# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 08 30_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6

the LORD keeps well. If thou believest it, give Him the remaining crumbs. Why doth thy hand hesitate? Body and soul thou wilt trust to Him, thou commendest to Him daily house and home, and the remaining crumbs thou canst not leave to Him, thou must steal them from Him: for if thou givest them not to Him, thou stealest them, because they belong to Him.

Well then, I will take the lid off yet a little further, although it were better that thou gavest more abundantly, even without that, what the dear LORD Christ demands for Himself of thy remaining crumbs; on the last day the joy would be so much the greater. He not only keeps it well, He also increases it, and, to say all at once: with usury that reaches into eternity, ye shall receive it again in the resurrection. How should He not, seeing that He multiplies the seven loaves that come from Him among the sinful people, among sinners? Must not that increase much more abundantly which is brought to Him from His members out of the faith which He wrought? Can it be with Him, from whose breath heaven and earth have sprung, for a single moment without growing a thousandfold? Who then would not gladly lend out the remaining crumbs upon usury? Well, with Him thou canst thus put out to usury. Who would not let them go over the sea, if they were worth so much, that for them nobler goods might be brought home? Behold, for Him a draught of water is not too poor; He takes it with Him into the ship, which carries away from the shore of the visible world all the remaining crumbs, small and great, the widow's half-farthings as well as the palaces of those who literally forsook all and followed Christ, in order, instead of them, when heaven and earth pass away in fire and the rich possessions of the covetous vanish in smoke, to return with unfading crowns of glory, which shall be made manifest on all those who not merely say Lord, Lord, to Christ, but also let Him be Lord, Lord also over their temporal goods.

Now I might conclude, and give these remaining crumbs also to Him to keep, from whose hand of blessing they fell into our lap at my entreaty. But I must still say one thing. Let no one think that the LORD therefore wants the remaining crumbs because He needed them, or because such a work must yet be added, in order that He might show Himself to us as the Saviour, who hath blotted out our sins and openeth to us the gate of heaven. If any one should draw such erroneous thoughts from this sermon, I would rather I had not preached it. But the LORD Himself has put a bolt in the way in the Gospel. When He, without any preparation, feeds in the wilderness those who receive His word, so that His disciples become richer thereby than they were before, we must surely not doubt that He needs the remaining crumbs neither for Himself, nor for His servants, nor for His whole people, which faith offers to Him in free love, willing in holy array, as David testifies in the 110th Psalm. He could easily send preachers in multitudes, who would need to look into no other hand than His own, to the heathen, as among all Christendom. He would need neither seminaries nor synods; yea, His power could easily supply even the church buildings without a pillar of cloud and fire. That He goes other ways does not happen because perhaps only he, whom we see, would be open to Him, or in order that we might help Him that we might be saved: as for the latter, we have grace and salvation complete, and nothing more can accrue to us thereto—through His blood; but because faith is to have the honor, as it has Christ wholly, so also to step into Christ's place toward unbelieving, erring and weak-believing mankind, and in the fellowship of His labor of love for the rescue of the lost to taste His blessedness. From him that believeth not, who hath not first in Christ God and heaven, the LORD requireth none of all this.

And now enough of speaking of that which is to govern our life daily. May the LORD take us with our weakness to His breast and let us grow strong in His care. What His hand hath kindled in the ground of the heart, let it smolder on beneath the ashes. Enough that He sees it there.

But where, before our short-sighted eye, in which with the light of love the light of hope, of which St. Paul writeth [1 Cor. 13:7], so soon goes out, the death of unbelief dwelleth and feedeth only satanic joy, mayest Thou, to whom all things are possible, yet one day kindle bright flames from Thine altar.

When Thy day cometh, we shall all break forth more gloriously. Grant that then also the sacrifice of my lips may ascend to Thee in a purer flame! Amen. LORD JESUS! Amen.

(Sent in by K.)

Comfort for Parents

upon the early departure of their children.

How hard it often is to comfort such parents we see in the example of Jacob at the loss of his beloved Joseph (Gen. 37:35) and of the mothers at Bethlehem at the cruel death of their children (Matt. 2:17, 18). Yet one can always comfort himself more easily than another. The holy Jacob could not forget his favorite for a full 22 years; Job, on the contrary, bore the sudden death of all his 10 grown children together with the loss of all his temporal goods with such courage of faith that he cried out: The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD! (Job 1:21.)

Now, to be sure, for all such sorrowing hearts the Word of God, and in particular the Psalter, is the richest and sweetest fountain of comfort; yet this comfort often penetrates the deeper into the heart and takes the firmer hold there when we see its power in such Christians as have thereby been comforted exceedingly in like tribulation. *)

*) I call attention hereby to 2 essays in the 4th volume of this periodical. The first is in No. 18, under the heading: Gottes Absicht, wenn er unsere Kinder sterben läßt; the other is found in No. 23, entitled: Warum hast du das gethan? The latter especially deserves to be printed again, since it is not accessible to many present readers of the "Lutheraner."

For this very reason the following letter of the well-known Württemberg theologian Dr. J. A. Bengel, which is taken from his biography by Burk, will be a welcome gift. His marriage was blessed with 12 children, of whom half went before him into eternity in tender childhood. The dear man wrote this letter to his parents soon after the burial of his little daughter Regina, whom God took to Himself in heaven after only 1 year. But this letter, like everything that this man, so versed in Scripture, has written, is not to be read over cursorily, but to be weighed sentence by sentence.

On the day of Regina, 1722, the 7th of Sept.

We give thanks not only for the wreaths sent for our blessed and still dear Anna Regina, but also especially for the parental sympathy shown; on the other hand, I consider myself bound to impart in simplicity something of what God let shine forth of His love under this visitation. When six weeks before my child I had the scarlet fever, and thought my heart should come, in this indisposition as in the former one, to some tenderer feeling, such was nevertheless not found at that time, to my real displeasure with myself; I also complained of this to my friend who visited me, and added: something sharper must come, whereby I might be softened.

This has now come to pass, in that, when our dear child lay piteously in its last hours, I had a really keen assault upon my inward parts; so that even before its dissolution I felt more of mourning than over our two former blessed children, and on other like occasions together.

But even under this I was made ready, without shame before the bystanders, to attend the child with prayer, supplication and tears, until it had overcome. I had to think so much thereby of the divine justice, which for the sake of sin, which it inherited from us and we from the whole human race, treats and destroys even so tender a little body, and of the divine grace, which has nevertheless led such a way of death unto life, that the pitiful gasping and twitching brought me no further grief. At the same time my heart was so strengthened that in the midst of the dawning sorrow I was nevertheless better than at the best amusements I ever attended, and I wished within myself that I might now myself also never lift up again my head, which I had laid down upon the little deathbed.

After the child had departed, and I had laid myself down in the afternoon in the chamber to which it had been brought, beside it, to rest a little, it came to my mind how desirable a thing such an exchange is. David had to lament over the death of his wretched Absalom: Oh, would I had died for thee! But with such a child, which has not yet been drawn into the ways of the world, there needs no