The Pure Gospel

"The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you."
JOHN 12:35
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The Pure Gospel
The preaching of the Gospel is not an eternal, lasting, and continuing teaching, but rather is like a traveling rain shower, which moves on. What it hits, it hits, and what it misses, it misses. It does not return, it does not stand still, but the sun and the heat follow and lick it up. Experience shows that in no place in the world has the Gospel remained clear and pure beyond one man's memory. Rather, as long as those who introduced it remained, it continued and increased. When they were gone, the light was also gone, and soon schismatic spirits and false teachers followed. . .. So also now, we have the pure Gospel and it is the time of grace and salvation and favorable days (2 Corinthians 6:2), but this will soon be over, if the world stands longer. . .. Be careful to receive the Gospel with thanks and fear.

From the Church Postil, sermon for Lent 1 on 2 Corinthians 6:1-10 (Luther's Works 76:356-57)

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