THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

inners. For one of the malefactors that was crucified with Him, mocked Him and said, "If you are the Christ, save yourself and us.” And the malefactor on the other side said to Jesus: “Lord, remember me, when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:39ff). Christ, the crucified, divides sharply, and everyone who proclaims Him, must preach about two kinds of people. The Word of the Cross is a sharp, two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discemer of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). And because I want to use this Word among you, I cannot call: Peace! Peace! where there is no peace (Jer. 8:11). You yourselves have written in your letter, desiring that I might raise my voice like a trumpet, which is not so easily silenced. Right, beloved, that is also my conviction. I know not how to speak beautifully and artfully. To arrange my words according to the rules of oratory is not my specialty. But as well as I can, I will call and cry to rouse the souls from the sleep into which the devil has lulled them, in order to frighten them back from the abyss towards which they are drifting and hastening in their false security, frivolity and self-deception. I know from personal experience what it means to serve the devil. I also know his wages and fervently pity every soul that yet remains in his service. Most certainly, here and there, being aroused out of sin’s sleep, out of one’s own self-righteousness, will not please many, but I cannot help this; guidance to the heavenly kingdom requires harsh methods. Therefore I voice my expectation in advance: that there shall be much rumbling among you. There shall be rumblings in the hearts, rumblings in the houses and families, rumblings in the whole congregation. In this way I want to become a real rumble-preacher, in order that through such rumblings and dissatisfactions the way to the blessed peace of the children of God might be entered, in order that the Word also be fulfilled for me, that the prophet Isaiah records in chapter 52, verse 7, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that publish glad tidings,” namely that peace, to which one comes only through inward disquietude. 10. For I also expect that in this church which I now may call my church, that the Word of the Lord will be fulfilled, the Word that He speaks in Matt. 10:35, 36: “For I am come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against Pastor Wuest 221 her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be those of his own household.” Christ is an enemy of all half-heartedness. He has given Himself completely for the sinner; the sinner must give himself completely to Him. A total Savior as over against a total sinner, that is the great exchange that can be transacted. With this distinct either-or of our loving Savior, I also step into your midst with my watchw