Having just finished watching the motion picture Luther by MGM again, I want to encourage every follower of Christ to watch this great movie.
This 2 hour documentary should be watched and watched again. Martin Luther is one of the most significant leaders of the Reformation and the movie has so much great dialog that you can't get it all in on a single viewing.
In the movie, Christ is exalted beyond measure and the importance of the Word of God in a language the common people can understand is an overwhelmingly clear theme.
The viewer gets to see Luther's salvation; we see him struggling with God's Justice and Mercy; we see him rebuke the Roman Catholic Church over and over again.
Spiritual Warfare is seen as we watch Luther battle with demons in his mind and extreme depression, yet God is victorious and Luther, by God's grace, prevails.
The scenes where Luther answers for his writings are incredible; he states he will not recant unless someone can take the Word of God and in plain language convince him of his error. I am not a Lutheran and I don't agree with all that Luther wrote but I agree that the Word of God in plain language must be the authority for the Christian. Luther speaks of refusing to go against his conscious and Scripture. What more is there?
The movie helps the 21st century Christian appreciate the degree to which the "Church" had departed from God in 15 centuries. Certainly we can say Luther did not go far enough, but he did something, 1000s upon 1000s before him did not do because of their love for money, power, or their "own souls" more than the truth.
We are reminded of Pontius Pilate's question, "What is truth?" Luther is fully convinced that truth is Christ as revealed in the New Testament. 500 years later we must still contend for truth! The exclusivity of Christ is being challenged perhaps now more than any other time in this post-modern world where truth is relative and most Christians denial any absolute truth.
Today and tomorrow and for every day God permits us to live we must follow Jude's clear instruction to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. The faith; not a faith; not the faith of each person's choice; Jude wrote "the faith." The one and only faith, there is but one faith to contend for and an absolute fundamental of that faith is the deity of Christ.
We must contend for what was articulated very clearly in the Nicene Creed 1100 years ago.
We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible; and in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only begotten of the Father, that is of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Lights, very God of very God; begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made in heaven and earth; who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate, was made man, suffered, rose again the third day, ascended into heaven, and He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
That which the "church" (or cult) of one of the Republican presidential candidates believes to be true about our Lord Jesus Christ must be rejected as absolute heresy. Jesus Christ is not a created being and Satan is NOT his brother.
The Apostle Paul told the Christians in Rome to mark those who teach anything contrary to sound doctrine. Certainly, Paul would admonish us not to vote for one that he would mark in the 21st century.
