Paying the price

415 years ago, in Scotland, there was a powerful fulfillment of Scripture…

Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall cut you off, and when they shall reproach you and shall cast out your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. Luke 6:22 MKJV 

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. John 15:18 MKJV 

Ayr

When John Welsh stepped down from his pulpit in the Scottish town of Ayr, on a warm Sunday in July1605, the King’s soldiers arrested him with a warrant summonsing him “to report to the King’s Privy Council in Edinburgh”.

Welsh had preached that morning on the wonderful promise that there is no condemnation for God’s elect (Romans 8) closing his sermon with these words, “Now let the Lord give his blessing to his word, and let the Spirit of Jesus, who is the author of this truth, come in and seal up that truth in your hearts and souls, for Christ's sake.”

John Welsh had been waiting for his arrest. Earlier in the year, King James VI of Scotland prohibited any pastor from attending an Assembly of church leaders in Aberdeen. Like many reformist Scottish pastors, Welsh believed no king had the right to stop preachers from carrying on God’s business. He had never been one to crumple in face of peril, and he had attended that meeting. Now it was, as we say…pay day.

Welsh parted from his crying family and weeping congregation. “God send you back soon,” they prayed... sadly that never came to pass.

John was subject to a charade of a trial and promptly jailed. He spent about six weeks in a prison known as the Tolbooth, where many Scottish preachers saw out their prison sentences. Later he was taken to the brutal and aptly named “Blackness Castle”. He was lowered into a dungeon that could only be reached through a hole in the floor; the tiny cell’s filthy floor was uneven and canted. There was no flat place to lie down and no smooth spot on which to get comfortable. The prisoner could not sit, stand or lie down without misery.
 

Castle Blackness 

John spent ten months at castle Blackness. Well-known for his prayer-life (he averaged seven hours a day in prayer), John continued his heart-felt prayers for Scotland. Like his father-in-law John Knox, he pleaded, “O God, will you not give me Scotland!”

This was not John Welsh’s first time of tribulation as a pastor…at his first pastor-ship, in Selkirk, the citizens rejected the gospel completely. His next position was in a Roman Catholic region, where the previous minister had been killed for preaching reformation. At neither place did he have much success. But in his third pulpit, at Ayr, many people came to know Christ.

Ayr was a rough “wild-west” place, duels and killings were common… John Welsh’s preaching successfully tamed the town, but the king definitely did not have the best interests of Ayr in mind when he arrested John.

Welsh was banished to France, where he learned French and served as a preacher among the persecuted Protestants (the Huguenots). When his health failed, John’s wife pleaded with King James to let him return to Scotland. The king said John could--if he submitted to the bishops. John’s spouse was made of the same grand stuff as her godly husband. She held out her apron and replied that she would rather have his head cut off and placed in her apron than have him denounce God’s truth!

When our time comes to stand firm for our faith in the face of official persecution (and its not far off I feel) will we have half the courage of John Welsh, and others like him? Many of our brothers and sisters are being persecuted or killed for their belief even as you read this...see  The Voice of the Martyrs.
  

* John Welsh’s story source: Christian History Institute.