LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 47

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that you are now going to pray that these offerings
might be blessed by Jesus.”

Now here’s the payoff. While he was praying, Meinie
and I looked at those coins, for we were sitting on the
front bamboo pole. There were two shillings, six three-
pence, and eight pence. If I’m right, a shilling is about
fourteen cents, a threepence about four cents each, plus
eight more cents. That made a total offering of about
sixty cents from those people. Do you know that that
was wealth? Do you see that here was the sharing love
of God’s people?

I thought of America, this wealthy nation. The peo-
ple come to church with their little offering envelopes.

In their garages many of them have two cars. But -

that’s not enough. They’ve also got a boat, and they’ve
got a deep freeze, and they’ve got a dryer, and they’ve
got an electric dishwasher in the kitchen, and you could
count 25 more electric appliances in the average subur-
bia home. And here in Nigeria these people, coming
out of their mud huts, bring to us these few pennies
with joy in their hearts and say, “Take these. Our
Lord left us a model of love.”

O you redeemed people, you who are living in the
joyful afterglow of Easter, can you go home and take
into your heart once more this Christ who loved you,
this Christ who left you a model of love, this Christ
who gave everything to make you eternally happy?
Can you say to Him, “Love Divine, all love excelling,
Joy of heaven, to earth come down, fix in us Thy
humble dwelling”? Let us follow in His train. Amen.

VI

The Victorious Lord Determines
the Church’s Destiny

“Ryen so send I you.” For the last time it is my
distinct privilege to bring you a message from our lov-
ing God in this series of devotional discourses. The
words which this convention has chosen for its motto
are not the words of a dead king whom we hold in
fond remembrance, but the words of the risen and liv-
ing Lord who rules the universe, who guides the des-
tinies of His church, and who even now is awaiting with
us the dawn of eternity.

Our convention motto once more places us into the
afterglow of Easter. The risen Lord is the strength of
the church. The Word of God is the infallible tool of
the church. The world of lost mankind is the field of
action of the church. “Faith Forward” is the motto
of the church. And victory is the eternal destiny of
the church. Victory —that is the burden of my mes-
sage to you on this day.

The Victorious Lord Determines the
Church’s Destiny

Basic to the thought which I should like to share
with you are the words taken from the Good Shepherd
chapter of the New Testament, John 10. We there read
in verses 27 and 28: “My sheep hear My voice, and I

DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS 47

know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of My hand.”

This convention is nearing the end of the road.
Within 30 hours many of us will be homeward bound.
For many days we have walked together. May the
memories that we have of this convention be the mem-
ory of David, expressed in Psalm 55:14: “We took sweet
counsel together and walked unto the house of God in
company.” Or as the new translation has it: “Within
God’s house we walked in fellowship.” We counseled,
and we still walked together. May the memory of our
walking together ever keep alive among us the after-
glow of Easter. May the memory of this convention
ever remind us that it was the Lord who gave us a
mandate, gave us a message, gave us a method, gave
us messengers, and gave us a model. Today I should
like to add a final page to your book of memories. It
was the Lord who also gave us the prediction and
promise that someday we shall be with Him in His
mansions. Victory shall be ours.

In my first address to you I expressed the fear that
there might be the possibility of an alternative, that this
convention could become either the victory or the
valedictory of the Missouri Synod. I believe that as our
convention is drawing to a close we are reassured that
our loving Lord still rules His church, that He is not
unmindful of the needs of His children, that He is not
incapable of working in the hearts of His redeemed
people by His Spirit. We are reassured (are we not?)
that where the Word of God and the Spirit of God still
rule, God’s men are still willing in humility to bow
beneath that Word, to accept the hand that guides, and
to accept the obligations which such guidance imposes.
The victorious Lord is with us, and He has promised
to stay with us until the dawn of eternity.

The words which I have chosen as my text for today
picture to us two elements: victorious living and vic-
torious dying. That is the destiny of the church.

Victorious Living

Our Lord does not only say: “I give unto them eter-
nal life,’ but He says: “No man shall pluck them out of
My hand.” These latter words show that a contest is
taking place. They are descriptive of a battle. There
is warfare. It is with fear and trembling that our sal-
vation shall be worked out. It is no bed of roses on
which we walk into a happy eternity. The battle of the
life in Christ will be hard and bloody, but it will be
a life in the certainty of victory.

Tf I now attempt to picture to you what this vic-
torious living means to us, I do it only with the prayer
that God through His Spirit would touch my lips, so
that I may show forth only His praise and not add
to the pride of a victory-conscious people, a pride that
is also infesting my own heart. I pray that, as we draw
near to the close of our convention, we might as hum-
ble children of God recognize the truth of God’s re-
minder to us: “What hast thou that thou hast not re-
ceived from above?”