It Is Written Script: 1226 A Profile of Courage Page 1 A Profile of Courage Program No. 1226 SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW Part of Czechoslovakia for 75 years, the Czech Republic is bordered by Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Poland. Its capital is the city of Prague. It dates back to about 1100 AD. It is an especially historic city, teeming with magnificent historical sites. Prague castle, the largest castle in the world, was likely built in the 9th century. It covers more than 750,000 square feet, or about 17 acres. The Charles Bridge was built in the 14th century by Charles IV, who at the time was emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Prague was the capital of that empire, and it has been the seat of kings and an important commercial and cultural center. But Prague isn t stuck in the past. Its theaters, museums and galleries are world-class. Its scenery has inspired Hollywood to come and film here, and some of its architecture is whimsical and quirky. This is the magnificent Old Town Square. It dates back to the 12th century. It s surrounded by fabulous buildings including two massive churches and the Old Town Hall. Tourists from all over the world flock here to take pictures of the churches and the steeples. On the hour, they rush over to the clock tower to listen to the chimes ringing, and to see the figurines moving. They throng to the many merchant stands that crowd this place, especially during the summer months. But in the process of running to and fro, many people often miss the significance of something right here in the middle of the Old Town Square. Unlike the rest of pretty much everything here in the Old Town Square, it s not really very old. It was built at the beginning of last century a statue erected in honor of one of Prague s most famous sons. Over time, there have been many famous Czechs, and we can think of tennis players such as Ivan Lendl and Martina Navratilova, the writer Franz Kafka was from Czech Republic, as was composer Antonín Dvořák, and a number of Nobel Prize laureates, but none of them had the profound effect on the world as has this favorite son of Prague.
It Is Written Script: 1226 A Profile of Courage Page 2 So, how well-known is this man in his hometown? While he may be remembered and perhaps even revered here in Prague, if you go outside of Prague, outside of the Czech Republic, a lot of people are not even aware of who this man was or what this man did. His contribution to world history has lost a lot of its luster. What he did in favor of religious history and religious freedom has been pretty well forgotten. This man, one of history s great heroes, was ultimately executed as a criminal as a dangerous enemy of the state in the year 1415. So, what was it that led this familyoriented, peace-loving, Bible-believing, Bible-preaching man to be persecuted and executed? The story of John Huss (Jan Hus) is inspiring. It s full of lessons for people interested in religious freedom. Now, keep in mind you don t have to be a Christian or a religious person to believe in religious freedom. The truth is, down through time, many Christians had been fabulously intolerant of the religious freedoms of others, and even atheists ought to be thankful for religious freedom. In another age, atheists would have been relentlessly persecuted because they choose not to follow the religious protocols of the day. In fact, today, if you enjoy religious freedom, if you believe in a person s right to believe what they want as they want, if you believe in your right to take your faith directly from the Bible and believe it as you wish, then you owe a lot to this famous son of Prague. John Huss was born around the year 1370 in the village of Husenik in Southern Bohemia. Southern Bohemia became part of what is now known as the Czech Republic. In fact, John Huss took his name from the name of his village. John Huss came from rather an anonymous family. There is not a whole lot known about the details of his early life, but what we know is this: Influences in his family or from some other part of his early life led him to ultimately make the decision to become a priest. Huss admitted that he became a priest initially, at least for status and money. But, over time, his focus changed. As John Huss studied, his love for God grew, as did his commitment to ministry. And something else grew as well. That was John Huss love for and commitment to truth, and that is what ultimately led him to a lot of trouble. What John Huss found out is that truth is not always popular. I ll tell you more in just a moment. BIBLE QUESTION
It Is Written Script: 1226 A Profile of Courage Page 3 I was raised going to church with my parents, and was baptized as an infant. When I grew up, I left the church and now that I m quite a bit older and hopefully wiser, I ve come back. Do I need to be rebaptized? What is baptism for anyway? Well, let me tell you something. The truth is that when you were an infant, you weren t baptized. Like me, you were christened. The word baptize means to fully immerse or to plunge under the water. Unless you were put all the way under the water when you were an infant and that s not very likely then you weren t baptized. Now that you ve come back to faith in God and you ve reconnected with a church, it would be right to express your faith in God by being baptized. Baptism signifies that you have accepted Jesus, that you ve repented of your sins, and that you ve died a death to the old way of life. That s why you re being BURIED, as it were, and then raised up to live a whole new life, under a whole new power the power of God. The passage in the Bible that speaks to this is in Romans chapter 6. From verse three it says (Romans 6:3, 4): Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. It isn t that you ought to be rebaptized. It s time for you to be baptized. It s an outward sign of an inward change, letting the world know, and God know, and YOU know that you ve changed sides that you re no longer following the old life, but that Jesus has made you new so new that it can best be described, or really only be described, as if you had died and been raised from the dead. That s baptism. RETURN TO PROGRAM Today, I m in Prague, in the Czech Republic. This city was the home of John Huss, a man who was uncompromising in his faith in God, and who was uncompromising in his faith in God s Word a man whose faith in God and His Word saw him burned at the stake. What was it about this great man of faith that saw him fall foul of the religious leaders of his day? Now, the conventional wisdom is that John Huss was not the most remarkable university student that ever was. He did receive his master s degree in 1396, and a few years later, he became a professor at the university where he received his master s degree. Then in 1402, John Huss became the preacher at the Bethlehem Chapel, a church that was founded specifically so people could hear the Word of God proclaimed in the common language a practice, which in itself, was not very common in that day.
It Is Written Script: 1226 A Profile of Courage Page 4 Bethlehem Chapel has changed a little bit since 1391. Some years ago, a fire pretty much destroyed Bethlehem Chapel, but when it was rebuilt, they retained some of the original Bethlehem Chapel in what we see today. It was in this very place some 600 years ago that John Huss began to have a profound impact on the religious world and, therefore, on the world at large. Back in those days, the religious world was dominated by the Roman Church, and the Roman Catholic Church took a pretty hard line with dissenters. Back then, people believed what they were told to believe, so the church was riddled with ignorance and superstition. John Huss started to rise to prominence at the same time as the teachings of England s John Wycliffe started to gain traction. Bohemian students at Oxford University were exposed to Wycliffe s ideas. They brought them back here to Prague, where John Huss got a hold of them. As John Huss read Wycliffe s teachings, he was moved. Wycliffe was teaching ideas such as the authority of the Word of God and justification by faith, and they were radical ideas for that time. John Wycliffe didn t have any time for tradition, ignorance or superstition, or the teachings of men rather than the teachings of God. What Wycliffe wanted to see was the purity of the Word of God get loose and become known and find its way into people s hearts, so people could be liberated from sin and connected with God. John Huss started to teach John Wycliffe s ideas, and it was from there that Huss ideas spread like wildfire around Prague and around what we now know as the Czech Republic. John Huss started to powerfully impact his world. So, it isn t difficult to see how somebody like John Huss educated, committed, zealous for the truth of God s Word would get exercised by some of this. The church, in John Huss day, was teaching traditions and errors, and it was suffering from a real leadership crisis not simply that they couldn t decide who the legitimate leader was, but on a more local level, the church leaders were pretty corrupt. Their abuses were legendary. John Huss believed that the clergy ought to be model Christians, but these were far from model Christians. Many of them were drunks and gluttons. They were fabulously maybe that s the wrong word they were famously immoral, selfcentered, power-mad and money-grabbing. John Huss decided that something had to be done, and he spoke out against this and in favor of the Word of God. John Huss was especially incensed by the practice of simony. That is where the church would make merchandise of or would sell its blessings. People had to pay for the sacraments.
It Is Written Script: 1226 A Profile of Courage Page 5 In fact, many people paid to have their sins forgiven. John Huss didn t set out to be a troublemaker, but he really believed that God had called him to encourage people to be liberated from this. England s King Edward III said, The Lord commissioned the apostles to lead the sheep to pasture and not to fleece them. And John Huss could see that there was a lot of fleecing going on. John Huss wasn t prepared to stand idly by while such shocking behavior was going on. So he taught the Word of God as effectively as he could, and he opposed the appalling practices that were taking place. John Huss didn t mean to pick a fight, and I don t believe he expected to receive such stiff opposition, but something Jesus said suggested that John Huss was in for a battle. We read this in John 15 (John 15: 20, 21): Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name s sake, because they know not him that sent me. That s exactly what happened to John Huss. Strong opposition started mounting against him not because he was teaching contrary to the Bible, but because he was preaching strong, plain, clear Bible truth. Some years before, Pope Gregory had outlawed the preaching of the Gospel here in the local language, in the language of Bohemia. So news of what John Huss was doing started spreading like wildfire, and it made him very unpopular with some particularly powerful people. John Huss was summoned to appear before the pope, which many people believed would lead to his execution. The king and queen of Bohemia rallied to his defense, as did university faculty, government officials and others. The church responded by placing the city of Prague under interdict. Interdict would fill the lives of people with dread and fear. When the church stands in the place of God, putting a city under interdict effectively locks people out of Heaven. That s because people now couldn t get married in the church, and they couldn t get forgiven by the church. If somebody died, they couldn t get buried in a church funeral service or a church graveyard. Huss began to be perceived as someone who was a troublemaker. He responded by leaving Prague. Instead of being silenced, his voice was given greater volume as he went from place to place, powerfully proclaiming God s Word. It reminds me of 2 Corinthians 13:8 which says, We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
It Is Written Script: 1226 A Profile of Courage Page 6 After a time, John Huss came back to Prague and preached once again in Bethlehem Chapel, this time with renewed zeal. And he didn t labor alone. Like Paul had Silas and Barnabas had John Mark, Huss labored together with Jerome. Their varied talents and gifts complemented each other well. About this time, another controversy began raging and it was a big one. Several different individuals each claimed the right to be pope, all at the same time. The French cardinals had elected themselves a pope, then the Roman cardinals elected a pope of their own. Each rival pope said that whatever happened under the authority of the other pope was invalid, which means, of course, that the pardoned were not really forgiven and the married were not really married. Well, to add to the confusion or in fact, there was an attempt to clear up a confusion the Council of Pisa elected a third pope, Alexander V, who told the other two to give up their ideas about being pope, which they were not about to do. So you had Alexander V ruling from Pisa, Gregory XII ruling from Rome, and Benedict XIII ruling from, by now, Spain. Each pope was claiming the right to be pope. How would they settle the question? Well, the next large council wasn t going to be held until 1414 in Constance, Germany. Here, they said, this issue of the popes would finally be settled. Thousands of people descended upon Constance. In fact, it was said that 1,500 prostitutes were kept busy during the Council of Constance. This strange mingling of men of the cloth and ladies of the night has been memorialized in a large statue unveiled in 2002 at the entrance to the harbor in Constance, Germany. By the time the Council of Constance came about, Europe was astir. The two antipopes had been summoned to appear at the Council of Constance, as was John Huss, who was to answer for his teachings. The two popes chose to stay away, out of concern for their safety. And even though his safety had been guaranteed by Emperor Sigismund, John Huss felt that he was traveling to his execution. When he got to the Council of Constance, John Huss was going to explain to the delegates what it was he believed and why he believed it. But shortly after he got there, he was arrested by order of the pope and the cardinals, and was locked up in a foul dungeon. Interestingly enough, one of the popes also was imprisoned, the other two popes were deposed and a new pope was elected.
It Is Written Script: 1226 A Profile of Courage Page 7 And at this Council, the Council of Constance, it was decreed that the bones of reformer John Wycliffe should be dug up and burned. Interestingly enough, one of the popes was also imprisoned, the other two popes were deposed, and a new pope was elected. John Huss did have supporters of the Council of Constance, but they were unable to change the minds of his enemies. When he was brought to appear before the council, he was bound in chains and was dreadfully ill. At his trial, Huss spoke boldly in defense of Biblical truth and against the excesses and corruptions of the church. And he stood before the very emperor who had guaranteed his safety. In spite of his bold stand for God perhaps because of his bold stand for God Huss was sentenced to burn at the stake. This was a man who had been sentenced to death because he upheld the authority of the Bible, because he spoke against excess and corruption in the church, and because he dared to defy the authority of a pope. Up until the time of his death, he lived in horrible conditions. His suffering was great. He lived in deplorable filth. He was alone. John Huss had been abandoned, but never once did his faith in God come close to wavering. John Huss remained ardent in his faith in God and in his faith in God s Word. At his trial, he was given the opportunity to recant. He would not do so. A large procession of people led him away to the place where he would be burned at the stake. Again, once reaching that spot, John Huss was given the opportunity to recant. He wouldn t do so. In fact, his reply was this: What errors shall I renounce? I know myself guilty of none. I call God to witness that all that I have written and preached has been with the view of rescuing souls from sin and perdition. And therefore, most joyfully, will I confirm with my blood that truth which I have written and preached. As the flames burned around him, John Huss sang until his voice was silenced forever. Huss life and ministry show us that truth is not always popular. John Huss heroic example shows us that even when the truth is not popular, God s Holy Spirit moves upon His faithful ones and inspires them to stand for God anyway. Paul addressed this very thing when he wrote to his young friend, Timothy. Here is what he said (2 Timothy 4:2-4): Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears,
It Is Written Script: 1226 A Profile of Courage Page 8 they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. You see, that is really the choice that we have to make. To stand on the Word of God and let God s Word guide our lives and mold our existence, or stand instead with human teachings and human traditions. The Bible is not just another book. The Bible is God s Book. Did the death of John Huss silence the man? Maybe it silenced the man, but it didn t silence his message. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:16: All Scripture is given by inspiration of God And Jesus said, in John 8 (John 8:32): The truth will make you free. Writing to a friend, John Huss once wrote these words. He said (referring to God s truth): Truth prevails over all. Interestingly, the Czech government has adopted John Huss words as their national motto: Truth prevails. I certainly hope that will be true in your experience. John Huss had it right. God s truth does prevail over all. PRAYER Father in Heaven, we thank you for truth and we thank you for John Huss and people like him for their example. I pray that by your grace we would be faithful and committed to standing for you, to standing on your Word and allowing your Word to be the guide and the rule of our lives. I thank you today for the Bible. This we pray 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