God promised the
Woman’s Seed, our blessed Savior, who, by means
of His death on Calvary, would bruise the Ser-
pent’s head, and thereby deliver us from sin, death,
and Satan’s power. . If we trust in Jesus, our Joy,
we are delivered from all spiritual foes. Tor “as
by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men
to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of
One the free gift came upon all men unto justifica-
tion of life.’ (Rom. 5, 18.) H. Osternus.

A Letter.

Dear Eprror or THE PIONEER, —

As editor you receive quite a good deal of
mail, and possibly, when sorting your mail, you
show a certain preference. I have been editor of
the Arkansas Intheran for several years, and now
and. then I receive letters with an enclosure of
fifty one-cent. stamps, sometimes it’s a greenback
dollar bill, but it has happened, too, that 2 “V”
was in the corner of the bill. Friday, the seventh
of May, while going through my mail, I found
a letter whose handwriting was not familiar.
I opened that first, and—guess what I held in
my hand!—a draft for one thousand dollars.
Being so accustomed to handling thousand dollar
drafts (a daily oceurrence!?), I knew immediately -
I quickly glanced at the
letter. It follows in part:

‘My dear Pastor Poppe, — Your story in the
March number about Leah Jones was splendid.
We white Christians can still learn by her example.