It Is Written Script: 1249 The Revolution Against Tyranny Page 1 The Revolution Against Tyranny Program No. 1249 SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW Thanks for joining me today. In May of 2012, I had a very interesting experience. I was here, in Paris, France, to conduct some Bible lectures around the city, and it was while I was here that the French presidential elections were being held. The president of France at the time was Nicolas Sarkozy and he was being challenged for the presidency by François Hollande. A week or two before the elections, Sarcozy was trailing Hollande by about 13 points in the opinion polls. But just before the elections, that gap had narrowed to about six percent. It was clear this was going to be a close race. Now, unlike some parts of the world, progress reports on election results are not given throughout election day here in France. That means you don t get to find out how the election is going until you find out how the election has gone. But that doesn t stop supporters of presidential candidates from making preparations for big victory celebrations. The election day was a Sunday, and that Sunday morning I was here, in the Place de la Bastille, and I noticed that the supporters of Hollande were making plans for a big victory celebration. That night, France had elected itself a new president. After five years in office, Sarcozy had been voted out of the presidency and Hollande would be moving into the presidential palace. The scenes of jubilation here at the Place de la Bastille were incredible. The music blared. The people cheered and shouted and chanted. They waved their flags in the air. I came down to witness what was going on and found myself jammed into a mass of humanity right here about 50 yards behind me. There were tens of thousands of people jammed into this place. People were clambering all over the monument, something you just don t see every day. But the fact that people were celebrating an election result here, at the Place de la Bastille, is itself extremely significant. Nearly 230 years ago, the Bastille, or the Bastille Prison, was stormed. Revolutionaries made their way into that prison, which was located right behind me, and the Revolution was not so much born, but propelled, into prominence. Now there could be no going back for France. The Revolution was full on.
It Is Written Script: 1249 The Revolution Against Tyranny Page 2 The French Revolution was one of the most incredible revolutions in the last several hundred years. It was a time of tremendous turmoil a time of terrible bloodshed and cruelty, and a time when God was told in no uncertain terms that He was not welcome in France. Many people don t realize what some of the most remarkable things were that happened in association with the French Revolution. On yes, we have heard about the guillotines, but what about the story behind the story? Today we are going to take a look at this landmark period in human history. We are going to see that it is very closely related to the Bible, and we are going to find out that people ought to be very careful what they ask for. You know that Bible verse that essentially says you reap what you sow? That principle was graphically demonstrated during the French Revolution. The French people reaped what they had sown. What they had sown was a rejection of God, and what they reaped was chaos and bloodshed at a terrible time of intense misery. Let s go back, way back. During the Middle Ages, the medieval church kept the Bible from the people, and the people believed what they were told to believe by a church whose leaders did not do a very good job of modeling biblical Christianity. Rather than making God directly accessible to the people, the church made God accessible to the people through the church that is, through the traditions and the sacraments of the church. The priests were said to be God s representatives here on earth. Forgiveness was to be obtained by going to God through the priests of the church. The people were not encouraged to read the Bible. As a matter of fact, those who had the Bible or many times, were just suspected to have the Bible or parts of it were often sentenced to death. Now, regarding salvation and forgiveness, the people were told that they could purchase forgiveness of their sins that salvation could come from forgiveness of sins that was obtained for a price. All this in spite of the fact that the Bible Jesus said, Whoever is thirsty; he can come and drink of the water of life freely. And, Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. We are told that we have an Advocate with the Father, and that our Advocate is Jesus Christ, the Righteous. And when Paul wrote to Timothy, he told them that there is one Mediator between God and men, the Man, Christ Jesus. This manmade, tradition-based religion could not satisfy the longings of the human heart. But then, light was found. People discovered that God had said salvation came freely by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. When that sort of light was found, it could not be kept hidden. It was shared. It was shared with others. And the Protestant Reformation was born.
It Is Written Script: 1249 The Revolution Against Tyranny Page 3 There were many others, of course, but through Hus in Bohemia, and later Luther in Germany, and then Calvin and Zwingli, and Wesley in England and Knox in Scotland, the Reformation took off and thousands and thousands of people were introduced to salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and not through a church, a priest or a pope. But what about France? The Reformation struggled to take hold in France, and as long as the Reformation struggled to get off the ground, the people were stuck in tradition. They were kept from the freeing truths of the Bible. They were kept in darkness and ignorance and superstition. Now, God did raise up a people who would take hold of the Word of God here in France. There were the Albigenses and the Huguenots, a Bible-believing people who loved the Word of God. There were, at times, some people who sided with the Protestants even some in high places. But generally, the Huguenots were relentlessly persecuted and as many as 200,000 of them were hounded right out of France. But as bad as that was, that was nothing compared to what would happen in 1572, when the St. Bartholomew s Day Massacre took place. At the behest of the ruling church, several thousand Huguenot Protestants were murdered in one night. Within a month, 25,000 Protestants were murdered here in Paris, and tens of thousands of others were killed in other parts of France. The signal to start the massacre was the tolling of church bells here in Paris. The news of the massacre was received with joy in the Vatican. In fact, there are three frescos in the Vatican that detail the massacre. The event is forever commemorated there. France simply would not let the light shine. The people were kept in the dark. The darkness was not only welcomed, but preserved, even defended, and good things do not tend to happen when people are kept in the dark. The very large underclass in French society was forced to bear the financial burden for the nation. The nobility was not taxed, but the lower-class people the poor people were heavily taxed and contemptibly treated. If you are familiar with Victor Hugo s book Les Misérables, you understand that the central protagonist in that book is a gentleman named Jean Valjean, who was sentenced to seven years in a squalid prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Then, because of various infractions, his seven-year prison sentence grew into a 19- year prison sentence. Now, I understand that Les Misérables is not a documentary it s a work of fiction but it does represent how French society operated at that time.
It Is Written Script: 1249 The Revolution Against Tyranny Page 4 The French people started to develop intense resentment and bitterness as a matter of fact, deep hatred for the ruling class. There came a time when the king realized that the poorer people needed to have representation in the affairs of the state. But when the underclass was given that representation, they simply wanted more and more and more power. An absolute title wave of anger was let loose across France and the French Revolution was born. This is an incredible piece of architecture, and it also represents an incredible amount of arrogance on the part of its builder. It s the Palace of Versailles, which was built by the Sun King, Louis XIV, who was the king of France for around 60 years. During that time, France about went bankrupt. Louis had several wars he was fighting, but he also spent piles of money on excesses like this. You can imagine how that went over with the people. They resented what the wealthy class was doing while they suffered so badly. It was actually Louis XIV who sowed the seeds of the Revolution. Now consider the factors that went into this. You had a group of people who were starved of the Word of God and, therefore, had no real conception of the true character of God. And this same group of people had been pushed down, manipulated by the state, and persecuted, really. When this group of people rose up, they really rose up, and what was going to happen wasn t going to be pretty. I live in a country where people are free to believe whatever they want to believe about God. And I like it that way. I like not being forced to believe something about God that I might not necessarily choose to believe on my own. I have noticed in recent years that atheists have started to speak with a louder voice. To be honest, in some cases, I sympathize with atheists, because the God that many atheists don t believe in is a God that I don t believe in. The argument from some atheists goes like this: Because some of the things that Christians believe are just so silly, therefore, I don t believe in God. Or Because the way many Christians act is just so silly or repugnant, therefore, I don t want to have anything to do with God. But history shows us that atheism isn t a great path for people to follow, either as individuals or as nations. Think about the implications of atheism. Point 1: If there is no God if there is no God who purposely created this earth then you and I are just the results of a cosmic accident and we don t have any real divine purpose to our being here. Point 2: If there was no creation, if there is no God, then surely there is no afterlife and then this earth is all you have. After your life on earth, it s all over. Is that an attractive thought?
It Is Written Script: 1249 The Revolution Against Tyranny Page 5 Point 3: What happens to morals? If there is no God, there is no absolute source of right and wrong. There is no final Arbiter in these things other than you and me. Really? You and I get to choose what is right and wrong about everything? It s hard to imagine that that s a good way to approach life. You know, we have examples of what society would be like if there was no God. European communism in the 20th century was largely a godless form of communism, which led to the tyranny of the state-controlled Soviet Union and dictatorships like that of the Romanian monster, Nicolae Ceausescu, who was killed by his own people. And here in France we have a chilling example of what happens when a country turns its back on God. France did that, officially. It turned its back on God and declared itself to be an atheist state. Let s discuss that. The French Revolution came about because of a variety of factors. The working class had been ground down by the ruling class, and they came to the place where they the working class decided that they just weren t going to take it any longer. And so they rose up. They took revenge against the ruling class, killing anyone who dared to stand in their way. A National Assembly was formed and this was an assembly that gave voice to the people not simply listening to the nobility and the ruling classes. The poverty and the exploitation experienced by the working class in Paris at the time was phenomenal. When I talk about poverty and exploitation, I mean really, it was hard to imagine. The difficult circumstances that the poorer classes went through were absolutely amazing. So, the Bastille the state prison was stormed, as a symbol of the protest by the people. Now, there were only a few people in there at the time as prisoners seven, as a matter of fact but they were liberated and the governor of the prison was killed. To demonstrate how serious they were, the Bastille was destroyed. Parts of it were taken around France and shown to the citizens of France, and this was a way for the revolutionaries to say to the people of France, We are serious about this. The Revolution was in full swing. The country was now being run by the people, not the nobility. And before long, a Bill of Rights was drafted. And the church, which had exercised such power in France until this time, wasn t going to escape the attention of the revolutionaries. Its right to collect a tithe, 10 percent on income from every citizen in France, was abolished. In fact, it wasn t long before the church itself would find itself in the crosshairs of the revolutionaries.
It Is Written Script: 1249 The Revolution Against Tyranny Page 6 The members of the clergy who remained loyal to the pope rather than to the National Assembly and that was the majority were considered to be traitors, and now, many members of the clergy were themselves persecuted. Here is what you had: An essentially godless group of people seizing power and rebelling against not only the state that had persecuted them, but against the church that had extorted and misused them. A group of people with that sort of power and with that sort of bitterness, not guided by the Holy Spirit or anything remotely resembling Christian principles, was committed to revenge and destruction, and this morphed into a hellish period that became known as the Reign of Terror. The Reign of Terror began in 1793, and it lasted for about 10 months. During that time, 20,000 people were executed by guillotine thousands of them here in Paris. And tens of thousands of others were executed by other means all over France. Many of the executions happened right here, in a place that is now known as the Place de la Concorde. It is a fabulous place now. In one direction is the Louvre and the beautiful gardens that surround it. And the other is the famous Champs-Elysées, a magnificent boulevard that leads to the Arc de Triomphe. The National Assembly Building is right there. There is a stunning obelisk that was given to France by the nation of Egypt in the 19th century. But before there was an obelisk here, there was a guillotine and it was kept busy. At that time, instead of being the Place de la Concorde, or Concorde Square in other words, Getting-Along-With-Each-Other Square it was called the Place de la Révolution. The executioners started wiping out the nobility. King Louis XXI was executed here. So was his wife, Marie Antoinette, who incidentally, probably didn t say, Let them eat cake, and seems to have been executed simply because people didn t like her. You know, the guillotines were actually set up right here where this obelisk now stands. And when you think about it, what the revolutionaries were really trying to do was execute God. They were so fueled by their lack of Christianity, so maddened by what they perceived to be the misdeeds of the church, that they began this process of banishing God from society. What they did was initiate an intentional process of de-christianization, where God was pushed out of society. And not only was God pushed out of society, but atheism was set up as a national religion. Think about it. In 1793, the world heard an educated, civilized country declare in its national assembly that there is no God, and masses of people rejoiced.
It Is Written Script: 1249 The Revolution Against Tyranny Page 7 But it goes even further and gets even more bizarre than that. In a ceremony that now seems impossible to believe, a woman was brought into France s National Assembly building, placed right next to the country s highest political leaders, and declared to be the goddess of reason, and the people were told it was this woman that they would worship from now on. Then, unbelievably, she was taken here, to Notre Dame Cathedral. She was elevated before the people and was presented as an object of worship, receiving the adoration of everyone present. The weekly day of rest was set aside, and France installed every 10th day as a festive day. The institutions of the Bible were banned. Baptism and communion were strictly prohibited. A nation had declared that there was no God. France had de-christianized itself and installed a goddess of reason. A nation turned its back on God and essentially declared itself atheist. And look where that got it. Having thrown off the restraining power of the Holy Spirit, the leaders of this movement, left to their own devices, filled France with blood. Godlessness never prospers an individual or a nation. History shows us that. Nobody can point to a place in the world where godlessness has turned out for the better and led to advancement or prosperity. And nobody will ever be able to do that, because that sort of place has never existed and never will. The Bible says, The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. (Psalm 53:1) Proverbs 14:34 says, Righteousness exalts a nation... Listen to this, from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 48:18, 22): O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea... There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked. So what happens to a nation when God is left out of the picture? Well, it can t possibly go in a good direction, and history shows us that only too clearly. But what happens to your life when God is left out of the picture? In the same way, it cannot possibly go the way that God wants it to go. I suppose it s one thing to look at a nation and examine some of the sadder parts of its history, but it s altogether another thing and most likely a far more important thing, to examine our own hearts and ask ourselves what is going on there. Friend, what is going on in your heart today? In Philippians, Paul wrote (Philippians 2:13):
It Is Written Script: 1249 The Revolution Against Tyranny Page 8 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. When a nation asks God to leave and says, We don t want your help and we ll do things our own way, a nation will reap what it sows. Same thing with a person. When a person says, I don t think I want God working in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure, what can God do? But friend, today you can say, Lord, whatever the circumstances of my life, whatever my strengths or weaknesses, whatever my ups and downs, I would like you to live your life in me. And when we make that request of God, God honors that request, and God lives His life in you. And then, you reap what you sow, but you ve sown good things and you will reap everlasting life. Thanks for joining me today. Let s pray together. PRAYER Our Father in Heaven, thank you for showing us that things work better when you are in the center of a nation and of an individual. Lord, please be the center of our lives that we might reap what we sow, having sown the good, having sown Christ, that we might reap everlasting life. Be honored in our lives. We pray and thank you in Jesus name, Amen. It Is Written Box O Thousand Oaks, CA 91359 USA Tel: (805) 433-0210 Fax: (805) 433-0218 www.itiswritten.com