The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 2

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

Yet There Is Room.

(From the German Es ist noch Raum.)

Yet there is room; my house is not yet filled;
My guests are but a few;

Tell all the world: Your hunger may be stilled;
See what I did for you!

Go, bid them come, don’t be at leisure!

I have prepared in ample measure;
Yet there is room; yea, there is room.

2
ee

Yet there is room; the arms of Jesus are
Both strong and open wide;

His hands outstretched in readiness to bear
His children to His light.

He places them upon His shoulder,

Is their Supporter and Upholder,
Yet there is room; yea, there is room.

Yet there is room for the most feeble child
That cannot walk alone,

And, too, for those by Satan long beguiled;
Christ calls them to His throne.

Then to clear fountains He will lead them,

With heav’nly manna He will feed them.
Yet there is room; yea, there is room.

Yet there is room; a house of God for rest,
With mansions tall and wide;

There we shall rest, yea, rest on Jesus’ breast,
Our faith well satisfied.

All they who here accept the Savior -

Shall live with Him in bliss forever.
Yet there is room; yea, there is room.

Treo. GOHLKE and Rost. KRETZMANN, tr., 1912.

“God Wills It!’

God’s purpose in relation to His Kingdom of
Grace, His Church here upon earth, runs like a
thread of gold through the Bible. The curse pro-
nounced upon the serpent was a promise to our
first parents that the Woman’s Seed should bruise
the serpent’s head. And to Abraham was given the
assurance that in his Seed all the families of the
earth should be blessed. The work of missions,
the blessed and glorious task of God’s chosen people,
was indicated in this promise; but for centuries
the realization of this promise was delayed and its
meaning was largely obscure to God’s people. It
was particularly Isaiah who pointed to the fact that
it was God’s will that His people Israel should be
the world’s evangelizers, saying: “The Gentiles shall
come to thy light and kings to the brightness of
_ thy rising.” He exhorts Zion, the Church of God,

_to get up into a high mountain with its good tidings

_ of salvation for the whole world, so that the whole

world may learn of its salvation. He stresses the

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

fact that Zion, the Church, has been made the
steward of God’s truth, the living proof of His
grace, and the chosen messenger to bring the good
tidings of God’s salvation to the Gentiles sitting
in darkness and the shadow of death. Ah, yes;
Isaiah vividly realized God’s purpose and will, His
mercy and the certainty of redemption of all in the
promised Messiah. And seeing this, he pleads with
Zion to go forth in faith and true obedience to do
the will of God.

Jesus’ words “I am not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel’? might lead people to
think that Gentiles were beyond the sphere of the
Lord’s redemption, but these words refer only to
His personal mission while on earth; He was
“a minister of the circumcision for the truth of
God, to confirm the promises made unto the
fathers.” But while His special work was among
the children of the promise, yet, when He healed the
daughter of the woman of Syrophenicia, as well as
upon other occasions, He showed that He had other
sheep who were not of the fold of Israel, that He
ever bore in mind His own prophecy that many
should come from the East and the West and should
sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the
kingdom of God. That Jesus’ words to the woman
of Phenicia were not to be understood as if He
thought of Israel’s welfare only, His words spoken
prior to His death and resurrection plainly show:
“And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached
in all the world for a witness unto all nations and
then shall the end come.” -And did He not in
those days before His death also express’ His love
for all men in the touching words: “And other
sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also
I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and
there shall be one fold and one Shepherd” ?

But after His glorious resurrection His purpose
was most definitely expressed in His Great Com-
mission to the Church. “to teach all nations” and
“to preach the Gospel to every creature.” And
when the disciples of the Lord became so engrossed
in their work at Jerusalem that they lost sight of
His command to be His witnesses in Judea, and
Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth,
He, the Savior, did not hesitate to permit persecu-
tion to come upon, and scatter, them, so that they
might carry the message of salvation abroad.

Stephen’s martyrdom was followed by a general
persecution and dispersion of the Christians and
a resultant extension of the Church through Judea
and Samaria. While the disciples do not seem to
have been conscious of pursuing a definite mis-