LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 56

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

gate give close attention to that which is primary at this
convention, “The Edifying Word.” When we are being
led into the mysteries of that Word under the guidance
of a competent leader, don’t go out and get a smoke,
or take a recess.

The Thrust of Judgment

That Word will edify us because it has a triple
thrust. The first thrust, and make no mistake about it,
is the thrust of judgment. That Word is God’s call to
repentance. It blasts the pride of man by showing him
his lost condition under sin. What is man before his
God? Man is a rebel in spite of all his scientific achieve-
ments and his cultural attainments. He is still God’s
great disappointment. The edifying Word is a word
of judgment. Its function is to bring proud man to his
knees.

I wonder whether the very physical framework in
which our service is held tonight ought not remind us
of this thrust of the edifying Word, the thrust of judg-
ment. Will you people on my right look at those im-
mense rocks behind you? Turn around and look at
them. And you people on my left, look at the rocks on
your side. Impressive!

While you are looking at those rocks I want to tell
you what St. John the Divine said in the last book of
the Bible about the moment when all history will find
its terminal point on the Day of Judgment. “The heav-
ens will be rolled up like a scroll,” says John. The Son
of Man'‘will be coming in the clouds of heaven, the
mountains and islands will in the great earthquake
be moved out of their places; “and the kings of the
earth, the great men, the rich men, the chief captains,
the slaves, and the free men will hide in the dens and
rocks of the mountains” (see Rev.6:15). And then,
John tells us, they will hear the cry of the damned.
It might happen right here at Red Rocks. It is wholly
within the range of possibility that these rocks will still
be standing on the day when Gabriel blows his horn
to usher in the Day of Judgment. The cry will go up
from the holes in these rocks: “Oh, you mountains, fall
on us! Qh, you hills, cover us, and hide us from the
face of Him that sits upon the throne and from the
wrath of the Lamb!” (See v. 16.)

How can the church become a spiritual prostitute
and no longer preach with that voice of judgment and
call men to repentance? God wants to shake up our
world, shake us out of our lethargy. He wants to bring
us to our knees by His Word and make us repent.

The Thrust of Love

But, oh, that second thrust of the edifying Word!
It is the thrust of love. The written Word brings me
the message about the incarnate Word, the Word made
flesh. Without that written Word I would know noth-
ing about the incarnate Word, the Christ. It tells me
a story of love that only heaven could have authored.
God used a fallible woman, a virgin, to produce an in-
fallible, incarnate Word, And He used fallible men to
produce an infallible record about the Word made flesh.

CONVENTION SERMON 57

You ask, “Who can this be?” Need you ask it and
need I ask it? Yes, I need to ask it if I do not know
Him. But when my God tells me who this is, I need
ask no more. His name is Jesus Christ.

Who is He? “All things were made by Him; and
without Him was not anything made that was made”
(John 1:3). He is the majestic power that called this
universe into being. This universe belongs to Jesus
Christ. I didn’t say that. This Book, which makes no
mistake about Him, spells it out for us.

Who can this be? “When the fulness of the time was
come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the Law, to redeem them that were under the
Law” (Gal. 4:4-5). Who is He? You have the answer!
He is the world’s only Redeemer. We say with the
people of Sychar, “We know that this is indeed the
Messiah [the Christos], the Savior of the world.” (John
4:42)

Like Abraham, we believe God when He speaks to
us in His promises. “By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
Who can this be? You still ask it? He is the One we
have accepted by faith as our Redeemer. He is the
world’s Savior, the only one God will send. If this con-
vention is walking with Abraham, then it is walking
the road of faith, faith in Jesus Christ. Without Christ
—no hope, no salvation. If this is not what the dele-
gates will find as they study the edifying Word with its
thrust of love, then we had better close shop tonight
and all of us delegates go home before the convention
opens. We need again the obedience of faith, accepting
His Word with its thrust of love.

Don’t talk to me about the “misplaced preoccupation
with the verbalized form of the Gospel,” of which our
Synod allegedly has been guilty. Look at the record.
The evangelists verbalized it. Peter and Paul verbalized
it. The Gospel has to be communicated. It has to be
told, or there is no Gespel at all.

The Thrust of Action

The beauty of this verbalized Gospel is that it car-
ries with it the thrust of action. This Word edifies,
because it activates the converted sinner who has
found the Savior to live his faith. Isn’t that what the
holy writer meant to say about Abraham? He didn’t
only follow the call that ultimately led him to the land
of milk and honey. By faith Abraham sojourned, he
lived, in the land of promise. Turn that around, His
living was an expression of his faith. Every day of his
life, as he focused on the great city he had not yet seen,
he lived his faith in love. While he kept his eyes focused
on the city beyond, faith was the dynamic of his life.
It drove him to action.

Isn’t this the crying need of our world? While
God’s people focus on the city beyond, their lives, lived
in faith, touch the wounds of the world and heal them.
That’s what our delegates have to carry home, or they
might as well have stayed home. You, the delegates —
laymen, teachers, pastors, young people — must go