Antichrist Rages In England: Bloody Mary, God's Tool Of Reformation

“... and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.”

Who are these seven thousand? Is this a literal number? Who are the remnant?

This sermon unveils the historic Reformed understanding of this verse.

It includes an account of the horrid persecutions of God's people by England's Roman Catholic Queen Mary -- by which she rightly is known to history as 'Bloody Mary.' Hear the heart-wrenching, faith-strengthening stories of the Protestant martyrs John Rogers, John Hooper and Perotine Massey.

By burning Protestants alive, Mary believed she was giving them the punishments of hell fire in this life and sending them to hell in the next. She also believed England would be terrified and turn away from the Reformation to Rome.

But the Lord had other plans, and she was His tool. She caused Calvinists to flee England and spread the Gospel abroad. And for centuries afterwards Catholicism and persecution would be irredeemably linked in the minds of the English people. Virtually all of England turned against Rome, including Mary's sister and successor, the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. The Reformation made great strides in England not only in spite of, but largely because of, Queen Mary.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.