HERITAGE CENTER:

Pearl Ginther, his eldest daughter, visited the barn 87 years after he was studying the Word of God there under a teacher's guidance. Alida Spilde, her sister, took her there to see the site, which is in this picture taken perhaps twenty or more years ago. This goes into the Archives/Library of the Plain View Farm Heritage Center when it is completed. But here you get a preview of it.

What do you see? Just an old barn in the country? Well, it was not just that, despite appearances. The eternal, life-transforming Word of God was incalculated there into the young, forming mind and spirit of Alfred Stadem, giving him a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures which would stand by him his entire life, and which would guide him unfailingly through every test and adversity, and he knew plenty such things as a farmer and family man in the years following his Bible school days.

Did Alfred's godly, Bible-believing parents send him to this humble school of the Bible? Probably. But he probably had a desire to learn, which he showed all through his life in fact, as he was a man open to truth and the knowledge of the wide world--not content with a narrow experience and outlook on life that centered on just farming and a small town of Canton.

A broad-minded man, but with a focus on the Narrow Gate of Salvation, he walked the straight and narrow path to the Kingdom of God, unwaveringly. His parents no doubt had a lot to do with that course he set, for they walked the same path themselves before him as his examples. But Alfred had to resolve to commit his heart and life to the task, lest he fall aside into worldly ways like so many of his generation did, something he knew and observed, as he was a keen observer of the worldly society around him.

Alfred Stadem was always a man of high principles and firm resolve in God, obeying his commandments and seeking always to please God in all his ways and affairs of life. Starting off with this Bible School, it no doubt reinforced what he had already learned in faithful attendance in Sunday School at the Canton Lutheran church his family attended and where his father was custodian up to his early homegoing. Do we have parents today who would move their children in the same way to cultivate God and knowledge of the Scriptures early on as Alfred's parents did? God knows.

But it is surveyed already, that the younger generation today is appallingly ignorant of the Bible and even the simplest facts and truths of the Gospel. One religion is as good as another, they are being led to believe in their schools and by their peers and also the media that influences them greatly along with entertainment and films and music. That is not true, however, for Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no man comes to the Father but by Me." He meant what He said. He is the Truth, and there is none other truth that can save a human soul from sin and death and the Devil--he is the only way to God the Father and to life eternal in heaven. Alfred Stadem learned this very early on, indeed.

This was constantly reinforced by all his training at church and in Sunday School and later on at the rural Bible School in the country barn. He also studied the Bible on his own. He taught Sunday School in years to come, and was Sunday School superintendent. he grew in the knowledge of the Lord, in other words, he did not stagnate or fall back on the knowledge of others, who may or may not have known the Lord personally. No, he had to increase his own knowledge, experience, and grasp of God and the things of God, which we can only access through prayer and the reading of the Scriptures and whatever God teaches us through guiding us through various experiences in life as he tests and corrects and instructs and chastens us--pruning the "vine" so it will grow and later produce fruit for the Kingdom of God, not just pretty blossoms that come and go without any fruit.

Alfred Stadem produced real spiritual fruit, a whole tree of fruit, did he not? He was not a barren vine or a tree that produced merely glossy leaves. His tree continues to produce fruit today in many descendants who are right now carrying the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, as Christ commanded his disciples to do, to the uttermost parts of the earth and to every tribe and nation too--if the Lord tarries. The Great Commission, it is called, was taken seriously by Alfred Stadem his entire life, and his devoted, born-again, godly wife upheld it too with all her might and spiritual wisdom, and Alfred has many descendants who take it seriously, and would even lay down their lives for it if necessary--though they already sacrifice comfort and convenience and the pleasures of a worldly life for the Cross of Christ now in their missionary endeavors and callings.

As a grandson, I thank God for Alfred's early training in the Bible and the inerrant Word of God, and for the Salvation which the Scriptures make known to us when the message of salvation is preached faithfully by Bible-based preachers and ministers, teachers, parents, and whoever else the Lord chooses to use.

I was not raised ignorant of Salvation, and when the time came I went to Christ and He saved me without fail. How about you? Perhaps today, this moment, is your time. If you are not sure yourself about your place in heaven, whether or not you have done enough good things to get there, you can make sure right now by going to Jesus in prayer and simply asking him into your heart as Savior and Lord and to forgive you of all your sins. No amount of good works or human merit will ever get you to heaven--only the free Gift of Grace will, which was earned by Christ's own blood shed for you on the Cross! That is all your saving requires, for salvation is the free gift of God, it is pure grace, not to be earned by our good works or merited by human goodness. This must be repeated, not often enough too, for people to grasp the truth of it--as we are all trained to think we must earn everything we want and value, whereas Salvation, the gift of a holy God, cannot ever be earned, it is priceless, and only Christ the Son of God could pay a price that would satisfy the Father and turn away his wrath from our sinning soul.

Alfred Stadem came to understand Christ's Grace later in life than some, but he did learn it, and was saved; some people live entire lives and never learn Grace, though they can sing "Amazing Grace" with everyone and seem to know what it means. Alfred Stadem came to learn by hard experience that he could not merit Grace through keeping his Baptismal Covenant, however hard he tried, however righteous he seemed to be in his own estimation when compared with his fellows in the Canton and later the Bryant community. When he finally came to an end of his own righteousness and standing on that for salvation, he accepted the Grace of Jesus Christ who died for him on the Cross making full payment for all his sins forever, yes, he accepted it whole-heartedly, unconditionally, and that transformed him from the inside out and made him a true child of God forever. What a blessed inheritance we have as his Stadem descendants! Our grandfather and great-grandfather Alfred Stadem was not just a godly or highly moral man (for there are plenty such, in every religion you can name), he was born again by the Spirit of God, according to the very same word of salvation Jesus spoke to the Sanhedrin leader, Nicodemus. The Spirit of God living in a man or woman or child makes all the difference!