# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1892_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

30 Proceedings of the fourteenth convention

lus said, contradicted: "It was necessary that the Word of God should first be spoken to you; but seeing you thrust it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." Acts 13:46. Here too the failure to obtain eternal life is traced back to the conduct of those concerned toward God's Word: "they thrust it from them." And elsewhere God's Word testifies, Hos. 4:1 [as printed]: "You reject God's Word, therefore I will also reject you."

Whoever despises God's counsel for his salvation will certainly not obtain salvation. Such were many Pharisees, of whom Scripture says: "They rejected the counsel of God against themselves and were not baptized," Luke 7:30. The despising of baptism was thus the cause of their damnation.

The evil conduct of those who are lost toward the means of grace is partly outward, partly inward. The outward consists in this, that they do not use the means at all, do not obtain the Bible, do not read it at home, nor hear the Word in the house of God, neither have themselves baptized nor go to the Lord's Table, or indeed do this for a time and then give it up again.

The inward consists in this, that they resist the Holy Spirit, who wills to work repentance and faith in them through the means of grace; that they either do not even let themselves be brought by the Law to proper knowledge of sin, to knowledge that they deserve damnation, to awareness of their powerlessness to rescue themselves from it, or at least do not let themselves be moved by the Gospel to accept the grace of God in Christ, which is offered in it freely and without cost, do not want the grace, the life, and thrust them from themselves; or indeed come through Law and Gospel to repentance and faith, to new spiritual life, but by grieving the Spirit, by walking after the flesh, cause the means of grace, despite their outward use, to be unable to exert on them their faith-sustaining power, so that they fall away from faith again.

To the resistance of the Jews Stephen traces back their impenitence and unbelief when he calls out to them: "You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you," Acts 7:51. To the unbelieving Jews the Lord calls: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not," Matt. 23:37, and John 5:40: "You will not come to me, that you might have life."

That the conduct of those who are lost toward the means of grace is the cause of their unbelief and of their damnation, the Con-