Here I Stand

If you would please turn in your Bibles with me to Paul’s letter to the Romans. We are going to be in Romans chapter 1 this morning looking at verses 16-17. . Would you please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

Romans 1:16–17 ESV

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

English Standard Version Chapter 12

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Thank you, you may be seated.

Let us pray. Thank you, you may be seated.

This Thursday is October 31st and we all know what that means. Kids dressed up like ghosts and goblins, stores making a fortune on candy sales, teachers and parents in horror of the sugar rush that will follow. Corn mazes, haunted houses, parties, and many other activities. This is what most people think of when they think of Halloween.

But what Luther started was only the beginning. The Reformation movement would continue well over the next 100 years giving us champions of the faith that should be celebrated and remembered.

I was really excited when Brother Paul asked me to speak today because of the significance this day holds for church history. Of course, it is not really this day, October 27th, but October 31st is a date that is of great importance in the life of the church.

English Standard Version Chapter 12

A few weeks ago Courtney and I were talking to Nick Burnett about the Fall Festival and she made a comment to the effect of “Why can’t they just put Halloween on the same day each year like they do Thanksgiving?” I immediately interjected saying, “Do you want to know because there is a reason.” She, of course, immediately cut me off saying she did not want to get me started.

For those of you who do not know, I am a major church history buff. I love church history. Truthfully I just like history in general, but especially church history. I think it is important to know where we have come from, where we have been, and how it shapes us today.

Halloween really stands for “All Hallows Eve.” In other words, it is the eve before All Hallows or All Saints Day. All Saints Day is always November 1st. The purpose is to celebrate and remember the saints that have gone before, particularly martyrs and giants of the faith. It was a Roman Catholic tradition but many protestants observe it as well.

You see Thursday I will be, like many people, celebrating a holiday. However, the holiday I am celebrating on Thursday, October 31st, is not Halloween. Now, I don’t really have a problem with Halloween per se. I like scary stories, and I like candy. BOY do I like candy. For those taking notes, my favorites are Hershey’s with almonds, Almond Joy, and Snickers and wash it down with a cold coke zero.

But Halloween is important for another reason as well. 500 years ago on a Hallows Eve, Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany. He didn’t mean to start a Reformation. He merely wanted an academic debate but the Protestant Reformation started from that simple act and the church has never been the same. Christian circles should refer to Halloween as Reformation Day. It is something far better and worthy of celebration.

But on October 31st each year I do not celebrate Halloween. I celebrate a very different holiday. I celebrate Reformation Day. You see, it was just over 500 years ago on October 31, 1517 that the Protestant Reformation was started by an Augustinian Monk named Martin Luther and the church has not been the same since.

And I think it is important that we take a journey into history this morning because the church greatly needs to have happen today what happened in 1517. We need a new reformation. After all, history forgotten, or history ignored is bound to repeat itself.

And while Martin Luther is certainly the most celebrated reformer, he was not the only one. There were many great men like John Calvin, Philip Melancthon, and William Tyndale. Before any of these men there were men like Jan Hus and John Wycliffe. All of these men had great courage to stand up for the truth of Scripture and to not let traditions of the church stand in the way of truth.

Two of my favorite Reformers were in England under the reign of Henry VIII and his daughter, Bloody Mary. These two men were Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. Because Mary Tudor was a Catholic when she ascended to the throne she wanted to rid England of the Reformation that was taking it by storm and to return Catholicism to it’s “Proper Place.”

And of course it was not just October 31, 1517 when Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door at the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany that caused and drew out the Reformation. It was so much more than that. But Luther was the lightning rod. He was the catalyst. Luther represented a major pivot point in all of history. This is one of the reasons he is one of my favorite people in history to study because of what he did and accomplished. So it is the life of Luther and his realization of the meaning of the Biblical text that we are looking at today that will be the focus of our time together this morning.

But, in order to set the scene of the life of Luther, we actually have to go back and look at two earlier men of God who would set the stage for what would happen in the 16th Century. So let’s travel back 150 years to 1370. John Wycliffe is a man who we now call the “Morning-star of the Reformation.” You see, well before Luther came onto the scene, John Wycliffe was speaking out against the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. He attacked indulgences, which we will discuss in a little bit, he rebuked private confessional. He taught that trusting in Christ is the way we become righteous. And the worst thing, in the eyes of Rome, that Wycliffe was responsible for was his work on translating the Latin Vulgate into English. The church believed that the lay person should not have the Scriptures in their own language. It should be in the language of scholars and the church would tell you what the Scriptures say and what you are to believe. Pope Gregory the XI was so outraged by Wycliffe that he issued five Papal Bulls (which are church decrees) against Wycliffe and called him the “Master of Errors.” Wycliffe would be arrested but would die before they could convict him as a heretic.

No we fast forward about 50 years. Still 100 years before Luther and the Reformation we have a man by the name of John Hus. Hus read the works of John Wycliffe and his stance against Rome and the Papacy. He read what Wycliffe had come to realize about the truths of Scripture. Hus spoke against the Pope and indulgences and was arrested and tried as a heretic. He was convicted and sentenced to be burned at the stake. His last words at the stake were reported to be said to the presiding bishop, “Today you may cook this goose”, which is what the name Huss meant, “but after me there will come a swan which you will not be able to silence.” And with those words, they burned John Huss at the stake as he prayed for his accusers and their souls. 100 years later, Martin Luther would be that Swan that would spark the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany on November 10, 1483. So to put this in perspective Columbus had not even discovered the New World yet because as we know, in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Right?

In 1555, Latimer and Ridley would be tried as heretics for their Protestant faith and sentenced to be burned at this stake. As the flames were about to be lit, these two brave martyrs of the faith did not lose their faith but embraced it. Latimer called out to Ridley with now famous words, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as I trust shall never be put out.”

Luther’s parents were Hans and Margarethe Luder. The reason they named him Martin was because the next day was the feast of Saint Martin of Tours and after baptizing their newborn child they named him Martin after the famed Bishop.

His father, Hans, was a copper miner. Now you need to remember that because that is going to be important as we progress through Luther’s life. Hans wanted a better life for Martin so he pushed him to study law.

Luther enrolled in school at the university in Erfurt in 1501. By 1505 he had already earned his masters degree and was ready to enroll in law school but something happened.

While walking home Luther was caught in a bad thunderstorm. This was a storm as violent as you can imagine and lightning bolt struck the ground feet away from him. In fact it was so close to him that Luther was knocked off of his feet onto the ground.

Now you can imagine the fear that Luther must be having at this point. He was terrified, and rightfully so. Immediately he starts crying out to Saint Anne. Now, in the Catholic Church they have patron saints. Your patron saint is who you pray to, the saint who watches over you. And Saint Anne was the patron saint of miners, like Hans Luder.

So Luther starts crying out to Saint Anne. “Saint Anne, Saint Anne, save me! Save me Saint Anne! I do not want to die here, I want out of the storm, I will do anything Saint Anne, I will do anything, I will become a monk just save me and I will become a monk!”

Martin Luther kept that promise and in 1505 he left law school, to the shame of his father, and joined the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt.

I want to take a moment here to look at this though. At this point in his life, Luther was not a Christian. But when he made a vow to God he meant it. If only we could have that kind of devotion. He left everything simply because he believed Saint Anne had saved him from that storm.

That devotion did not leave him either in the monastery. Luther would say later in life that “if ever a monk could get to heaven by monkery, I was that monk.”

You see Rome had instituted a works-based salvation. Luther embraced this lifestyle to the highest degree. He would regularly torture his body. He partook in relentless prayer, fasting, and night watches. Regularly the would find him on the ground exhausted from the torture. He would freeze himself in the cold stone rooms with thin coverings to punish his body for the sins of his flesh.

Another part of monastery life was to go to regular confession. While other monks would be in confession for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, Luther would stay in the confession booth for hours on end. When he would leave he would immediately be in torment for some sin he had forgotten to confess. He was even told to not come back to confession until he had something worth confessing.

You see Luther was wrecked by the righteousness of God. He knew that he could not live up to the standard of righteousness that was required to be in the presence of God. This would torment Luther for the next decade.

In 1507, two years after becoming a monk, Martin Luther would be ordained as a priest and would perform his first Mass. Now to understand this, we need to understand what the Mass actually is. The Mass, or the Eucharist, in Catholic doctrine stated, and continues to this day to state, that the “true body and true blood of Jesus Christ” is under the appearance of bread and wine.

The Council of Trent affirmed this when they said, “Observing as we do, that bread and wine are every day changed, by the power of nature, into human flesh and blood, we may the more easily be led by this analogy to believe, that the substance of the bread and wine is changed, by the heavenly benediction, into the real flesh and real blood of Christ.”

So Luther is leading his first Mass in 1507 and he knows that he is responsible for lifting up the elements to “make God.” And as he begins the ceremony of the Mass he is just overcome. He can’t do it. He starts to falter and another priest steps in to finish the job.

Luther would later say that he was stupefied and overcome with holy fear. For who was he but a sinner to life his hands up to divine majesty? Because remember, Luther was obsessed with the righteousness of God and the unrighteousness of every sinner. He came to a point where he hated God. He hated a God that would require something that no man is capable of achieving. You see, Luther thought, because of Catholic doctrine, that we achieve righteousness by doing works on this earth and he rightly understood that we can never live up to that standard. He was told by his vicar, Von Staupitz, to love God, he must love God, and Luther’s response was, “I cannot love God father, I cannot, it is my unpardonable sin.”

Catholic Church, The Catechism of the Council of Trent, trans. Theodore Alois Buckley (London: George Routledge and Co., 1852), 219.

You see while there was many things that Luther did not understand, he understood this, there is nothing that you can do to be saved. To be saved you must be righteous and righteousness cannot be achieved by any man. He understood that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. It is something no man can live up to. He understood when Paul said in that there is none righteous, not even one.

Von Staupitz was fearful for Luther. He wanted to do something that would increase his faith and bring Luther closer to God. So he sent Martin Luther on a mission for the Augustinian Order to the Holy City of Rome. However, this trip would not help Martin Luther, it would only send him into further despair.

The trip to Rome would take several months and Luther would stop at monasteries on the way for food and shelter each night. Luther looked forward to the trip to Rome. After all, this is a holy pilgrimage. He looked forward to seeing the various relics that were held in Rome.

Relics were artifacts that were claimed to have significance for receiving indulgences. Indulgences were for the purpose of removing time of cleansing through the punishment of purgatory. For example, in Rome you could visit the supposed bones of Peter and Paul. You could see a twig from Moses’ burning bush. A piece of bread from the feeding of the 5,000. And for each of these you would get so many years of punishment taken off of purgatory. You see the Catholic Church doesn’t believe to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. No, they believe you go to purgatory to pay the cleansing punishment of your sins on earth because you must be holy before entering the gates of Heaven.

We will see more about indulgences in a few minutes but one major relic that was in Rome was the Scala sancta. These were the supposed stairs that Christ climbed up to Pilate during his trial before his crucifixion. But before Luther got to the stairs he became distressed with the corruption in Rome. He saw priests giving as many Masses as possible because they were paid by how many they completed. He saw priests soliciting prostitutes, gambling money, and all sorts of corruption and worldliness. But Luther came to the Scala Sancta. The Holy Stairs. Now the church taught that if you crawled up the stairs on your hands and knees, kissing every step and saying “Our Father’s” when you got to the top you would have your sins, or the sins of a loved one forgiven.

So Luther climbs up the stairs. There are about forty of these steps. He climbs up, saying his “Our Father’s.” When Luther gets to the top, he is not enlightened as he had hoped. And he looks down at the other pilgrims who are crawling up the stairs and he proclaims, “Who knows if it is even true?”

It is this works based salvation, this merit based righteousness that continued Luther is his hatred of God. How could a God who is supposed to be righteous and just require something man can never achieve? The Catholic Church ignores which says, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his own mercy he saved us. But Luther had not yet discovered this reality. He was immersed completely in the teaching of the Catholic Church.

So Luther comes back to Erfurt more discouraged than before. Von Staupitz plan to ease Luther’s conscience and soul had backfired. Von Staupitz knew he had to do something to keep Luther occupied so he transferred him to teach at the University of Wittenberg in 1512. Luther was granted a doctorate of theology while he taught and he focused on the books of Psalms, Galatians, and Romans.

It was now 1515, two years before the Reformation would begin that Luther was studying the book of Romans and our text this morning specifically . Remember as we have talked about this morning that Luther was tormented by the standards of the Righteousness of God to the point of hating God for creating sinful men and then requiring to live up to something they could never achieve. But something happened. Luther’s eyes were opened at the reading of verse 17 when he read the Righteous shall live by faith. At once it finally clicked for Luther that we are not saved or justified by doing works. We are not justified by relics or indulgences we are justified by faith and faith alone! The just shall live by faith! And Luther realized now what Paul meant in that it is by grace through faith we are saved, not of works. Luther finally understood that you and I do not have to be perfect, we do not have to work off our sins, we are declared righteous by Jesus Christ! Justification comes by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone!

Well this changed everything. And at this same time Pope Leo X was working to build St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. And we don’t have time to go into all of the back story of what happened so I will summarize it. Leo made a deal with Albert of Brandenburg to sale indulgences in Germany to help pay for St. Peter’s Cathedral. He would send a preacher named John Tetzel around to sell these indulgences. Tetzel was very crafty with his sermons. He would appeal to the emotions saying things like: “Do not you hear the voice of your wailing dead parents and others who say, “Have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me, because we are in severe punishment and pain. From this you could redeem us with a small alms and yet you do not want to do so.” Open your ears as the father says to the son and the mother to the daughter…“We created you, fed you, cared for you and left you our temporal goods. Why are you so cruel and harsh that you do not want to save us, though it only takes so little? You let us lie in flames so that only slowly do we come to the promised glory.” And Tetzel would cap off his sermon with his most famous line, “For as soon as the coin in the coffers ring, the soul from purgatory springs.” Tetzel was convincing. People were buying indulgences left and right for the thought that they would be getting forgiveness for all sins.

Well this did not sit well with Luther. Luther saw the corruption of the practice of indulgences and so he wrote 95 theses or statements against the church and indulgences and he posted them on the door of the Castle Church on October 31st, 1517. This was not an act of rebellion or defacing the church. Back in these times the church door acted as a bulletin board of sorts for academic and public announcements. You see Luther wanted a debate among scholars about the practice of indulgences. He wanted to discuss their merits. But something happened that Luther did not anticipate. Some of the students at the University translated the theses from Latin into German so the common person could read them and it started a firestorm.

Steven J. Lawson, The Heroic Boldness of Martin Luther, Long Line of Godly Men (Reformation Trust, 2013).

Theses

Naturally, the Pope and his councils tried to connect Luther to Huss so that they could try him as a heretic and have him silenced. But it did not work. We don’t have time to go into all of the details that happened so we are going to fast forward to 1521 and the Diet of Worms.

By the time Luther was summoned to the Imperial Diet at Worms, Pope Leo X had already issued a Papal Bull against Luther titled Exsurge Domine or Rise Up Oh Lord. And in this the Pope said to Rise up oh Lord for their is a wild boar loose in your vineyard tearing up the roots! It gave Luther 60 days to recant of his heresies. Well Luther received the Papal Bull and he does not recant. In fact, he responds by taking it out into the street and burning the document as an act of defiance against the Pope and Church. In early 1521 Luther was excommunicated, or kicked out of the church and condemned to hell, by Pope Leo X.

So Luther is summoned to Worms. Again, Luther thought he was being summoned for debate. He was granted safe conduct by the emperor, Charles V. Now Charles had advisors from Rome pleading with him to make sure that Luther was not allowed to speak during the trial. They knew he would be very persuasive if he was permitted to debate his teachings with the Church representatives.

By this time, Luther was famous across Germany. It upset the Emperor that when Luther arrived, there were larger crowds with louder cheers than when the Emperor himself had arrived. So Luther was brought into the Diet in front of the princes of Germany, Church representatives and the emperor and he was asked two questions.

The first question was, “Martin Luther are these your writings spread out on the table before you?” Luther takes a look down at the table and sees his books and answers “Yes, these are my writings.” So the second question is asked, “Martin Luther, will you recant the errors in these books?” Well Luther thought he had them here and asked, “What errors are you asking me to retract?” But the Diet was not going to allow him to debate. They replied, “You are a professor of theology, you know what your errors are.” So Luther pleads to the Emperor to give him more time to consider all of his writings and the Emperor grants him one day.

Luther spends the night in his room praying to God to help him. He wanted to make sure that he was standing on truth and not his own wisdom. He asked himself repeatedly throughout the night, “Am I the only one who is wise?” In the end, he decided that it was not his own wisdom that was driving him, it was the Word of God. Scripture compelled him to take a stand for the truth.

The next day he was brought back into the Diet and was asked again, “Will you recant.” Luther responds saying that while these are all his books they are books of different kinds. He proclaimed, “In some books I write about accepted Christian truths. If I recant those I will be going against the Church. In other books I admit that I speak against the corruption and the abuse of the papacy which vexed and martyred the conscience and devoured the property of the German nation. I cannot retract these for to retract these I would be cloaking wickedness and tyranny.”

The church had had enough. They replied, “Will you not give a simple answer without horns?”

Luther replies, “You want me to give a simple answer, well here it is. Unless I am convinced by sacred Scripture or by clear arguments, since I believe neither the Pope nor the Councils alone since they have often been in error and contradicted themselves. I have been conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and my conscience is bound to the Word of God. So I cannot and will not recant anything for it is neither right nor safe to go against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

The rest of Luther’s story is exciting but we do not have time to cover it this morning. But we see in his stand at the Diet of Worms that he emphasizes the all important stance of Scripture alone. It is by Scripture that we are to form our opinions. It is by Scripture and Scripture alone. We do not rely on traditions, or experiences, or human reasoning. We rely on the Scriptures. For as Paul writes in

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

So why am I going through so much history today? Remember what I said at the beginning of our time together this morning. History forgotten is history doomed to repeat itself. Church, that is exactly what is happening today. Let me share some troubling statistics with you.

52% of Evangelicals believe that everyone sins a little but that most people are good by nature. This is despite what tells us that there is nobody that is good.

51% of Evangelicals believe that God accepts all forms of worship including that of Islam and Judaism. This is despite what says that no man comes to the Father but through Jesus Christ.

56% of Evangelicals DISAGREE that even the smallest sin is worthy of Damnation.

The list goes on and on. You see, culture, and beliefs, are no longer following Scripture. We have lost the truth of the Gospel and the church has just sat by and watched it happen.

Church we need a new Reformation. We need to take back biblical truth and infuse it into the culture. We need to say Here We Stand. We can do nothing else. We need to go forth with the boldness of Wycliffe, Huss, and Luther and many more faithful men who have gone before us. Men like Stephen in . The Apostles. People like William Tyndale and Phillip Melancthon. And Christian pastors today in China who are being arrested during their sermons and tortured for the name of Jesus Christ.

This past May I graduated from Liberty University and our commencement speaker was Vice President Mike Pence. He said some chilling words that I would like to read to you:

“But my message to all of you in the Class of 2019 is — derives of the moment that we’re living in today. You know, throughout most of American history, it’s been pretty easy to call yourself Christian. It didn’t even occur to people that you might be shunned or ridiculed for defending the teachings of the Bible.

But things are different now. Some of the loudest voices for tolerance today have little tolerance for traditional Christian beliefs. So as you go about your daily life, just be ready. Because you’re going to be asked not just to tolerate things that violate your faith; you’re going to be asked to endorse them. You’re going to be asked to bow down to the idols of the popular culture.

So you need to prepare your minds for action, men and women. You need to show that we can love God and love our neighbor at the same time through words and deeds. And you need to be prepared to meet opposition.”

It is time to take our stand church.

There are two things I want us to take away this morning.

The first is this, we can do nothing to become righteous before God. We must put our faith in Christ and Christ alone. It is Jesus who makes us righteous by His sacrifice on the cross. If you are here today and you think that you are going to get to Heaven on merit because you are a good person I urge you today to look at everything we have talked about. The just shall live by faith and faith alone. You are saved by grace through faith, and not of yourselves. You need to turn your life over to Christ this morning.

For those of us who are already in Christ I have another challenge for you. We need a new reformation. We need to make a heroic stand for the truth of the Gospel. Are you going to take that stand today?

In just a moment we are going to sing, the alter is open for prayer. Brother Paul and I will be up here to pray and talk with you. Do not let this moment pass as we sing.

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