LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1962, Page 20

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IIE /-—

20

makes a church true and Powerful.
use under the 8uidance of the Holy
receives its power, its light, its
truth, and its authority,

It must always be remembered that the adversaries
of the blessed truths of sin and race are familiar with
but they are con-

upon the Law,
the promise of Christ.”

If the Holy Scriptures
sense of

to achieve His Purposes,

If our work as an Evangelical] Lutheran Church “js
to achieve God’s purposes in the hearts and lives of peo-
ple, it must have God’s emphasis upon what God has
done and stil] does for us and for our salvation,” 2

Delegate to this convention, “Thou art the man.”
You stand naked before “the God with whom we have
to do” (see Heb, 4:13), and you must cry: “I have
sinned against the Lord.” You may have succeeded
in deceiving yourself and your brethren and your unbe-

See His robe dyed red
for you. See Him endure
Separation from His Father, so that you might never
be forsaken by that same Father. See Him —
Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
See Him dying on the tree!
"Tis the Christ by man rejected;
Yes, my soul, ’tis He, ’tis He!
"Tis the long-expected Prophet,
David's Son, yet David’s Lord;
Proofs I see sufficient of it:
"Tis the true and faithful Word.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 153:1)

“Thou art the man!” “Behold the Man!”
burden of our message as a confessional
Christendom and in the world, so that men
to God and say, “T have sinned,”
turn to them and say, “T have put

May turn

DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL, ESSAYS

convention,
wrong business,

“Thou art the man!” Let us speak this plainly to
a society steeped in moral pragmatism, which agrees
that morality is nice if it is Practical and profitable,
But let us speak just as plainly of Him who is “the
Way, the Truth, and the Life” and Point to Him so
directly that all may know that “no man cometh unto
the Father but by Him.” (See John 14:6)

Let this church apply Law and Gospel to a social
order in cataclysmic upheaval. Let it speak for God
to men, and let it speak for men to God. But Speak,
Missouri! Speak to men for God about the issues in-
volved in thermonuclear war and in therapeutic abor-
tion, about ideologies that humanize God and deify
man, that ignore the Creator and despise man as His
crowning creation ; Speak about hate Parading as loyalty,
about divisiveness strutting pompously as orthodoxy,
about naive intellectualism Posing as profound wisdom;
speak about the conflict between labor and management,

struggling with new freedoms and to old cultures strug~
gling with the burdens and the treasures of their past.
Speak, Missouri, to man of the Man!

Proclaim God’s I,

nations for My
(See Matt, 10: 22)

Speak much more of His Gospel than of His Law.
His Law is written by Him in the heart of every man.
It is a part of every man’s natural “equipment,” Do

3 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (London:
SCM Press Ltd., 1959), p. 79,