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Reformers there, Zwingli and of course Calvin. And we might actually get to Calvin this time. That'd be great. So also we're going to see a little bit about how you know the feudal ages are fading away and we're moving more towards a more modern era. And that's a bunch of the topics.

You can't even see that, I'm sure, but it lets you know there's a lot to cover. Okay, so what have we done so far? We've already seen that the ground has been plowed, it's been prepared. Some of the things aren't the best preparation, but it helped to prepare for the coming of the Reformation.

The Avignon papacy, you know, the Babylonian captivity of the papacy, that really shocked a lot of people, made people aware of problems within the church. Then you got the Great Schism. Of course, this is actually the Great Papal Schism. The original Great Schism was a splitting of the Eastern Church from the Western Church, you know, Eastern Orthodoxy, you know, at Constantinople, and of course, Rome leading the Roman Catholic Church.

But this is when you had multiple popes, you know, the Great Schism. And we finally got up to three popes, and they all excommunicate each other. Okay, then, of course, you got during that time period, you have the rise of Wycliffe in England, the Lollert movement, Peasants' Rebellion thereafter.

And then, of course, we went to some detail. About Hus and the Hussites in Bohemia, which is Czech Republic of Day. And of course, the church really got a black eye in that in terms of how they handled Hus. I think Pope John Paul XXII finally got around to apologizing for that, you know, what was done to Hus.

And then, of course, you also, even after that, have a collection of popes who, during the Renaissance, behaved poorly. That's putting it mildly. And in fact, at the time of Luther, you got Julius II, who's known as the warrior pope, because he spent so much time literally leading his armies into battle.

It is said, of course, you know, a clergyman could not use a sharp-edge instrument, but they could use a club. You know, they couldn't draw blood, but they could bash you over the head. And it said that Julius goes into battle hurling excommunications as he goes into battle.

But needless to say, you know, this is Saint at Peace, the grasp of temptation. This part of the northern Renaissance. And with all that, let's now get down to it. We also talked last time about Erasmus, John the Vessel. These are members of the Northern Renaissance. Also, they're part of that devotional movement, Imitation of Christ, Thomas Acampus, that whole group of scholars who are sometimes referred to as the humanistic tradition, although we've got to be careful.

Humanism, we're talking about with these guys, is Christian humanism, and it was a break of the old scholastic traditions, which heavily emphasized Aristotelian thinking. And we don't need to go into that at this point. And also, in the background, along with that devotional movement, you also have, of course, the advent of the print press with Johann Gutenberg.

So, all this is very important as a background, backdrop to what we're about to plunge into here. Okay, and to set the stage, we've already covered some of this, but at the time of Luther, really, the monastic orders had multiplied. In fact, there were literally too many monks and nuns.

And all these had to be fed, they had to be cared for, and this is sometimes out of state revenue. The church owns much, if not half, the property, and none of this property that's owned by the church could be taxed. You know, even here in the United States today, this property we're sitting on.

As I understand, you know, it's not taxed because it's church property. But that's just this church building and the surrounding land. We're talking what would, in effect, be corporations. We're talking massive amounts of land is owned by the church. You know, I mentioned to you last time the Czech Republic, half the property in the Czech Republic was owned by the church.

That means half the country could not be taxed. Okay, and so this was putting real pressure upon the governments, which should help you understand why the princes, the secular princes, kind of jump on this bandwagon of Protestantism because, you know, on Protestantism, much of the church lands will be taken over by the secular authorities, the amounts of property owned by the church will be greatly reduced, and therefore the governments can have a lot more tax income.

So that's going to have a background effect on all this as well. And then, of course, the morals of the clergy was just absolutely reprehensible. You know, quite often priests would have concubines or mistresses, illegitimate children, all these things, of course, which with the Catholic teachings on celibacy, they're not supposed to be having or doing.

So all this is in the background. And we've already covered this, you know, the devotional movement where they're emphasizing the imitation of Christ. These are the sincere believers. Within the Catholic Church, me and these guys are seeking to reform the church from within, and these guys are simply trying to live very, how can I put it, just plain, simple imitation of Christ in their daily lives.

So, along with the bad, you also have the good. Okay, now one other little piece to keep in the back of your minds is we're about to have a new Holy Roman Emperor. Not yet, but we're about to. And he's a Habsburg. And the Habsburgs, of course, rule in Spain.

And all that purple is owned by the King of Spain. Okay? And this is before he becomes Holy Roman Emperor. We're talking about Charles V. And at the time of becoming emperor, I think he's 18 or 19. Can you imagine? 18, 19-year-old. And that red line over there is the borders of the Holy Roman Empire.

All that area that's not purple, he's about to also rule, you see? And when he becomes Holy Roman Emperor. So he is going to be one of the most powerful men in history. And guess who's going to have to stand up before him? Our little monk that we're studying today.

Martin Luther is going to have to stand before this guy. All right, so. With that, let's jump into it. Now, this is probably the most accurate depiction of what Martin Luther actually looked like. And it kind of looks a little grim there. Frederick the Wise, who is his prince at the time, who, of course, is going to protect him, he ordered his personal artists, court artists, to redo this and make him look nicer.

But anyway, this is the monk Martin Luther. He is living contemporaneously with a new pope, which is Leo X. Leo X is actually a son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who, of course, is of the Medici family. Some say the Medici or Medici. And of course, they are the guys who nourish the Renaissance.

They were bankers. Wild story about their origins, which includes piracy. But anyway, the Medicis, of course, helped literally begin the Renaissance by patronizing some of the greatest artists of the day there in Florence, Italy. And they are so fabulously wealthy because they won the papal bank account. They're the ones who took care of the.

Money for the church. Therefore, they had just extraordinary amounts of money passing through their hands. And one of them, one of the children, is going to become pope. And literally, they bought the seat. And you can see why they would want to have a member of the family in the papacy because that guarantees a continued control of the papal revenue.

So he, as popes go, there really isn't that much scandal about him. I mean, he's, for the Renaissance, a fairly decent pope. He was noted personally being kind of kind and generous, very much in love with classical literature and fine art, but that's one of the problems with him.

He seemed to care about worldly things more than he did spiritual things. And he was quite the spendthrift. You know, he acted as though the revenue of the church was his own personal income and he spent it quite lavishly. And he starts running out of money. And of course, he also wants to leave a legacy.

Presidents and popes often do. And what he decides he wishes to leave for his legacy is going to be building a new cathedral for Rome, St. Peter's Cathedral. Now, to be fair, They did need to rebuild it. The cathedral standing at that time had been built by Constantine the Great.

It was pretty old. It was dilapidated. It was almost falling down. And so they did need to fix it or repair it or rebuild it. But he, of course, decides it's going to be the fanciest cathedral ever built. And he's going to have his name on it. Now, ironically, he doesn't live long enough to see it finished, and the pope that finishes is his name that's on it today.

So it's kind of erotic, you know, considering all he's going to go through. And so he's going to enact this building program. The trouble is, he's almost broke when he starts it. And so, where are you going to get the money? Well, you know, if you are a Roman Catholic and you travel to Rome and you go to St.

Peter's, on one hand, I can imagine you, you know, your chest being filled with pride at the incredible magnificence of this building. You know, it really is a visual overload. It's one of the most beautiful buildings ever constructed, no doubt about that. But if you have a sense of history, that sense of, you know, pride and the magnificence of what our church built.

Must be tinged with an incredible sadness at the same time. Because guess what the cost was? It was far more than money. It was splitting the church down the middle. This building, ironically, is sort of going to be the match that let the fires of the Reformation. Because to build such a magnificent structure, he decides to use what is now a tried and true method of raising a bunch of cash.

And guess what it is? Yes, I heard somebody say it back there. He's going to issue a giant series of indulgences, letters of indulgences. Okay? So, March the 15th, 1517, he promulgates what is going to be one of the most famous, or perhaps should say infamous, indulgences of all.

Now, we have talked about indulgences before now, have we not? Who has complained about them already? Wycliffe. Wycliffe complained about them. Then who? Who complained about them? So, for over a century, it's been recognized there's a problem here, right? So, let's back up here. Second, and just get a little more detail about indulgences.

All right, they've been around for quite some time. I suppose one of the first major massive use of them, though, goes back to the you know the Crusades. During the First Crusade, 1099, Pope Urban II remitted all ecclesiastical penance for the armed pilgrims setting off to the Holy Land.

All right, now, quite frankly, the ideal indulgences originally started out with some good intentions. You know how a lot of times good intentions wind up going bad? Basically, let's say you know you were sick or ill, you're lying on the flat of your back, and remember with the seven sacraments, the sacramental system, you have a confession, and you go to the priest and you confess.

And back in those days, what might the priest do after the confession? It's going to be more than just saying so many Hail Marys or pray the Rosary. You're going to have to get up and do something to make the wrong right. All right? Well, What if you're sick?

You can't get up. And so the idea of indulgences, at first, was the idea that, okay, since you're incapable of physically getting up to make the wrong right, you can hire somebody to do it for you, in other words. Or give a simple cash payment to church. This can go to establishing a hospital or orphanage or, you know, good works that way.

Right. Now, with the Crusades, the problem was you had these guys that are fixing to go into battle against the Muslims. And of course, you know, we don't have time to get into all of that, but the church definitely was very fearful of the advancement of Islam. They want the Crusaders to go and, you know, restore the Holy Land.

So what about before they leave, they got this, you know, this penance they've got to work off, right? You know, they've gone to confession and they've had penance laid upon them. They're supposed to go and do this before they go off on crusade. Well, no, we can't wait for that, so let's grant them indulgences.

They can pay a little cash payment. Or you can get an indulgence just for going and fighting, you see. Okay? So those were the sorts of things that indulgences were originally used for. But let's look at just what it's built upon. Of course, at this time, they have the doctrine of purgatory.

Now, you can. Read all your New Testament, and guess what you're going to find out? Huh? There's no worry. You know, what you have to do is go to one of the apocryphal books. And even there, you know, it's kind of a bleak reference. So you got this doctrine of purgatory evolving.

And the idea of purgatory, since some of you still may not know what I'm talking about, is sort of, shall we say, a holding tank. And if you have a sin that you haven't worked off yet, well, you stay in purgatory in order to be purged of this sin.

And this might take, you know, 5, 10, 20, 100, 300 years, okay, depending what it is you've got to work off. And so, you know, so they have this idea of purgatory. You go there first. Now, according to Roman Catholic theology, an individual's sins alienate them from God.

Of course, Protestants agree with that. And his love. And therefore, in order to be reconciled to God, the sinner must confess his sins to a priest. Now, that's where we differ, right? We believe we confess directly to God himself, to Jesus. And the priest will then enact upon him penance.

This means, and that's the sacrament, by the way. Confession is not. The penance is the sacrament. And you're supposed to do something, make the wrong right. Now, for example, an ex-thief. Must return stolen goods and then perform penance ordered by the priests. Usually, certain types of prayers are doing good works.

And this is temporal penance. This is what the church can tell you to do to try to make the wrong right. But I do want you to understand, officially, the church never actually taught that you could buy your salvation. All right, and that you could buy forgiveness of sins.

But this is what the church will put upon you for penance. You can do this to take care of that. Now, as time goes by, though, people begin to start acting as though they could buy forgiveness of sin. And the church saw, well, that's really not right, but we're not going to say anything.

Why? Money. Yeah, cash. Exactly. And by the way, we read Luther's 95 Theses, and he gets on this issue of indulgences. That's what he's talking about. He's saying, wait, this is not really official Catholic doctrine here. All right? And he's actually, at that point, not being very nasty to the Pope.

In fact, he's implying that it's these different churchmen out there, they're doing this without the Pope knowing about it. Well, what's the problem with that? The Pope's well aware of what's going on. In fact, he's the one that enacted this indulgence. And, you know, He really doesn't care if people believe that because he wants the money, you know.

And so, anyway, so this doctrine of indulgence rested on three principles: one, God is merciful, but also just. Christ and the saints, through their infinite virtue, establish a treasury of merit. Think of it sort of like a great big spiritual bank account in the sky of good works, built up through all the ages of the saints and Christ Himself.

You got this bank account of good works, all right. And the idea was that the Pope, in particular, you know, keys to heaven, the Pope can basically, and this is grossly simplifying it, it's more to it than this, but basically, and this, however, is pretty much what the common folk thought.

The church can cash a check on those good works. In other words, if you're lacking good works, the church can, you know, sell you indulgence, we will purchase you those good works that you're lacking to cover your sin so you don't have to stay in purgatory so long.

You got that? All right, so that's pretty much the The attitude. Now, by the 15th century, the papacy and bishops were granting indulgences that supposedly secured total remission of penalties for sin on earth or in purgatory. In other words, you could buy your way into a quick entry into heaven.

And in the 95 Theses, Luther just bluntly says, if you believe that, you're going to hell. I mean, he literally says that. And he says, plus the person who sells the indulgence, you know, let him think that you're going to hell. So Luther could be pretty sharp. All right.

And so Luther's, of course, this is what he's going to be upset about, these indulgences. Now, the irony is, he shouldn't have been because there actually aren't any indulgences sold where he's at. Now, that's an interesting story, which we need to hold on to that, though, and talk about Luther himself.

I can't even say that. Yes, sir. Who was it that I missed some? Who was it that actually wrote the letter of indulgence? The Pope? Well, actually, the Pope would oversee the writing of the statements for the indulgence and what sins it covers and everything. But now it's printed.

And it would have real fancy wax seals and ribbons on it. And, you know, it's just a real fancy-looking certificate. And of course, you pay cash money for them. Okay. What's that? Were there any of those? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The museums, you can see them. Yeah. Okay.

You can't see. Well, anyway, let's keep on going. So, Luther is born November 10th, 1483. His father, Hans Luther, his mother is Marguerite Luther. And he is in many ways emblematic of the changing of times here. Because his father was a peasant, who somehow, we're not quite clear how, he managed to cease being a peasant and becoming a businessman.

Actually, his business was a copper mine and smelting copper. He had a fairly successful business. He would be, I guess you could say, lower middle class, or maybe even middle-middle class. But he had managed to pull himself up, which was very difficult to do. We're talking, you know, 80%, 70% of the folks are peasants of this time.

It's very, very small business class. But he had become somewhat successful as a copper miner and smelter of copper. And Hans Luther, of course, had worked very hard to get where he was at. We're not quite sure what his attitude towards his son was, but some think basically he.

Martin as his social security. Remember, there is no social security back then. You get old, you depend upon your children to take care of you, right? And he wanted his son to even go further than he did. So he understood education is important. And he sent him to a grammar school.

By the way, one of these schools is one of those devotional schools I mentioned earlier. You know, so he's early exposed to Christian humanistic humanism, which is a positive form of humanism, not the negative form, and Christian humanism. And he was a brilliant student. Now, not 100% positive about this, but all indications indicate that Martin Luther had that extraordinarily rare situation of being able to read something and then just totally retain what he read.

What do we call that? Photographic memory. Photographic memory. Can you think of another brilliant Christian scholar in the 20th century that had that? C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis. You know, C.S. Lewis would sometimes have a student come into his office, so I'm told, and he could tell them, pick out a book, and he said, oh, turn it to any page.

The student opened that page. Start reading it, and then C.S. Lewis would start reading, looking at the kid just from memory. That would totally freak me out. All right, just totally. All right. And we know that Luther later on will send pages to books he was writing one page at a time, and there'd be no mistakes.

You know, wouldn't even have to edit it. Imagine the money he could have made doing papers for kids. All right. Yeah. Yeah, to the printer. Yeah. He was extraordinarily gifted. And multiple languages. He'll, of course, Latin, Greek. Never complete his Hebrew, but he had incredible knowledge of all these languages.

So, but anyway, he's a brilliant kid, and so he is going to, you know, go to school in Mansfield around the age of seven, study Latin, logic, rhetoric. Father is very strict, very harsh. In fact, apparently, Luther could never please him. You know, just no matter what he did, it was never enough.

And he, therefore, Had a very grim picture of God because remember, there are many times we were told God is like a father. Well, if you had a good father, that's a good illustration. But what if your father is harsh, judgmental, never, ever satisfied with whatever you do?

And some think that this helps to explain Luther's view of God, which was not the Jesus that we learned about in vacation Bible school, but instead is almost like a Zeus with his thunderbolts ready to zap you if you do something wrong. He was very, and by the way, Luther was very fearful of God, especially the Jehovah, you know, the Old Testament.

He was terrified of God. And one of the things that is another thing going on in the back of Luther's mind is Luther had three friends, very close friends, you know, school, who were killed by the plague. You know, and he is terrified of death. And because he was convinced if he died, he's going to hell.

You know, he was very much aware of his sinfulness. And he is very, very terrified of. Hell. Now, from all we know, Luther at school was a very popular student. I mean, you know, he was sort of like a jock with brains. Okay, I mean, he was athletic.

He was incredible charisma. He's the type of guy who walks in a room, there's electricity in the air. Everybody knows it's going to be interesting because, you know, that person shows up and everybody's faces light up. That would be Luther. He is something of the comedian as well.

In fact, he never did lose his comic wit. You know, even his writings, he could be very harsh and just wailing on a particular topic. Then here comes this joke that's just out of nowhere, just hilarious. You know, he always has a sense of wit. And he's an incredible singer.

You know, of course, he discovered, you see, there's no jukeboxes. Y'all don't even know what jukeboxes are now, these young people. If you want music at a restaurant, well, Hispanic culture knows what I'm talking about. What do you do in Hispanic restaurants? You hire who? Mariachis. The mariachis.

Well, believe it or not, in Germany, they had the German version of mariachis, right? And Luther made a little extra spending money by singing, you know, at the restaurants, which helps us to understand, you know, when he later will famously take, of course, you know, in Germany, we're talking beer, right, at beer halls, and a lot of the songs he very much knew.

Was were these Beer Hall songs. And of course, some of these later become hymns. Now, there's a big debate about our God is mighty. Oh, what's the hymn? Mighty Fortresses are God. Some say that that was formerly a Beer Hall tune. I'm not totally sure about that, but that's one of the claims that's made about that.

And by the way, that shows even there he's an innovator because he would do songs that the people could sing. And I know there's a beginnings of what they call Jesus music, back in the 60s and 70s. There's this guy who wrote an article that says, Why should the devil have all the good music?

And of course, the point was, you know, if you use music as a vehicle to communicate the word of God, which he did beautifully, you know. All right, so you have this personality developing here, Martin Luther. And he does what his father tells him to do. At age 14, he goes on to Magdeburg for a year, enrolled in Latin school in Eisenbach.

And then in 1501, he begins a master arts in the law for the University of Erfurt. See, his father wanted him to be a lawyer. Right. And by the way, if you're in college back in those days, you are also in church. All these university students would have a ball spot on their head.

Ladies, sorry, y'all wouldn't be there. But that's called the tonser. And so you're actually taking on lower orders just to be a university student. But the elder Luther had no intention of Martin staying in the church. He's just wanting to use the church to get his son an education, to make him a lawyer so he can be rich.

And this shows quite a different attitude because in the early medieval period, one of the highest vocations you could aspire for is to be a cleric, to be a priest or something like that. But Hans Luther, no, no, I want my son to be a lawyer. I don't want to be a priest.

You know, he's going to be horrified when that happens. Okay. So anyway, he's studying for the law and he is going to complete that. And he goes home. They have a great big celebration, you know. And then on his way back to university, you have that famous incident.

Terrible electrical storm blows up and he's riding on horseback back to school and there's a little bit of controversy as far as the details, but we know basically he was frightened. You know, if you've ever been out in a storm by yourself and that lightning starts striking about you, you start realizing real quick how small you are in the universe and how helpless you are.

And either he got off his horse or he was still on his horse and you know, seeking shelter and not understanding what you know lightning bolts really are, he does a very foolish thing. Yeah, he seeks out the protection of the biggest, tallest tree he can find. And guess what?

Lightning hits it. Now, have you ever seen a tree hit by lightning? You know, what actually happens, the lightning goes between the bark and the trunk of the tree, the sap is going up through the and the sap is instantaneously vaporized and it just explodes, right? And the force of the explosion knocked him, if he's on the horse, off the horse, if he's just standing cowering on the tree, just knocked him forward into the muck, face down.

And now, what I've already told you about Martin Luther, what do you think is going through his head? Oh, he's doing it. He's zapping me, okay? He's getting me, all right? You know, he's got all this guilt that he's carrying about him. And so he exclaims, If you spare me, Saint Anna, I will become a monk.

And if by magic, seems like the storm began to subside. And what do you think he thinks? God spared him. He had better keep his promise this time, right? So, now, probably, you'll hear me say this a lot from this point on. Luther never does anything halfway. Luther always goes way overboard, anything he does.

Just way overboard. I mean, he drove his fellow monks to utter frustration. Now, if he's gone, now, by the way, the story is told, and we can't confirm or unconfirm this. He goes back to school, has a party, you know, invites all his buddies, and then at the height of the party, he says, Well, guys, it's been great knowing you.

Tomorrow I'm entering a monastery. Now, this would be like, you know, you ever go to these class reunions, which I never have done, but I'm told, oftentimes, go to one of these class reunions, and you got the guy who was the last person on earth that you think would ever have a religious bone in his body, and now he's the minister.

All right, some of y'all, that's happened with you, right? All right, well, Luther is that guy. He's the last one that anyone thought would, you know, he's the class clown, you know, comedian. But have you ever noticed anything about comedians in terms of how they end up? John Belushi?

You just name a whole list of them. What happened? Yeah, you're dying drug overdose or suicide. Yeah, oftentimes, I'm not saying this is true of all comedians, but it seems that quite a few, that is a mask they put on to hide deep, deep troubles that they're having within.

And this seems to be the case for Martin Luther. So if he's going to become a monk, I told you he never does anything halfway. So he's got to find the most over-the-top, hardcore monastic movements he can get involved with. So he chooses the Augustinian issue. Eramites, the Augustine Eremites.

And he thinks becoming a monk, that's going to solve these feelings of guilt and all these personal problems he's got. So he joins this monastery. And the Augustinians, Eramites, they had a reputation where a lot of monasteries go soft. They start taking a lot of luxuries and they have a pretty easy lifestyle.

Oh, the Augustinians, boy, you basically work all day, and when you're not working, you pray, and you do confession, all this. Now, by the way, it is said that Luther would sometimes spend up to three hours confessing. He's in a monastery, okay? All right. I mean, you know, most of his buddies, they're taking 10, 15 minutes to confess.

He would do three hours, and then he still didn't feel like he'd confessed enough. He probably hadn't decided that. Yeah, you know. And so he, you know, he, and whatever dirty task there was to be done, he'd be the first to volunteer. You know. And they, of course, saw you should, you know, be able to control your body and all this.

So he would go on these extended fasts. In fact, on one occasion, he didn't show up for the, you know, the group meal. And he got passed because he knew he was on fast. But after two, three days go by and nobody's seen him, they Get real worried and they go to his cell, they had to bust down the door.

He has passed out from starving himself. He later on said that a lot of his problems he had physically long after this goes back to when he was a monk. He had so abused his body. He would, of course, now remember he's in a monastery. There's no members of the opposite sex around, but he found out that that still didn't control his thought life.

And so he would literally flagellate. He would take this whip and beat his back, and just all sorts of crazy things. He wouldn't use coal in his thing because he was unworthy to heat himself and warm himself. He drove his other fellow monks just nuts, because he just couldn't seem to find any peace.

Now, fortunately, he's got a pretty wise guy there in charge of the monastery, Johann von Staupitz. And Staupitz, you know, is going to begin to start taking actions that's going to help him. But this is what Luther himself said about this time period. This is a very famous comment by Luther.

It says, I was a pious monk and so strictly observed the rules of my order that if ever a monk Got into heaven by monkery, so should I have gotten there. If it had lasted longer, I should have tortured myself to death. And he's not talking, he's not joking here.

Now, the thing about this is, though, you know, you might think, boy, this guy's kind of crazy. But think of the depth of sincerity he has. Think about yourself. Have you considered your sin to the degree that he has? You got to really take note of that. It's quite remarkable.

And we've already covered this. So, despite all this, his conflicts persisted. No matter how much he fasted, no matter how much he prayed, no matter how much he confessed, he just could not get rid of this sense of sin. So, Stalpitz, who's the vicar there of the monastery, he and the brother monks, and I don't know how they did this because they're not supposed to have any money, but they somehow acquired enough money to purchase Luther a personal copy of the Bible in Latin, of course.

All right, this was extraordinarily rare to own your own Bible. In fact, Luther mentions the first time he ever saw a Bible was when he went to college. His great big, massive Latin Bible chained to a stand. Would spend hours reading it, you know, at college. But this, he gets his own personal copy.

And apparently, they also purchased a copy of St. Augustine. Of course, you know, it's Augustine and the Eremites. You know, their monastery follows the teachings of Augustine. So they have the Confessions of Augustine. And remember, Augustine had a lot of problems too as a young man. And his confessions are quite remarkable telling of that story.

So they thought, well, you know, maybe Augustine, you'll read about Augustine, and maybe this will help him. Okay, well, that's fine and good. Well, but what have I told you about Martin Lutheran reading? Well, if you can remember. Yeah, Luther decides it's not good enough to read the Bible.

He wants to memorize word for word, verse by verse, book by book. Why don't y'all try that? Okay. All right. All right. And remember, he goes overboard. So he's memorizing the Bible. All right. Well, he's still not there. So Stalpitz has an opportunity to get him out of the monastery.

And we're not sure, but we think that's the reason he does this, try to get him away. And sends him on some sort of a mission to Rome. We're not quite sure what the mission was, but he and some other monks are sent to Rome. And There, Luther was all excited to get to go to Rome.

I mean, this capital of Western Christendom, you know, the Pope's there, you've got all these relics, which at this point he's all for, and you've got all these church famous churches there. And so he does all the things that the Christian pilgrims of the day would do, go to these different sites.

But when he gets there, he's kind of shocked because it's a tourist trap. I mean, and some of the clergy there very obviously are very cynical about all of this, and they only care about the money. You know, it's very obvious. And he's also shocked at the sinfulness of the city, houses of prostitution.

And, you know, we got clerics going in and out, you know, and this is in the open. And it's very shocking to see the behaviors. And, of course, you have, when the Pope travels, you have this extraordinarily lavish retainers with him and the clothing, the finest, and just, you know, it's just almost sickening to see how materialistic the church in Rome is.

And this must have had a profound effect upon them as well. Now, there's a big debate over just when this particular part of his conversion takes place. Some say it happened when he's on the Scalia Santa, you know, that famous place where you crawl up these stairs and you're supposed to kiss each stair and pray on each step as you go up.

Some say, no, it was after he got back. He himself says it was in the tower there that he had this experience. But that's writing many years later. So we're not quite sure, but basically, whenever or wherever it happened, he is apparently, just like some of us, you know, have our, well, I'm so old-fashioned, I still have my iPod, you know, Bible iPod, and you can listen to it, right?

Okay, that's something. iPods are antiques now. But anyway, he would play it through his mind. And so he's going through a passage in St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, and he gets to chapter 1, verse 17. The just shall live by faith. And he had what I would call a theological aha moment.

Now, the only thing I can say to maybe help you relate to this, you know, from a different direction is math. All right. I'm so proud of my daughter. She meant A or Physics Test. I would never do that. Math was never my subject, okay? And I could work on problems, work on problems.

And, you know, some of y'all have had the experience working on a difficult mathematical computation problem. And then, aha, Eureka, I see the answer now, right? That almost never happened to me. But anyway, he had this theologically speaking, okay? He, what have he been trying to do to get to God?

Everything I've told you. He's been trying to what? Work his way to God. And you got to give him credit. Boy, did he try. But what does he realize? It's not by works. The just shall live by faith. And he now realizes it is a gift, a gift granted by grace, undeserved, unmerited favor from God.

And it's just like 10 tons of sin roll off his back. There's a beautiful depiction of this in an actual movie. Anyone have ever seen The Mission? There's that famous scene where, well, we won't get into that, but it really illustrates this very, very well. So now this is going to be one of the keys to the Protestant movement, this understanding, this conception that we're saved by grace through faith and not by works, lest any man should boast.

And so the immediate effects of this realization is he now has something he's never had before. And what's that? He's got peace with God. And when he, you know, whether it was at the monastery after he got back from Rome or there at Rome and he gets back, Stalpitz immediately notices the change.

Okay, for it is by grace you've been saved through faith. This is not from yourselves, it's a gift to God, not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. Put these two together and you have the foundations for Protestantism. And so he's going to go back.

Stalpitz already had him teaching at a little new college called Wittenberg, the College of Wittenberg. He is now going to complete his doctorate of theology. And by the way, he's finally reconciled with his father. That's good news, too. And so he starts teaching at the University of Wittenberg.

And guess what book he chooses? To especially emphasize in his teaching, Book of Romans. Yeah, he just becomes a master of the book of Romans, you know. And he's fulfilled a wonderful relationship with his college students. And notice he's in the Catholic Church still. In fact, we could probably leave Luther at this point and we would never have heard of him.

All right? You know, other than he was a very successful teacher, this real small little college, about the size of a little, you know, junior college here in town, right? Okay. And, you know, but, you know, he is going to have this situation where these indulgences are going to be sold.

Now, the funny thing about it is, as I mentioned earlier, and by the way, let's back up. Got just to keep us in order here. 1507, Luther is ordained as a priest. 1510, on his visit to Rome, you know, finds out the complaints by Hus and others were accurate.

And he earns his doctorate in 1512, okay, and then at Augustine Monastery of Wittenberg. Now, while all this is going on, you got Pope Leo X coming to the pontificate, and Leo decides he's. Going to build St. Peter's, and he issues this indulgence. By the way, there's a big archbishop in Germany that is also in deep debt, and he too is in cahoots with the Pope, and they're going to split the money from this sale of indulgences.

But the indulgences are going to be sold throughout Germany, but not in Wittenberg. And that's because Wittenberg is part of the principality of Frederick the Wise. Now, a lot of these medieval people, their nicknames are not appropriate, but in this case, it's very appropriate. Frederick the Wise. Frederick the Wise is the guy who established Wittenberg University.

And he was the guy who sought out professors. He is very proud of Martin Luther, who was early on obviously going to be a standout academic. And he's very proud of his professor there at Wittenberg. And by the way, Luther is also preaching at the cathedral there at Wittenberg, very popular preacher.

When the plague comes through, he does not leave. He ministers to the people. I can say miracle God, he doesn't get it, you know. But anyway, and so he's already established a sterling reputation with the people there in Wittenberg. He's beloved by the students. He's beloved by the common folk because they've heard him.

You know, preach. And you have, of course, sellers of indulgences at this time. And the guy that's going to be coming not to Wittburg, but next door, Thuringia, Jutenburg, it'd be like Navasota, only closer. Just across the border, he can come to Jutenburg. But he's not allowed to come because Frigga Wai says, uh-uh, y'all have sold indulgences in my kingdom before, and then I found out you didn't actually use the money for what you said they were being sold for, so no more indulgences sold where I'm at.

All right. Well, fine and good, but some of the college students decide they want to go hear this guy. Believe it or not, that was the rock star of the day. Church revivals, and students looking for an excuse to cut classes, apparently skip class, they go over to hear this guy do his song and dance.

Tetzel. And we will take up with that next time.