{"id":12043,"date":"2016-08-17T01:32:49","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T06:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-insanity-of-luther\/"},"modified":"2016-08-17T01:32:49","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T06:32:49","slug":"the-insanity-of-luther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-insanity-of-luther\/","title":{"rendered":"THE INSANITY OF LUTHER"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><b>ROMANS 7:14\u201325<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><i>What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><i>(Romans 7:24).<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>If God is holy and man is sinful, what hope is there for man? This is the problem Martin Luther wrestled with for years. It drove him to despair. It caused him to cry out on one occasion, \u201cLove God? Sometimes I hate Him!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>Luther\u2019s fear of God nearly drove him insane. Some modern psychoanalysts contend that he was, in fact, quite neurotic. They point to his frequently intemperate speech, though in fact using strong language was simply part of the style of theological debate during that era. But beyond this, they point to Luther\u2019s neurotic fears concerning his health and other manners, and the fact that he carried tremendous guilt for every sin he ever realized he had committed.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>What is often not reckoned with, however, is that Luther was a brilliant student of law. He applied his knowledge to the Law of God, seeing that in the light of God\u2019s Law, he could never reach the standards of God\u2019s righteousness. In fact, he saw his sin as so awful before God that he began to hate any mention of God\u2019s righteousness.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>Then one day, as Luther was preparing to teach Romans 1 to his theological students, he came to verse 17 and read, \u201cFor in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith.\u2026\u201d Luther said later, \u201cI realized for the first time that my own justification depends not on my own righteousness, which will always fall short, but it rests solely and completely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which I must hold on to by trusting faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>Luther saw that the righteousness of Christ is provided for all believers graciously and freely. Our standing before God can only be right through Christ. We can never stand on our own. A right standing before God is freely offered in the Gospel, and we only need to lay hold of it as a gift. If we are too proud to take salvation as a gift, then we shall perish. But if we want deliverance from the fearfulness of God\u2019s wrath, God offers that salvation freely. Our justification rests solely and completely on the righteousness of Christ alone.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'><b>CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'>Haggai<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:   18.0pt;line-height:normal'>In a sense, people outside Christ are insane, not   adjusted to reality. They live in a fantasy\u2014a world without God. Luther\u2019s   \u201cinsanity\u201d was the first stage to true sanity, becoming aware of the true   state of reality. Thank God today that He has given you the mind of Christ to   follow Him.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:   normal'><i>For   further study: Hab. 2:1\u20134; 3:1\u201319 \u2022 Romans 3:19\u201326<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'>thursday<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'>august<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ROMANS 7:14\u201325 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24). If God is holy and man is sinful, what hope is there for man? This is the problem Martin Luther wrestled with for years. It drove him to despair. It caused him to cry out on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-insanity-of-luther\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;THE INSANITY OF LUTHER&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}