Continuation of Church History - Leland Zehr

Good morning. It's good to be here this morning. I

agree with Brother Dan as far as a place to

go to church, just know where I'd rather be than here,

and I'm already looking forward to being back that I

would invite your prayers. It's also I wasn't sure if

i'd be here this morning or not the last couple

of days, like so many of you, have been struggling

with some sickness. But with the help of God's healing

and my wife fill in my body with good things,

so far I'm doing all right. So I hope I

can make it through here without too much distraction this morning.

And for those of you that were not here last Sunday,

this is a I guess a continuation of some of

the things that I gave last Sunday in reference to

the especially the Anabaptist movement. But last Sunday we talked

a little bit more. I talked a little bit more

about what led up to the condition of the early Church,

to the decline of the Early Church that kind of

set the stage for the Anabaptist movement. You might say,

some of the questions I had said I'd hoped to

look at a little bit here today was when and

why they the Reformers and the Anabaptist broke away from

the Catholic Church, and who were the Anabaptists, And what

some differences were and are between the Protestants and the

Catholics and the Anabaptists, and if it matters, does it

even really matter? And then some lessons that we could

learn hopefully from that story. And one thing I just

want to say, and I really mean this is in

my talking here this morning. I don't my intent is

not to bash other denominations or put them down or

lift Anabaptism up. I think there is things to be

learned from different people. But on the other hand, we

can't just go through life being nice and pretending that

beliefs and practices don't matter. So we need to look

at that all everyone, honestly as in the light of

God's word. And I'm very happy and thankful that we

can all let God sort that all out the hearts

and souls of man. I have no desire to do that.

Last Sunday I had given a few reasons, positive reasons

on why to even be studying church history, and I

had before thought about giving some warnings, and I don't

know if I forgot or what, but I want to

give just a couple little I guess you could call

them warnings or reasons not to study Anabaptist or history

and Anabaptist history. And number one, not to lift up

or glorify people or things that God used in history.

And just one brief story here. I'm not going to

go into this long, but in Acts fourteen we have

the story of where Paul and Barnabas, through the power

of God healed a crippled man. And when the people

saw the miracle, that crippled man jumped up and was healthy,

and the people came running. They said, the Gods have

come down to us in the likeness of men. And

they went and got ox, and they were preparing to

offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas. But Paul and Barnabas, says,

rent their clothes and cried out and said, sirs, why

do you these things? We also are men of like passions,

and preach unto you that you should turn from the

vanities of the living God. Very wisely they did that.

They deflected the glory to where it belonged, even though

it was amazing what they had done through the power

of God. And that's a good example of how they

responded to God working through them. Another one that we

could briefly think about as the brazen serpent. And if

you remember, God commanded Moses to build this serpent and

put it up on a pole for all these people

that were sick and bitten, and the only way for

them to live was to look up at that brazen serpent.

And if they did that, God gave them life and healing.

So it became a it was it was a matter

of life and death. But then that same brazen serpent

years later became an idol to the people of God

and in the falling generations and the and that they

put their faith in the thing instead of God. And

that is a that is a tendency that we can,

without even trying, can fall into. And so we need

to keep that in mind in all of study and

history or present when God works through people or things

or methods, to continue to give God the glory and

not to start giving things in people the glory. Now,

I want to read a paragraph out of I'm going

to read a couple of things, a few things out

of this book that we hope to study in our

Sunday school a little while later. I haven't studied a

lot out of there, but just briefly. And I thought

they summed up this thought of this warning that I'm

giving very well, and they haven't written this way. Looking

at our history honestly should help us avoid these mistakes.

While there is much to appreciate and admire, the historical

record has no perfect, pristine chapter that provides a gold

standard for us. Instead, the story is full of normal people,

people who repeatedly fell short of loving God with all

their being and loving their neighbor as themselves. And yet

this is exactly what is hopeful about this story. Generation

after generation, Christ continues to call imperfect people to follow

him and to bear the treasure of his resurrected life

in earth and vessel. I think that says it. Well,

It's just saying the same thing, to be careful with

not putting too much emphasis on people and things. So

as we look at a little bit the animal after

a story and some of the men and people along

the way, keep this in mind. Now, I want to

read from the Bible a few verses Matthew sixteen, if

you cared to you can follow along with me. Matthew sixteen.

I'm going to read from verses thirteen to twenty eight

to the end of the chapter, just as I want

to read this for a couple of reasons. We'll get

to them in a little bit. Matthew sixteen. When Jesus

came into the coast of Cesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying,

whom do men say that I the son of man Am?

And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist,

some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

And he said, unto them, but whom say ye that

I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art

the Christ, the son of the Living God. And Jesus

answered and said, unto him, blessed art thou Simon Barjona.

For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto THEE,

but my Father, which is in Heaven. And I say

unto THEE that thou art Peter, And upon this rock

I will build my church, and the gates of Hell

shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto

THEE the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever

thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven.

And whatsover thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed

in heaven. Then charged he his disciples that they should

tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From

that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples,

how that he must go into Jerusalem and suffer many

things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and

be killed and be raised again the third day. Then

Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, be

it far from the Lord, that this shall not be

unto thee. But he turned and said, unto him, unto Peter,

get thee behind me, Satan, for thou art an offense

unto me. For thou savorest not the things that be

of God, but those that be of men. Then said

Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me,

let him deny himself and take up his cross and

follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it,

And whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall

find it. For what is a man profit if he

shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul,

or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

For the Son of Man shall come in the glory

of his Father with his angels, and then he shall

reward every man according to his works. Verily, I say

unto you, there shall be some standing here which shall

not taste of death till they see the Son of

Man coming in his kingdom. A couple things here, and

I'll maybe refer to this a little bit later as

we go along, But Jesus promises here that the gates

of Hell shall not p veil against the Church of

Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ will go forward,

it will be victorious unto the end. Another reason is

that I want to I read this is Verses eighteen

and nineteen. These passages are some that the Catholic Church

did and does claim as giving them the authority of

the One True Church through Apostolic succession. And I'll go

into that later. But Peter here it talks about Peter

became I guess, the Bishop of Rome, and so we'll

come back to that the leader of the church there

and then verses twenty four and twenty five would have

been Versus that the Anabaptists lived out that if any

man will come and follow me and take up my

cross and follow me, he will be my disciple. And

so that was a little bit more you might say,

the motto of the Anabaptist there. And we know that

the Gospel, as far as the Bible and what Jesus taught,

it was always for whosoever will may come, as long

as they came to him through Jesus, and it was not.

And yet time after time after history, people in religious

groups tended to kind of slip into that thing of

the Jews thought they had an inside track with God.

The Pharisees did, and we as Anabaptists maybe can subconsciously

think that that somehow we're the elite and were born

in and somehow have an advantage to a relationship with God.

And the Catholic Church had that same struggle. But we're

not born into the faith. We're born into good home

sometimes and a good church, but that is not we

each one must come to the faith personally through Jesus Christ.

And that's an important thing for us to always hang

on to. Now. Last Sunday, we talked a little bit

about the early Church as in early as in the

first three hundred years after Christ, and how that they

faced over and over with the different Roman emperor's severe persecution.

They were mistreated, they were killed, they were tortured. And

then finally, in the year of about three hundred and twelve,

three centuries into the early Church, the man Constantine, that

Roman Emperor gave and granted not only religious freedom to

these people that brought a much needed relief from the

continuous persecution, but he also supported them and welcomed them,

and funded them and supported them in different ways. And

through this freedom and favor from the government that the

church had never known or experienced early in that way

before the church and the state merged and kind of

became mixed and twined together. And so as the church

experienced this wonderful freedom of religion and the lack of

persecution and the blessing of the government, there came subtle

changes to the church over the years to come, and

the Roman Catholic Church, the church that had been persecuted,

soon became the persecutors of what they would call heretics

or those that did not agree with them. And the

church took up the sword, and it hadn't done that before,

and it enforced compliance. So that was kind of where

we left off a little bit last Sunday. But to me,

that is like a core, core lesson of that whole story,

and even today is that trap of the blessings of

a good government and Christians trying to further God's kingdom

through those avenues. Now, if we just fast forward about

a thousand years from that time up to the fourteen

and fifteen hundreds, and this is a little bit hard

for us to understand today, but back then there was

pretty much one main Christian church, the Catholic Church, And

for us it's like the extreme opposite. I mean, we

know that that the church is all over the place,

and if you don't like one, you go to a

different one, and if you can't find when you like,

you just start one. And so there's just churches pop

up all over. But that wasn't the way that it

was back then. And so over time from the early

church and when Constantine came in and then those years after,

the church morphed into false beliefs, false practices, things that

made a difference in how they lived out life practically. Now,

I'd like to ask the ushers i'd ask them before,

could you pass those handouts out please? I have a

spreadsheet handout here. I'm not going to really like go

over it, but it's just for you, and some of

the things that I give will beyond that, but you

can look at it, study it and what it is.

It's a comparison of the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church,

and the Anabaptist Church beliefs and practices. And I'm sorry

about that. It's kind of small. I'm not the best

with technology, but that was about the best I could

do with what I know on Excel. But it gives

you a little something to look at. And I'm not

claiming to have that one hundred percent accurate, but to

the best of my knowledge, it gives a pretty good reflection.

And of course I should say as you look at

some of them, most of these a lot of these

would have been the case at the five hundred years

ago and are still the case today. Others may have

changed a bit, the differences in beliefs from then till now,

And of course under each heading, especially the Protestants and

Anabaptist there's many varieties and denominations. So some of these

things vary a bit. Now I want to look at

some of the and the reason that I'm giving some

of this is as to why the Antibaptists got to

the point where they felt like they had to break

from the Catholic Church. So I want to look at

some of the beliefs that the Catholic Church had, and

many of them they still have today. I wouldn't have

really known that. I would have maybe almost been under

the impression that today Catholicism would have maybe say modernized

more from some of those old beliefs. But I was

just talking to him, man, this last week. We just

happened to be talking and he was raised a Catholic,

and I saw, oh, this was on my mind, and

I asked him about different of these points and beliefs,

and he would have said, yes, that's still the way

it is, and he's not a Catholic anymore. But one

of the things that affected the Catholic Church in those years,

you know, both with I said, it was good times,

but they became very powerful. And that is one of

the facts. And a couple of the reasons that the

Catholic Church became very powerful was that they had One

reason was that they had the support and the backing

of the state. They were mixed, and so now that

meant they could use civil force, they could use the

sword to comply, to make people comply. Another reason, or

along with that, the authority of the church was extremely powerful.

The pope, church leaders had very much power within the church.

And the Roman Catholics claim and still claim, I believe

to be the only true church. And like I said

when I read Matthew sixteen about Peter and the Apostolic succession,

they would claim to be the church that their popes

if you follow them back all the way through history,

they have a direct lineage to Peter, and so that

makes them. That's one of the things that makes them

the true church with the authority, and they would somewhat

I don't know exactly how, but the pope today would

still have quite a bit of power. Like they would

see Peter had been given there to bind and loose

in some degree. If a pope gives a decree to

the church, it's binding and it's authoritative from God. Now

as I understand it, technically, the pope does not quite

have the power to change divine revelation or just completely

change things out of the Bible, but he does have

the power to interpret it. So how he decides that

what averse means or says or what was meant by that,

that is truth and that is binding. And so the

authority of the church made it very powerful with state

and the authority within the church. Another reason what they

became such a powerhouse was because they became very wealthy

and some of the and I want to go into

that now, why they became One of the things that

became made them very wealthy was one way they got

money was through this belief of purgatory. A purgatory was

is whatever, an intermediate state of the dead, a place

of torment, and those that went there when they died

needed prayed out or bought out. And so you can imagine,

if you can, when a loved one dies and now

they're in purgatory and they're in pain and they're suffering,

you could, and through the power of the blessing of

the Pope, help find that person relief. You could pray

them out of purgatory or shorten their time in purgatory.

And one of the ways that they would do that

was through it. They called them indulgences, and this was

payments that a family or friends could make and to

the church. And then through this money and the pope

blessing it and praying, then your loved one that had

went to purgatory would be released or or their time

there and torture would be shortened. And so there would

be people in the church that were basically salesmen that

would go around to the families and sell these indulgences

to the people, and they gathered lots of money. The

money just came in, and so that made the church

wealthy and powerful. There's a famous quote, probably most of

you've heard it from Johann Tensel, a German known as

a man to sell indulgences, and he had this little

phrase about this. It says, as soon as the coin

in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs. And

so they would go around and they would they would

gather the money. And if you can imagine the combination

of the wealth and the consolidation of power and authority,

the authority that not only dictated in this life but

your future life. They had they had they had a

lever over people in a tremendous sort of way that

made them extremely powerful. I think I missed saying that,

but it was in the It wasn't long after Constantine

that the Roman Catholic Church became this official state church.

So it was it was the church that was recognized. Now.

Another belief, A few beliefs here that they had that

were issues with the Anabaptist as when that all came

to a head. A few of them holy trinkets, which

we would would maybe just better call idols, items that

were supposedly some kind of sacred item of holiness. And

there was there and I believe it's still the same today.

Pieces little pieces of wood that are supposedly come from

the cross of Jesus, that they have, bones and hair

from saints of old, maybe Peter and Paul, I don't

know who. All holy nails that were part of Jesus crucifixion,

Holy clothing from Jesus or saints. So they had all

these items that were were very sacred and holy. And

if you ever go inside a Catholic church, some of

you maybe have. I think there's still I don't know,

just the candles and the different things. Another belief that

maybe we is more central that we think about it

was the infant baptism, and this one became a very

well known and defined the movement in a lot of

ways about the conflict of that the church, the Roman

Catholic Church, would baptize babies into the church rather than

believers baptism, and they baptized. I don't know where this

started for sure, but if you think about the church

becoming a state religion, it's almost like a citizenship of

a baby that's born into the United States. It's just automatic,

you get a birth certificate. The baby hasn't done anything,

it's just a US citizen. And it seems to me

that that's a little bit how the mindset was of

the Catholic Church. The babies came in, they baptized them,

they were merged into the church, and it had nothing

to do with the babies. Of course faith, they know,

they couldn't think, they couldn't reason, they couldn't repent. And

the verse that Brother Dan shared this morning was perfect

for a background to this where repentance was needed and

remission of sins, which neither could fit for a baby.

A baby can't repent and a baby generally doesn't have

sin at those early ages. So that was a real

hot button issue. Another one was mass, or what we

know is communion, and this is the belief that the

bread becomes the real physical body of Jesus. Every time

they had mass, this bread that they gave took on

the form of Jesus, and he again was sacrificed and

crucified in a sense and suffered for the people, taking

it over and over again. The other one was the

use of violence and the sword, and I already kind

of pointed that out, but the church, in the early

Church up to those days, had never that was an understanding.

They followed the pattern of Jesus. They loved their enemies,

they did not fight, But when the state merged with

the church, then that switched and they started to justify war,

fighting holy religious wars and so on. Another one that

they believed was the praying through or to Mary, the

mother of Jesus, that she would intercede. And so that's

still a practice that they do, is praying through Mary.

So over time the church lost that simple faith of

following the humble, lowly example of Jesus and being redeemed

from the inside out through repentance and baptism, to this big, organized,

powerful structure of position, money, and force. Now, another thing

that played into all of this that needs mentioned here

is that one of the problems that led or helped

them set the stage for them to drift away from

the scriptures was that the common man did not have

the Bible like we have today, and so it was

left up a lot to the church leaders to read

and interpret the scriptures, and the people would just pretty

much take their word for it what they said, the

Bible said, and what God told them to do, they

for the most part followed. And so one very important

event that happened before the Anabaptist movement movement and made

it I should say, the Reform, and maybe I should

just say this now because to me a lot of

for years it wasn't clear in my mind how this

all worked. But so the Catholic Church was one church,

and then there was the Reformation, and we'll get into

that a little bit, but that was the Protestant movement

that what we know is a lot of Protestant churches

today that actually spearheaded the break of the Catholic Church.

And then the Anabaptists were kind of on the coattail

and supporting that. But it wasn't long end of that

that there were differences between the Protestants in them, and

so then the Anabaptist started. So when we talk about

the Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation and the Anabaptist, the

Protestants and the Anabaptist broke from the Catholic Church at

about the same time, but they ended up at two

different spots in their belief in practices. So one of

the things that led to this was the Guttenberg printing press.

In about fourteen forty there was a man, a goldsmith

named Johannes Gutenberg from Germany, and he invented this movable

printing press. And this would have been eighty eighty five

years before what we mark as the actual Anabaptist start.

And this printing press was revolutionary in a lot of ways.

It changed from being able to print out, say, it

could produce like thirty six hundred pages in a day,

three thousand, six hundred, whereas before I guess they had

a method another way of hand printing wasn't writing. Hand printing,

they could do forty pages a day, and if the

hand wrote, they could only do like a few pages

a day. So you either could write a few pages

a day or hand print, probably stamps or something forty.

But then this printing press came along and could do

thousands times more, have just put out the printing and

the literature. So up until then there was just the

few that could read and teach, and the masses were

at the mercy of the church leaders. But this printing press,

some feel it and believed it is the single most

important factor of that whole reformation, was the printing press

at that time. And it says, let just read it

here in the success. So it's the most important factor

in the success of the Protestant Reformation, by providing the

means of widespread dissemination of the new teachings and encouraging

independent thought on subjects previously rigidly controlled by the literate elite.

And so now the books and the writings could be

printed in large numbers and sold at a very reasonable

price and distributed a cross the lands. And it gave

these these centers a platform. And it doesn't that sound

like today? On steroids? I thought about that, how that

the technology and the tweeting and the internet and this

ability to just from your bedroom send out if you're

a powerful person and you can affect the whole world economy.

A few people can do that, and it's very impactful.

But back then, of course, it was on a much

smaller scale, but it was a huge difference than it

had been. This sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly

of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered

the emerging middle class. And now not only could the

middle class read and study and think and analyze for themselves,

they could also share it a desired by getting it,

making writings and printing them. And like today, I'm sure

there was. This ease of circulation of information had its

good sides and its bad sides, its problems, but in

the end, it gave the common person the ability to

at least read and study the Bible and the writings

for themselves and make a decision all on their own.

And if you remember, if you're here last Sunday, I

read in one Corinthians ten. It starts out, but I

would not that ye should be ignorant brethren, And I

think that is something that is still true today. I

know we warn't against higher education, and we warn't against

the dangers of that, and that's true, but there's no

holiness and ignorance, and that's been proven through history and

it's the same today. Just being ignorant and not reading

and not knowing does not make us spiritual people. We

have an obligation. God put the had the scriptures written

down for our learning and for our for examples of others.

And so I just I guess I'll ask you the question,

are you reading your Bible? We should be what it

makes you and it makes those around you a more

understanding of God's will for us. Okay, now I'm gonna

move forward here a little bit too, just a little

bit about the Protestant Reformation. And I don't have a

lot to say on this, but Protestant has the idea

of protest I never was sure quite what Protestant just

gets thrown around all over today and it's a broad term,

but there the actual word Protestant means to protest and

that is exactly what like Martin Luther and Oric Zwingley,

the leaders. These are the two main leaders of the

Reformation of the Protestant stream, and they very much were

learned and vocal men against the Church. And you know,

if you even took school history that Martin Luther is

known for nailing the ninety five thesis on the church

door at the Wittenberg Castle. They were ninety five disagreements

and complaints and protests about what the church was doing.

And another one was Oric Zwingley. And Oric Zwingley was

a Swiss theologian, smart man, educated passionate. He was the

head pastor in Zurich. He was outspoken against the Catholic

Church and some of the things that he spoke against

were like the corruption of the hierarchy in the church.

He promoted the clerical marriage. I guess that was not

allowed for those in clergy, and he felt it shouldn't

be so it wasn't biblical. He preached against the images

in the church, and he was against the mass of

the Bread becoming the literal body of Jesus. He was

a promoter of Bible studies and of debates and getting

together and studying and discussing it. And he wanted to

have debates with the church, the formal Catholic Church and

those that disagreed. And he was very instrumental in breaking

finally from the Catholic Church. So early on in Zwingley's

I guess ministry or reforming, protesting some of the well

known Anabaptist leaders agreed with him and became kind of

his students, disciples, he might say, or supporters, and were

with Zwingley. But it wasn't very many years into Zwingley's

disagreement with the church that it became apparent that there

was another crack within themselves, and these Anabaptist men were

soon realized that Zwingli was not willing to go far

enough with the break on what they felt like was necessary.

Zuinglee was probably just in my reading a little bit.

I Zwingli was probably the most level headed and smart

in a lot of ways, and I can see why

people would have wanted to follow him more than the

Anabaptists at that point. But he was a little more

careful with not just t boning the relationship with the

church and the state. He agreed with a lot of

the concerns, and he preached and was vocal against it,

but he didn't want to just defy the city council

right away. He wanted to work with them and talk

with them and through debates try to honor them. You

might say he wasn't against the church and the state.

That wasn't his concern. He wasn't against non He wasn't

a non resistant. In fact, Zwingley later, not too many

years later, died in the on the battlefield fighting against

the Roman Catholics. So that was Zuingli. He was. He

was not a non resistant person, but he was. He

was very much a key in in propelling that that break. Now,

these three men, and there's more, but these get probably

the credit. A lot of the Anabaptist movement that were

with Zurich, for I mean with Zuingli for a while

were Conrad Grebel, Felix Mons, and George Blaurock. And these

three men ranged, if I have it right, over that time,

maybe in the range of twenty four twenty five to

thirty five. I think George Blaurock was a little older

than the others. And I wondered, here, how how many

of you men are twenty five to thirty five? You

stand up straight and tall? Okay, so we got ten

or so, thank you, you can sit down. So that

class right there, that is the age of men at

that point that spearheaded the Anabaptist movement. They were zealous

young men. In my reading, they were more zealous than wise,

I would say and they weren't some I don't know

about all of them, but especially Connor Grebel wasn't very.

He was a bad man in his youth. He was wicked.

He lived a life of sin. I didn't remember that

if I knew it at all. But Conrad Grebel, he

was from a prominent and wealthy Swiss family. His father,

Jacob was kind of in the political in the council,

and so he had influence with the church state, I'm

not sure what. And Conrad was privileged because of this,

because he was in a high class family and he

was able to get learning, and I think he was

a smart man. He went to the University of Vienna

to study, but Conrad, like so many I guess college

students still today, this is maybe a danger of higher education.

But he went to the city and he was a

partier and he was there for like three years, and

he spent his time womanizing and being drunk and in fights,

and he injured his hand in a brawl. He got

a disease from all his womanizing. He was involved in

a brawl that ended up with two frenchmen dead. I'm

not sure how much he was involved, but he was

a rough guy. Was. He was not a pictri perfect young,

godly man. He went back home at some point after

several years without a degree, without his without securing his

college degree. And when he went back home, I think

he was pretty depressed and not doing well, and he

fell in love with a local girl and he wanted

to marry her, but his mom and dad were against it.

He didn't want him to marry this girl. I'm not

sure what all the reasons. It sounds like maybe she

was of a lower class than he was, for one thing,

but he defied them, and when his dad was gone

on some business trip, he married her. Anyways, and Conrad

was a very miserable young man and the marriage didn't

seem to help, but it was. It appears to be

soon after he got married, in about nineteen twenty two,

so that's not very long before what we think of

as the actual start of the Anabaptist movement in nineteen

twenty five, so three years before. It's appears like he

finally got born again and was a changed man. In

what did I say, Leonard? Okay, thank you? You gotta

go by what I mean and what I say fifteen

twenty five and fifteen twenty two. That's right, Thank you.

Appreciate that my family does too. Conrad joined up was

Zwingley for a while, but it wasn't long into that

that he broke from that. And one of the main

issues was the infant baptism. And like I said, Zwingli

was more hesitant to just go against the church at

that time. So that's a little bit about Conrad Grebel

now George Blaurock. He was the oldest of the three,

and he had the nickname Strong George. And just a

little bit about him. He's some have described him as

that he impressed no one with his learning, but everyone

with his zeal, and his zeal sometimes exceeded his judgment.

So he was a very get or done type of

a guy. But these young men, in spite of all

their faults, it seems like had lost confidence, and rightly

so in the church. And when they read the Bible,

it did not say what the church was practicing. A

lot of false beliefs are so they were not into

taking the council from them, and they followed the written

word of God was what they come to. And then

the third man, Felix Mons, and he was an illegitimate

son of a Catholic priest, and he was well educated.

He's trained in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. And it was

in Felix Monds' home there in Zurich that the Anabaptist

after they broke from the Reformation from Ulrich, are to

meet on their own in Felix's home. And Felix was

instrumental in teaching because he knew Hebrew and he could

lead these Bible studies well. And it was in his

home where the first baptism happened of these three men

and maybe some others. On January twenty one, fifteen twenty five,

after a Bible study of reading and reading the Bible

and praying, George Blaurak asked Conrad Grebble to baptize him

believers baptism which was forbidden by the church. And then

George in turn baptized the others. And that is what

is officially known as the start of the Anabaptist What

are the Anabaptists? Anabaptist simply means it doesn't sound right

in our language, but it means to rebaptize, rebaptizers, or

to baptize again. And these men didn't choose their name,

They were given their name by enemies, just like the

Christians in the church were given the enemies, they weren't

they didn't name themselves. So within four years of this

baptism in fifteen twenty five, all three of those men

were dead. Conrad died of a disease of a plague.

Within about a year and a half after Felix was

put in prison, he escaped, was captured again, and then

the well known story about him being drowned. As he

was arrested and led down by the walkway along the river,

it says that he witnessed to those around him on

his way. They eventually put him in a boat, and

they took him out into the river, and his mother

was there, and she was crying out to him to

remain faithful to the end. As they tied his arms

and tied his legs, and he was in that boat.

Some of the last words that they have that he said,

he sang out into thy hands, a Lord, I commend

my spirit. And they threw him into the river and

he drowned. And that was the end of Felix mons

on earth here and the day the day that Felix drowned,

George Blaurock was stripped to the waist. He was beaten

with rods and then he was expelled out of the city,

but he didn't he wasn't killed that day. It was

a couple of years later after that that George Blaurock

was captured and burnt at the stake, and so all

three of them were gone at that point in the

Anabaptist movement. These men were not perfect men. They had

plenty of faults, and they were men that had a

zeal to stand for the truth of God's word regardless

of the cost. And God was able to use them

to help start a spiritual revival and the spread of

the Anabaptist I guess you could say faith. And it

cost them their life. They were just like a brief

commet in the sky and they went out. But the

Anabaptist movement and the faithful and the spiritual revival went on.

And I think about that that. I think God still

uses all kinds of people today. And sometimes, you know,

there's people that are more zealous than they are thoughtful,

and then there's others that bring some stability with thoughtfulness

and carefulness. And one is not always more right than

the other. But if we're seeking to be faithful to

God that can make a stronger body. The Anabaptists were

severely persecuted by both the cath and the Protestants because

they were the only of the three that were non resistant.

The other two fought and didn't like the Anabaptist. Now,

I just want to give a few summarizing points here,

maybe lessons that we could learn. In closing, as I said,

the Anabaptists were given a name, and it was meant

to be a derogatory name by their enemies. And so

as I said, before you know, whether you're a Jew,

whether you're a Catholic and Anabaptist, the name and it

does us in in sense no good. It's our it's

our faith, and it's obedience in Christ Jesus. Once one point,

what we believe in practice matter. I think that's one

lesson that we should remember, is that what we believe

and practice matter. And maybe just on that handout, if

you're looking at that or look at it later, those

three columns there that I have that are probably not perfect,

but I would just say this for us and our

sake that although there's three columns, one thing that I

have noticed is that when an Anabaptist people start to

walk away from their faith and practice, they don't just

jump into another column. There's usually a highbred. There's a mixing,

and there's a few adopting of the next column over,

and it's an Anabaptist Protestant mix, then it usually ends

up more Protestant than Anabaptist. And I'll just maybe leave

it at that, but I think that that's something to

think about. In those first stages of movement, there's often

enough enough habit values instilled in the first generation muscle memory,

you might say, to help that first generation kind of

hang on to the morals and most of the beliefs

and practices. But often by the second and third generation

they're firmly in the Protestant call up as far as

belief in practice, I might just say on that too.

I wasn't going to comment on this much, but obviously

on the okay, I'm not sure where it's even at.

But those bottom couple of points are more probably prevalent

or relevant today than they were at the movement. But

I think that it's fair to say that at the

time of the movement that marriage and women's head covering

were not an issue because they were a practice of

the people of all denominations. But it was over time

that others started to drop this practice, and now today

it's a very distinguishing difference among the different denominations. Okay, now,

one thing I want to highlight though, in this list

of print and doctrine and belief and all of that,

is that the Anabaptist had a reputation that was more

than about their doctrinal beliefs and their religion and what

they believe. They had a reputation and a witness of

an interchange life. And this might be maybe our biggest,

one of our biggest takeaway points that we should think about,

because we can start feeling pretty good with a pretty

crummy attitude and spirit about what we believe and what

our books say and what our doctrines are. But it's

more than that. The spirit of Christ must go with

the scriptural the words and the commandments and the doctrines.

Conversion and being born again and a change of life

was what really made the Anabaptist remarkably different. Their virtuous

lives gave powerful witness to the transforming power of Jesus Christ.

And I want to read a couple more paragraphs out

of this book that will if anyone would follow me.

In relation to this, it says, ironically, the godly lives

of the Anabaptist made them suspect. It was said of

Hans Jagar now because he does not swear, and because

he leads an unoffensive life, therefore men suspect him of Anabaptism.

He has for a long time passed for such, because

he did not swear, nor quarrel, nor did other such things.

But the opposite also happened. People were cleared of being

Anabaptists by their sinful living. For example, Casper Zacher's is

commonly is not, and this is quoting now, is not

commonly by the rank and file thought to be an

Anabaptist because he is a churlish fellow who can't get

along with others, starts fights and discord, swears and curses,

disturbs the peace, and carries weapons on his persons. And

so it was very much the life that a person

live either proved that they were Anabaptists, or made them

suspect of it, or cleared them of their claim of

being Anabaptist. A Roman Catholic critic wrote this, among the

existing heretical sect. There is none that an appearance leads

a more modest or pious life than to the Anabaptist.

As to their outward life, they are without reproach, no lying, deception, swearing, strife,

harsh language, no intemper no intemperate eating or drinking, no

outward personal display, but humility, patience, uprightness, neatness, honesty, temperance, straightforwardness,

in such a measure that one would suppose that they

had the Holy Spirit of God. That was from a

Roman Catholic critic. So are we striving for both correct

beliefs and doctrines because they matter and they lead us somewhere,

but also the spirit of Christ, I think is a

very takeaway lesson. Like someone said, if you and I

were put on trial for being a Christian, would there

be enough evidence to convict us? To think about that.

Another lesson is Jesus Christ and God's Word must remain

the permanent pattern. I think that's another very important one,

And this one is any church or re Bible movement

that is going to succeed must keep coming back to

the permanent pattern and the gospel from God's Word. Jesus

Christ must remain the head of the church. Charismatic men

and women will come and go, Leaders will rise and fall.

But God has, and God has in the past and

will in the future, use men and women to build

His kingdom and reach people. And so I say, as

cliche and as abused as this statement to follow Jesus

in the Bible gets used today, I don't even like

it for that reason. But I'm just going to follow Jesus.

I'm going to follow the Bible. It's true. It's what

we must keep coming back to, and when we stray

from that, we get off track. It's still a true statement.

We as humans another lessons. We as humans and the

Church make mistakes. Even with the best of our attentions,

we fall into sins. We have blind spots, and so

we need each other and to keep coming back another one.

As Jesus did not mean for the church and personal

Christian life to be opposite or in opposition to each other.

We need a personal walk, but we also need Jesus.

The Bible also instructs us to the importance of being

part of a real, visible church. And then the last

point that I have here is that God's kingdom and

the Church there must be a separation of the two kingdoms.

That is very much a lesson from that time. It

was very clear in the life of Jesus when he

was here that people wanted him to be an earthly king.

They tried to set him up to be an earthly king,

but he always resisted. He always said that is not

his purpose. And he was there to minister to the

hearts and souls of mankind and the sin problem. So

there has always been external and internal problems in and

around the Church of Jesus Christ, but there's always also

been a faithful remnant of God's Church. And the question

is for us and for halsey, men andite, and for

whoever you might be, is that will we be a

part of the Church of God that the gates of

Hell will not prevail against. I want to just read

two verses in closing. In Hebrews and Hebrews eleven we

have the list of men and women from history that

were faithful, men that had many faults and failures and

even serious sins, but they got back up and they

remained faithful. And then in Hebrews twelve one and two

after it gives all the examples of the men in

Hebrews eleven. He says this, and these are the closing verses,

won't to give for all of us. Wherefore, seeing we

also are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses,

let us lay aside every weight and the sin which

does so easily beset us, And let us run with

patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus,

the author and the finisher of our faith, who for

the joy that was set before him, endured the cross,

despising the shame, and is set down at the right

hand of the throne of God. God, bless you all.

Let's have a song.