If ever there was a case of someone's not understanding the impact of what was taking place, Pope Leo X is it. He was reacting to some obscure monk named Luther posting the Ninety-Five Theses on the Whittenburg door, the small school where he taught. When a copy of the theses finally made its way to Pope Leo X down in the Vatican, Leo X quipped, “Ah, the ramblings of a drunken German monk. He’ll think differently when he sobers up.”
Leo X significantly and seriously underestimated what he was dealing with in this "drunk" monk. Little did he know, Luther would never sober up. This was only the beginning of the movement that changed the Western World.
Prior to that, there was another group of "drunks" who changed the world. On May 24, 32 AD, the church age began as the Holy Spirit came to indwell the 120 believers in that Upper Room. When He did, the public reacted to them with the same words as Pope Leo said, "And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?' But others were mocking and saying, 'They are full of sweet wine.'
Just as with Luther, those of the early church never "sobered up." From that day forward, the gospel spread "from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the earth."
The world has no understanding of the impact of the Word of God on this planet and if, on the rare occasions when they do, they ignore it, as if straining to hold a beach ball under water. How much space do world history textbooks give to Moses, Jesus Christ, and the Apostle Paul? Yet these men, used of God, had such an impact on the world that we are still experiencing it today.
The early disciples and Luther weren't drunk with wine; they were filled with the Spirit. That's the need of the day, believers under the control of the Spirit the One who will bring the impact.
No comments:
Post a Comment