Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. The primary texts for today in commemoration of Frederick the Wise, Christian ruler, are the readings from Psalm 2, Proverbs 8, and St. John 3. Frederick was known as a good, wise, and just ruler. His decisions not only protected His native Saxony, but Luther, the Reformation, and ultimately, and most importantly, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus, the title of this sermon is, The Wise Protector. Now, you have to love some of the titles that they had for rulers back in this time, right? I mean, can you imagine being known as the wise? Philip the Magnanimous. So we don't generally do that today with our leaders, give them these titles, but you can think of someone and maybe attach a title to them in your mind if you want. But today we want to look at how Frederick navigated the course during the Reformation. The Reformation is swirling and why we can say that he was wise. And he actually earned that name though before the Reformation. Frederick was born on January 17th, 1463 in Torgau, which is in the modern day nation of Germany. And at that time it was in the region, you know, modern Germany, as we know, it did not exist today. They were kind of different kingdoms. And in particular, this was Saxony. He was the elector of Saxony, basically the ruler of that. And they called them electors because they had one of eight votes. who was going to be the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which was the most powerful empire in Europe at the time. So he was one of only eight men that would have a vote to elect that emperor. So that is a pretty powerful position. And in 1486, at a fairly young age of 25, Frederick assumed the position of Elector of Saxony from his father. Now, Frederick never married. He never had any children, so he had dedicated established a reputation as a visionary leader, one who was just, who was fair, and was wise in his dealings and his decision-making. And one of the decisions that he would make was he thought it would be a good idea to start a seminary in the fairly small town of Wittenberg. And in doing that, he brought in two of the brightest young of Melanchthon, and the other was somebody you may have heard of, Martin Luther, right? These are the two young guys he brought in. So, Frederick was a promoter and a protector of the region over which he ruled. And in the Lutheran Church, we regularly pray for our leaders. And that is based on 1 Timothy 2, verses 1 and 2, which tells us this, may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." So we pray for our leaders on a fairly regular basis here. Now that is not to be confused with an endorsement of all of every leader's policies, right? We, I think this is, our church is fairly young, but we are in our third president now of our church's existence. And, you know, we prayed for President Obama, we prayed for President Trump, we prayed for President Biden. Well, you know, your mind may vary on this, but I'm sure with all three of them, there's probably been stuff they did that you liked and stuff they did that you didn't like. But we're not praying for them. politically, so to speak, but we're praying for them because they're our leaders. And we want them to be wise. We want them to make good decisions. And they are the leaders that, for better or worse, God knows best, He has chosen those leaders for us. And one of the things that we pray for is that they will maintain order in society, that people will be safe. We also pray that they would allow And we heard about that this morning with our Gideon guests. They would pray for that too because they are in, what did he say, about 200 countries. So they would want to pray for the leaders of those countries that they would allow them to come in and bring in Bibles and Testaments and share the gospel with the people there. The Bible has a lot to say about leadership. We heard some of it today. It offers encouragement for rulers to be God-fearing, and it gives them warnings if they are not. Remember what we read in Psalm 2, verses 10 and 11. Now therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Then from Proverbs 8, it provided counsel to rulers to avoid pride, arrogance, and evil, but instead to look to the Lord for his counsel, wisdom, insight, and strength. Verses 15 and 16. By me, king's reign, and rulers decree what is just, by me, prince's rule, and nobles all who govern justly. And these are the principles that Frederick the Wise followed. He was a good leader. And the key role that God had in place for Frederick the Wise was to ensure that the Reformation would advance, and that Luther and his allies would be able to speak. Because you see, they could have very easily been crushed and silenced by the Roman Catholic Church. So in 1517, Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. That was a hammer blow that set in motion a lot of great change. And what were those 95 theses? Well, they were points of debate. They were things that Luther thought the Church needed to debate and discuss. They brought out things that the Roman Catholic Church was doing that were not supported by the Bible. So what Luther hoped for was dialogue. He hoped for reform of these things. He wasn't trying to damage the Church or even break up the Church. He said, these are things we need to talk about. These are things we need to fix. But Luther would soon learn that Rome was not interested in dialogue and reform. Rome was only interested in silencing them, getting them to recant. And Luther wasn't the first one to have these ideas, was he? Some of the same ideas, some of the same issues. Luther's bringing up, there had been men earlier in history like John Hus and Geronimo Savanarola in Italy. Hus was in Bohemia. But the difference was they didn't have a Frederick DeWise. They didn't have a political protector. So they were put on sham trials and they were executed. They were put to death. But Frederick DeWise had no intention of just handing over his prized theological professor at his young university. He wisely understood that if Luther went to Rome, he was dead. So despite attempted bribes and maneuvers by Rome, he would not budge. And despite what is portrayed in some of the Luther movies, we actually have no solid evidence that Luther and Frederick the Wise ever met in person. But they did communicate regularly. They communicated through Frederick's secretary, George Spallatin, who was actually a classmate of Luther's in seminary. And if you've seen the 2003 Luther movie, and if you haven't seen it, I would definitely recommend seeing it. It's incredibly well done. And the guy who plays Frederick the Wise in that movie is a two-time Academy Award winner, Sir Peter Ustinov. And he gives a magnificent performance in that movie. It was actually one of the last films he acted in because he died in 2004. And I'm gonna read you a quote from something he said in the movie when he was speaking to Spallatin that shows his wisdom. He said, Spallatin, There are two ways of saying no to someone you believe is stronger than yourself. Maybe you've had to do that in your life, right? And he said, the first is to say nothing and to go on merely doing what you were doing before and pretend you never heard them. And you just allow inertia and time to be your allies. But the second is to say no in such a kind and thoughtful way that it befuddles them. Naturally, if both of these strategies fail, there is nothing but to relent, or to fight. And of course, if you decide to fight, you must also have to decide to win. No, I am not going to send my monk to Rome. They'll only kill him. It's so irritating. Who are they to deprive my university of such a fine mind? I love that little dialogue he had there in the movie, so great. But eventually Frederick did, and negotiations agreed to send Luther to the city of Worms, or Worms in German, for a hearing. But only after Rome guaranteed his safety, the emperor and all the high-ups themselves would be there. So if you've been a Lutheran for a while, of course you know this. This is 1521, and Luther refuses to recant his teachings, right? The famous, here I stand moments. and they do honor their deal of letting him get out of Horms alive. But after that, all bets were off because they brand Luther as a heretic. They excommunicate Luther, which means literally anyone could kill him and face no criminal penalty for killing a heretic. But once again, Frederick acts. He protects Luther. What he does is he takes him with a fake kidnapping and takes him to the Wartburg Castle. and he hides out there for a period of time. Now, what motivated Frederick twice to protect Luther? Well, was it that he agreed with all of Luther's work in the Reformation, agreed with all of his things theologically? Well, actually it wasn't, at least at first. In fact, Frederick remained a devout Roman Catholic for most of his life. In fact, Frederick had accumulated one of the most impressive relics collections in the world, and tiny little Wittenberg. He had taken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1493, and he had returned with the supposed thumb of St. Anne, and he didn't stop there. Now, of course, the authenticity of any of these relics is always dubious, but he ended up collecting in his life 20,000 relics, including supposedly bones and teeth of famous saints, hairs from cloth from the cradle of Christ, a twig from the burning bush, and bread from the very last supper. And what he would do is every year on All Souls Day, the day before All Saints Day, he would open his relics collection to his kingdom. And of course, for a nice donation, you could go in and see these relics. And by viewing these relics, it was believed you were shaving time off purgatory. This is what Frederick did, yet he protected Luther. So if he was still committed to some of the false doctrines of Rome, what motivated him to do this? Well, he was motivated out of a sense of justice and duty to protect the citizens of Saxony. But the good news is over time, the evidence suggests that he would be converted to the doctrines of the Reformation. In 1523, he ended the annual public viewing of his relics. Now that's a big deal. This was his wife's work. He spent a lot of time and a lot of money collecting these relics. But he decided to stop showing them and telling people that they could get years off purgatory. He eventually banned the Catholic Mass. He received both the bread and the wine. As opposed to the common Roman practice at the time, as a lay person, you could only receive the bread, you could only receive the host. But on his deathbed, he received communion in the biblical manner. So when Frederick died on May 5th, 1520.5, that's his commemoration day today, May 5th, we have a lot of evidence to be hopeful that he truly received the salvation of Christ, just as described Sir Frederick was a wise protector of Saxony. God had given him the privilege of ruling this area. He was also a wise protector of Martin Luther and the Reformation. So again, without him, this could have all been ended very quickly. But what is his greatest contribution to the Kingdom of God? I would have to say it's that through his protection of Luther, by allowing Luther to teach what the Bible taught, he was, by extension, protecting the Gospel. That is the greatest thing to come out of the Reformation. It is the return of the Bible and the glorious Gospel that it proclaims to the heart and the center of the Church. Countless souls have heard, and they continue to hear the Gospel because of this. Our Gospel reading from St. John 3 was a pretty familiar one, wasn't it? Even a lot of non-Christians know John 3.16. I did not know he was going to tell that testimony, the repiral testimony. But even this guy that went into the hotel to take his own life, he knew John 3.16. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now, Jesus spoke those words to an inquiring leader named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He was a member of the Sanhedrin council. He was a ruler. He was an important guy. But what does Jesus tell him in verse 3? 3 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Those words were true when Jesus spoke them. Those words were true when Luther was fighting the good fight for the gospel, and they are true today. We must be born again, meaning we must know Jesus to be saved. And how is that done? How is that done? The Holy Spirit works faith. The Holy Spirit works faith in the hearts of people through the Word and sacrament. As we've been hearing about this morning, this commemoration day is really perfect for the Gideon to visit because the Holy Bible is God's Word. That's why ministries like the Gideon's place such an emphasis on getting God's Word out there to as many places I think I probably say this every time the Indians come, but the best Indian story, that was a pretty good one, but just in kind of a humorous way, I think it was in South America somewhere, they gave a construction worker a Bible, and he got his, he threw the thing up on the roof, and there was like a roofer out there that got the Bible and was saved, you know? It's like, so he said, you're not gonna stop God's word from doing what he wants it to do. People may throw it in the trash, they throw it away, but it's gonna find its way to someone. And thanks be to God, I think he said 190 languages, the Bible will say, that they're giving out. People need the Bible in their own language. If he was still here, I'd ask him, but I'm guessing they probably don't give out Latin Bibles anymore, because nobody speaks Latin, right? But faith comes by hearing, Romans 10, 17. So that brings us back here as we come to the conclusion of something that I mentioned before, this issue of God's word and it being in the language of the people. Remember what I said Frederick DeWise did for Mark Luther afterwards? He put him up in the Wartburg Castle. He gave him safe haven in the castle. And what did Luther do there at Wartburg Castle? He wasn't just twiddling his thumbs. He wasn't just hanging out there. He translated the Bible into German. at Wartburg Castle. He put it in the language of the people. And believe it or not, this is crazy, and it really was until the 20th century when they changed this. As a Roman Catholic believer, you were not allowed to have a Bible and read it for yourself. Can you imagine that? We need to get that into the hands of the people. And if you were fortunate to have a Bible, or see a Bible, if you were fortunate enough, when you went to Mass, you heard the Bible read, it was in Latin, you couldn't understand it. But Luther said, we need to get this in German. He had the opportunity to translate the Bible into German, and then many other languages follow after that, including our own English. And he actually dedicated his first copy of the Bible to Frederick, and it was presented to him, because he understood God used Frederick to make this happen. So this gave people the opportunity to believe, to receive Jesus Christ. that could happen. And the Bible was translated into the heart language of the people of Saxony, and it's still being translated today into the heart languages of people around the world. So God's word today continues to go forward. The Gideons have a big part of that, but we can't just leave it all to the Gideons. We have a part in that. God used Frederick the Wise to protect, and by this, send the gospel not only to Saxony, but to lay the groundwork for it to go around the world. So we too should be faithful proclaimers of the gospel, of the Jesus who came to save the world, the Jesus Christ crucified to pay for the sins of the world, the Jesus Christ who rose from the dead in victory over sin and death. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!