Monday, October 20, 2014
Psalm 23:5-6 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies
REFORMATION RECAP: "TURNING TO GOD, NOT TO GUNS"
While the peasants rebelled in May of 1525, Luther printed a call for patience and peace. He submitted a sober critique of the twelve articles in which the peasants had expressed their demands ...
"Now how have I brought it about that the more pope and emperor raged, the more my Gospel spread? I have never drawn the sword or desired revenge. I have begun no rioting and no rebelling; but so far as I was able, I have helped the worldly rulers, even those who persecuted the Gospel and me, to defend their authority and honor. But there I have stopped. I committed the affair entirely to God, and at all times I relied boldly on His help. Therefore He has not only preserved my life despite the pope and all the tyrants (a fact many justly consider a great miracle; and I, too, must confess that it is), but He has permitted my Gospel to go on spreading even farther."
Luther often called what God led him to understand about the free Grace of Christ's Gospel "my Gospel," because he clung to it so dearly and was so protective of it. Many today seem to think Luther was behind and in favor of the revolution, but Luther's focus was on the reformation of the church and the errors that he was finding the more he studied God's Word. He was certainly fighting a war, but not with swords and guns! Luther was not just amazed, but grateful that the Lord Jesus had spared him so that he could continue to fight the good fight of faith and spread the true and free Gospel of Christ crucified for the sins of the whole world.
Ten years later, Luther reflected again one evening on the surprising blessing that had rested on his trust in God's deliverance. With his family and friends at the dinner table they discussed Psalm 23:5-6, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever."
(Quotations taken from "What Luther Says," E. M. Plass, 1186)
