It was the summer of 1526, just a little more than five years after Martin Luther's historic stand at the Diet of Worms. In that summer, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, tried to crush the Reformation. And he gathered the forces of the empire in a grand continental alliance toward that end. But as often happens, public figures in the world do not control all the events. There was an unusual political shift that made the Pope and the emperor become enemies. And the enmity that arose between those two secured more time in which the Lutheran movement could grow. The famous Diet at Worms in 1521 issued an imperial edict that branded the teachings of Luther as heresy and condemned him as an outlaw of the empire. And the condemnation of him as an outlaw meant that anybody who came across him could dispatch him right on the spot, put him to death without any permission from anybody to do so and would not be charged with any offense at all. But in the five years that followed that edict of Worms, few German princes were eager to enforce it. An imperial diet scheduled for Augsburg in November 1525 never convened, had to be canceled. There just wasn't sufficient attendance. And so the emperor in place of that diet summoned the electors of the empire to spire in June of 1526. Lutheranism had a group of influential defenders by that time in the diet. The princes flexed their political muscles in defiance of the wishes of the bishops and the cardinals and the priests and other imperial lords as well. When the reformed princes arrived in Spire, they were in high spirits. The threats of the emperor did not daunt them in the slightest. As the various delegations entered the city, fluttering from their banners were the initial letters of the words in the Latin expression that meant, the word of the Lord endureth forever. They were not afraid. It would appear there was every reason they should be, but they were not afraid. They pledged their allegiance to the Word of God and vowed to prevail under that sign. The Lutheran princes looked to the motto on their ensigns and took great encouragement. And the words of that motto are the words of our text today. Some trust in chariots. and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." When the supporters of the Lutheran movement arrived in Spire, this was 493 years ago, they demanded a church in which to conduct Lutheran services, the Romanist bishop refused. So the Lutheran princes opened their hotels for the preaching of the gospel. And on one Lord's Day, as many as 8,000 people assembled to hear the preaching. standing for the most part out in the open air. The Romanist churches were largely empty. And as Wiley noted in his history of Protestantism, the priests were left alone at the foot of the altars. The conduct of those who adhere to the Lutheran cause was exemplary. They didn't go to the drinking houses. They didn't go to the gambling dens. And in contrast to those who followed the ways of the Romanist religion, they demonstrated an uprightness of life that impressed the people of Spire at large. King Ferdinand of Austria the brother of the emperor, presided at the sessions of that first diet of spire, and when he felt that there was a move to assert the liberty of the various regions of the empire to practice Lutheranism, he attempted to stop it. He produced a letter from his brother, the emperor, that demanded the enforcement of the Edict of Worms and the rejection of the aspirations of the reformed princes. It was, as you may imagine, a distressing moment. The letter carried the threat of the use of imperial force. to compel compliance. But those Lutheran princes, civic leaders, knew not to put their trust in their horsemen or in their financial resources. They rested on the name of the Lord their God and they resolved that no one would silence them. Now the previous year, 1525, featured shocking developments in Germany. Mobs of peasants, vandalized churches. Many people saw with amazement the appearance of former monks and nuns at marriage ceremonies, including the wedding of Martin Luther himself to Catherine von Bora, a former nun. Now we hear the reports of those things and it seems a mild thing to us, but if you had been living in that time, that would have been a profound message. Because it meant that there was no going back. When monks and nuns got married, there was no way they were not going to be married after that time. that not even the power and the will of the emperor could overcome that reality. Now as yet, this movement that Luther and his colleagues led had no clear-cut identity, but it was about to get one. The power play at the first Diet of Speyer in 1526 led to a more amazing development just three years later when there was a second imperial diet at Spire in 1529, 490 years ago, and there a voice arose to define the wishes of the Pope and the Emperor. And that voice echoed across the whole continent of Europe and then subsequently across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. It was a voice of liberty. It was in truth Protestantism's adamant voice. And I want you to think upon that theme with me on this Reformation Sunday. Adamant has to do not only with that which is hard, that which is impervious, but it also has about it an aggressiveness. That is, they were not just going to be silent, they were going to actually continue to proclaim the truth. Now if we had been in that time, we would have concluded that the political realities were very much against the reformers. The kings of France and England formed an unholy alliance to crush Lutheranism, and for his efforts in that cause, Henry VIII received from the Pope the title of Defender of the Faith. Now a few years later, the Pope had cause to regret having bestowed that title on Henry VIII, but God is the confounder of the plans of his enemies. I don't know if you saw the news item that last night, the leader of ISIS, the world's preeminent terrorist, was killed in a U.S.-led raid. They found out where he was and they carried out a raid that ended up with this brave terrorist blowing himself to bits with a suicide vest. God confounds the plans of those who hate him. And that was true in the time of the Reformation. In that time, the Emperor Charles V went into battle and gained a great victory and became very prestigious as a result. And the Pope came to regard him as a threat to the Pope's ambitions to reestablish papal power in a united and Roman Catholic Europe. So the Pope began to plot against the Emperor, and the Emperor, when he learned of the plots of the Pope against him, unleashed his fury on the papal city. So that imperial forces attacked the city of Rome and plundered it. That was in 1527. And the whole political scene in Europe, as you may imagine, convulsed, and factions that previously stood together in their defense of Romanism turned on each other. It's always nice to see that, when the defenders of the devil's ideas attack each other. Because the forces of Lutheranism then walked through their enemies almost unharmed. And it was in that period that Lutheranism began to send forth mighty witnesses of gospel truth. And more than a few of them sealed their testimonies with their blood. In Bavaria, which is to this day a beautiful part of Germany, mountainous part of Germany, a heavily Romanist German state at that time, Leonard Casper, a Lutheran missionary, fell into the hands of the Bishop of Passau. Casper's crime was to maintain that a man is justified by faith alone, that there are but two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's that the Mass is not a sacrifice, and that Christ alone has made satisfaction for us. That is what he believed. And for holding those views, which are the views that you hold, that I hold, for holding those views, Leonard Casper was burned to death at the stake. Other martyrs gave their lives and added their notes to the growing voice that would thunder forth at the second Diet of Spire in 1529. Now the first Diet adopted a compromise, and Charles V despised it. He wanted this second Diet at Spire to do one thing, repeal the 1526 edict and bring the edict of Worms back into force. Now the way that the Emperor went about things was to suggest that if the reformed princes would go along with the Emperor's request, he would guarantee them the liberty to continue practicing Lutheranism in their domains. but they would not be allowed to send out missionaries and there would not be any toleration of Lutheranism in Romanist areas. So on April 19, 1529, exactly eight years after Luther's famous appearance before the Diet of Worms, the Reformed princes appeared in the Diet of Spire to make their statements. The Emperor's requirement was simple, you submit to my authority. The King Ferdinand had already left the Diet and the presentation by the princes then was to be made to his empty chair. The Elector of Saxony, John Frederick, made the speech in which he announced that they could not consent to the Emperor's wishes because he said if they did so they would be denying Christ. And I want you to listen to some of the speech that he gave, just an excerpt from it, because it is striking that it is in the mouth of someone who was not himself a minister. He was a secular man. But he went on to say, quote, that there is no sure doctrine, but such as is conformable to the word of God, that the Lord forbids the teaching of any other doctrine, that each text of the Holy Scriptures ought to be explained by other and clearer texts. that this holy book is in all things necessary for the Christian, easy of understanding, and calculated to scatter the darkness. We are resolved, with the grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive preaching of his holy word, such as it is contained in the biblical books of the Old and New Testament. without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. This word is the only truth. It is the sure rule of all doctrine and of all life and can never fail or deceive us. He who builds on this foundation shall stand against all the powers of hell whilst all the human vanities that are set up against it shall fall before the face of God." And then came the great concluding statement, where the elector said, for these reasons, most dear lords, uncles, cousins, and friends, we earnestly entreat you to weigh carefully our grievances and our motives. If you do not yield, to our request. We protest, that was the key word, we protest by these presents before God, our only creator, preserver, redeemer, and savior, and who will one day be our judge, as well as before all men and all creatures, that we, for us and for our people, neither consent nor adhere in any manner whatsoever to the proposed decree. in anything that is contrary to God, to his holy word, to our right conscience, to the salvation of our souls, and to the last decree of Spire. Now, we're not arguing for anarchy. They did not argue for anarchy because they made the Bible to be the fountain of true liberty. They argued for liberty. And that liberty for which they argued, the liberty of conscience, the liberty to govern life according to the word of God is one of the legacies of the Reformation that we remember today especially. It was liberty to follow God's word. It was liberty to lead lives that were holy unto the Lord. The use of that word protest became the word that was used to designate those princes. They were the protestant ones. They were the protestant ones. They were the ones who refused to yield to the tyranny of imperial power. and they were not going to compromise on the truth. They stood for the truth of Scripture and on the foundation of the gospel. I think I have noted that 57 years ago this month, my family and I attended a special service at the Protestant Cathedral of Spire. That is a building that was dedicated in 1904 to commemorate that famous protestation. The service that we attended on that occasion was for the rededication of the cathedral's bells that Hitler seized during World War II to melt them down for ammunition. After the war ended, before the ecumenical drive gained too much steam, contributions from Protestants literally around the world went to the recasting of the bells, which carried the names of the Protestant reformers. The building itself was to be a reminder of the testimony that the Protestant princes raised on April 19, 1529. Now against what did they protest? There's a lot of protesting that has gone on all through the centuries since that time and still goes on today. But against what did they protest? And against what should their spiritual descendants continue to protest in this age of compromise and ecumenical campaign? Well, the protest came under four headings. First, against any dilution of the word of God. The testimony of the Protestants came from a stirring text in the scriptures in the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 40, the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 8. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. That is that which we see in the natural realm of plants. Sometimes a plant that blooms issues a bloom, and it's a beautiful thing, but it fades soon away. So the prophet was saying the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. And what the Protestants were saying was that there was to be no addition to the word of God. not the voice of tradition, not the statements of the popes or the councils could be authoritative interpreters of the scriptures. So they dismissed the apocryphal books as uninspired and therefore inferior to the books of the Old and New Testaments. In addition, they opposed any removal of words from the Bible. So they were opposed, they protested anything that subverted the Scriptures and here is still on this Reformation Sunday in 2019 the essence of Protestantism. The Scriptures alone Not your opinion of them or my opinion of them, but the Scriptures alone are the rule of faith and practice. The Protestants of that time laid down the Protestant principle, as you heard it in that elector's statement, of interpreting Scripture by Scripture. so that each text of God's word finds explanation in other, clearer texts. And that was a sharp departure. We don't appreciate it in these days. It was a sharp departure from the typical way of interpreting the Bible that marked Romanist interpretation for centuries. Because they took the approach that whatever was on the surface of the text was the least important meaning of the text and that you had to actually spiritualize it or allegorize it so that you could make what was on the surface of the text be something in some cases totally opposite in meaning. The Protestants said we have to get back to the scripture. So they were protesting against the dilution, in any way, of the Word of God. But secondly, they were protesting against the religion of human merit. The Protestants, as you heard in that excerpt from that speech, proclaimed the doctrine of justification by faith alone. So what were they opposing? What were they protesting? They were protesting the idea that the works of people could gain salvation. What did these people preach? They preached the cross. They preached Christ and Him crucified. They emphasized that the only way to glory was through the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, whereby his obedience to the law and his suffering of the penalty of the broken law was put to the account of his people. Now I tell you that there is pressure in our time in the so-called evangelical world to redefine this doctrine so that ecumenical dialogue is more feasible. Some who claim that they are Protestants have tried to suggest that after all certain human activities can yield merits that God will recognize. The Protestants, at the second Diet of Spire, refused all such ideas. They were adamant that justification was by faith alone. That was the position of Martin Luther, and it became the position of all true Protestants. But they were protesting thirdly against all human mediators. And again, it's hard for us to contemplate this reality. But if you had lived in that time, that would be the thing that you were certain was true. that in order for you to get to God, you had to go to the priest, you had to go to the confessional box, and there confess to that person your sins. The Protestants became settled in their opposition to the idea that people had to go through human priests in order to have access to God. Now most of the early reformers, Luther included, were priests by their training. And they saw firsthand the damage of that system. When they looked to the scriptures, they saw the truth that they found in the words of Revelation 1. Let's turn to Revelation 1. and to verse 5. And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings, notice this, and priests, unto God and his Father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So the words of verse 6 apply to the same people who are mentioned in verse 5, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, he has made us to be kings and priests. One of the hallmarks of Protestantism, of the Reformation, was the assertion of the truth of the gospel that every believer is a priest before God. So the message of the Protestants, of those men on that occasion, was that all of Christ's people were to function as priests for themselves. Now they were not to do so according to their own opinions. They were to function as priests under the direction of the great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one of whom we read in Hebrews that he is the priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now what the Protestants meant by their assertion was not, as some have taken it to mean, that they repudiated the necessity of ministers. No, they said ministers were necessary to expound the truth of Scripture, but what they protested was the idea that you had to go and confess to a priest in order to gain the forgiveness of God. They also protested against the idea that somehow the priest had a magical power to transform bread and the fruit of the vine into the actual literal body and blood of Jesus Christ. They protested. And there was a fourth thing that they protested. they protested against the blasphemy of the Mass. The Mass is the core of Roman Catholicism and the Protestants underscored the truth that the Mass ultimately was an attack upon Christ because they said there's only one sacrifice of the cross and that it is finished forever. In my preaching last week at the convention, I had occasion to refer to that portion in Hebrews 10 to which I often turn. Hebrews 10 and verse 10. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, Speaking of Jesus Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. By one offering So when the Protestants considered the Mass, the very heart of Roman Catholicism, and the pretensions of the Mass to perpetuate the sacrifice of Christ in an unbloody manner, they declared they were opposed unyieldingly to it. And that opposition, that protest, if you will, became part of the various confessional and creedal statements that arose out of that period from the life of Luther and later Melanchthon and then on into the following century where our own confession of faith laid down the truth of the protest, where we find this expression of the position of Protestants. Chapter 29 of the Confession of Faith and the second section. In this sacrament, Christ is not offered up to his Father, nor any real sacrifice made at all for remission of sins of the quick or dead, but only a commemoration of that one offering up of himself by himself upon the cross once for all, and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God for the same. so that the Popish sacrifice of the Mass, as they call it, is most abominably injurious to Christ's one only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of his elect. So they protested against the blasphemy of the Mass. Protestants still do speak against it. So there's the adamant voice of Protestantism that the second diet of spire heard plainly. This is the voice that needs to resound again across the land. There is truth in the scriptures and nowhere else. And the truth that is in the scriptures sets before us the truth of the gospel. You are justified by faith alone. There's no intervention by a human priest. And any pretension to renew or perpetuate the sacrifice of Christ is a blasphemy against that which Christ accomplished on the cross. Here's what we remember on Reformation Sunday. Here is that for which we should give thanks, that there were people whom the Lord exercised in such a way that they would not be content simply to be silent. They protested, and in their protest, they exalted the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, the true head, the only head of the church. That is what we do today. We come to join the protest and to keep on protesting because we love Christ. We will not suffer his work to be besmirched. We will continue in the legacy of the reformers.