Evening Sermon - 8th November 2026 - How the Gunpowder Plot's Failure Shaped Protestant History

Now this evening we're coming and we're looking at a subject that's a little different, the gunpowder, treason and plot.

And you're familiar with the nursery rhyme, remember, remember the November 5, gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder, treason should ever be forgot.

And why does this nursery rhyme tell us to remember the November 5 which we had last week.

We know that perhaps the November 5 is a night when there are fireworks, there are bonfires, there are displays, all sorts of things go on an enjoyable evening.

Sadly, it's not remembered as much here in Northern Ireland as it is in England.

And we have to realize that perhaps there's more to this than just family fun.

There's much more associated with it because later on in the rhyme we get what it really is all about.

The rhyme continues Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent to blow up the king and parliament.

Three score barrels of powder below, poor old England to overthrow.

By God's providence, he was catched with a dark lantern and a burning match.

And the nursery rhyme tells us of a murderous plot, that's what it really is all about.

It tells the story of a terrorist plot.

And we know what terrorist plots are all about when it comes to Northern Ireland, when we look at the world in a wider sphere.

We can think of nineeleven, we can think of '77, nineeleven, of course, twin towers in New York, seventy seven bombings in London.

But the nursery rhyme brings us to a murderous plot which is really we could call five eleven.

It was an attempt by Roman Catholic terrorists to assassinate King James I, Queen Anne, Prince Henry and Prince Charles and the nobility, the bishops, and the entire House of Commons by blowing the Houses of Parliament up during its state opening, which was to be held on the 11/05/1605.

And this evening we're going to look at this momentous event, this gunpowder treason and plot, and we're going to do so by looking at one of the verses of Scripture that we read from Proverbs chapter three and verse 35, The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace.

The wise will inherit honor, but the fools will get disgrace.

And as we look at this great historical event, we have to realize of course that God is in all of history.

It's God's history.

It's He who's working all things out and this is all part of His history, His workings in our country and in our life.

And there are three things that we're going to look at.

We're going to think about the historical record of the gunpowder treason and plot.

We're going to look at the historical review.

We're going to have a historical review of the gunpowder treason and plot and then the significance.

The significance.

The historical significance of the gunpowder treason and plot.

So those are the three things that we're going to focus on this evening.

So let's first of all think about the historical record of the gunpowder treason and plot.

We know that history records that Guy Fawkes was the key character in this particular plot.

We know that he was born in 1570.

He grew up in Stonegate near York.

He had a Protestant father, a Roman Catholic mother.

When Fox's mother died when he was eight years of age, his mother remarried a Roman Catholic.

So focus was brought up.

The focus was in his life was being brought up as a Roman Catholic and a Roman Catholic home in England given as little different because England at this time was a Protestant country.

And Guy Fawkes attended a local grammar school, St.

Peter's Grammar School in York, and later he joined the army.

He became a very experienced soldier, but was disillusioned when he got himself involved in wars in the low countries and in The Netherlands, a war that was in many ways brought about by the King of Spain, but they were defeated by Dutch soldiers.

The Protestant cause was won there in Europe.

He was disillusioned by this.

He was in fact part of a group of people who actually went to King Philip of Spain asking that he would carry out an invasion of Britain to allow Roman Catholics freedom.

So he had some friends who were with him.

There was Robert Gatsby, there was Thomas Winter, there was Jack Wright, there was Thomas Percy, there was Robert Keyes, there was Thomas Beats, there was John Grant, and Christopher Wright, and Robert Winter, and Sir Everard Digby, and Ambrose Rockwood, and Francis Tresham, and they decided to take the matter into their own hands.

They formed a little group and they planned and intended to blow up the Houses of Parliament on the fifth of November sixteen o five during the opening ceremony.

They rented a cellar beneath the chamber and smuggled in 36 barrels of gunpowder.

And the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, they played a major part in this.

The Jesuit priests at this particular time were a wee bit like Al Qaeda of their day.

And they previously had organised the Spanish invasion where they had again plotted with King of Spain in 1588 to carry out an invasion of England, and a number of Jesuit priests had been associated with that plot, three in particular, Henry Garnet, John Jarrod, and Oswald Greenaway.

And Henry Garret was one who was executed as a result of his involvement.

However, the plot was exposed when this gunpowder treasoning plot was exposed when one of the conspirators wrote an anonymous letter to a friend, Lord Mount Eagle, warning Lord Mount Eagle that to stay away from Parliament on the day of the official opening.

The letter was immediately forwarded to other lords who organized a group of soldiers to search the Houses of Parliament in the early hours of the November 5.

And during their search they found Guy Fox.

He was captured with a fuse.

And let's be clear, these men intended to cause mayhem.

They intended to cause absolute and utter destruction.

And why did they use gunpowder?

Well, gunpowder is simple but lethal.

It's a concoction of three chemicals, 10% carbon, 15% sulfur and 75% potassium nitrate or saltpeter.

And the nitrate and the saltpeter produce oxygen, which expands on burning, creating an explosive reaction with carbon.

And each barrel would have been about a 100 pounds.

And if Guy Fawkes had ignited that 3,600 pounds of gunpowder it would have led waste to an area of Westminster within a radius of 500 yards.

Historians concur that these barrels were carefully covered over with pieces of iron and billets of wood.

And if the gunpowder had been fired, these extra items of course would have been deadly projectiles, thereby increasing the loss of life and injury to many.

And many terrorists today of course when they make explosive devices they fill them with ball bearings or with nails that when the bomb goes off they'll be fired all around the place causing mayhem and causing major damage and maximum murder.

But thankfully Guy Fawkes was found with the gunpowder and the terrorists were foiled and he was arrested and subsequently hung on the 01/31/1606.

So that's a little bit about the historical record of the gunpowder treason and plot.

But then let's think about the historical review of the Gunpowder Treason and Plot.

What does history actually say to us about it?

Well the Gunpowder Plot was remembered for centuries by Protestant churches.

It was not forgotten.

In the past the Anglican church has commemorated the November 5 with orders drawn up for special services to enable many to show thankfulness to God for His mercy towards them in preserving their lives or preserving the parliament and preserving the king.

Other churches such as our Puritan forefathers were no different.

On the Sunday nearest the November 5, ministers preached on the significance of the gunpowder plot urging their listeners to remain separate from the erroneous doctrines of the Roman Catholic church and to uphold the tenets of the Protestant faith.

The Protestant churches have always viewed the overthrow of the plot as God's sovereign overruling and His preserving of the true faith.

Let's give you some flavor of the sermons that were preached in and around the November 5.

We can think back to 1633.

That would have probably been just a number of years after 1605.

You can calculate that for yourself how many years that was.

A man called Richard Sibbs is preaching and Richard Sibbs is preaching a sermon titled The Saint's Safety and Evil Times.

It's delivered at St Mary's in Cambridge on the November 5 and he speaks about the plot and he preaches from the text from Psalm seven fourteen where it says, Behold the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.

And giving details of the enemies of God on that day, he says, Our gunpowder plotters were pregnant in mischief.

It was a hellish plot hatched in the hearts of Roman Catholic men.

They thought through this act they would establish their own religion.

And he goes on to say, What a miserable face of things would there have been if this plot had succeeded.

And Sibbs views the plot as an attack on the Protestant faith.

Another Puritan pastor and author John Flavill writing later in the seventeenth century says this, Oh be zealous for the Protestant interest as the Roman Catholics are against us.

He's preaching on the November 5.

If they dare to smite with the sword of wickedness, we hope you will not be afraid to smite them with the sword of justice.

Remember what matchless salvation was given to our parliament, I mean from the gunpowder plot that Roman Catholic villainy as one aptly calls it, such deliverance as ages past cannot parallel in any history.

Rome is the nettle, the more gentle it is handled, the more it stings.

Here is an enemy that deserves your hottest zeal and your greatest vigilance.

Many years later the Bible commentator Matthew Henry, he's writing in the seventeenth century, he's writing on the 11/05/1712 or in the eighteenth century 1712 and it's Isaiah fifty one twenty three that he's preaching from and he speaks about the fact that which he's preaching on the text which have said to thy soul, bow down that we may go over.

This whole idea of bowing down the soul that we may go over, the title of the sermon was Popery, a spiritual tyranny.

He was afraid that there were others going to go over.

There were others who were going to give end to Rome.

And speaking on the gunpowder plot he says, We this day celebrate giving thanks for the deliverance of our land from potpourri, particularly its deliverance from the base and barbers designs of blowing up Parliament, the houses of parliament with gunpowder this day one hundred and seven years ago, a deliverance never to be forgotten by people who do this day reap the blessed fruit of it.

And Matthew Henry like John Flavill was aware of the catastrophic consequences of the gunpowder plot.

If it had succeeded Britain would have been a Roman Catholic dominion.

One final glimpse of course in the reviewing of this from the preaching of history is a sermon preached by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, again preached on the November 5 in Newpark Street Chapel in Southwork in London.

He takes us his text Isaiah 54 in verse 17, The weapon that is formed against you shall prosper in spurge and says this.

This is the November 5, a notable day in our history.

The events which transpired on it ought never to be forgotten.

On this memorable day the Roman Catholics foiled in all their schemes from crushing our glorious Protestantism, devised a plot horrible and diabolical enough to render them forever hateful among upright men.

And under the Houses of Parliament, he says, the deadly powder was concealed, which they hoped would be a death blow to both houses, so to annihilate the power of Protestantism.

But God looked from heaven.

He confounded their connivish tricks.

He laid their secrets bare and He discovered there the evil that was going on.

He says, Hallelujah to the King immortal, eternal invisible, who guarded us and guards us still from the devices of the church of Rome.

And you know we might say to ourselves when we look at these various quotes we might say, Well these are sermons from Protestant ministers reinforcing anti Roman Catholic feeling.

Not so.

Not so.

They are giving a true perspective on the subject.

And let me quote to you the verdict of a Roman Catholic author, Lady Antonio Fraser.

She wrote a tremendous biography of Oliver Cromwell.

And this is what she says of the conspirators on the November 5.

She says, The gunpowder plotters were terrorists and they were defeated.

They were not good men.

By no stretch of the imagination can they be described as that.

The study of history can at least represent the plotters as brave, bad men.

Perhaps misguided men is a kinder verdict which may be allowed with the distance of time.

And history confirms that the gunpowder plot had...

If it had succeeded, our nation would not have the Protestant heritage it is today.

And even with that the Protestant heritage is going.

It would be a Roman Catholic stronghold and to quote historian Adam Nicholson, the 11/05/1605 was the day that God saved Britain, Protestant Britain from the forces of darkness.

And you might say, well the Roman Catholic church isn't like that.

The Roman Catholic church hasn't changed one iota.

I don't care what you say.

The Roman Catholic Church has not changed.

The Council of Trent still stands.

The Protestant faith is still an anathema.

And it's interesting to read Catholic theologians at the present time in relation to the evangelical Protestant faith.

They agree that through the preaching of the Word of God people are being converted.

But they're saying, they're not being converted through anything that the Protestant preachers are saying, they're being converted through the mediation of the Roman Catholic church.

That's what they're saying.

It hasn't changed one iota.

So we've got the historical review of the gunpowder plot.

And now we come to the historical significance of the gunpowder plot.

And I suppose this makes up most of the message this evening.

Does this event really have any meaning for us?

Does it have any meaning for us four twenty one years since this event has passed?

Surely this event has absolutely no significance for us sitting here this evening.

Well, let me set before you the significance that I think it has and the events that it could have stopped if it had had its way and if it was successful.

First of all if the gunpowder plot had succeeded we would not have had the 1611 King James Bible.

If Parliament had met at the first date and if the plotters had succeeded in igniting their freshly positioned gunpowder, then there would have been no King James Bible.

It would never have seen the light of day and undoubtedly the Roman Catholic church and a new regime would have sought to undo the damage that they thought had been inflicted by none other than William Tyndale and his Bible translation.

Many Roman Catholics would have been greatly disturbed about the prospect of the new translation of the Bible being in English.

Remember the Roman priests believed that they could control the population more effectively by conducting services or masses in Latin, and they believed that this would keep the ordinary people in subjection.

And as one Puritan preacher said rather sarcastically that Latin was the language for Rome and potpourri because the devil couldn't understand it.

And you know William Tyndale's famous statement about a plowboy knowing more of Scripture than a learned scholar terrified the Romanists.

And as I've already said, giving the Bible to the masses would mean that it would be almost impossible to police the people.

They feared the mystical combination of God moving and saving individuals and Rome being unmasked for what it really was.

So we can say that without a doubt if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded, we would not have had the King James Bible.

What would we have had?

Well, we may have by way of speculation what we have today, the Dewey Bible, the Roman Catholic Bible, we would not have had the King James Bible, 80% of which was penned by William Tyndale and all good modern versions that follow on from that find their roots in what Tyndale himself had actually translated.

So with having no new Bible, there would have been no flourishing really of the Puritan movement and with the vast treasure of godly literature that we even have access today as a result of what was written directly after the Gunpowder Plot.

So if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded, we can honestly say quite simply there would have been no authorized version.

And secondly, if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded in all probability, the Pilgrim Fathers would not have allowed to formed up a new Christian society in The United States or in America at that time.

They would not have been permitted to gather at Southwark in London and then set sail across the Atlantic unmolested, establishing America.

And remember as the King James Bible had been the single biggest influence of American life for many centuries, well, of course, the New World itself would probably not have taken on the shape and form that it had.

Also the history of the church across the world would have been radically different.

It wouldn't have been drastically affected with the ministry of people like Jonathan Edwards and possibly other theologians.

And what we can say is that the real wealth of theology that we have today, even coming from America, would not have been known, would not have been experienced in Reformed circles.

And then thirdly, if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded, the Commonwealth under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell would never have been established.

And foiling the plot, Sea of Britain from following the fate of many other countries in Europe Over the centuries which had succumbed to Roman Catholic domination, it would have been hard for the gospel to flourish.

The rise of Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth would have been prevented.

The extraordinary popular book that John Bunyan had written at the close of that particular period, Pilgrim's Progress, would probably never have gone to the press, especially in the light of the strident comments that he makes about the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope.

If the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded, the great statements of faith would never have been produced.

The Westminster Confession of Faith produced between 1644 and 1646 would never have been produced as it dealt with the nature of salvation, the church, church government and the Protestant standpoint.

The compilers could not have met in the Jerusalem Chamber to bring such an important work into being because Westminster Abbey would have been in ruins as a result of the explosion of Guy Fawkes.

Congregationalists would never have been able to write their Savoy Declaration of Faith in 1658, and the Baptists wouldn't have perhaps written their confession of faith in 1689.

The great confessions of faith would never have been produced.

And then fifthly, if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded the great spiritual awakenings of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries would never have happened.

Notwithstanding, of course, the sovereignty of God, it's almost certain that no Protestant revival in the eighteenth century under George Whitfield and John Wesley and Charles Wesley and Daniel Rowland and their colleagues would have taken place seeing so many of them would have been influenced by literature given by the Puritans that had really stirred their hearts and stirred England, and that would never have happened.

And also in Scotland, we can look back to the Scottish Reformed Church in the eighteenth century led by John Livingstone.

The nineteenth century, you had the Bonner brothers and William Chalmers Burns and Robert Murray McShane and others.

We think also of the Ulster revival in 1626 Antrim and the great revival there which was influenced by Archbishop Usher, and then the 1859 revival in Ulster, and the 1904 revival in Wales.

Why have we not encountered a national revival since the beginning of the twentieth century?

I'll tell you why.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Protestantism has prostituted itself with liberalism and Romanism.

And then secondly, if the gunpowder plot had succeeded, state of the church in Britain would have been very different over three hundred years.

We can think of Hymeny as we know it today.

The works of Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley and others would not have been allowed to be published and the world would have been poor because no one would ever have been able to sing such majestic hymns.

In all probability, as we think of modern mission and we think of the work of William Carey and the positive effects of modern mission on numerous countries and cultures across the world, that would never have happened.

Charles Hatton Spurgeon would not have been influenced so profoundly by Pilgrim's Progress and by many other Puritan works that he had not only championed but also assisted in arranging their republication.

Nor would Spurgeon have been risen to such a prominent place in Victorian England and seen such a marvelous work done for God.

We can think of the twentieth century and Martin Lloyd Jones freshly championing the Puritan cause.

He would never...

That would never have taken place along with many of the fruits of the ministry that came as a result of that.

Protestant biblical Christianity would have been completely on the back burner.

If the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded, we would never have had the Bill of Rights of 1688.

We can think of James II and his removal from the throne after being converted to Roman Catholicism.

He had aroused many fears by giving appointments in the army and the church and law to those who had Roman Catholic leanings, who were sympathetic to potpourri, and this fueled fears of a forthcoming Roman Catholic tyranny and his opponents sparked off the glorious revolution and inviting William the third of William the third of Holland.

Well, was William the third of England, but he was William of Orange of Holland.

He sparked off the Glorious Revolution by agreeing to come over.

It's interesting that another November 5 is important, is it not, when we think of 1688 when William landed at Torbay, and we can think of how the Lord used that great event to ensure the Protestant descendancy in our land.

And then if the gunpowder plot had succeeded, Roman Catholic tradition and beliefs would have been forced upon the people.

Underlying the plot was the question that vexed people down through the years and the centuries.

And the great question of course was well what is a Christian?

Roman Catholic doctrine of course differs from Protestant teaching.

Roman Catholicism says the Roman Catholic church is the final authority in all matters of religion.

Protestantism says the Bible, the Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testament are the primary and absolute authority, the final court of appeal for all doctrine and practice.

The Church of Rome teaches the doctrine, yes, of justification by works, which means that to get to heaven we must serve Jesus by trying to live up to God's standards.

On the other hand, the Bible says that people are sinners and always fail to reach these standards no matter how hard they try.

And we know that we don't.

And Christians therefore are justified freely by God's grace through redemption that came through Jesus Christ.

That's what Paul tells us in Romans.

And as soon as we have trusted in Christ, we're not under the law, but we're under grace.

And of course, the Bible also teaches that given the fact that we are saved, that should naturally lead us in to wanting to do good works, not meritorious works, but simply wanting to serve the Lord.

And according to the Bible, there's only one way to go.

And that way, of course, is through Jesus Christ alone, and all other ways do not lead to peace and eternal life.

But Satan, of course, doesn't like the gospel.

He doesn't like God's Word, and as a result, he tries to confuse.

He tries to mix things up.

He tries to draw in tradition.

And that's what lay at the very root of the gunpowder plot.

It wasn't a quaint story that engages us as far as history is concerned.

Rather, it was a serious attempt to pervert the truth, to blind people to the only way to God to find Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

And the plot along with its celebrity guy Foxes, not as one writer dismissively described it, his field mission which provided children with their equivalent of Halloween, Guy Fawkes Night, when bonfires are lit and fireworks set off amid a party atmosphere, the Gunpowder Plot was a serious attempt to annihilate the Protestant faith in Britain with the purposes of promoting another gospel.

And sometimes we forget that God moves in history, and people don't want to hear about the past and the great events of the past, but it's in those great events of the past we see how God delivers and God has moved.

We think of Israel of old how it was delivered from Egypt, while Britain of old was delivered from bondage, the bondage of Egypt over Rome.

So remember, remember the November 5, gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

And it's a good thing for Christians to remember the November 5 by God's grace and providence.

The gunpowder plot failed.

The Bill of Rights became law.

Our kingdom is kept from becoming a Roman Catholic country.

Instead, our country became a society molded by the Bible, and may God bring us back to the Bible and back to that place where he would want us to be.

Thank you very much for listening.