Alright, so I like to think about pioneers, people who have done great things, but we often don't remember them. I was thinking about the Cumberland Gap. Anybody been through the Cumberland Gap? Passed through there? Many thousands of people pass through there every week. But very few people remember the pioneers that made that place possible to traverse, right? So people like Daniel Boone, people like that. So these are the pioneers that did these hard things, difficult things, that enable us to enjoy the blessings that we have. Here we have a pioneer in the church, the work of the church and the work of the kingdom, a man named Martin Luther. And tonight we're gonna be looking at Martin Luther, who is often called the father of the Reformation. There are a lot of fathers of the Reformation and the Reformation continues, but he was one of the great figures that I think every Christian needs to know about. So kids, everybody who's a Christian needs to know who this man was. And so we wanna think about him tonight. I'm gonna focus tonight on Luther's life up to the year 1522. There are lots of things that happened after that year. He lived 24 years after that. But we're gonna focus on his life up to 1522 and particularly the years 1517 to 1521. Those are the critical years of his life and some would say the years in which God did the most glorious things through him. So a man, definitely a flawed individual like we all are, a man who sinned just like we do, but God used, a humble man in many ways, used in great ways. So a little bit of context for Luther's life, the Middle Ages. What can we say about the Middle Ages and his early life? Well, his parents were working class folks. They were not rich, they were not poor, they were just kind of middle class. His father Hans was a miner. He actually worked hard and he built up the family business and he actually had several foundries later on in which they worked the minerals that they mined. and he became wealthy enough to send his kids to school. So Martin Luther got a good education that sort of laid the framework and the foundation for his later opportunities, particularly going to the monastery, the university, and then going to the monastery. He went to college at the age of 18. in the spring of 1502, and he received a Bachelor of Arts. He received that in January of 19, or sorry, 1501. And he lived in the context of the late Middle Ages. And what can we say about that? Late Middle Ages was an era in which the Roman Catholic Church dominated life. They in many ways dominated the whole civil magistrate. The civil magistrate often became like an enforcement tool for the will of the Pope. The literacy rate, anybody want to hazard to guess what literacy rate was at this time? in Germany in which he lived. How many people could read? What would you say? Percentage. 20%. 20%? 5 to 10. 5 to 10, that's accurate. 95% illiteracy rate. So the people could not read, they depended on others to tell them the information they needed, and they were hugely dependent on the church. And they were, of course, very superstitious people as well. Generally speaking, in Germany, a very superstitious people were the late Middle Ages in Germany. That's 9 out of 10 people, over 9 out of 10 people could read. Correct, yeah. Very, very bad. And that makes you dependent, right? And that makes you vulnerable to bad teaching. And that's what happened. the dominance of the papacy over culture. The culture was shaped by Roman Catholic theology. For good, there's some good things there for sure, right? But there's also a whole lot that was not good. And so here we have in this context, you have Luther emerging, and this is Truman's work. And by the way, I'm using the references I use here, Carl Truman, a great book by Roland Bainton, one of his great biographers. And then another gentleman named Albert Henry Newman. So these are my sources. Truman said this, out of this context of the late Middle Ages, he emerged as a titanic figure. It's a great phrase. Martin Luther emerges as a titanic figure who God used to shatter, shatter the medieval church. So as we think about it, I want to look at his sections of his life, just kind of snapshots of his life. Martin Luther, the monk and the priest. So he went to university and he wanted to be a monk. Now why would he want to be a monk? Why would anybody want to be a monk in those days? You want to know God? It could be a way to become closer to God in someone's mind, right? And I think that was true for Martin Luther, age 22. He returned from the university to see his parents. He got caught in a big thunderstorm. Anybody know what happened in that scene in which he got caught in a thunderstorm that was very frightening? In fact, so frightening, children, that he was caught in a thunderstorm where lightning was striking all around him. In fact, it struck a tree nearby. I mean, imagine if you were caught in something like that, what would you do? You would pray, cry for mercy and save me. But does anybody know who Martin Luther prayed to in that thunderstorm? Saint Anne, the patron saint of monks, excuse me, minors. Minors, patron saint of minors. Saint Anne, the patron saint of minors. And so he cried out, Saint Anne, save me, this is an exact quote, Saint Anne, save me and I will become a monk. So he became a monk, literally, a very short time after this. Let's see, I have it written down here. Very short time after this, he became a monk. Yes, he said that on July 2nd, 1505. He became a monk July 17th, 1505. So like 12 days later. Basically two weeks later. So here he became a monk and he was a very intense monk. Here's what he said about his experience as a monk. I was a good monk, and I kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got into heaven by his monkery, it was I. All my brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out. If I had kept on any longer, I think I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other work. He fasted three days without food. He slept without blankets. He said, this is an interesting statement. I don't quite know how to interpret it, but he said this. During the first year in the monastery, the devil is very quiet. He would constantly sway between extremes of great pride and great despair. Anybody ever experience that? It's a very interesting symptom of someone who's in works religion. If you're enmeshed in works religion, you go from great pride when you have a good day, to great despair when you have a bad day. You see, everything depends on your performance. In your mind, your salvation, your standing with God, depends on your performance. And the gospel was earth shattering for him because it freed him from this bondage. This terrible bondage of being enslaved by your own performance. The Gospels set him free. Later we'll see. One other thought thing I wanted to... Well, I'm going to leave that for now. Martin Luther gave his first mass on May 2nd, 1507. And at this point, he was a monk and he was a priest. And so he was on the fast track to becoming super spiritual, right? So in his culture, you were looked up at. So you were a role model. People looked to you as a great authority. He gave his first mass on this day, May 2nd, 1507. And this is the first time, and this is their works, making, it's horrible, right? It's blasphemous. Making God, holding God. Does anybody know what that refers to? Making God, holding, they believe that the elements, the bread and the wine were made, were transformed into God, right? God, and then that you were holding him in your hand. It's terrible blasphemy, it's very superstitious, but this is what they believed. And as he was giving this mass, he had a massive panic attack. His father and mother were there to see this, this was a big deal, it was like senior sermon for seminarians, right? You give your first mass, and his parents were there, and he had a terrible panic attack during this time. Along the short of it was this, I won't go into all the quotes here, but the reason he had a panic attack was because he began to think, how can I A sinner like me, a wretched sinner like me, ever think that I'm doing anything for God or sacrificing anything for God. In other words, the holiness of God truly disturbed him at this point. He was thinking, God is so holy. How is it that me, a worm, is holding God in my hand? So it just bothered him, it disturbed him. It also embarrassed his father to see his son in this moment have a panic attack. This is interesting. After this event, he got no comfort from his father. He said, you learned doctor, have you never read in the Bible that you should honor your father and your mother? And here you have left me and your dear mother to look after ourselves. in our old age. Now what he meant by that was, you're a terrible monk, you're a terrible priest, and you're not going to be able to provide for us. You should have stayed in the university and become a lawyer. Luther responded, but father I could do more good by prayers than if I had stayed in the world. And he added he had been called from a voice from heaven. His father Hans said this, God granted So this was a very, a low point for him, kind of a failure for him. And he was in constant stress and turmoil. So he was in constant, in a place when his heart was in constant stress and anxiety. Has anybody ever been there? Feeling always stressed. He had a word for it in the German, an fechtung. That was his word, which means, roughly translated, a trial of the soul in which you can get no relief. So he was truly a miserable person. Very anxious, always swayed between pride and despair. So let's move on a little bit and look at Luther, the professor. He became a teacher in the monastery and at this time is when he became a new convert to Christianity. This is 1508 to 1520. He transferred to a city called Wittenberg. Anybody heard of Wittenberg? This is where he would spend the rest of his life, pretty much, with very few little exceptions. He was age 25. This was the winter of 1508. He moved to Wittenberg. And this is what he had to say about it. It was a stinking sand dune. Population, 2,000 people. Luther said this, he actually wrote a song about Wittenberg, and this is some of the lyrics of the song. Little land, little land, you are but a heap of sand. If I dig you, the soil is light. If I reap you, the yield is light. So it was a place with very sandy soil, very hard to grow stuff, and a stinking sand dune is what he called it. He was, again, very sad at this point in time, but he had someone that ministered to him. His name was Staupitz. Staupitz was a pastoral monk, if there ever was one. I think he was probably a believing man, a godly man, and Staupitz was used mightily by God to sort of like shepherd him into the kingdom, I think. Here's what he said about Staupitz. If it had not been for Dr. Staupitz, I should have sunk into hell. He confessed his sins every day, sometimes for six hours straight. Imagine confessing your sins for six hours straight. Staubitz said this, look here, if you expect Christ to forgive you, come in with something to forgive. Parasite, blasphemy, adultery, instead of all these piccadillos. One weary priest said this insightfully. I think it's interesting. Man, God is not angry with you, you are angry with God. Don't you know that God commands you to hope? That's a pretty interesting statement there. That's some powerful pastoral counsel. You're angry with God. I bet that's true. I think that actually was true. And so here he was, he despaired of his salvation. He had no assurance of salvation. If you're in a works religion, you cannot ever have assurance of salvation. The Roman Catholic religion does not allow it. In fact, later one theologian in the Catholic Church said this, the Catholic institution said this, he said that the chief heresy of the Reformation, the chief heresy of the Protestants is the assurance of salvation. If you have assurance of your salvation, you do not need the mass, you do not need the priest any longer, you do not need that church as they present it. So he'd come to an impasse, as Rowland Bacon said this, he arrived at a valid impasse. For sins to be forgiven, they must be confessed. To be confessed, they must be recognized and remembered. If they are not recognized and remembered, they cannot be confessed. If they are not confessed, they are not forgiven. So he has this cycle. of trying to remember and confess everything so that he could be saved. What a miserable place to be, wouldn't you say? He went on a pilgrimage to Rome, age 27. This was November of 1510. He was disappointed by the priests there, the morals of the people there. He was very disappointed in the whole Roman system. Of course, it's just a morass of wickedness. If you understood how priests often lived, they were often ignorant, they were often illiterate, they were often just wicked men behind the scenes, dressed up in a costume of piety, and they were horrible people in general. And Luther's view of sin was in error. It was dirt that needed washing, not death that needed resurrecting. So Staubitz, the good pastor, put him to work. He put him to work. He said he made him study for his doctorate. He made him preach a lot. He was preaching through the Psalms, preaching through Romans later. He would assume the Bible chair of the monastery. And then Luther didn't like it. He said, you're gonna kill me. You're gonna kill me. And Staubitz had this funny line. He says, quite all right. God has plenty of work for clever men to do in heaven. So age 29, this is October 19, 1512, he began lecturing on the Psalms. Then age 32, so about a year later, he's getting his doctorate. He's really moving up in the monastery, in the system there. And he became quite accomplished. He was quite respected. at this point. He then begins a series of lectures on Romans. He was age 32, April 1515. Anybody remember, that was very momentous for him, wasn't it? Something happened when he started preaching through Romans. He started to actually read and believe what Romans teaches. And what's the main theme of Romans? And so he's teaching through Romans, and he comes now to Romans 117. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, from faith for faith, as it is rich, and the righteous shall live by faith. And when he read this verse, and when he started to teach this verse, he hated this verse. He did not appreciate it at first. But then he began to think about it more and more, and it finally became clear what it actually meant. That righteousness with God, being right with God cannot be earned, it cannot be merited, why? Because all of our works are what? Filthy rags, they're imperfect and God cannot be pleased with anything imperfect or sinful. And so our works can't earn salvation, they cannot earn God's favor and blessing. It has to be given from where? From God. Righteousness is a gift. Righteousness is alien from me. It's something that God gives me as I trust in Him by faith. The righteous shall live by faith. And so he said this, about this point in his life, when it finally clicked, when the lights finally came on, when it dawned on him that this is what the Bible actually teaches. This is how a man, a woman, boy and a girl can be saved. He said this, at last meditating day and night by the mercy of God, I began to understand that the righteousness of God that is through, that through which the righteous live is a gift of God, namely faith. Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open." So now the shackles that chained him down, that weighed him down are broken. He's set free. He's now a true believer. He's converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an amazing thing here. Any questions or comments, by the way? Any comments that you have? It seems really a lot like Paul. Paul was like, of all the things I've done, I can boast. I'm the best. I'm truly the best. Yeah, anything else striking that you notice? All right, let's keep going. We're going to be excited about 1517 to 15... Right, we're there now. Because 1515, he became a true believer in the gospel. So within two years, God just used him to for the rest of the world, I'm guessing. You know, so that's like, he went by call. He went by call, yeah. And it's very interesting, you know, because he had been raised in the church. He had a lot of knowledge about God and true things. So it's like that our friend said, the furniture was all there, but the lights were not on, right? And they had to turn the lights on, and now you can see all the furniture as it should be and use it. Let's think about Luther, the reformer. and the exile. This is 1517-1522 and this is the last part. There's a lot here so just bear with me. Luther still thought Rome was a true church. Yet he knew it was very corrupt. But at this time he wasn't really on a mission to reform. He was just very very busy at this time and this is a little snapshot of his life. This is before what he called the onslaught. took place. He said, I could use two secretaries. I do almost nothing during the day but write letters. I'm a conventional preacher. It means he preaches to the monks. I'm a reader at meals, parochial preacher, director of studies, overseer of 11 monasteries, superintendent of the fish pond at Liz Cow, referee of the squabble at Torgal, lecturer on Paul, collector of material for a commentary on the Psalms. And then, as I said, I am overwhelmed with letters. I rarely have full time for the canonical hours for saying mass, not to mention my own temptations with the world, the flesh, and the devil. You see how lazy I am. So he's very busy and yet there's this thing that he becomes aware of that he needs to address which is the indulgences. Does anybody remember what indulgences are? Indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church. or for salvation, or? Paying people to get out of purgatory, paying for your loved ones to get out of purgatory. Paying for yourself or your loved ones to escape the fiery torment of purgatory, which is kind of like a minor version of hell, which you are in limbo. Hopefully you can be sprung out, they say, by enough donations or indulgences paid to the pope. Is that what lightning candles are all about? The Catholic Church, they pay to get a candle, and they light a candle. I'm not sure. Might be. Anybody know that? I think so. Proof of the indulgence, I think, in a written document. It wasn't a certificate, kind of, like, yeah. be praying for someone. So here's this is interesting you should see where the the state now has an influence in how the church behaves. A leader called Abrupt of Brandenburg he wanted to buy a bishopric from the Pope so he allowed a friar named Tetzel to come in and start selling indulgences. So Truman said this about Johann Tetzel, he was the man who was the worst. of this kind of monk. Tetzel was a profane man, but a brilliant salesman, using jingles such as the gym. As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs. And then he would actually teach this, that if someone had actually even violated the Virgin Mary, one of Tetzel's indulgences would be enough to cover his sin. Like, just the thought of such teaching to these poor people is just so appalling, but that is the kind of thing that was being sanctioned, not just sanctioned, but encouraged by the Pope and these bishops. So, Martin Luther does something on October 31st, so 507 years to tomorrow, he did something on October 31st, what was it? This was standard procedure. Whenever you wanted to talk about something, you would nail a list of Positions that you would just itemize out and then you have a debate about it. Someone would come and debate you. So they did this all the time. There's nothing unusual. But his concerns were twofold. One, the glory of God, and the other is the welfare of the soul of his people. The soul of his parishioners. He was like, this cannot stand. Truman said this about this nailing of the 95 Theses. He says, it has taken on an almost mythic status. obscure, sometimes incomprehensible language that is of the 95 Theses. The details are no longer important. The precise issues long since have vanished. What is important is the theology on which these Theses were built. The theology of humility and the costliness of grace. Though Luther probably did not realize it at the time, these struck at the heart of the medieval sacramental system and thus at the authority of the church. In criticizing indulgences, Luther also did what is always guaranteed to precipitate a reaction. He hit the church where it hurts the most, in her revenue department. And so we get them in the pocketbook, you know, get their attention. There's a whole bunch we could say. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit here. Finally, the Pope, after some disputations, after some different kinds of... Theologians that sort of like tried to take him to task. Eventually what he had done trickled up or trickled down to the Pope or filtered up, whichever analogy you want to use. But finally the Pope gets wind of what he's teaching and it's causing a stir and the Pope, his name's Leo X, hears about it and he seeks to have an audience with him. Frederick the Wise was Luther's benefactor. He was watching over Luther, trying to protect Luther because he knows Leo X can kill him. Leo X can make him go away, just like that. So here we have Leo X, I won't read you this, it's interesting if you want to read it, but basically Leo X is saying, Frederick, if you want to keep your position, go ahead and make sure Luther comes and sees me. So now the Pope is putting pressure on all these people around Luther to get at Luther. Luther finally has an interview with a man named Cajetan in October 12th, this is October 12th through the 14th, 15, 18. Now Luther is in danger. This man is a very dangerous individual. Luther goes before this man Cajetan and the whole point of this meeting was that Luther would say the word revoco, I recant. That's all they want to hear. They don't want to hear anything else. I recant, revoco. Well, he does this. He prostrates himself before the Cardinal, Cardinal Kajetan, and he raised him up and said, you must recant. Luther said, I did not travel all the way to Augsburg to do what I could have done at home. Show me my errors. Three days later, Luther says to Cajetan, we have wrangled enough. So three days he wrestled theologically with this man, and here's what Cajetan said. My son, I did not wrangle with you. I'm ready to reconcile you with the Roman church, unless Luther was ready to say, Rivoco, don't ever come back. And I am not going to talk with him anymore, says Cajetan. His eyes are as deep as a lake, and there are amazing speculations in his head. About this meeting, Luther himself said, the cardinal was no more fit to handle the case than a donkey fit to play a harp. I'm trying to think about what all I want to add here. There's a lot of details. Major issues here is really about ultimate authority of Scripture. Really, if you want to think about this battle that Luther was having with the Pope, it's about the Word of God is that which we stand upon, not man's traditions. So he had a duel with a particular theologian named John Eck, a German. This German theologian was quite a powerful speaker and a powerful thinker, so this was a formidable opponent that he had with him. When he heard Luther speak, he said, this is a Bohemian teaching. What he meant by that was he was referring to a man named Jan Hus. Jan Hus was from Bohemia, and he was teaching similar things. And what he means by Bohemian is that He should have done to him what they did to Hus. Anybody know what they did to Hus? They burned him at the stake. So this is about life or death. This is the thing that people have to remember about Luther is that his battle with the Pope, he expected to die. He expected them to take his life, right? So when he went to the Diet of Worms, that was what he thought was gonna happen for sure. So he said, this is a bohemian teaching. I love this. Luther, he said, so they wanted Luther to say, you agree with Huss then, right? You teach what Huss taught. And finally, Luther said this. Huss was right. Papal supremacy is a new invention. Yochananek, zero down on this break with tradition. And he said, you are the only one that knows, or he said, are you the only one that knows anything? Except for you is all the church in error. That's a powerful question. Are you the only one who knows anything? All right, so that was the pressure they were putting on him. Luther said, I answer that God once spoke through the mouth of an ass. I will tell you straight what I think. I am a Christian theologian, and I am bound not only to assert, but to defend the truth with my blood and death. I want to believe freely and be a slave to the authority of no one, whether council, university, or pope. I will confidently confess that what appears to me to be true, whether it has been asserted by a Catholic or a heretic, whether it has been approved or reproved by a council, that is what he wants to teach. So the freedom in Christ to believe only what the word of God and teach only the word of God says. So he held his ground. These two knights came forward, they knew he was in danger. These two particular actual knights came forward and said, we'll protect you. He says, no, God protects me. So he would not accept protection from these two men. Truman said at this point, he says, arguably this is when the Reformation truly began in earnest. This is made clear to everyone, there was no middle ground. So very, very dramatic. 1520, he's 37 years old. Truman said this, in many ways, Luther was never to have a more glorious theological year than 1520. He wrote all kinds of stuff. He wrote something called the Address to the German Nobility. He's trying to establish a more godly and biblical type of government. He wrote the Babylonian Captivity in October, arguing against the Roman Catholic view of sacraments. He wrote, On the Freedom of the Christian Man, which is the biblical view of free will and good works in light of justification. And he wrote, Against the Excorable Bull of the Antichrist, which was response to this thing called the bull, which was written about him by the Pope. The Pope went to his hunting lodge and he wrote about Luther, the wild boar that was running wild in his vineyard. the clever serpent that was sneaking through his fields and that we have to do something about him. So Luther receives the papal bull in October 10th, 1520. He said this, he said, I don't think the Pope wrote this, I think that monster, John Eck wrote it. He said, the style and the spittle all point to Eck. Whoever wrote this bull, he is Antichrist. But here's where he crosses the line, he actually goes after the Pope in the very same thing. He said, whether this bull is by eck or the Pope, it is the sum of all impiety, blasphemy, ignorance, impudence, hypocrisy, and lying. In a word, it is Satan and his antichrist. So, them spiky words, the Pope will not take this lightly. And this is what leads up now to the Diet of Worms. The Diet of Worms sounds yucky, it sounds like eating squirmy worms, but really it was yucky for a different reason because this was his trial. This was Luther's trial in which he was going to be tried and convicted, not only by the Pope, but also by the civil magistrate. And they were going to make him either recant or accept his punishment as a heretic, which is what? Excommunication and death. He expected to be burned at the stake. So that's the thing. So he was summoned to the diaderms. He's 38 years old. February 22nd, 1521. This is his formal trial. Truman says it was controversial to summon him to this trial. One, because excommunication, which they'd already done against him, made him a non-person. So they're actually summoning a non-person to be convicted. So there's a little inconsistency there. But he said another thing is this. He was potentially very dangerous because he was already becoming the champion of the people. All of these peasant people who saw the gross immorality and the gross theological error, they see Luther having the courage to stand against it. And he's taking all the heat. So he's taking all the threats. The people are like, he's speaking for us, because we see the same things. But now there's someone who can actually fight them, who can actually speak to them. So it's very powerful. He arrives at Rome, April 16, 1521, on a horse-drawn carriage. He appears before the emperor, and there are 2,000 peasants following him. So 2,000 peasants follow him to this big room. The emperor is there, Charles V, is a young man. And many people have pointed out this is like the past and the future colliding. You had the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire appearing at this thing. He's looking now at the young man, Martin Luther, who will be responsible for his downfall. The past and the future are colliding with Martin Luther and Charles V. So here, what happens, there's another man named John Egg, there are two John Eggs. The second John Egg begins to question Luther. This is on April 17th, 1521, two questions. One, are these your books? Luther said this, very quietly, the books are all mine and I have written more. Question number two, will you recant their content? And here's something that happened that was very interesting in history. He said this, this touches God in his word. This affects the salvation of souls. Of this Christ said, any who denies me before men, him will I deny before my father. To say too little or too much would be dangerous. I beg you, give me some time to think it over, end quote. So he said, I can't answer this right now. Will you recant? I can't answer. Some have wondered why did he do this? Why did he hesitate? Was it strategy or was it something else? A lot of people think he was just afraid, just scared. So, next day, they came back the next day. And that day, April 18th, his voice is loud and clear. Most serene emperor, most illustrious princes, most clement lords, if I have not given some of you your proper titles, I beg you to forgive me. I am not a courtier, but a monk. You asked me yesterday whether the books were mine and whether I would repudiate them. They are all mine. You asked for the second question. They are all not of one sort. So he begins to differentiate between books that are acceptable and mainstream and books that are controversial. But he said this. The second class, the controversial books, he said, they invade against the desolation of the Christian world by the evil lives and teaching of the papists. Who can deny this when the universal complaints testify that by the laws of the popes, the consciences of men are wracked? And at this, the young Charles V, the emperor said, no, he yelled out across the room. And then Luther continues on. Should I recant at this point, I would open the door to more tyranny and impiety, and it would be all the worse should it appear that I had done so at the instance of the Holy Roman Empire. And so he says, if I am shown my error, I'll be the first to throw my books in the fire. At this point, John Eck sees what's happening. He is not going to recant. Martin, you have not sufficiently distinguished your works. The earlier were bad, the latter are worse. Your plea to be heard from scripture is the one always made by heretics. Hear that? The plea to be heard from scripture is the one always made by heretics. Isn't that interesting? So the Roman Catholic religion saw appeal to scripture as heresy. So just believe what we tell you. Don't question. Just believe it. Close your mouth, believe it. The Pope says so. Martin Luther says, well, why? The Bible says something different. So he's the heretic for saying that. Now the tensions ratcheting up. He says this, again, the question, how can you assume, Martin Luther, that you are the only one who's right and who understands the sense of scripture? Would you put your judgment above that of so many famous men and claim that you know more than they? And here's Luther's famous statement. This is the climactic statement. Since then, your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convinced by scripture and plain reason, I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other. My conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen. The earliest printed versions of this speech include these words, here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. So, a couple more things and we'll close. When he said this in German, They asked him now, repeat those same words in Latin, so that this could be spread across the whole world, basically. And he was sweating. He was profusely sweating, they said. And a friend hollered out to Martin Luther at this point, he says, if you cannot do it, doctor, you have done enough. So there's the pressure. If you say it in Latin, this is gonna go over the whole world. And then it says, Luther made his affirmation in Latin. He made his affirmation in Latin. He threw up his arms in the gesture of a victorious knight, and he slipped out of the darkened hall amidst the hisses of the Spaniards, and he went to his lodging. Again, he expect to be killed. There are committee meetings for another four days. So this is the boring step that nobody talks about, but there are committee meetings for four days. He finally leaves on April 26, 1521 from the Diet of Worms. As he was traveling through the woods, as you might remember, what happened? He was kidnapped, right? But his kidnappers were not his murderers, they were his rescuers. They kidnapped him and brought him to a castle in which he spent a very long time in the castle. I think, how long was it? I actually don't have that written down here. That was May 4th, 1521. He arrives at Wartburg Castle. He took the name Knight George. Okay, so he returns again. It's about one year. He returns again March the 6th, 1522. He returns to Wittenberg and never leaves. And he begins serving as pastor. And he starts building. So he had been a destroyer of the Roman system. A destroyer, a shatterer of the medieval church. Now it's his job to He wanted to build education, preaching, build the church up, write hymns. He did so many things for the kingdom over the next 24 years. He would spend 24 more years as a pastor, a reformer, under the protection of the German lords. He finally married. He married a lady named Katie von Bora, who was an escaped nun. They had a very happy marriage by all accounts. Made a home in an old Augustinian monastery, turned him into his house. He had people over all the time, hospitality, young men who had trained for the ministry. He had six children, two of whom passed before him. Two daughters passed, one at age one, one at age 14. His last 15 years were marked by bitterness, controversy, and major failures. So that's a whole other story, which we won't get into tonight. If you've never read the whole story, you really should. Roland Bainton's biography of him is masterful, wonderful, easy to read. But this work that he did, even all the many books, he published a million words, but never made a cent for any of them. With all this that he did, this is probably the most powerful thing that he ever did, which was to stand on the truth of God's word. Luther's memory is best remembered not by his words, but his supreme reverence for the word of God, and in particular, the gospel preached to sinners, that we are a right by faith in Jesus Christ, right with God, by the gift of faith. And for that, we should always fondly remember him and give thanks for his life. So that's my.