How then shall a man escape shame and misery, and an evil conscience,
and rise out of these sins of his? For do it he must. The wages of
sin is death--death to body and soul; and from sin he must escape.
There is but one way, my friends. There never was but one way.
Believe the text, and therefore believe the warrant of your Baptism.
Believe the message of your Confirmation.
Your baptism says to you, God does NOT hate you, be you the greatest
sinner on earth. He does not hate you. He loves you; for you are
His child. He hateth nothing that He hath made. He willeth not the
death of a sinner, but that ALL should come to be saved. And your
baptism is the sign of that to you. But God hates everything that He
has not made; for everything which He has not made is bad; and He has
made all things but sin; and therefore He hates sin, and, loving you,
wishes to raise you out of sin; and baptism is the sign of that also.
Man was made originally in the image and likeness of God, and of
Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the express image of God the Father;
and therefore everything which is sinful is unmanly, and everything
which is truly manful, and worthy of a man, is like Jesus Christ; and
God's will is, that you should rise out of all these unmanly sins, to
a truly manful life--a life like the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of
Man.
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