# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 08 15_S205
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

205

It is true, Reverend Brethren in the office, if those who now stand against us as bitter enemies in a hot conflict were to attempt to prove from this death that the curse of God which they have threatened us with is now becoming manifest, and that God's judgments are already visibly breaking in upon us, they would thereby merely take their place on the side of the blind world, which draws from the cross of Christians the conclusion that God does not regard Christians, indeed is their enemy and fights against them, and which inferred from the temporal prosperity of the children of the world that these sit in God's lap. They would thereby contradict the Word of God, which teaches that God chastens most severely precisely His dearest children and scourges precisely the son whom He receiveth. Nevertheless it remains ever true what Moses, the man of God, testifies in the Holy Ghost: by sudden death God sets the misdeed of the survivors before them, and their secret sins in the light of His countenance. O therefore let us not be deaf to God's voice, which also calls out to us here: Acknowledge your sin and repent! Let us rather humble ourselves under God's mighty hand, and now, when God has suddenly turned our days of joy into days of mourning and lamentation, think of our guilt and, smiting upon our breast in repentance, cry out: God be merciful to us sinners! If God gives us one victory after another, if He blesses us with all the riches of His blessing, He warns us now also that we should not become secure thereby, but acknowledge that our victories and our blessing are not our merit, but free grace and mercy, and that whatever we ourselves have done of our own in the matter was only our perversity and our sin.

Yet God preaches still more to us here.— Consider: when we have bestowed much diligence on the preparation of a servant of God and have made many sacrifices for it, and when then God bestows especially fine gifts on such a one, the thought only too easily steals over us, as though it were we men upon whose gifts, wisdom, faithfulness and diligence alone the welfare of the Church depended. Who among us has always been free of such thoughts? But if God, precisely in the Church's most distressed times, takes from it ever more young, vigorous, zealous and gifted laborers, what will He then say to the laborers who remain behind? Plainly nothing other than this: I have no need of you! And that is just what God also calls to us further from this grave. O let us then learn it now also and take it deeply to heart: God has no need of us! We should indeed give our mouth, our hands, our hearts, in short, everything, to the service of God and His Church, what we are and have; but in doing so we should think of nothing except that we wish to be obedient to God therein. We should never forget in this that it is not we who found, govern, preserve and protect the Church, but the LORD, who can use us for it or not use us. "So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase." 1 Cor. 3, 7.

Yet, my dear brethren in the office, true as this is, we must never forget that it is a great work which God lays in our hands when He calls us into His holy office; He alone can and must do everything, but then He testifies that He will do His holy, blessed work through us. He then entrusts to us immortal souls, dearly purchased with His own blood of God, and we are to tell these souls what they are to do in order to be saved. We are to say to the impenitent sinner: Thou must die! and to proclaim to the penitent: Thou shalt live! We are to awaken the dead, to show the erring the right way, to make the doubting sure, to strengthen the weak, to heal the sick, to comfort the tempted, to lead the dying across the abyss of death and deliver them into God's hands, in short, "as wise stewards to give to each in due season his portion." Luke 12, 42. And God will require the blood of all these souls entrusted to us at our hands one day!— When now God takes a young laborer suddenly from our midst, what does He preach to us thereby? He calls to us: Become more faithful in the administration of the office that is committed to you! Work while it is day, for the night cometh, when no man can work. O let us then also listen to this voice! Let us not put off till tomorrow what is to be done. Let us hasten to declare to all the whole counsel of God for their salvation, publicly and from house to house. Let us walk with burning lights and with our loins girded, so that, when the LORD takes the shepherd's staff from our hands, we may be ready to give account to Him who is the Judge of the quick and the dead.—

But now I turn at the same time to you, to whom the dear departed was indeed not a fellow-servant in the office, but with us a fellow-brother in the faith, to you, hearers, and especially to you, honored present representatives of our congregations.

To you also God preaches today out of this grave. And what is that? Above all, again, threefold: 1. Acknowledge that faithful and gifted preachers are a gift of my free grace, which I can call back at any hour! 2. Pray therefore not only that I may give you this noble gift, but also that I may preserve it to you! and finally 3. Redeem the time in which I give you the grace to possess such a precious jewel!—

Perhaps at no time has the holy ministry been so despised as in the present. Not only is this a consequence of the unbelief which has now broken in like a deluge over Christendom, but, alas! also a consequence of this, that so many wretched men now administer the holy office who, while they bear it, only disgrace it by their false doctrine and by their ungodly life. Then it may easily happen that even a true Christian is tempted to despise his faithful preacher also. When now God gives a faithful servant of His Word his rest from labor soon, He therefore calls out with a loud voice to all hearers: Acknowledge that faithful and gifted preachers are a gift of my free grace, which I can demand back at any hour! O so hear then also, ye, dear brethren, this voice of God sounding into your ear from this open grave! Acknowledge, it is not the work of man to create a faithful preacher, that is God's work and gift. Take not offense, therefore, at their infirmities, if they are faithful in the work of the LORD. Demand not that they be angels, while ye are sinners. Hold them rather high, dear and precious, as gifts of the Most High God, easily lost. Be thankful toward them. But above all forget never: he that heareth them heareth Christ, he that despiseth them despiseth Christ, and he that despiseth Christ despiseth Him that sent him, the great, eternal and living God Himself.

But if, dear brethren, God at this grave reminds you that faithful preachers are His gift, which He can give and take, then He also calls to you, indeed, loudly and earnestly at the same time: Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest, and preserve those that are sent out! O how many a faithful and dear servant may already have been called home because men did not recognize the gift of God in him! How many a one may already have been snatched away in his youth, whom God would gladly have given to His Church if it had earnestly prayed for it! At how many a zealous servant of JESUS Christ's heart may death even now be aiming, which will only then not be struck also if many fervent prayers of Christians make themselves an impenetrable shield against it!—

Yet, my dear friends, one thing more! God sends out His servants not for this, that men should merely delight in their gifts and have in them faithful friends and comforters in need, but above all that men should let themselves be led by them on the narrow way that leadeth to heaven; that men therefore should accept their doctrine and their instruction as God's doctrine and instruction, their comfort as God's comfort, their rebuke as God's rebuke, their threatenings as God's threatenings, and that thus, enlightened, awakened, converted by them, preserved from all wrong ways, men may at last be made blessed. If now God lets a faithful servant die, He calls to all hearers: O redeem the time in which I give you the great grace to pos-