Following the sermon on Sunday, we sang Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”, which concludes with this line: “Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill: God's truth abideth still; His kingdom is forever!”

This exhortation was not theoretical for Luther. Standing before the Imperial Diet of Worms in 1521, Luther was certain that his refusal to recant his Biblical teachings would result in a gruesome public execution, as it had for others before him, like Jan Hus, who could be heard singing the Psalms as he was burned alive by the Pope in 1415. Even so, Luther boldly declared to the Emperor: “My conscience is a prisoner of God’s Word. I cannot and will not recant, for to disobey one’s conscience is neither just nor safe. God help me.”

In God’s kind providence, Luther narrowly escaped death for years, but many others who likewise spread the gospel did not. In the English-speaking world, almost 300 Protestants were burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Queen of England, “Bloody Mary”, and countless others were imprisoned or went into exile.

On October 16, 1555, Hugh Latimer, former Bishop of Worcester, and Nicholas Ridley, former Bishop of London, were burned alongside one another, and as the fires were lit beneath seventy-year-old Latimer, he said to Ridley, “Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” And so they did.

Without the willingness of so many to suffer and die, the light of truth they recovered would not have spread as it did. Is the spread of the gospel this dear to you?

I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect. (2 Tim 2:9-10)

Blessings in Christ,

Pastor Evan

Related article: Happy Reformation Day!

Related article: A Reformation of Song

Related article: The Five Solas