The continuing effect of what John Wycliffe did caused William Tyndale and Martin Luther to pick up the torch and continue the fight. Like Wycliffe, they were concerned with the errors and false doctrines that prevailed in the Catholic Church. Luther published a version of the Bible in the German language and, as you know, was at the forefront of the Protestant Reformation.

At this point, the Catholic Church was still doing everything it could to keep the Bible out of the hands of anyone who was not a priest. As a result, the people only knew what the church told them. All too sadly, we are almost in that same predicament today. Only today, we have no excuse. Most homes have numerous Bibles, but they lie on the shelves unread. Tyndale wanted to make it possible for people to read the Bible for themselves. He said, “I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spares my life ere many years, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the scriptures than you!”

Henry Phillips, who pretended to be Tyndale’s friend, betrayed him, leading to Tyndale’s arrest. King Henry VIII hated Tyndale because Tyndale had spoken out against the king’s adulterous lifestyle. Tyndale was imprisoned in the castle of Vilvoorde for over 500 days, having to endure the most horrific conditions. He was tried for heresy and treason, found guilty, and condemned to die. On October 6, 1536, he was tied to a stake where he was strangled, and his body was set on fire. His last words were reported to be, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” A scant four years later, every parish in England was required to have a copy of the Bible written in English. Within seventy years, more than two million Bibles had been sold. When King James brought his scholars together in 1611, the resource they leaned most heavily upon was Tyndale’s translation, which came from the original Hebrew and Greek.