Quotes from Martin Luther

For if the world were without godly men and those who are to be saved, it would not stand; and when the last saints are living, the Last Day will soon come. For God has no concern for the state and the household except for the sake of the church.

There is no means to take sin away but grace alone. That

IN this chapter Moses selects another occasion for transgressing the First Commandment, an occasion called spiritual pride because it boasts of its righteousness and merits. This is trust in one's own works, and no plague and opponent of faith or trust in the mercy of God is more destructive.

THIS, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces.

For through terror He sanctifies those who believe in His name.

In order not to forget God and through lack of restraint to misuse one's good fortune, it is ten times more necessary to call upon God's name during a period of bliss than in the midst of tribulation.

But it is God who smites the godless, as he says here.

Because love grows by works of love, and man becomes better;

Nor are we only kings and the freest of all men, but also priests for ever, a dignity far higher than kingship, because by that priesthood we are worthy to appear before God, to pray for others, and to teach one another mutually the things which are of God. For these are the duties of priests, and they cannot possibly be permitted to any unbeliever.

But the Christian life is of such a nature that it is bound daily to the vine, that is, to the Word, and is made drunk with the gifts of the Spirit or the Word. In the second place, it is not only made drunk this way by the Spirit and filled with the confidence which is the most salutary inebriation for the new man; but it is also washed in wine according to the old man.

The present facts are that the world is insane and rages when we confess Christ and believe in Him.

Yes, with a feeling of pity and sympathy the godless are to be destroyed or struck down by us as we remember that we are the instrument of God and are ourselves perhaps to be cast as a whip into the fire after we have blasted the evildoers.