Martin Luther “The German Priest” : Robert Liardon shares a powerful sermon on the story of how Martin Luther stood against the world

God’s General author and the world renowned Evangelist, Robert Liardon shared a powerful sermon on the story of Martin Luther.

” The same devil that kept the Bible from being translated for hundreds of years is the same devil keeping you from reading the Bible that you have.*When you have a sharp mind and a big spirit, my friend, use it!It is amazing how many preachers don’t read the Bible. They preach the Bible, they quote many verses, but they don’t know it, they don’t read it. It is a sin for a pastor to only know the Scriptures for a sermon and not for his life, because it is your life that speaks louder than anything else you do. Martin Luther started reading the Bible and he discovered that there was a problem with the Church that he knew. It did not move and act like a New Testament Church so he sits down and writes out 95 things that the Church of that time needed to deal with. He didn’t want to get kicked out of the Catholic Church, he wanted to reform it and make it nicer and better but Jesus said, ‘New wine can’t fit in old wineskins. Then on halloween day, the day of the devil, a revival was actually birthed. On October 31st, Martin Luther in his simplicity and passion, walked down the street and nailed his thesis and his complaints for discussion on the door of the Church hoping that the people would discuss what he wrote. When Martin Luther was alive, the same way phones and computers have changed our lives, was the same way there was an invasion called the printing press. When religion controls a society, breakthroughs are rare; when religion controls a nation, when religion controls a generation, it is a backward movement not a forward movement. When the Catholic Church controlled the world, it was called the dark ages. When the Church was to be the light leading the way, what were they doing? Killing people. A man then thought, ‘Let’s print Luther’s writings’ and he took the 95 thesis and began to send them around. Within 6 months, all over New York, they were discussing the little German’s 95 thesis. It got so relevant that the Pope heard it and he said, ‘The German is drunk on communion wine’. However, Luther was not drunk, He had read the Bible and had found out that there was more than what he heard. He found out that God was not only for one of us but for all of us. So, they wanted to get rid of him, war was happening. Luther liked drinking German beer, that was their Coca-Cola of the day. So, Luther would go down to the Pub with his Bible school students and discuss the Bible and they heard one afternoon, ‘Luther is going to be on a trial, the Pope has declared it’. They put Martin Luther on a trial for not believing the way they wanted him to believe. They thought if the Pope puts you on trial, you are not going to heaven, you are going to hell, that was the fear. So, they put him on trial and they asked him, ‘Did you write these documents?’, Luther said, ‘Yes, I did’. They then told him to recant them and say he was sorry and that he was wrong. He was so scared he asked for 24 hours. He slept for a bit and went the next day to the trial. They said the same thing to him, Luther then replied, ‘Unless you can prove to me by Scriptures alone, not by Popes and Bishops and Cardinals who change their minds and lie, I would not take it back. This is where I stand and I will not be moved’. That moment in time was such a significant moment in heaven and on earth. A German stood up against the religious principality that ruled Europe for over 1200 years and he broke it by Scriptures alone; not by music, not by other means but by knowing the scriptures. They couldn’t kill him because the people of Germany loved him. They put him in a carton and drove him to a jungle but the political leader of the time said, ‘Go get my priest. They are not going to kill my German priest’. So, they found him in the forest, put a sack over him and took him to a castle. They changed his name from Martin Luther to George, he tried to change how he looked so no one could find him because his life was in a danger, but he had a great mind and a big spirit. When you have a mind that sharp and a spirit that big, you have to use it. So, he had an idea, I call it a revelation, he said, let’s do something that is bigger than the state, let’s translate the Bible from Latin to the common German language. Translating the Bible in those days was considered a very wrong and sinful act. The same devil that kept the Bible from being translated for hundreds of years is the same devil keeping you from reading the Bible that you have. When Martin Luther was in exile, a war started and thousands of the people were killed because of Luther’s preaching and other aspects. When Luther heard that there was killing in the name of his preaching, it hurt his soul, he came out of exile, changed his name and went back to the Church, he preached seven sermons, one each day for seven days and stopped the war. He stopped the war! Has your preaching stopped anything yet? He preached seven sermons that stopped the war. We think that we are very good preachers, we think that we are mighty preachers, we think we are people of faith, let’s see the actions of faith in the time of war, let’s see what your faith can do when the culture and the heathens are colliding and the conflict is raging, where do you stand in the middle of those things? We are reformers, we are confronters, we are bold proclaimers, we don’t apologize for being right, we affirm our rightness and go forward and advance even in heathen environment, that is what you have to become because there is something greater than revival. Most of us are top revivalists, revival is wonderful, I love it but I long for the day of reformation. We are in a conference called the Rain of Revival and that rain would bring forth a new force, the spirit of reformation. We are in a revival right now in Nigeria and the beauty of it is everywhere but there is a greater mandate coming upon your leaders and upon you, to challenge the culture, to have a changed national culture. It is amazing to me that Nigeria is the leading revival nation in the world right now and also the most famous for corruption. Reformation is the only hope and the change has to come in the hearts of men Martin Luther was standing in Winterburn, Germany when nine nuns showed up in the middle of his city, they were stuck in a conveyance and couldn’t get out. He eventually got them out and the nine nuns said we have heard of Martin Luther and we want to be a part of his revival. That was how Martin had a monastery and nine nuns in the building too. He got all of the nuns married but one. He later married the last one, Kate. The Pope almost had a heart attack. When you get to heaven, thank Martin because that was why you preachers could get married Martin Luther set a course for a great reformation. History takes a while when you tell it right. In those days, people believed that the most honest words of a man are what he says before he dies and they were hoping for what Martin Luther would say before he dies, if he would apologize to the Pope or stay true to his teachings and I’m happy to say to you that he stayed true, the just shall live by faith. Amen and Amen!