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The following message is delivered by Reverend Dr. Bruce Wheeler Thielman. Today's sermon is entitled "The Trumpeter of God." I'll continue in worship by giving reverent attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the Gospel according to St. John, chapter 17. I begin the reading

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with the verse numbered 1. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee, since thou hast given him power over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him. And this

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is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, Father, glorify thou me in thine own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made. I have manifested thy name to the man whom thou

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gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word. Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee. For I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them, and know in truth that I came from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I am praying

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for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine. All mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee, Holy Father. Keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we

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are one. While I was with them, I kept them in thy name which thou hast given me. I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word, and the world

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has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent

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them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou

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hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them, even as thou hast loved me. Father, I desire that they also whom thou hast given me may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou

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hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these know that thou hast sent me. I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. And may God bless to us and to our understanding

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this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Protestantism, the Reformation, came to Scotland in the early 1500s. How it came is lost in fog and mystery, as Scotland itself is often lost in fog and mystery. The first Protestant

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to be martyred, burned to death by the Roman Catholic Church, was Patrick Hamilton. He was killed in St. Andrews, Scotland. The second Protestant martyr was George Wishart, a gentle, saintly man who gave up his life for the sake of what he believed, was burned at the stake also in St. Andrews. Had we been there on the day in which George Wishart died, we might

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have seen standing in the crowd a short, broad man with a heavy black beard and black hair, gray-blue eyes set deep into his head, heavy eyebrows, lips that were full, a long nose, and a rather ruddy complexion as one who spent most of his time outdoors. This man was John Knox.

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We know little of John Knox before this time. He was born somewhere around 1515 in the village of Haddington. He had the equivalent of a high school education and then went on to take a degree at St. Andrews University. He became a priest in the Roman Catholic Church and served in that capacity for 20 years. And then he converted to Protestantism. He

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became a part of the Reformation. What led to his conversion to Protestantism, we do not exactly know. It is likely that he was strongly influenced by the teaching and the preaching of George Wishart, for we discover that he became one of Wishart's bodyguards. That is what led him to be in

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St. Andrews when George Wishart was burned at the stake. And John Knox never forgot that event. As Paul never forgot the martyrdom of Stephen, so John Knox never forgot the martyrdom of George Wishart. Now as the battle for the soul of Scotland between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism

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went on, John Knox was always in the very middle of it. Oh yes, he traveled as preacher and teacher. He was in England, in France, in Germany, and in Switzerland. But he always returned to his beloved Scotland. And he called himself a trumpeter for God. In 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul writes, "If the bugle give an indistinct sound,

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who will get ready for the battle?" John Knox never gave an indistinct sound. And that is the reason he is renowned today as the greatest Scotsman who ever lived. There had been many great Scots. Robert Burns, the poet; David Hume, the philosopher; James Watt, the engineer and inventor; Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate; Sir Walter Scott, the novelist. But each of

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these men was taught by John Knox. For Knox devoted his life to holding up the truth that conscience is to be honored and obeyed, that the common man has value and dignity, and that courage is necessary for the living of the life of faith. And these other great Scots whom I have mentioned learned these things from John Knox. They

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stand in his debt and in his shadow. But he, Knox himself, the trumpeter of God, stands as the greatest of all Scotsmen. Think what he teaches to us about conscience. All of his life he stood for obedience to conscience. Let me give but one example from rather late in the course of his history. In the year 1560, when Protestantism had pretty well carried

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the day in Scotland, a young woman came from France named Mary to become the Queen of Scotland. We call her today Mary, Queen of Scotland. She was 19 years old when she arrived at Leeds, a very beautiful girl, one who was also very clever and devoutly Roman Catholic. She announced immediately upon her arrival on Scotland's shores that it was her goal to bring Scotland

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and the Protestant Church to its knees before her and before the Pope. Now when John Knox heard this, he began to preach against Queen Mary. He had written some years before a pamphlet which he entitled "The First Blast of the Trumpet." And in that pamphlet he had defended the thesis that no woman was fit to rule over men, an idea which

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was common in that day. So he rejected Mary as Queen for that reason, but more foundationally he rejected her because of her attempt to destroy Protestantism in Scotland. She summoned John Knox into her presence and said to him, "Sir, it is out of conscience that I oppose Protestantism." Whereupon Knox replied, "Madam, conscience requires instruction,

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and your conscience is quite ignorant." And having said that, he went on in fiery and furious language to lay out the tenets of the Protestant faith, and he exercised so much mental muscle and spiritual strength that the young Queen Mary, 19, began to weep. Knox was moved by this, but he said, "Dear Madam, I must sustain your tears rather than

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betray my conscience." Now there are some who have criticized Knox and said that he was too hard on this young girl from France. But John Knox was not an unkind man. He was not intemperate in spirit. He was loved by his family and his friends, and he was living in a day in which your faith determined whether you lived or died. He understood himself to

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be fighting not only for the future of Scotland, but for the future of the Reformed faith. Yes, the language he used was coarse and hard, because that was the typical language of that day. And do not be misled by this beautiful 19-year-old from France. Before her reign was over, she had demonstrated herself to be an adulteress, an idolatress, and a murderess.

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She was devious, she was deceitful, and she was determined to bring Scotland and Protestantism to its knees. And this John Knox would not tolerate. Now we speak much of toleration in these days, and we exalt it, and well we should. But we are not to tolerate everything. We are not to tolerate lying. We are not to tolerate

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injustice. We are not to tolerate theft. When we see such things, our conscience should lead us to say, "This I will not tolerate." And would God in this day and age, we had more people who would not deny their consciences, who would not persuade their consciences to that which is untrue, who would not slay their consciences to save their skins, who would

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not permit the truth to be trampled or righteousness to be raped within their consciences. We have too many today who tolerate too much, and that toleration itself should not be tolerated. John Knox taught that the conscience is to be educated by God, sustained by the Spirit, and made brave by the Christ-inhabited heart. That kind of conscience has won battles. It

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has put armies to flight. It has led to the overthrow of kings. It has put right where wrong was, justice where injustice was, and truth where the lie was. That is the kind of conscience that gains heaven. We need consciences which are God-blessed, Spirit-supplied, and Christ-commanded. We need to follow our Father in the Faith, John

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Knox, who was not as logical as Calvin, nor as learned as Luther, but who wielded the sword of conscience as none other. Oh, Knox, we long to hear thy compass, thy call to conscience. And think what Knox teaches us about the value and the dignity of the common man. He lived in very tough times, fighting against a corrupt government, a corrupt queen, and a corrupt

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church. And as he faced these things, he put all of Western civilization into his debt. You see, the Reformation was an attempt to purify the Roman Catholic Church. And in those days the Roman Catholic Church was not only an ecclesiastical power, but also a political power. Rulers did not rule without the authority of Rome behind them. So when the Reformers

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attacked the Church at Rome, they also attacked many who stood in places of noble rank, and who stood there because of the support they received from the Roman Church. And against this, the Reformers stood, and John Knox stood with them, opening the door to the common man to speak. It is in Protestantism that the roots of the freedom and the dignity of

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every man are to be found. John Knox demonstrated this principle in his own life. Mary, Queen of Scots, announced that she wanted to marry Don Carlos of Spain. It was not a marriage built upon love. It was a marriage designed to bring the strength of Spanish Catholicism to bear in Scotland. And so Knox preached against the marriage. And once more he was

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summoned before the Queen, and she addressed him with this question, "Who art thou in this realm?" And Knox answered, in words as noble as those that Luther said at Worms, "Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me, amen." Knox answered her, "Madam, I am but a humble subject in this land, but I am a profitable one." This gladiator for God was saying that

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the common should be heard as well as those in exalted station, that the poor were to be heard as well as those who were rich. He announced that if the voice of the sovereign strayed from the teachings of God, then it was the duty of the people to revolt against that sovereign. Five times across the course of his ministry, John Knox was summoned before

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Mary, Queen of Scots. Eventually she abdicated. He had won Scotland for both faith and freedom. It is still true, as it has always been true, that one conscience that speaks its voice no matter how humble its source, one conscience that utters the truth as it knows the truth and speaks freely regardless of where it stands in the social order, such a conscience can

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turn the tide. When the common stand before the imperial as Moses stood before Pharaoh or Nathan before David or Jeremiah before Zedekiah or John the Baptist before Herod or Peter before Agrippa or Paul before Nero, as these stood, so a conscience that speaks bravely will still be heard. It was these teachings of John Knox that led the pilgrims

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to leave the shores where they were tyrannized and to come to this country where they could speak freely and the dignity of the common man would be upheld. It was the teachings of John Knox that fired our colonial patriots who stood against the British redcoats, against the authority of George III of England. The Presbyterians were in the lead in the revolution.

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George III described the revolution as "cousin America running off with the Presbyterians." It's important to notice that Knox always taught that not only does the common man have the right to speak, but he also has the right and the obligation to learn in order that what he says might be wise and intelligent. And so Knox stood behind public education.

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And before he died, Scotland had become the most literate nation on the face of the earth. And the Presbyterian tradition since him has established many schools and colleges and still maintains the highest standards of education for its clergy. Why? Because John Knox taught that each and every one of us is made in the image of God and that no one has the

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right to take away our freedom to learn and then to speak on the basis of what we have learned. And we need that teaching of John Knox today in a time when so many are careless with their citizenship and so many are casual about the way in which big government intrudes into their lives, in a time when the poverty of our educational system is a shame not only

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to us but to all the world in such a time. We need the teachings of Knox. Oh, Knox, sound the trumpets. Call us to that educated freedom which gives to everyone the right to stand before God or to stand before any man. And think also of what John Knox taught us of courage. His favorite passage of scripture was the seventeenth chapter of John, which

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I read in your hearing just a few minutes ago. He often referred to it as the place where he first cast down his anchor. The fifteenth verse of that chapter reads, "I do not pray that my disciples be taken out of this world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one." So John Knox himself never sought to escape the responsibilities of his discipleship,

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but instead sought only the courage to stand. Early in his ministry, he was captured by French Roman Catholics and sentenced to spend the rest of his life as a rower in a French galley. There were between 150 and 300 rowers in these great ships. They sat in lines of four to six to a bench. They wore only rough tunics. To eat, they had nothing but bean

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soup and horse meat. They slept on top of the benches in warm weather and beneath the benches in cold weather. And if they even for a moment relaxed in the rowing of their oars, they felt the lash of the oarmaster's whip. Once, when Knox was rowing with the others off the coast of Scotland, someone saw the spires of the city of St. Andrews

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in the distance. And he called Knox to see this city, which had been so important in Knox's life. And Knox replied, "There I learned, there I preached, and there I shall preach again." And as he prophesied, so it came to be. No word of fear, but only the announcement of courage. Twice in his life, he was arrested for sedition. Once confined

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to the galleys, only to escape because of some clever English diplomacy. And five times, he was called before Mary, Queen of Scots. And on any one of those occasions, he might very well have lost his life. But he saw himself as a soldier for God, not as a general, but only as a trumpeter among the common troops. But he obeyed his commander, even when he

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did not understand he followed where Christ led. Even when he was ordered to retreat and was humiliated by his retreat, he did what he did, not out of cowardice, but out of obedience to the Christ he loved and served. In the autumn of the year 1770, he suffered a stroke. They told him that he would never preach again. But one week later, he was in his pulpit in

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Edinburgh. He carried on for some months, but his growing weakness required a time of rest and recuperation. And so he went back to St. Andrews, that gray city by the North Sea, there to recuperate. It must have felt very good to him to go back to that place where he had gone to school, where Hamilton and Wishart had given up their lives for what

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they believed, where he had heard himself the call to the ministry, where he had seen Protestantism rise above and defeat Catholicism, from which he preached the truth that all people are to be educated and to speak freely. St. Andrews was a very important city in Knox's life. Indeed, the banner of John Knox snapped in the North Sea breeze over St. Andrews.

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And so that time must have been refreshing to him. But still, in those days, he wrote a letter to a friend saying, "I am ready to die, for I am weary of the world, and the world is weary of me." When he felt strong enough, he returned to Edinburgh. But his strength quickly failed him, and he was confined to his bed. The elders of the church came

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and gathered around to bid him farewell. It was as touching a scene as that one when Paul said, "Farewell to the elders at Miletus." On November 23, 1572, he thought that he was going to die, and he called his family about him. "Come," he said, "and see the great works of God." But he did not die. Instead, he fell into a deep sleep. And in that sleep

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he dreamed. And he dreamed of the church in its fight against evil. And he said in his sleep again and again, "The Kirk! The Kirk! The church! The church!" The next day, November 24, he awakened his wife at dawn and asked her to read from 1 Corinthians 15, the great resurrection chapter of the New Testament. At four o'clock in the

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afternoon, he asked her to read that part of the scriptures where he had first cast down his anchor, John 17. At 10.30 that night, the elders of the church gathered to pray about his death. They prayed softly so as not to disturb him. And when they had finished, one of them went to his side and said, "Did the noise of our praying trouble you?" And

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Knox replied, "Would God you had heard those prayers as I did! Praise God for their joyful sound!" At 11.00 p.m., he let out a long sigh. And those in the room came quickly about him. He had lost the ability to speak. One who stood close bent down and said to him, "John Knox, are you at peace? Give us a sign!" And with that, John Knox raised his hand and pointed

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his finger toward heaven and died. He had left the church militant to become part of the church triumphant. November 26, his funeral was held in the cemetery outside St. Giles Church in Edinburgh, where he had preached most often. Thousands came, those of noble birth and common people as

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well, stood with their heads bared in the cold north winds of Scotland in November. The Earl of Morton gave the eulogy on behalf of the city of Edinburgh and the nation of Scotland. There is one line from that liturgy which it seems to me so strikingly appropriate that we must notice it this morning. As the casket containing the mortal remains of John

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Knox was lowered into the grave, the Earl of Morton said, "Here lies one who neither feared nor flattered any man." Oh, Knox, sound still thy trumpet. Call us to honest and educated consciences. Call us to our full dignity as the children of God. Call us to understand that no one is free until everyone is free. Call us to the courage to speak the truth

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to our own time. Oh, Knox, sound again thy trumpet, for we are much in need of hearing it in this day and in this hour. For if the trumpet give an indistinct sound, who will get ready for the battle? Let us pray. Oh God, we thank thee for the faith of our fathers, and our prayer before thee this day is a simple one, that thou wilt give to us that same faith,

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that same knowledge, that same freedom, and that same courage to the honor and glory of Jesus Christ. Amen. [ audience watching ]