Wartburg Castle

Hi, I’m Pastor Lutzer, and it is a beautiful day here in Germany. We are at the Wartburg Castle. And for us, this castle has significance, because Martin Luther was brought here. He was captured and brought here after the Diet of Worms. Perhaps you’ve heard of that diet. Charles V, the head of the Holy Roman Empire, had called it in order to ask Luther to recant, but Luther refused to recant. He said, “My conscience is captured by the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant, so help me, God. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.”

Well, Charles V indicated that he wanted Luther dead, but Luther was given permission to go all the way home. After he was home in Wittenberg, the decree went out that said, in effect, anyone who kills Luther can do so without reprisal. So what happened was, as he was on his way home, he was captured by friends and brought here to the Wartburg Castle, where he lived for 10 months. While there, he translated the entire New Testament. He went through agony regarding his fights with the devil because the devil said to him, “Are you the only one that’s right? One thousand years of tradition and all the popes are wrong?”

It’s in this room that we’re going to be in, in just a few moments, that Martin Luther struggled. He struggled emotionally. He experienced depression, but he worked so hard. Out of that depression and all that he went through, he still translated the New Testament into German. That had huge implications. Will you join us now because we’re going to be going to the room where Martin Luther lived?