# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1938_S5
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

President's: Address 5

~ President’s Address | ors
Me ee ee . Matt. 28:18-200 a
VENERABLE AND. BELOVED FATHERS AND BRETHREN: a

Extraordinary facts engage and challenge our attention at
this convention, Nearly one hundred years have elapsed «singe
God, in His wise providence, directed and guided our Saxon fathers
_ to.our American shores and later used them as instruments in the
organization of a soundly orthodox Lutheran synod in our beloved
country. Since then tremendous changes have occurred..in, the
political, agricultural, industrial, and economic life of our country.
* But the eternal verities, the unchanging Christ, the precious truths
of the Bible, continue as of old. All other things change and will
‘ultimately pass away, but the Word of God abideth forever.

In this Word of God and the Christ whom it preaches our
athers were interested. It was this that brought them to our
shores. In this, too, the generations in our Church since the
Saxon immigration have been vitally interested. In this you and
| who are crossing the threshold of a new century of sound Lu-
heran activity should be vitally interested. May the Spirit of
d attend us as we open our convention by focusing our atten-
ion upon
The Great Commission

The Savior’s words inform us of the great trust committed unto
the Church. The Gospel and the Sacraments are this great trust.
Jesus had finished and established the glorious work of reconciling
.the sinner unto his God. Now He commissioned His Church to
proclaim the message of reconciliation, His purpose was that the
;Poor sinner might receive, and be assured of, the forgiveness of his
ins.. This becomes all the more clear and emphatic when we'con-
der His statement: “Teach them to observe all things whatsoever
“have commanded you.” The Church should carry on Christ’s
-pteaching. She should “go into all the world and preach the Gos-
el to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized ‘shall be
: ved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” There are
those today who labor under the impression that the Church’s
chief business is to -establish proper social and moral conditions
earth. Jesus had far nobler aims and objectives. He sum-
ized the entire purpose of His coming into thé: world in® the
ds “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which
lost.” Nor was Jesus a new lawgiver. He had come-to redeem
kind from the curse of the Law. He did not establish a new
of regulations that man might enter into eternal life by obeying
m; but He had come to-render obedience to the commandments
God in our stead and to suffer the penalty of man’s transgression -