Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Intro
Illustration: Aug. 24, 1572 and the days that followed are known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
It would be the bloodiest week in the history of the Huguenots – French Protestants – and the blackest day in French history.
Leading up to this day, around 1520, Jacob Lefevre translated the first French-language Bible.
A literate group of emerging entrepreneurs devoured its early printings, meeting secretly in homes to study.
Near the Franco-Flemish border where the Dutch were interspersed with the French, they referred to themselves as “Huis genooten,” which in Dutch is translated as “House oath fellow” and eventually, Huguenot.
The Huguenots were different in three ways.
First, they were literate when only the clergy and nobility could read.
Second, they were economically independent from the old agrarian feudal systems of land-owning nobles and land-working serfs – most were artisans and business owners.
And third, they wanted a participatory Christianity where they could read the scriptures themselves and meditate upon their meaning.
It was a “bottom up” system of Christianity.
By contrast, the medieval Catholic Church, with the mass and priests at the head, spoon-fed parishioners what they wanted them to know in a “top down” system.
You can imagine that the Catholic church really did not like them.
And so they would send spies out to find them out.
“Ratting out” their Huguenot neighbor became a thriving business in France.
The typical Huguenot family, due to their business and artisan skills, had a higher per-capita wealth than the average French household.
And the informer received one-third of the confiscated wealth of the Huguenots in question and two-thirds was split between the churches and nobles.
This may partly explain why the Roman Catholic Church owned over 40 percent of France at this time.
This went on for 50 years.
50 years of persecution.
50 years of standing firm in the truth of God’s word and the hope that all would one day be able to read it and delight in it.
Was it a lack of faith that they were persecuted?
No.
It was because they stood on the veracity of God’s Word and not the traditions of men.
The story of the Huguenots is marked by unrelenting episodes of harassments, property seizures, tortures, executions, and slaughters.
Their story is marked by unrelenting episodes of harassments, property seizures, tortures, executions, and slaughters.
And on St. Bartholomew’s Day, Frenchmen slaughtered 100,000 of their Huguenot countrymen throughout France – 10,000 in Paris alone.
The favorite disposal site, the Seine, the Rhone, and the rivers of France were stained red by the oozing corpses left rotting.
Frenchmen slaughtered 100,000 of their Huguenot countrymen throughout France – 10,000 in Paris alone.
The favorite disposal site, the Seine, the Rhone, and the rivers of France were stained red by the oozing corpses left rotting.
Another 6,000 slain downriver in Rouen would have injected the Seine with a fetid ribbon of crimson as it meandered towards the Atlantic.
The Loire River valley, so strewn with corpses, brought normally shy and unseen packs of wolves streaming down from their cover in the hills to feed on the freshly killed.
The fish from the rivers of France would be unsafe to eat for months.
They were martyred.
Seems foolish.
All they had to do was to relent.
Give up.
Concede and surrender.
But they would not.
They loved God’s Word.
Sometimes I think that we feel that there is some sort of cosmic battle that is waging.
For sure, in many churches today we hear about a spiritual war that is waging all around us between angels and demons.
But for a believer, we already know one thing to be true.
That is that Christ has already defeated satan, death, and sin.
He has won.
He has already won!
We also know that God is omnipotent.
He is all powerful and not even Satan can do anything apart from God permitting it.
Think about in Job, Satan entered into Heaven having traveled through the land.
That was not a muted way of saying that Satan had fought his way into heaven.
Did something change?
Did God suddenly lose control?
No, He is omnipotent.
Christ has already won.
How can we know all these things though?
And is it really that important?
Ultimately, how we answer that question will decide where we stand on who God is, who we are, how we got here, our purpose in life, and what happens afterwards.
You know big questions.
No, He is omnipotent.
How can we know all these things though?
And is it really that important?
Ultimately, how we answer that question will decide where we stand on who God is, who we are, how we got here, our purpose in life, and what happens afterwards.
You know big questions.
Some may say, well that really is not important you just need to live your life and try and do good.
Things will sort themselves out.
Don’t worry about it.
And that is true.
It is 100% true that it is not important and that we just need to try and do good in this life and just get by…if…if what?
If what God has said is not true.
If God lied.
If what God has firmly and authoritatively revealed in His Word is not true.
But we know that God is truth and so He does not lie, make a mistake, change His mind, or misspeak.
As Jesus said it, (Sanctify them by the truth, Your word is truth.)
We know that His word is true and so it does matter how we live and what we believe.
And we know that we can live with confidence standing on His word.
Illustration: This world is changing.
Moral revolution.
No truth.
etc. Can we trust anything?
Why is it that we can devote our lives to an ancient book that is over 2,000 years old.
Rob Bell put it, “I think the culture is already there and the church will continue to be even more irrelevant when it quotes letters from two thousand years ago as their best defense.”
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