Sunday, October 30, 2016

Luther tells us to be aware of the Turks

"The great need of our time should have moved us to this prayer against the Turk, for the Turk, as has been said, is the servant of the devil, who not only devastates land and people with the sword, as we shall hear later, but also lays waste the the Christ faith and our dear Lord Jesus Christ. For although some praise the Turk's government because he allows everyone to believe what he will so as he remains the temporal lord, yet this reputation is not true, for he does not allow Christians to come together in public, and no one can openly confess Christ or preach or teach against Mohammed. What kind of freedom of belief is it when no one is allowed to preach or confess Christ, and yet our salvation depends on that confession, as Paul says in Romans 10 [:9], 'To confess with the lips saves,' and Christ has strictly commanded us to confess and teach his gospel.
Since, therefore, faith must be stilled and held in secret among this wild and barbarous people and under this severe rule, how can it exist or remain alive in the long run, when it requires so much effort and labor in places where it is preached most faithfully and diligently? Therefore it happens, and must happen, that those Christians who are captured or otherwise get into Turkey fall away and become altogether Turkish, and it is very seldom that one remains true to his faith, for they lack the living bread of the soul and see the abandoned and carnal life of the Turks and are obliged to adapt themselves to it.
How can one injure Christ more than with these two things, namely, force and wiles? With force they prevent preaching, and suppress the word. With wiles they put wicked and dangerous examples before men's eyes every day and draw men to them. So in order not to lose our Lord Jesus Christ, his word and faith, we must pray against the Turks as against other enemies of our salvation and of all good, indeed, as we pray against the devil himself.
In this connection the people should be told about the Turk's dissolute life and ways so that they may the better feel the need of prayer. To be sure, it has often disgusted me, and still does, that neither our great lords nor our scholars have taken any pains to give us any certain knowledge about the life of the Turks in the two estates, spiritual and temporal; and yet the Turk has come so near to us. It is said that the Turks, too, have chapters and monasteries. Some, indeed, have invented outrageous lies about the Turks to incite us Germans against them, but there is no need for lies; there is enough truth, I will tell my dear Christians a few things, so far as I know the real truth, so that they may the better be moved and stirred to pray earnestly against the enemy of Christ our Lord." - Martin Luther, On War Against The Turks, SW Volume 4, Edited by Theodore G. Tappert, Pg. 22-24

I could not but help to notice how today the media and the governments of our time do not want to call out the Islamic faith. Today, if a man is a Muslim and is a terrorist killing countless lives and civilians he is labeled not a Islamic Terrorist but rather is labeled a Terrorist despite of his faith.

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