Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Matthew 5:12 "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
REFORMATION RECAP: "THESE THAT HAVE TURNED THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN" (Acts 17:6)
In 1532, Luther spoke about Matthew 5:12 and Acts 17:6 when charges against him and others caused anxious moments:
"If we cling to our own thoughts and feelings, we are dismayed and hurt to learn that for our service, help, counsel, and kindness to the world and to everyone we should get no thanks except the deepest and bitterest hatred and cursed, poisonous tongues. If flesh and blood were in charge here, it would soon say: 'If I am to get nothing else out of this, then let anyone who wants to, stick with the Gospel and be a Christian! The world can go to the devil for help if that is what it wants! This is the reason for the general complaint and cry that the Gospel is causing so much conflict, strife, and disturbance in the world and that everything is worse since it came than it was before, when things moved along smoothly, when there was no persecution, and when people lived together like good friends and neighbors.'
"But here is what this Scripture says: 'If you do not want to have the Gospel or be a Christian, then go out, and take the world's side. Then you will be its friend, and no one will persecute you. But if you want to have the Gospel and Christ, then you must count on having trouble, conflict, and persecution wherever you go. Reason: because the devil cannot bear it otherwise, nor will he stop egging people on against the Gospel, so that all the world is incensed against it.'"
Luther knew if Christ Jesus was preached as the Savior from all sin, and that our deeds do nothing to gain us salvation, that this message conflicted with the large majority of the world. These conflicts, which perplexed and appalled some, Luther considered a confirmation of the fact that he was indeed preaching the true Gospel of Christ-crucified -- the only Gospel that can save sinners for eternal life!
(Quotations taken from "What Luther Says," E. M. Plass, 1193)
