# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 04 13_S130
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

130

to Christ and His apostles, yes, back to the prophets of the Old Covenant and to all the messengers of God who from the beginning of the world have brought His Word to us men.

But, my dear friends, do not think that Christians can therefore rightly be accused of being people of retrogression. He retrogresses who departs from God; and he alone truly advances who draws ever nearer to God. A contemptible slave is he who serves sin and vice; but truly free is he who overcomes sin and has made himself free from its dominion. He stands still who does not increase in the amendment of his heart; but he hastens toward the most important, the highest goal of man who becomes ever more complete in sanctification. In vain, therefore, do those boast of progress who depart more and more from their God; they are the men of retrogression, whose way leads not upward but downward into the abyss of eternal misery; and in vain men reproach Christians that they do not go along with the times; the very Christians not only go along with the times, but themselves hasten on ahead of the times, for they have always turned their face toward eternity. Their whole life is a hastening out of the world toward heaven; a lifting of themselves above that which is on earth, and a striving after that which is above; an ever becoming freer from error and sin, and an ever becoming more complete in the love of God and of their brethren. To this progress Christians are also urgently exhorted in our Epistle for today; may the devout consideration of this exhortation therefore occupy us now in this hour.

Text: 1 Thess. 4, 1-7.

On the basis of this Epistle let us now consider:

The exhortation of the holy Apostle to become ever more complete,

and namely:

1. To whom this exhortation is addressed,

2. What the Apostle demands by this exhortation, and

3. How necessary it is to obey this exhortation.

Lord JESUS, Thou Captain of our salvation, who dost will not only that we forsake all and come to Thee, but also, when we have come to Thee, that we follow Thee without delay, and press on farther and farther with Thee to the blessed goal: have mercy upon all those among us who have not yet come to Thee; go after them, seek them out, and knock by Thy Word and Thy Holy Spirit at the door of their hearts, until they open to Thee, and Thou mayest hold the supper of grace with them. But all who have already become Thine, awaken and encourage, that they may not stand still and so at last lose what they had already laid hold of, but grow in Thy grace and knowledge, grow in love and in all good works, until at last they arrive in the land where Thine rest from their labors, and their works follow them. Hear us for Thine own sake. Amen.

1.

However small the number of men is to whom their piety is a matter of earnest, yet the number of those is great who want to become ever better and more pious. There are surely only very few who say outright that they have no need to improve, or do not want to improve; and I believe that here among us there will surely be none who would not think: "I too must indeed become better."

Accordingly, many a one will probably also suppose that the exhortation of the holy Apostle in our Epistle today, to become ever more complete, is addressed to all of us who are assembled here. But whoever thinks so is not a little mistaken. Let us only hear the Apostle; how does he speak at the beginning of our Epistle? He says: "Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more." Behold, with these words the holy Apostle addresses only those who had "received" what he had already preached to them, that is, accepted it, and who had already become his dear "brethren" in Christ, thus, in a word: true, converted, regenerate, livingly believing Christians. Those, therefore, among the Thessalonians who were not yet such regenerate Christians, the Apostle did not address at all with the exhortation to become more complete.

And do not let this surprise you! for say yourselves: Can a tree grow taller that is not yet planted? can a man increase who is not yet created? can a man become stronger who is yet dead? can a man come ever nearer to the goal who has not yet entered upon the way to the goal at all? Is that not impossible? — But it is just as impossible that he should become an ever more complete Christian who has not yet begun to be a Christian. See, therefore, dear hearer, if thou wouldst know whether the exhortation of the holy Apostle, to become ever more complete, is addressed to thee also, thou must examine thyself whether thou art already a Christian.

Here perhaps again many among us will think: Why, are we not all Christians? We are surely no heathen! We all descend from Christian parents; we are all baptized; we all believe in God's Word: what more does one want? — Ah, dear hearer, who thinkest so in thy heart, thou dost not yet know at all what a Christian is. A Christian means, in German, a man who is anointed with the Holy Spirit. A Christian, then, is not already everyone who outwardly belongs to the Christians. A Christian is rather a man in whose inner being a great change has taken place through the working of the Holy Spirit; a Christian is he who bears in his heart such a living faith in Christ, through which he has received a new heart; a Christian is a man who is not only born of Christian parents, but who is also born again of the Holy Spirit; a Christian is a man who has received such a mind that he has bid the world and sin good night forever; who would now rather die than commit even the least sin; who has his greatest joy in God and His Word; to whom, therefore, God's grace is a thousand times dearer than everything, dearer than all fine clothes, dearer than all fine houses, dearer than all costly estates, dearer than all gold and silver, dearer than all honor before men, dearer than house and home and wife and child; in short, dearer than the whole world with all its treasures and glories. For a Christian is ready a thousand times rather to let all this go than to deny so much as one jot of God's Word.

Now I ask thee: "Art thou such a Christian? Has such a great change already once taken place in thee? hast thou once become such another, converted man, born again through the Holy Spirit? — and does the light of the Holy Spirit burn now, since the time of this thy conversion, in thy heart? — Dost thou perceive that thou art now no longer led and guided by thy natural light, or merely by thy literal knowledge, but by the power and the light of the Holy Spirit? — Or hast thou perhaps formerly indeed been once converted and alive, but hast again fallen away inwardly, and died again spiritually, and hast now perhaps only the form of godliness, but deniest the power thereof? — Or dost thou perhaps even regard what is now said of Christians as fanaticism? thinkest that they go too far? — See, there thou revealest precisely that thou art still a natural, blind and spiritually dead man, who understandest nothing of the Spirit of God.

Ah, dear hearer, do not wilfully deceive thyself; for God's sake do not hold thyself a Christian if thou art a merely outward Christian of works. For what does it profit thee, if thou wilt by no means let it be taken from thee that thou art a Christian, if thou art, once for all, not yet one, or no longer one? Then, when thou shalt one day appear before Christ's judgment seat, thou wilt yet have to hear Christ say to thee: "Depart from me, I never knew thee, thou evildoer!"

But thou who art not yet a true regenerate Christian, know that the exhortation of the Apostle, to become ever more complete, concerns thee