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Introduction
Tuesday is Halloween.
Most people know that.
We see costumes in Walmart, candy at the grocery store, skeletons and ghosts in people’s lawns, and pumpkins on every porch.
Alongside this well known holiday lies another little known event.
500 years ago on October 31, 1517, in Wittenberg Germany, Martin Luther presented his 95 theses to the Catholic Church.
This ended up being the spark that set the fire of the reformation.
Today we are going to talk about the events leading up to Luther’s theses as well as what became the five pillars of the reformation.
We will end our time together talking about the necessity of continual reformation.
We have three goals this morning.
To display the sovereignty of God.
To understand the five solas.
To embrace the need to always reform.
When these things are understood and applied, the believer is enabled and empowered to seek God’s kingdom first.
Because seeking God’s kingdom first is the way to success, a firm grasp of these three goals will lead to peace, joy, and fulfillment in life.
You are going to hear a lot of Latin this morning.
That is because the reformers stated their beliefs and desires in Latin.
If the reformation had a slogan it would have begun with the words…
Display the soverignty of God.
Understand the five solas.
Embrace the need to always reform.
1. Ecclesia Reformata - The Church Reformed
This is the first half of a phrase that encapsulates all that the reformers desired to accomplish.
The last half will be our seventh and final point.
One of the things that is crucial to a proper understanding of the reformation is the awareness that the reformers never intended to created a splinter group.
It was not their intention to break away from the Catholic Church.
In fact, Martin Luther didn’t even believe it was possible to divide the church!
The goal was to create conversation.
Before we get to that we need to roll back the clock and see some of the preparation for the reformation accomplished by God.
Earlier I likened Luther’s 95 theses to a spark.
What we are going to look at now is the tinder that God had placed for this spark to light.
The first piece of tinder: John Wycliffe (1330-84)
Often called “the morning star of the reformation” Wycliffe was an Oxford trained preacher who became Oxford’s leading theologian.
He taught that obedience to the often corrupt church leaders was not necessary.
All that was needed was obedience to God and the Scriptures which should be studied by the individual.
Because of this belief Wycliffe translated the Bible into the language of the people from the Latin Vulgate.
His desire was for the people to read the Word and be converted.
Wycliffe also believed that Scripture was complete and served as the standard by which canon law, church tradition, and the papacy should be judged.
As you can imagine, this was not popular.
Wycliffe recruited his students to help make copies of his Bible translation, a process that could take one scribe us many as 10 months.
He was condemned to be burned at the stake but collapsed and died while preaching before the sentence could be carried out.
The church bought copies of his Bibles and burned them.
However, so many had been made by this time that there are 170 still in existence today.
Wycliffe’s teaching spread beyond England and eventually reached…
The second piece of tinder: John Huss (1369-1415)
Huss read Wycliffe’s works and agreed that the church needed to be reformed.
He began preaching reformation in Prague.
He taught against relics and indulgences.
He believed that the Bible was the sole source of authority and guidance and therefore should be available to all.
For his teaching Huss was excommunicated and commanded not to preach, a command which he ignored.
Huss taught against indulgences so strongly that the Pope declared and interdict banning all sacraments from being performed in Prague.
Since the people believed that the sacraments were necessary for salvation, they turned against Huss.
Huss left the country and continued to write.
Guaranteeing him safe passage the pope invited Huss to attend the council at Constance, Germany.
Huss reluctantly did so and was arrested, held and tormented in prison, and ultimately burned at the stake.
At his trial he said he would only recant if he were shown how his writings contradicted Scripture.
With both Wycliffe and Huss we see a strong belief in the supremacy of Scripture.
These two men paved the way for all that Luther did.
However, there was a technological advancement that took place between Huss and Luther that really enabled the reformation.
That technological advancement was…
The third piece of tinder: The Printing Press (1440)
The invention of the printing press was vital to the reformation.
It was this tool that enabled the production and distribution of Luther’s writings.
Also, in 1456 we have Johannes Gutenberg producing the first printed Bible.
This was printed in Latin.
This greatly reduced the time and cost necessary for reproduction of Bibles.
Making Scripture more accessible directly impacted Luther.
God used Wycliffe and Huss, who were committed to Scripture, and the invention of something that made possible easy reproduction to enable…
The setter of the flame: Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Luther was the son of a mine owner who was initially intended to study law.
After an encounter with lightening during which he promised to become a monk if spared, Luther entered the priesthood.
Luther realized that even the smallest sin was enough to condemn him.
Therefore, Luther became obsessed with confession.
He spent hours confessing everything to the point that he was told to come back when he had something “big” to confess.
At this time in church history the Catholic church and the Bible had become removed from one another.
Luther noted that as a young monk he never even read Scripture!
However, he was able to access the sermons of Huss.
When finally given access to the Word Luther all but devoured it.
Though it raised questions in his mind, he was still desiring to trust the church.
It was Luther’s trip to Rome in 1510 that began his serious disenchantment with the activities of the Catholic church.
Priests who were coarse, debased, and vile horrified him with their attitude toward the things he considered sacred.
As Luther continued as a priest and ultimately was placed in charge of 11 monasteries and taught at the school in Wittenburg, Luther’s disenchantment deepened.
In 1513-15 he taught on the Psalms and was impressed with the necessity to treat them literally.
Luther himself dates his actual salvation to early in 1517 while dwelling on (S).
It was later in that same year that Luther struck…
The spark: The 95 Theses
The primary objection of Luther in writing his 95 Theses was the false hope that indulgences gave people of forgiveness of sin.
He didn’t necessarily oppose indulgences per se, simply the teaching about what they accomplished.
On October 31, 1517 Luther sent his Theses to the archbishop Albrecht of Mainz.
Contrary to all the stories, it is unknown whether Luther nailed them to the Wittenburg church door or not.
What we do know is that all he hoped to do was have a theological debate about the practice of indulgences.
Luther also mailed them to some close friends one of whom, Christopher Scheurl, was so impressed by them that he printed and distributed them.
In modern speech, Luther’s theses went viral.
With the printing press being relatively new, this had never been happened before.
The theses were reprinted in other cities, translated into German in January 1518, and spread as far as England.
In March, Luther wrote a letter to Scheurl indicating he wouldn’t have wanted them distributed so widely.
Through debates, meetings, more debates, and more meetings Luther slowly realized that the Catholic church would not be reformed.
On January 3, 1521 Luther was excommunicated.
In March the infamous Diet of Worms was held.
Luther was called to recant his teaching.
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