The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 6

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6 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

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2. Because Foreign Missions Strengthen Our Faith.

Muscles grow strong by constant use or ¢ex-
ercise; likewise faith grows strong by being
tested. The more we use our faith in accordaiice
with the directions and promises of God’s Word,
the stronger it will grow. Now, there can be no
better test for our faith than foreign missions. To
set out with the simple story of the cross of
Jesus and trust it to undermine the bulwarks of
heathenism, blast the strongholds of Islamism, and
destroy the foundations of Judaism, is daring in-
deed. But that is just what we purpose to do by
carrying on foreign missions. I know it must seem
absurd indeed to the world that we Christians, with
nothing but Christ’s Gospel to work with, so to
speak, expect to cleanse the earth from the mire
of sin and change the most shameless slaves of vice
into clean men and women. But if the Gospel is
true, this is just what it will do. If it cannot save
the Chinese and the Hindus and the Africans and
the other people that are estranged from God, it
cannot save you and me. But we know that it has
saved us, and so we know that it will save them.
Yes, in a way, I may say that it will save us the
more easily and the better just because we send it to
the heathen. Sending the Gospel to them gives new
strength and enthusiasm to our own faith. The
more we helj) the heathen taste the sweetness of
Christ?s Gospel, the sweeter it will become to us.
The more we send of this blessed Gospel to others,
the more of it we shall keep. It grows by giving,
does the Gospel. By taking away and giving to
others, you actually do not merely add to your store,
you rather multiply it! Ah, yes, it is strange, a
marvelous thing, about this Gospel of Jesus and its
faithful use. The more you hear it, the more you
like it; the more you give of its riches to others,
the richer you grow. Is it not a pity that not more
people have a desire to get these riches of the Gospel ?

Stop the work of foreign missions, and the
Christian will wither and die in the homeland. Not
to carry on this work of foreign missions would
show that Christians had become false to the very
principle of Christ’s Gospel and to their Lord’s
mission command. ~ “

8. Because It Increases Our Love.

Why does a mother love her child more than
anybody else does? Is it not largely because of
the fact that she is doing so much for her child?
Her deeds of love to the child increase her love
for it. To center our thoughts on ourselves in-
creases our natural tendency to be selfish and self-

centered. ‘The less we interest ourselves in the
welfare of the community in which we live, the less
will we be likely to care for it and its welfare and
the more narrow and selfish will we grow in our
interests. Foreign missions help us to break the
narrow ties of selfishness and help our sympathies
to leap across the oceans and travel around the
globe. They help to expand our interests as nothing
else will. The people who are thousands of miles
distant become the objects of our interest and good
will. We are anxious to hear of the progress which
the Gospel is making among them. Their, welfare
is the subject of our prayers. Their salvation lies
near our heart, and their earthly progress and ad-
vancement is far from immaterial to us. We see
in our fellow-men beings who, like ourselves, have
been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and the love
for these, which actuated God’s own Son to leave
His heavenly throne to save them, is reflected in the
heart of him who has the genuine missionary
spirit, and it reveals itself more and more in his
words and deeds.

4, Because Foreign Missions are Justified by the
Results.

We know that mistakes have been made in the
work of foreign missions; we concede that now
and then poor judgment has been the cause of -
wastes and failures. Progress in certain fields may
seem slow to the superficial observer. But let us
remember that just as the seed is germinating under
the surface unseen and unobserved, just so the seed
of Christ’s Gospel is not being sown in vain. The
cause of foreign missions is right, we know; God
is with His Gospel now as He was when Paul
preached it; it has the same power it had when it
was first preached to our ancestors. And besides
this knowledge we have the encouraging reports of
our missionaries, which tell us of the Gospel’s
wonderful victories in every field. Yes, surely, if
the thousands of converts in India and China could
tell you and me what the Gospel meant to them,
if they could tell us of all the blessings and sweet-
ness the Gospel of Jesus brought into their lives,
their testimony would overwhelm us with joy and
satisfaction. We would fl a thousand times
repaid for the little sacrifices we may have brought
for the foreign mission cause.

© yes, if there is any enterprise in the whole
wide world that pays, it is the foreign mission
enterprise. Whether we judge it by what it does
at home or by what it does abroad; whether we
judge it by the return which it brings in dollars