Happy Monday!<\/p>\n
This weekend just passed covered the day we celebrate \u2014 or should celebrate and commemorate; a good time to re-dedicate \u2014 Reformation Day. October 31, anniversary of the day Dr Martin Luther nailed his 95 These to the church door at Wittenberg, Germany.<\/p>\n
These 95 points of \u201dContention\u201d with policies of the Pope and the establishment Roman Church are regarded as the sparks that ignited the Reformation, and the Protestant movement. There were reformers before Luther \u2013 preachers, theologians and Bible translators who were persecuted, tortured, and killed. The English John Wycliffe died a century before Luther was active. Hatred against him, for daring to adapt the Bible to the language of the people, was that his bones were disinterred and burned after his death. The Bohemian reformer Jan Hus was burned at the stake for his reformist beliefs. His last words, tied to the stake, before the flames consumed him, were \u201cin a hundred years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform can not be suppressed.\u201c<\/p>\n
It was 102 year later that Luther nailed his challenges to that church door.
\nLuther was persecuted, chased, went into hiding, and translated the Bible into the language of his people, the Germans. He sought reform, not revolution, yet revolution occurred: half of Europe caught fire with the belief that faith alone, by God\u2019s grace, actuated salvation; and that people needed no intercessor with God except Christ. He was excommunicated. He married. He preached and wrote lessons\u2026 and wrote hymns.
\nIt is my belief that, as we approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the church \u2014 at least the Western Church, certainly the American church in virtually all its corners \u2014 is in dire need of reformation again.<\/p>\n
More than that, we need to look to Martin Luther as a Hero of Conscience. He said when he was called on trial to recant his beliefs and writings,
\n\u201cUnless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can not and will not retract.
\n\u201cFor it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience.
\n\u201cHere I stand. I can do no other. God help me.\u201c<\/p>\n
The time is coming in this contemporary world when Christians have it demanded of them to renounce their faith. That this is already a time of anti-Christian persecution, is abundantly clear. That, daily, believers suffer indignities and are asked to compromise their principles and forced to sublimate their voices, is a reality to committed Christians.<\/p>\n
Some days soon Christians will have to suffer no longer in silence, or have the luxury of withdrawing into small groups and communities of believers. The Bible does not merely warn\u2026 prophets did not just threaten\u2026 but God promised this holy challenge to the saints of God in the End Times.<\/p>\n
Can we, like Luther, have the spiritual strength to say:\u201dFor it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. \u201cHere I stand. I can do no other\u201d ?<\/p>\n
I have two brief clips for Reformation Day: the first is the powerful \u201cconscience\u201d scene from the 1953 \u201cLuther\u201d movie starring Niall MacGinnis (nominated for an Academy Award).<\/p>\n