Happy Reformation Day!!!!

[Rogue_Renegade]

Several years ago my kids dressed up as Reformation figures and we went door to door, not getting candy but rather to hand out gospel tracts and for them to perform a brief skit that highlighted the gospel experience of Martin Luther and explained why October 31st was signigicant. Here's the text of the tract we handed out:

October 31, 1517

It was October 31st, 1517 in Wittenburg, Germany.
Martin grasped a hammer and a long piece of paper covered
with his writing. He walked out into the street and straight over
to the castle church door. It was here that community messages
were often posted.

Martin nailed his 95 points of discussion on the door. He only
wanted to lay out his newly discovered views of the Bible to
other church leaders in the Medieval Catholic church. He
thought he was free to do so even though his thoughts were
radical. After all, he was an Augustinian monk and a professor
of theology.

Martin called himself a “stinking bag of maggots,” and certainly
did not dream of being a leader in a revolution of thinking
in Germany and across Europe that shaped history in a
powerful way. But God had determined something far bigger
than the monk Martin Luther expected when he penned those
95 Theses.

Without his knowledge someone printed his words on the
newly invented Gutenburg press, distributing it all over Germany.
Within a very few days, Martin found that he was the
subject of everyone’s thoughts. In the cathedrals and great
stone castles of his homeland, the pubs and peasant’s cottages
...everyone was talking about the views of Luther. Without
a signal to announce it, the Protestant Reformation had
begun!

Just what was the Protestant Reformation all about? What did
Luther and others protest?

The protesters were seeing something new about how a person
is accepted by God...that is, new to them. They protested that
the church had been teaching the wrong view about the most
important issue of life. They discovered that the Bible says we
are not accepted on the basis of our religious deeds, or even
our good deeds along with our faith, but that we are accepted
before a holy God only through faith in Christ.

“Through faith alone in Christ alone” began to be heard all
over Europe. The people must transfer their confidence for
salvation in the church’s religious traditions to Christ alone.
The reformers wanted the people to return to the Bible’s plain
teaching on how to be a true Christian. Because heaven and
hell were at stake, the passions rose very high. Many would be
persecuted and some even killed for this truth. But through it
all, tens of thousands of people were converted to Christ and
were assured of heaven.

We have been feeling the effects of the Protestant Reformation
ever since. Many of our churches have their historical roots in
the Reformation. Returning to the Bible as the source of understanding
about how we are to relate to God has shaped nations.
Perhaps no other religious period since the coming of Christ
has been so influential as this one.

But many people, and even many churches, have forgotten the
great lessons that were made so clear beginning on October 31,1517. What difference can this mean to you nearly 500 years later?

This passage from the Bible is a good place to start. It describes
God’s way to understand salvation:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Through these 500 years since the Protestant Reformation, and
throughout time, men and women, youth and children have
come to Christ in this simple way...through faith alone in
Christ alone. Placing our full confidence in Christ’s perfect life
and sacrificial death for sinful people is the only way to God. It
is not that good works are not important...they are a result of
true faith in every believer’s life. But those works cannot save.
Salvation is a gift of grace, not a reward for trying to be good.

Like Martin Luther, you may come by faith alone to Christ
alone even now, all these years later. In fact, this is the very
way the first New Testament believers came to Him!


Copyright © 2002 Jim Elliff
Permission granted to copy in full for non-profit use, including all
copyright information. Other uses require written permission.
For more information see our website at:
www.WayToGod.org

[Beardedtractor]

Well now you have to tell us who they chose for their costumes!

[Jao Thaun]

I did not know that, very interesting and clever way of addressing all hallows eve

[Beardedtractor]

Martin Luther: Original Troll? :-p

[Rogue_Renegade]

rofl Bearded! That pic is classic.

The kids did a little skit where Cobra played Luther and explained how he thought he had to deprive himself and earn his way to forgiveness, but how he learned from Romans that righteousness was by faith in Christ alone. My oldest daughter, playing Luther's wife Katie, spoke about how she was once a nun, but when she finally understood the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, that she left the convent and served God as Luther's wife.

Sadly, the last couple churches I've served were not locations where I could launch a full-on Reformation Faire on October 31st......they were much too infatuated with "trunk-n-treat". I hope in the future to be able to really do a Christ-centered alternative rather than the lame trunk-n-treat stuff. But that's just my opinion.

[jaytrust]

Good read thanks for posting.

[Rahvin3]

Yeah, some of the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches in our area have a joint Reformation Day service each year.

[Kate97]

Rahvin3 wrote:

Yeah, some of the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches in our area have a joint Reformation Day service each year.

Yeah where were you at that time?