The sermon by Scott Brown at an unknown church focused on the life of Katerina "Katie" Luther, the wife of Martin Luther, and her significant role during the Protestant Reformation. Katie Luther, born in 1499, was sent to a monastery at a young age and later became a key figure in spreading Reformation ideas. Intrigued by Martin Luther's teachings, she and other nuns sought to escape the convent with his help. Katie eventually married Martin Luther, and their marriage challenged the prevailing views of celibacy and marriage, promoting the idea that marriage was a primary state of womanhood. Katie was instrumental in managing their household, which served as a hub for Reformation activities, hosting students, orphans, and visitors. Her resourcefulness extended to managing finances, agriculture, and hospitality, making her household a model of Reformation home life. Despite the challenges, including the death of two of their children and Martin's bouts of depression, Katie's unwavering faith and dedication to her family exemplified the biblical virtues found in Proverbs 31 and other scriptures. Her life demonstrated how the Reformation reshaped family life through a commitment to scripture and the grace of God.

So this father-daughter retreat is different. We've never done what we're going to do. We're going to tell stories of great women. And these really are beautiful, inspiring stories. Think about, you know, put yourself in these stories.

What you'll find is what a wonderful thing God does for women, and how He saves them, and how he cares for them, how he walks with them, and how he loves them their whole life long. And while God does bring his true children through trials and tribulations, He sustains them. And what you'll find is that when they die, their hearts praise God for how good he was. When they get to the end of all the trouble, they look back and they cannot believe how good God was. I hope that's the story of your life.

That as you grow up, you'll see the goodness of God in everything. And that you'll recognize that all things work together for good, for the called, according to his purpose. Now I just want to give you a quick flyover of what we'll be dealing with here. First of all, this evening we're going to speak about Katerina Luther. And as you can see, we have a couple of statements that try to grasp at least some of what these women were all about.

Katerina Luther, I will cling to thee forever. That's really the title of the message I'm going to give tonight. And there's a great quote, statement that she made, I will stick to Christ as a burr to cloth. She said that in her dying day. And then next this evening, Louise de Colenay, And resting in the will of God, and you notice the citation, she commended her soul to God and to his son, Jesus Christ, having lived and wanted to die in the Reformed religion.

And then next, tomorrow, Lady Jane Grey, crowned with glory, live to die, deny the world, defy the devil, despise the flesh, and delight yourself only in the Lord." What a statement. And then after that, Katharina Schutz, the childless mother reformer, faith is not faith, which is not tried. And then, next, Bethan Lloyd-Jones, wife of D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, a woman for all seasons, Christ's death as well, able to clear all my sins away. There at last I found There at last I found release and was happy.

And then, Anne Judson, one of the happiest creatures on earth. This is what she says of herself when she was about 16 years old. I rejoice that I am in his hands, that he is everywhere present and can protect me in one place as in another. Jesus is faithful. So those are the personalities that we're going to be speaking on.

And what you'll find are stories of how God saves young girls, how he cares for them. It's just a marvelous testimony. Now, my job tonight is to talk about Katerina Luther, or Katie Luther. I'm gonna call her Katie Luther the whole time. And with Katie Luther, we find how the Lord reshaped family life through a reformation.

In a small group of families, Katie Luther was the wife of Martin Luther. And Katie Luther is a wonderful exposition of how God is so kind to women. And you'll see the power of the gospel in a woman's life. Now I hope you have an outline, and I'm just gonna make some comments on all these areas to give you a flavor of this woman's life. You might wanna take notes, but there it is if you'd like to do such a thing, I'm going to touch on these basic things.

Now let's talk about the historical context. She lived during the Reformation. She was born on January 29, 1499, and of course 1517 marked the official beginning of the Reformation. So she was in her late teens when the Reformation started to really roll, and the Lord used that reformation to really be a blessing to her life. She died on December 20, 1552 at the age of 53.

One of the things that you'll notice is some of these women live longer than others. Some have relatively short lives. And Katie Luther lived until she was 53 years old and then she died. We'll talk about her death later. Let's talk about her early life up to the time when she was 26 years old when she got married.

Katie's father died when she was very young and her stepfather decided that he wanted to send her to a monastery at age five. So he sent her away to get an education at a monastery And then at age nine, if you can imagine this, she was moved to another monastery and or a convent and she stayed there for many years afterwards. But what happened in that monastery is that the nuns in that convent started hearing about the Reformation. They started reading what Martin Luther was writing, and they were taken by it. Their hearts burned.

So there were nine nuns in this monastery that were hearing the Gospel for the first time. And they could not get it out of their minds. And so they continued to read Luther and they would hear reports, you know, from the Reformation coming from the outside. What was happening? Here's what was happening.

Martin Luther was preaching from the Bible in the German language so people could understand it. That was earth-shaking. Because the Roman Church didn't think you really needed to hear the Bible in your own language. You just needed to hear it in Latin. But Luther was preaching in German, and people understood it, and it was changing everything.

People had no idea what the Bible said about salvation. So that was just shaking really Europe. Katie was very interested. Katie was thrilled when she started reading about the Gospel along with these other nuns. And they longed for more of the gospel.

Well, Luther was writing about marriage, and he was talking about the fact that the primary state of womanhood is marriage. While the Roman Catholic Church was saying that if you want to do something good with your life, be a nun and never get married, they had convinced 25% of the population to take vows of celibacy. 25%. And so you had a society of women who thought if you wanted to be godly, you would never do anything so irrelevant as to get married. Well, Martin Luther was preaching about the doctrine of marriage, the joys of marriage, the blessing of children.

He was saying things that people weren't saying. And it really gripped these nuns. And so all nine of them wrote to their fathers to ask them if they could be released from the nunnery. And what do you think the father said? Every single father of those nine nuns said, no, you must stay in the monastery or in the convent.

And because these nuns wrote letters to their fathers, they were punished. And Katie Luther herself was flogged and thrown into the prison of the monastery. And they all had to do penance. And so there she was in the convent prison. Prison.

And, you know, this was, it was a capital crime to release someone from their monastic vow. And so it was a very dangerous thing for them to do, but they were willing to do it. So one of the nuns, who was actually the niece of a very famous and powerful Roman Catholic voice, suggested that these ladies appeal directly to Martin Luther. So they wrote Martin Luther and found a way to contact him. And so On an Easter evening during a midnight vigil, something happened, and it really shook Europe.

It shook marriage in Europe and changed it. And what happened was that Martin Luther sent Leonard a copy with his wagon to the convent. Leonard had a regular daily routine of delivering fish to the convent. And so he rode up with his wagon. He was a friend of Martin Luther's.

He rode up with his wagon outside. And while the rest of the nuns had just finished their midnight vigil on the evening of Easter. And everyone was very tired after this vigil, and they went to sleep. The nuns snuck out, and they climbed over the wall, and they cl—there were—there were somewhere between nine and twelve empty herring barrels, and these nuns crawled into the herring barrels. And they closed the lids, and they had escaped.

They drove about six miles that night along roads that were very dangerous because the Roman Catholics, of course, hated the Reformation. And so it was hostile territory, and the consequences were great because they would have suffered death in the event that they were caught. So this wagon load of nuns shows up at Martin Luther's house and they all get out of the barrels. And so what is Luther supposed to do? That was a big question in his mind.

So what Luther did is he tried to appeal to the families that they would take these women back. But some of the families refused to take them back. And so Martin Luther engaged in a process of trying to find wives for them, because they needed to be married. So he worked to get them married and some of them were married, some of them were disowned, like Katie Luther, Katie was, Katie Von Borah was disowned by her father. And she remained unmarried for over two years.

She was the last one left. Everyone had gotten married or they were being taken care of. And so Martin Luther found a place for her to stay at a wealthy family, the Reichenbach family, and she stayed there. And then she went to the home of Lucas Crannich, and there she learned how to run a household. During that time, she refused several suitors.

She refused every suitor that Martin Luther presented to her. One of them actually was acceptable to her. There was a wealthy college student that Martin Luther hoped that she would marry. And at the very last minute, he backed out primarily because he was from a wealthy family and she was not bringing a dowry and the family did not want that marriage to take place. So Katie Luther actually was left crestfallen because there was really no one there to marry her.

And Luther himself said of Katie, she is aloof and appears to be quite proud. He described her as very stiff and not really a very sweet gregarious person. That was Martin Luther's opinion of her. But over time, he would visit the reichenbachs and the cranniches and he began to call her, my dear Katie. My Katie.

Not my dear Katie, my Katie. And so, but Martin Luther continued to try to get her married. And one attempt was to get her to marry a 65-year-old pastor. Katie said, absolutely no way. And she was talking to one of Luther's friends, and she said, I will not marry him.

I would rather marry you or Martin Luther. That's what she said. And so this friend comes and tells Martin Luther the story of what she said. And then joking with his father, Martin Luther tells his father. Now his father wanted him to be married because he wanted someone to take care of him in his old age and he wanted children, grandchildren.

And so Martin Luther is telling his father this story, and his father says, you need to go marry her. I want you to marry her. And so, finally Martin did go to her and ask for her hand in marriage, And how did he do it? Don't try this at home. He took three of his friends with him to witness it.

You know, witnessing things was a big deal in Reformation Europe. And so he took three friends with him. He asked her to marry him. She says yes, and they're married that night. And then in the next morning they have a small celebration of friends.

And Martin was 42 years old and she was 26. And then they held a more formal ceremony later, which was a big event in Wittenberg because of course Martin Luther was very well known. And so they were married. Martin says that he really didn't love her, he married her out of duty. And what you'll find is over time that changed.

That changed. There is great evidence that he had tenderness toward her. Many, many things that he says indicates that. It's hard to know when you're reading biographers. Their biases and things like that, they can take one statement and make it mean more than it does.

So you have to be careful with it. So he married because he thought marriage was the right thing to do. And that's another thing, don't try that at home. You really want to marry because you really believe there's a really good match there. And so they were married.

Now, in your outline, in the third section of your outline, I'm gonna talk about their marriage and their life together from age 26 to the time of her death at age 53. So they got married, she moved into the monastery. What was the monastery called? Wonderful place to come and live as a new bride. The Black Cloister, that was the name of the monastery.

And it was in disrepair, it needed all kinds of upgrades. She moved in and the place was filthy, It needed to be repainted, and Martin Luther had not changed his bed straw for years, and it stank to high heaven, so she says. And so she went to work cleaning up the black cloister to make it habitable. And Katie was very frugal. Martin was not frugal.

He always spent more than they brought in. And he just didn't care. He gave his money away. He was always running in a deficit. In fact, toward the end of his life, he writes how throughout his life, he was paid $300, but he spent $500 every year.

He always overspent. Part of the problem was he was so generous. He just wanted to give everything away. At one point there was a very poor college student that needed money and he wanted to help him and he wrote to him that he He wanted to give him a family vase, but Katie had hidden it from him so that he wouldn't give it away. He was just very generous.

He had no sense of the family cash flow, and he finally turned it all over to her. And she was not happy because the publisher of his writings was getting rich. He got no royalties. He was never paid for any speeches. And he never got paid for any of the books that he wrote.

And so it made it made life hard. So Katie had to be a wise manager and that's the next item in your in your outline, household manager. Now She managed all of the family's holdings and finances. She was a remarkably resourceful and energetic woman. And I have just marveled reading about her.

She planted fields. She was involved in breeding and selling cattle, she was raising poultry, she slaughtered livestock, she caught pike and trout and perch and carp in the local streams and the ponds. She planted fruit orchards. She grew vegetables. She maintained a vineyard.

She raised bees. She preserved meats and fruits and vegetables. She was an herbalist and by the way everything had to be cooked from scratch and there were no ovens like the ones that you have. No microwaves, you know, all the modern, No refrigerators, the modern conveniences weren't there. You know, when you slaughtered meat, you know, when you were butchering chickens or pigs or cows or sheep or lamb or game birds, which she did, and they weren't eaten, They had to be preserved.

So that was the next step. They had to either be pickled or salted, and in many cases, taken down to a cold cellar. And these were all cooked over a fire. So she was a busy woman, incredibly resourceful. She renovated her house.

She managed the digging of a basement. She had a brewery. Martin Luther said that she made the best beer of anyone. Now, water was not fit to drink and so beer was really the staple beverage of the people. But it sounds very easy to say, well she made beer.

But brewing beer is complicated and it's time consuming. There's germinating the grain into malt. There's mashing of various types of malt. You boil them. Precise temperatures are required.

It was a big process and she was the manager of all of those things. And She was the commander of her household. You know, you have that word in scripture, home despot, that's really what she was. Here's what Martin Luther said of his wife, you convince me of whatever you please, you have complete control, I concede to you the control of the household, providing my rights are preserved. Female government has never done any good." You know, this is a statement that came out of the Table Talk.

Have you seen the book Table Talk? Table Talk is a book that is just a record of some of the conversations that took place around the Luther dinner table. And they had, you know, dozens of people in their home. The Reformation was rolling and they, they had a very, very busy household. So she was just an incredibly resourceful person.

Let's talk about medicine. She had a hospital on site with nurses there. And she would minister to the sick along with the nurses. Now, the Black Plague was ravaging the cities of Europe. And so people were dying.

People were having terrible experiences. And the Lutherans stayed in Wittenberg. They didn't leave. Many people fled when the plague came to Wittenberg. They didn't.

They said, we were here when this city was fine and we're here when this city is hurting. That was their philosophy. Katie also was an herbalist. She was always growing some kind of herb to try to care for the medical needs of the people in her house, and particularly Martin. Martin, when she married him, had a horrible diet.

His stomach was a mess. Everything was a mess. And she turned his diet around largely through the growing of vegetables and the herbs and the various medicines that she would give him. And she cared for him in all of those ways. Let's talk about hospitality.

Let's move from medicine to hospitality. One of the ways that Katie found to survive was to bring in boarders who would pay rent for the rooms in that monastery. And so she was quite a hostess during the Reformation. The rich and the poor would come to their house. The lords and the bottom of the society would come to their home.

They had six children at different times. There were six to eleven orphans living in Katie's house. Martin Luther's aunt lived there. They had students living there. And there was a waiting list, so it was full.

And so she was preparing meals for 25 plus people a day for 21 years of marriage. How about that? She was a very, very, very remarkable host, and she practiced hospitality. Martin built a bowling alley in the back of the monastery. And so this monastery home, the black cloister, was a place of all kinds of activity.

Let's talk about children, number seven in your outline. They had six children, three sons and three daughters. Hans, the first born in 1526, was born just less than a year after they were married. So Katie got pregnant pretty much right away and they had their first child. A child was born in 1526, 1527, 1529, 1531, and 1534.

And so the house was full of children, although two of them did die, one of them with such a heartbreaking death. Martin Luther was a very tender-hearted father, And I'm just going to read you a citation that he wrote for his son, which gives you sort of a flavor of what kind of father. He writes to his six-year-old boy. He says, This grace and peace in Christ, my dear little son, I hear with great pleasure that you're learning your lessons so well and praying so diligently. Continue to do so, my son, and cease not.

When I come home, I will bring you a nice present from the fair. I know a beautiful garden where there are great many children in fine little coats and they go under the trees to gather beautiful apples and pears and cherries and plums. They sing and run about as happy as they can be. Sometimes they ride on nice little ponies with golden bridles and silver saddles. I asked the man, whose garden it is, what little children are these?

And he told me, they are little children who love to play and learn and be good.' When I said, "'My dear sir, I have a little boy at home, and his name is little Hans Luther. Would you let him come into the garden too, to eat some of these nice apples and pears and ride on these fine little ponies and play with these children?" The man said, if he loves to say his prayers and learn his lessons and is a good boy, he may come. Martin Luther's heart was transformed by the Word of God regarding children, and one of the great changes that took place during the Reformation was really a very different view of children. And Martin Luther and Katie really were leaders in that entire shift that took place. One of their children at age 13 fell ill and died in Martin Luther's arms.

He was unconsolable. He doubted God's goodness, and he experienced a darkness of the soul for quite a long time. Martin Luther struggled with depression his whole life long, but with the death of children he found even greater challenges. Elizabeth and Magdalene died. And so those were very, very difficult times.

Let's talk about diligence. She would get up at 4 a.m. Each morning and she would go to bed at 9 p.m. She was very focused, she was hardworking, she was principled, she was serving her household, she was serving the Reformation. She was serving the people that needed a place to stay, serving people who were sick and needed help.

Let's talk about her emotions. She often had fears of his death. And in the first year of their marriage, he was scheduled to take a trip to go preach in another town. And she was terrified and just had a sense that she was in grave danger, and she urged him not to go. And so he did finally agree not to go.

And the people that he was going to visit wrote to him or informed him that indeed there were four men waiting to kill him on the way. And so she had tremendous sense of compassion for her husband and he would sometimes tease her for her anxiety over his traveling. He writes this, to the saintly anxious lady, most saintly Lady Doctor, we have been consumed by a fire. Now I'm going to read you an account. Eight days before he died, he's sort of, he's poking fun at her worries.

And I'll read this to you. It'll just give you a flavor of, you know, how he related to his wife. He says this of the saintly worrying Lord Catherine, he called her. We thank you heartily for being so worried that you can't sleep. For since you started worrying about us, a fire broke out near my door, and yesterday, no doubt due to your worry, a big stone, save for the dear angels, would have fallen and crushed us like a mousetrap.

If you don't stop worrying, I'm afraid the earth will swallow us. Haven't you learned the catechism? And don't you believe? Pray and let God worry. Cast your burdens on the Lord.

We are well, except that Jonas banged his ankle. He is jealous of me and wanted to have something the matter with him too. We hope soon to be released from this assignment and come home." So he writes this affectionate letter with humor in it. Eight days later he's dead. He never returned home from that trip.

He fell ill and he died there, you know, in that other city. Let's talk about item number 10 that I have under the heading blessing. Marriage was a blessing to Martin Luther. He would affectionately complain about his wife that she was the tyrant of the home, that he'd dare not disobey her, things like that. But for 21 years, she worked 17 hours a day.

And you know Martin was the reformer, but his wife was the stability and the joy behind the reformer. And She was like the oil that kept the home working. Luther called her the boss of Zuesseldorf, referring to the name of their farm. He also called her the morning star of Wittenberg, because she would rise before dawn and do her responsibilities. One of the things that was shocking to Martin Luther after they got married was that he would roll over and he would awaken to pigtails in front of his eyes.

She was a blessing to him in every way. He did say at one point, he said, if he wanted an obedient wife, he would have carved one out of wood. And I think that bears witness to just the common tensions that exist in every marriage. You know, two very different people marry, and their tensions and difficulties that arise, That's normal. That's a normal marriage, by the way.

And they had a normal marriage. This marriage did transform marriage in Europe, along with John Calvin and the other reformers who were reforming everything according to the sufficiency of scripture. And not only was the doctrine of salvation reformed, but everything else. And these men, these reformers, had a particular eye on the Reformation of family. A few years ago, I wrote a book about it called Family Reformation, The Legacy of Sola Scriptura in Calvin's Geneva.

And it documents what happened during the Reformation regarding family life. Because family life was completely transformed, and it paved the way for the Puritan era where we found some of the most remarkable writings on family life and they still are the standards of today. But Katie was a was a helpmate and she would she would come to him in his times of depression. She would prepare herbs for him. She would sing songs to him.

She would read the Psalms to him. And on one occasion, Luther fell into a very dark season. And he wouldn't come out of his room. He felt like he was in mortal combat with the devil. And he was so despondent, Katie dressed up in a black dress and came into the room and he asked her why she was wearing black.

And she said she's going to a funeral. And he said, who died? And she said, well, God must have died, because you're acting as if God has died. And so He snapped out of it. He got the message.

You know, his dark moments weren't all a loss. Out of his darkest moment came the song, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. And so, you know, the Lord's always at work, even in the darkest times. And Martin Luther died in 1546. He fell ill while he was out of town.

And the day before he died, he made some final notes of his day, and he said this, we are beggars. This is true. And His last words were, into your hands I commit my spirit. One of his friends came to him when he was on his deathbed and asked him if he still believed the principles of the Reformation that he fought so hard for. And he said, yes, I do.

And then he died. He was 62 years old when he died. He died in the town he was born. And ironically, his funeral took place in the church where the 95 besties were nailed. And Martin Luther died with very little resources.

How would Katie be taken care of? And there she was on her farm, and she intended to stay, but then a war between Charles V and the Protestant princes blew through town, and they destroyed absolutely everything, and so she had nothing. Finally, after being destitute, the King of Denmark gave her a gift and they survived until her death. When her husband died, She was absolutely heartbroken. She says, God knows that when I think of having lost him, I can neither talk nor write in all my suffering.

I'll read you just a little selection of Katie's reflections of her husband after he died. You'll get a feel for how this marriage, it really turned out in time. It was a marriage that was born out of difficult times. But you can see what happened to her when she explains the depths of her grief. I can easily believe that you have heartfelt sympathy for my poor children and me.

For who would not easily be troubled or saddened over such a precious man as my dear husband was? He served not just one city or a single country, but the entire world. For that reason, I really am so sad that I can't tell anyone how full of sorrow my heart is. And I don't know what I'm thinking and how I'm feeling. I can't eat or drink nor even sleep.

And if I had had a princedom or empire and lost it, I wouldn't have been as sad as now when our dear Lord God has taken this dear and precious man from me, and not just from me, but from the whole world. If I think about it, then I can't speak, nor even have someone write because of the pain and crying. So it was a precious marriage. It was a marriage full of love. And then Katie, after her husband's death, took her children to a town called Torgau.

And while she was in the wagon, riding by a lake, the wagon jostled and she was thrown into the lake and then about a few months later she died. And during that time before her death she talked about her husband constantly. When she was asleep she talked about her husband. When she was awake, she talked about her husband. She was 53 years old when she died.

She died seven years after Martin died. She said this, I cling to Christ as a bur clings to a dress. Her love for God never waned. She depended upon him. Her last prayer was this.

She had one of her children write it out on her deathbed. Lord, my Savior, thou standest at the door and must enter in, O come, thou beloved guest, for I desire to depart and be with thee. Let my children be committed to thy mercy. Lord, look down upon in mercy on my church. May the pure doctrine which God has sent through my husband be handed down unadulterated to posterity.

Dear Lord, I thank thee for all the trials through which thou didst lead me, and by which thou dost prepare me to behold thy glory. Thou hast never forsaken or forgotten me. Thou hast evermore caused thy face to shine upon me when I called upon thee. Like Jacob, I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me. I will cling to thee forever." And So she died with that in her heart.

Let's talk about some lessons from Katie Luther. Let's talk about lessons in family life. The Luther's life was simple enough where Martin would put in a hard day's work and he'd come home and then have a wonderful meal around the table with conversation and laughter. He would play his flute and he would care for his wife all for the glory of God. The Luthers appeared to have family worship each day.

They focus on the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed. They learn them together. And he says this, Martin does, I must still read and study the Catechism daily, yet I cannot master it as I wish, but must remain a child and a pupil of the Catechism, and I do it gladly. Well, Katie experienced what the Apostle Peter calls the grace of life, that marriage is the grace of life. What we learn from This marriage is that he didn't put two people together who got along perfectly well in every area.

They didn't think the same. They were very, very different, but they needed each other. He needed her and she needed him. Their greatest need was to be sanctified and to become like Jesus. And that's what God uses marriages for.

He would call her Katie my rib, Katie my Lord. And she was a role model for Reformation home life. She was one of the signature post-Reformation pastors wives. There were several during that era. John Calvin's wife, Idleette was one of them.

But while they were reforming family life, and you know, she was really a groundbreaking pioneer in making home life central. She charted new territory, which really had been lost as a result of rejecting the fact that scripture is sufficient. Now, I want to leave you with some passages of scripture. I'm going to leave you with four passages of scripture that I think explain this woman. And of course, you can imagine what the first one is.

Proverbs 31, and I'm gonna read these passages of scripture. Proverbs 31 is the longest, but I want you to think about the things you just heard about Katie Luther, and tell me if you don't see her in almost every line of this wonderful text. Proverbs 31 verse 10. Who can find a virtuous wife, for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, so she will have no lack of gain.

She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and willingly works with her hands. She is like the merchant ships. She brings her food from afar. She also rises while it is yet night, and provides food for her household, and a portion for her maid servants.

She considers a field and buys it from her profits. She plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength and strengthens her arms. She perceives that her merchandise is good and her lamp does not go out by night. She stretches out her hands to the distaff and her hand holds the spindle.

She extends her hand to the poor, yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy. She's not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household is clothed with scarlet. She makes tapestry for herself, Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them and supplies sashes for the merchants.

Strength and honor are her clothing. She shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her.

Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates." So that's the first text. The second is 1 Timothy 5 verse 9 where we find this phrase for these widows who are put on the list, they wash the feet of the saints. Widows who are to be put on the list, they are reported for good works in verse 10.

If she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work." So that's the second text, 1 Timothy 5, 9 and 10. She washed the feet of the saints. And then the third text is Titus 2, 4 and 5. She loved her husband and she was a homemaker. Where Here the apostle says this, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

And then the next text is in Hebrews 13, 2, let brotherly love continue, do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some have unwittingly entertained angels. And then another is like it in the matter of hospitality, 1 Peter 4, 9, where in verse 8 Peter says, Above all things have fervent love for one another. Love will cover a multitude of sins, be hospitable to one another, without grumbling. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." What you find with Katie Luther is that love was not abstract. It was put into practice in real life, in a home, and with a husband and with children.

So let me just end with some concluding remarks. Who is Katie Luther? She was a girl whose dad died and she was sent away at age five to go live in a monastery. And without parents to care for her and family life, she ended up a runaway nun. And she escaped in a herring barrel in the middle of the night.

She had several disappointments in courtship on her way to marriage. Nothing seemed to work until she was 26 years old, and then it happened very suddenly. Katie Luther shows us how the Lord uses real people with troubled pasts, with flaws, to declare His glory. And it speaks of how God lifts a girl from the dust of her life and raises her to eternal joy, and how God can take a dead religion in a girl's heart and make it thrill her. It's a story of a home that was set in order by the Word of God, and that home was a light to everybody who passed by.

It was a home where God had reshaped family life through a Reformation. And that Reformation took place because a husband and wife took scripture seriously. And they had children and they worked together and they loved one another and they made their home a little piece of heaven. That's what they did. And I think about the Luther home, and I think about a lot of your homes.

You know, most of your homes are very, very different compared to most of the other homes that are out there in this world. And it's happened for the same reason. There's a reformation that's going on. The reformation that's going on right now in our families is a good reformation. And I've been so encouraged to read about the Reformation that transformed marriage in Europe, that transformed family life in Europe, and that really transformed a whole society.

We, right now, are beneficiaries of that reformation. Because it's really based on the same principle, that scripture is sufficient for everything. And I pray that God would just work in us even more to reform our families according to the word of God. It's a very sweet thing, as you can see, from the life of Katie Luther, not without trouble, but also not without the mercy and the kindness and the presence of God. So there's Katie Luther.

I really enjoyed looking at her over the last period of time. Let's pray and then we're going to have a snack and then we're going to come back for the last message. Lord, we thank you for the power of your Word to transform. We thank you, Lord, that you are reshaping us. We thank you for lifting us out of the dust.

We thank you for taking us into yourself on that last day. And Father, that you would implant within all of us, and especially the girls here, a sense of your glory, a sense of your calling, a sense of your loving kindness. Oh Lord, that you would establish all these things in us. Amen. Thanks for watching!