This sermon delves into the early days of Anabaptism, focusing on the lives of key figures like Conrad Grebel, Zwingli, and George Blaurock. It highlights the struggles, arrests, and ultimate sacrifices made by these individuals for their faith, emphasizing the importance of putting the teachings of Jesus into practice despite persecution and opposition.

Amen, amen. Okay, thank you. Just a little quick recap. We're coming into Zurich and the time period we're looking at, we look into the lives of Conrad Grebel and Zwingli and we touched on that a little bit and began to get up to some of the differences. So if you remember, I have a new paper, I repeated it here, some of the things. The first disputation, and that is the actual name instead of debate, they called it the disputation. The first disputation was January 29th, 1523. What was that about again? In a nutshell, a word. Remember, they wanted to decide, hey, all these reform changes, the city needs to make some decisions about what we're going to do about that. So they held that conference there. If you remember, the thing that came out of that was, the city would make the final decision. Then it went on to the second disputation, and that was October 26th through 28th, 1523. It was in there, again, that it was proclaimed by Zwingli, the council will discern how the mass should be properly observed. If we recall, we looked into there, seeing some of the early Anabaptists, particularly Simon Stumpf who stood out in the conference and said, how can you say that? You just proved that this mass was wicked, and now you're saying we're going to go on and keep doing it, and the city's going to make that decision. That was the point, was a breaking point for them. As they went in, he said, well, surely the city would agree with me. The next day, when the decrees came from the city, they didn't agree with him. Zwingli then finally said, okay, I'm going to start trying to draw some lines here because he felt pressure. It did look it for a time that Zurich was going to go back to the Catholics. So he was nervous, he was getting pressures from every side. Finally, so he proclaimed, if there's not changes by Christmas 1525, if there's not changes by Christmas in 1525, then I stand condemned as lying by the word of God. That's where we got to yesterday. Well, as you guessed, Christmas came and went, and there was no changes. There was no changes in Zurich. Well, actually, there was lots of changes, but this mass in particular and some of the different things certainly didn't happen according to the way Zwingli wanted it, and definitely not to the way the early Anabaptists wanted it. So I asked the question here, number five in your paper. If you could look at these papers when you start studying for your tests, these numbers and the highlighted things, of course, are the things I'm going to be looking at making a test out of. But number five there, what is the primary fundamental dividing point between the Anabaptists and the New Evangelical Movement now at this point? What is it, the point? I'm asking you, what's the point? What's the splitting point if you had to put the theology down deep? Was it an issue of infant baptism? Was it the mass or was there a deeper issue that they were arguing the principles of? The deeper issue that Harold S. Bender argues, and I agree with him, is the whole idea of how we get the authority from. Is it the word of God? Is it Roman Catholic councils? Or is it the city councils? What was called the Magisterium Reformation, which would have been all the state church reformers, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, they brought in this concept of the state church and believed the state church could make those decisions. And so, Bender answers that, should the civil state continue to dictate the faith and life and worship of the church? Or should the pastors and laity themselves carry through the necessary reforms in church life according to their God-given convictions? Bender continues, fundamentally the issue was whether the new evangelical movement was to go on in a state church under civil control as before. What is the church? Is the fundamental issue down there? What is Christ's holy church? The Anabaptist View of the Church, that book by Littel, it's a good, great book, I suggest it. He argues this was their main point as well. He was not an Anabaptist writing it, surprisingly. Both Luther and Zwingli, as well as the other reformers, faced this fundamental issue and decided to continue the medieval state church with a predominant control by the civil states in the life and faith of the church. Bender gives them, perhaps it was wise and statesman-like decision, but in terms of an absolute principle and plain scripture teaching, it was indefensible. How can you say the state, the city council, can make these decisions? Now, we think that's kind of archaic and old-fashioned and all that, but this state church concept basically came into the effect and all the way up until World War I. And still, the fruits of it, I'm gonna talk about it later, the fruits of that with this concept, well, the church is invisible, nobody knows who it is. The Anabaptists were arguing, no, the church is visible, bringing in the concept of incarnation. Christ is alive both in spirit and in flesh, and it is visible. It's not just a, well, everybody in the whole area is a Christian, but only God knows, and we're not gonna do anything about it, and I'm exaggerating, but that's kind of the attitude that seemed to be coming from the new reformers, and it's an attitude we still see today. To the Anabaptists, yes, yeah. To the early church, yes. Good question, fundamental question. What does the Anabaptist, what did the Anabaptists do at this time? Conrad starts to network. So now you're starting to see, okay, things are going bad with Zwingli. So they start to gather, they start to study the Bible, they start to do some things, and at that point, things start to happen. He even starts talking about writing a book, and I'm gonna give you this little quote because I wanna encourage all of you to be writers. I read your paper, I was encouraged with it. One of the projects that I have with our little school we started is that I make the seniors write a book. I don't care how bad it is, I want you to do it, and I want you to hear the way even Conrad Grebel talks about himself as he writes a letter to Vaden about his changes that he's starting to make. It's in The Son of Zurich, page 90. Yeah, we don't, if the pen is mightier than the sword, and since we believe Christ's words that we're not supposed to have a sword, then we better sharpen our pen, amen? Okay, he writes to Vaden during this time period. Now he's starting to break up with Zwingli, and he says, I'm writing to Andreas Karlstadt, remember, he was the one that broke up with Luther, and Thomas Munzer, he was the guy who ended up the revolutionary, in reply to their books, and I expect also to write to Luther. I'm reading Matthew in Greek with some pupils, some of the brothers are gathering, and finally, he writes, don't smile, I'm writing out my thoughts on two subjects and hopes to publish them unless someone else writes on my topics first. So Vaden, don't smile, I'm writing a book. Praise God, he's a young man. He's finally seeing these giants around him, but no one's quite saying it. So he's saying, if no one else is gonna say it, I'm gonna say it. If somebody else says it, I don't have to write it. And he goes on and talks about this still, this patience, and he's waiting, and he quotes from Job, and he says, I have waited, and he writes this in his letter, and they do not reply. They stand still and give no answer. I am going to contribute my part and tell what I know because I am so full of speech that the breath strains my belly, which is swelled as tight as a barrel of new wine without a vent. I must speak so I can breathe. I have to open my lips and answer them. I will not be impressed with anyone's status, and I will not flatter anyone. If I did, God would take me away. Listen, you pastors, he scribbles on his note. Wow. You know, when you write with passion, it's a good read. And as you can see, he got the spirit of God in him, and from that, he had to write, he had to preach. And that's the kind of thing that we need to be able to, to come to, to be able to have something to preach and be able to have something to write. Okay. Those who held to the grable position, now we're meeting with them, and he begins to write Thomas Muenster. Now, we all know the history of Thomas Muenster now. We're like, whoa, this guy was a revolutionary. But at the time, he had written a couple books about baptism and about some of the sacraments. So he thought, this guy could be someone to network with. Same with Carl Stott. Those were considered the radical reformers. All of these were considered the radical reformers. Those who went beyond just the magisterial reform of Luther. And so he wrote to Thomas Muenster, and in that, we begin to see some of the theology of the Swiss brethren being articulated, and articulated well. And he writes to Muenster, but he also, right from the very start, rebukes him. He rebukes him about some of the changes he wanted to make with the liturgy, just changing the chanting of the liturgy into German and doing these things. He said, let's stick with the Bible. He keeps arguing back to them. But there's a particular quote that I want you to read, I mean, I wanna read to you, that he talks about in this letter that he write to Muenster. And he explains, he begins to articulate the difference between the mental understanding of the faith that he was hearing from Luther and Zwingli, and we hear today from American evangelicalism, and a true faith in the heart. He writes this in his letter, which I have copies of. If you look at this after the class, these are actually mimeographs of his writings in this letter to Muenster. He writes, just as our forefathers in the churches of Europe had given up Christ's true word for human ceremonialism, which they trusted for salvation until preachers like Zwingli came along, so now we still find Christians who want a faith easy enough for everybody, including people who want to pay no price for their faith, who show no change of heart, who keep right on baptizing infants and repeating the mass. We were in the same mentality as long as we limited ourselves to listening to the new preaching. But when we took up the scripture for ourselves, we realized that both the preachers and we needed to pray urgently for deliverance from our human errors. We kept what keeps the divine word from going away and going out clearly is the false leniency of the preachers, letting people off too easy. While we are bemoaning this, also came your book, and we were overjoyed to learn of someone else who understands these things. We want to urge you and encourage you to hold to nothing but God's word, rejecting every other opinion, even your own. Amen. It was a good letter and it shows some of the attitudes of the early Swiss brethren to Thomas Müntzer. There's also something important about this letter is that in this letter, he writes and he rebukes him about non-resistance right from the start. And it's interesting because later on, you might hear people say that, well, Swiss Anabaptism was just a reaction to Thomas Müntzer or people even say the Munster Rebellion that we're gonna read about next week is when they picked up non-resistance. It's ridiculous. From the very start, taking the words of Jesus and saying he means it, this non-resistance began to come out. And we see this even before Müntzer had his terrible defeat, the early Anabaptists were already writing to him and saying these things to him. He wrote this letter, sent it and mailed it, but it was a huge blizzard that year. And so it just sat in the office for a long time and never went out with the postman. And then all of a sudden, he got the news of what Thomas Müntzer was doing. He went and got the letter out of the post office, whatever they had there, opened it back up and wrote in it, surely this didn't happen. And he was hearing about this revolt and how the peasants were revolting and he sent him and you can see the different penmanship at the end of the letter that he penned it and said, you've got to stop this and keep only to the word of God. Unfortunately, Thomas Müntzer was massacred by the, or killed by the Philip of Hesse and his troops and he never received that letter. The letter was eventually then sent back to Vadian and put in his stash and that's why we still have it today. But it's an interesting little insight into this early spirit of these Jesus followers that are meeting there and differing with Zwingli. It's an important little point there. What does Zwingli do at this time with the Anabaptists? Starts writing books, starts preaching against them, starts saying different things against them and they start to get more and more concerned. Over a month goes by without any word from Vadian. He begins to fear that his old friend is drawing back and he sends him a rebuke. So he starts now writing to his old friend, his old teacher and says about what's going on there. He says, they make a plan, I have this quote in your handout, page three. They make a plan but not from God. Hope is put in the help and strength of Pharaoh but it will be confusion and a disgrace. He goes on telling of his frustrations with the council and he just talks about you won't believe how much this is burning in his heart to do something about it. He signs the letter, interestingly enough, Conrad, a nobody, a no longer Grebelian. Total surrender of who he is. He's no longer part of this nobility, no longer part of this. His father has forsaken him, his mother has forsaken him. He's no longer Conrad Grebel. He's Conrad, the follower of Jesus and he writes, no longer a Grebelian. Maybe that was a little saying that was going on, the Grebelians are here or whatever but no longer. He has now gone too far. What happens to Conrad's old friend, Vadian, during these times of testing? Even going further, he begins to see that Vadian was offered these nice positions in St. Gall. Oh, and he was lacking the attention. Suddenly, he's sensing, remember, this is also his brother-in-law, that he's beginning to want the praise of people and so Conrad writes a very rebuking letter to Vadian. I'm gonna read this to you. Oh, I have the quote on there. He begins to see that the real emphasis of what he's doing was materialism and he writes this to him. He says, achieving financial advantage brings us at best a temporary happiness in this world and it can often disguise the naked force which supports it. Still writing to him. It is impossible to reconcile the love of money with God's truth and I have this highlighted because I think it's one of the great quotes of this time period. I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation and out of this belief, I speak. Amen. The Bible is very simple. The words of Jesus are very simple. It causes things like this to go on in your life but he's saying, let me read that again. I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation and out of this belief, I speak. Wow. May God give you the mercy to submit to his truth without reservation and obey it. Otherwise, things probably don't stand out well with us as it might hope. The way is narrow. A rebuke to his friend. After that, their third baby is born. Yes, in less than four years, three babies are born. Poor little Barbara, in the midst of all this that's going on, as you can imagine, Esther, only a girl in here, that she's in the midst of all this. She has these three little babies. Her husband's this radical and all this is going on. Her father-in-law is all mad, her mother-in-law and here is Barbara experiencing this and trying to walk in this way. January 5th, 1525, baby Rachel is born and five days later, there'll be a debate in the city over infant baptism. What kind of pressures do you think Zwingli was feeling during this time? I ask the question. I mean, you know, let's throw him a bone. Let's, you know, I mean, seriously, he had some things that he was dealing with as well. Remember, Muslim invasion is coming up now from the South. He just now is hearing all over the place. It's 1525 and these peasant revolts are happening everywhere. The reformation is now on tenuous grounds with Luther and now in his own city, he's beginning to hear rumors and these rebaptizers are knocking at his door every week saying, because he says, we'll talk about it next week. Every week they appear to him. Can we talk about it now next week? Can we talk about it now? And he just can't get rid of them. So he had a lot of pressure and it looked like for a time that maybe the whole city of Zurich was gonna go back to Rome. So at that time, Grebel does write his friend, Vadian again, and he says to him that Rachel is now eight days old and will not be baptized in that quote, Romanish bath. Conrad wasn't the only one, a few other parents in Zurich also were refusing to have their children baptized and they knew about it. You knew when someone had their baby and the parish priest or that time the parish pastor knew if eight days later you didn't show up for your baptism. And so Zwingli was getting these reports and it was beginning to come out more and more. So now the baptism disputation of January 17th, 1525. All right, here, the third disputation. The final break came over the question of infant baptism, although this was in reality merely a reflection of the major issue which was the character of the church, Bender tells us. So again, yes, the dividing point was infant baptism, but really the fundamental issue was the nature of the church. So they had this meeting and there was a huge group of people, so I think if I recall, they had to go to a different place where it was other place to be able to meet. And it's interesting, a little note in the chronicles that hold, I mean, Bullinger's chronicles that this new man started coming into town and his name was, and all it says in the notes is he was described as, quote, the one in the blue coat and that he acted unacceptably wild in his manner. So who do you think that was? Say it. George Plowrock, amen. And so that's the way he's described in Bullinger's chronicles of that time. Decisions made by public debate on January 17th, 1525 and of course, it's to follow the pursuit, a decree from the city will be made on the matter. And the two decrees came out January 18th, 1525 and another decree January 21st, 1525. And I'm gonna read to you those decrees. It's in your book, Cup and the Cross, page 50 and page 51. Powerful. Think about it. Put yourself there. In reaction to this, the one on the 18th decree said, all those who have hitherto left their children unbaptized shall have them baptized within the next eight days. And anyone who refuses to do this shall, with wife and child and possessions, leave our Lord's city, jurisdiction and domain and never return or await what happens to him. Everyone will know how to conduct himself accordingly. And that was the first decree. Zwingli, in that little interim, wrote to his friend also, Vadian was also his friend. I think Vadian was playing both sides obviously and wrote after that first decree, another famous quote from the time, Grebel, persist in his stand. So the city, he said, you need to say it again. So he told the city to say it again and that's the decree is repeated again, January 21st, 1525. And remember, this would have been like a public, they'd have come out, hear ye, hear ye. I mean, it would have been a big deal. Read in all the churches everywhere and here was the next decree. Imagine you're sitting in the church and you're hearing this decree. Following the preceding resolution on baptism, et cetera, the one that just happened, it is further decided that the mandate shall be executed and henceforth the special schools, you little Bible groups, that deal with such matters shall be discontinued. Now they start naming names. And Conrad Grebel and Mons, Felix Mons, shall be told henceforth to desist from their arguing and questioning and be satisfied with the council's judgment for no more disputations will be permitted hereafter. Ouch. And that was January 21st, 1525. So what do you do now? What do you do now? So they met and that night they met over and Felix Mons lived right down the street from the Grossmunster. I put a picture on the Grossmunster on the front page. I'm gonna try to bring in some more pictures. I'm having trouble with my laptop. My son did get my laptop survived, I mean, resurrected last night. So hopefully I'm gonna start bringing in some pictures. I did give you, that's the picture of the Grossmunster right there where all this activity was happening. Right down the street from there, Felix Mons lived with his mother. Interestingly enough, Felix Mons was the illegitimate son of a parish priest from the Grossmunster. He had his concubine and that was Felix Mons' mother. And there, but they still gave him a nice education and let him go on learning just like Erasmus did with him, Erasmus being an illegitimate son. And so he grew up, I mean, it's just right down the street from the Grossmunster there. And so when you're there though, it looked like his mother though was also getting converted and listening to his son. And so they're there now on that night. It's January 21st and they're there. And imagine the scene. I mean, put us here in that scene right here in this room. Now they're naming names. They're saying your little Bible studies have got to stop or you're gonna get killed. You're gonna get kicked out of the city. Something bad's gonna happen to you. What are you gonna do? Well, fortunately there was an eyewitness account that's given to us and it's recorded in the Hutterian Chronicles. And I'm gonna give that account to you and then we're gonna take a break. It's a powerful, powerful event. I mean, you can imagine the anxiety. You can imagine just the feeling that they had going through all this. I'll cut in, this is on page 44 in the first volume of the Hutterian Chronicles. At this point came from Chur, C-H-U-R, a priest named George from the house of Jacob, later known as George Blaurock. Once when they were discussing questions of faith, George shared his own view. Someone asked who had just spoken. It was a man in the blue coat. So he was given the name because he had wore a blue coat. The same George who came because of his extraordinary zeal, everyone thought of him a plain, simple priest, but he was moved by God's grace to holy zeal and matters of faith and worked courageously for the truth. He too had first approached Zwingli and discussed questions of faith with him at length, but he got nowhere. Then he was told there were other men more on fire than Zwingli. He inquired eagerly about them and met with them, that is with Conrad Grebel and Felix Muntz to talk about questions of the faith. They came to unity about these questions. In the fear of God, they agree that from God's word, one must first learn true faith expressed in deeds of love. And on confession of this faith receive true Christian baptism as a covenant of a good conscience with God, as a covenant of a good conscience with God. Serving him from then on with a holy Christian life and remaining steadfast to the end, even in times of tribulation. One day when they were meeting, fear came over them and struck their hearts. So here's now we're at the scene. We're at Felix Muntz house. It's January 21st, it's in the evening. Fear struck their hearts. They fell on their knees before the almighty God in heaven and called upon him who knows all hearts. They prayed that God granted to them to do his divine will and that he might have mercy on them. Neither flesh and blood nor human wisdom compelled them. They were all well aware of what they would have to suffer for this. After the prayer, so they're praying there. After the prayer, George Blaurock stood up and asked Conrad Grebel in the name of God to baptize him with true Christian baptism on his faith and recognition of the truth. With this request, he knelt down and Conrad baptized him since at that time there was no appointed servants of the word. Then the others turned to George in their turn, asking him to baptize them, which he did. And so in great fear of God, together they surrendered themselves to the Lord. They confirmed one another for the service of the gospel and began to teach the faith and to keep it. It was the beginning of separation from the world and its evil ways. And that was the beginning. And so that night in the power of God, they met with him and allowed him to speak to them. And so they realize we've got to draw a line here. Now, before I break, I'm gonna say this. Remember, there's something fundamental that just happened. For over a thousand years, the church was a province, an area, a state dictated by kings and areas and all this. Now, although it had always been, like I said, it was a pilgrim church, but in their understanding, you are forming a church based upon faith. Brothers gathered together to encourage one another to be followers of Jesus Christ and to put this into practice. Radical thing that was happening. And they knew the price was on their head, even if they could lose their life. All right, let's take a three minute break and let's come right back and we're gonna run this missionary outpost right to their death at the end here. So let's take a quick break and be right back. All right, so now what do you do? Do you hang out? Do you hide now? What would you do? I think I'd probably go get a cabin somewhere and let the dust settle. Let's hide this, let's see what will happen. No, they were so filled with the spirit of God and so confident that they were in the will of God. Now, in the words of Jesus, we don't just sit and talk about these things. And if you're gonna put Jesus' words into practice, what do you do? You go, and that's what they did. Next day, they head to Zolokon. When they get to Zolokon, which in the area there is right up the road, not from Zurich. In your cup and the cross, I want you to get page 56 and look at this real quick. I'm gonna point out a few places in the map here that we're gonna talk about. It's small, but if you could find there, kind of in the heart of Switzerland is Zurich. You see it there, look like in the, there. Go down a little bit, up the river there is Zolokon, okay? I want you to now go straight up and see Schaffenhausen, and then right up above that is Schleidheim. You're about to see a revival there. And then I want you to go over to the right, you see St. Gall, and you see that little river there that's all that. Big revival's about to happen there, okay? And then I want you to go all the way down there to Chur. That's where Blaurock and Felix Monskitz end up being taken to. And so those are some of the areas that we're gonna talk about right now. And then down there, right smack in the middle, you see Gruningen and Hinville, okay? And those are areas that will also experience revival during what's about to just happen in the next few days here with the Zanabaptists. So again, it's a nice map, it's nice and clear. I appreciate that maps. One of the reasons why I like this book is it's clear maps and appendixes and quotes that it gives, I love it. Okay, so they're there in Zolokon, and as they're there, Conrad Grebel and Felix Monsk, they're preaching, and they read the mandate. This is what Zurich just said. And they read it, but then they also read in the Bible, and these people wanted to fear God more than they feared Zwingli. And so there was like a revival that happened there. People started to get excited to follow God. He starts passing out communion. I don't even know if they were baptized yet. And he does baptisms and all this, and there's an exciting thing that happens in Zolokon. Now, and we're gonna study this when we pick up the Hutterites and the early Moravian Anabaptists. Zolokon almost like became an entire Anabaptist group. They were meeting together radically. They were, we're gonna see in some of the early documents that seem to come from this area. I mean, they were having daily communion. They were meeting together. They were getting excited. They were following the Lord, and people really had a feeling that something big's gonna happen. Well, he's only there for three days, and Conrad Grebel says, okay, I'm gonna need to go. And so he hears about some things that are happening, and he leaves, and George Blaurock is still there in town. Now, George Blaurock particularly had to get out of town. He wasn't even a citizen of Switzerland, but he was there. Now, he's in there, and Conrad Grebel had left. Now, Felix Mons and George Blaurock are there, and all these new converts, and in the morning, some early Sunday morning there of January 29th, 1525, remember, it's just January 21th when the proclamation. Now, January 29th, next Sunday morning, they're there, and George gets this idea. Hey, I'll go to the church, and I'm gonna preach the message instead of the pastor from Zurich. So like, okay. Now, if you remember some of the mindset, if you had a chance to read the 12 articles of the Peasant Revolt, the feeling in those Swiss communities was the people had the right to say who's gonna be their preacher. So I wonder if this had something to do with his boldness and the way the boldness we're about to see happening. But as he goes in there, as the story goes, it's an impressive story, and it didn't turn out all that great. Or maybe it did, but in the long run. But anyway, I'm gonna read you the story as they're here. So that Sunday morning, they get there, and the poor little pastor from Zurich comes in, assigned a church by the Great Commission in Zurich, and let me bring it up here. And so as he starts heading to the pulpit, George Blaurock says, what do you intend to do? Imagine this preacher. What do you mean? I'm gonna preach the word of God. Blaurock disagrees. You haven't been sent to preach. I have. The pastor brushes off it and just, okay, whatever. And he goes up to and begins to preach. Well, George Blaurock keeps interrupting, and he keeps interrupting as this preacher takes the pulpit. And all the time he's preaching, George Blaurock, it says, is pounding on the bench with his staff. My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. He's saying this from his seat. Banging, it says, with his staff on the bench. My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. Finally, the preacher says, I can't do this. And he goes back to the end of the church, and finally, the people say, no, finish the sermon. This is ridiculous. And the people of Zulican sort of turn on George and say, all right, that's ridiculous. You don't interrupt people like that. And he finishes the sermon. How did it go over? Well, guess what happened. Next morning, in comes the armies from Zurich, and they arrest the new converts in Zulican, including George Blaurock and Felix Mons. Conrad Grebel is already out preaching. And so, I don't know, and we're gonna hear some of these suppurative witnesses, some of these people in their radical zeal. We have to ask the question, was it too far? Should you do that? Or are we just so, I don't know, that that seems ridiculous? I ask the question here. Okay, so as they go on, and I ask the question number 12, what was the personality of these early Anabaptists like? And there's an example. The arrest was on January 30th, 1525. So, and in there, they got taken to prison, and unfortunately, here's the thing that just gets you in the gut. They all recant, except George Blaurock and Felix Mons, and a girl, a prophet, seems like a prophetess kind of girl also was one of the ones in there who didn't recant. Her name was Hotting, one of the hot, oh, Hotwingers there, I forgot her name. And she, and these people were faithful to it, and all the rest of them went back. Now, when you start to see this end witness of how these people did and how the people kept giving up, it really makes you appreciate some of these people at first. Because it's one thing to stand for something and then have a revival and all that, but imagine what it did to the church when everybody started walking back home and said, yeah, we told them we were just duped in this and we apologized, and so now we're back home. Well, it was certainly discouraging to those people in Zolokon, but Conrad Grebel and Felix Mons would not give up. I ask here, how long did it take them to get into the mission field? At that time, they go forth into the mission field with everything they have. Okay, leaving the work in Zurich to less known coworkers, Conrad Grebel sent out his mission to surrounding cities to win pastors and leaders to the cause. Several weeks in February of 1525 were spent in Schaffhausen. Okay, that's, if you look at the top right of your map, Schaffhausen, where he appeared for a time as though he might win Sebastian Hofmeister, the city pastor. A revival hits this town and many converts are baptized, and then a young zealous preacher by the name of Wolfgang Ullmann. So Conrad leaves. We're now January 29th. George takes the church in Zolokon. January 30th is the first arrest, and February 6th, we see George there preaching up in Schaffhausen, and while he's there, this interesting guy by the name of Wolfgang Ullmann came to him and begged him for baptism, but not only begged him in baptism, this is the first immersion baptism, and he said, baptize me in the Rhine River, and he apparently, so the record said, he had nothing on but a smile. So he was there, and he wanted a radical baptism, and remember, it's February in Switzerland. It would have been cold, and that's what they did, and so he baptized him there. Forced to leave the city because of things that started to happen, he returned to Zurich for a secret visit, then followed a call to St. Gall about Easter time, where one of his associates, Wolfgang Ullmann, that same Wolfgang Ullmann, whom he had baptized in the Rhine near Schaffhausen in February, was having remarkable success there. He also hoped to find his tolerant friend, Vadian, there to be with him. So now the revivals are going, things are happening, and they're able to do something about it here in this area, so it's pretty radical. It's February 6th, 1525, and they're wondering now, what is it gonna be like in St. Gall? All right, let me take just a minute here to look at my notes to make sure I get all these events in the right order. Meanwhile, back in Zollikon, they end up telling George Blaurock, they just say, get out of here, we're kicking you out of the country, and Felix Mons escapes out of jail. By a rope and a window open, he escapes. So George Blaurock gets kicked out, Felix Mons escapes, and they start, of course, running straight to the mission field and begin to preach. The brothers back in Zollikon recant from their recanting and began to have revival again. More people are getting converted there in Zollikon. It seems like for a while that things were gonna turn around in that area, and all the brothers got busy preaching again. Okay, so now, in this time, George Blaurock goes into a revival in Halal. In February 1525, the old preacher who used to be there in Zollikon, by the name of Brotli, baptizes the entire adult community. So if you look on your maps there, right there, the center, right a little bit to the right of Zurich, is a little town of Halal, and the entire town receives what's going on, and it's a powerful expression of the faith there, and it says in the quotes that he baptized the entire adult community. And also, it's about during this time that Felix Mons escaped from prison, he goes on. All right, now, in April of 1525, okay, and here is when Conrad Grebel makes it to St. Gall. While he's there, remember, this is where Vadian lived. This is his buddy, his old student, who he's hoping he's gonna win to the faith, and he goes there, and he begins to preach at St. Gall. Now, people are responding to him and appreciating him, and the whole city begins to respond, and it looked like another mass revival was gonna happen in St. Gall. As a matter of fact, it's April, and it's coming close to Easter, and in those days, they had this big procession where they would go down with their images and their images of Christ and go and process into the church, not this Easter. In response to what was going on, response to the preaching of the word of what they heard, on Easter morning, Conrad Grebel took them all down to the river, and as he took them all down to the river, there was a great procession, and instead of following to the Sadder River nearby, and he baptized them, quote, into the kingdom of God, and as he's there, one of the writers I wrote said, he wondered if he remembered that Zwingli said that people were not ready for the whole gospel. Here, entire towns are ready for the whole gospel, and responding and saying, we want it all, and he baptized that day 500 people in the river, the Sadder River. Praise God, amen, 500 people. The next week, another 300 from Balthazar Hubmeier's congregation were baptized by Wilhelm Rublin. I mean, it's powerful, things are happening, and it's going and going further and further. As he leaves there, he leaves a man by the name of Eberle Bolt, Eberle Bolt, in his place, but as soon as Conrad leaves, however, Vadian invites Eberle Bolt to his house, and says, get out of town, and kicks him out, and at the same time, Uliman, remember the guy who wanted to get baptized in February in the Rhine, he was kicked out of the town, too, begins preaching right on the edge of the town, by the town gate, and he has a huge crowd of people around him, just worshiping God and wanting further and further of hearing the preaching of the word. It was some powerful, powerful time. At this time, Conrad sneaks back home, and while there, he secretly meets with the newly escaped Felix Mantz, and feeling the pressure and the danger of being in Zurich, Conrad makes plan to leave again. Now, Esther, what about Barbara? So he finally made it home, you're alive! Could you imagine how Barbara feels? Here's your three little bitty children, hold them for a little while, you know? One's just a tiny little baby, and then after all this, but he realizes the pressure, he realizes he's got a price over his head, he says, I gotta go, we gotta go. Was he wrong, was he right? Who knows, Barbara wasn't happy. Barbara wasn't happy at all, and she lost it. As the son of Zurich puts it, as she sees him preparing to leave after dark on Sunday evening, she threatens to report Felix to the authorities. Felix had escaped from prison, she goes, I'm gonna go tell the police about Felix. This is it, I can't handle it anymore. Conrad still feels that he must go. Tearing himself away from her urgent pleas, he starts for the door, but in desperation, she dashes out through another door and runs into Jacob, his father's quarters, crying that Conrad's trying to leave again. And I just wanted to give that to you, just to see that, you know, even when revival and things are happening, real life is also still happening, and oh, the tensions of life, and my wife, and my children, and what do you do, where do you go? And those kind of things that these people were still experiencing, and poor Barbara. My husband's gonna die, I'm left here with a widow, we have three tiny babies. And she's so desperate that she throws herself to Jacob's father, which, you know how that probably went. Now on the run, he finds out that his old friend, Vadian, turned the people of St. Gall against him, and even more, started writing books against the baptizers. And remember how he kicked Eberly Bolt out of St. Gall? Well, soon he finds out that Eberly Bolt, who then was banished from St. Gall, was captured by the Catholics, and burned at the stake. So he was burned at the stake, and he becomes the first Anabaptist martyr. Some people make a point that he wasn't in the trial called an Anabaptist, and that wasn't why he was burned as a reformer, nevertheless, he's the first Anabaptist martyr in history, was Eberly Bolt. And it was kind of because of Vadian kicking him out of town. He also, at this time, hears what Thomas Munster did, and how 5,000 of these people were killed in this peasant revolt, and just again, his wife, all these peasants getting massacred, Eberly Bolt getting burned at the stake, my best friend Vadian turning on me, I mean, the tension of this time would have been extremely, extremely powerful. So at that time, he wrote a letter to his buddy, Vadian, and I have the letter here on page 117 of the Son of Zurich. Yes, sir. He was becoming a university instructor and a leader there in the town. He was also starting to get into the politics. So he was playing this role of becoming what they thought was all becoming this new reformed church-state world, and he was starting to make some status. If you Google his name, he's looked at as a leader of the reformed area, and he becomes that. He was also double-playing Conrad because he was writing letters to Zwingli at the same time. Here's his rebuking letter to Vadian. He says, I am thankful, he begins, for all the kind things you have done for me. I could not wish for more, but I have to be free to say to you what must be said. You still have not been willing to listen to the teachings of the Spirit more than the voice of the flesh. I realize that you know this, but I will say it here. If any punishment, such as prison, fire, banishment, or death is decided against my brothers, it will be entirely, or at least very largely, your own responsibility. He goes on, beware, exclamation point, beware of innocent blood, exclamation point, because it is innocent, whether or not you acknowledge it to be. Their patience and character and God's judgment will bear this out eventually. Unless you recover your wits, your learning, and your dignified position will only hasten your own destruction. I call heaven and earth to witness. I beg you to bear with me. I say this, which is the truth of Christ. If God wills, I shall testify to the death to this truth in which the brothers are, and you could be too. He goes on, he says, I know what is motivating you. Money, or fleshly wisdom, or Zwingli's politics. Don't destroy yourself, I beg you. You may deceive men, but not God. Get out of the wealth game. Trust God, and be humble enough to be satisfied with little. Pull out of Zwingli's bloody party. Run from your own wisdom to God's. Be a fool to the world, but wise to him. Become like a little child, otherwise you cannot enter the kingdom of God. By my faith in Christ, by heaven and earth, and whatever they contain, I tell you sincerely that I have rebuked you here like this only out of love. I adjure you, through Christ, don't despise me as I warn you for him. Take it as a call to recover your wits. If you yield, I'll lay down my life for you. If you won't, I'll lay it down for my brothers. I'll testify in giving up my possessions and even my home, which is all I have, in prison, exile, or death, or in public writings, if God allows, and if I don't write, there will be others who will. You agree with our teaching? Zwingli disagrees. What are you waiting for? An excuse to reject it and even to persecute us? My dear Vadian, why don't you testify along with us? Why do you use the power of the state twisting the scriptures against us? Do you think we're crazy or demon possessed? We are ready to testify to the death, which it is evident Zwingli and others are preparing for us. The teaching of the Lord has been given for this purpose. The teaching of the Lord has been given for this purpose of being put into practice. Amen. What a letter. So Vadian got that letter. And again, that ethos, what if Jesus meant every word he said? The teachings of Jesus are meant for this purpose, to be put into practice. Hello, Vadian. All right. So he writes that scathing letter to his dear brother there, his dear friend there, to Vadian. And you have to wonder what his response was when he got that. So as he begins to go, he then begins to St. Gall. Vadian, unfortunately, starts to come against the brothers even more, begins to publish writings against it, and even writes the book against the baptizers. Zurich takes it as an opportunity. Remember, Zwingli knew Vadian also, comes in to St. Gall and demands that Zwingli's new book on baptism be read from the pulpit. We're gonna settle this debate here, and we're gonna stop this town from responding to this revival. When he was reading it out, somebody from the audience cried out, we wanna hear Conrad Grebel's view of this as well. But they did not hear his view of it. And so St. Gall, unfortunately, was stopped from this revival by this old friend of his, Vadian. But he still received that rebuking letter from Conrad Grebel. All right. On July 1525, Conrad headed for Gruningen, the very town that he grew up in from his second to his 13th year. He goes early Sunday morning to the city church and begins to preach. A large crowd shows up, all right, taking from his buddy, George Blaurock. Now Conrad Grebel gets to his old town. Remember, he knows this place. He probably remembers being in church and everything from his second to his 13th year he grew up in this town. So he's gonna go to his old town, so early in the morning, he runs into the church and begins to hold church service in the city square, I mean, in the church. And you know, you wonder sometimes, well, why'd you have to go in the church building? And again, it is a kind of a thinking. I even remember in John Wesley's journal when he was finally exhorted, he was kicked out of church and after church, he was exhorted by George Whitefield to when he started seeing George Whitefield preaching outside. And John Wesley writes in his journal, I didn't think a person could, how's he word it, receive Christ or be saved when the hearing of the scriptures unless it was done inside a church. Some of these mindsets have to be breaked and here's a type of mindset that had to be broken. But anyway, and also part of that, again, understanding that the local community has a right to call their pastors. I wonder if that had to do with it. The local minister got there after he was there preaching. He said, you know, what are you doing? And they got into a dispute on infant baptism and things kind of went there of a little type of debate. All right, we're now to October 1526. October 1526, Felix is arrested in Chur. When they were kicked out of the area and also if you look in your books again, the map is way over there. The evangelism was headed over there and Felix Mons was preaching way out there in the town of Chur. And is there an interesting letter that we have that's written by the person, the magistrate there in Chur and I don't know if they were part of the reformation as well, it seems like he's kind of confused about what's going on. And he wants to get rid of this Felix Mons and he writes this letter to Zurich saying, take him, I don't want him. And he says this in his letter that he sends along with him to Zurich. He says, for a long time, we have had among us one who calls himself Felix Mons. The same has created, I'm sorry and that was, I'm sorry, that's October 1525, isn't it? Yeah, I said 1526, it's October 1525 and your notes, change that on your notes there. All right, so he's in jail there. For a long time, we have had among us one who was called Felix Mons. The same has created much trouble and discord among our people by baptizing old people and corner preaching, amen, corner preaching to such an extent that we ordered him to leave the city. After this, he returned and did as before disregarding the public proclamation in the church forbidding adult baptism on penalty of death, loss of honor and loss of property. Therefore, we arrested him and held him a few days. But because he is an obstinate and reclutterant person, we released him from prison and because he is one of yours, we have sent him to you with the friendly request that you look after him and keep him in your territory so that we may rid of him and our people remain quiet and that in case of his return, we are not compelled to take severe measures against him. Isn't that hilarious? Take him and take care of him. We don't want him around here. It's a little insight on Felix Mons preaching. We don't quite have as many little writings about him, but apparently he was a fiery preacher as well and it says, I like that word corner preaching. So we see some of the spirit of the early Anabaptist there as well. All right, what happened on Sunday, October 1525? A big day in this event. Second Sunday in October, I was gonna look at when that exact date was, but the records say second Sunday in October, 1525, was a huge day. It starts off that George Blaurock takes over another church. And so I'm gonna read that to you. In 130 of Son of Zurich. So he liked this idea of talking to them there. All right, on the second Sunday of October, turns out to be a remarkable day, not only for the mayor of that area, but for George Blaurock, Conrad, and Felix Mons, who has just been released from the jail tower in the Lamont the day before. Now, I will say this. After he was sent back from Chur to Zurich, he got to Zurich and he did agree not to cause any trouble and not to baptize anyone, at least in Zurich. And so he must have made that agreement. There's not a lot of details on there. I tried to dig deeper. If there's any actually words that are recanted, I couldn't find them. But nevertheless, Felix Mons was released with that understanding. We can talk about that. And it was that tower prison right in the middle of the Lamont River. He had to promise not to baptize, but the next morning he was found. He found Conrad and Gruningen and goes with him to the open air meeting. Meanwhile, this mayor hears a report that a man in a blue coat with a black hair in a bald spot had boisterously taken over the pulpit in Henville Church by arriving before the pastor Brindvald. The mayor said, who was present, came to him. And as George Blaurock came in, he says, if this is the place to proclaim God's word, I am sent here by the father to proclaim it. And so the same thing happened that we see that these people are upset. There's another whole thing, a little argument that goes through these different things that happen and some powerful things, turn of event goes with this. Okay, sorry, grabbed my thoughts here. So the mayor gallops to Henville to get the deputy where they find the church filled with 200 people listening to George Blaurock. So when they get back, he gets the deputy and the whole church was filled with people listening to him preach. As they began to leave the building, the mayor enjoys them by an oath of loyalty to do their civil duty and to arrest George. So they're all coming out of the church. Now he goes, arrest him. And remember, part of the whole thing of oath, you had to say an oath of allegiance to your magistrate. He said, and he reminded them, you have an oath of allegiance, arrest him. They were like, we're not gonna arrest him. We like what he's saying. And nobody would arrest George Blaurock. Nobody would grab him. Young and old, the congregation crowds around George and don't arrest him. Well, finally, he gets some men and has him arrested and then starts to take him into jail. George, as he's there, George bursts into a song and the people jog along. The people are clamoring for a sermon. And when he sees that they will begin an unlawful assembly in the circle around the magistrate, he begs them not to cause trouble. So they got George. He's now heading out and he's singing and preaching as he's there on the, he's singing and preaching as he's there headed out to prison. Now, as he's there headed out to prison, another thing happened. Felix Montz and Conrad Grebel are on their way to go do some preaching that morning. And here this police with George Blaurock having him and he's preaching and praising. And all of a sudden, they see Conrad Grebel and Felix Montz. So he quickly goes to get some more people and they end up having them arrested too. And one day, the second Sunday in October of 1525, they're all arrested and put into jail. Would have been a powerful, powerful time. Actually, Felix Montz escapes for a while, but two weeks later, he's back with them. Conrad's arrested and they're held in prison and of all places in his old town of Gruningen. Now think about it. Conrad Grebel is there in the castle prison of Gruningen. He lived in this castle. He would have walked around as a young man, 13 years old, having his servants and everything. He lived in this castle and now in this very castle that his father was a magistrate, he's in the prison, sitting there. And while they're there, Zurich demands him, demands them as prisoners. But Gruningen said, no, we wanna have a debate. And so they end up talking him into a little bit of a debate there. But nevertheless, eventually, they get sent to Zurich and to have the debate there and put into prison. Finally, Blaurock, okay, where am I here? During that winter time in prison, that you see in the middle, I have it on page eight, Grebel eventually succeeded in preparing a brief defense of his position on the group on baptism in his reply to the arguments advanced by Zwingli. He had tried to do that before, but it was never done. So now he finally actually gets to do some writing like we were talking about. Unfortunately, we don't have a copy of that book. All right, so there is now another debate on what to do with these prisoners on November the 6th through 8th, a debate about baptism. And interesting, a little young monk who's just suddenly having a light turned on in his eyes by the name of Michael Sattler is there in town as well for this debate. And of course, we're gonna talk about him later this week. As they're there, as you can imagine how the thing went, they were, of course, accused and put into prison and being lenient, Zwingli said, I'm going to give you to life in prison with nothing but hard life, bread and water, cold rations, we're gonna send you to life in prison. And that's where they were. So two weeks later, they're there, they're in prison. And they mentioned that they noticed, one of the ones noticed that there's a looks up and the window and the top of the tower is open. And then the rope that they had brought them all in with to bring them into the prison was still laying there in the prison. So one of the guys said, one of the prisoners, Anabaptist prisoners said, well, let's get out of here. And first, Blaurock and Conrad Grebel were saying, no, we're just gonna stay here and die. But then eventually a guy put some wood together and got up there and got on the shelf. He said, we can get out of here. So they all got there, got the rope and got down and came down to the bridge. When they got down off the tower, they sat there and it's reported, they said, now what do we do? It was the middle of the night, remember there's a whole wall around Zurich. So it was an interesting thing to do. Now, and then surprisingly, the drawbridge was down. The window was open, a rope was there and the drawbridge was down. So they started running and as some of them who were starving to death were hungry, realized that the guy who had run the gate was actually one of his brothers. When the Anabaptists, his brother was the guy who runs the gate. And so they knock on this guy's door and go into his house and it's reported that his wife was scared to death and screamed or something. And they're in there and she starts giving him cheese and something to drink and all that. Well, and so, I mean, you just escaped from prison. They're sitting there eating cheese, this lady's screaming. Well, you can imagine what happened. A constable came out, heard all the racket and arrested these guys again. But fortunately, the experience of George Blaurock, Conrad Grebel and Felix Montz were, they knew what to do and they got out of town and they didn't stop for cheese and something to eat and they escaped. One of the interesting things in history, they quote when those guys were down there saying, now what do we do? One of them joked, hey, why don't we go over to the new world where the red Indians are or the red people are? And they were talking about America, of course, hundreds of years before it happened. All right, so that was November of that happened. So they went back to preaching right off again. And during this time now, what happened to Conrad Grebel? All right, so they're all back to preaching. Blaurock's preaching, Felix Montz is preaching. They're all going to different areas. But during this time, in the summer around July, July of 1526, Conrad Grebel then contracts the plague or some have suggested he was weakened. Also remember he had a lot of joint pain from his sinful life earlier on and all these things. But in July of 1526, he dies. We don't have any details of his death. We only have a report that someone else led a report and there he died out there on the mission field preaching and he eventually died of the plague, complicated probably by the diseases that he had in his life. Oh, yeah, I was gonna look that up. Something around 26 or so, 28. I'll try to get the exact date. But yeah, we could calculate that from his birthday, but a young man. Yeah, his wife ended up going back to the Reformed Church and the boys were raised in the Reformed Church. And one of them became a magistrate and one of them became, and actually this picture, Dean H.R. Grebel is the great, great, great, great, great, great grandson is now, when this little manuscript was given, was the new head of the Grossmunster Church. Irony, should have worked on his wife probably a little better, getting her, making sure she's, good question, Esther. Yeah, getting born again and that kind of thing. I mean, I feel sorry for the poor lady. I know, just my wife, what my wife is going through, for me just to be a faith builder for five weeks, you know, it's hard. And sometimes I've wondered, you know, John Wesley, should you have gotten married? Some of these guys, if you've got a passion and a zeal like that, we do have responsibilities to our wives and I don't know, it's certainly a question. The fruit of that is they went back to the Reformed Church, the children did. And I'm sure she was a total widow and they were broke anyway and so I'm sure Jacob just took care of them. Well, actually shortly later, Zwingli, after all this happened, Zwingli feeling all the tensions of the Catholic thing and remember I said how they felt, how Conrad Grebel felt guilty about accepting money to go to college? Zwingli stopped trusting Conrad's father and brought in that, that Jacob, you are receiving funds from the King of France, you're a traitor, and had him executed. Jacob's father was part of the magistrate, they're a defender of Zwingli and all that but now with Zwingli getting paranoid from everywhere, had Conrad's father executed. Interesting, under those terms, that he took that money to send Conrad to college. Okay, so now, he dies out there but people are continued to be preaching. But while they're out there in December of 1526, in a little area in the woods, in a secret meeting, they're arrested again and George Blaurock and Felix Mons is arrested and brought back to Zurich. Brought back to Zurich. When they're back to Zurich, they try, they retry them and of course, as we could imagine, the consequences of that wasn't very good. I have here on December 3rd, 1526, Mons and Blaurock were surprised at a meeting of the Brethren seized and taken to Zurich where they were placed in the Wellenberg prison, it was Mons' final imprisonment. And then they were resentenced on January 5th, 1527. And this was the proclamation that was said over them about Felix Mons. The proclamation. What are we gonna do with him? Because contrary to Christian order and custom, he had become involved in anabaptism, had accepted it, taught others, and became a leader and beginner of these things because he confessed having said that he wanted to gather those who wanted to accept Christ and follow him and unite him with them through baptism and let the rest live according to their faith so that he and his followers separated themselves from the Christian church and were about to rise up and prepare a sect of their own under the guise of a Christian meeting in church because he has condemned capital punishment. And in order to increase his following, had boasted of certain revelations from the Pauline epistles which he flatly denied. But since such doctrines is harmful to the unified usage of all Christendom and leads to offense, insurrection, and sedition against the government, to the shattering of the common peace, brotherly love, and civil cooperation, and to all evil, Mons shall be delivered to the executioner who shall tie his hands, put him into a boat, take him to the lower hut, there strip him, bound hands down over his knees, placed a stick between his knees and arms, and thus pushed into the water and let him perish in the water. Thereby he shall have atoned to the law and justice. His property shall also be confiscated by my lords. His sentence. The final scene. Remember his mother was converted. They were meeting there. The Wellenberg prison, if you look at it, I'll show you a picture when I finally get my computers going. It's a tower right there in the middle of the Lamont. And when I was just in Zurich this summer, one of the things that you notice when you're there is the water is crystal clear. I mean, crystal clear. You could see like a Coke bottles that were under there or a bike I saw that was under there. The water, they get the water from the Alps that come from the Alps there and it flows into this area and it's crystal clear. Bollinger was one of those ministers that was trying to talk him out of it. Say, just give this up, repent of this. And they were trying to beg him to change his mind, but he wouldn't. As they took him from the prison and marched him along the street in chains or however they had him, they brought him to his, he came across his mother and a group of the Anabaptists. And remember all the people that recanted. Think of the people that recanted in St. Gall, the people in Zolokon, the next town over recanted. And how so many people at the last moment recanted, but at the last minute his mother said, be faithful unto death. His mother said, be faithful unto death. And told him to keep going on and don't give up at this last moment. So as it says there in the, I think it's in the Martyr's Mirror account, as he stood there with the depths of the Lake Zurich below him and the blue sky over him, and the mountains with their snowy peaks and the sunshine around him, his soul in the face of death looked out above these as preachers at the side spoke sympathetically to him, encouraging him to be converted. I think one was Bullinger. He hardly heard him, but when he perceived his mother voice on the opposite bank together with his brothers admonishing him to be steadfast, he sung with a loud voice while he was being bound in Latin, into thy hands, I commend thy spirit. And the waves closed over his head. And he was buried in that crystal clear water of the Lamont River. One of the songs in the Osbund that are sung about him sing out, in German it's, mit Lutz so will ich singen. And the translation though, I've heard people tell me gladness does not nearly get to the word for lust. That's the German word. It's like with great desire. I don't know if all German speakers can help me. But what's that? Passion, yeah, with passion. With gladness will I now sing my heart delights in God who showed me such forbearance that I from death was saved which never hath an end. I praise thee Christ in heaven who all my sorrow changed. See, apparently he wrote from prison. It's in the Osbund. Wow. The next day they took George Blaurock and read his sentence. George Blaurock was not a citizen of Zurich and they were surprisingly lenient on him. George Blaurock, who as a true instigator and chief agent of Anabaptism has previously been held in the dungeon of Milords and in hope of future improvement and that he would cease his erroneous plans of Anabaptism was graciously released. Since his mere word was accepted without an oath as he wished it, yet he disregarded this and though it was told him in clear words that if he ever returned into the realm and territory of our Lords, he'd receive the penalty he deserved. He has nevertheless come back and even though he says he is not baptized since then, he has accused the preachers of doing violence to and falsifying scripture in spite of the disputations. Whereas re-baptism is altogether in opposition to and prejudicial to the scriptures as well as the common good usage, which has been preserved unanimously throughout all Christendom and re-baptism has thus far created only offense and insurrection. He should for this seditious character meeting in mobs and misconduct against Christian government and Christian authority be mercifully sentenced thus. The executioner shall be ordered to remove his clothing to his waist, tie his hands and then beat with rods from the fish market down to the gate at Nierdorf. He is then to be banished under oath to penalty for return being death by drowning. They did that, they stripped him, they beat him all the way to the end and they got him finally to the end and when they were at the gate, they said, all right then, swear an oath that you'll never return. I can't do it, I can't swear. And finally said, okay, back to prison with you. As they were dragging back to prison, he did affirm, he said, and he finally said, all right then, whether this is right or wrong, all right then. And then he took his shoe off, he took his shoe off and dust the dust off his feet and said, I'll never return to this place. And he left and George Blaurock was left and from there, he goes on to Tyrol, which later, a few years later, preaching in that area that's way there to the east, closer to the Moravian area and while he's over there, he's finally caught by the Catholics and he is burned at the stake. And so, this is the birth of Anabaptism. It's something that still to this day, I would like to not just look at it as Anabaptism, but as a birth of a people who truly wanted to put the words of Jesus Christ into action. I think on that quote, Calvin Grebel, the words of Jesus are meant to be put into practice. I think of the quote of Zwingli, Grebel continues in his stand. I think of the word that Grebel gave to Vadian where he says, I, oh, let me give you the exact wording there. I believe, how is it worded? In a simple, I have it highlighted. What page was that? Yeah, read that to me. Lucas, amen. I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation and out of this belief, I speak. If you combine that with the teachings of the Lord that have been given for the purpose of being put into practice. What if Jesus really meant every word he said? Let's pray. Oh, dear Heavenly Father, we hear the zeal of these young men. We think of how they gave up so much of their lives and to just follow you with everything they had. Oh God, we think of our own lives. I think of my life and how easy it is and God, I pray that you would let your word shine in our hearts, that we would take this example and be rebuked by it to look at your word and see ways in which we are compromising like Vadian compromised and not putting your words into practice. Oh God, let that same Holy Spirit inspire our zeal to be able to burn our lives as burning and shining lights for your glory in our time here on earth that you've given us. Thank you for this witness. Thank you for this example. And we ask you to do it in our life again, Lord. It's in Jesus name we pray, amen.