The 8th verse of the 6th chapter of
2nd Kings, Then the king of Syria warred
against Israel, And took counsel with his servant,
saying, In such and such a place shall
be my camp.
And the man of God sent unto the
king of Israel, saying, Beware that thy path
is not such a place, For thither the
Syrians are come down.
And the king of Israel sent to the
place Which a man of God told him,
and warned him of, And saved himself there,
not once nor twice.
Therefore the heart of the king of Syria
Was so troubled for this thing, And he
called his servants, and said unto them, Will
ye not show me which of us is
for the king of Israel?
And one of his servants said, None, my
lord, O king, But Elisha, the prophet that
is in Israel, Telleth the king of Israel
the words That thou speakest in my bedchamber.
And he said, Go and spy where he
is, That I might send and fetch him.
And it was told him, saying, Behold, he
is in Dathom.
Therefore sent he thither horses and chariots And
a great host.
And they came and compassed the city about.
And when the servant of the man of
God Was risen early, and gone forth, Behold,
an host compassed the city forth With horses
and chariots.
The servant said unto him, Alas, master, How
shall we do?
And he answered, Fear not, For that which
be with us Are more than they that
be with them.
And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray
thee, Open his eyes that he may see.
And the Lord opened the eyes of the
young man, And he saw, and behold, The
mountain was full of horses and chariots, All
fire round about Elisha.
And when they came down to him, Elisha
prayed unto the Lord, and said, Smite this
people, I pray thee, with blindness.
And he smote them with blindness, According to
the word of Elisha.
And Elisha said unto them, This is not
the way, Neither is this the city, follow
me, And I will bring you to the
man whom ye seek.
But he led them to Samaria.
And it came to pass, When they were
come into Samaria, That Elisha said, Lord, Open
the eyes of these men that they may
see.
And the Lord opened their eyes, And they
saw, and behold, They were in the midst
of Samaria.
And the king of Israel said unto Elisha,
When he saw them, My father, shall I
smite them?
Shall I smite them?
And he answered, I shall not smite them,
Which thou smite those Whom thou hast taken
captive With a sword and with thy bow.
Set bread and water before them, That they
may eat and drink, And go to their
master.
And he prepared great provision for them.
And when they were eaten and drunk, He
sent them away, And they went to their
master.
So the bands of Syria Came no more
Into the land of Israel.
And God will stamp With his own divine
seal of approval And blessing this reading From
his precious inspired word.
I take the promised Holy Ghost, The blessed
power of Pentecost, To fill me to the
uttermost.
I take, thank God, He undertakes for me.
And the people of God say, Amen.
You may be seated.
This is what is known In the church
calendar As Reformation Sunday.
For it marks That immortal day When the
great Protestant Reformation Of the sixteenth century In
Europe Was set on fire By the act
Of Martin Luther, The monk of Rome, Who
kneeled his thesis To the church door At
Wittenberg in Germany.
And the Reformation Took off With unstoppable power
And with the conversion Of whole countries of
Europe.
It was the day When one Insolent rape
man Hated, Despised, Ridiculed, And attacked.
Stood with a hammer and nails And his
manuscript With ninety-five reasons Why the indulgences
for sin Offered by Rome Must be rejected.
And why God Only forgives sins Through the
precious blood of Christ.
And by the reception Of His pardon alone
Can man and woman Be saved.
Luther had a battle With Rome And it
became a personal Conflict With the power Of
the Pope And the power of this one
man Standing for God And right.
But as the battle Continued, It changed.
And it wasn't The battle of Martin Luther.
It wasn't the personal Battle of the Pope
To kill Luther.
But it became a battle Throughout the whole
World in Europe.
A battle For truth against The lie.
For the powers of darkness Against the powers
of light.
And for the infallible Word of the living.
One At the start Of the engagement A
battle to destroy The life of Luther.
Developing into a worldwide Struggle Of Rome To
kill the truth Of the gospel.
Now if you study carefully The chapter that
I read With you tonight And when you
go home You turn to the next chapter
You will find That the Martin Luther of
Israel A man Called Elisha Had the same
Conflict.
Elisha's Personal life Was attacked First of all
By the king of Syria.
And then The whole nation Was attacked By
the king of Syria Attacking Samaria Which was
the capital city Of the northern kingdom Of
Israel.
Historical events Have a habit Of repeating Themselves.
And there is a Special And parallel Wonder
about All the historical Happenings That are recorded
for us In the Word of God.
Martin Luther Was one of the greatest Giants
of history.
He not only Casts a shadow Over the
age in which He lived But that shadow
Is cast forward To all ages Since the
day That he witnessed so Faithfully for God
on earth.
This is a great Example Of the majesty
And the miracle Of God.
How God takes An agent Baptizes His agent
With the Spirit of God And a man
Comes forth God's man To tackle the enemy
That man Himself is Attacked But miraculously escapes
All his enemies.
And the battle ceases To be a personal
Conflict It becomes a conflict Of the whole
world.
2 Kings Chapter 6 You have the first
Siege At Dotham And at Dotham The prophet
of God Lived.
But he was able to tell The king
of Israel The very place Where the king
of Syria Mounted his Attacks upon Israel.
And Through using That most useful Information The
king of Israel Could not be conquered For
he knew the very Words that the king
Of Syria passed In his bedchamber.
So The king of Syria Decided to kill
The man Of God.
That's exactly What Rome decided to do With
Luther.
To kill him!
To wipe him From the earth!
So that there would be No protest No
more Ninety-five theses Against Rome's False gospel.
No more attacks Upon the mass And upon
the Fundational lies Upon which Romanism Is established
and built In the first Siege.
Chapter 6 of 2 Kings Elisha Won the
victory Because Elisha was in Touch with God.
His servant A young man of eagerness A
young Man who didn't lie in bed In
the morning but got up early That young
man Was weeping And saying to Elisha What
shall we do?
All around Us our city Is blocked With
our enemies.
Elisha you haven't Even a chariot.
You haven't even one Chariot.
How Are we going to get away?
And Elisha looks At the young man And
he says to him Greeter are they That
are with us Than are with men.
I don't know what that Young man thought
of.
When I get to heaven I'll have a
Conversation with him and say How did you
feel When Elisha said To you That there's
more with him Than with the enemy.
And yet The hills and the valleys and
the Mountains round this city Are packed with
Syrian soldiers And chariots that we Cannot count.
What is going to happen?
What did Elisha do?
He did what Every man of God and
woman Does when they're in trouble.
Doesn't ring the phone To talk to us.
He gets On the phone He prayed And
he said Lord my Servant He can't see.
He's blind.
I ask You to open The young man.
And God Opened the eyes of the young
man And he saw round About Elisha The
chariots Of the Lord And the horsemen thereof
And they Far outnumbered The chariots.
So the plan To kill The man of
God Failed and Failed utterly.
Then The prophet prayed again And he said
I ask you to open the eyes of
my young man I want You to stop
the eyes Of all my enemies Strike them
with Blindness.
Elisha opened the city gates He went out
And he says you've come to the wrong
Address.
I can Take you to where you need
to go Follow me.
So he marched them all To Samaria And
brought them into the streets Of Samaria.
My what a day that Was when into
the streets Of Samaria marked The whole of
the army Of the king of Sharia.
And then he Prayed.
Lord Open their eyes And God opened their
eyes And they saw they Were in the
camp of The enemy.
Surround it Overcome With no Way of escape.
And the old king of Israel He was
a nasty character He always was Because his
mother Was a wicked So he was no
good He came From a royal house That
had a curse on it And he said
well I'll kill them And I just said
you'll do nothing Of the kind.
You'll give Them the best food they ever
had You'll feed Them and give them Water
to drink And you'll send them back to
their Own country and to their Own master.
And so He made a great feast For
the defeated Folk.
But when you turn over to the Next
chapter You will find a different story You
will find The story Of the whole of
Israel Held in the Grip of The Syrians
And there was Nothing but famine And desolation
And men and Women crying for a morsel
Of bread And crying for something To drink.
What a tragedy And the king Got so
angry he now Turned He now turned upon
Elisha and he said I'm going to take
his head off So he went down To
see Elisha He was sitting with the elders
Of the city And Elisha said to him
Tomorrow morning There'll not be one left He
said I don't know about that Well he
says you'll soon See about it.
And There was a Leading man One of
the king's High men with him And he
laughed at Elisha Said it couldn't be But
the night drew on There was four lepers
Outside The city They were not going to
be much good In a battle With the
great host Of Syria But God made a
choice And he would take four lepers And
he would use Those four lepers To destroy
Syria forever And so he did And those
men decided To go and ask for bread
From the tents Of the Syrians But when
they got there There was no one there
So they Must have come from Palamina So
they decided that they would Go and take
everything they could Grasp and hide it So
they took the golden Cups and the silver
Plates they took everything They could get and
they gathered it up And hid it And
one of them said This is not good
Evil will befall us Before sunlight Let's go
and tell the city And they went and
told The city and the king Laughed Oh
he says Syria has withdrawn To get us
out From the walls And if we leave
this place They'll come and wipe us out
This is a master plan But some men
said No get the horses we've left Let's
go and find out What's happening And they
went And they saw the army of the
Syrians In absolute confusion Throwing off their clothes
And running As if Wolves and lions Were
pursuing And they went back And told the
story And there was plenty In the city
Everything The prices came down To the lowest
in their history That mocked Elisha He was
trumpled Under foot By the crowds that came
To get the cheap Cheap food In Elisha
Martin Luther's life Was one of an individual
Battle at the beginning Going home once From
his school He was struck By lightning As
a young student He was so terrified He
said I'm going to become A monk I'm
going in To the monastery And he gave
up his studies And he went in To
the monastery And in that monastery God dealt
With Luther's soul He discovered That the righteousness
that Rome offered Brought no peace To his
heart Rest to his conscience Or joy to
his soul And one day reading In an
old bible That was teemed In the library
of His monastery He read that great Chapter
in Roman Righteousness Is the gift of God
And he said oh God I need that
righteousness He was asked to go To Rome
For the monastery which he did And he
thought When he was there he would go
up The holy stairs The stairs that are
supposed To have been in Jerusalem Up which
the Lord Trod the night of his betrayal
Of course nobody Believes that but Rome Deceiving
her people And He went up the stairs
When he was half way up The scripture
came back to him That just Shall live
By faith That just Shall live by faith
And he stopped He turned And walked down
the stairs And he went home To Germany
to preach That gospel That just shall live
By faith And a great revival Broke out
And in the midst of that revival The
Pope Sent a man called Tetzel To sell
indulgence Indulgence is a doctrine Peculiar to Rome
Which says That the saints of God Have
far too much Righteousness To get into heaven
Too much So God has Taken all The
righteousness from the saints That they didn't need
And put into A great bank And Rome
says that she Can sell you The righteousness
of the saints At her bank And she
can Give you an indulgence An indulgence Signed
by the authority Of Rome That your sins
are forgiven And of course You can get
special indulgences For what you want to do
In fact Tetzel Sold the right To kill
your mother-in-law For a pound There
must have been a queue up For that
There must have been a lot of bad
Mother-in-laws Imagine selling people's Souls Martin
Luther's Soul caught fire And he said I'll
break the Drum of Tetzel And he did
And he Proclaimed the fact That no one
but God can forgive sins The only power
That can cleanse A sinner's heart Is the
precious blood Of the Lamb And men should
leave The folly of their sins And the
folly of Rome's potpourri And turn to God
And God in grace Will save them The
theses that he nailed To the church door
They were all printed Translated into Every language
in Europe And sewn in their Tens of
thousands And Europe awakened Out of the sleep
of the dark ages Whole Countries turned To
the truth of the Gospel And the great
reformation That reformed The whole church And its
all Beliefs by a return To the word
of God To please And Martin Luther Was
then called To appear before The great country
He was called to appear Before the emperor
Of the Holy Roman Empire As it was
called He was called to answer And when
he was called Nobody wanted to Take his
part So he went alone Everyone said it
was the road To death It was the
road to the end Of Luther But Luther
appeared In that great conclave With the Emperor
of The Holy Roman Empire in the chair
The leading Power of the Pope and his
cardinals All there In full vestures To terrify
The common little Priest from Wittenberg And he
stood up In the midst of them And
when he was challenged about His teaching He
said here I Stand I can do none
else God help me God It was a
bombshell And Luther walked out Of that meeting
The emperor Issued an edict That anyone who
found him They were to kill him Immediately
And there would be Nothing said about his
death He was to die As a dog
But as He was walking Down the road
Horsemen Appeared They seized him They took him
away To the Wurtberg castle And for months
They hid him there And the empire He
searched all over Europe But he couldn't find
Luther And Luther wrote Home And he said
I don't want to waste My time In
this castle Send me my bible Send me
my books I'm going to Translate the bible
Into the language of the people So they
can read it For themselves And during his
Captivity That came upon Because of the smartness
Of his friends To save them from the
Murdering knives of the emperor He Translated the
whole Bible into the Common language Of the
German people The greatest thing he could have
done And people were able To read the
scriptures For themselves And the scriptures Let them
to Christ And Christ led them To his
cross And to the fountain filled With blood
drawn from Emmanuel's veins And so the Reformation
went From strength to Strength Rome has never
Recovered from the blow That was struck When
the bible could be read By all people
And they could read for themselves The way
to Christ The way to faith The way
to pardon And the way to God moves
In a mysterious way His wonders to Perform
He plants his footsteps in the sea And
rides upon The storm In the meanwhile To
stop the influence Of Luther And they couldn't
find And they couldn't kill Rome issued A
statement To say that Martin Luther Was dead
And when the people Went past his grave
one day All that came out Of the
grave Was smoke and flames The flames of
hell And Martin Luther Was sitting back In
his own home that day And he got
this Copy of what was Supposed to have
happened And he said isn't it very interesting
He says I had the best meal my
wife Ever cooked today And if there was
any fire It was on the chicken That
I ate and not on me Martin Luther
He lived To die in Peace And today
History records That Luther Changed the picture Why?
Because he was a man of the Gospel,
a man of The book, a man Of
faith, a man Himself saved By the grace
Of God Zwingli, the great Swiss Performer Said
he was the Hercules Who defeated The tyranny
of Rome Pope Leo X said He's a
wild boar He's ravaging my vineyard And the
Emperor Charles V said He's a demon in
the habit Well we know who Was right
And today we are Challenged In this day
in which we live To stand Up for
Jesus As good soldiers Of the cross Lift
high The royal banner It must not suffer
loss And if you're here tonight And you're
not saved You have church membership You have
baptism You have everything the church Can do
for you but you're a Lost soul But
tonight you can come like Luther to the
cross You can find the cleansing Of the
Savior's blood You can turn from Darkness to
light And from the power of Sin and
Satan to the Lord May it be so
For Jesus' sake Let's bow our heads Heavenly
Father We thank thee for thy word Thy
word is truth Write it On all our
hearts And make us willing To bear reproach
For Jesus' sake And if there's one here
without God, without Christ, without hope They have
the Church But it'll not help Them in
the hour of death They have their baptism
But it will not Save them from hell
fire They have everything that man Can do
religiously for them But nothing But the blood
Can take away their sin And no one
but Christ Can save their soul I pray
this night that they may Come as they
are Without one plea But that the blood
was Shed for me And that thou bidst
me Come to thee O Lamb of God
I come And may the blessing of the
Triune God The Father The Son and the
Holy Spirit Rest Remain and abide With us
all Now and forevermore And the people of
God Say Amen