Faith and Duty: Sermons on Free Texts, with Reference to the Church-YearBuchheimer, L. B. (Louis Balthaser)
Religion
Faith and Duty: Sermons on Free Texts, with Reference to the Church-Year
Buchheimer, L. B. (Louis Balthaser)
Church year sermons; Lutheran Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American
Sometimes true Christians feel much uneasiness and anxiety because
they cannot point to any such distinguishing moments in their
experience. They have never passed through the mental anguish that
others speak of. They have never felt as Saul of Tarsus must have
felt those three days of blindness. Such persons forget that in most
of the cases recorded in the Gospel there were no experiences of
this kind, but conversion consisted simply in the cordial and quiet
acceptance of the Lord Jesus.
Again, in Paul's case there was something to fix the precise time of
his conversion. He could name the day, the very hour, when he fell
upon the ground trembling and afraid. Is it, therefore, necessary
that every believer should be able to designate the precise time of
his conversion? Not one Christian out of ten can tell the date of
his conversion.
It is generally the case that the grosser the sins are, the more
marked will the change be. When any one who has made himself
conspicuous in crime and wickedness is converted, it is like the
lighting of a candle in a room utterly dark. There is a sudden
change from darkness to light. It is, therefore, easy to fix the
precise time when darkness ceased and light prevailed. But the case
is very different from those who have been molded and influenced
from youth up by religious teaching and training.
How was it possible for Timothy to tell when he commenced to
be a Christian? He was instructed from his youth in the Holy
Scriptures. He could not remember the time when he was not pious
and God-fearing. He always belonged to the Lord--in his childhood,
in his youth, in his manhood. The same is true of John the Baptist.
How could he tell when he was converted? He was sanctified from his
birth, we are told. Where, then, was there room for a sudden and
marked change in him? Yes, I am free to remark that it is just what
God wants in the case of each one. He does not want us to know the
precise time of our conversion. He does not want any one to give a
part of his life to sin and Satan, so that a sudden, marked, and
definite change seems necessary. He does not want you to act the
part of an infidel for awhile, in order that you may be able to tell
us the day or the hour when you became a believer. No, God wants
your whole life; from beginning to end it is to be consecrated to
God, our Savior. And does it not follow from this, that the more
faithfully our children are instructed in the doctrines and duties
of our holy religion, in the family, in the Sunday-school, and in
the catechetical class, the less the number will become of those who
can point to the particular time of their conversion? The whole work
of the Sunday-school throughout and the whole work of the pastor
in the catechetical class has this grand object in mind, to make
a Timothy out of every child, one who is instructed in the Holy
Scriptures from his youth, and who knows no time when he did not
belong to the Lord.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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