It Is Written

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants:

Home

Series Code: IIW

Program Code: IIW001473A


01:30 ♪[Theme music]♪
01:40 ♪[Theme music]♪
01:49 >>John: This is It Is Written. I'm John Bradshaw.
01:51 Thanks for joining me.
01:53 He's one of the least-known well-known people
01:56 in all of history.
01:57 On a certain date every year,
01:59 people all around the world celebrate him,
02:02 without knowing much of anything about him.
02:05 Here in Ireland, St. Patrick's Day is huge.
02:10 It's a national holiday in Ireland.
02:12 On St. Patrick's Day people wear green,
02:14 and there are often parades and other celebrations conducted.
02:18 It was in the 17th century that the Roman Catholic Church
02:21 set aside March 17 as a day of celebration and remembrance.
02:26 In recent decades, Ireland has been a land of religious
02:30 and political tension over the question
02:33 of who should control Northern Ireland:
02:36 the Irish or Great Britain.
02:38 The dispute goes back many hundreds of years.
02:41 ♪[Bagpipes]♪
02:48 In the 1960s, the Troubles began in Northern Ireland.
02:52 It was a period marked by violent clashes between
02:55 unionists and republicans;
02:58 basically, between Protestants and Catholics.
03:04 More than 3,200 people died
03:07 during the 30 years of the Troubles.
03:10 There were thousands of bombings
03:12 and tens of thousands of shootings.
03:14 Men like Bobby Sands are still revered by many
03:17 here in Ireland.
03:19 Sands died in the notorious Maze Prison
03:22 just outside Belfast,
03:24 following a 66-day-long hunger strike in 1981.
03:28 In all, ten men died during that hunger strike,
03:32 men who were committed to the idea of a united Ireland
03:36 and wanted to see Northern Ireland
03:38 wrested out of the control of the British.
03:40 ♪[Music]♪
03:47 The tension began to ease following an agreement
03:49 that was signed in Belfast on Good Friday of 1998.
03:54 But religious tension goes back much further in Ireland.
03:59 And the man responsible for radical religious change
04:02 among the Irish,
04:03 the man responsible for the Christian evangelization
04:05 of the British Isles,
04:07 is celebrated all around the world today.
04:09 ♪[Music]♪
04:16 During his lifetime, Patrick was considered a troublemaker.
04:19 He was a disturber of the peace.
04:21 Today, you might call him a religious lightning rod.
04:25 And there's one thing Patrick wasn't.
04:27 He wasn't Irish.
04:30 He was born in the year 385 A.D. or thereabouts,
04:34 and he died around 461 A.D.
04:38 At that time, the British Isles were pagan.
04:41 They were dominated by the culture
04:43 and the religious practices of the Druids,
04:46 an elite class that had a direct line to the occult.
04:50 By the time Patrick came onto the scene,
04:52 druidism was at the height of its powers.
04:56 Druid literature speaks of the magical
05:00 and spiritual training of the Druid,
05:03 in which he is eaten by a goddess, enters into her belly,
05:07 and is reborn as the greatest poet in the land.
05:11 Mention of druidism evokes images of wizardry.
05:14 And the Druids in Patrick's day were into magic
05:17 and charms and healing powers.
05:19 They foretold the future.
05:22 And they worshipped the forces of nature.
05:24 They've been referred to as magico-religious specialists,
05:28 and it's said that they could call up a storm
05:32 to ward off invaders.
05:34 Now, while most modern scholars would not agree with this,
05:38 no less a person than Julius Caesar
05:40 made the claim that the Druids practiced human sacrifice,
05:45 burning their victims in a device known as a “wicker man.”
05:49 Caesar also said that they believed in reincarnation.
05:52 Modern scholars say that the Druids
05:54 were essentially shaman, spiritualists.
05:58 >>Dr. Trim: So the religious situation in Ireland
06:00 in the 5th century is that it is the last holdout of the Druids,
06:04 the Druids who had once been the predominant religious figures
06:07 right across the British Isles and, indeed,
06:09 the north part of what we now call France.
06:12 But they had been largely stamped out by the Romans,
06:14 who found their religious practices
06:16 such as human sacrifice objectionable.
06:18 Um, there's very little evidence of human sacrifice
06:22 being practiced by Patrick's day,
06:24 but the Druids are there.
06:25 This is a religion that is really focused on,
06:28 on nature and on spirits.
06:31 Uh, but it is a fairly sophisticated religion as well.
06:34 They had education; they were well-educated men
06:38 by the standards of the time.
06:39 And they had reasonably well worked out cosmology
06:42 and a pantheon of gods.
06:44 Um, but the Druid, druidic religion, as far as we can tell,
06:49 does seem to be in a little bit of decline by the 5th century.
06:52 It's past its heyday, and so, uh,
06:55 there is this emphasis on spirits.
06:57 Uh, and where therein might still be some human sacrifice
07:02 is that we know people are found in the bogs of Ireland,
07:04 in the peat.
07:06 Now, some of them clearly ended up there accidentally,
07:08 tripped and fell, oh, too bad.
07:10 But others we know, uh, are offered as sacrifices.
07:13 Because you're hoping that by doing that,
07:16 you can ensure you have good weather,
07:19 a good harvest,
07:20 because everything depends on the harvest,
07:22 and so you want to appease the natural deities.
07:26 >>John: It was this paganism that confronted St. Patrick
07:29 during his ministry to the Irish people.
07:32 Druid magicians hindered the work Patrick was trying to do.
07:36 The Druids resented Patrick,
07:37 knowing that his ministry was the beginning of the end
07:40 for druidism.
07:43 Patrick was born in Britain,
07:44 which at the time was controlled by the Roman Empire.
07:48 Exactly where he was born no one really knows,
07:51 although it seems likely that he was born on or near
07:54 England's west coast.
07:57 His family evidently was reasonably well off.
07:59 Both his father and his grandfather
08:01 worked in religious service.
08:03 But Patrick, as a young man,
08:05 didn't take matters of faith seriously.
08:09 When he was 16 years old,
08:10 he was captured by raiders sent or led by Ireland's King Niall.
08:16 He spent six years toiling as a shepherd,
08:19 and it was during this time that he found faith in God
08:23 for himself.
08:25 ♪[Music]♪
08:26 God spoke to Patrick and told him to flee to the Irish coast,
08:30 where he'd find a ship waiting to take him home.
08:33 So he left his master,
08:35 traveled many miles to a port, and he found the promised ship.
08:40 He traveled back to England and made his way back to his family.
08:43 And it was there and then that he dedicated his life
08:47 to serving God.
08:50 So how did Patrick, the runaway slave,
08:53 become St. Patrick, known and loved all the world over?
08:58 And what does Patrick have to do with the Protestant Reformation?
09:02 I'll tell you more in just a moment.
09:05 ♪[Music]♪
09:11 >>John: We look around the world and it appears this planet
09:13 is spinning out of control in many ways.
09:16 The world of today is a far cry from the world of yesterday.
09:20 Is there hope?
09:21 Yes, there is.
09:22 Our free offer today is "Hope for a Planet in Crisis."
09:26 Call us on (800) 253-3000,
09:29 or visit us online at www.itiswritten.com.
09:34 Or you can write to the address on your screen.
09:37 I'd like you to receive our free offer,
09:38 "Hope for a Planet in Crisis."
09:41 [Cricketts chirping]
09:45 ♪[Music]♪
09:53 [Camera equipment rattling]
09:56 [Rustling in bushes]
09:59 [People talking]
10:01 [Wind blowing]
10:06 ♪[Music]♪
10:16 ♪[Music]♪
10:26 [Cheering]
10:36 ♪[Music]♪
10:49 ♪[Irish music]♪
10:56 >>John: Thanks for joining me today on It Is Written.
10:58 He's known all around the world,
11:00 and he's celebrated every March the 17th.
11:03 But who was St. Patrick,
11:05 and what did he do that made him a global icon?
11:09 Well, to begin with, he wasn't Irish; he was English.
11:13 And he wasn't a Roman Catholic.
11:15 The principles that he lived by and shared with others
11:18 made him a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation,
11:20 which would occur many years after he died.
11:23 He was taken from his home in England
11:25 by Irish raiders when he was a boy,
11:27 and he was forced into slavery in Ireland.
11:31 He eventually escaped,
11:32 and he wrote that after studying in France
11:35 and returning to his home in England,
11:37 he had a vision,
11:39 not unlike a vision Paul had in the book of Acts.
11:43 “I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland.
11:47 His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters,
11:51 and he gave me one of them.
11:53 I read the headling: ‘The Voice of the Irish.'
11:57 As I began the letter,
11:58 I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice
12:01 of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut,
12:05 which is beside the western sea,
12:07 and they cried out, as with one voice,
12:10 ‘We appeal to you, holy servant boy,
12:13 to come and walk among us.'”
12:16 Eventually, Patrick acted on the vision he received
12:19 and returned to Ireland to work as a missionary.
12:23 He landed at the same port from which he had escaped Ireland,
12:27 and began his ministry in Tara, just north of Dublin,
12:31 in what today is the Republic of Ireland.
12:34 And before long, the son of a powerful chieftain
12:36 in the north of Ireland was converted
12:38 and joined Patrick's missionary team.
12:41 Thousands were baptized,
12:43 among them many who were wealthy and influential.
12:46 Patrick ordained pastors throughout the island
12:49 to shepherd these new Christian communities.
12:52 Here's what he said about the new Irish believers:
12:55 “Never before did they know of God
12:57 except to serve idols and unclean things.
13:01 But now, they've become the people of the Lord,
13:04 and are called children of God.
13:07 The sons and daughters of the leaders of the Irish
13:10 are seen to be monks and virgins of Christ.”
13:14 There's plenty said about Patrick's life
13:16 that's nothing more than legend.
13:19 No, he didn't chase all the snakes out of Ireland.
13:23 There'd never been any snakes in Ireland in the first place.
13:26 They certainly didn't attack him
13:27 after he had fasted for 40 days.
13:30 His walking stick did not grow into a tree.
13:34 And he never used the shamrock to teach the Irish
13:37 about the trinity.
13:39 Patrick sailed from near Drogheda to just outside Belfast
13:44 where he began sharing the gospel with people
13:46 who for the most part had zero working knowledge
13:49 of the plan of salvation.
13:51 Now, Patrick wasn't the first missionary to Ireland,
13:54 but he was the first to gain any real traction and establish
13:57 an effective, far-reaching work.
14:01 So what was it that drove
14:03 this Bible-believing missionary forward?
14:05 As the church lost its focus on the Bible,
14:09 its increasing popularity within the Roman Empire
14:12 caused it to compromise its faith and witness.
14:15 However, there were many Christians who put up
14:18 strong resistance to this new alliance of church and state.
14:23 During these centuries, the Celtic Christians set a pattern
14:27 of independence from the church of Rome.
14:30 Like the reformers which would follow them later,
14:33 they held to the Bible as their exclusive
14:36 and supreme spiritual authority.
14:39 Historians had this to say about Patrick:
14:42 “He never mentions either Rome or the pope
14:44 or hints that he was in any way connected
14:47 with the ecclesiastical capital of Italy.
14:50 He recognizes no other authority but that of the Word of God.
14:55 If he were sent by Celestine to the native Christians
14:58 to be their primate or archbishop,
15:00 no wonder that stout-hearted Patrick refused to bow his neck
15:04 to any such yoke of bondage.
15:08 There is strong evidence that Patrick had no
15:10 Roman commission in Ireland, Patrick's churches in Ireland,
15:14 like their brethren in Britain,
15:16 repudiated the supremacy of the popes,
15:19 all knowledge of the conversion of Ireland through his ministry
15:21 must be suppressed.
15:24 There is not a written word from one of them
15:25 rejoicing over Patrick's additions to their church,
15:29 showing clearly that he was not a Roman missionary.”
15:33 >>Dr. Trim: In the 5th century there is only one church.
15:36 Uh, and there's still a connection between
15:38 Britain and Rome.
15:39 It's in the middle 5th century that that gets severed,
15:41 and the British Isles gets cut off from the Roman Empire.
15:45 Um, but at that point here is still one church,
15:47 and Patrick is a member of it,
15:49 from all the evidence we have, um,
15:52 and we know that that church actually sent,
15:54 sent Germanus to Britain in 429, and one of his colleagues,
15:58 Palladius, is believed to have gone to Ireland.
16:01 Um, but he seems to have minimal impact.
16:03 But that's the church that they're part of.
16:05 But it's really the inheritance of the primitive church
16:08 of Christ's day.
16:09 Um, if we say the Catholic Church,
16:12 then people think of St. Peter's,
16:14 and a whole series of things
16:17 which just don't exist in the 5th century.
16:20 So to, you know, the danger of saying that he's
16:24 a Roman Catholic missionary, it's true in one sense,
16:27 but it's not true in another,
16:29 because it's, it, there just isn't a church like,
16:33 called the Roman Catholic Church.
16:34 There is the one church, which is called Catholic
16:38 at the time to distinguish it from Arians,
16:40 uh, who don't believe in the full divinity of Christ.
16:44 That's what Catholic means in the 5th century;
16:47 it means somebody who is an orthodox Christian
16:49 on the Trinity.
16:50 And Patrick is definitely that.
16:53 So what we know about Patrick comes largely from his writings.
17:00 There are stories,
17:01 but most of them were written down in the 7th century.
17:04 So 200 years after he died.
17:06 So there's probably some grains of truth left in them,
17:10 but a lot of exaggeration.
17:12 To judge from his own writings, he's a relatively simple,
17:16 uh, Christian.
17:17 His theology is, is relatively simplistic.
17:20 And that's not a criticism; far from it.
17:23 Uh, he's definitely trinitarian; he believes very strongly,
17:27 uh, in God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
17:30 and he's very focused on Christ.
17:31 But he has a simple message,
17:33 and he has a burning passion for the people of Ireland,
17:36 who had enslaved him as a youth.
17:39 But even after he was free, he recognized,
17:41 these people are lost in superstition
17:44 and I have good news for them.
17:45 ♪[Music]♪
17:47 A century after Patrick,
17:49 the Church of Rome launched an attack
17:50 on the Celtic communities of Western Europe,
17:54 because the Irish customs of the Celtic church were at odds
17:57 with the customs sanctioned by the Bishop of Rome,
18:00 who by now had become a very powerful figure.
18:03 But Patrick wasn't the only one
18:05 who was reaching the world with the gospel.
18:08 After Patrick, there was Aidan,
18:10 who as a missionary went to England
18:12 and reached not only the high nobility,
18:15 but also children and slaves.
18:17 And he traveled extensively.
18:19 Like Patrick,
18:20 he wasn't affiliated with the Roman church.
18:23 Aidan established a cathedral
18:25 off the northeastern coast of England
18:27 on the island of Lindisfarne,
18:29 and from there he was greatly influential in reaching
18:32 great numbers of people for Christ,
18:34 especially in the region of Northumbria.
18:38 And there was another who reached
18:40 not only the British Isles,
18:42 but who impacted the world with the message of the gospel.
18:46 He was from this island of Ireland,
18:49 and I'll tell you who he was in just a moment.
18:52 ♪[Music]♪
18:59 >>Announcer: Planning for your financial future
19:01 is a vital aspect of Christian stewardship.
19:05 For this reason, It Is Written is pleased to offer
19:08 free planned giving and estate services.
19:11 For information on how we can help you,
19:13 please call 800-992-2219.
19:18 Call today, or visit our website,
19:20 HisLegacy.com.
19:22 Call 800-992-2219.
19:33 >>John: Today I'd like to ask you to help It Is Written
19:35 open the eyes of the blind.
19:37 India as more blind people than any country on earth.
19:41 But simple cataract surgery can make the difference
19:43 between seeing and not seeing for many people.
19:47 Eyes for India is a project that's providing
19:49 cataract surgery for people in desperate need
19:52 of the gift of sight.
19:54 Please help today.
19:55 Call 800-253-3000.
19:59 Eyes for India and It Is Written are doing the work of Jesus
20:02 in opening the eyes of the blind and opening hearts
20:06 to the love of God.
20:08 You can also donate online at ItIsWritten.com.
20:12 Please call 800-253-3000,
20:15 or write to P O Box 6, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37401.
20:21 Or visit ItIsWritten.com.
20:28 ♪[Irish music]♪
20:36 >>John: Thanks for joining me on It Is Written.
20:39 Right here on this very spot in Belfast, Ireland,
20:42 there was a hive of activity a little over 100 years ago.
20:46 Right here is where the Titanic was built.
20:49 Not only the Titanic, but its sister ships,
20:51 the Olympic and the Britannic.
20:53 Thousands of workers labored on this very spot.
20:56 What happened here then dominated not only this city,
21:00 but went on to impact the world.
21:03 Somebody else labored here in Ireland
21:06 whose work impacted the world,
21:07 and that was Patrick.
21:09 Patrick was a dynamic Christian missionary,
21:12 and from Ireland his influence spread to impact Christians
21:16 and Christianity all around the world.
21:20 In the time of Patrick, the church was dominated
21:22 by the popes of Rome,
21:24 and they were not too keen with what Patrick was doing.
21:27 They saw it as a direct threat against their authority,
21:30 and they were committed to getting rid
21:32 of the distinctive Irish religious practices.
21:35 But it wasn't only Patrick that impacted the world
21:39 in those days.
21:40 Aidan was an Irish missionary who traveled to England
21:44 and won many there to faith in Christ.
21:47 He was sent from the remote Scottish island of Iona,
21:51 where a missionary training center
21:53 had been established by another Irish evangelist,
21:56 a man by the name of Columba.
22:00 Today, Columba is remembered
22:01 as one of the three chief saints of Ireland,
22:04 along with Patrick and Brigit of Kildare.
22:08 He was born in Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland,
22:11 in the year 521.
22:14 When he was about 40 years old
22:15 he set off with several others to evangelize the Picts.
22:19 He traveled 100 miles to Iona and built a monastery,
22:24 not as a retreat, but as a missionary training center.
22:28 The Venerable Bede, the influential writer and scholar,
22:32 said that Columba “converted the nation to the faith of Christ,
22:36 by preaching and example.”
22:39 As well as being an evangelist and a missionary,
22:41 there was something else that set Columba apart.
22:44 In contrast with the Church of Rome,
22:47 he observed the Sabbath on Saturday,
22:49 the seventh day of the week.
22:51 There's no evidence he ever kept Sunday as the Sabbath.
22:55 Dr. Leslie Hardinge examined every primary source connected
22:59 with the Celtic church,
23:00 and confirmed this Celtic-Sabbath connection.
23:04 Just before he died, Columba said,
23:07 “This day is called in the sacred books ‘Sabbath,'
23:11 which is interpreted ‘rest.'
23:13 And truly this day is for me a Sabbath,
23:17 because it is my last day of this present laborious life.
23:21 In it after my toilsome labors I keep Sabbath.
23:26 One historian wrote,
23:28 “We find traces in the early monastic churches of Ireland
23:32 that they held Saturday to be the Sabbath
23:35 on which they rested from all their labors.”
23:39 Later, in the 11th century, Queen Margaret of Scotland
23:42 said this about Scottish Christians.
23:45 She said, “They work on Sunday,
23:47 but they keep Saturday after a sabbatical manner.”
23:51 But Queen Margaret,
23:52 later Saint Margaret in the Catholic Church,
23:54 was committed to eradicated Sabbath worship
23:58 and replacing it instead with worship on Sunday.
24:02 The Roman Emperor Constantine,
24:03 who was a pagan sun worshipper
24:06 before his nominal conversion to Christianity,
24:09 was the first to degree Sunday worship,
24:12 and he did it before Patrick's time.
24:15 But the Irish Christians were not bound by Roman decrees.
24:21 One thousand years before the beginning
24:23 of the Protestant Reformation, Patrick was a nonconformist.
24:27 Before there was a reformation,
24:29 Patrick was a Protestant.
24:33 In this way, the Celtic church formed part of
24:36 what the Bible refers to as the “Church in the Wilderness”
24:39 during the Middle Ages.
24:41 John wrote about this time of exile for Christian believers.
24:44 He said in Revelation 12 and verse 6,
24:46 “And the woman,” that's the church,
24:48 “fled into the wilderness,
24:50 where she has a place prepared by God.”
24:53 The Albigenses of southern France,
24:55 the Waldenses of Italy and the Alps,
24:57 and others like them,
24:59 chose to base their faith on the Bible,
25:01 rather than lining up behind a church that was placing
25:04 such a strong emphasis on tradition.
25:06 They kept the torch of Christian faith shining brightly in an era
25:11 of what was some pretty considerable spiritual darkness.
25:14 ♪[Music]♪
25:18 Unfortunately, the Christians of Ireland and Scotland
25:21 didn't maintain their religious freedom indefinitely.
25:25 In time, new rulers came to power in both countries
25:29 who submitted the practices of both church and state
25:31 to the rule of the Catholic Church.
25:34 But the legacy of the Celtic church,
25:37 and Patrick in particular, was destined to live on.
25:41 The spirit of independence from Rome
25:44 was nurtured by the original British church.
25:47 Submission to rules of any sort on the European continent,
25:50 ecclesiastical or political,
25:52 didn't come easy to the British or the Irish.
25:54 ♪[bagpipes]♪
25:55 When King Henry the Eighth
25:57 declared England free from the Roman church
26:00 and established the Church of England, or the Anglican Church,
26:04 he was simply enshrining in law what in millions of English
26:07 minds had been true for centuries.
26:10 Speaking prophetically of this time, the prophet Daniel wrote
26:13 in Daniel 11:32 and 33,
26:15 “The people who know their God shall be strong
26:18 and carry out great exploits.
26:21 And those of the people that understand shall instruct many.”
26:25 This is the true legacy of Patrick,
26:26 and of the Celtic church,
26:29 and those heroes of faith who held the true gospel
26:33 in the centuries prior to the Reformation.
26:36 Without this gospel
26:37 seed having been sown and scattered by Patrick and others,
26:41 the Reformation might never have happened.
26:45 It's said that Patrick died on March the 17th
26:48 in the year 461 A.D.,
26:51 and that he's buried right here outside Down Cathedral in
26:57 Downpatrick in northern Ireland,
26:59 alongside Brigid and Columba,
27:02 two other giants of Irish history.
27:06 The legend of Patrick lives on here.
27:08 The truth of his life is even more impressive than the legend.
27:13 ♪[Music]♪
27:17 >>John: I'm John Bradshaw from It Is Written,
27:20 inviting you to join me for 500,
27:24 nine programs produced by It Is Written
27:26 taking you deep into the Reformation.
27:29 This is the 500th anniversary of the beginning
27:32 of the Reformation,
27:33 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door
27:36 of the Castle church in Wittenburg, Germany.
27:39 We'll take you to Wittenburg, and to Belgium,
27:41 to England,
27:42 to Ireland,
27:43 to Rome,
27:44 to the Vatican City,
27:46 and introduce you to the people who created the Reformation,
27:49 who pushed the Reformation forward.
27:51 We'll take you to sites all throughout Europe
27:52 where the reformers lived and, in some cases, died.
27:55 We'll bring you back to the United States
27:57 and take you to a little farm in upstate New York,
28:00 and show you how God spread the Reformation here.
28:03 Don't miss 500.
28:05 You can own the 500 series on DVD.
28:08 Call us on 888-664-5573,
28:13 or visit us online at itiswritten.shop.
28:19 >>John: Let's pray together.
28:21 Our Father in Heaven,
28:22 I thank you today for giant figures of history
28:25 who changed the world for your glory.
28:28 People like Patrick and Aiden and Columba,
28:32 who shared the bible with people,
28:34 and urged them to know Jesus as their personal savior.
28:38 I pray today for us here, now,
28:41 I pray that we too would hear the voice of Jesus.
28:44 I pray for that one who is joining me in prayer right now
28:48 who knows that she or he must give
28:50 her or his heart to Jesus Christ now.
28:52 Friend, would you do that?
28:54 Would you reach out to Jesus,
28:55 knowing that He's reaching out to you,
28:57 and claim Him as your righteousness
28:59 and as your Lord and Savior?
29:02 Father we thank you today for the scriptures,
29:05 we thank you for your word and for Jesus the word made flesh.
29:10 And we pray with faith and thanks,
29:13 In Jesus' name,
29:15 Amen.
29:16 Thanks so much for joining me.
29:18 I'm looking forward to seeing you again next time.
29:20 Until then, remember:
29:22 It Is Written.
29:24 Man shall not live by bread alone,
29:26 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
29:30 ♪[Theme music]♪


Home

Revised 2017-10-17