# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S7
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

OPENING ADDRESS 5

kingdom. But what do we find? Again and again there has been
cause for complaint about a sore lack of appreciation of God’s
‘generous blessings. Why is there so little hunger and thirst for
the Gospel and the Sacrament? Why must we constantly warn
against indifference toward the Word of God? Why do we find
hardly 50 per cent of our communicant members in church on any
given Sunday? Is such indifference a symptom of something far
worse, namely, spiritual satiety? Why do not more of our regular
churchgoers concern themselves with this situation and admonish
and exhort those who have become careless and indifferent? Why
is there not more church discipline with all the grades of admo-
nition and in a truly evangelical spirit, a spirit of Christian love,
which seeks to win the brother or sister? Why have many grown
lukewarm in their interest for purity of doctrine? Why do some
speak about an irreducible minimum of doctrine on the basis of
which we should seek agreement when no doctrine of God’s Word
clearly revealed dare be ignored but all must be held inviolable?
On the other hand, why must we hear of such lovelessness and
- heartless judgment of motives, yes, even threats of separation when
some seem to have given way to some aberration? Why have we
- been compelled to hear charges of unionism and charges of sepa-
ratism against brethren? — Furthermore, why has the spirit of
worldliness infiltrated into our congregations? Where is the sharp
line of demarcation between our church members and the chil-
dren of this world? Let me mention merely the shameful misuse
of God’s holy name by cursing and all manner of profanity, the
ever-increasing disrespect towards parents and others in positions
of authority, the alarming increase of immorality, infidelity, the
“marital difficulties, the divorces and broken homes which are
.ereeping also into our congregations, Yes, indeed, we must pray,
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass
“against us.”
“And lead us not into temptation.” — Our fathers passed
‘through severe trials and testings. Their faith was sorely tried.
A few succumbed. This constrained the fathers to pray all the
more fervently that God might guard and keep them so that the
evil, the world, and their flesh might not deceive them nor lead
them into misbelief, despair, or other great shame and vice, and
though they would be assailed by them, that still they might finally
“overcome and obtain the victory. God graciously heard their
prayers and granted glorious victories over the forces of misbelief,
disharmony, disruption, and destruction which manifested them-
selves.
‘ “J.ead us not into temptation” must be our prayer at this Cen-
- tennial Convention. The devil and his allies do not love our Synod.