Gerhard and Walther

If a traveling person had to enter into the kind of inn in which resided a murderer who had taken many peoples lives, he no doubt would sleep very little that night. Instead, he would arm himself with some weaponry. That’s how we live in this world, in which the devil, as the god of this world, is the innkeeper who has taken away the eternal salvation of many of his guests. Consequently, it is of utmost importance that we wipe from our eyes the sleep of cocky self-assurance, and alertly entrench ourselves so that we are not cheated in this evil inn.—Johann Gerhard, Schola Pietatis I:208

May all this move us during the Lenten season before us to search the writings of the prophets in holy silence, both to find references to the suffering and dying Christ and to see, as in a mirror, the abomination of our sins and God’s anger over them. There, too, we will find the complete atonement of our sins and the riches of divine love and grace.—C. F. W. Walther, God Grant It!, p. 233.