# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 Proceedings of the twentieth convention

If one goes to the Holy Supper as a lodge brother, one is saying thereby to the lodge that its teachings can stand beside the teachings of the Gospel, and vice versa. One says: Both are right, what the lodges teach and what the Gospel teaches. One is right in the midst of the spirit of the lodge, which wants to see all distinctions fall, which wants to unite and bind everything with its brotherly love, recognizing no distinction in faith and in confession, as the Odd Fellows put it. A lodge brother's going to the Supper is not a confession of the true doctrine of the Gospel against the lodge, but on the contrary a confession of the lodge system against the Gospel, which forbids us any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness — and the lodge teaching is such a work — and demands that they be reproved. A lodge brother who wants to go to the Lord's table, and must and also wants to proclaim the LORD's death, can do so only by turning his back on the lodge, cutting the bond with it, and giving notice that he no longer belongs to it.

And this must happen before he goes to the Holy Supper. The LORD says in Matt. 5:23, 24: "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." A communicant must be a penitent person, that is, he must repent of his sins from the heart and believe in the forgiveness of his sins for the sake of JESUS Christ, his Savior. But a penitent sinner who did not also have the earnest resolve to better his sinful life does not exist. The penitent drunkard no longer wants to get drunk; that is his earnest will, wrought by the Holy Spirit. The envious man no longer wants to look askance, but to grant his neighbor what God has allotted to him and perhaps denied to himself. According to Matt. 5:23, however, circumstances can be such that a simple resolve to improve something is not enough. There may be something at hand that must be removed by a deed or by a word. There may be something that is not in order and must first be put in order. And this must happen before the partaking of the Supper takes place. A brother, the congregation, may have something against the brother. To the defrauded or robbed brother the property taken from him must be restored. The congregation before which a sin has become manifest must be informed of the repentance. He who abandoned his wife must return to her. He who joined himself to the lodge must first withdraw from it. By joining the lodge, whether it was done with or without taking an oath, a bond has been made, for the sake of the false doctrine that the lodge promotes, which must first be dissolved before one is fit to proclaim the LORD's death. If a member of the congregation has joined a lodge,