Welcome to this Reformation 500 Fire Conference at Justo Mali University, Kendo Saka. It is good to be in Zambia on this Reformation 500 year. The vision is, will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? We need revival. Will you? Will God? God is the source of revival. Will you not revive us? That is what we need, revival. And notice it is revive us, not the world. Revival focuses on the church. Will you not revive us again that your people, those who call themselves Christians, may rejoice in you. Rejoicing is one of the fruits of revival and Christ is the source, he is the center, he is the means and he is the end of revival. We have This year launched a Reformation 500 Fire Movement, a fellowship for international reformation and evangelism, fire. And we are seeking to mobilize people to reformation. What does it mean, reformation? It's to reform, it's to bring people back to the Bible, back to God's principles. And this was began back on the 31st of October 1517. So this year, when we reach 31 October, it'll have been 500 years since God used Professor Martin Luther to launch the Protestant Reformation out of which all Bible-believing evangelical churches belong. We all have benefited from this great move of God. And so In Wittenberg, where this reformation began in Germany, we will be having a conference and the Eurochoir singing in this very square outside the Stadtkirche, close to the Schlosskirche, where the 95th feast was nailed. There's a global church council that will be gathering in the third week of October this year. and we're encouraging our people to all be back and organising Reformation celebrations in all of our churches, communities, centres and countries on the 31st of October. The Reformation was a great movement, but the reformer who made it possible, the reformer whom God used, Martin Luther, we've used the word captive to the word to summarise this first presentation, because that's how he described his faith before the Emperor. The Reformation was a defining moment when the Christian convictions and courage of reformers met the crossroad of decision and engaged in the battlefields of belief and behavior. If I had a place to stand, I could move the world. That is what the Greek engineer Archimedes referred to when he was speaking about the wonders of the lever. In principle, the capacity of a lever is unlimited. An ordinary weakling Could move a rock the size of a house, all you'd need would be a fulcrum, that's a pole, strong enough that it would not break, and long enough to multiply the force. That, and a place to stand. The force multiplying physics of a lever are a matter of distance. The heavier the object, or the weaker the person trying to move the object, the longer the pole would need to be, and the further away from it you'd have to stand. However, with the right fulcrum, and the right bar and the right distance, all you would need to do would be to push the lever down and the boulder, no matter how heavy, would have to move. Theoretically Archimedes declared with the right fulcrum, the right bar and distance, you could put a lever to planet Earth and move the world itself. As long as you had a place to stand, he added. On 18th of April, 1521, a 37-year-old professor from the University of Wittenberg, Dr. Martin Luther, found himself hauled before the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which effectively was the emperor of Europe. Standing before the assembled political and spiritual authorities of his day, Luther was presented with a simple choice. Will you recant and reject everything you've been teaching about the Gospel? Or will you be cast out of the church as a heretic, and out of the state as a traitor, to be burned at the stake? Because that's what it meant. Martin Luther's reply moved the world. He changed history. Because he had a place to stand, Dr. Martin Luther declared, My conscience is captive to the word of God. Here I stand. Our Lord Jesus Christ declared that our faith would be able to move mountains. Martin Luther's faith moved the world because he had a place to stand. He stood on the word of God. The fulcrum he used was the gospel. The bar on which he balanced this was the law of God. Dr. Martin Luther actually fulfilled what the Greek engineer Archimedes had hypothesized about, just spoken about in theory. Standing on the word of God using the bar of the law of God and the fulcrum of the gospel, Martin Luther's faith not only moved mountains, it changed the world. It brought men to the Middle Ages. It ushered in the modern world. The Protestant Reformation and the resultant scientific revolution and industrial revolution produced the most productive, prosperous, and free nations in the history of the world. All this because Martin Luther had a place to stand and he made a stand on the unchangeable Word of Almighty God. The Reformation was one of the most momentous turning points in world history. It was led by men of strong faith, deep convictions, great intelligence, high moral standards, and tremendous courage. Towering above all these reformers, Martin Luther stands out as the most courageous, controversial and influential reformer of all time. No one comes even a close second. Luther has been alternatively described as the brilliant scholar who rediscovered the central message of the Bible. The prophet like Elijah and John the Baptist who came to reform God's people. the liberator who rose to free his people from the oppression of Rome. He is the last man of the Middle Ages. He is the first modern man. Ulrich Zwingli, the great reformer of Switzerland, said Luther is the Hercules who has defeated the tyranny of Rome. Pope Leo X called Luther a wild boar, ravaging his vineyard. Emperor Charles V described him as a demon in the habit of a monk. Martin Luther was born 10th of November, 1483, in Eisleben, Saxony, Germany. His father, Hans Luder, had worked hard to climb the social level from his humble peasant origins to become a successful copper mining entrepreneur. Hans married Margarita Lindemann, the daughter of a prosperous and gifted family that included doctors, lawyers, university professors and politicians. Hans Lüder owned several mines and smelters and he became a member of the city council in Munsfield, where Martin was raised in a strict discipline that was typical of that time. From age 7, Martin Luther began studying Latin at school. Hans intended his son to become a lawyer, so he sent him to the University of Erfurt at age 13. Before he'd even turned 14, he was already a university student. Martin proved to be extraordinarily intelligent. He earned his bachelor's and his master's degrees in the shortest time possible allowed by the statutes of the university. By age 18, he already had his master's. Martin proved so effective in debating that he earned the nickname The Philosopher. As Martin excelled in his studies, he soon became to be concerned about the state of his soul and the suitability of the legal career that his father had set before him. While travelling on foot near the town of Stockenheim, a violent thunderstorm brought Martin to his knees. With lightning striking all around him, Luther cried out for protection to the patron saint of minors. Saint Anne, help me. I will become a monk. He didn't even know to pray to God or to Jesus because he's taught that you couldn't approach God or Jesus directly, you have to go through one of the saints. So he actually prayed to Saint Anne. The storm around him matched this conflict raging within his soul. Although his parents were pious religious people, they were shocked when he abandoned his legal studies at Erfurt and entered the Augustinian monastery. Now I've heard some people say that Martin Luther was a dropout. Hardly. He had already earned his bachelor's and his master's, his work and his doctorate. That's not exactly being a dropout. Martin Luther was 21 years old when, in July 1505, he gave away all his possessions, including his loot, his many books, his clothing, and entered the Black Cloister of the Augustinian Order. This is the oldest extant sketch we have of Luther, this is when he was 37 years old. It shows how his face was gaunt from fasting and this is the man who confronted the emperor in 1521 at the Diet of Worms. Luther quickly adapted to the monastic life. He threw himself wholeheartedly into manual labor, spiritual disciplines, and the studies required, and he went way beyond the fasts, the prayers, the ascetic practices required by the monks. He forced himself to sleep on a cold stone floor without a blanket in a country where there's ice in winter and snow. That's something more serious than what we could imagine. He whipped himself and he seriously damaged his health. He was described as devout, earnest, relentlessly self-disciplined, unsparingly self-critical, intelligent, and impeccable. Luther rigorously pursued the monastic ideal, and he devoted himself to study, to prayer, and to the sacraments, and he wearied his priest with his confessions, and with his punishments of himself, with fasting, sleepless nights, and flagellation, that means whipping himself with a catenine tail's whip. Luther's wise and godly superior, Johannes von Staupitz, recognized Martin's great intellectual talents, and to challenge and challenge his energies away from excessive introspection, inward looking, he ordered him to undertake further studies, including Hebrew, Greek, and the scriptures, to become a university lecturer for the order. Martin Luther was ordained a priest in 1507. He studied and taught at the universities of Wittenberg and Erfurt. And in 1512, Martin Luther received his doctoral degree in divinity and he took the traditional vow on becoming a professor of the Wittenberg University to faithfully defend and teach the Holy Scriptures. This vow would be of immense encouragement to him later. Martin Luther never considered himself a rebel. He was a theologian seeking to be faithful to the vow required of him to teach and defend the Holy Scriptures. Luther committed most of the New Testament to memory, much of the Old Testament and he knew all the Psalms off by heart. The University of Wittenberg, which started in this building which today is called Luther House and it's the largest Reformation museum in the world today, but this was the University of Wittenberg at that time. It was founded by Prince Frederick of Saxony in 1502. Luther's friend from his university days in Erfurt, George Spellerton, was now the chaplain and secretary to the prince and closely involved in the prince's pet project of his new university. Wittenberg at this time was a small little river town with only about 2,000 residents. Prince Frederick wanted to build it up to become his new capital city of Saxony. From 1513 to 1517, Luther lectured at the University on the Psalms, Romans and Galatians. Being a university professor would have been a full-time job, however Luther had other responsibilities as well. He was the supervisor for 11 Augustinian monasteries, including the one at Wittenberg. Luther was responsible for preaching regularly at the monastery chapel, at the town church, that's the Stadtkirche, and at the castle church, the Schlosskirche. It was a combination of Luther's theological and pastoral studies that led him to take the actions which sparked the Reformation. And remember, he had been studying and lecturing on the Psalms, which deals with real worship. Galatians, which deals with faith. Romans, which deals with justification by faith. And so he was primed and ready for his bold move after studying these great pivotal books, Psalms, Galatians, and Romans. Luther had long been troubled spiritually with the righteousness of God. God demands absolute righteousness. Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Be holy, as I am holy. We are obliged to love God wholeheartedly, and we are obliged to love our neighbors as ourselves. And which of us can say we've always done that? It was because of his great concern for his eternal salvation that Luther sought to flee the world. In spite of the bitter grief and anger of his father, he had buried himself in the cloister and devoted himself to a life of strictest asceticism. This means living on the least amount of sleep, food and comforts possible. studying the Word of God as his first priority. Yet, despite devoting himself to earning salvation by good works, in accordance with the teaching of the Church at that time, Cheerfully performing the humblest of tasks, praying, fasting and chastising himself beyond the strictest monastic rules, he was still oppressed with a terrible sense of his utter sinfulness and lost condition. He had no sense and assurance of salvation. Then Martin Luther found comfort in the devotional writings of Bernard of Clairvaux, who stressed the free grace of Christ. for salvation. And then the writings of Augustine provided further light. Then, as he began to study the scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek, joy unspeakable flooded his heart. It was 1512, as he began to study Paul's epistle to the Romans, that the verse, for in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith, from first to last, just as it is written, that just shall live by faith, or the righteous shall live by faith. Luther later testified that as he began to understand that this righteousness of God is a free gift of God's grace through which we may live by faith. I felt entirely born again. I was led through open gates into paradise itself. Suddenly the whole of scripture had a different meaning for me. I recounted the passages which I've memorized, and I realized that other passages too showed that the work of God is what God works in us. Thus, St. Paul's words, that just shall live by faith, did become for me the gateway to paradise. The burden of a sin rolled away. Up until then, Martin Luther had been trying to earn salvation by good works. although he never felt that he'd been able to do enough. Now God had spoken to him through the Scripture. Man is not saved by works, but by faith alone. As a doctor of divinity, Luther had taken an oath to faithfully serve the Church by the study and teaching of Holy Scripture. At the university, He was responsible to prepare pastors. Now, having experienced God's grace in Christ, studying God's word, Luther began to see the emptiness, the self-absorption, the pious pretense, and the superstitious unbelief of his previous religious devotion. And having seen that in himself, he could not fail to recognize the same pious fraud and pharisaical futility all around him. In 1510, before being made a professor of Wittenberg University, Luther had been sent to Rome for his monastic order. What he had seen there had shocked and disillusioned him. Rome was the preeminent symbol of ancient civilization and the residence of Christ's vicar or representative on earth, the Pope. Luther was horrified by the blatant immorality and degeneracy prevalent in Rome at that time. The center of the medieval or Middle Ages Roman Catholic Church life was the Mass, the sacrament of the altar, the re-sacrificing of Christ. The Roman Catholic institution placed much emphasis on the punishment of sin in purgatory, a place of cleansing by fire before the faithful were deemed fit to enter heaven. So it's not absence from the body is presence of the Lord. No, absence of the body means you go to purgatory and you suffer. for thousands of years, maybe, before you are deemed worthy to enter heaven. This was the teaching of the Catholic Church. It still is. The Catholics taught that there are four sacraments that deal with forgiveness and the removal of sin and the cancellation of its punishment. Baptism, the Mass, Penance, and Extreme Unction or Last Rites. The heart of Penance is the priestly act of absolution whereby the priest pardons your sins, releases the penitent from eternal punishment, upon the words of absolution pronounced by the priest, The penitent sinner received the forgiveness of sins, release from eternal punishment, and restoration to a state of grace. Until he sinned again, of course. But this would require the sinner making some satisfaction by saying a prescribed number of prayers. Go and say Our Father ten times, or a hundred times, or go through the rosary fifty times, and so on. By fasting, by giving alms, by going on a pilgrimage, or by taking part in a crusade. In time, the Middle Ages church came to allow the penitent to substitute payment of amount of money for other forms of penalty of satisfaction. You can imagine some person is a wealthy merchant or prince, he says, well, do I really have to do all that? Can't I just give you some gold coins? Some of these priests thought, this is a great idea, you know, I'm going to make money out of this. And so it's not that the church put forward this idea, it's that people wanted it. People wanted assurance of salvation without having to do all the prayers and so on, and so many were very happy to give money in exchange for assurance of salvation. Sounds like something's going on today. The priest then issued an official statement or an indulgence, declaring the release from other penalties through the payment of money. a sort of get-out-of-hell free card. In time, the Catholic Church began to allow indulgences to be bought not only for themselves, but for relatives and friends who had died and passed into purgatory. You could get your grandmother out of purgatory by paying a certain amount of money to the Catholic Church. And you've got a document stating this. After all, Peter's got the keys of the kingdom. He can release anyone from Hades or purgatory that he likes. He's got this power. If you just give money to his representatives, they've got influence, and before you know it, you can be having assurance that your relatives who've died can be released from the suffering of purgatory. What a deal. People were excited, enthusiastic. This was a well-supported popular belief. They claimed these indulgences would shorten the time in purgatory. The practice of granting indulgences was based upon the Catholic doctrine of works of supererogation, which is a completely unbiblical doctrine. It teaches that works done beyond the demands of the law earn a reward. So, for example, Mother Teresa's obviously been far greater and better than God's law could require, so she's got this huge treasure of merits. You pray to Mother Teresa, she can give you out of a huge bank account she's got of extra works, good works that she's earned. As Christ and the saints have perfected holiness and have laid up a rich treasury of merits, the Roman Catholic Church came that it could draw upon this treasure of extra merits like they've got a checkbook. to write checks on the account that's been built up by the saints and the apostles of the church to provide satisfaction for those who paid a prescribed sum to the church. So this system of indulgence was super popular with the masses of people who preferred to pay sums of money to saying many prayers and partaking in many masses or going on a pilgrimage and so on. And of course they didn't want to suffer in purgatory. So this is one of the indulgences printed in Latin. You can see this at the Reformation Museum in Wittenberg in Lutherhaus. With space left out for the name of your relative, the amount of years they get of purgatory, the sum of money paid, and so on. This industry of indulgences became a tremendous source of income for the papacy. Here is one of the treasury boxes which took two people to carry and took four keys. They're four clasps. You can see the receptacle top where the money goes into the hole, into it to make sure the Pope got his money. And this also in Luther House today. In order to fund the building of the magnificent St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, Pope Leo X had authorised a plenary or a total indulgence. And so it was on this papal fundraising campaign to complete the construction of St Peter's Basilica, one of the greatest churches in the world to date, even to this date, Dominican monk and indulgence salesman extraordinaire John Texel arrived in Saxony, arguably the most foolish thing the Catholic Church has ever done. Because the shameless and scandalous manner in which Tetzel hawked these indulgences outraged Professor Martin Luther. Sales jingled such as as soon as the coin clinks in the chest, a soul flies up to heavenly rest. We're deceiving gullible people about their eternal souls. Martin Luther's study of the scriptures had convinced him salvation comes by the grace of God alone. received by faith alone, based upon the atonement of Christ on the cross of Calvary alone. Indulgences cannot remove any guilt. They could only induce a false sense of security. People are being deceived for eternity. Concerns that had now been growing since his visit to Rome in 1910, in 1510, and since his study of Romans, Galatians and Psalms beginning in 1512, now led Martin Luther to make a formal objection protest to the abuse of indulgences. All Saints Day in the Roman Catholic calendar is the 1st of November. and people would be coming from far and wide in order to view the more than 5,000 relics exhibited in the Sloshkirche. The castle church had been built specifically for the purpose of housing this massive collection, the greatest collection of indulgences on earth at that time. 5,000, this included toenails of St. Peter, bones of St. Thomas, milk from the Virgin Mary, an egg laid by the Holy Spirit when he was a dove, wood from the cross, nails from the cross. You could get more than a million years of purgatory if you reverenced each one of these relics in the Slosskirche, which you had to pay for the privilege of doing. And so Martin Luther chooses to nail his arguments to indulgences and superstitious unbiblical doctrines to the door of the castle church where the people would be coming the next day to participate in this superstitious nonsense. These theses or arguments created such a sensation that within two weeks they'd been printed and they were being read throughout Germany. Within a month, translations were being printed and sold all over Europe. The 95 Theses begin with the words, Since our Lord and Master Jesus Christ says, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. He wants a whole life of a believer to be a life of repentance. Martin Luther maintained that no sacrament can take away our responsibility to respond to Christ's command by inner repentance, evidenced by an outward change and by renewal of our entire life. If there's no change in life, there's no change of belief. It's from head to heart to hands. It's conviction, contrition, conversion. Change of mind, change of heart, change of life, change of behavior. It goes together. Martin Luther emphasized God alone can forgive sins. Indulgences are a fraud. You cannot buy salvation, nor can anyone sell forgiveness. It would be better to give your money to the poor than to waste your money on indulgences, he taught. If the Pope really has power over souls suffering in purgatory, why does he not release them out of pure Christian charity? Why does he need filthy money in order to do the Christian and charitable thing? Luther's 95 theses radically undermined Tetzel's business, almost bringing the sale of indulgences to a standstill. Tetzel, Mazzaloni, John X, three of the greatest minds in the Catholic Church at that time, after Luther, published a tax on Luther defending the sale of indulgences. When none of Martin Luther's friends came to his defense, Martin Luther felt deserted. Many of his closest friends believed he had been too rash in his criticism of established church practice. With the Pope's power being challenged and papal prophets being eroded, church officials mobilized their forces to bring this rebellious monk into line. First, the Augustinians, which is the order that he belonged to, meeting at Heidelberg, sought to silence Luther. When that failed, three excruciating interviews with Cardinal Katchadon in Augsburg. He was his superior in charge of the huge district he's in. Then in June 1519, John Eck debated Luther in Leipzig, the premier university in the world at that time. Some close friends of Luther tried to persuade him to settle things peacefully by giving in. But to Luther, this is now a matter of principle. Scriptural truth and eternal souls are at stake. In preparation for the Leipzig debate, Martin Luther plunged into the study of church history and canon law. That's church law. His studies convinced Luther that many of the decretals, such as the donation of Constantine, were forgeries. The Roman Catholic Church claimed that the Emperor Constantine donated the Roman Empire to the Church at his death, which was later found out was written hundreds of years after Constantine, which was a forgery, but this was an important block of Catholic teaching. On the 4th of July 1519, Luther and Eck faced one another at the University of Leipzig. The issue being debated was the supremacy of the Pope. Does the Pope really have authority over the Church? Luther pointed out that the Eastern Greek Orthodox Churches, which are part of the Church of Christ, even though it had never acknowledged the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, the great church councils of Nicaea, Chalcedon, Ephesus, none of them spoke about the Pope or the Pope having any particular authority or the Pope even existing. What do you read of the Pope in the Bible? We're told in the Bible, call no one on earth father. You have one father in heaven. And he calls himself holy father. The word holy father is only used once in the Bible, in John 17. And Jesus uses it to refer to the father in heaven, holy father. How blasphemous that a man on earth should call himself the holy father. Jesus said no one is good except God alone. How can anyone call himself his holiness? But Eck maneuvered Luther into a corner and he provoked him to defend some of his teachings, the teachings of the condemned heretic Jan Hus, professor of Prague University. By making Luther openly take a stand on the side of a man officially condemned by the church as a heretic, Eck was convinced he had won the debate. However, Martin Luther had greatly strengthened his cause amongst his followers, and he won many new supporters, including Martin Buser, who became a crucial leader of the Reformation in Strasbourg and who helped to disciple John Calvin. Luther later published an account of the Leipzig debate and followed this up with an abundance of teaching pamphlets on good works. It had a far-reaching effect, teaching how we are saved by faith alone. The noblest of all good works is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he taught. Luther maintained, shoemakers can glorify God. Housekeepers, farmers, businessmen, dairymaid, if they do their work to the glory of God, they're more pleasing to God than monks and nuns, which was heresy to the Catholic Church. They thought if you're really serious about God, you forsake marriage and you become a monk or a nun. Luther says, no, not at all. A dairymaid can milk cows to the glory of God. On the 15th of June, 1520, Pope Leo X signed a bull excommunicating Luther, describing Luther's teachings as heretical, scandalous, false, offensive, seducing. The bull called upon all Christians to burn Luther's works and forbade Luther to preach. All towns and districts that sheltered him would be placed under an interdict. In response, Luther wrote against the excribal bull of Antichrist. On the 10th of December 1520, surrounded by a large crowd of students and lecturers, he burned the papal bull, along with the books of Canterlot, outside the walls of Wittenberg. The Pope has no power to excommunicate me from the Church. Luther said he's not even part of the Church. He is Antichrist. Having exhausted all ecclesiastical means to bring Luther to heel, Pope Leo now appeals to the Emperor to deal with Luther. The Church has failed in every attempt. Previously, in 1518, when a Pope had summoned Luther to Rome, Prince Frederick had brought all of his influence to have this papal summons cancelled. When Luther had been summoned to Augsburg and Leipzig, Prince Frederick had arranged for safe conduct guarantees. But now Emperor Maximilian had died, and Charles V of Spain had been elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Prince Frederick himself had been a serious contender for this position, one of three, and he still held enormous influence. He was one of the electors, one of the six electors who chose who the emperor would be. So he prevailed upon Charles V to guarantee safe conduct for Luther as he was summoned to Worms for a council of German rulers. In the year before his summons to the Diet of Worms or the Parliament of Worms, Luther published some of his most powerful and influential treaties. In his address to the German nobility, August 1520, he called on the princes to deal with abuses within the church and to free the German church from the oppression of Rome. In the Babylonian captivity of the church in October, Luther argued that Rome's sacramental system held Christians captive, the Babylonian captivity of the church. He attacked the papacy for depriving individual Christians of their freedom to approach God directly by faith, without the mediation of unbiblical priests and sacraments, where you read of that in the Bible. To be valid, a sacrament has to be instituted by Christ, he said, and has to be exclusively Christian. So by these tests, he could find no justification for five of the Catholic institutions or sacraments. Luther maintained, only baptism and Lord's Supper are real sacraments, and these are placed within the community of believers, not in the hands of a church hierarchy. Indeed, Luther dismissed the traditional view of the church as a sacred hierarchy headed by the Pope, and he presented the biblical view of the church as a community, of regenerate, born-again believers, in which all believers are priests, he taught the priesthood of all believers, having direct access to God through Christ. In his Liberty of the Christian Man, November 1520, Luther presents the essentials of Christian belief and behavior. He removed the necessity of monasticism, going into a monastery or cloister and becoming a nun, saying no to marriage, saying no to productive employment, wealth and so on. He removed the necessity of monasticism by stressing that the essence of Christian living is serving God in a calling, whether it's secular or ecclesiastical. In promoting the Protestant work ethic, Luther laid the foundations for free enterprise and the tremendous productivity which it inspired. He taught that good works don't make us good, but a good man does do good works. Fruit doesn't produce a tree, but a tree does produce fruit. We are not saved by doing good works, we are saved by grace alone. However, if we are saved, we should expect good works to flow as the fruit of true faith. Summoned to Worms, Luther believed he was going to his death after all. A hundred years earlier, Huss had been burned at just such a gathering. He insisted that his co-worker Philip Melanchthon remain in Wittenberg. My dear brother, if I do not come back, if my enemies put me to death, you will go on teaching and staying fast in truth. If you live, my death will matter little. Martin Luther was 37 years old at the time of his confrontation with the Emperor at Worms. He had been excommunicated by the Pope. Luther would have remembered that a century before, Professor Jan Hus of Prague University had travelled to Constance with an imperial safe conduct which was not on it. Luther declared the husk was burned, the truth was not burned, and Christ still lives. I shall go to Worms, though there be as many devils as tiles on the roofs. Luther's journey to Worms was like a victory parade. Crowds lined the road cheering this man who had dared to stand up for Germany against the Pope. At four o'clock on Wednesday the 17th of April, Luther stood before the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles V was the emperor of Europe. He ruled all of the Austrian domains, the greatest empire in Europe at that time, Spain, the Netherlands, parts of Italy, and the Americas. At 21 years old, Charles V ruled over an empire larger than any territory since Charlemagne. Amidst all the pomp and the splendour of this imperial gathering stood the throne of the emperor on a raised platform. It was flanked by Spanish knights in gleaming armour, six princes, 24 dukes, 30 archbishops and bishops, seven ambassadors, who had been gathered to intimidate Luther to back down. Luther was asked to identify whether the books on the table were his writings. upon his confirmation that there were, the official asked Luther, do you wish to retract them, or do you adhere to them and continue to assert them? Luther had come expecting an opportunity to debate the issues, but it was now made clear to him that no debate was going to be tolerated. The Imperial Diet was ordering him to recant all his writings. Luther requested more time, that he might answer the question without injury to the word of God, without peril to soul. He's not going to have hours or days of debates, he's going to have a minute maximum. The emperor guaranteed him 24 hours to craft his reply. The next day, Thursday the 18th of April, as the sun was setting and torches were being lit, Luther was ushered into this August assembly. He was again asked whether he would recant what he had written, and Luther responded, some of his books taught accepted, established Christian doctrine on faith and good works. He could not deny accepted Christian doctrines. Other of his works attacked the papacy, and to retract these would be to encourage tyranny and to cover up evil. In the third carrier of books, he had responded to individuals who were defending popery, and these, Luther admitted, he had written too harshly. The examiner was not satisfied. You must give a simple, clear, and proper answer. Will you recant or not? Martin Luther's response, first given in Latin and then repeated in German so that everyone around could hear and understand, it shook the world. Unless I'm convinced by scripture or by clear reasoning that I am in error. For popes and councils have often erred and contradicted themselves. I cannot recant. For I am subject to the scriptures I have quoted. My conscience is captive to the word of God. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. It is unsafe and dangerous to do anything against one's conscience. Here I stand, so help me God. Amen." Amidst the shocked silence, cheers ran out for this courageous man who had stood up to the Emperor and to the Pope. Luther turned and left the tribunal, and numerous German nobles and knights formed a circle around him and escorted him safely back to his lodgings. The emperor was furious. However, Prince Frederick insisted that he honour his safe conduct guarantee. Charles V raged against this devil in the habit of a monk, and issued the Edict of Worms, which declared Martin Luther an outlaw, ordering his arrest and death as a heretic. As Martin Luther travelled back to Wittenberg preaching at towns on the route, armed horsemen plunged down the forest, snatched him from his wagon, dragged him off to Wartburg Castle. This kidnapping had actually been arranged by his prince, Prince Frederick of Saxony, amidst great secrecy, in order to preserve Luther's life. Despite the Emperor's decree that anyone helping Luther was subject to the loss of life and property, Frederick risked his throne, in his life to protect his pastor and his professor. For the next ten months Luther was hidden in Birkbeck Castle as Knight George or Yonker York. He translated the New Testament into German. He wrote booklets like On Confession, whether the Pope has authority to require it, On the Abolition of Private Masses, and Monastic Vows. By 1522, the New Testament German was on sale for about a week's wages. Before the printing press, it would take about two years' wages to buy a Bible. This is all handwritten. But now, you could get the whole New Testament for a week's wages. In Luther's absence, Professor Andreas Kallstadt initiated revolutionary changes, which led to growing unrest. March 1522, Luther returned to Wittenberg in eight days of intensive preaching. He renounced many of Kallstadt's innovations and declared he was placing too much emphasis on external reforms. Kallstadt was more like a revolutionary, smashing statues, smashing crucifixes, smashing altars, throwing rocks through stained glass windows. I mean, this destruction of property was not helpful. He is introducing a new legalism which threatened to overshadow justification by faith and the spirituality of the gospel. Luther feared this new legalism would undermine the reform movement from within. When the Peasants' Revolt erupted, Luther was horrified by the anarchy and the chaos and the bloodshed. He repudiated the revolutionaries like Munster, who Karl Marx calls the first true communist, and wrote against a robbing and murdering horde of peasants. Aghast at the devastation and massacres caused by the peasants' revolt, Luther taught that the princes had a duty to restore social order and crush this insurrection. Also in 1525, on the 13th of June, Luther married Katrin von Bora, a former nun from a noble family. Luther called home life the school of character. In fact, he said he learnt more in one year of marriage than he had learned in ten years in a monastery. And he stressed the importance of the family as the basic building block of society. Luther and Katie were blessed with six children. Also in 1525, Luther wrote one of his most important books on the bondage of the will. This was in response to Erasmus' The Freedom of the Will. Luther responded scathingly to Erasmus' theories on free will, arguing that man's will is so utterly in bondage to sin, only God's action can save. Because of total depravity, we cannot save ourselves at all. It's only God's action. He articulated the Augustinian view of predestination and declared that he much preferred his salvation be in the hands of God rather than his own. God saves sinners. God saves sinners completely. God saves sinners who cannot save themselves. As a result of the exchange between Luther and Erasmus, many Renaissance humanist scholars stopped supporting Luther. The Reformation not only brought sweeping changes in the church, but dramatic changes in all of society. First of all, the Reformation focused on bringing doctrines, forms of church government and worship, and daily life into conformity with the Word of God. But this of course had tremendous implications for political, economic, social and cultural life as well. Luther revised the Latin liturgy and translated it into German. Up till then, he came to church and he stood at church. There were no pews in the Catholic churches. He stood for the whole service. And Protestants introduced pews. And you didn't sing, you listened to the choir singing in Latin. If you didn't understand Latin, tough. The whole liturgy was in Latin. The prayers were in Latin. You didn't understand, because only a few people knew Latin, that was the language of the scholars, but the ordinary people did not. So everything in church was done as a mystery and as a sacrament, which is all kinds of magical things, but now Luther comes and he lifts the Word of God up and he makes it available in the language of the common people. And he gets everyone singing, in their own language, the Scriptures, not just listening to the choir in Latin. And whereas in the past you only received the wafer, the fruit of the vine was reserved for the clergy. They couldn't allow the people to have the grape juice. This had to be only for the clergy. What happened if you spilled some of the blood of Christ? And so he changed that and he said the people are to receive communion in both the fruit of the vine and the wafer, representing the body and the blood of Christ. The whole emphasis in churches changed from the sacramental celebration of the Mass to the preaching and teaching of God's Word. The altar is taken out and now a pulpit is put where the altar used to be or a table with the open Bible on it. Luther maintained every person has the right and the duty to read and study the Bible in his own language. This became the foundation of the Reformation. A careful study of the Bible as the source of all truth and as the only legitimate authority for all questions of faith and conduct. Who is the church? The church is a community of believers, not a hierarchy of officials. The church is an organism, a living body, not an organization. The church is a living body of which all true believers are members through regeneration. Luther stressed the priesthood of all believers. We do not gain salvation through the church, we become members of the church when we become believers. He taught regenerate church membership. So the Reformation dealt with basic principles, primary issues, including what is our authority? Not the popes and councils, no. The Bible alone is our authority, not the councils and leaders of church, often heard and contradicted one another. The Bible is above our traditions. How are we saved? Salvation is by the grace of God alone, received by faith alone, accomplished by the atonement of Christ on the cross of Calvary alone. Grace comes before sacraments. You don't receive grace through the sacraments. The sacraments symbolize the grace you receive from God directly. Who are the true church? The true church is composed of the elect, those chosen of God, those regenerated by God's Holy Spirit, those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. He taught regenerate church membership. Yes, your name might be written in the membership book of your church, but is it written in the Lamb's Book of Life? Who are the priests? True believers. Not those characters dressed in fancy dress in the front of some Catholic temple. No. He taught the priesthood of all believers. Now this does not mean the preacherhood of all believers. Some people are called to be preachers and evangelists and teachers and that takes training and hard work. But the priesthood of all believers. A priest is a bridge builder. He stands between God and man. A priest speaks to God on behalf of man. He speaks to man on behalf of God. And so this intercessory and prophetic work of a priest Luther says, all true believers have direct access to God. When you come up to some ministers, oh, man of God, will you pray for me? It's a bit of superstition in some ways, as though your prayers are not effective, as though he's got some magic power like a witch doctor, that he can do something that you can't do. As a true believer, you have the right to approach God directly. And yes, we ask for other people to pray for us, but seeking out one specific super anointed man of God for prayers is more Roman Catholic superstition. than biblical teaching. A certain Luth taught against that. So the battle cries of the Reformation you've probably heard. These are the five solas. Solus Christus, Christ alone is the head of the church. Solus Scriptura, scripture alone is the ultimate authority. Solus Gracia, salvation is by the grace of God alone. Solus Fide, salvation is received by faith alone. Soli Deo Gloria, everything should be done to the glory of God alone. Despite Luther being declared an outlaw by the emperor, he survived to minister and write for 25 more years. He died, perhaps of poison, 18th of February, 1546. In spite of many illnesses, Luther remained very active, productive as an advisor to princes, theologians, pastors. He published major commentaries, he produced great quantities of books and pamphlets, and he completed the translation of the Old Testament to German by 1534. Luther continued preaching and teaching to the very end of his life. He frequently entertained students and guests in his home, and he produced beautiful hymns and poems, including one hymn that will live forever, Ein fester Berg ist unser Gott, a mighty fortress is our God. And that is the most popular and translates him in the history of the church. Luther also did a great deal to promote education. He labored tirelessly. for the establishment of schools everywhere. He wrote a shorter catechism in order to train up children in the essential doctrines of the faith. It has been common, especially for the Americans, to portray Luther as a simple and obscure monk who challenged the Pope and Emperor. Actually, Martin Luther was anything but simple or obscure. He was learned, experienced, and he accomplished far more than most men of his age. He had lived in Magdeburg. Eisenacht was one of the most distinguished graduates of the University of Erfurt. Luther had travelled to Cologne, to Leipzig, he had crossed the Alps, he had walked all the way to Rome itself. Luther was a great student. With tremendous breadth of reading, he had excelled in his studies, he had achieved his Master of Arts and his Doctor of Theology in record time. He was an accomplished, best-selling author, one of the greatest preachers of all time, a highly respected theological professor, and one of the first professors to lecture in the German language instead of just in Latin. Far from being a simple monk, Luther was the prior of his monastery and the district vicar of 11 other monasteries. Luther was a monk, but he was also a priest, a preacher, a professor, a writer, and a reformer. So where did they come up with this simple, obscure monk nonsense from? He was one of the most courageous and influential people in all of history. The Lutheran faith was adopted not only in northern Germany, but also throughout Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. And in Namibia today, you'll see many of the people are Lutheran too. It's very far and wide. You can see the lands shaded in red are where Luther's teachings were accepted wholeheartedly, right up to Estonia and Latvia. Luther challenged the power of Rome over the Christian church. He smashed the chains of superstition and tyranny. He restored Christian liberty to worship God in spirit and in truth. Luther was a controversial figure in his day. He has continued to be considered controversial to this very day. The whole website's dedicated to attacking him. But there's no doubt that Martin Luther's search for peace with God changed the whole course of human history. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, that just shall live by faith. This, what I've presented to you today, is one of the chapters in the Greatest Century of Reformation book. We've donated these books to your library and also to the audio library, the Reformation. There's also a chapter on Luther and victorious Christians who changed the world. And we have produced a variety of resources to help us in this Reformation-founded year to revive our prayer life, revive our devotion life, reform our families, based upon Luther's teachings of how to revive our prayer life by praying the Psalms and structuring our prayers according to Scripture. So these are some of the Reformation 500 fire resources. If you go onto the ReformationSA.org website, you'll find this article, links to the PowerPoint, links to our sermon audio, which I've got lectures like these available that you can share with other people, ReformationSA.org. If you're on social media, well, you can go onto Reformation 500. Reformation 500 is our Facebook page dealing with these issues. There's also the Reform 500 website which has many of the great fire documents and 95 theses and others available as well. So any questions, any comments from anyone on Martin Luther captive to the word of God? Questions, comments? Are we today still being true, consistently true to these five solas? We can see in church history these five solos did revolutionize and reform the church, but in many ways have we not drifted on many of these points, in some cases all of these five points. You can see points where we are not being consistent and where we need to come back to scripture alone as the ultimate authority in all matters. Are we not sometimes having, and this is what we're going to discuss in other parts of this conference, In what ways can we work for Reformation Day? And you will be given now, I think we can hand out now as we ask questions, the 95 Theses for Reformation Day. These are some of what Luther put in the original 95 Theses and other of his writings and of Tyndale, Zwingli, Calvin, the scriptures they quoted and the points they made. So these are points that can guide you in your study. on how we apply these five solas into all areas of life. So I would recommend you to utilize this and if you want it electronically you can share it electronically by going on our website. But yes, I would say in many cases we've got men of God and apostles claiming to be head of the church and almost supplanting Christ. Sometimes we're seeing people having the visions and dreams taking the place of scriptural authority. Sometimes we see people putting something other than grace as the source of salvation and adding to faith, as faith plus works. And there's a lot of glorification of man. If you think of how the reformers, for example, they had the Geneva gown. They wore a gown to cover their normal clothes. They had a solid pulpit to obscure them as people. They had a liturgy that had scripture front. And today what do we do? We've got fancy outfits, glitter, glamour, and we've got this blow-dried evangelist up front, and he does a perspic stand, and he's the one strutting up now. And the attention now is more on the preacher or the man of God or the prophet or the apostle than on God and His Word. And in many ways I'd say things are being done for the glory of man. Even just take how the worship team, as though music's the only part of worship, whereas what we think, what we say, our preaching is also meant to be worship. Having a mind renewed and taking every thought captive to the Word of God is also part of worship. But now we've made the musicians the worship team. Many of them won't qualify in terms of a deacon or an elder if you took Timothy and Titus requirements for deacon or elder. And yet we've got many of our churches, the worship team up front and the tensions on me. And what's disturbing is, from my perspective, that you give applause to worship teams. Now if the worship team's doing this to the glory of God alone, they should not accept applause because it's one thing if you're doing a performance or if you've got a graduation service, applause is appropriate there. But a worship service, Surely no applause should be given to man. So I find that disturbing. I think every one of these points we should examine in the light of our culture, country, congregation, family, and say, are we being faithful consistently to all these five principles? Thank you. Has the Roman Catholic Church changed? And if so, how much? Because the teachings of the Reformation of Luther. Luther was condemned as a heretic, damned to hell for all eternity by the Council of Trent and the popes. However, the recent popes have expressed their regret at how Luther was treated, and how Hus was treated, and have apologized to the churches in Germany and in Czechoslovakia for having burned at the stake Jan Hus and for having excommunicated Luther. So the Roman Catholic Church has come to the point of having to admit Lutheran Hasbro rights in many areas, at least, from their perspective. Now we can see that the Roman Catholic Church which banned the Bible! You were not allowed to have the Bible unless you were a priest. If you weren't clergy, you weren't allowed to touch the Bible. The Bible was only allowed to be in Latin, and only the clergy could handle the Bible, according to the Catholic Church from the Council of Valencia all the way through to the second Vatican Council in 1964. So, before 1964, Roman Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible if they were not clergy, and they were not allowed to have the Bible in their own language. Now the Roman Catholic Church is sponsoring Bible translations into English, French, Italian. So, Luther has succeeded that far that the Catholics no longer just have their services in Latin, they have their services in English, Chechewa, Pemba, all kinds of language. So the Catholics have certainly rolled back on many issues, but they still teach purgatory, they still teach indulgences, they still teach prayer through Mary, they still teach the Pope is able to issue infallible statements and so on. So the Catholic Church has changed, in some case for the good, but as you can see it's still a very heretical body. Indeed. I'll ask John if you'd answer that question, because John's been doing quite an in-depth study on how the health and wealth name and claim and prosperity cult affects. And John, what would you say in answer to that? Yes, there is a great, a great disturbing movement amongst many church leaders today to go toward the health, wealth, prosperity movement. I would say it is not only because of abject poverty that these things exist. A lot of people who are quite wealthy like it because it appeals to our fleshly desires a lot of the time. Not that all those desires are necessarily sinful, but it often appeals to our fleshly desires. In the Book of Romans, and we'll go a bit through Romans later on, Paul empties it by saying, mark those who cause division. And I'm not somebody who who breaks ties with others very frequently. I've worked across many denominations. I grew up in the Pentecostal Church. Frontline Fellowship is a reformed mission. I did some theological training through the Assemblies of God. I've worked with many people from many different organizations. So I'm not somebody who cuts people off and just shames everybody. I'm not a fighter like that. However, We are called to mark those who are clear heretics. And today there is an incredible fear amongst pastors for naming heretics or even naming bad or evil movements. You know, I've named people, I was at a Baptist seminary a while ago, and I was busy giving some presentations, and I named people who are known to be heretics, you know, Benny Hinn, or Miles Monroe, or any of these guys. They are definitely heretics. And the students were so angry with me. for scratching their idols and telling them that these people are preaching false gospels and tomorrow we will get into these things with more detail. But I think that people need to stand up for what is true and also speak about what is false. Both of those things are required. We shouldn't be those who are only attacking all the false teachers and only making our ministry all about attacking false teachers. That's important. But we should also be people who are positively proclaiming the truth. And that's why institutions such as this one are so important. that people not only are able to recognize that this is false, it's easy to point out errors in other people's theology. But you must also be able to positively present what is true. And I think that church leaders need to get a very strong grip on this. But tomorrow, definitely, we will be looking at more specific examples of some false teachings. And what is the positive teaching in place of the false things that we see happening today? Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Yes, I think it's important to pray with the people and we should be praying as a congregation. We should encourage our prayer meetings. We should encourage corporate prayers, spontaneous prayer. There should, of course, be prayer where we pray together as we read in the Bible. They would pray together the same prayer, like the Lord's Prayer, and it would be a corporate liturgical thing done in the church. But when the people come and say, would you pray for me? Let's pray together. You pray and then I'll pray with you and encourage that they also pray. It shouldn't just be that you come to me and I will pray for you. Because after a while looking to us as the healer, the provider, the protector, we are needing to direct people to look to the Lord. John, would you add anything to this? Because you surely get this question a lot. There are two things that really are important. One, if you are the pastor, yes. You do have the responsibility. When people come to you, and you are a teacher or an elder, you should be pointing them to the Word and say, this is what the Word of God says. And that is the frightening thing, is you are in a position where you are meant to be instructing people in the way of truth. That is true. However, you do not have intrinsic power, meaning that you don't have power in and of yourself as an individual. Any power that you might have is the Holy Spirit empowering you. But the work of the Holy Spirit, maybe we'll get into that a little bit later on. The priesthood of all believers, however, shows us that because Christ is our great High Priest, we don't need an earthly mediator. It's not that we don't need any mediator, we do, but Christ is that mediator. We don't need an earthly mediator. Yes, we should be praying for each other. I mean, the book of James talks about this. Even people brought their children to Jesus to bless them in Mark chapter 10. And he was upset when these disciples tried to stop him. Only place in the Bible we read where Jesus was greatly displeased, when people tried to stop the children from being blessed by Christ. So praying for people is good. But what we are against, or what we are cautioning people from, is that Because somebody stands behind a pulpit, or because somebody is called pastor, apostle, priest, whatever he's called, he now has the power in and of himself to take away all of your problems and all of your transgressions and all of the things that are plaguing you through the power of his prayer alone, and that he receives the glory for it. And it is a difficult balance, but we must be careful that the glory is not going to man, and that people are not thinking, I need this man of God because he has backdoor access into heaven that I cannot have apart from him. That's the danger. That's the danger. But yes, of course, pastoral work is shepherding by nature, so we have to try and maintain a bit of that balance. Very good. Any other questions or comments? The church today has become seriously corrupt, and corrupted by money, and materialistic, and become sensational, superficial. In many cases, this isn't just the false teachers abusing the congregations. It's the false teachers giving the congregations what they want to hear, and see, and do, and experience. So in many ways, the false teacher is a judgment of God upon people who want to be false believers, and they want these kind of falsehoods And they like the ears tickled with what they're itching to hear. Many people love the teachings of these false teachers. God wants you to be healthy and wealthy. He doesn't want you to be healthy and wealthy. These are normal things that people want. But this is not what the scriptures teach. This is not what Jesus taught. This is not what the apostles taught. This is not wise and healthy. And we are feeding the materialism and the selfishness of our age with this sensational, trivial nonsense. that's out there, and people getting corrupted in the process. Just as the Catholic church got corrupted when they started to give what the people wanted in exchange for money, they started, after a while, wanting more of that money, more of that power, more of that wealth and prestige that comes from being respected as the holy man of God and all this. So it is dangerous. I do see that there's a danger that some of us have been tricked into unbiblical and unwise practices. And this is why it's always good to have a Reformation movement of saying, this is what the Bible teaches. How close are we to the scriptures on this? How far have we drifted? What are we doing that is unbiblical? And that's what the Ninth and Fourth East Reformation Day is meant to do. It's meant to challenge us to re-look at everything. Education, entertainment, worship, doctrine, practice, repentance, restitution, all of this is vital for healthy lives, just like For a healthy body, we need good exercise, fresh air. We need pure water. We need a positive attitude. There's a whole lot of things you need to have a healthy body and a diet of a variety of things. You can't just eat vegetables. You can't just have ice cream. You can't just have milk. There's got to be a variety. And so as physical health requires many components to make up a healthy body, spiritual health requires many components of doctrine and practice. And the Reformation is meant to be If I were to summarize the Reformation in one phrase, it's back to the Bible. This is what you can do. This is what you must do. And this year is as good a year as any, with this major historic milestone. When you remember the Great Reformation, you say, how much have we benefited from it? And there's a lot. There's a lot of things we've benefited from it. And how far have we drifted from it? What do we need to do to get back? And thank you all for being here.