When Doctrine Determines Your Destiny Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Martin Luther escaped almost certain death after his testimony at the Diet of Worms when the Elector Frederick hid him in the Wartburg Castle. There he translated the New Testament into the common German language, a landmark accomplishment in only 10 months.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, you and I have stood together in the very room where Luther did his historic translation. Yes, David, it was so wonderful for us to be together there, and I've been in that room many times since it's been my privilege to lead tours to the sites of the Reformation. And it's in that room, by the way, tradition says that Luther threw an inkwell at the devil.

As a matter of fact, tour guides used to rub a little bit of soot on the wall because people wanted to come and they would like to see where the inkwell landed. But I'm not sure that he threw an inkwell at the devil. He said in his table talks, I fought the devil with ink. I think what he meant was I fought the devil by translating the New Testament into a German that the German people were able to read and understand.

That's the way you fight the devil. Now, all of you who are listening, you may know that this series is a little different in that we are emphasizing some historical truths that are impactful for today, historical truths that we believe are beneficial in helping us to understand our faith. Would you consider helping us?

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So the next day it was actually in the afternoon. He goes into the hall. There's a table with his books on it. He's asked whether or not these books are his.

He says yes. He's asked whether or not he's willing to recant them. He said he'd like to debate them individually because he says there are some things in those books that historically the church has always agreed with, including the medieval church. But they said, that's just like heretics to always want to test their views with the Bible.

So they said no. Eck replied that it was indeed characteristic of heretics to want to defend their writings from scripture. He said that Luther was repeating the errors of Huss and Wycliffe. How could he assume that he alone was able to interpret scripture?

Finally, the challenge was clear. I ask you, Martin, I ask you candidly and without horns, do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors which they contain? And now comes the words of Luther. Are you all able to handle them at this moment?

Are you able to absorb it in your soul? These words should be engraved upon your heart and mind and memories until the undertaker and the pastor say dust to dust and ashes to ashes. I think I can quote them but I prefer to read them to get them straight because there are two different versions of them. Since then your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply.

I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason because I do not accept the authority of popes and councils for they have contradicted each other. My conscience is captive by the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe so help me God. Another version adds here I stand I can do no other so help me God amen.

And with that he left the room. Charles V was an ardent Catholic. Luther had been promised safe conduct so Charles wanted to give him that safe conduct so the idea was Luther go back to Wittenberg and once you're there we fulfilled our promise of safe conduct. Anyone can kill you. Anyone can kill you without reprisal because you're a fugitive of justice and you are to be put to death. It was very very clear Charles V said a friar a single friar reading the scripture cannot contradict the church and what the church had believed for a thousand years.

All right from here on out because time goes so quickly I'll tell you the story rather than reading it to you. Luther leaves that night with horses and some people traveling with him and he's supposedly on his way back to Wittenberg and suddenly from the ditch are a group of men who come out of the ditch they subdue the horses and they take Luther and they hide him in the Wartburg castle. These men were actually planted there by Frederick the Elector Frederick who was Luther's friend. Now you say well who in the world is this Elector Frederick? Elector what do electors do? You know what electors do?

They elect. There were seven of them and they had the responsibility of electing the person who would be the head of the Holy Roman Empire. The Elector Frederick was involved in the deliberations regarding Charles V. So Charles you see did not want to anger an Elector because you needed them to be on your side and the Elector Frederick had the dominion and the area of Saxony in which Wittenberg was included and he was a friend to Luther and when Charles V asked all the electors to sign his decree that Luther be put to death the Elector Frederick refused to sign. So what he did to save Luther's life rather than let him go back to Wittenberg where he would be killed by someone he took him and he captured him and put him in the Wartburg castle.

Of all the castles of Germany one of the most remarkable is the Wartburg. You go through it and it's just room after room, hall after hall and you almost become weary of it until at the end of the tour when almost everything is exhausted they say oh yeah here is yeah the Luther Stuba. Here is the Luther room and you can go into that room and you can contemplate what happened there. I would say that the room is probably the size of a kitchen bigger probably than a kitchen more like a living room maybe just masonry for the floor, a desk that's where Luther supposedly threw an inkwell at the devil. Now Luther lived there for 10 months.

What he accomplished there in 10 months is unbelievable. He translated the entire New Testament from Greek, he was able to get his Greek New Testament into German in 10 months. He didn't do the Old Testament there that was a lifelong venture but he did the New Testament. But it was in that room that he experienced so much agony in his table talks he says he looked out the window and his only companions were the birds. Nowadays you can't open the window and it's stained glass but back in 1971 when I was there we were actually able to open the window and see the very forest that Luther was able to see. And it is there that he had a lot of agony he couldn't sleep he always suffered from insomnia anyway. And Luther by the way had ringing in his ears he said it was equivalent to the bells of Leipzig, Halle and Wittenberg all put together. And so there he was and this is the question that kept going through his mind can you only be right? Can the church of a thousand years to think back over the remark of Charles V can the church for a thousand years have been wrong about these things?

And he says he encountered many devils in that room maybe he did throw an inkwell at the devil. Now Luther what was his view of the Bible? Why was the Luther translation so significant? A couple of reasons number one he translated the Bible the New Testament from the Greek. All other translations into German until that time had been made of the Latin but the Bible wasn't written in Latin. Latin was the language into which it was translated by Jerome and there were all kinds of bad translation errors or at least if not an error at least misconceptions in that Latin translation. Did I not tell you that the Latin translation says do penance for the kingdom of heaven is at hand when in point of fact it says repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand?

Penance was something that grew up over a period of time that I don't have time to tell you about but it was the kind of thing that you had to do to prove that you were really penitent and so it ended up being kind of a forgiveness by works rather than grace. So you had all that confusion so Luther translated it directly from the Greek New Testament which Erasmus whom we talked about in the first lecture had made a new edition of the New Testament from the Greek. Secondly Luther translated the Bible into the German vernacular vernacular the common language of the people. He was willing to entrust the scriptures to the common man believing that the scripture interprets scripture and that people should be able to read the Bible so that the scrub woman and the plowman would be able to read his scripture and recite it as they worked.

He believed that. Now in order to make an accurate translation years later he was working on the Old Testament. He would go to a butcher to try to find the names the correct names for various pieces of an animal so that he could translate Leviticus. He would go to a jeweler to find the different stones that are available so that he would know the names of different stones as mentioned in the book of Revelation and he said I want to translate the Old Testament into such good German that people will not even know that Moses was a Jew.

What he wanted to do is to put it in the language of the common person. Luther believed in the grammatical historical interpretation of the Bible. Luther believed that we are to judge ourselves by the scriptures and that we should not judge the scriptures.

He says I can say with good conscience I have used the utmost faithfulness and care in this work and I never had any intention of falsifying anything. If a different way to heaven existed no doubt God would have recorded it but there is no other way therefore let us cling to these words firmly and place our hearts and rest our hearts upon them and he who carefully reads and studies the scripture will consider that nothing is so trifling that it does not at least contribute to the improvement of his life. His point is that everything in the Bible has some value therefore every word of the Bible is important. We ought not to criticize explain or judge the scriptures by our mere reason but diligently with prayer meditate there on and seek their meaning. The devil and temptations also afford us an occasion to learn and to understand the scriptures by experience and practice. Without them we cannot love God without them we cannot come to salvation and so it was that Luther put a great emphasis on scripture. Now I want you to think of all that Luther accomplished. I mean he died at the age of I think it was 64. I'm here tonight to tell you that that is very very young. 64 is young and in the library 55 volumes without exaggeration 55 volumes of his works can be found.

A commentary on every book of the Bible virtually the translation of the Old Testament books on everything that you can possibly imagine. How could one man do it? Well he didn't have television and he spent an awful lot of time working. I guess he just worked day and night. In fact before he was married and he married Katie you know before he was married he said he never changed the sheets in his bed. It was only after he was married he was realized.

It came to him I guess through Katie that it might be a good idea to do that from time to time. Luther was a very interesting person and actually always gave God the credit for all that he accomplished. I'm just my eyes are on a quote here. I did nothing he said the word did everything. If I had wanted to stir up trouble I could have brought immense bloodshed on Germany.

Let me read that again because it's true. I could have brought immense bloodshed on Germany. In fact I could have started such a game that even the emperor would not have been safe. But he said I did nothing. He said I simply taught preached and wrote God's word while I slept or drank beer in Wittenberg with my friends Philip and Armsdorf.

The word greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses on it. I did nothing he said we just drank beer and let the word do the work. Well you understand where Luther is coming from. Germans drink beer and he did do some work though. He did do some work it's not true that he did nothing.

But he kept giving credit to God for all that God had done. Now those of you who know anything about Luther's history you know that there are some negatives and what I'm going to do actually is not even talk about all of his books. His treatises on Christian liberty. I don't think I ever discussed with you his book on the Turks.

I'm going to throw that in at no cost. Forty or fifty pages on the Turks. You see the Turks were overrunning Germany the Muslims and news reached Wittenberg of heads that were being chopped off and the greatest cruelties done and the question is what do you do with the Turks.

I will not discuss his view of military force because that would make us go over time. I just want to discuss a couple of paragraphs to show you how Luther relied on the word of God. Please don't ever forget this.

This is what he says. He says if you just look around you it appears as if the God of the Turks is the right one. They can point to victories. Remember Constantinople had fallen in 1453. Fifty years after the fall of Constantinople you have Luther being born so that that chill was still there in Europe. Not to mention the other atrocities and it was the Turks that were surrounding Vienna. Luther said that when he discovered that he was so sick he had to basically vomit and by the way that's another reason why Charles the fifth became a little bit more amiable towards Luther is because he needed the support of the Germans in his war against the Turks but here's the paragraph.

I'm paraphrasing obviously. Luther says that if you look around you you may think that the God of the Turks is the right one because they can point to these victories. They can point to all the heads that they have chopped off. They can point to cruelty and the fun that they made of Christians as they massacred them.

So from that standpoint we we appear to be on the wrong side of this. So how are we going to keep going on as believers when the Turks are winning all the victories? Luther says what we need to do is to depend upon God's bare word. We can look to know circumstances. We can look to know victories as the basis of our faith.

It appears as if everywhere that we look God is against us but we know that he is for us because he has said it in his word and so we go on without any evidence except our faith in God's book. Let me now give an evaluation of Luther's life and ministry. First of all he broke the monopoly of the medieval church that the medieval church had on the souls of men. You see in medieval theology if the priests do not give you the sacraments you go to hell.

That's what an interdict was. It was when the Pope was angry with someone within a certain district he said to the people this is an interdict we will offer none of the sacraments and that meant that all the people were going to hell so the people would rise up and they take care of this person like John Huss because if you didn't have a right relationship with the church you could not go to heaven. That was medieval theology. So what Luther did is he by emphasizing that it is through faith in Christ alone it is through faith that we have a relationship with God. It is possible to have a relationship with God apart from the church.

Boy that's critical. In fact that was one of the things that they threw into his face in forums. It was that he believed that a sacrament had value only if the recipient had faith and the teaching of the church was you don't need any faith. The sacrament has value in and of itself you see. So Luther broke that monopoly and said we can relate to God properly even if even if the church is against us and certainly the Pope's were against him. So he uncovered the gospel. Some of us believe that he confused it by maintaining that infant baptism still saves but that's a whole different discussion.

He broke the power of the tradition and the superstitions of the church. Second he planted the seeds of freedom of religion. Now freedom of religion in Europe has a long tortured history and that's a whole separate discussion. You know this idea that you can believe whatever you like or not believe anything if that's okay with you.

This is an American idea our constitution. In Europe until 1648 the peace of Westphalia you couldn't believe however you wanted to believe. What happened is the Enlightenment helped Europe to understand that there should be freedom of religion and all the books thank the Enlightenment for freedom of religion. The Enlightenment did bring freedom of religion unfortunately it also brought a lot of bad things with it.

A kind of humanism. But the seeds of freedom of religion go back to vorums. My conscience is taken captive by the word of God. Luther preached afterwards and he told people that nobody can coerce someone else to believe and those are the seeds that began to grow. It took a long time before it happened but those were the ideas implanted in the minds of the Lutherans in Europe that conscience should be free. Radical idea.

Radical idea. And we all take it for granted don't we? Many Americans think that freedom of religion has always been true in the history of the church with few exceptions. As a matter of fact the opposite is true usually there has been no freedom of religion.

The freedoms that we enjoy today are an anomaly. By the way next time I'm going to introduce you to a prayer that will enable you to understand the great agony that Luther went through before he made his famous declaration. Would you help us get this ministry into the hands and into the lives of more people? You can become an endurance partner. Endurance partners are those who stand with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts of course the amount that you give is entirely your decision. You need more info here's what you can do go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. I think you will be encouraged to know that the ministry of running to win is in more than 20 different countries in four different languages and we are seeking to expand into even more languages in the future.

It's because of people like you. So consider becoming an endurance partner. If you find this ministry to be beneficial here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Even as I speak to you today I can imagine a vast number of believers who are saying to themselves yes we want to help you in this ministry so I thank you in advance. Go to rtwoffer.com click on the endurance partner button or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

You can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614. Running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Next time on running to win the pluses and minuses of the life of Luther and why God can use even imperfect servants to do his will. Please take time to listen as we summarize the life of a remarkable man. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister. Running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.