MARTIN LUTHER, "THE FATHER 0F THE REFORMATION" Marvin Moore

Thanks to Marvin Moore and The Sign of the Times October 2017 Issue;  (John B)

    Marvin Moore shares a brief account of how the Protestant Reformation came about and why is was so successful from the very beginning..

NOTE(JB): The word Protestant came to us from the Latin word Testarte (sp?) which in English means Protester, yet in this day of Ecumenicalism, there's not a lot of protesting against Rome ongoing, as most so-called "Christian Churches" are rushing head-long back into the arms of the"Mother" church, in all their various apostasies, as Sunday worship in place of the Seventh day. Gen. 2:1-3. Exo. 20:1-17. Ezek.20:12,20. {His Holy Day}Yet these think they can change God's Laws????? Dan.7:25.

     Revelation 18:7  "How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow."
    Revelation 18:2-5 "And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities."

  Martin Luther,  was a tortured soul, if there ever was one. He grew up with a warped understanding of God as harsh and severe. Becoming an Augustinian Monk only made this matter worse. He followed all the rules of the catholic Church with diligence: praying, going on  pilgrimages, attending mass, and doing every thing he could think of to make himself acceptable to God.

NOTE(JB) is this not man seeking salvation by his own works? That's not at all Biblical!
      Romans 3:24  "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:"

    However, none of this brought peace to his distraught mind. He thought of God as a cruel tyrant, rather that a kind and Heavenly Father.                                                                                                                        However, through a careful study of Paul's writings especially Romans, Luther came to the understanding that righteousness is a gift that God gives to those who believe in Jesus Christ. He came to realize that he didn't have to do all manner of penance and fasting and prayers in order to be acceptable to God. Rather his acceptance by God, was attained and gained simply by believing that God covered his sins, with Christ's blood and righteousness.
   Romans 1:7  "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ."
    Romans 1:17 " For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

    It was this simple concept, that gave Martin's soul a great peace of mind, and it revolutionized Europe!

NOTE(JB): Please return to Revelation 18:7, above, and know that at THAT TIME, the Vatican was out of money, and they needed to finish ST. Peter's Cathedral, so they came up with "INDULGENCES",
THE CONVERTS CATECHISM OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE BY REV.. PETER GEIERMANN, c.ss.r.  P.86.....
Q: What is an indulgence?
A:  An indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment due to sin.
Q: Why can the Church grant indulgences?
A: The Church can grant indulgences, because Christ gave her the power to forgive sin and the punishment due to sin.

OK. Mr. Pope, can you give me Book, chapter and verse (s) where this authority can be found in the Holy Bible? As I've not ever read of this fact, period! It's ALL from men, and men can't even save themselves, can they?

    Romans 6:23 " For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
    Hebrews 9:22 " And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission."

   This is the primary reason why Christ needed to shed His blood, for the remission of human sins! Not as The Dominican Monk Tetzler, oft shouted, "When your coin drops into this box, another souls flies to heaven". This was Luther's last straw, and he began to formulate his 99 thesis, which he nailed to the Church's door! But listen, the Pope, needed this money to finish his church building! and the why as a corporation the catholic church is the most richest of all, on earth! "Follow the money, Honey"

Here's another man-made change:
Q: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday {The Bible's Sabbath}
A: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.

An open Question: Who thinks that a man or men, can change the Laws of God?  The Vatican does!
  But look----
    Daniel 7:25  "And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time."
Yet it shall rule, until the Time of the end, until the Second Advent!.....Daniel 7:26 " But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end."
What , Y O U ask is the end? Read and study, with prayer asking for wisdom to understand the books of Daniel and Revelation, to know what the end holds in store!

THE START {IN EARNEST} FOR THE REFORMATION"

   In October 1512, Luther joined the faculty at the University of Wittenberg in Germany as a professor of theology. Four years latter, in 1516, the Catholic Church commissioned a Dominican friar named Johann Tetzel to sell indulgences as a way to raise monies to rebuild Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. In Catholic theology, an indulgence is a way to reduce the amount of punishment that a person has to undergo in purgatory for his or her sins. Luther was horrified. He had just found peace of mind through the Bible's teachings that salvation is a free gift that God offers to anyone who believes is Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and here was a churchman SELLING freedom form the punishment of sins. Luther latter protested to his Bishop, Albert of Mainz, and sent him a copy of what has come to be known as the 95 Theses. These were posted on October 31, 1517, he also posted these written in  Latin on the door of the church in Wittenberg.                                                                                                                                                         Luther, the theology Professor, had no intention of starting a reformation in the church. He simply wanted to start a discussion among the member of the theology department at Wittenberg University. However, in January 1518 friends of Luther translated his Ninety Five Theses into German, and within two weeks they had spread throughout Germany; and within two months they had spread across Europe!                The Church took notice!

THE OFFICIAL CHURCH RESPONSE:

     It is essential to know, that for ever since 538 A.D. Rome's rule and power over both church and state, was absolute! If the church said to a king, raise an army and go fight such and such, the answer was always YES your Holiness!  There were but two orders of authority, in this world, The Church and Secular governments, and any differences between the two the Church claimed to be the higher authority! On the powers of ex-communication, which was a slow starvation, or exposure's death, as none could give aid or comfort, or face the same sentence!
     Anytime a church court condemned a heretic and pronounced judgment on him or her, it turned the power over to the state to carry out its punishment's verdicts!

NOTE(JB): Satan never gets his own "Hands dirty" he has deceived others to do this for him, as i n Herod's order to kill all males under the age of two, in his attempt to kill Jesus!Or the Hyksos Egyptians to kill all male Hebrews at birth.

     Thousands of persons had been executed in the centuries prior to Luther, for daring to challenge church teachings-- and Luther was challenging a critical part of the church's theology. {Dogmas}                                   When word of Luther's teaching reached Rome, Pope Leo X deployed Cardinal {equivalent to General in rank] Thomas Cajetan to meet with Luther and bring him back in line with Church teachings.
{NOTE(JB)} they did not say bring him back in line with the Bible's teachings! A HUGE difference.

    This debate, which occurred in October 1518, was heated. Luther explained his convictions about justification, and Cajetan demanded that he recant, but this Luther refused to do. He was convinced from the Bible that he was right, and he stood his ground. Cajetan warned him that if he insisted on maintaining his views he would be deported to Rome, Luther held fast to his convictions.

    In July 1519 Luther met with the Catholic Theologian Johann Eck, in Leipzig Germany, and they discussed purgatory and indulgences, neither of these are mentioned in the Word of God, the Holy Bible, Eck demanded that he recant his views but Luther again refused.
    It's hard for us today to imagine a theological disagreement of this sort being life-threatening, but as written above, in the centuries both before and especially after Luther, people had been imprisoned and executed for holding beliefs that were against the teachings of this church's doctrines and dogmas. Luther has put his own life, on the line, for His beliefs!  
    Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us."
     Revelation 13:14-18  "And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.  And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:  And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."
   The number is 666, and it NOT Satan, as he is an angel, a fallen one, but he's NOT a man! Yet this in not one man, but a characteristic within many men in a line of succession, such as the Popes! 2 Thess  2:1-12    and Matthew 24's let no man deceive you, by any means Jesus spoke this three times and referred to this 2 more times!, all within this 24th chapter! Must be of importance right?

    As a result of this debate with Eck, Luther was warned by Pope Leo X via a papal bull [A Church order], that he would be excommunicated unless he recanted 41 sentences from his writings. A defiant Luther set fire to the bull, in public and the church turned him over for punishments by the highest political order in
Europe, the Holy Roman Empire.

    The Emperor Charles V convened a diet, in the city of Worms, Germany, among other things, to consider Martin Luther's heresy. (An imperial diet was the deliberative and legislative body of the Holy Roman Empire) . The leading men in Europe gathered to make important decisions about the empire, one of which was the fate of Martin Luther. Luther defended his teachings in the presence of the emperor, concluding with his famous statement that "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by the clear reason... I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God, I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience, May God help me , Amen.

NOTE(JB) It should be today, well known, that the Roman church, holds its own writings above that of the Bible! All one needs to do is to compare the book of Catechism's writings to even their own Douay Bible, to learn of this vary fact! Thus begs this question: "Who can save Y O U, unto salvation? Jesus or men of Rome?  Just compare Rome's 10 and their Bible's ten in Exodus 20, be ready for a shock!  Daniel 7:28 and Revelation 13:1-2, knowing that the dragon is Satan the devil [Rev.12:9] and Satan gave the BEAST POWER, his seat and power. see Daniel 7 to I.D. and know the a Beast Power is so called by God when church and state are ruled by one man! All of church history historians write about the fact that the Popes {the Bishop of Rome} sits upon the seat of the Caesars! Pontifix Maximus is the title both used.
     Cardinal Gibbons, Catholic Mirror Dec. 23, 1893. "Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives, either Protestantism and the keeping of Saturday holy or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible."
   In his book, "Faith of Our Fathers: James Cardinal Gibbons wrote: " You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authoring the sanctification {To make holy} of Sunday, a day which we Catholics never sanctify."
  This very same fact was also written by: DR. Edward T. Hiscox author of the Baptist Manual
Christian:  First-day Observance, pp. 17,19
Church of Christ: Alexander Campbell, Washington Reporter Oct. 8, 1821.
Congregationalist: Dr. Lyman Abbot, Christian Union Jan. 19, 1882.
Episcopal:  Manuel of Christian Doctrine, p.127
Methodist" Harris Franklin Rall, "Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942.
Lutheran Augsburg Confession of Faith quoted in Catholic Sabbath Manual , Part 2 chap.1 section 10 {Observance of Sunday is not found as any command of God}
Presbyterian: Sunday not the sabbath Dwight's Theology, Vol.4, p. 10

NOTE(JB): Sadly, all of the above, but one, has chosen to obey the commandment of men, Sunday worship!  Exodus 20:8-11  "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."
This one has been fully removed from the Catechism books.....Exodus 20:4-6 " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."
   They then split the 10th into two parts to keep the Ten,this raises two huge points:
   
    James 2:10 " For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."
     Revelation 22:18-19 " For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
  This beast power, has removed, many words from the Commandments listed in Exodus 20:1-17, even the whole of the second! Not a good place to be!

   On May 25, 1521, the emperor presented the court's decision in a document titled the Edict of Worms. Luther was declared to be an outlaw, his literature banned, and he was ordered to be punished as a heretic. The edict also made it a crime for anyone to give Luther food, or shelter and authorized anyone to kill him without danger of prosecution.

NOTE(JB): It is ONLY the Vatican, that can pronounce one as a heretic, and it is only the Vatican that can say what heresy is! {Can YOU say "This is a Democracy and I run it?"}

HOW, THEN DID LUTHER SURVIVE?

   It is a well known fact that Martin Luther died a normal death about 25 years latter, i n February 1546. So how did he survive, with both the church and State demanding his execution?  The answer is both simple and complex.
     The simple answer is that Frederick III, the Elector of Saxony, whose political jurisdiction included Wittenberg, was one of Luther's most powerful defenders, and he refused to turn hi m over to higher authorities for prosecution. He arranged for Luther to be given what was known at the time "Safe Conduct" to attend the trail at Worms, meaning he would be allowed to return home without arrest.

NOTE(JB): This was the same order of safety that was given to Johann Hus, near 100 years before, but the Church threatened his protector with ex-communication, and the Safe Conduct was removed and Huss {meaning Goose in Hungarian} was burnt at the stake alive!as were 1,000's of others! Huss was told, "Yes they will murder the goose, but I'll raise up a swan, that none shall silence!" God's message came to pass in Luther! Sadly none of this is ever taught in schools! I might put evolution in questions, that they can't answer!

    However, Frederick, unwilling to trust the authorities, arranged for friends to "Kidnap", Luther on his way home from Worms and hustle him off for protection to the Wartburg Castle near Eisenach, Germany, which was also in Frederick's jurisdiction. Luther remained there for 10 months. Frederick iii was not the only leading political figure at the time to side with Luther. Scores of others across Europe, also gave varying degrees of support and tolerance to this new {yet old ,as primitive Christianity, as taught by Christ] faith.
   The more complex answer is that, as pointed out earlier, by mid-March 1518 Luther's Ninety-Five Theses had remained and been translated into various Europe's various languages and spread all over the continent. Luther became hugely popular figure, praised by some, denounced by others, but well known either way!> Martin Luther, more than any other individual of his generation, put the printing press on the map. The Printing Press had bee3n invented by Johann Gutenberg a little more than 60 years prior to the nailing of These on the door of his church, but mostly business forms and the publications of debates between scholars. However, Luther was a prolific writer and produced 100's of pamphlets and numerous books in his lifetime. And where most were written in Latin, Luther wrote in German.

    The common people loved it! And so did all the printers who scooped up and produced by the thousands. And the reason why the printers produced Luther's works by the thousands and the ten thousands bought his works, by the same numbers!
    Although the church also produced many pamphlets and books denouncing Luther, few were printed, and even fewer bought them! Remember, the then printing press had the same effect as the Internet of today! His most famous work was his translation of the Bible from Latin to into the common language of the German people of the day. The Old Testament was completed in 1534 and the New in 1522. It did for the German language the same as the King James did for the English tongue. Both became hugely popular!

NOTE(JB): Another factoid of History:  Emperor Charles V, had assembled a 50,000 man army, by the orders of the Pope, to take and burn Luther publicly, but God had other ideas, He has sent the Ottoman Turks north to invade Europe, and where in fact at the gates of Vienna Austria, this forced Charles V, to turn south, to halt this invasion, thus saving Martin Luther. Another fact not ever taught in Public Schools! There they teach about the virtues of the gay lifestyles instead. "My Two Daddies", as a school reader..nuff said?

Marin Luther began with the idea: God doesn't hate the sinners: He loves them, and He developed a p\land to save them from from their sins, and bring them back into a loving relationship with Himself. He asks us to repent of our sins but doesn't demand that sinners preform good works, in order to gain His favor. To repent of our sins so that He can forgive us and Credit Christ's righteousness to our imperfect lives. This truth is called "Justification by faith, alone".   Martin Luther placed his life on the line to proclaim this Biblical truth,j and God used him to reach Europe, and eventually the world with the truth, that "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith--- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God... and NOT by works, so that no one can boast". [Ephesians 2:8-9]

Note(JB): Anyone can have the same peace of mind, by the study of the Word of God

Thanking Y O U for your time.  Questions? Comments?  John at servant@frontier.com

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