What Does The Bible Say About...
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Jesus - The Only Way to Heaven
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Jesus The Mediator
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Mouth Confession
The Names of God
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What Shall I do VS. What Shall I do to be Saved
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In The Beginning GOD Created the Earth
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A Letter From Hell
Powerful Verses That I've Collected
How To Know if You are a Christian
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What Good is Quiet Time With God?
How Do You Become a Christian?
Application for Heaven
Religion - Worthless or Worthwhile?
Are You Positive You're a Christian?
A Letter From Satan
A Journal By My Great-Great Grandfather
God-Mass in Your Life (an analogy)
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A Journal By Fredrick Henry Duerschner

Page 201

… with being a man, and abiding in the only true place and spirit of man, and he became disobedient. [Genesis 3:1-7]

Here lies the secret of fallen humanity, these are the two elements which make up fallen manhood. Trace it where you will, before the flood, after the flood; without law, under the law. Heathen, Pagan, Jew, Turk, or nominal Christian; analyze it as closely as you please, and you will see that it resolves itself into these two component parts, independence and disobedience. And when you reach the close of man's history in this world when you view him in that last sad sphere in which he is to figure, how do you see him? In what character does he appear? As, "the willful king," and the "lawless man."

"To this man will I look, even to him who is of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word."

Page 202

Rebellion fans the fire, which has been smoldering in secret, into a devouring flame. There are hundreds and thousands ready to flock around the standard of revolt, when once it has been raised, who have neither the vigor nor the courage to raise it themselves. It is not everyone that Satan will take up as an instrument in such work. It needs a shrewd, clever, energetic man, a man of moral power, one possessing influence over the minds of his fellows, and an iron will to carry forward his schemes.

The school of experience does not hold any graduation exercises.

It is the most senseless thing in the world for one to attempt to occupy another's port and do another's work.

It is of capital importance.

Page 203

Here lies the true, the only true source of ministry in the church of God, the body of Christ. "God hath set the members" 1 Cor. 12,14-18. It is not one man appointing another; still less is it a man appointing himself. It is divine appointment or nothing, yes, worse than nothing, a daring usurpation of divine rights.

Hence, therefore, it is not a question of taking upon us much or little, but of doing our appointed work, and filling our appointed place.

Infidelity begins, continues and ends with shutting out God. It would approach the mystery of Aaron's budding, blossoming, fruit bearing rod [Numbers 17:8] with a godless, audacious "How?" This is the infidels great argument. He can raise ten thousand questions but never settle one. He will teach you how to doubt, but never…

Page 204

… how to believe. He will lead you to doubt everything; but gives you nothing to believe. Such is infidelity. It is of Satan, whoever has been, is, and will be, the great question-raiser.

Wherever you trace Satan, you will always find him raising questions. He fills the heart with all sorts of "ifs" and "hows," and thus plunges the soul in thick darkness. If he can only succeed in raising a question, he has gained his point. But he is perfectly powerless with a simple soul that just believes that God is, and God has spoken. Here is faith's noble answer to the infidel's question, its divine solution of all the infidel's difficulties. Faith always brings in the very One that infidelity shuts out always. It thinks with God; infidelity thinks without Him.

It is hard to say which is the worse, the atheist who says there is not God, or the rationalist who maintains that he cannot do as he pleases.

Page 205

God's loving kindness and tender mercy never fail. Nothing can exhaust those springs which are in the living God. He will be what He is, spite of all our naughtiness. God will be God, let man prove himself ever so faithless and faulty.

God can not tolerate one speck of sin.

It is utterly impossible for faith to overdraw its account in God's bank. God could not more disappoint faith then He could deny himself. He can never say to faith, "You have miscalculated; you take too lofty, to bold a stand; go lower down, and lessen your expectations." Ah! no; the only thing in all this world that truly delights and refreshes the heart of God is the faith that can simply trust Him; and we may rest assured of this that the faith…

Page 206

… that can trust Him is also the faith that can love, and serve Him and praise Him.

An undecided, half-and-half Christian is more inconsistent than an open out-and-out worldling or infidel.

It would be the very height of madness.

The serpent displaced God, and the serpent's lie, God's truth. Thus it was with fallen man and thus it is with fallen man's posterity. God's word has no place in the heart of the unregenerated man; but the lie of the serpent has. Let the formation of man's heart be examined, and it will be found that there is a place therein for Satan's lie, but none whatever for the truth of God. Hence the force of the word to Nicodemus: "Ye must be born again."

[John 3:7]

There is no such thing as man's free-will.

Page 207

If man be self-governed, he is really governed by Satan; and if not, he is governed by God.

They became degraded, powerless, Satan-enslaved, conscience-smitten, terrified creatures. "The eyes of them both were opened," not doubt; but alas! to what a sight! [Genesis 3:5-7] It was only to discover their own wickedness. Sad fruit of the tree of knowledge.

Intellectual assent is not faith. Some would make faith to be the mere assent of the intellect to a certain proposition. This is fearfully fake. It makes the question of faith human, whereas it is really divine. It reduces it to the level of man, whereas it really comes from God. Feeling and sentiment belong to nature and the earth, faith belongs to God and to heaven; they are occupied with self, faith is occupied with Christ; they look inward and downward, …

Page 208

… faith looks outward and upward; they leave the soul in darkness and doubt, faith leads it into light and peace, because it has to do with God's unmutable truth, and Christ's eternally-enduring sacrifice. Feelings and truthful sentiments are fruits of faith and must never be confounded with faith itself. I am not justified by feelings, nor yet by faith and feelings, but simply by faith.

Christ died for the ungodly Rom 5,6.

Through ignorance of the divine character Cain pronounced his sin to great to be pardoned. It was not that he really knew his sin, but that he knew not God.

The inventive genius of the human mind has been set to work for the purpose of devising things which make life tolerable.

To flay alive.

Page 209

While in one sense, it must be said: "In the midst of life we are in death," yet, in another sense, it can be said: "In the midst of death we are in life." There is no death in the sphere into which a risen Christ introduces His people.

John Bull is not the good Samaritan, but a shrewd businessman who extends aid to a bankrupt whose ruin threatens his own saliency. The only lasting, the only real associations between individuals and nations, are based on mutual advantage.

In a well-turned speech he conveyed to him the sentiments of Americans of German descent.

Collaboration with Germany.

The renascence of German American activity.

A non-native American is considered by some a citizen of the second class.

Page 210

They tried very hard to knock him into smithereens but with negative result.

Headline: "Woman Sentenced for Keeping Still." Our experience is they seldom keep still.

We should ever hear in mind, that "the wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable." James 3,17. The wisdom which is from beneath would put "peaceable" first, and, therefore it can never be pure. The true Christian's motto should ever be: "Maintain truth at all costs; if union can be promoted in this way, so much the better; but maintain the truth."

How sweet to think of what God will, and what He will not, remember! He will remember His own covenant [Deuteronomy 4:31] [Judges 2:1] [Psalm 105:8] [Isaiah 54:10], but He will not remember His people's…

Page 211

… sins. [Isaiah 43:25] The cross which ratifies the former, puts away the latter. The belief of this gives peace to the troubled heart and uneasy conscience.

Man is a groveling creature, alienated form heaven and allied to earth.

God makes us unshakably sure of His grace and staunch and unflinching against every wrong.

Our repeated offenses, our ever-recurring backslidings, make of no culprits more guilty far than that thief upon the cross.

If God takes His Spirit from us, we become the hopeless prey of our own flesh, the world and the cunning deceits of the devil, these three arch-enemies who are…

Page 212

… forever setting their traps in unexpected places to withdraw us from the sure instruction of God's Word.

How unbearably heavy is the mind under the load of sin that is unforgiven. "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation." Ps. 51,12.

An offering will be lifted.

Men speak of love and live in hate;

Men talk of faith and trust in fate.

Oh, might men do the things they teach!

Oh, might men live the life they preach!

"And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved" 2. Cor 12,15.

{German Writing}

Proverbs 28,13

Page 213

Jesus himself rested and slept and told His disciples to rest. Mark 6,31.

A Christian, if he wants to remain a Christian, dare no more take a vacation from spiritual life than he dare take a vacation from eating and drinking if he wants to remain well and alive.

The Seventh-day Adventists are ruthless proselyters. Their sneaking emissaries hid their religious identity and in this way place their poisonous literature into many Lutheran homes.

God's wisdom baffles devils and astonishes angels.

The cross puts me into the place of peace with God, and into the place of hostility with the world.

"If thou wilt return, O Israel, return to me."

[Jeremiah 4:1]

Page 214

There are two ways in which to view a suffering Christ: first, as bruised of Jehovah; secondly, as rejected of men. In the former, He stood alone; in the latter, we have the honor of being associated with Him. Now, the question is: Shall we refuse to suffer from the hand of man with Him who suffered from the hand of God for us?

God makes a promise: faith believes it; hope anticipates; patience waits quietly for it.

The question in David's heart was, not as to whether he was able, but whether Jehovah was able.

A man who tells me, "You must be so and so, in order to be saved," robs the cross of all its glory, and robs me of all my peace. If salvation depends upon our…

Page 215

.. being or doing right, we shall inevitably be lost. Thank God it does not; for the great fundamental principle of the gospel is, that God is all, man is nothing. It is not a mixture of God and man. It is all of God. The peace of the gospel does not repose in part on Christ's work, and in part on man's work; it reposes wholly on Christ's work, because that work is perfect, perfect forever; and it renders all who put their trust in it as perfect as itself.

Our Intercessor "is able to save to the uttermost… He ever liveth to make intercession." [Hebrews 7:25]

The world was Lot's snare, present things his bane.

We are the happy subjects of God's unslumbering guardianship.

Page 216

The shroud is never made with a pocket to put in the gold, it would melt anyway.

All the world loves a lover and all the world hates a hater.

Brides wonder what they will have for supper. Grooms wonder what they had.

Some have a greater skill in playing the grab {sp??} game.

Here the Christian should choose the golden mean.

Full oft the bright-winged seraph flaps his wings to earth, to comfort some desponding heart.

Isaac, the object of long-deferred hope.

Faith can do without every one and every thing but God. It has the full sense of His…

Page 217

… sufficiency, and can, therefore, let go all beside.

{German Writing}

"I am a Hun

I am a Hun

I am a Hun:

Dred Percent

American."

There is a "Mock" in Democracy.

Killing two birds with one stone.

Let us recall the heroism and sacrifices of Germans of elder days.

Carl Schurz, the Hercules who swept out the Augean stable of political foulness.

Conscience can tell me that I am a sinner, but conscience can not make me feel that I am one.

I preach a dying man to dying men.

Page 218

{German Writing}

A murmur of assent ran through the lines.

"Iodine is good for chiggers," says a doctor. What is bad for them?

I am bound to set my face against him because of his sin but I must not set my heart against him, for he is my brother-man.

The flames of love won't boil the pot.

Missionaries being sent to the Eskimos won't get anywhere by telling how hot it is in hades.

If every day was Sunday, some people would work themselves to death.

It takes one to start a fight, which is always the other one.

Page 219

Law in itself is nothing.

Respect for law is everything.

How often do we stand star-gazing into the future, and trembling, because we think we see diverse portents, and strange sights, which portent some future trouble.

In their heart of hearts they were convinced.

Motto for the street-car snaguates {sp??}:

The Public Be {????}.

{German Writing}

The way to hell is paved with good intentions.

Maybe an optimist is a man who thinks the world is like it is.

Page 220

Love is blind. Blessed be the tie that blinds.

{German Word}= so far, as yet.

Missionary pastor.

The height of extravagant folly.

One-sided theology.

Misapplied Scripture.

Neglect their plain, bounded duty.

Lonely or Alone.

To be willingly alone is an attribute of greatness. There is no evidence at all that Lincoln was a lonely man. Alone and apart his nature was, but that is wholly different.

Ibsen says somewhere that the greatest man is most alone. Pascal, one of the deepest of thinkers, declared that the …

Page 221

… worst evils of human faith come from our inability to be happy when by ourselves. What does this mean?

Leonardo da Vinci pointed the answer when he said: "If you are alone, you belong altogether to yourself." It depends then, on what is in us. Those particularly endowed, either by genius or by temperament, have in themselves possibilities that they need to think out, intimately live out. Amusement, diversion, has its place, but actually to require much of it is fatal to what is highest. The some, if it is to reach its full intended growth, must get on well with itself. It must not dread its own company.

{German Writing}

Page 222

{German Writing}

The Bible, like its Author, is not the I Was, but the I Am [Exodus 3:14] [Revelation 1:8], the Immediate, the Present, the Ever-Now; quite a contradiction in words, but a perfect consistency in highest life and thought.

Some call the Bible an old-world book, a rag out of fashion, not a garment fit for this day's wearing.

Page 223

They are hirelings who hunger for the pelf.

In the Bible everything we need is to be found in germ and outline.

The Bible is the people's book, as the firmament is the people's firmament and the air the people's air.

The heads that are lifted up in the end are the heads that were bowed down in prayer. No man can look up aright who has not first looked down with genuine devoutness and self-distrust. [Luke 18:10-14]

Stark self-righteousness.

A bald religion of works.

Gross hypocrisy.

Stupendous folly.

A self made widow. Who is it? You know.

Page 224

Who can dig a pit so deeply as God? Who can scoop out abysses so terrible as those which are made by the hand of the Almighty?

Some people are prudent and sagacious and wise in one aspect of their nature, and are utter and irrediscernable fools in others.

They try to fish in the troubled waters.

{German Writing}

God-willed, Christian submission.

The man who thinks he is always right is wrong.

Page 225

{German Writing}

"Vae victis" has the same fateful meaning today as it had thousands of years ago.

{German Writing}

He was struck insensate to all decency and truth.

The free and sovereign American citizenry.

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