# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1938_S7
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

President’s Address 7

and unbelief? This year we celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary
of our missionary activity in that country. We have merely made
a beginning there. Should we not earnestly consider more ex-
tensive work in that field and other foreign fields to which God
has led us? ;

What about the untouched opportunities in our own country?
As early as 1897, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of our Synod,
the sainted Dr. A. L. Graebner pointed out in a series of articles
that our missionary activity must focus more upon gaining the
unchurched because the years of the great immigration from Ger-
many were past. Though over forty years have elapsed since this
matter was urged, we have merely scratched the surface in this
type of mission-work. This is the vast field before us today.

3. The Great Commission reminds us of an urgent need. The
Lord Jesus in His day saw people of all nations hopelessly steeped
in sin. Pagan religions were helpless. Only the preaching of the
Gospel could save sinners from eternal doom.

Also today there is a tremendous unrest among the masses in
pagan lands. They are utterly dissatisfied with the empty husks
of heathen religions. They know not what they want. Much less
do they know whither to turn. The bankruptcy of paganism has
left them on the brink of despair. Furthermore, in so-called
Christian lands, where men have turned away from God’s Word
and are preaching empty philosophies, there are evidences of surg-
ing unrest. Something is wrong. The churches have failed the
people. Men are turning toward new movements in the hope of
gaining something that will afford them the assurance which the
heart craves.

More serious still is the great spirit of indifference in our own
church activity. On the occasion of Synod’s twenty-fifth anni-
versary the sainted Dr. Walther and other leaders pointed out that
carelessness and indifference were stifling the first love, which was
all aglow at the time of the immigration and at the later organiza-
tion of Synod. They called upon our people to repent and to return
’ to their first love. What shall we say today? Have not carelessness
and indifference made deep inroads into our congregations? World-
liness, sinful pleasures, greed for temporal possessions, with re-
sultant lack of support of the work of Christ’s kingdom, and many
other evils are fastening their poisonous fangs upon our people.
They are gaining a stranglehold upon the spiritual life in many
congregations. They are blotting out every remembrance of the
Great Commission. The call for repentance is most urgently
needed. .

4. Christ’s Great Commission places a tremendous obligation
upon us. The establishment of a soundly orthedox Biblical Church