[PastorMail]
Posted by: grosey2 <grosey2@...>
messages on the heroes of the faith and their favourite texts. Much of the
base material is from FW Boreham a Bunch Of Everlastings.
So far we have covered Tyndale, Luther, Wesley, and Calvin. this current one
is on Knox.
John Knox John 17:3
"True and substantial wisdom principally consists of two parts; the
knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves." With this sentence John
Calvin begins his famous book, Institutes of the Christian Religion. Knowing
God was the book by JI Packer that brought again a personal experience of
God to the forefront of my heart about 30 years ago. Back in the 1500's it
was this very concept of knowing God personally that brought forth so much
hatred by religious leaders. To think that a person could know forgiveness
of sins without the minister acting as a priest! To think that people could
claim to know Christ personally through reading the Scriptures! It cost
many their lives. In Scotland it cost a young nobleman his life; Patrick
Hamilton was burned in front of the Bishop's palace. This young and
scholarly nobleman had been to the continent for study and was converted
through the teachings of Luther from the Scriptures. He made the mistake of
teaching the grace of God in his own land. He perished even though he was
related to the royal house. Then came George Wishart another scholar who had
to flee to England because he taught his pupils New Testament Greek! He went
to the continent to study in centres of learning and he returned to
Cambridge for study. He came back to Scotland as an itinerant preacher. His
preaching was powerful and effective. He was arrested and burned at St
Andrews not far from the spot where Hamilton perished. The deaths of these
men made a deep impression on those who witnessed them. They exposed the
cruelties of Rome and demonstrated the genuineness of the martyrs' faith.
George Wishart had been accompanied by a bodyguard called John Knox. This
young man had been a former priest but had come into light through the
writings of Augustine and reading the Scriptures in the original tongues. He
carried a sword and was determined to guard his master from the fate of
Hamilton. Wishart was arrested and perished.
But let's jump through a few years and discover the verse that made John
Knox all that John Knox became for God.
As John Knox, now an old man, lay dying, he asked his young wife to read for
him John Chapter 17 where as he said, he had cast his first anchor.
"Go!" said the old reformer to his wife, as he lay dying, and the words were
his last, "Go, read where I cast my first anchor!" She needed no more
explicit instructions, for he had told her the story again and again. It is
Richard Bannatyne, Knox's serving man, who has placed the scene on record.
"On November 24, 1572," he says, "John Knox departed this life to his
eternal rest. Early in the afternoon he said, 'Now, for the last time, I
commend my spirit, soul, and body' - pointing upon his three fingers - 'into
Thy hands, 0 Lord!' Thereafter, about five o'clock, he said to his wife,
'Go, read where I cast my first anchor!' She did not need to be told, and so
she read the seventeenth of John's evangel." Let us listen as she reads it!
"Thou hast given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal
life to as many as Thou hast given Him; and this is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."
Here was a strange and striking contrast! "Eternal Life! Life Eternal!" says
the Book.
Now listen to the labored breathing from the bed! The Bed speaks of Death;
the Book speaks of Life Everlasting! "Life! "the dying man starts as the
great cadences fall upon his ear. "This is Life Eternal, that they might
know Thee!" "Life Eternal!"
"It was there," he declares with his last breath, "it was there that I cast
my first anchor!"
A First Anchor
While dying Knox looked for that place where he had cast a first anchor.
What is a first anchor? If you have been fishing in a small boat you would
well understand that the anchor is thrown into the water to hold the ship in
place. However, there are places Not to throw an anchor. An anchor on a
sandy bottom has nothing to grip to. An anchor thrown in a bed of sea weed
will only hold the ship still as long as the roots of the weed stick and
hold it in place. Now this may not affect a small boat, however Knox was
familiar with larger ships, where for an anchor to lose its grip on sea
floor could spell death for all those aboard. Were the anchor to slip in
some strong river current, the ship and all those aboard could be sent
careening downstream towards rocks and certain death. An Anchor needed to be
cast somewhere where it would hold. Where can the anchor of your life be
cast so that you can withstand the current talking you to death and hell?
Observe John Knox. How was that first anchor of his soul cast? I have tried
to piece the records together. Paul never forgot the day on which he saw
Stephen stoned; John Knox never forgot the day on which he saw George
Wishart burned. Wishart was a man "of such grace" - so Knox himself tells
us - "as before him was never heard within this realm." He was regarded with
an awe that was next door to superstition, and with an affection that was
almost adoration.
Are we not told that in the days when the plague lay over Scotland, "the
people of Dundee saw it approaching from the west in the form of a great
black cloud? They fell on their knees and prayed, crying to the cloud to
pass them by, but even while they prayed it came nearer. Then they looked
around for the most holy man among them, to intervene with God on their
behalf. All eyes turned to George Wishart, and he stood up, stretching his
arms to the cloud, and prayed, and it rolled back."
Out on the borders of the town, however, the pestilence was raging, and
Wishart, hastening thither, took up his station on the town wall, preaching
to the plague-stricken on the one side of him and to the healthy on the
other, and exhibiting such courage and intrepidity in grappling with the
awful scourge that he became the idol of the grateful people.
In 1546, however, he was convicted of heresy and burned at the foot of the
Castle Wynd, opposite the Castle Gate. When he came near to the fire, Knox
tells us, he sat down upon his knees, and repeated aloud some of the most
touching petitions from the Psalms. As a sign of forgiveness, he kissed the
executioner on the cheek, saying: "Lo, here is a token that I forgive thee.
My harte, do thine office!" The faggots were kindled, and the leaping flames
bore the soul of Wishart triumphantly skywards. And there, a few yards off,
stands Knox! Have a good look at him! He is a man "rather under middle
height, with broad shoulders, swarthy face, black hair, and a beard of the
same color a span and a half long. He has heavy eyebrows, eyes deeply sunk,
cheekbones prominent, and cheeks ruddy. The mouth is large, the lips full,
especially the upper one. The whole aspect of the man is not unpleasing;
and, in moments of emotion, it is invested with an air of dignity and
majesty." Knox could never shake from his sensitive mind the tragic yet
triumphant scene near the Castle Gate; and when, many years afterwards, he
himself turned aside to die, he repeated with closed eyes the prayers that
he had heard George Wishart offer under the shadow of the stake.
Was it then, I wonder, that John Knox turned sadly homeward and read to
himself the great High-priestly prayer in "the seventeenth of John's
evangel?" Was it on that memorable night that he caught a glimpse of the
place which all the redeemed hold in the heart of the Redeemer? Was it on
that melancholy evening that there broke upon him the revelation of a love
that enfolded not only his martyred friend and himself, but the faithful of
every time and of every clime? Was it then that he opened his heart to the
magic and the music of those tremendous words:
"Thou hast given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal
life to as many as Thou hast given Him; and this is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."
Was it then? I cannot say for certain. I only know that we never meet with
Knox in Scottish story until after the martyrdom of Wishart; and I know
that, by the events of that sad and tragic day, all his soul was stirred
within him. But, although I do not know for certain that the anchor was
first cast then, I know that it was first cast there. "Go!" he said, with
the huskiness of death upon his speech, "read me where I cast my first
anchor!"
And his wife straightway read to him the stately sentences I have just
rewritten.
"Life Eternal!" "This is Life Eternal!"
"This is Life Eternal, that they might know Thee!"
"It was there, there, THERE, that I cast my first anchor!"
Have you cast your first anchor of your soul in Jesus Christ? Have you
found Him to be a Saviour and Lord you can and do know? I don't how you have
cast the anchor of your soul upon Him, whether by a sermon from a preacher,
or by reading in your Bible, or by the words of some hymn or song speaking
to your soul. But I do know that unless your anchor is cast upon Him, you
will not have eternal life. "This is Life Eternal, that they might know
Thee!" "It was there, there, THERE, that I cast my first anchor!" said john
Knox. Have you cast your anchor there upon Jesus?
A Firm Anchor
Knox who was a tutor for a nobleman's family took refuge in St Andrew's
castle, together with his two pupils. A group of extremists had seized the
Castle and murdered Cardinal Beaton who resided there. This was in revenge
for the deaths of the martyrs. It was in the castle that Knox began his
preaching and teaching ministry. Others had taken refuge in the castle and
hearing his instruction of his pupils, they called on him to preach to them.
The queen mother, Mary of Guise, a French woman, was regent at this time
(1546). The king had died and her daughter, Mary, heir to the Scottish
throne, was in France for her education. She married the heir to the French
throne in 1558. The queen mother exercised her power with the help of French
troops stationed in Scotland. The French navy sailed up the Firth of Tay and
bombarded St Andrew's castle until the inmates surrendered. Knox along with
others was sent to the French galleys where he worked as a rowing slave.
Twelve years of exile, nineteen months of which were spent on the French
galleys. We catch two brief glimpses of him. The galley in which he is
chained makes a cruise round the Scottish coast. It passes so near to the
fair fields of Fife that Knox can distinctly see the spires of St. Andrews.
At the moment, Knox was so ill that his life was despaired of; and the
taunting vision might well have broken his spirit altogether. But the anchor
held; the anchor held! "Ah!" exclaimed Knox, raising himself on his elbow,
"I see the steeple of that place where God first in public opened my mouth
to His glory; and I am fully persuaded, how weak so ever I now appear, that
I shall not depart this life till that my tongue shall glorify His godly
name in the same place."
Again, as Carlyle tells, "a priest one day presented to the galley-slaves an
image of the Virgin Mother, requiring that they, the blasphemous heretics,
should do it reverence. 'Mother? Mother of God?' said Knox, when the turn
came to him. This is no Mother of God; this is a piece of painted wood! She
is better for swimming, I think, than for being worshiped!' and he flung the
thing into the river." Knox had cast his anchor in the seventeenth of John's
evangel. And it was firmly anchored there.
"This is life eternal, that they might know Thee!"
And since he had himself found life eternal in the personal friendship of a
Personal Redeemer, it was intolerable to him that others should gaze with
superstitious eyes on "a bit of painted wood."
The thing fell into the river with a splash. It was a confronting moment.
But an expressive one. All the Reformation was summed up in it. Eternal life
was not to be found in such things. "This is life eternal, that they might
know Thee." That, says Knox, is where I cast my first anchor; and, through
all the storm and stress of those baffling and eventful years, that anchor
held!
Have you held fast? Do you have that firm anchor, that no matter what it
takes, you are for Christ forever?
Luke 9:23 Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
Where does someone get a self-denying faith? Self denying faith, a faith
willing to sacrifice is found only when our anchor is fixed fast on the
Saviour who loved us and gave Himself for us. A person may choose to endure
torments in the hope of gaining eternal life. But it is only those who know
Jesus Christ as that Saviour of love, who are willing to deny all to follow
Him. Have you a firm anchor stuck on Him? When you endure difficulty
consider Him Heb 12:3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from
sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your
souls.
A Formidable Anchor
Did that anchor hold under personal strife and stress? Could that anchor
hold for others as well? John Knox would discover that this anchor was a
firm anchor for himself and a formidable anchor for others. He would tell
others of this Saviour. And other would be fixed to this anchor for the
soul.
"3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom You have sent." This is what Knox proclaimed. That there
was a Saviour, and he was readily knowable by any who would turn to Him.
When he was released he went to England and under the boy king Edward VI, a
Protestant, he took a position in the Anglican Church but refused high
office. With the accession of 'Bloody Mary', he had to flee to the continent
and ultimately arrived at Geneva to assist John Calvin. In 1555, he went
back to Scotland to encourage the Protestant nobles who were having a
difficult time with Mary of Guise and her Frenchmen. The time was not ripe
for him and he returned to Geneva. In 1559, he went back to Scotland at the
request of the nobles. Under his strong lead and inspiring preaching, the
Reformation spread swiftly. Many likewise found this anchor to be a fixed
anchor for their souls.
3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Town after town proclaimed for the Reformation. The Protestants had to
resort to arms to defend their lives. With the help of the English army and
navy, the French forces were bottled up in Leith the port of Edinburgh and
were persuaded by treaty to leave Scotland. Elizabeth of England though
offended by Knox's strong pamphlet, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against
the Monstrous Regiment (rule) of Women, had no desire to see a Roman/French
state on her northern border and had sent help to the Scots.
The faith that he had found was one that others rallied to by the masses.
Knox and his colleagues drew up a statement of faith which became known as
The Scots Confession. It is strongly Reformed in its emphasis. It was
presented to the Scots Parliament which in 1560 recognized it by law as the
faith of the Scottish nation. Another document called the First Book of
Discipline laid down the church's polity. Its scheme is elementary
Presbyterianism. For the first time in the Scottish Church's history, laymen
in the form of Elders were to play an important part in its administration
and pastoral oversight. It was proposed in this document to use the wealth
of the old Kirk to set up a church and minister, a school and school-master
in every parish as well as a poor relief system. Although the vision of the
Reformers was never realized in full, this anchor that had remained firm for
John Knox became fixed for so many others who also discovered the wonderful
truth of the Gospel. His was a formidable anchor that others could fix to as
well.
3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
A First Anchor A Firm Anchor A Formidable Anchor
A Final Anchor
Nor was there any parting of the cable or dragging of the anchor at the
last. Richard Bannatyne, sitting beside his honored master's deathbed, heard
a long, long sigh. An unusual desire over-took him.
"Now, sir," he said, "the time to end your battle has come. Remember those
comfortable promises of our Savior Jesus Christ which you have so often
shown to us. And it may be that, when your eyes are blind and your ears deaf
to every other sight and sound, you will still be able to recognize my
voice. I shall bend over you and ask if you have still the hope of glory.
Will you promise that, if you are able to give me some signal, you will do
so?"
The sick man promised, and, soon after, this is what happened:
Grim in his deep death-anguish the stern old champion lay,
And the locks upon his pillow were floating thin and grey,
And, visionless and voiceless, with quick and laboring breath,
He waited for his exit through life's dark portal. Death.
"Hast thou the hope of glory?" They bowed to catch the thrill
That through some languid token might be responsive still,
Nor watched they long nor waited for some obscure reply,
He raised a clay-cold finger, and pointed to the sky.
So the death-angel found him, what time his bow he bent,
To give the struggling spirit a sweet enfranchisement.
So the death-angel left him, what time earth's bonds were riven,
The cold, stark, stiffening finger still pointing up to heaven.
"He had a sore fight of an existence," says Carlyle, "wrestling with Popes
and Principalities; in defeat, contention, life-long struggle; rowing as a
galley-slave, wandering as an exile. A sore fight: but he won it! 'Have you
hope?' they asked him in his last moment, when he could no longer speak. He
lifted his finger, pointed upward, and so died! Honor to him! His works have
not died. The letter of his work dies, as of all men's; but the spirit of
it, never."
At his funeral in 1572, the current Regent paid him this tribute, 'Here lies
one who never feared or flattered flesh.'
And what will you do when you die? That's not an idle question. Sooner or
later we will all face death. What will you do then?
The question became very personal for the youth group at Wedgwood Baptist
Church in Fort Worth, Texas last Wednesday night. It was shortly after 7:00
p.m. and over 300 teenagers had gathered in the sanctuary for a youth rally
celebrating "See You at the Pole," which happened earlier that day in
schools across America. While the students and their leaders were singing,
Larry Gene Ashbrook entered the sanctuary. Dressed in black, he slowly,
methodically opened fire, spewing vile language as he shot first one person,
then another. Then he paused, calmly reloaded, and began to shoot again.
Through the screams, shouts, smoke and bloodshed, a 19-year old young man
stood to his feet. Jeremiah Nietz decided he had seen enough. He wasn't
going to stand by and watch his friends murdered one by one. Facing the
gunman he said, "Sir, you don't need to do that." Ashbrook replied with a
foul comment. "I know what you need," said Jeremiah Nietz. "You need Jesus
Christ in your life." At that moment the shooter pointed his gun directly at
the young man standing only a few feet away. "Shoot me if you want to. I
know where I'm going when I die. What about you?" Something in those words
seemed to pierce the twisted, evil heart of Larry Gene Ashbrook. He slowly
sat down, uttered another swear word, then put the gun to his head and
pulled the trigger.
Out of that awful story comes one shining truth. It is only by knowing God
that we can have the certainty that gave a 19-year-old boy the courage to
look death in the eye. And the way to know God is through his Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ.
"This is life eternal, that they might know Thee!" "That," says Knox, with
his dying breath, "that is where I cast my first anchor!" It is a sure
anchorage, 0 heart of mine! Cast thine anchor there! Cast thine anchor in
the oaths and covenants of the Most High! Cast thine anchor in His
infallible, immutable, unbreakable Word! Cast thine anchor in the infinite
love of God! Cast thine anchor in the redeeming grace of Christ! Cast thine
anchor in the everlasting Gospel! Cast thine anchor in the individual
concern of the individual Savior for the individual soul! Cast thine anchor
there; and, come what may, that anchor will always hold!