# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 01 22_S83
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

83

is painted before our eyes, as in a living picture, not only by our festival history of today; the whole Holy Scripture gives testimony thereto in express words.

Christ calls to His disciples at His departure from the world: "Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." With these words Christ, it is true, first of all sends the Apostles forth into all lands and makes the whole of mankind their diocese and field of labor; but they were by no means the only ones to whom these words applied. Nay, rather they stood here, as in all other commissions and institutions of Christ committed to them, only as the roots of the tree planted by Christ, which was at last to overshadow the whole world, and under whose branches all the children of God were to be gathered. In short, they stood there as the representatives of the whole Church. It was therefore properly the Church of all times to which Christ gave this commission, the Church upon which He laid this great debt; wherefore He also joined the promise to the command: "And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world!" The holy Apostles are indeed dead, and although they already filled the whole earth with the sound of the Gospel, yet there are still millions left, and indeed to this hour, who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. The word: "Go ye into all the world and teach all nations," therefore sounds on even over the graves of the Apostles, loudly admonishing, into the ear of the Church of Christ, and will go on sounding, demanding the debt, until there is no heathen more to whom the Gospel has not been preached, until the appointed fulness of the Gentiles shall have entered into Christ's kingdom, that is, until the last day. But who is the Church? Is it, perhaps, the so-called clergy, priests and bishops? No, it is all the believing Christians. To you, then, yes, to you, who have become members of the Church through a living faith, to you applies the word of the LORD: "Go ye into all the world and teach all nations." In the moment when you entered the Church and became partakers of its blessed privileges, you took upon yourselves also your share in the general debt of the Church, and promised to labor together in the work of holy missions according to your station and calling, according to your gifts and powers, as much as ye are able.

But, my dear friends, this work is not a debt of Christians only because Christ, their LORD, has expressly laid it upon them; even if Christ had not spoken that word, Christians would still have to recognize it as their debt. For first, has not every Christian an eternal debt of love toward his God? — But could a Christian say that he loves God, if he can quietly look on while the enemy of God, Satan, holds millions of men, who were created for God, in his kingdom and in his snares? Could a Christian say that he loves God, if he can quietly look on while still, for millions of men, God has done the highest wonder of His love in vain, in vain became man for them, in vain suffered for them, in vain for them, lying as a worm in the dust, sweat bloody sweat, in vain died for them on the tree of the Cross, in vain reconciled them, redeemed them, and obtained blessedness for them? Could a Christian say that he loves God, if he can quietly look on while millions of men know nothing of God, and therefore, instead of serving God, serve sin and Satan? instead of praising God, for which they were created, blaspheme Him? instead of hallowing His name, defile it? No; as surely as to a Christian the love of God remains a debt which he has to pay off continually, even to all eternity, so surely is a Christian also continually bound to take part in the work of the heathen mission, that Satan, the enemy of God, may have his kingdom destroyed and the spoil which he has robbed from God taken from him, God's kingdom, on the other hand, the kingdom of light, of grace, of righteousness, of life and of blessedness, be increased, and the whole earth be filled more and more with the knowledge of Him and thus with His praise and His honor. Thou, then, who art no friend of the mission, who wilt not contribute thy share toward the furtherance of this work which glorifies God: thou lovest God not yet; but where there is no love of God, there is also no faith; where no faith, there no grace; where no grace, there no blessedness.

But a Christian is bound not only to love his God, but also his brethren. Now are not the poor wretched heathen all our brothers and sisters according to the flesh? Has not One God created us? Have we not One forefather and One foremother? Are they not all flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, and bone of our bone? What? Can Christians then say that they love the brethren, if they can quietly look on while millions of their brothers and sisters, without God, without light, without grace, without comfort in sufferings, without hope in death, in sins, in blindness, in God's wrath and disfavor, and in unspeakable outward and inward distress, go on their way, at last depart in despair, never more see the light, and so, in body and soul, are lost forever and ever? Never! We deny brotherly love to him who sees his brother fall into a flood of water and thereby come into peril of his earthly life, and hastens not to reach him the saving hand: and should he bear brotherly love in his heart who sees millions of his brothers sinking into the flood of eternal death, and will not hasten to their help even with a mite? We deny brotherly love to him who sees his brother's temporal goods seized by fire, and hastens not, where he can, to save them: and should he bear brotherly love in his heart who sees the glow of a never-quenching fire close over the immortal souls of millions of his brothers, and will do nothing to pluck them out? We deny brotherly love to him who will not break his bread to the hungry, not take into his house those who are in misery, and not clothe the naked: and should he bear brotherly love in his heart who will do nothing that millions of hungering, wretched and naked souls may have the bread of life broken to them, be clothed with the garment of righteousness which avails before God, and have the blessed house of God, the Church, opened to them? O icy coldness that must be in hearts which no compassion fills at the sight of the eternal misery of millions of brothers! O lovelessness bordering on the marvelous, which can sooner let millions of brothers perish eternally than part with a bit of glittering dross one hour sooner than until death by force parts them from it forever! —

Yet I doubt not: little as I have been able, in the brevity of the time, to set before you, you are all convinced that the heathen mission is a debt of Christians, and indeed a debt which Christ has not only expressly laid upon His Christians, but which is also already contained in the debt of love to God and the brethren, of which a Christian has to pay off — not only as long as time, but even as long as eternity endures.

II.

Let me now go further. Let me show you, secondly, that the heathen mission is a debt precisely and especially for us here, the payment of which God now demands of us more earnestly than ever.

There have been times when the heathen mission was a mere pious wish of Christians; times when Christians longed in vain to contribute something to the conversion of the heathen world. There have been times when, for most Christians, almost all heathen lands were as if firmly shut and barred; when Satan held whole peoples and parts of the earth as if behind insurmountable bulwarks, in undisturbed, unchallenged possession. Then Christians could do nothing but sigh that God would have mercy on their lost brethren according to the flesh and open the closed entrance to them. These times are past. There is now almost no land and realm to which Christians would not have free access. A world-trade in earthly goods, grown ever more extended, has opened the gates of all the kingdoms of the world and of all the isles of the sea to Christians with their heavenly treasures; navigation, grown ever swifter, has brought the countries nearer to one another; the partition wall of languages has fallen more and more; in power, wealth and civilization the nations of Christendom now surpass all the other nations of the earth. The world, to be sure, does not suspect that all these great