Oct. 31, 1517, the date Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Chapel, the Protestant Reformation was ignited. A few years later, in 1521 Luther had to appear before the Diet of Worms to defend his writings. There he uttered the immortal words, “Here I stand, God help me, I can do no other.” I’m certain that you are familiar with those dates. But you may not be as familiar with Nov. 10, 1483 - the day Martin Luther was born and his early life. J. H. Merle D’Aubigne, in his History of the Reformation in the 16th Century, reminds us of the importance of the first stages of a man’s life. He wrote,

“The first stage in a man’s life—that in which he is formed and molded under the hand of God—is always important, and was especially so in the case of Martin Luther. There, even at that early period of his life, the whole Reformation existed. The different phases of that great later work succeeded each other in the soul of him who was the instrument of accomplishing it before it was actually accomplished.