It Is Written

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants:

Series Code: IIW

01:30 ♪[Theme Music]
01:40 ♪[Theme Music]
01:49 >>John: This is It Is Written. I'm John Bradshaw.
01:52 Thanks for joining me.
01:53 1620, one of the most significant dates
01:57 in the history of the United States,
02:00 and it wouldn't be a stretch to say
02:02 in the history of the world.
02:12 Martin Luther had nailed the 95 Theses to the door
02:15 of the Castle Church in Wittenberg 103 years earlier.
02:20 By 1620, Luther had been dead for more than 70 years,
02:25 John Calvin for nearly 60,
02:27 Ulrich Zwingli had died almost 90 years before,
02:31 Theodore Beza, the disciple of Calvin whose likeness
02:34 is on the Reformation Wall in Geneva,
02:37 John Knox who stands to his left,
02:39 the Englishmen William Tyndale,
02:41 Thomas Cranmer,
02:42 Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer,
02:44 they'd all been gone for decades.
02:46 In fact, by the time you get to 1620,
02:50 the recognizable names of the Reformation
02:52 had all moved off the scene.
02:54 It could be said that the Reformation ended around
02:58 that time with many scholars saying that it came
03:01 to the end with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648,
03:05 a number of treaties that ended the religious wars in Europe.
03:10 So at about the time the Reformation ended
03:12 one of the most significant developments in the proclamation
03:15 of God's word was getting underway.
03:18 You could see God's fingerprints all over it.
03:32 If you've never seen it before, Plymouth Rock,
03:35 45 minutes south of Boston in Plymouth, Massachusetts
03:39 comes as a bit of a surprise.
03:41 The legend is that Plymouth Rock is where the pilgrims
03:44 got off the Mayflower when they arrived on these shores in 1620.
03:49 The fact is, this is only a fragment
03:52 of the original Plymouth Rock.
03:54 The original broke in half in 1774 and souvenir
03:59 hunters chipped away at the rock over the years,
04:01 so there's much less of it today than there once was.
04:04 I know you don't always want the facts
04:06 to get in the way of a good story,
04:08 but another fact is that no one ever claimed the pilgrims
04:11 landed at Plymouth Rock until 1741,
04:16 121 years after the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth Harbor.
04:22 But all that's incidental really.
04:24 The rock itself is not what's important.
04:27 Today it's a symbol, a symbol of new beginnings
04:30 and the pioneer spirit.
04:32 It's an icon visited by more than a million people a year.
04:37 So what were the pilgrims doing anyway landing at Plymouth Rock,
04:40 or wherever it was they landed?
04:43 Understand that and you'll understand
04:45 the birth of a great nation.
04:48 You'll see how the guiding hand of God shepherded his people
04:52 and fostered the growth of the principles
04:54 of the Protestant Reformation.
04:56 So let's back up a few years.
05:01 The pilgrims on board the Mayflower were Puritans,
05:04 English Protestants who were committed to
05:07 purifying the Church of England of Catholic practices.
05:11 The seeds for the English Reformation were sown by Patrick
05:14 and Columba and Aidan and others like them.
05:17 Centuries later, John Wycliffe was described as
05:20 "the morning star of the Reformation."
05:23 And then there was William Tyndale
05:25 who heroically stood up against
05:26 King Henry VIII and translated the Bible into English
05:30 at a time when such a translation
05:31 was desperately needed.
05:33 With his dying breath,
05:34 Tyndale prayed that God would open the eyes of Henry VIII,
05:38 which God did only two years later when the king
05:41 gave his permission for four different translations
05:44 of the Bible into the English language.
05:47 It was Tyndale's scholarship that provided the lion's share
05:50 of the King James Version of the Bible.
06:08 But even though the church in England,
06:10 or the Church of England,
06:11 had separated from Rome, it was in desperate need of reform.
06:15 Now while it's true that England's King Henry VIII
06:19 was strongly motivated to separate
06:20 from the Roman Catholic Church because it would not annul
06:23 his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in the 1530's,
06:27 England's antipathy towards Rome ran much deeper than that.
06:31 There were significant doctrinal issues that separated the two,
06:34 but the Puritans wanted even more than that.
06:41 Even though the Church of England was structurally
06:43 independent from Rome, that wasn't enough for the Puritans.
06:48 They believed that when it came to matters of Christian faith
06:51 and Christian worship,
06:52 that to depart from what the Bible said
06:54 was both unnecessary and unwise.
06:57 They wanted to follow the example of the Lutherans
07:00 or the Reformed Protestants elsewhere in Europe
07:03 and return to what they believed
07:05 was a more Biblical form of Christianity.
07:08 Yet, the Church of England continued to embrace many
07:12 of the forms of Catholicism.
07:18 The Protestant Movement was
07:19 separated largely into two wings.
07:23 The Lutheran, Calvinistic wing, often called Reformed Theology,
07:27 primarily after the teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin;
07:31 and the Armenian wing, which was patterned after the teachings
07:34 of Jacob Arminius and others who focused
07:37 on the role of Christian free will in the salvation process,
07:41 along with practical teaching such as nonparticipation in war
07:44 and separation of church and state.
07:45 The Puritans of England clearly took their beliefs
07:49 from the Lutheran, Calvinistic wing.
07:52 And this would be demonstrated by their views
07:54 on religious freedom,
07:56 particularly when they came to the New World.
07:59 The Puritans played a significant role in the
08:02 political history of England throughout the 17th Century.
08:05 For a time, the Puritans ruled the country under the
08:08 leadership of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell
08:11 during the 1650's.
08:18 Early in the 1600's, King James I decided that he would not
08:22 tolerate the agitation of the Puritans any longer.
08:24 They'd either come into line with the policies and practices
08:27 of the Church of England, or they would leave.
08:30 And many of them left.
08:31 It was difficult for those who lived in England.
08:34 Many of them began describing themselves as Separatists,
08:37 because they came to the conclusion that
08:39 the Church of England was never going to change.
08:43 Many of them fled to the Dutch Republic,
08:44 which at the time was more favorable to
08:46 Reformed Protestantism.
08:48 Life was hard for those immigrants.
08:50 Many of them had been farmers and they were not
08:52 able to farm in their new homeland.
08:55 Instead, they had to learn a trade,
08:58 but they considered these difficulties just part of God's
09:00 way of forming in them a godly character.
09:04 "They knew they were pilgrims,
09:06 and looked not much on those things,
09:08 but lifted up their eyes to heaven,
09:10 their dearest country, and quieted their spirits".
09:15 But many of those pilgrims chose to leave the Netherlands
09:19 and return to England before leaving again
09:22 onboard a ship called the Mayflower.
09:25 They were headed for the New World.
09:29 Now some pilgrims didn't make it.
09:31 I'll tell you more in just a moment.
09:33 ♪[Theme Music]
09:40 I'm John Bradshaw from It Is Written,
09:43 inviting you to join me for 500.
09:46 Nine programs produced by It Is Written,
09:49 taking you deep into the Reformation.
09:52 This is the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation
09:56 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door
09:59 of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.
10:01 We'll take you to Wittenberg, and to Belgium,
10:03 to England,
10:04 to Ireland,
10:06 to Rome,
10:07 to the Vatican City,
10:08 and introduce you to the people who created the Reformation,
10:11 who pushed the Reformation forward.
10:13 We'll take you to sites all throughout Europe
10:15 where the Reformers lived and in some cases died.
10:18 We'll bring you back to the United States
10:19 and take you to a little farm in Upstate New York,
10:22 and show you how God spread the Reformation here.
10:25 Don't miss 500.
10:27 You can own the 500 series on DVD.
10:30 Call us on 888-664-5573
10:35 or visit us online at itiswritten.shop.
10:42 This is It Is Written.
10:44 There were actually two ships that left England,
10:47 bound for what would become known
10:48 as the United States of America.
10:52 There was the Mayflower and the Speedwell.
10:55 Together they left Southampton on August the 5th, 1620,
10:59 but the Speedwell leaked,
11:02 not great for a ship intending to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
11:06 Both ships stopped in Dartmouth
11:08 so the Speedwell could be repaired.
11:10 After leaving Dartmouth,
11:12 they made it 350 miles beyond land's end
11:15 before it was discovered that the Speedwell
11:17 was taking on water again.
11:21 So once more, they returned to Dartmouth.
11:25 The Mayflower decided it would push on without the Speedwell.
11:29 Some of the
11:30 Speedwell's passengers crammed into the Mayflower, and so the
11:32 Mayflower, with 102 passengers and between 25 and 30 crew,
11:37 headed off on what would be a miserable voyage,
11:42 but they made it.
11:43 Slowly, but surely,
11:44 life was established here in this new land.
11:47 More and more people would follow in the footsteps
11:50 or in the wake of the pilgrims of England.
12:02 They were driven by a desire for liberty of conscience,
12:07 but they really didn't understand what that truly was.
12:15 The idea that God has given the right to control the conscience
12:19 to the church and has given the church the right to define
12:23 and punish heresy is a school of thought
12:26 that came right out of Rome.
12:33 So while these people had rejected
12:35 many of the doctrines of Rome,
12:37 they retained the spirit of Rome: intolerance.
12:42 Any church they set up would ultimately be a church-state.
12:46 They dictated that only church members
12:48 could have a say in government.
12:50 The secular power was in the hands of the church,
12:54 which can only lead in one direction: persecution.
13:07 In 1631, when Boston was a brand new settlement,
13:11 a Puritan minister not 30 years old arrived here from England.
13:15 Roger Williams was a separatist.
13:17 He believed that for a person to be truly faithful to God,
13:20 that person should separate from the Anglican Church.
13:24 He and his wife Mary would have six children,
13:26 all born in the New World: Mary,
13:29 Freeborn,
13:30 Providence,
13:31 Mercy,
13:32 Daniel,
13:33 and Joseph.
13:35 It wasn't long and people knew he was here.
13:42 Roger Williams was the first person in this land
13:45 to stand up for something that today we regard as a right.
13:49 He believed that liberty of conscience
13:51 was the inalienable right of all people,
13:55 whatever their religion.
13:57 He went so far as to establish government upon
13:59 the principle of religious freedom.
14:02 He was the first person in modern Christianity to do that.
14:06 Williams believed that the government had no place
14:08 dictating to individuals when it came to religious matters.
14:12 That was an entirely new way of thinking.
14:14 It was revolutionary.
14:17 In the early days of the colonies,
14:19 church attendance was required by law.
14:23 You could be fined or even imprisoned
14:26 for not attending church.
14:28 Williams was scandalized by this
14:30 and he decided to do something about it.
14:34 >>Lincoln: And it didn't trouble the Puritans whatsoever,
14:37 that while they'd left a bad situation,
14:39 to come to the New World they just set the same model
14:42 where they would say everyone had to go to church.
14:44 You'd be fined.
14:45 You had to abide by what the minister said.
14:48 No freelance religion.
14:51 Roger Williams comes along,
14:53 and he was the conscience and really the guiding light
14:59 of the true principles of religious liberty
15:00 that we're keeping alive today.
15:03 >>John: It seems strange to be talking about a battle over
15:06 religious freedom in the United States,
15:08 but keep in mind the times and the mindset then.
15:12 The Church of Rome had taught very thoroughly
15:14 that there was no religious freedom.
15:15 It claimed to be the voice of God in the world.
15:19 The church spoke,
15:20 church members did what they were expected to do.
15:24 So even though the Church of England had separated
15:26 from the Roman Catholic Church,
15:27 it still retained a lot of Rome's ideas.
15:31 So when the Puritans came to the free world,
15:35 they were still hung up on the concept of the church saying,
15:38 "jump" and the faithful saying, "how high."
15:41 They had not embraced the concept of religious liberty.
15:44 So in spite of the Reformation, further reform was still needed.
15:50 So while the pilgrims and other Puritan settlers came
15:53 to these shores for the purpose of exercising
15:55 their own liberty of conscience,
15:58 many didn't believe in extending the same right
16:00 to those who held different beliefs.
16:03 Freedom was fine for themselves,
16:05 but not for people who taught and practiced things
16:07 they disagreed with.
16:09 One historian described this attitude with these words,
16:12 "New England divines (pastors and theologians)
16:15 insisted repeatedly that demand for uniformity
16:18 of religious practice in no way violated liberty of conscience.
16:23 They contended that there were two types of liberty: natural
16:27 (or corrupted) liberty and the
16:29 'liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.'
16:33 Liberty to practice error came under the former heading
16:36 and was not really liberty at all,
16:39 but license, the 'liberty for men to destroy themselves.'"
16:44 Roger Williams is truly one of the towering figures
16:47 in the American story.
16:48 And he's one of the towering figures in the advance
16:51 of the Word of God.
16:53 Not only did he advocate religious freedom for all,
16:56 he was also one of the earliest and most vocal opponents
16:59 of slavery on these shores.
17:02 He advocated fair treatment for Native American tribes.
17:05 He also learned many of the languages
17:07 of the tribes in the Northeast.
17:09 He'd run into trouble with the Anglican Church
17:11 before he came to America.
17:13 When he got here and he found the same principles
17:15 of intolerance in a place that was supposed to be
17:17 a haven for liberty, it disturbed him.
17:20 He did not agree with the Puritan's attempts to
17:23 set up a theocracy.
17:24 He said, "forced worship stinks in the nostrils of God."
17:29 Williams believed that Constantine
17:32 was worse for the church than Nero,
17:34 because Constantine successfully united the power
17:38 of the civil government with the authority of the church.
17:42 And before long,
17:44 things would get much worse for Roger Williams.
17:48 I'll have more in a moment.
17:49 ♪[Theme Music]
17:57 >>Announcer: In Matthew 4:4 the word of God says
18:00 "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone,
18:03 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
18:07 Every Word is a one minute, Bible based daily devotional
18:10 presented by Pastor John Bradshaw,
18:12 and designed especially for busy people like you.
18:15 Look for Every Word on selected networks,
18:18 or watch it online every day on our website:
18:20 itiswritten.com.
18:22 Receive a daily spiritual boost.
18:25 Watch Every Word.
18:26 You'll be glad you did.
18:36 >>John: 500 years after the Protestant Reformation began
18:39 on October 31st, 1517,
18:42 we might be tempted to wonder what Luther, and Knox,
18:44 and Zwingli, and Calvin, and Farel, and Beza,
18:45 and the Huguenots, and the Anabaptists,
18:47 and so many others achieved.
18:50 Today it would seem that the protest is over,
18:53 even though the most influential church in the world
18:55 offers indulgences,
18:56 hears confessions,
18:57 teaches justification by faith and works,
19:00 considers Mary the queen of heaven,
19:02 where are the Protestants today?
19:04 Protestants are being welcomed back into the Church of Rome,
19:06 and many see this as positive.
19:08 It's being said it's more important to be divided by truth
19:12 than it is to be united by error.
19:14 Paul said in 2 Timothy 4, verse two,
19:16 "Preach the word; be instant in season,
19:19 out of season;
19:20 reprove,
19:21 rebuke,
19:22 exhort with all long suffering and doctrine."
19:23 The word, anything less will never do.
19:27 I'm John Bradshaw for It Is Written.
19:28 Let's live today by every word.
19:31 ♪[Music]
19:45 100 years after the Reformation ended,
19:47 there was still a lot of reform left to be accomplished.
19:51 As long as there was no liberty of conscience,
19:53 and as long as the state was united with the church,
19:56 the church was a long way short of where it should be
19:59 from a Biblical perspective.
20:01 The man who would bring the needed change was a Cambridge
20:04 educated Englishman who moved to the colonies
20:07 six weeks after his 27th birthday.
20:10 Williams was forced to leave Massachusetts,
20:13 and he went into exile in 1636.
20:17 In the winter, he journeyed through the forests,
20:20 not knowing where he was going.
20:22 Along the way he made friends with many of the natives
20:25 and later said that he would rather live
20:27 with Christian savages than savage Christians.
20:30 His journeys led him here,
20:33 to a place that he would name Providence,
20:36 convinced that the providence of God had guided him.
20:47 It was Roger Williams, not Thomas Jefferson
20:50 who first coined the phrase "wall of separation"
20:53 so far as church and state are concerned.
20:56 In 1644, Williams described the need to build a
20:59 "wall of separation between the garden of the church
21:03 and the wilderness of the world."
21:06 Leonard Levy, a U.S. Constitutional Scholar
21:08 commented on these words of Roger Williams
21:11 with the following statement.
21:12 "Thus, the wall of separation had the allegiance of the most
21:16 profound Christian impulse as well as a secular one.
21:21 To Christian fundamentalists of the Framers'
21:22 time the wall of separation derived from the Biblical
21:26 injunction that Christ's kingdom is not of this world."
21:30 The fundamental principle of Roger Williams' colony
21:33 was that every man should have liberty to worship God
21:37 according to the light of his own conscience.
21:40 Rhode Island's founding principles,
21:42 civil and religious liberty,
21:44 became the cornerstones of the American Republic.
21:48 This was extremely significant.
21:50 And so today, the Declaration of Independence states,
21:54 "We hold these truths to be self-evident,
21:57 that all men are created equal;
22:00 that they're endowed by their Creator
22:02 with certain unalienable rights;
22:05 that among these are life, liberty,
22:08 and the pursuit of happiness."
22:10 The Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience
22:13 in religious matters.
22:15 "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification
22:20 to any office of public trust under the United States."
22:24 "Congress shall make no law respecting
22:26 an establishment of religion,
22:28 or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
22:32 It was this environment that allowed the preaching
22:34 and the teaching of the Bible to flourish.
22:36 Of course, there have been those who have abused
22:39 their religious freedom,
22:41 but just think of the alternative:
22:42 a world in which you're not free to believe what you believe.
22:46 That's the world Martin Luther faced when he nailed
22:49 the 95 Theses to that famous door back in 1517.
22:54 Word began to spread back in Europe
22:55 about a place where a person could worship God
22:58 according to the dictates of his or her own conscience.
23:02 As one historian wrote, "Massachusetts,
23:04 by special law, offered free welcome and aid,
23:07 at the public cost, to Christians of any nationality
23:11 who might fly beyond the Atlantic
23:13 'to escape wars or famine,
23:15 or the oppression of their persecutors.'
23:16 And so the fugitive and the downtrodden were,
23:20 by statute, made the guests of the commonwealth."
23:24 The colonies grew, and the world saw the prosperity
23:27 and the increasing strength of a church without a pope
23:31 and a state without a king.
23:34 In this patch of earth, Roger Williams raised
23:36 up a memorial to religious freedom.
23:39 The establishment of the Rhode Island Colony was a landmark
23:43 event in the history of the Protestant Reformation,
23:46 a new haven in a new land where people would finally be free
23:52 to follow the dictates of their own conscience
23:54 when it came to matters of faith.
23:56 Even the Puritans of Roger Williams' day
23:58 couldn't accept his thinking.
23:59 You see, it was the prevailing belief 400 or so years ago
24:03 that the civil government had every right
24:05 to dictate to people's conscience.
24:08 That did not sit well with Roger Williams
24:10 and it led him into deep conflict.
24:13 But the conflict that he experienced brought to
24:15 everyone that followed freedom.
24:24 Now of course, that meant that if you wanted to opt out
24:26 to practice no religion,
24:28 to disagree with the church,
24:30 then it was your right to do so.
24:33 And it's this spirit of religious liberty
24:35 that's described in the New Testament,
24:37 just a few verses from the end
24:38 of the Bible where the bride of Christ blends her appeal
24:42 with that of the Holy Spirit in urging humanity
24:46 to accept God's gift of salvation.
24:49 "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!'
24:51 And let him who hears say, 'Come!'
24:55 And let him who thirsts come;
24:58 and whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely."
25:04 Freedom of conscience would take hold in America in a way
25:08 not seen in any other civil experiment in human history.
25:13 The inalienable right to worship and follow conscience
25:16 as a person chooses would become
25:19 one of the main cornerstones of the American experience,
25:22 and of the final stages of the Protestant Reformation.
25:32 Roger Williams demonstrated how important it is
25:35 for believers to press forward.
25:37 While the Reformation accomplished an enormous amount
25:40 in terms of opening up the Bible and bringing the light
25:43 of God's Word to the human mind,
25:46 there was still a lot left to accomplish,
25:47 much more to learn,
25:49 more for the church and more for believers
25:52 as they grew towards God's ideal.
25:55 John Robinson was a pastor of pilgrims in Holland.
25:59 And he said this to many who were preparing to leave
26:02 for the New World.
26:04 "Brethren, we are now erelong to part asunder,
26:07 and the Lord knoweth whether I shall live ever
26:11 to see your faces more.
26:13 But whether the Lord hath appointed it or not,
26:16 I charge you before God and His blessed angels
26:19 to follow me no farther than I have followed Christ.
26:25 If God should reveal anything to you
26:27 by any other instrument of His,
26:29 be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive
26:33 any truth of my ministry;
26:36 for I am very confident the Lord hath more truth and light
26:41 yet to break forth out of His Holy Word."
26:46 I'm confident the Lord has more.
26:48 God has more for you in His Word.
26:52 That was true in the time of the pilgrims,
26:54 and that commitment to the Bible,
26:56 to the progress of God's light would lead others to advance
27:00 the course of the Reformation and guide multitudes
27:03 into a deeper understanding of God and His Word.
27:08 ♪[Music]
27:15 How can you enjoy a successful Christian experience?
27:19 How can you know victory instead of defeat?
27:22 How can you live with honor and integrity before God?
27:26 Well you can, and our free offer today tells you how.
27:29 To receive "The War Is Over,"
27:31 call us on 800-253-3000
27:34 or visit us online at itiswritten.com,
27:38 or you can write to the address on your screen.
27:40 I'd like you to receive our free offer "The War Is Over."
27:45 Thank you for remembering that It Is Written exists
27:48 due to the gracious support of people like you.
27:51 It's your kindness that makes it possible for It Is Written
27:54 to share Jesus and the great truths of the Bible
27:57 with the world.
27:58 You can send your tax deductible gift
28:00 to the address on your screen,
28:02 or you can support It Is Written through our website
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28:07 Thanks for your generous support.
28:08 Our number is 800-253-3000
28:11 and our web address is itiswritten.com.
28:15 Let's pray together now.
28:17 Our Father in Heaven,
28:19 we're thankful today that we have Your Word.
28:21 And that we have freedom to worship You.
28:24 And to believe what we wish to believe
28:25 according to the dictates of our conscience.
28:28 We thank You for the wall of separation
28:30 that You have erected
28:32 to protect our freedom.
28:34 To prevent others from dictating to us what we should believe.
28:38 So Lord with that religious freedom I pray for Wisdom,
28:41 for Grace,
28:43 That we might exercise that freedom in a way that grows us
28:48 into Your image.
28:49 That leads us in the direction of Your Holy Spirit.
28:54 Now Father there's someboday thinking
28:57 that they must give You their heart,
28:58 I pray draw that man that woman that young person right now.
29:02 That decisions will be made even now
29:04 that we will value this freedom we have,
29:06 given to us at great cost.
29:09 And use it in way that will lead us into Your Kingdom.
29:12 We look for that day, that day of Jesus' return
29:14 May it be soon we pray
29:16 Take our hearts and make them Yours,
29:18 we ask You in Jesus' name
29:22 Amen.
29:24 Thanks for joining me.
29:25 I'm looking forward to seeing you again next time.
29:27 Until then, remember,
29:28 "it is written, 'man shall not live by bread alone,
29:33 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
29:37 ♪[Theme Music]

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Revised 2017-10-30