The Anabaptists：True Followers of Christ

Lord, we come to you in the name of Jesus, and we just want to thank you for gathering us here. Thank you for each person that's made an effort to be here, and we pray that your spirit would just be with us now as we spend the time we've already had together. Pray that you would just remind us of those things and the hour or so we have left.

I pray that we would learn what you have us to learn, and I pray for my brother Jeremy that you'd anoint him. And Lord, we also want to lift up these situations that we heard about, these abuse allegations, Daryl Sensenig and family. We also just want to lift up these people that are grieving.

The Stahl family, the wife and children that were left behind, the grief that they're suffering on three different fronts, the Stahlsfuss family in Pennsylvania, and the church there as well. I just pray, God, that you would guide and somehow bring comfort and somehow bring supernatural peace to people that are struggling in those cases. Lord, these are the things we talked about as well, things that are just overwhelming to us.

We don't know how to deal with them. I think of Caleb and his neck injury that you grant healing there, and Lord, I'm sure there's many other things that we could pray about, talk about, but we bring them to you and say, Lord, may you bring peace to this world, peace to Ukraine and Gaza, peace to Haiti and North Korea. All around the world, there's suffering, but Lord, here we have a measure of stability, and we're thankful for that.

And we pray that you would help us use it to be channels of your love and your power, maybe resources to people who have needs around us. So Lord, once again, we just commit the rest of this time to you. I pray again for my brother Jeremy, and as he preaches and those of us that will be listening, I pray that you'd build your kingdom.

May your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You can be seated.

God bless you. Thank you. Last week, we started a sermon, and I don't know, it's turned into a series, and we'll probably continue, but not next week.

We'll take a break for a while, but I titled the sermon last week, The Anabaptists Neither Catholic Nor Protestant, and we looked at the early church, we looked at the Middle Ages, we looked at Constantine in the Middle Ages and the Holy Roman Empire, and what brought us up to the Anabaptist movement, and I'd like to continue on that. I did title it a little bit different this morning. I called it, The Anabaptist True Followers of Christ.

I asked Brother Bob to read that verse, which said, if I can find it here, John 8, 31, Then Jesus said to those which believed, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed, or you are truly my disciples. You can sit here this morning and say that you believe, but James says even the devils believe. It's not enough just to believe, and the Anabaptists believe that to the core, and so that's why I labeled it, The True Followers of Christ.

We talked about last week how up to the 1500s, there was social unrest. A lot of the people were peasants. We even talked about 80% of the peasants were serfs, and serfs were people who had no rights.

They were bound to the land. They didn't have a right to even get married without asking. They had to ask to go get firewood out of the forest, and they had to give a lot of their income and the food they produced to their lords and nobles over them.

There were these peasant wars going on because of that, and they even came out with 12 articles that they presented to the nobility. They wanted to choose their own preachers. They wanted an end to serfdom, which is the serfs, like I was talking.

They wanted freedom to fish and hunt. They wanted freedom to collect wood from the forest, and they wanted the nobles to reduce the excessive labor. They wanted access to the common fields, and they wanted the inheritance tax abolished because they saw widows starving without money because after their spouse would die, they wouldn't have the money.

These were the 12 things they wanted, but they were crushed even by the reformers. You can imagine this scene of poverty, of excessive lordship over them. Not only that, but the Turks, the Muslims, the Arabs, they were coming up and performing raids into the Holy Roman Empire and killing people.

Here are these Anabaptists who most of them taught, we shouldn't take up the sword. We shouldn't kill our enemy. We should love our enemy, as we talked about in Sunday school.

You can imagine the nobility and the people who were watching their spouses and their children being killed by these ruthless Turks, and then the Anabaptists said, we won't fight. We won't protect. You can even see it back here, back in the World War when Nazi Germany was fighting and the Mennonites still at that time spoke in German.

I think even down in Harrisburg, something happened down there. What did they do, Tim? Did they? Yeah, they burned the church building down. They thought they were German, and so they were sympathizing with the Germans, and because they wouldn't fight, they took it for the wrong reasons.

So out of all of that, we had also the printing press, the Gutenberg printing press, and over six million pamphlets being distributed in a ten-year period. All of this was happening at one time, and enlightenment, awakening was happening. Bibles were being printed in their own language.

Up to this point, it had been spoken in Latin and things they didn't understand. So these two men, Conrad Grebel and Felix Mons, we talked about this last week, they were studying at the Grossminster. There was a little school that Zwingli was setting up for them to study the Bible, and they were doing that.

Anybody want to guess how old they were? How old do you think these two men were? 20? Okay, good guess. 70? No. They were 27, both of them.

Young men, really. Think about it. If you're close to that age, that's who you would be, that you would be standing up against this system and against the nobility and against kings at 27 years old.

Conrad Grebel was a son of an influential member of the Council of Zurich, so he was the son of a politician. Think about that. He had a future.

He had, you know, if he would have stayed in line with his dad, he would have gone somewhere with his life. Felix Mons, almost the exact opposite. He was the son, he was the illegitimate son of a canon priest.

Now if you remember in the Catholic Church, priests were not supposed to be married, they were supposed to be celibate, so obviously the priest had done something wrong behind closed doors and had a son. Felix Mons was the illegitimate son of a canon priest. Later in 1524, George Blarock, how old do you think he was? What's that? 31.

He was 33. He joined their ranks. You know his name wasn't Blarock.

That was a nickname given to him. It meant blue coat. So when he came in, he had a blue coat on and he got nicknamed that and so that's what stuck.

George Blue Coat. He had a different name for his real name. So during this time, these three men were studying the Bible, they were teaching, they were influencing people and the Zurich council saw that their teaching is very divisive.

And they wanted a public meeting to hear these arguments. And after several meetings, they sided with, not with the three guys, they sided with Zwingli, the original reformer there in Zurich. And they forbade him that these three men needed to stop teaching their heresy.

They said if you don't stop, well they told him that they had to stop or they'd be banished out of the canton and they said within eight days, all of your unbaptized babies need to be baptized. Because in their minds, baptism was a citizenship thing. It was, it was like social security for us.

It was a legal status. So they had eight days to think about what are they going to do? What would you do if you were in their shoes? Now I want to stop for a minute. Why are we even talking about this? Somebody asked me last week, why don't we look at Anabaptists, why don't we look at anybody else? Well, first of all, we call ourselves an Anabaptist church.

So why are we Anabaptists? That's one thing I would like to know. Number two, I'd like these men to, to not only encourage but maybe even bring some conviction into our hearts. Are we walking like what this group started out? Are we like the early Anabaptists? Do we have that same zeal and heart that they had? And so these three men, three days after they received this sentence that they had to follow, were meeting up in, it was Felix Mons, no, George Block, no, sorry, got it wrong, Felix Mons' home.

They were up there meeting and they were discussing, what are we going to do? Should we listen? Should we not listen? What should we do? And as they were discussing, George fell on his knees and he cried out, should we listen? And he said, somebody baptize me. And someone walked over and baptized him and then he stood up and he baptized the other 15 of them in the room. And then they went and they ordained each other to go out and preach the gospel, the start of a church, a grassroots movement.

I want to read you, this comes out of the Hutterite, Chronicles of the Hutterite Brethren, and this is explaining what happened that day. One day when they were meeting, fear came over them and 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 well aware of what they would have to suffer.

They weren't making this decision lightly. As they sat there and decided to baptize each other, they knew it was going to cost them their lives. We sang that song this morning, if any man would follow me, let him take up his cross, deny himself.

They knew that. After the prayer, George Blarock 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 the time there was no appointed servant of the word.

Then the others turned to George in their turn asking him to baptize them, which he did. And so great, in great, what does it say, 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.

This was the beginning of separation from the world and its evil ways. The beginning of separation. This was the beginning, like we talked last week, of a voluntary church who said, you know, it's no longer going to be a state church where you just had to go to this church because you were German.

Or if you're in this canton, you had to go to this church because you're a Catholic. Because that's just what you were told to do. It was a voluntary church, not only a voluntary church, it was a separated church.

They did it out of the fear of God. They wanted to follow their conscience. Did you know the average lifespan of an Anabaptist who was ordained was two years? Once he was ordained, he probably had two years to live.

It was very rare for any one of them to live and die as an old man. We'll see how this works. During this time, they hired Anabaptist hunters.

This comes right out of a records book of Zurich. Henry Bollinger, I think his name was, he came after Zwingli and he kept records. It's amazing, page after page of just text of records of what happened in Zurich and he would draw pictures of what was happening.

They hired 400 horsemen to go around and patrol the canton for itinerant preachers. For people that were out in these caves and rocks and having these meetings. It's so hard to see this picture, but you can see these people down here hiding behind trees and they're getting captured.

They're running and horses and people in the back. It shows the dismay and the fear that they lived under. Thank you.

Yeah, now can you turn it back on now? Everybody see it? Good. You can just stay there if you want. I have a couple more here.

In October 1525, Conrad was the first to be arrested, but he was released a few months later. And he, probably because he was nobility, but he continued to preach. He continued to go out and baptize and later he actually died of the plague.

Then Felix Mons was arrested several times and he escaped. In late 1526, while preaching with Blarock, they were both captured by surprise. They were taken to the Grossmunster.

This is also in that book that I was telling you about. What an amazing thing somebody did. They were taken to the Grossmunster and they said that they wanted to hear them.

They say that Michael Sattler was probably in this meeting. It was the last and final debate. They said over a thousand people showed up to hear this debate of the Anabaptists.

And so they questioned Felix Mons. I would guess they questioned George Blarock too. And it was more of a formality when they were, after they were done with the debate, you can turn it back on now, they tried and sentenced to the witch tower for life.

They said, you'll stay in there for life. And you know, it's crazy. These Anabaptists, they put them in these towers and they would let them rot.

I read one account where all of his clothes rotted off except for the collar of his shirt. Can you imagine? Would you stay strong? Would you stay strong? And then they have people like Zwingli coming in and trying to refute your doctrine, refute you by using scripture, trying to get you to recant. I read one article where they took a man and a woman and they put them in the same room and they chained their feet together trying to get them to fall in a fornication.

An Anabaptist man and an Anabaptist woman who had been without and chained up. And now they put them in the same room. The things they tried to do to get you to recant, they took them up and they put them in this witch tower.

And they said that he can only have bread and mush and water until they died there. But somehow they escaped. Thirteen men and seven women escaped.

Now, if you had escaped, you know, that close to death, what would you do? Would you go back to preaching and baptizing? But they did. They went back to preaching and baptizing. At some point, Zurg passed a death penalty law.

Anyone who was baptized outside of the state church and they were captured again. And after that, they were sentenced to death by drowning. Let me just quickly read you what Bollinger would say about the Anabaptists.

Henry Bollinger, the guy who drew these pictures, he was an opponent to them. He said this, Did you hear that? It didn't just say repentance. It said newness of life.

And that's something the Anabaptists focused heavily on. We're going to look, hopefully, at the Sleinheim Confession. And you'll notice it says repentance and amendment of life, which means your life has changed.

You're a different person. You have a new heart. It's not just about one time in the past.

He said a newness of life. They henceforth lead their lives under a semblance of a quiet spiritual conduct. They denounce covetousness, pride, profanity, the lewd conversation, and immorality of the world, drinking and gluttony.

Now listen to the statement after all that. In short, their hypocrisy is great and manifold. How would you like to say when people see you living such a holy life, they would say, man, you must be a really good hypocrite because there's just no way you could live that holy.

That's what they said of the Anabaptists. In fact, they said at one point, they brought a guy on to trial and they said they think he's an Anabaptist. But then somebody brought up that he lied at one point.

Oh, then he can't be an Anabaptist. You know, he lied. Here's another one.

The preachers of the canton of Bern admitted in a letter to the council of Bern in 1532, the Anabaptists have the semblance of outward piety to a far greater degree than we and all the churches which unitedly with us confess Christ. And they avoid offensive sins, which are very common among us. They're saying somehow these Anabaptists live a whole lot more holy than we have seemed to do in our churches.

So after they arrested Felix Mohn, they sentenced him to death. This is also from Henry Bollinger's book with all the, I couldn't read German, but all the words around it. Does anybody want to turn off the light now? So what you see here is they took him out on the river.

I think it was the Lyman River. Did you go there, Austin? You did. And they lined up on both sides of the river.

This here is a fishing dock. They went out onto that dock. They took preachers with them.

Let me read you what it says happened. At three o'clock in the cold, fading light of a winter afternoon, Felix Mohn was led from the prison cell and taken to the edge of the Lyman River. His hands and feet were bound and his hands were pulled over his knees to restrain him in a fetal position.

Mohn's brother and his mother encouraged him to stand firm and suffer for Jesus' sake. The people of Zurich crowded along both sides of the Lyman to follow the scene playing out in the middle of the river. Felix Mohn's, his hands and feet bound, crouched down on the deck of the fisherman's cottage and sang a full-throated rendition of the psalm, Into Thy Hands I Commit My Spirit.

From a skiff, a preacher lectured him verbosely while the executioner pulled with all of his might on the rope he had tied around the neck of the condemned man. Desperate cries rang out across the water. They were from Mohn's mother, who was now an Anabaptist.

She called to him from the bank, telling him to remain steadfast in the faith. His last words were, Into Thy Hands I Commit My Spirit. You can turn it back on.

What a strong, spiritually strong man. George Blaurock, who had also been captured, was not a citizen of that state or canton, so they could not execute him. So what they did is they stripped him to his waist from his clothes, and then they encouraged all of the citizens of that area to chase him out and beat him with whips, with chains, with rods as he fled out of the canton.

And he was severely beaten. Now what do you think he did after that? Think he maybe found a nice retirement place? No, he continued to preach. He continued to baptize because he believed in what his message was.

Two years later, they captured him and they burned him to death. Listen to this. This is Hans de Ries.

This isn't a description of what an Anabaptist's life was like. We could come together only under danger of life. The zeal for the cause of the Lord was such that, nevertheless, that often we came together.

I was reading some of their early confessions and they said, this was a confession or an agreement, a brotherly agreement. They said, we will get together at least three to four times a week. Do we enjoy that? Do we enjoy getting together that much? Listen to what they said here.

They said, we met at nighttime, under adverse weather conditions, in corners, in fields, in caves and woods. How precious was that time, the opportunity to spend an hour for a mutual edification, strengthening each other in the most holy faith. One hour was so precious to them just to be together.

And they did it whenever they could. They got together, it says, in caves. And at nighttime.

And in the woods. And in fields. During this time, the term Anabaptist, we think of Anabaptist today and we think of certain things.

But at the time, it was kind of a loose term. There were some wild ones over here. Some of them were a little bit crazy.

They, well, some of them believed in the prophetic. And they made some prophecies that Jesus was going to come back the next year. Some of them even got crazy enough to take over a town and make it said it was the new Jerusalem.

And one of them kinged themselves as King David and took on a bunch of wives. Some crazy stuff. I mean, there was some Anabaptists that were a little strange.

Some of them emphasized the moving of the spirit instead of the literal interpretation of the word. So there was a need in that time for the Anabaptists to bring clarity to decide what do they believe as a whole. Are we going to be these loose cannons over here? Or what are we going to believe? And so one month after Felix Mons died, Anabaptist leaders from Germany, from Switzerland, and from Austria came together on a little border town called Slyheim.

And they decided for a meeting. Now, this was dangerous because think about they were hunted. We saw the Anabaptist hunters, they were called.

And if this meeting was found out, you would most surely be put to death. They came together. A man named Michael Sattler presided over them.

And their purpose was to decide what do they believe? What is an Anabaptist? What do we believe? What's amazing about this time when they got together, what they came up with was approved without a dissenting voice, I read. Do you know what that means? It means they got together. They tried to decide what they believed.

And when they were all said and done, no one said to them, no one raised their hands and said, well, I don't really agree with that. They all were in unity. What an amazing concept of brotherhood.

Copies of this thing they called the Slyheim Confession were distributed. Here's a picture of it. This is a picture of it printed in 1550.

And it looks like a big book, right? But I saw another picture and the fingernails were holding it like this. So it looked like it was a very small book. Did you happen to see this when you're in Switzerland at all? No, some museum over there.

This one was printed in 1550. Right across the top, it says brotherly union. You can see Michael Sattler here.

And then it's brotherly union of the children of God concerning seven articles. You can turn it back on. And so they came together.

These copies of this Slyheim Confession were distributed throughout the Anabaptist communities. It was the first known confession of faith of the Anabaptists. The first gathering and putting together a document that we know about of what they believed.

It was so important that both Luther... By the way, I thought it was kind of funny. We sang the song this morning of all the things. Almighty, fortress.

That's Luther. Did you know it says though they kill the body in Satan? I'm trying to remember the words. I turned to my wife.

I said an Anabaptist should have read this. I mean, Luther never died of being persecuted and bodies killed and all that. He was killing Anabaptists.

And so was Wingly. Like, man. But anyway, after you read some of this history, and then you come to church meeting and sing Martin Luther's song in an Anabaptist church is just kind of strange.

But anyway, good words. Good theology, right? But it was wrongly applied. Killing Christians in the name of God.

And so Luther and Zwingli both and Calvin wrote... Sorry, Zwingli and Calvin and Luther wrote against Anabaptism. And Calvin and Zwingli wrote against the Sleightheim Confession. Now, the Sleightheim Confession does not try to define the whole gospel.

It only talks about where we're different than what else is called out there. Protestants or Catholicism. Where we believe differently.

Like I said, it was outlined as the brotherly union. John Howard Yoder, which I don't... He was some historian back in the early 1900s said it was a theological landmark. A crystallization point of the Anabaptist.

He said the guys that I was talking about, the little bit odd ones that believe this and that died out, he says by the 1530s. And he goes on to say, but the ones that stood on this, the Sleightheim Confession are still around to this day. Most Anabaptist groups today still go back and conclude this as the first confession.

And then there were more past that. But the Sleightheim Confession, Donald Martin wrote in a book I was reading that the radical branches of the movement died out in about 25 years. They weren't around anymore.

The ones that were focusing on prophecies and ecstatic visions and all of that that I was telling you about. And so this Sleightheim Confession, let's just look at it together. This is the cover letter.

I only picked out some of the things that were interesting to me. I did not take it all. But as you see there, it's the brotherly union of a number of children of God concerning seven articles.

It says, as far as we're concerned, we have been united. So they were coming together. They approved this when they were done with their meeting.

They were united as obedient children as compared to disobedient children. And they said they've been and shall be separated from the world in all that we do. But then they go on to say that there's a very great offense among them.

And it's been introduced by false brothers. So one of the purposes for this gathering wasn't just to define what they believe, but to define what they found was false brothers. And they go on and they talk about these false brothers.

They've turned away from the faith, thinking to practice and observe the freedom of the Spirit and of Christ. But they've fallen short of the truth. They've given over to lasciviousness and license of the flesh.

And they've esteemed that faith and love may do and permit everything. And that nothing can harm or condemn them since they are believers. Do we still hear that today? That same thing.

That nothing, as long as you have faith, nothing will harm you or condemn you because you're a believer. But we read the verse. Jesus said to those who believe, if you continue in my word, then you are my disciples.

The Anabaptists felt that was false teaching. And then he goes on. That faith does not take such a form.

It does not produce and result in such things as these false brothers and sisters do and teach. Guard yourselves. Be warned of such people, for they do not serve our Father, but they serve the Father, the devil.

And he goes on and he says, separate yourselves from them, for they are perverted. What do they have to say? What did these early followers of Christ, who were willing to die like we read, have to say? Well, the first thing they felt was important, as we've already talked last week, was baptism. They felt that baptism should be given to those who have learned repentance and like I mentioned earlier, an amendment of life.

And that is all throughout their writings. They changed life. Who believe their sins are taken away by Christ and who wish to be buried in death.

So they believed in a voluntary baptism. And a baptism to people who have learned, who have found repentance and a changed life. Then they go on right after baptism to talk about excommunication.

Now I want to say this. Discipline in the Anabaptist Church was important to them. And sometimes we look at that and we don't like that subject.

But it's important to them and it's still important to Anabaptists today. I was talking to my wife. Here.

I was talking to my wife. And I was telling her, I don't remember ever once growing up in the Baptist Church of hearing somebody being excommunicated. Ever.

Do you remember anybody ever being excommunicated, Bob? In all the Protestant churches you were in? Okay, yeah. And so this was something Paul taught about and something the Anabaptist felt was very wide or neglected. You can turn it off or if it's bright enough.

But those who have been given themselves to the Lord. So these are brothers and sisters in your congregation. They've given themselves to the Lord and they walk in his commandments and are called a brother or sister.

If they slip and fall into the air of sin, they should be admonished twice in secret. And the third time they should be openly disciplined or banned according to the command of Christ. And this is the reason.

So that we may break and eat one bread with one mind and in one love. They saw themselves as a community, as one loaf of bread. And if they would allow sin to just stay in the church, it would become corrupted and corrupted and corrupted.

And it would no longer be the one bread. It would no longer be the true community of God. And so they came out of a system and they wanted to keep their church pure.

And they had the authority of the scripture of Paul telling them to do that. The next line was on communion. And they said this, all who partake shall be united beforehand by baptism.

So you have to first meet the requirements of baptism, amendment of life. And then they talk about we cannot partake with those who fellowship the dead works of darkness. The church cannot be made into one bread with them.

They were very concerned about that one bread concept. The next section was on separation. The idea of coming out from among them and being separate.

They said a separation shall be made from the evil and from the wicked, which the devil planted in the world. We shall not have fellowship with them. Since all who do not walk in the obedience of faith, the command of the Lord is clear.

He calls on us to be separate from the evil. Now they even get into the specifics of what separation looks like. By this is meant all popish or Catholic and anti-popish or Protestants, works and church services, meetings and church attendance, drinking houses, civic affairs.

Therefore, there will also unquestionably fall from us the unchristian devilish weapons of force, such as the sword, armor and the like, and all of their use either for friend or against one enemies. The word of Christ says, resist not evil. And so they believe that they needed to come out of the world, but they didn't define the world as just the community out there.

They even define the world as the Protestants and the Catholics, because the Protestants held a doctrine that said they didn't need to obey Christ in daily living. And they saw that as very important. They move on to the role of pastors.

And I'll just make this one quick, but he should be of a good report. He should read and admonish and teach, warn, discipline, ban, lead out in prayer, lift the bread for communion, take care of the body. He should be supported by the church.

But if he does something in sin, if he is in sin, by the testimony of two or three witnesses, they should discipline him before all so that others would fear. And then this last line, if they were killed or they were banished because of the cross, in the same hour, they needed to be replaced. That was something important for them to have a pastor in their congregation.

And so as soon as one was killed, they were immediately reordaining another one. Another thing they were united about was the idea of the sword, the next line. They say the sword is ordained of God outside of the perfection of Christ.

What an amazing way to say that. It's not that the sword is evil. It's just outside of the perfection of Christ.

It's not what Christians do. It punishes and puts to death the wicked and it guards and protects the good. But in the perfection of Christ, only the ban is used for warning and for excommunication of the one who has sinned without putting the flesh to death.

Then they go on to say, well, what about these questions? What about protecting, you know, for the sake of love or my neighbor or my children or my wife? We unanimously reply, Christ teaches us to learn of him for he is meek and lowly. Well, should a Christian go to jury duty? Unite an answer about passing sentences in this world. Christ did not wish to decide or pass judgment between brothers and brothers in the case of the inheritance, but refused to do so.

We should do likewise. Well, can a Christian be a king or a politician? They wish to make Christ king, but he fled and did not view it as the arrangement of his father. Thus, we shall do as he did and follow him.

You can see their goal was to be like Christ, to imitate Christ. A couple more questions. Also, Christ forbids the employment of the force of the sword.

He says this, the worldly princes lord it over them, but not it shall not be so with you. Peter says Christ has suffered and left us an example that you should follow in his steps. And then they go on to talk about that the government is of the flesh, but the Christian is of the spirit.

The Christian's art citizenship is in heaven, not in the world. And they continue. And then at the very end, they bring up the oath and they make it very simple.

Christ prohibits all swearing of oaths. Jesus said, swear not at all. These were important things to them.

You can turn it back on, Trevor. These were important things to the Anabaptists that they would follow Jesus and his commands, especially the Sermon on the Mount. I'm trying to decide if I should talk about Michael Sattler, if I will have time, if not, I'll have to save it for a future sermon.

I might can. Michael Sattler was at this meeting. He chaired this thing.

They came in union. They all agreed. He left the meeting and he went home.

And I think it was three months later, they captured him and his wife. And they also captured some others with them. Nine men and eight women.

Michael Sattler had some things to say before this. He said that we should be aware of the scribes and the Pharisees. He said, Jesus said, beware of the scribes and Pharisees.

He said the scribes and the Pharisees were like in his day, the Pharisees were like the Catholics, he said, who did everything to be justified by the works of the law. And we need to be very careful of that. But then he said the scribes were like the Protestants in his day, who had lots of good things to say, lots of good books to write.

And preached magnificent sermons and profess salvation, but it didn't penetrate their hearts. The things they confessed and knew about the book, the Bible of their time, the scribes, it didn't penetrate their hearts. And so Michael Sattler said we need to be aware of both.

One that professes great things, but doesn't have it in reality. And one that tries to be justified by the law, which was representative of the Catholic Church. The Catholic system, they were both captured and they were taken to trial.

And at the trial, they tried to make him, they tried to bring him out and turn the people against him. And he had said something at some point before, that he didn't believe fighting was right, but if he had to fight, if he had to war, he'd rather war with the Turks, with the Muslims, than war with the Christians. And boy, did they have something well to use on him.

So they used that in his trial. They brought it up, said, didn't you say this? You said you'd rather fight with the Muslims. Well, remember, remember if Muslims were overrunning our country right now, and you were an Anabaptist, you're a Mennonite, and you were saying, oh, I don't, we don't fight.

And then you made that comment. Oh, I'd rather fight with the Muslims against all you. That's what he said.

And so they asked him about it on May 15, 1527. And this is what he said. He said, if I were right, I would rather take the side against so-called Christians who persecute, capture and kill pious Christians than against the Turks.

And he said, for this reason, the Turk is a true Turk. He knows nothing of the Christian faith. He's just a Turk of the flesh.

But then he says this, but you who call yourselves Christians and who make your boast of Christ, persecute the pious witnesses of Christ are Turks of the spirit. They said that the room was just ecstatic. And one person was just vehement by that comment.

And they were yelling and the town clerk said, oh, you infamous, desperate rascal of a monk. Shall we dispute with you? The hangman shall dispute with you, I assure you. And this is what Sattler said.

God's will be done. The clerk, it would be better if you'd never been born. Sattler, God knows what is best.

The clerk, you arch heretic, you have seduced the pious. If only they would forsake their error and accept grace. Sattler, grace belongs to God alone.

The clerk, you desperate villain and arch heretic. I tell you, if there were no hangman here, I would hang you myself and think that I had done God a service. Sattler, God will judge rightly.

You know, it reminds me of the verse where Jesus said, don't think about the things you will say when you stand before. He will give you the words to say. And like Jesus stood before them like a sheep.

Michael Sattler said things that were right and of the Holy Spirit. And so they gave him the sentence, Michael Sattler shall be committed to the hangman who shall take him to the square and first there cut out his tongue and then chain him to a wagon, tear his body twice with hot tongs and five times more before the gate, then burn his body to ashes as an arch heretic. I have a picture somewhere in this mess of slides.

I don't know where I put it now. Oh, here it is. This is not the exact rendition of Michael Sattler, but it's in the martyr's mirror.

But it is how they would do it. As you see in this picture, they'd put him up on a ladder, tie him to it and then push the ladder over into the fire. And they would, for Michael Sattler, they tied a bag of gunpowder over his neck.

I read of another Anabaptist. They put the gunpowder in his beard and sulfur and smeared it in. The things they did and they called themselves Christians.

Okay, you can turn it back on. A Catholic wrote, among the existing heretical sects, there is none which in appearance leads a more modest or pious life than the Anabaptists. As concerns their outward public life, they are irreproachable.

No lying, deception, swearing, strife, harsh language. No intemperate eating. Did you hear that? No intemperate eating or drinking.

No outward personal display is found among them. There was no pride in their clothes, in the way they dressed. But humility, patience, uprightness, neatness, honesty, temperance, straightforwardness and such measures.

Now listen what he says. That you would suppose that they have the Holy Spirit of God. You would suppose it because of all the pious life they have.

But they just can't. I have some closing comments I want to make. This is from a book I was reading, Donald Martin.

He said this. The Anabaptists, their primary emphasis was the gospel. And they incorporated the rest of the Bible by their interpretation of Jesus' words.

And especially the Sermon on the Mount. They drew heavily upon the concept of discipleship and service. The Protestant Reformers reversed the emphasis.

They drew their emphasis mainly from Paul's writings. And they made a big deal about justification by faith. The Reformers separated salvation from Christian living.

The Anabaptists bound salvation with Christian living and the church together. As they build their faith upon the Sermon on the Mount. In Anabaptism, salvation and Christian living are one.

Salvation without Christian living is nothing. And Christian living without salvation or the Holy Spirit is nothing. You can leave it off.

You know, Luther regretted very much that no amendment of life was in evidence. In his church, in the Lutheran church, he regretted. He wrote how their people did not have amendment of life.

They were not changed from the inside out. Harold Bender wrote, between 1522 and 1527, Luther repeatedly mentioned his concern to establish a true church. And his desire to provide for earnest Christians who would confess the gospel with lives as well as with their tongues.

He even thought of creating a little book and putting people's names in that book. That would meet separately from mass of nominal Christians. But he concluded this.

He would not have sufficient of such people. So he dropped the plan. Luther, in his later years, expressed disappointment.

The final outcome of the Reformation, stating that the people had become more and more indifferent toward religion. And the moral outlook was more deplorable than ever. His last years were embittered by the consciousness of partial failure and expression of dejection is well known.

Much different than the dying Anabaptists who died as they burnt at the stake. And as they died by drowning, they called it death. By baptism.

Much different. Their conscience was free. And they knew they had Christ.

Harold Bender, he said this. Christianity, as discipleship, was the transformation of the entire way of life. Of the individual believer so that it should be fashioned after the teaching and example of Christ.

The Anabaptists could not understand. This was unheard to them of a Christianity which made regeneration, holiness, and love primarily a matter of intellect, of doctrinal belief, or of an experience. In other words, the ideas of following Jesus just being sermons, and the ideas of following Jesus and loving others just being intellect or books are great things.

To the Anabaptists, it needed to be a reality in their life. They demanded an outward expression of the inner experience. Repentance must be evidenced by newness of behavior.

The whole life was to be brought literally under the Lordship of Christ in a covenant of discipleship. The focus of the Christian life was to be not so much the inward experience, like the Lutherans taught. Oh, let's just enjoy the grace of God inside us, the salvation of God that's going to take us to heaven.

But the outward application of that grace to all human conduct. The true test of the Christian they held is discipleship. The great word of the Anabaptists, this German word right here, the great word of the Anabaptists was not faith as it was with the other reformers.

It was following. Baptism was a pledge of a complete commitment to obey Christ and not primarily something that was in the past. They had faith indeed, but they used it to produce a life.

Theology was for them a means, not an end. So you can turn it back on, please. So in closing for the Anabaptists, their great word, we hear of faith and soul of faith and with Martin Luther and Zwingli, their great word was following, followers of Christ.

And that's why I titled the message, the Anabaptists, the true followers of Christ. That was their heart. That was their desire.

And so I guess my question for us this morning, what can we be challenged by? We can be challenged, you know, sometimes I wonder if there's a lot of books out there. There's a lot of good things to read. There's a lot of good sermons to listen to.

But sometimes I think they degrade and they take away what originally was the heart. Are we more concerned about the inward grace of God and experiencing God and going to heaven? Are we concerned with becoming like Christ? Are we trying to imitate Christ? Are we becoming followers of Christ more and more each day? That's what original Anabaptism was all about. They wanted to come out from the world and the world system of churches and have a true following of people that wanted to follow Christ in their daily lives and have amendment of life.

So my question to us is, is that what our brotherhood is? You know, Harold Bender said three things that their focus was discipleship. If he were to boil it down, it was discipleship, brotherhood, and a new ethic of love, non-resistance. Discipleship, brotherhood, and a new ethic of love.

We're talking this morning about this first one, discipleship. Is that what we're doing? Is that what we're about? Is that what our church is about? Is it about this German word, nacht, nachtfluge? And they did that, you know, they did that by focusing on Christ and his teachings. So if we put Jesus' teachings, you know, when they read the Old Testament, or they read the epistles, or they read any other book, it all had to come into subjection of Jesus' teachings.

It was the lens by which they viewed everything. They wanted to become like Christ. Like Jesus said, if you continue in my teachings, then you will really be my disciples.

The others, the Protestants, took Paul's epistle, and they looked out and they interpreted Jesus here, and the Old Testament here, and the book of James here. Luther said the book of James was the epistle of straw. He said Matthew was a dangerous book to be in.

And I heard that. I heard that once in another church. They said, Matthew, most all heresies come from people who study the book of Matthew.

Well, I guess we'll call Anabaptism a heresy in their eyes, because that's what Anabaptists wanted to do. They wanted to look at Jesus and imitate his light. And that's what makes us different.

That's what makes us Anabaptists. So I want to encourage you. Are you a true follower of Christ? Are you imitating him? Are you walking like Jesus did? God bless you.