When you survey history, there are certain men who are clearly marked out by God for the purpose of accomplishing great things and monumentous tasks. There is no doubt about it—John Knox is one such figure. Knox was born in Haddington in 1514 to humble beginnings. Although he was a man of shorter stature physically, it’s safe to say that John Knox would become one of the most towering figures of church history. He was a man on a mission, as he famously stated, “Give me Scotland, or I die.”
When you survey history, there are certain men who are clearly marked out by God for the purpose of accomplishing great things and monumentous tasks. There is no doubt about it—John Knox is one such figure.
Knox would be raised up by God to lead the Scottish Reformation. Sometimes God will take a nobody and use him to shake the world. The power of God on a person’s life is not based on the approval of man nor the paper certificates of seminaries and educational institutions. Although Knox was a scholar and author, at the heart of his ministry was the pulpit.
The Era of the Preacher
There is no question about it, the times of his life often mark a man. However, by the end of Knox’s life, it could be well said that he marked his times. When Patrick Hamilton was burned at the stake in St. Andrews, John Knox was about 14 years of age. Knox would eventually be educated at St. Andrews and to this day on the sidewalk in front of St. Salvador’s Chapel remains a large “PH” which is a constant reminder that walking in the footsteps of Jesus is not always safe. Knox learned the story of Patrick Hamilton—”the heretic.”
John Knox was raised in an era where the Roman Catholic Church held a strangle hold on the Bible. It was the time in history when taking a different position than the Roman Catholic Church could result in your public burning. Although Knox was only seven years of age when Luther took his famous stand in the city of Worms, Germany—the writing of Luther would eventually reach the shore of Scotland where he would be influenced by the German Reformer.
John Knox was ordained to the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church and returned home after his education where he would serve as a tutor and a notary, which was an important role in interpreting documents.
We are not given specific information or details about Knox’s conversion to faith. He was influenced by one preacher who first gave him a taste of truth. He stated later that it was John 17 where, “I first cast my anchor.” By 1543, Knox was a Christian and his journey of faith erupted into action. He would be directly influenced by a fiery preacher named George Wishart as he would, interestingly enough, serve as a bodyguard for the Scottish herald.
He wasn’t merely there as a guard, Knox was a student of Wishart—a disciple. He learned a model of boldness, a Reformed perspective of doctrine, and he would later learn what it means to die for your faith as Wishart was arrested, condemned as a heretic by Cardinal David Beaton (uncle to the deceased Archbishop James Beaton, who presided over the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton) and burned at the stake in 1546.
The Power of Knox’s Preaching
In God’s providence, John Knox led one of the most interesting lives of the Reformers. He was a preacher, a pastor, a galley-slave on a ship, a Bible translator, commentator, and a Reformer. It was during these years that he lived in various countries and served alongside some impressive figures—such as John Calvin in Geneva. John Knox’s preaching gift continued to be sharpened into a powerful voice for the glory of God. As he labored in the pulpit as a pastor he would remark, “The public preaching of the word of God is the chief ordinary means of salvation.”
Mary Queen of Scots arrived in Scotland on August 19, 1561 with a warm reception. She didn’t waste any time with an attempt to push back against the victories of the Reformation. She was a staunch Roman Catholic. She instituted a Catholic Mass on the first Sunday after her arrival—only 5 days later. This was seen as a massive threat and John Knox was willing to stand firm!
Give me Scotland or I die. —John Knox
On the very next Lord’s Day, John Knox thundered against the Queen in his sermon from St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland. One man, William Cecil, who served as Secretary of State was present for the sermon and wrote the following in a letter:
I assure you, the voice of one man [Knox] is able in one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears.
Such a trumpet blast reached the ears of the Queen who summoned Knox for an interview. When she challenged the Reformer, he refused to back down. He understood her authority and he understood her power. Knox was to committed God and his Word regardless of the threats.
The Queen called Knox to answer for his preaching. This would be the first of a number of historic interviews where Knox would be called to stand before the Queen. In this first meeting, she challenged Knox’s preaching. The Queen challenged Knox by saying:
Ye interpret the Scriptures in one manner, and they interpret in another. Whom shall I believe? Who shall be judge?
Knox responded:
Madam, ye shall believe God, [who] plainly speaketh in His Word…The Word of God is plain in itself. If there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost, which is never contrarious to Himself, explaineth the same more clearly in other places.
Knox refused to be swayed by the power of the Roman Catholic Queen and her rumbling threats. This was only the first of several encounters and interviews that she would have with the preacher. Later in the heat of her battle with the Scottish Reformer, she would say the following:
I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.
If you review portraits of John Knox from history, he is often depicted as a man who is in full flight in the pulpit. One little known fact is that out of Reformers etched in the historic “Reformation Wall” in Geneva, Switzerland designed to tell the story of the Reformation, he is the only one who appears on the wall more than once. He was a powerful preacher. One young man named James Melville described his time sitting under the preaching of John Knox at St Andrews in 1571 by writing:
I heard him teach there the prophecies of Daniel that summer and the winter following, I had my pen and my little book, and took away such things as I could comprehend. In the opening up of his text he was moderate the space of half an hour; but when he entered to application he made me so [thrill] and tremble, that I could not hold a pen to write. He was very weak. I saw him, every day of his doctrine, go slowly and warily, with a furring of matricks about his neck, a staff in one hand, and good, godly Richard Ballantyne, his servant holding up the other oxter, from the abbey to the parish kirk and, by the same Richard and another servant, lifted up to the pulpit, where he behoved to lean at his first entry; but ere he had done with his sermon he was so active and vigorous that he was like to ding the pulpit in blads [beat the pulpit in pieces] and fly out of it.
Nearing the end of his life as his health was failing, he went to St. Giles’ Cathedral for one last time to lay hands on his successor, James Lawson. After the installation, he hobbled his way back down the Royal Mile to his home where he would never leave again until his death.
As he was preparing to die he would attempt to get out of bed at times—always thinking it was Sunday and he needed to get to church. Finally, on his deathbed, he requested for his wife to read to him from John 17 where he first cast his anchor. She read to him from 1 Corinthians 15 – and he replied “Is not that a comfortable chapter?” She also read to him from Ephesians and part of Calvin’s sermons on Ephesians.
He soon drifted off into eternity on November 24, 1572. He was buried at St. Giles Cathedral two days later. At his graveside, Regent Morton said, “Here lies one who neither flattered nor feared any flesh.” If you travel to St. Giles Cathedral and walk into the back parking lot, you will find this inscription in parking place #23, “The above stone marks the approximate site of the burial in St Giles graveyard of John Knox the great Scottish Divine who died 24 Nov 1572.”
The flames of Knox’s pulpit still burn to this day! When George Whitefield preached, he was often opposed and ridiculed, interrupted by hecklers, and at times dowsed with buckets of animal blood and cat carcasses. His opponents would publicly accuse him of preaching the doctrine of the “Kirk of Knox.” The world would be a better place if more men were accused of such preaching.
