LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1962, Page 38

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38 DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS

Cry against it, Missouri, for its wickedness is come
up before Me! I have described this pagan world to
young Timothy in these words too: “In the last days
the times will be full of danger. Men will become
utterly self-centered, greedy for money, full of big
words. They will be proud and contemptuous, without
any regard for what their parents taught them. They
will be utterly lacking in gratitude, purity, and normal
human affections. They will be men of unscrupulous
speech and have no control of themselves. They will
be passionate and unprincipled, treacherous, self-willed
and conceited, loving all the time what gives them
pleasure instead of loving God. They will maintain
a facade of ‘religion,’ but their conduct will deny its
validity” (2 Timothy 3:1-5 Phillips). They will be “ever
learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the
truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7)

Go, Missouri, cry unto this pagan world “that her
warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned”
(Isaiah 40:2). Beseech her in Christ’s stead to be rec-
onciled to her God, for “the Lord is . . . not willing
that any should perish but that all should come to re-
pentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

Il. Missouri in Flight

But Missouri “rose up to flee from the presence
of the Lord” (see Jonah 1:3). God cares for the pagan
world. He shared His Son with that world. “He spared
not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all.”
(Romans 8:32)

But, Missouri, do you care? Will you share your
Christ? Unsparingly? Why are you fleeing — fleeing
from the presence of the Lord?

Why are you fleeing the inner city with its teeming,
huddled masses struggling to be free? Is your heart
in heaviness because of the burdens of the depressed,
dejected, despondent, and despised in the world? You
who are “new creatures in Christ Jesus” (see 2 Corin-
thians 5:17), do you long for the redemption of the new
nations in Africa? You, to whom “God has not given
the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of
a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7), where is your yearning
for those who say they want to bury you, for those who
fear your wealth and power, for the mentally retarded
and the afflicted in the world?

What a commission, Missouri! A big task, for the
pagan world is a big world! Let us try to understand its
bigness by an illustration:

“If in our imagination we might compress the total
population of the world, now more than two-and-a-half
billion persons, into a community of one thousand per-
sons living in a single town, the following is a picture
of the contrast we would then vividly see:

“Sixty persons would represent the present U. S.
population; the rest of the world would be represented
by 940 persons. The 60 Americans would be receiving
half of the total income of the entire community; the
940 other persons would share the remaining half.

“Of the Americans in the town, 36 would be mem-

bers of Christian churches, and 24 would not. In the
town as a whole, about 330 people would be classified
as Christians, and 670 would not be so classified. Less
than 100 in the whole community would be Protestant
Christians, and more than 230 would be Roman Catho-
lics. At least 80 people in the town would be believing
Communists, and 370 others would be under Communist
domination.

“Classified as to skin color, 303 people would be
white, and 697 would be classified as ‘nonwhite.’ The
60 Americans would have an average life expectancy
of 70 years; all the other 940 would average under
40 years.

“The 60 Americans would have 15 times as many
possessions per person as all the rest of the people.

“With the exception of perhaps 200 persons repre-
senting Western Europe and a few favored classes in
other areas, such as South America, South Africa, and
Australia, and a few wealthy Japanese, literally most
of the non-American people in this imaginary com-
pressed community would be ignorant, poor, hungry,
and sick. Half of them would be unable to read or write.

“Moreover, half of these people in this community
would never have heard of Jesus Christ, or what He
taught, and for what He lived and died.” (Henry Smith
Leiper, A Study of Our World in Miniature [tract],
Department of Stewardship and Promotion, The United
Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A., New York 27, N. Y.)

Does God hear Missouri say: “Here am I; send me”
(Isaiah 6:8)? Missouri is in flight. Are we afraid? Do
we think the task hopeless? No. We are refusing
because we fear success! God’s goodness is being
stretched too far if it will take in all the pagan world.

What a strange reason for fleeing — because we
know that God is gracious! God will show mercy to
B-girls and pimps, to the high and mighty and to the
lowly and the helpless, to the Castros and the Khrush-
chevs, to the head-hunters and the cannibals, to the
Chinese in China and the Chinese on Formosa, to the
rebel nations and the rebel beatniks, to the bloated
rich clothed in mink and to the starving and emaciated
children in the world whose bloated bodies are covered
with boils.

We know God will show mercy. We know! He has
had mercy on us. Have mercy on us, Lord, for we have
fled from Thy presence. “Lord, cast us not away from
Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from us.”
(See Psalm 51:11)

Ill. Missouri Overtaken by Turbulence

So “the Lord sent out... a mighty tempest.” (Jonah
1:4)

God loves you, Missouri. He will not let you go.
He will pursue you in His grace, and in His wrath
He will trouble you. In His grace He sends you tem-
pests, and His mercy is the reason for your storms.

You are having storms, aren’t you, Missouri? The
turbulence is sickening, isn’t it? You are tense when
you should be at peace. You are fearful when God