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Voice Of Prophecy

Shawn Boonstra

Revenge of the Barbarians

Today on the Voice of Prophecy, the revenge of the barbarians.

Welcome to another edition of the Voice of Prophecy.

I'm your host, Sean Boonstra, and in spite of all pretensions of civilization, I am actually a card-carrying member of an honest-to-goodness barbarian tribe.

I am a bona fide barbarian and proud of it.

That doesn't mean that I chew with my mouth open or that I run around burning down villages.

It just means that my genetic stock is 100% European barbarian.

And unless you happen to be a Roman or maybe a Greek, there's a pretty good chance that you might be a barbarian because that was the word the ancient Mediterranean civilizations used for everybody but themselves.

And yes, originally it was a bit of a derogatory term.

They were trying to say that other people were not civilized like them.

And to some extent they were right because my ancestors did not build magnificent looking temples or write philosophy books.

In fact, my ancestors lived in huts and I have this sneaking hunch that my ancestors might have actually eaten some of your ancestors, or at least I had 1 English teacher in middle school who told me that my ancestors probably ate his.

My ancestors come from a very old Germanic tribe that still exists in the north part of the Netherlands.

In fact, they still have their own culture and their own language.

They even have an entire Dutch province named after them, the province of Friesland.

In fact, I'm so Friesian that my dad's first language is Friesian and he was born there and lived there until the 1950s.

I am a card-carrying member of an honest-to-goodness barbarian tribe, 1 that hasn't changed much in hundreds of years.

Now, why did the Greeks and Romans call my people barbarians.

Well as far as I can tell the name barbarian was actually a reference to the way we talked.

The ancient Greeks thought our language sounded like gibberish and they mimicked it by saying bar bar bar bar bar.

They were actually making fun of us, and then they started calling us barbarians.

And of course, because we also had long hair and shaggy beards, the word barbarian became a reference to hair.

Which is why the guy who cuts your hair is called a Barber.

Now let me tell you something else about my ancestors.

Some of us weren't exactly friendly to the Christian religion.

And maybe the best way to describe their attitude is to tell you what happened when Saint Boniface, that great missionary, arrived in the Netherlands to preach to my Frisian ancestors back in the 7 hundreds.

Now Saint Boniface was a very successful missionary.

In fact they call him the apostle to the Germans.

And if you've got a little German blood like I do, then you know that converting a German is a pretty tough thing because they're not easily convinced.

And if the Germans are tough, the Frisians are even harder.

If you doubt that at all, give my wife a call and ask her.

So, Boniface arrives in Friesland back in 754 AD.

And this was actually his second trip, because he'd been there 40 years earlier, and he was forced to leave when he discovered that my ancestors were, well, how do I say this?

And This time, when he came for the second visit, the Frisians were waiting for him.

They didn't like Boniface because he was in the habit of cutting down our sacred trees, and we didn't care for that.

So when Boniface comes to town and starts preaching, 1 day back in 754, a band of my pagan ancestors arrives on the scene and they kill him.

According to what I've been able to read, they actually cut off his head.

And to his credit, I suppose, Boniface didn't even put up a fight.

History tells us he told his people, those who were protecting him, to put down their arms because, quote, we are told in scripture not to render evil for good, unquote.

So my pagan ancestors killed the great missionary, and after the preacher was dead, after they separated his body from his head, they went through his belongings hoping to find some money.

But all they found in his luggage was a bunch of religious books, scrolls, manuscripts.

And because my ancestors could not, or maybe did not read, they chopped up the books with their swords out of anger, and then they got drunk and started a fight amongst themselves, so that when people later came by the scene of the crime, there was a dead missionary and a bunch of dead Friesians who killed each other in a drunken brawl after they killed him.

Now, just Before I take a little short break, I want to give you 1 more example of just how testy the relationship between my pagan ancestors and the early Christian Church really was.

Back in the beginning of the 700s, the 8th century, the Frisians had this king by the name of Radboud, or Red Bad if you convert his name into English.

I'll bet you didn't even know there was a Frisian king at any point in history, but that's 1 of the benefits of listening to this show.

Red Bad was the last king of an independent Friesland, before the French moved into town and took over the place.

Red Bad was so tough that he actually managed to defeat Charles the Hammer Martel, you know, the guy who defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Tours?

And the story goes that at 1 point, Red Bad almost converted to Christianity.

Apparently, his father thought it might be a good idea to build a stronger friendship with the Christian Franks, and a French missionary almost convinced Red Bad to get baptized.

But then just before he stepped into the water, or maybe he even had 1 leg in the water, Red Bad stops and asks him a question.

Listen, if I get baptized, I'm going to go to heaven, right?

Well, when I get to heaven, I'm going to be able to see all my ancestors, right?

And with that, history tells us, Red Bad suddenly changes his mind.

I'd rather live in hell with my own people, he said, than to live in heaven with the Franks.

Now the reason I tell you that story is so that you get a sense for the tension that existed between the Christianized Roman Empire and some of the barbarian tribes who lived to the north.

We all know that Rome was sacked by the barbarians, but we don't really know a lot of the stories that took place along the way to that event, because barbarian history isn't really featured in high school.

As a Christian today, it's important for me to understand who my people were and how they were converted to the Christian faith, because it illustrates a couple of really important points.

Number 1, the barbarian tribes of Western Europe actually show up in Bible prophecy.

They are key players in some of the biggest prophecies of the Bible, stuff like Daniel chapter 2 or Daniel chapter 7.

You've got to understand at least a little bit of barbarian history in order to understand some of the themes that show up in last day prophecy.

Secondly, How our barbarian ancestors became Christians actually illustrates some of the things that went wrong with Christianity during the Dark Ages.

Most of us today have this not-so-funny feeling that over the centuries Christianity kind of went off the rails and became more political than religious, to the point where we actually started burning heretics and questioning people in dark underground torture chambers.

They are historical realities, And it's time for us to admit that we did this and own it.

Because that stuff is clearly not what Jesus taught.

And it's important to understand exactly when and where Christianity went off base.

I'm going to take a short little break, and when I come back, I'll tell you about the Battle of Adrianople, which may be 1 of the biggest precursors to the collapse of the Roman Empire.

You're going to want to hang tight because I don't think you're going to want to miss this.

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Revenge of the Barbarians

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