This is a big week! (You’re thinking, of course it is… October 31st…) Oh, I was thinking about All Saints Day – November 1st. All Saints Day is still celebrated in many countries. In Poland a candle is lit to remember the dead. After all – those who die in Christ are not really dead, are they? They are just sleeping.
All Saints Day was the day that Martin Luther was thinking about when he pounded his 95 Thesis onto the Castle Church Door in Wittenberg, Germany. It was on All Saints Day that the faithful Christians would come to church and see his questions. The day he actually pounded the Latin questions for debate was the day before All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows Day. So the day before All Hallows Day would be All Hallows Eve. A shortened version of All Hallows Eve is… Halloween! Martin Luther wasn’t thinking about trick or treating, just theological debate.
In the 14th chapter of St. John’s Revelation we see angel flying over the world with the eternal gospel to proclaim. His message is three fold. It is a message of judgement, a message of mercy, and a message of opportunity. Many viewed Luther as this angel. Verses six and seven were read at Luther’s funeral.
What is amazing was that Luther never saw himself this way. The heart that wrote up the 95 Latin questions for debate was one that had been in the darkest places known to man. Luther was at the point of despair. Nothing that he could do could silence his conscience. He saw his heaven Father as a righteous and angry judge. The judgment that our God pronounces is simply his holy law. None can stand before it’s withering demands, including Luther. Who can be perfect in thought, word and deed? None of course.
That eternal gospel was that Jesus paid for everything! Sound too good to be true? You don’t have to have been a witness of the 2009 Burlington Coat Give away to think that way. So many things in our world are too good to be true. The eternal gospel proclaimed by that angel in Revelation was different. Want to hear more? Watch this Sunday’s sermon taken from Revelation 14.
Book(s): Revelation
Tag(s): End Times
Speaker(s): Fred Guldberg