The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 144

the shepherd Amos. In every age, the saints have had to reprove the
great, kings, princes, priests, and wise men, at the peril of their lives.... I
do not say that I am a prophet; but I say that they ought to fear precisely
because I am alone and that they are many. I am sure of this, that the
word of God is with me, and that it is not with them.”—Ibid., b. 6, ch.
10.
Yet it was not without a terrible struggle with himself that Luther
decided upon a final separation from the church. It was about this time
that he wrote: “I feel more and more every day how difficult it is to lay
aside the scruples which one has imbibed in childhood. Oh, how much
pain it has caused me, though I had the Scriptures on my side, to justify
it to myself that I should dare to make a stand alone against the pope,
and hold him forth as antichrist! What have the tribulations of my heart
not been! How many times have I not asked myself with bitterness that
question which was so frequent on the lips of the papists: ‘Art thou alone
wise? Can everyone else be mistaken? How will it be, if, after all, it is
thyself who art wrong, and who art involving in thy error so many souls,
who will then be eternally damned?’ ‘Twas so I fought with myself and
with Satan, till Christ, by His own infallible word, fortified my heart
against these doubts.”—Martyn, pages 372, 373.
The pope had threatened Luther with excommunication if he did not
recant, and the threat was now fulfilled. A new bull appeared, declaring
the Reformer’s final separation from the Roman Church, denouncing
him as accursed of Heaven, and including in the same condemnation
all who should receive his doctrines. The great contest had been fully
entered upon.
Opposition is the lot of all whom God employs to present truths
specially applicable to their time. There was a present truth in the days
of Luther,—a truth at that time of special importance; there is a present
truth for the church today.

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