Welcome to a very special episode of Revival Radio TV. Today, we're going to take you back 1500 years to tell you an untold story of middle earth. It's a story of Saxon warriors, swords, shields, and thrones, from pagans to Christianity. So come with me as we uncover these stories that were lost to history. Let's begin now. ♪ I want to take you on an amazing journey of discovery, and share where and how the gospel arrived in Britain and how it changed the world.
Do you remember Joseph of Arimathea in the Bible? He was the rich man that after Jesus died, he gave Jesus the use of his tomb. Legend has it that within ten years of Jesus dying on the cross, about 43 AD, that was even before the Romans invaded, he and a small group of missionaries brought the gospel from Jerusalem all the way to England. From Glastonbury, the gospel spread like wildfire, and the church in Roman Britain was vibrant and it was growing. Now skip ahead 400 years.
When the Romans left Britain for their homeland in the fifth century, Germanic tribes invaded England, the Saxons, the Jutes, and of course, the Angles. This forced the Roman Christians to fleet to the West in what became Wales. Okay. So now here is where our story starts. So stick with me for a quick tour, so you can understand how we got from Ireland to England, and where we encountered our first mystery. ♪ Let me tell you about Columba.
He was perhaps the most famous of the monks that rose up out of the Irish church, and to me, he was certainly the most inspirational. Talk about being the one, he was all about missionary work, and he began by establishing a monastery on this little island off the coast of Scotland, Iona. This was the first monastery established outside of Ireland. Here's a picture of him. One thing about Columba, he was definitely a warrior monk.
They were God's Navy Seals and it brought about unprecedented peace for Christians in the land. But he had to first clear off the Druids from the island to start a school. He was an advisor to Kings and guided them into forming Christian-friendly policies. He became so respected and was so anointed, they had him approve and dedicate each new King.
One of the reasons these Irish monks liked the idea of establishing their monasteries on the edge of the known world is because they were being led by the scripture, Matthew 24:14, "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world." They were trying to usher in the soon return of Jesus by taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. The Island of Iona was literally the end of the known world, but it was here that the fire of the gospel was kept burning bright.
Iona wasn't just a monastery though. It was a minister school for missionaries. They'd train these feisty missionaries and equip them with Bibles and then sent them out. Revivals emerged virtually everywhere they went. Columba himself converted the Scottish Pict tribes. These missionaries converted the Anglo-Saxon tribes, really all of England and much of Europe. In fact, to put it in terms we understand, Iona was really one of the first Revival Capitals of Europe.
Iona eventually becomes this epicenter of Christianity in Europe in that area, and it becomes so amazing that it's not just the place where the monks would copy the scriptures and disciple people, but it's also the place where the arts just absolutely exploded. Some of the arts are still well-known and famous that came out of that place. So it was really a place that was centered around prayer. They would have angels show up in this place. They would have visitations from God.
[Dr. Gene Bailey] Let me show you something very special. This is a copy of what's probably the best example of the Bibles that they were making on Iona. It's called the Book of Kells, because they had to move it to the Kells Monastery in the 10th century to protect it from the Viking raids. The pagan Vikings began to raid all the monasteries in Scotland, England and Ireland. It was really an all-out Holy war against Christianity. But in the end, the Vikings themselves converted to Christianity.
But look at this manuscript. It's called an illuminated manuscript because of the artwork and the highlighting in the text. You will not find anything else like this. These guys were all about evangelism, and mainly they were copying the gospel books. The first Anglo-Saxon King of Northumbria in England had become a Christian as a child while attending Iona. Then when he grew up and he became the King, he asked them to send him a missionary and Columba sent this guy, Aidan.
Aidan travel boldly, making friends throughout the Island sharing Jesus, and many converts followed. Then one of the most significant things that Aidan did was on another island off the coast of England, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Aidan founded one of the most important monasteries that became the Revival Capital of England. But they didn't stay on the island. Aidan and the monks that he trained took the gospel into the highways and the byways.
These monks were famous for copying Bibles just like this one. In fact, this is their most famous version of the Bible. It was written about the eighth century. It's said it may have taken up to ten years to complete it. Now this is not ornate like the Book of Kells was, but it's still its own beautiful work of art, blending Celtic and Roman style. It's really a beautiful book. It's been woven into the fabric of English history.
In the 10th century, a monk named Aldred added English translations between the Latin text. So look here, look in between these lines of the Latin texts. You'll see English words written there. This makes this Bible the world's oldest English Bible. It has such a history. It was stolen by the Vikings and then ransomed back. It was lost at sea and then St. Cuthbert appeared to a monk in a dream. Now listen to this, he appeared to him in a dream telling him where it was washed up on the shore.
When he went to that place, there was the Bible. ♪ Aidan of Lindisfarne recruited this woman, Hilda. Let me tell you her story. The Saxon church, just like the early church, had women in leadership roles. One leader was this famous woman who established an enormous monastery at Whitby in Northern England. This monastery became an important hub for government. Even kings traveled to consult with Hilda.
She was another example of how to be the one, a woman called and equipped for the right place at the right time. Remember we started on Iona with Columba. We followed Aidan to Lindisfarne. Next we met an amazing woman named Hilda who was a leader in the church. Her co-ed monastery had vast cattle resources, and her people were actually self-sufficient. Among the workers, she saw the call of God on one particular man, his name Caedmon.
He was a cow man, and in the old English, that is literally what his name means, cow man. Here's his story. ♪ [Speaker] An angel comes to him and the angel says, "Caedmon sing me something." And he says, "I can't sing." And the angel says, "Oh, but you'll sing for me." Caedmon opens his mouth in the stream and this beautiful song just pours out of him.
Then he wakes up and he writes it down as best as he can although he says it was this heavenly experience, I don't know that I'm doing it justice but he tried as best as he could. Word gets around to Hilda that he had this encounter with this angel. So she brings him in and she says, "Tell me. Sing me the song." So he sings, and the whole council listens and they said, "Huh, we think there's something to this."
So she gave him some pieces of literature and she says, "Can you set these to music?" Well he comes back the next day and he set all of it to music. So she says, "Okay, leave the cows. You're coming into the church now. You're coming into the community of the monastic center." So he does that and he writes hundreds of songs during his lifetime.
What's amazing about this is that first of all, Hilda was able to see it and call it out of him, just like somebody had seen it in her and called that leadership ability out of her. But during a time where people could not read and write, this was very pivotal. Because anybody could hear a song and remember it and memorize it. So what he did was he took all of these sacred stories and things from scripture, and he set them to music, and the common people could learn them.
So he was really the first worship leader and really the first sacred poet that ever came out of England that we have a record of. [Dr. Gene Bailey] How would you share the gospel? Music was a powerful way to do just that. People can remember songs they sing over and over, and in poems or great warrior sagas as they called them, this spoke directly into the warrior culture. Remember, for ages they had repeated the tales of long ago around their campfires.
So we know about Caedmon who wrote perhaps the first and greatest Christian Saxon poem ever. But first, we have to uncover another mystery. All across ancient England stands carved stone crosses that are called preaching crosses. They are carved with images of the gospel story, and they literally preach the gospel with the stories they tell, filled with the characters in scenes that tell stories at a glance.
This ancient preaching cross literally illustrated Bible stories, and we think they were painted with bright colors to capture the imagination. Let me show you what I mean with this cross. This is an exact copy of a preaching cross we think came from the 10th century. The original cross is still standing in Ireland. Crosses like these were placed in the center of the village. Itinerant preachers would hold church right here at the cross as they traveled from village to village.
These guys were the original circuit riding preachers. Often it was the preaching cross first. Then, as the pagan villagers found Jesus, that people built a village church. The preaching cross shows the Old Testament on the East side and the New Testament on the West side. Now look here at this cross. We see Jesus returning and reigning as King. Then look down here, you see Adam and Eve.
Now Adam and Eve, you see here on this bottom panel, Eve is offering Adam the fruit and next to Adam, Cain and Abel, the story that we all know so well. Then up, here's a scene from the life of David. Here we see Moses striking the rock for water, and then above here, we have the story of the three wisemen visiting baby Jesus, with Mary and Joseph. Here at the top is one of my favorites. It shows God, Jesus and you all dwelling in the House of the Lord forever.
You can see this Celtic-Saxon style house shape on the top here. It represents a message of hope for those people. That was the mystery of the preaching crosses, but this is where the mystery really heats up. We found a cross right here in Dumfries, Scotland at an ancient church called Ruthwell. It's at the center of our next mystery quest we needed to uncover. It's called the Ruthwell High Cross. The cross is 18 feet high. It's thought to have been constructed around 664 AD.
The cross has the basic gospel story depictions with a couple of extra carvings. Here we see Jesus. See how His feet are on the head of the serpent. They were showing us Christ's authority and how He is fulfilling Genesis 3:15, Psalms 110, Hebrews 1:13 and Acts 2:35. I could go on and on, but the point is this, these missionaries were so steeped in theology and these guys understood biblical authority.
With this arming of wisdom and knowledge, this is how they could go fearlessly into pagan lands and declare Jesus is Lord. They added countless souls to the family of God, really by the hundreds, everywhere they went. We hear of martyrs in the Roman Empire, but that didn't happen here. These feisty, fearless missionaries actually all lived to tell of their revivals, and maybe most amazing, they lived long enough among these violent pagans to even carve these crosses.
This cross stood at Ruthwell from the 7th until the 16th century. By then the fires of the Protestant Reformation were burning bright all over England and Scotland. The preaching crosses became an undeserving target of the Reformation. So, in 1642 when the order came down to destroy the Ruthwell cross, the minister of the Ruthwell church knew this cross was an important part of church history that should not be lost to time. He carefully took it down and buried it, and it was soon forgotten.
Was this the end of the preaching cross? This is where the journey of uncovering this complex mystery has taken us. Englishman in England are so steeped in history, it's intriguing how for a very small island they have always played a very pivotal part throughout history. As we uncovered one mystery after another, we were no longer surprised they have superb historians, or as they were called in the 18th and 19th century, antiquarians.
For nearly two centuries parts of this cross lay under the church floor, and fragments were buried in the grounds near the church yard. Occasionally early writers would refer to the cross citing old records, but no one knew what had become of the Ruthwell High Cross. Then an almost accidental twist of happenstance, it was unearthed during the ministry of this man, Reverend Henry Duncan, who discovered a piece of the cross and recognized the enormity of the find.
Then in 1818, Duncan restored the Ruthwell Cross, one of the finest Anglo-Saxon crosses in all of England. It's now kept inside the Ruthwell Church. This cross is remarkable for its sculpture and inscriptions in Latin and Old English that are embedded in the sides of the cross, and mysteriously, some are written in the ancient writing of the Germanic people, the Anglo-Saxon runes, like this. This is the next mystery we had to uncover. What do these runes mean? What do the inscriptions say?
Reverend Duncan knew that these were ancient Germanic script, but was it Scandinavian or Viking or Saxon? These runes were first described around 1600 before the cross was buried, but gave no clue to their meeting. Even then its meaning was lost to history. Around 1832, the runes were recognized as different from Scandinavian. A man named Thorley Ferep shared a passage in an ancient Saxon manuscript, The Exeter Book. John Mitchell Kimball in 1840 shared a reading, referring to Mary Magdalene.
Yet both of these turned out to be a wrong interpretation and it just didn't fit the inscriptions correctly. But the third attempt worked, because the runes were recognized as Saxon and it all fell into place. This inscription has come to be known as the Dream of the Rood. A rood was a Scottish word for cross. Reverend Duncan learned about this from Kimball's in an 1842 article. He had just successfully made the first translation of the Epic Saxon poem, Beowulf.
When he realized the unknown inscription was actually in the Germanic Saxon language, he was able to make out the words "Christ was on the cross, and their hastening from far came they to the noble Prince. I beheld all that." He recognized this was an incomplete poem about a talking tree that was cut down to become the cross that Christ was crucified on. Yet it was still incomplete, because some of the inscription was missing. We had more adventures to uncover.
In another seemingly accidental turn of events, a German lawyer was searching the libraries of an obscure Italian monastery way out in the country at the foot of the Alps when he found an unlikely book to be in an Italian monastery. It was a book of Saxon poetry that dated back to the 10th century and possibly even deeper back in time. The manuscript was found at Vercelli in 1822 by the lawyer, legal historian and writer on Italian libraries, Frederick Bloom.
So uncovering the mystery of the runes, we have to explore the Vercelli Book. It takes us to the University of Mississippi. There we find the Lazarus Project. Now what the Lazarus Project is about, they're bringing ancient manuscripts back to life, using high-tech scanners and UV in different light wavelengths. It lets them bring back old faded and missing writing. One of the first books they did this too, was the Vercelli manuscript.
[Lizzy Wicks] We've been working on the Vercelli Book, which is so neat to be able to work on that. We're going to be imaging... We've imaged about 70 folios so far, and we're going to be imaging like 70 more, and the next ones that we're imaging is the poem, The Dream of the Rood. It really impacted my life when I read the poem just in my English class. So I can imagine how it's going to be actually seeing it in real life.
[Dr. Gene Bailey] We found out that they had made high quality scans of the book for the British Museum. We made special arrangements to get a hold of the digital file of this scan. Then our antique book binder printed a museum quality print and bound it using ancient leather techniques. This lets us experience today what this historical book would have been like, and here it is, the only copy outside the museum, the Vercelli Manuscript.
And right here, here's Caedmon's poem, The Dream of the Rood. Of course it's written in Old English. It's hard to read, but the poem, The Dream of the Rood, tells the story of the crucifixion from the perspective of the tree that was cut down to make the cross. In the poem, Jesus becomes the warrior hero that lays down his life to save mankind, and the tree is a faithful member of his war band, who out of obedience has to become the instrument of his Lord's death. The tree laments this.
He says, "I could have killed them all, these feond," an Old English word for fiends. But out of his obedience, He endures the crucifixion and eventually is glorified just like His victorious Lord. It's a very moving story steeped in theology. It was written in the Germanic hero saga style that spoke right to the heart of the Saxon warriors that would eventually accept Christ. It's similar to Beowulf in that it starts with the Old English word what, meaning to listen.
(fire burning) ♪ [Man] "What, listen, listen," he says. "I will tell you of the best of dreams that I had at midnight while the world slept. I drempt I saw the most wondrous of trees towering in the sky above me, infused with light, the brightest of beams, and then this most beautiful of trees spoke and said these words." "It was long ago. I remember it well. I stood on forest edge, but men came and cut me down. Strong foes carried me away and set me on a hill.
And then our young hero Christ, firm and unflinching, stripped himself, brave in the sight of all minded to save mankind. I trembled as our hero clasped himself to me. They pierced me with dark nails. (hammering nails) Blood covered me. All creation wept, lamenting the King's death." [Dr. Gene Bailey] It took deep roots in the Anglo-Saxon culture, which became the root of the Western church, and it changed the world.
One of the things I noticed in the full poem is how Caedmon follows the theology behind the 12 points of the Apostles Creed. This poem has deep theological roots. Basically the Apostles Creed was your curriculum. You had to learn by heart before you could be baptized in the early church. It shows the early church was built on sound doctrine. It's amazing that down the sides written in the old Norse runes are the quotations from this Epic poem.
Not only is this an inspirational piece effective for evangelism, even the language is purposefully enlarging our vision. For example, in the original poem, it says, "The dream came to me in the middle of the night, after the speech-bearers lie biding their rest." That word it uses, speech-bearers, is reordberend, and it is in the original Old English. It translates literally as speech-bearers. This shows a biblical understanding of what sets us apart from creation.
Being created in God's image, we have our God-given ability, like God, to speak the importance of the creative force of our words. Of course, Brother Copeland unpacks this idea so well in his teaching series, You're the Prophet of Your Own Life. This is just one example of the multilayered meaning in this inspired poem.
This story now with the mystery solved really shows how the early church under persecution, yet without compromise, chose to be the one for their generation and stepped up, and often at risk of their own lives, took an uncompromising gospel to their world and succeeded and completely changed a nation for God.
America wouldn't have been here without these brave men and women who laid a scriptural foundation for England and converted the first pagan Celts and then the pagan Saxon, and finally the pagan Vikings to Christianity. The poem even includes the great commission. Here's a quote, "Now I command you loved man of mine, that you this scene go tell on demand." Now having seen the vision, can we go and tell everyone everywhere and be the one in our generation?
From pagan to Christian, one person can make a difference. Will you pray with me? Father, I pray that hearing how these brave men and women of Old that you called answered the call, and changed their communities and their nation, and advanced the Kingdom of God even to this generation and here in America.
We have been walking in the footsteps of these brave men and women who, even though it may have seemed small to them, you know that sometimes the one person we talked to will bring in 100,000 new souls. Lord, I pray You will make everlasting changes to redeem your church. Let us do in our moment now what will usher in your Kingdom. We praise You Father for allowing us to be a part and show us the next step how we can be the one in our time.
Amen. This has been another, Be the One Story right here on Revival Radio TV.