 Gracious God, Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, it's a delight to call unto you again tonight and to pray that you would bless our dear brother as he stands in this place and teaches and instructs us and inspires us from the example of one Michael Sattler from history. Lord God. Father, thank you for this opportunity. Would you bless our dear brother, give him strength, inspiration, purge from his life, any draw that would be a hindrance to this message tonight? Yes, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. God bless you. Amen. Oh, it's such a blessing to be here. I could listen to Brother John detail him stories and sing and hear the scriptures being read and there's so much blessings. It's tremendous. You know, as I bring up, we're given a sketch, a character sketch to talk about today and I was given the topic of Michael Sattler. And when I was listening to those scriptures, I mean, you think what a perfect set of scriptures to talk about these people who have lived these lives and I think of that passage, you heard it repeatedly of whom the world was not worthy, of whom the world was not worthy. And this line of testimony that the scripture gives us of those brave men and women who have lived their life, not living their own life but seeking this kingdom to come. And it's so inspiring. But I wanted to, before I get into my message, call your attention to the very last verse of chapter 11. It's easy to kind of look over it. This wasn't in the message but I just really put on my heart as I heard this Bible memory. The last passage, the last half of the last verse is really, really important to the whole Hebrews 11 and it's gonna be really important as we talk about Michael Sattler today. And after it gives all these lines of all these incredible saints of God who the world was not worthy, it ends with this thought that they, without us, should not be made perfect. Did you catch that? That whole list of people and all the generations that we're showing through time and everything and it finally gets to the last thing and it says that they, all that they accomplished through Christ, that they, without us, should not be made perfect. And remember, I can't remember if I have a picture of this in my message. Years ago, I went and visited a place where the oldest Hutterite Chronicles is placed in Bonham community in South Dakota. And as I was going through there, I noticed there was these, I love this one section that shows a list of martyrs. And in the English and in the German, it just lists the different areas where the different martyrdoms were and then it would jump to the next district and jump to the next district. And I wanted to see this in the original handwritten version that they keep, the bishop keeps under a bed in Bonham, South Dakota. And when I opened that up, I looked and there was all these blank spaces left in the Chronicles. And as you ponder that, you're like, well that's funny, that's not in the English or the German. And you start to say, well, why were all these huge? And one was a whole two pages of blanks. And then it dawns on you, it's this, that they, without us, should not be made perfect. The writers of that Chronicle had actually left whole sections that areas of martyrdom could be continually to be written in. Because it was part of being a Christian, it was part of being on fire for the Lord that we were gonna have these kinds of things, we were gonna have martyrdoms, we were gonna have these things. And I said to the bishop, I said, did you notice that? He said, no, I've never noticed it before. I said, yeah, you're supposed to be written in this. And yeah, so I praise the Lord so I praise the Lord. As I look at Michael Sattler today and we're given that topic, it's very humbling to look at a man that so far passes me up. And I want to just to some degree be inspired by his life in the degree that he follows Jesus Christ. And I do not wanna lift up anything else but Jesus Christ today. And thank you, Brother Kurt prayed. So as we look at this, I would like to make a few acknowledgements before I start and mention of a few resources. You bring together a character sketch about a person, you get a lot of resources. So I wanted us to have a few acknowledgements here. Here I'm trying to technology too here. All right, let me start with this. First of all, I want to acknowledge the Kingdom Fellowship Weekend. You know, I've been coming here for many years and it's been a blessing to see it grow. And I don't know, particularly if you're a young person here today, I want you to make sure you appreciate how rare it is of a group like this. And one of a blessing it is to bring people with a zeal for the Lord from many different backgrounds and many different experiences that we have. It's an amazing platform, the things that are discussed here and the groups that are brought together here. And I just wanted to give a blessing, first of all, the Kingdom Fellowship Weekend and what this represents and wanted to make sure you really bless these brothers that put this together because it is rare to get us together in this way. And so I've blessed the Lord for that. I also recently, you know, I've been moved to Boston working with Sattler College. So this was an interesting thing and I couldn't resist Brother Joel when he asked me to speak on Michael Sattler. He had me. And so I had wanted to even dig deeper into the life of Michael Sattler. And so that's been an encouragement to me and it's an example of what we're trying to represent there in Boston. I did want to say that we are, as we know there was a college there, but we also have just recently started a one-year, unaccredited track where all the focuses on our Bible languages and apologetics and the church history can just focus on those things within that one year. If they like it, they can continue that on. But that's an excellent resource that I'm very blessed to be a part of that's coming up here just starting this next. Well, we have people coming in on Monday. So I bless the Lord for that. I'm looking forward to a year there. Also another resource is kind of connected to do with the people that are here. We have a new thing called the historic faith and we have both a booth and a flyers back there that we have some information on this. And this is kind of look at things of early Christianity, of the historic faith. And we're doing this as kind of new on a subscription basis and we're trying to develop a group of people that can support each other, ask questions and these types of things. We're gonna be developing more information and more things, more messages for that. So you can pick up a flyer there in the back and I'm really blessed to see that. David Rousseau's teachings make up most of it at this point and we've been really blessed to have a lot of his stuff on there. We're hoping to get a lot more as time grows. I also wanna thank, as I prepared all these things together, you see two booths out there. One is for scroll publishing. I've been with scroll publishing right when I got out of the Army. It's been about 28 years. And I'm very blessed for the ministry that's here and the different resources of Kingdom Resources that they have. And they have a booth out there and I encourage you to take a look at that. And also a very special blessing to Brother Andrew St. Marie who wrote this incredible book about Michael Sattler in which I really leaned on to get it preparing this message. He said he brought a bunch of extras there. So make sure you stop by Brother Andrew St. Marie's booth and I've really appreciated his take. It has all the writings of Michael Sattler and also his life they're represented in that book. I bought a case from him, a case of those for the students and we've loved going through it. So okay. So now a servant on a historic figure and you see what I have up there, a bunch of dusty books. And so it can be kind of scary giving a message on a character sketch on a historic figure. I'm wondering what are the things that I should share about Michael Sattler. And so I'm gonna try to give some different points of his life. Some of the details you can get from Brother Andrew's book on it. But I'm gonna try to get some of the things I think would make a big difference to us today. Some of his legacy, some of the things that he wrote and how it affects us. And here's, I'm gonna tell you something. I have a strange allergy. I'm actually allergic to old books. It's true. For years ago, when I was working with the remnant and my wife and I were digging up any old source of things, I realized that I break out into a rash when I'm reading old, old books. And hey, I used to work in the hospital and I would literally take home surgical masks and gloves. And I'd get these old books and you'd order them. You couldn't get a lot of these on the internet and I'd put these masks on and read them. And I realized I have some sort of an allergy to the mold or something about old books. I mean, it can get actually pretty bad. Sometimes I can almost start wheezing from old books. And I really asked the Lord, why is this Lord? You know, I love these saints of old and I love reading these old books. And I really felt the Lord telling me something through this strange allergy. And that is to appreciate the past but don't stay in the past. That if I read those things, I felt the Lord giving me a little bit of a rebuke to not just be in a bunch of moldy books, to not just be something but that there's a living message for today that we, that they without us are not perfect. That God has a plan for the 21st century. God has something that he wants for us to do today. So while I'm bringing in this historic figure to us as I'm talking about them, I talk about him and the Anabaptist that he helped to start. My heart in this is that we can be inspired on how to let the Holy Spirit create the church today. So with that, I have a passage that I would like to remind us all before I mention anything of the writings of Michael Sattler and is this passage, God forbid. Yay, let God be true but every man a liar. I want nothing of my own words, the words of Michael Sattler or the Anabaptist or anything supplant the place of Jesus Christ. And if anything are my words or Michael Sattler words or anyone else that is in error against the words of Jesus Christ, then it's exactly I want Jesus to be lifted up. Let God be true and every man a liar. So Michael Sattler, what an incredible character. What an incredible man of God. If you pick up an encyclopedia or if you had these days if you just go to the Wikipedia or something, you get this little blog that comes up about Michael Sattler. Michael Sattler it says. This is right off the first line of Wikipedia. Born somewhere around 1490 and died, we know exactly on May 20th, 1527. He was a monk who left the Roman Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation to become one of the early leaders of the Anabaptist. And so this question then brings in lots of other questions. Now interesting I just for information's sake, I looked it up and that was 492 years, two months and 27 days ago that he was burned at the stake. 492 years, two months and 27 days. And it says that he was a leader of an Anabaptist movement. And so I thought I would first start with a few important definitions to define some of the terms that I'm gonna be using, define some of the terms when we talk about Michael Sattler you know and to help us to know, to speak the same language. So he used this word Anabaptist. And so this is an interesting term. The Anabaptist, when you use the word Anabaptist, the Anabaptist is not a denomination. When I use the term Anabaptist or Anabaptism, I do not use it in a sense of a denomination. It is a hermeneutic, it is in other words a biblical principle. And I see within Anabaptism I use it a lot and I frequently use the term to designate not a denomination but to designate a method or a common way that people interpret the Bible. And so I do adopt this passage but I do it with trepidation. I'll tell you why I'm nervous about using the word Anabaptist. It's for both extremes. There's some pretty far out things that are called Anabaptist. When you look at the those that are let's for whatever reason use the ones on the far left. You have a very much tend to have a sloppiness in the scriptures. You have a weakness in the obedience of the Old Testament, an obedience of Christ. You have a weakness in the Old Testament. You have a many times speak in disparagingly about the words of Paul. And holiness of life and separation sometimes are very weak, those that are represented if we could use the term on the far left. And so I get nervous. I mean even some emerging church and different terms like that would use the term these days with Anabaptist. On the far right you would have sometimes situations where people are very closed off. They're very distant. They're not open to evangelism or the obedience of Christ in terms of evangelism, church planting. Many times there's a strange attraction on the right to fundamentalism, fundamentalist theology. There's even closet and sometimes outward militarism and usually sometimes in the far right a disappointing view of economics and evangelism. So there's lots of reasons why to have carefulness when we use the term. But I use the term because I think it's important to define some of those edges. I like this statement. What can be defined can be scrutinized. And I want you to ponder that just for a moment. What can be defined can also be scrutinized. When we say what our theological positions are when we can see where they lead both to the left and to the right when we can see some of the mistakes that we make continually through the different generations it gives us an understanding of where our weaknesses are. And I think so with humility we can look at this term and accept this term. And I feel it's very instructive because I do think there's some repeated mistakes that happen in the Anabaptist circles if you would. And that's from the time of the 1500s up into this very day. Nowadays you hear this other term attached to it very commonly and that would be neo-Anabaptist. And that's basically what generally people would call all of you whether you like it or not this term. It's neo-Anabaptist and that would fit both the far left and the far right. It would be all of us from different Mennonite groups from different independent groups from charity from Boston groups, independence and that's what the general term has been that people use to describe Anabaptist and Anabaptism. And you're thinking here today, well I don't like that. Well that's good. You're not supposed to necessarily like it. You wouldn't be a self-respecting Anabaptist if you were completely comfortable with it. And so it's part of it but what I'm trying to do is to gather the way of thinking that is common to an Anabaptist understanding of the scripture because I believe that in that understanding of an Anabaptist understanding of scripture that there are many strengths but there are also some inherent weaknesses that we seem to keep repeating generation after generation. And so I bring that out. It was an interesting book I read. I don't know if anybody have seen this book Anabaptist World USA, it didn't get very popular. It was interesting, he went through the different Anabaptist churches and gives a sketch of it and I remember I read it when I was a charity minister and as we read through that I was amazed if you're humble with it, how he kinda pegs your group. I mean he goes through it and he shows the different groups, their strengths, their weaknesses, their things like that and I had to kinda chuckle in this use of terms as Krabel put in this book. I recommend the book, it's interesting. I wish they would update it. It's a fascinating book but here's my point again. What can be defined can be scrutinized and my heart is to gather us together to be able to critically in both a positive way to look at both our strengths and our weaknesses. Another thing that recently was a title thrown around is intentionalist. This was another term, another neo-Anabaptist. It was interesting, it was an amusing critique by Corey Anderson and he critiqued many of the groups like this Kingdom Fellowship Anabaptist Identity Conference and gave us a term intentionalist and I've been certainly called a lot worse and I think that it's an interesting and almost amusing term. But the thing is that I believe that when people like that write articles, that if you're humble and you realize it that a lot of what he's saying is true and that many of the things that we can be honest about our strengths and our weaknesses, it would be good for us to read those things and let them reflect upon us. I remember when I was at charity, Chester Weaver had written one on the pietist. Y'all remember that tract he put out once on the pietist? It was a title being thrown around 15 years ago. So, and again, every one of the criticisms that I thought that Chester brought were valid. Now that doesn't mean I didn't still agree to some of the tenants that the intentionalist or the pietist or whatever, but nevertheless it's good for us to recognize some of these common things. The things that you're going through in your church, the debates, you might think it's new that you're discussing whether or not it's okay to have a church standard or not a church standard, to have debates over missions in church, to have even common debates over like the atonement and whether there's a substitutionary atonement or there's penal substitutionary or there's the Christus Victor. It's amazing when you read through history how these are repeated debates and repeated discussions that go through our circles time and time again, and I think there's a reason. And so as I look at Michael Sattler and I think about what he's done, I want to look at it with humility. And I want us to consider some of these things that has come from Anabaptism, come from what he and those brothers and Zurich did over almost 500 years ago and be blessed with it, encouraged with it, but instructed by it, both in the good things they did and also to look at some of the historical things that we've done that maybe were not all that great. So now after those definitions and those things, I'm going to give you what I consider the Dean Taylor definition of the essence of Anabaptist, get out your pen and paper, I'm gonna give it to you. All right, I got this from a letter from Conrad Greville and Conrad Greville was writing a letter to his brother-in-law and his mentor, Dr. Jochen Van Wat, who it was named commonly called Vadian. He married his sister and he was, you know, part of those early Bible studies but eventually took a position in St. Gaul and eventually became mayor of St. Gaul which is north of Zurich in Switzerland. And he wrote him a letter saying, why are you leaving us? Why are you chasing after the world and its treasures instead of being with us? And there's two things that come out in that letter that I consider the essence of Anabaptism. And again, I'm using this not as a denominational sense but as a biblical interpretation. Here's the two things. Number one, I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation and out of this belief I speak. So in other words, when you go through the scriptures I've made the comment before if we had an Anabaptist study Bible, you know, and if you had an Anabaptist study Bible you'd get to like the passages where, you know, Jesus saying, love your enemies and you'd have the, you know, that quintessential line then underneath, you know, the study Bible then tells you what it really means but then underneath the line the Anabaptist study Bible would say, what this really means when Jesus said to love your enemies is that we should love our enemies. You know, and so I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation and out of this belief I speak, the permanence of marriage, our views on separation, the head covering, these things, they are simple and it takes an awful lot of gymnastics to make them to not say what they plainly say. The other point I think is also very important if not more. The teaching of the Lord has been given for the purpose of being put into practice. Yeah. Oh, this is a big difference. And so if I was to put anything as the center, Jesus Christ as the center of our Christocentric hermeneutic. Fancy word for the, having Jesus Christ the center of our, the way we interpret our Bible, it is this, the teaching of the Lord has been given for the purpose of being put into practice, not to be explained away, not to be put on just a poster or something in different ways, but to be put into practice. So let's talk about how Michael Sattler played into these things. So Michael Sattler was born there and right on the bottom of South Germany, Staufen, Germany, sometime in the, in the round the year, 1490. If you see there, it's kind of like close to Switzerland and in this area, Strasburg, you can kind of see to the left there. Oops. And eventually we know that he became a monk and was a prior of the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter near Freiberg, Germany. This is a beautiful part of town, a part of the country. Nowadays, if you go to Freiberg, it's where people go to buy cuckoo clocks. I bought a cuckoo clock when I was a soldier in the army over 30 years ago there in Freiberg. It's a beautiful area, lots of forest and things and there were, this monastery would be there. It's, imagine it was even more forested back then. So it tells us something that from early on, he was a leader, he studied and that he had a passion to just give his life for God living in the monastery and the fact that he was prior was mean he was one of the top people of the monastery. It doesn't mean necessarily the abbot, but he was one of the leading people of the monastery. And so he eventually became, oh, yep, sorry. The Heterian Chronicles records these early Anabaptists with both the ones in Zurich and Michael Sattler. The Heterian Chronicles records that the original three leaders of the Anabaptists in Zurich had, quote, a thorough knowledge of German, Latin, Greek and Hebrew of Michael Sattler, the Chronicle records that he was, quote, was a scholar in Hebrew and Latin with a wide knowledge of the Holy Scripture, a man who truly loved God. And so I would like to just bring out the fact that these early Anabaptist leaders were people that really studied the word of God. This is one of the very things that inspired us to use the name Michael Sattler for Sattler College was this, we have in every major, we have this emphasis on learning the biblical languages and studying Hebrew and Greek and knowing how to read the word of God. And so Michael Sattler was an educated person, not in a puffed out way. And I think you see this in his life that he was still very humble, but when it came time for things being very important, Michael Sattler knew his Bible. And so I'm gonna bring out, I think it's five things in particular that I'm gonna bring out about Michael Sattler's life. And the thing that I'm gonna bring out particularly right now is that he knew his Bible. And all these early Anabaptists knew their Bible. When Michael Sattler was in the court and he was being tried and they were going back and forth on his different interpretations and different things, he challenged the court there with this statement. He says, therefore ye ministers of God, if ye have not heard or read the word of God, sin for the most learned and for the sacred books of the Bible, of whatsoever language they may be and let them confer with us in the word of God. And if they prove to us with the holy scriptures that we err and are in the wrong, we will gladly desist and recant and also willingly suffer the sentence and punishment for that of which we have been accused. But if no error is proven to us, I hope to God that you will be converted and receive instruction. It's this boldness that Michael Sattler had at this meeting was impressive. But I think some of that came, he had a confidence. Michael Sattler knew his Bible. When you see this beautiful train of people up here, quoting Hebrews 11, please, let's keep this up. The 21st century needs churches that are completely devoted to the word of God, that the word of God that Jesus speaks through the word of God to us and we shape our life after that. We're not making up our own philosophies, we're not following the dictates of this world but it's the scriptures, it's the word of God. And with that, it gave him a very refreshing take on the way he described the scriptures. He only had about two years of ministry out of Michael Sattler but what he had was a blessing and one of those particular ones that he wrote he wrote in one of his different epistles that he had and he had this idea of be wearing of the scribes and the Pharisees. And it's interesting the way he said that is that, you know, we can err in both sides. He says, in other words, we can err by going about thinking that we can create our own righteousness by our own strength. You know, that's what he said they did when they were Catholics and they would go on pilgrimages or different things like this. And he said, you know, this is not right. This is just not works, these works are vain. You can't just go working works and without having a faith in Christ and he makes this very clear. But then he also warned on the other end and he compared that like the Pharisees and he also warned on the scribes and using perhaps the term a little loosely, he said the scribes write beautiful things. They preach beautiful sermons but there's no change in their life. And so Michael Sattler did a beautiful job of preaching a message that was completely devoted on Jesus Christ and his grace to create a real change in our life and that that change would be real. Not just changing in our vocabulary or our denominational differences or our change in different outward things merely but a change in our life and faith that came out in everything that we were about. And it's beautiful to hear him and the other early Anabaptists speak very clearly that this change happens from the grace of God inside of us and when God gives us the grace of God, it's real and it's gonna change you. It's impossible just to have an artificial faith. And so this idea of him knowing his Bible is something that I think we should take note for the 21st century. In May of 1525, a group of peasants, marched on St. Peter's monastery in protest of high taxes. Sometimes around this time, we know from history that he left the monastery. And so it's interesting, this group of this peasant revolt. It's a very interesting little thing in history. There's an interesting book I would recommend kind of on a scholarly work but it looks on this peasant revolt and how it affected and shows how some of the early Anabaptists would have been part of this before they were enlightened with the teachings of Christ on non-resistance and things. And it's amazing looking at the passion even in these peasants and this group of people took over the monastery and we know that shortly after that he left. And Andrew St. Marie talks a little bit about in his book on some speculations of what came out of that. He chose a godly wife. Michael Sattler married Margareta, a former Beguine sister. Beguines were a religious group sort of like a nun but they would have different orders and different levels that you could live in devotion to Christ. And that was, we don't know very much about her. There's one little statement about her in history and I have it written up there. It says that somebody had written something about her and called her, quote, a talented, clever little woman. Amen, it reminds me of my wife. So, you know, and you just see the supportive, I don't know, you can read a lot into that idea and you see her spirit of following Michael through these very difficult times of this new movement and what it was. And I'm just inspired by what little we do know about Michael Sattler's wife. And so it's encouraging at their end and I'll mention this hopefully, but at her end, you know, after Michael was finally burned at the stake, they pleaded with her, just give up. Just give up. She wouldn't do it. And so she also was faithful to the end. So he came, Michael came to Zurich around 1525. The Anabaptists were already sort of getting started and sometimes around was baptized in 1526. And again, Andrew brings a lot of good details in the book about this phase. After his baptism, and here's one of the points I'm gonna come to that I think are important for us. He came to Strasbourg, now France and some of the original reformers were there. He was able to reason with them from the scriptures, some of the famous early reformers, Wolfgang Capito. He stated actually Capito's house, Martin Booster, were there at the time. And these actually go and become part of the founders of the reformed people. But here's something that comes out of this little encounter that I think it's the second thing that I wanna emphasize on Sattler's life, Michael Sattler's life that can be reflected on the church that I think we need today, that I need today. And that is his emphasis on love. This man was a scholar, this man was a zealous follower of Jesus Christ. But from what we have of his writings and his life and the testimony of even his enemies, this man was a lover who loved God and loved his brethren. And this comes out, as a matter of fact, when he went and disputed with these different reformers there in Strasbourg, that he left there after staying in Capito's own house. And as he wrote, he gives us this statement when he writes his letter to them and he says, beloved brothers in God. I don't know, there's something about that that just touches me. There's something about that desire to try in any way he could to see the good in these brothers in Strasbourg. And I see in his title, there's something that just rebukes me and that encourages me to have a more charitable spirit. Interestingly, even they, writing back to him or writing of him after his death, called him, and this is when he was condemned to heretic, dear friend in God. The things that they brought in Strasbourg were important. Christ came to save all those who would believe in him alone. Another one, he who believes in his baptized will be saved but he who believes not will be damned. Faith in Jesus Christ reconciles us with the Father and gives us access to him. Baptism incorporates all believers into the body of Christ of which he is the head. Christ is the head of his body, of all believers or the congregation. As the head is minded, so must the members also be. Here's one that was controversial for them. The fore known and call believers shall be conformed to the image of Christ. And Christ is despised in the world, so are also those who are his. He has no kingdom in this world but that which is of this world is against his kingdom. Other things that he brought up, Christians are wholly yielded and have placed their trust in their Father in heaven without any outward or worldly arms. In other words, you don't defend this faith with a battlements and with armies. The citizenship of Christians is in heaven and not on earth. Do we still believe that point? The citizenship of Christian is in heaven and not on earth. We're little embassies of the kingdom of God. As my brother John D likes to say, our job is that, let's all say it, that we would show, everybody knows it with me, the whole world what the whole world would look like if it would only follow the King. Thank you, brother John D. It's a great statement. We are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Next one, Christians are the members of the household of God and fellow citizens of the saints and not of the world. But they are true Christians who watch this. But they are true Christians who practice indeed the teachings of Christ. Do we still believe this one? But they are true Christians who practice indeed the teachings of Christ. The last two, flesh and blood, pump and temporal, earthly honors and the world cannot comprehend the kingdom of Christ. In sum, there is nothing in common between Christ and Belial. These were hard statements, but still, this spirit that he had, you know, one of the passages that I take a lot of guidance from is in Mark chapter nine. And the passage there, if you recall in Mark chapter nine is when the apostles were nervous that people were casting out demons without them and Jesus rebukes them. And you know, it makes you think. So, would we rather have people be demon possessed than not do it our way? I mean, I like us that we're zealous brothers, but if we've gone so far that we're nervous that people are getting their demons cast out because they're not exactly with us, then maybe we're airing a little too far and Jesus rebukes them for that. And then at the very end of that passage in Mark chapter nine, there's this passage I take a lot of comfort with. It says in Mark nine, 49, for everyone will be seasoned with fire and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if it loses its flavor, how will it season, how will you season it? But then he says this statement, have salt within yourself and peace with one another. That's what I see with Michael Sattler. He was very seasoned. He was very salty about the things that he believed. When we see him standing in persecution, Michael Sattler knew what he believed, but at the end of the day, he was charitable and he had peace with one another. And you see this coming out in his statements. I think maybe we need some more of this spirit. I think this spirit would do us good. Did not, see if Jesus would have just said, have peace with one another. Then we could maybe be in some sort of kind of fuzzy ecumenism, you know, everything goes and that kind of thing. He didn't say that. If he would just say have salt within yourself, then maybe that would have had us be a little too edgy, but he said have salt within yourself and peace with one another. I love that balance and I need more of that balance in my life. I think it's a beautiful balance. From his, I'm gonna read just a few things from, to the church, to the church from prison. He says, furthermore, dear fellow members of Christ, you should be admonished not to forget love without which it is not possible for you to be a Christian congregation. You know what love is. From the testimony of Paul, our fellow brother who says love is patient and kind, not jealous, not puffed up, sorry that, not ambitious. And he goes on to give the teachings of Paul and says that this is not to be this way and he then encourages us that even when we have to excommunicate someone, that if we do this in a harsh manner, in a way that's not right, then we've lost the Christian faith. And he's rebuking the church to do this from prison. There's another letter I read in Anabaptism. This was Jacob Ammon's, one of the beginning people of the Amish and his younger brother years later after Jacob Ammon, there's a precious letter where he gives encouragement to a church that's in trouble, a church that's going through church splits and things that are going wrong. And yes, back then they had those too. Boy, if there's one thing you read in history, you realize the more and more you dig deep, you know, there's not a lot of things that change. I even read the Bible so much different. When I read Paul now and I read about the different things that he goes through and different things, and I, yeah, we're the same. And God still is also the same, praise God. And he wants to do these things. Anyway, in this letter, he gives rebukes to the elders and he says, you know, elders enter the congregation that we must have love. And at the very end of the letter, he writes as Uli Ammon writes to this church in trouble. He says, if it should happen that a minister or elders' initial presentation on some important manner was not generally understood to be the best and dissension then follows. I think some of you could imagine. And some support of the elders and his initial presentation while the opposing party, though they could not support it, then we think they should not argue about it to the point where love is lost. That's a good idea. And then he says this. Oh, if only this could happen. This is the very beginning of the Amish. This is Jacob Ammon's, I think, younger's brother. Oh, if only this could happen, which would be very necessary and good that all elders and ministers would follow Christ's example and all that is good and especially in humble and scriptural obedience to God and could give the people a good model and that a domineering nature, which is very close related to destructive pride, would be given no place. This early spirit, the spirit and early Anabaptism, particularly in the Swiss, I find very encouraging. I need it more in my life. And when I read these examples from Michael Sattler and his take on it, it challenges me. The next thing is evangelism. Really, the evangelism of the early Anabaptists is incredible. In the book you have, and again, Andrew takes us through in his book, he comes to a little town, it's like a suburb of Strasbourg called Laar, and he goes and he begins to evangelize there. There's an amusing letter in there where one of the people that were evangelized says some bad things about Michael Sattler and just gives you some insights again on even his evangelism techniques. But what did this look like in early Anabaptism? What did evangelism and missions look like in early Anabaptism? And it's very challenging. Within days after the movement, with death sentences still over their heads, the early Anabaptists went into neighboring cities with remarkable success. In one account, Conrad Grebel went to North and St. Gaul and interrupted an Easter parade with the preaching of the kingdom of God. And on that day, brought over 500 people left an Easter parade to go follow and get baptized right there in the water and follow Christ. Now, if you were to think and you're the persecution of things are coming, what would you do if persecution was coming on the church? I ask this question, oops. So if you were going through all this and gone through all this terrible persecution and you had the choice, do you rest? What do you think they did? Did they rest? All right, you saw it. Said, no, they did not rest. Another thing, oops. Would you hide? I don't think anybody would blame these early brothers or any of those what we read in Hebrews 11 that they would hide out for a while. But they didn't hide. They didn't hide. All right, how about here's one. All right. Would they hold a seminar? Yeah, sorry. They did get together. But when they got together like this, they expected change immediately. And so the big question then, would you go? And the answer is yes, they went. And here's why. And I don't want you to miss this part of why Anabaptism went in so much to evangelism and missions at the very beginning. And it's for a really good reason. It's for this reason. Does everyone see this written up here? Everybody say it with me. No go, no lo. Say it again. No go, no lo. Now let me give you where this comes from. It comes from this. And Jesus spake into them in Matthew 28 saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and on earth, go ye therefore and teach all nations, that's making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe, watch this, all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always even into the ends of the earth. I know what you're thinking. Well, you don't know what it's like in our church. We've got all these problems. And when we get past all these problems, we're gonna evangelize. And when we go through these different things, when we get it together, then we're gonna do something. But right now we've got so many church problems. Okay, I can understand to some degree, but we're using this as an excuse way too much because the order that you see from Jesus Christ is with the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting him in faith, go. And then what? Lo, I will be with you. You see, here's the thing. What makes an abatism difference is what, those two things, I believe the Bible with a simple interpretation and out of this I speak. And the second one was what? The teachings of the Lord were meant to be put into practice. And they saw this as a command. We don't give up on our permanence of marriage, on swearing of oaths on these different things on non-resistance. Why do we take these commands to evangelize and put them in a totally different category? They were the commands of Christ. Just look at 1527 with me for a second. So Felix Montz was killed January 5th, 1527. Felix, Michael Soutler of May 21st, the same year. They got together before that in February of, Schleidheim in February 24th to hammer out a few things for the church. They had a Synod in Augsburg on August the 20th and they brought 60 ministers already now in the same year, 60 ministers now are gathering. And why are they gathering to have a conference of how they're gonna take the Gospels to the ends of the earth? And when they do that, they write out different places of where they're going. They had a seminar. Okay, now in five years, guess how many of those 60 ministers were left? Two. And that's why it's called a martyr Synod. And you know what's even more impressive is that when you look at the court records that within two weeks, there's arrest being made for people responding to what they heard in that Synod that they had on August 20th. By the end of the year, 12,500 people are selling their homes, giving up their life and going when the Lichtenstein opened up Moravia for them to come. And those days you had a 5% chance of survival. If you look at that 60 ministers and only two of them being alive. This was common everywhere. Mental Simon's put it this way. But remember, this is a command. Therefore we preach as much as is possible day, both by day and by night and house and in field and forest and waste hither and yon at home and abroad and prisons and in dungeon and water and in fire on the scaffold and on the torture wheel before lords and princes through mouth and pin with possessions and blood with life and death. We could wish that we might save all mankind from the jaws of hell, free them from the chains of their sins and by the gracious help of God, add them to Christ by the gospel of his peace. For this is the true nature of the love which is of God. The ladies did this. There's an interesting story in the Anabaptist, I'm excuse me in the martyr's mirror. This one woman asking, he said, dear mother, can you not just think what you like and keep it to yourself? Then you won't die. The Anabaptist lady responded, dear sister, now watch the term. What word did I underline? Dear sister, I am commanded to speak and I'm constrained to do so. Hence I cannot remain silent about it. This one is my favorite. The Wurtenberg government's decision, this is a court record. The Wurtenberg's government decisions that the quote, I love this quote, propaganda activity of Anabaptist women through word and mouth and through booklets, means they're passing out tracks, was so grievous that those quote mothers who could not be banished because of their little children would be chained at home to prevent their leading so many people astray. Wow. Wow, why? Why? It's Christ. It's Jesus. Every bit of our life, our doctrine, our teaching, our practice, our motives, our goals, it is the person of Jesus Christ, our salvation, our sanctification, our redemption, our wisdom. Everything is the person of Jesus Christ. Michael Sattler warns from prison, remember the Lord who gave you a coin. For he will again require the same with interest, lest that one talent be taken away from you. Place it at interest according to the command of the Lord who entrusted it to you. I testify you by the grace of God that you are valiant and that you walk as benefits as become the saints of God. Give heed how the Lord rewards lazy servants, namely the lazy and tired hearts, clumsy and cold in the love of God and of the brothers. This idea, you know what the passage that he's quoting from. I love this, there's also a Hutterite school teacher who was arrested and then writing back to the colony who had grown cold already in the late 1500s and he said, many in our time think the opposition has ended. Many in our time think the opposition have ended. Maybe we could relate to this. He said, many in our time think that the opposition has ended. They look back and think the war is over, but they're deceived. If they would live the life, they would get persecuted again. Watch yourself therefore, you heroes of Israel. Take courage, strong men of Zion. Rejoice, O city of Jerusalem. The time of your triumph is near. All tears will be washed from your eyes. The reward of your labor stands ready. Just hold on a little while longer. Thank you Peter Hoover for translating that. It's an excellent, excellent statement. The parable that he's giving is the parable that the talent and the one because of the fear of God hid it in a napkin buried into the ground and he thought when the Lord comes back, I'm gonna show him this shiny coin. Now what did Jesus call that servant? Yeah, you wicked servant. There's all kinds of different forms of wickedness. The early Anabaptists and the early Christians and the Christians today follow Jesus and this is part of it. All right, now that's balanced with an incredible view that you'll see in the early church in the early Anabaptists of church. When he left Strasburg, he became a leader in the Anabaptists and he went to Schleidheim, Switzerland to write an agreement for the new Anabaptist. And as he's there, it's amazing that they actually did this but the heart of this is impressive. And if you look at it here, here's a map of Switzerland. It's, my cursor doesn't really work on this but it's sort of way up at the north there is where Schleidheim is and they came together to write a brotherly agreement as you see it written there. And so church meant something to them. It wasn't just an empty faith that was scattered and didn't but God, but they believed that God would gather the people of God into committed cells of fellowship that committed brotherhoods that would come together and discuss things and live life together as citizens in the kingdom of God. And so they hammered out a few things together in a brotherly agreement. They looked at baptism, they looked at how we should do excommunication. To them, this was radical. It meant a difference in the whole state. They talked about communion and separation from the world. They talked about the pastors and the church. They talked a lot about the sword and the oath. And it was impressive. You look at the congregational order that is also bound with Michael Sattler's you work and you have a lot of things about church, about times that they would gather three or four times a week about the encouraging each other to read godly things to avoid frivolous behavior of sharing things in common when people are in need. All these different things that how the Lord's suffer would be frequent and would be and sharing this with their life together. And you see that they had this idea that they had their missions but the way they did missions was with the church. It's a great statement by Peter Ritiman and he looks at the balance and the early Hutterites were an amazing Hutter, amazing mission machine very much like the early Moravians. But he had a twofold way that they wrote explicitly in the way they would do missions and they saw both the local church and the need for purity combined with the evangelism that would go out. And he said this in Peter Ritiman writes in the late 1500, 1533 or 1540. Let us note carefully says Peter Ritiman what we are and I underline the word commanding. Christ gives us a twofold command. First, we should gather with him as those who have been sent by him. Second, we should do our most to keep those who are gathered so that they do not become so they do not again become scattered and torn apart by wolves. So the debate that we have in our churches are we gonna be a mission church or are we gonna be a dedicated church or a separated church? And I love the way Gary Miller in his book Church Matters. You can see it for sale out there. He does a great dealing with this and how he works those two things out. It's wrong to choose. God has given us the church as the instrument of the way we do missions and we've gotta get a hold of that. And so what they would have do, they'd have men that are called for the purity of the flock and to keep holiness in the flock and they would have men that were called to have the spirit of evangelism. And I believe some of the tensions that we have in our church between these debates between a holy church or an evangelizing church are there because we have a wrong idea that they should ever be separated. Interesting, an early misciologist wrote Roland Allen. He said this in the book Missionary Methods, St. Paul's or Ours. He said, we cannot but recognize that everywhere we have established missions and missions are not churches. If we establish missions instead of establishing churches is because we differ from the apostles and the early church in principle and in spirit. I summarize it this way. Everywhere we have churches without missions and everywhere else we have missions without churches and it shouldn't be this way. The early church, the early Anabaptists had both of these things. These two passages. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this. This is what pure and undefiled religion is. To visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Do you see the two sides there? That one is the outward focus, that you're to the visiting the orphans and the widows and those in trouble. This is an outward focus approach of the evangelism. The other side is to keep oneself unspotted from the world. And it seems that we over and over again in our Anabaptist mistakes, perhaps all the church, we tend to go into one camp or the other. We're a church that is either very much talking about evangelism's emissions, we should go outreach or we're a church that talks a lot about being pure and being separated and unstained from the world. James is telling us, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that pure and undefiled religion is both, having these together, having that evangelistic spirit and having that heart before God. Again, Gary Miller does an excellent job in church matters discussing that. Jesus put the same way, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added. And then finally, Michael Sattler was faithful, faithful to the end. I found a historian writing this period, he said, Anabaptist was made a capital crime and by other Protestants and by Catholics. Prices were set on their heads of Anabaptists to give them food and shelter was made a crime, even giving them food or shelter. The Duke of Bavaria in 157 gave orders that the imprisoned Anabaptists should be burned at the stake unless they recanted in which case they should be beheaded. These were severe, this was severe. The historian goes on to say, it is the fact recognized by many recent historians that the persecution of the Anabaptists surpassed in severity, the persecution of the early Christians by pagan Rome. Persecution began in Zurich soon after the brethren had organized a congregation, imprisonment of varying severity, sometimes in dark dungeons was followed by execution. Within a short period, the leaders of the brethren lost their lives and in persecution. It's an incredible, faithful to the end of whom the world is not worthy. And I have just a few closing thoughts here. When you look at the details of the court trial and you can read those, get the book and read it, you see this side of Michael Soutler that's so loving. He's riding in prison when he's about to have this trial and being persecuted. He's riding the congregation back. He says, have peace with one another, have love. And when you see the Spirit with the Strasburg people, but when he's being tested with the things of faith, he did not budge. And this is how I read in Jesus's words about, have salt within yourself and peace with one another. And they called him a heretic. They called him different things. They accused him of different practices. And here are the one thing the town clerk said, the hangman shall convince you, he shall dispute with you, you arch heretic. And he said this statement, oops. He said, I appeal to the scriptures. I appeal to the scriptures. And that's where Andrew wrote the title for his book. I appeal to the scriptures. The judges returned with the sentences followed. In the case of the government of the Imperial Majesty versus Michael Soutler, judgment is passed that Michael Soutler will be delivered to the executioner who shall lead him to the place of execution and cut out his tongue, then throw him upon a wagon and there tear his body twice with red hot tongues. And after he has been brought without the gate, to the outside of the gate, he shall be pinched five more times in the same manner. After this had been done in the manner prescribed, he was burned to ashes or as powder, some say as a heretic. His fellow brethren who are also there and arrested were executed with the sword and the sisters were drowned. His wife also after being subjected to many entreaties abominations and threats under which she remained very steadfast was drowned a few days after this was done May 21st, 1527, of whom the world is not worthy. So in review, these five things. Michael Soutler was a man of the Bible, studied biblical language as a new how to discuss doctrine. With all the temptations and all the heresies and all the compromises and all the different things that we are seeing today, we must be a church that also knows our Bible. I believe that he knew the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ. And he knew his Bible. Number two, Michael Soutler was very concerned about love. We've got to have this. You know, even to knowing that, brothers, I have come, I originally heard about the Anabaptists and all these different people about 30, I don't know, 33 or 34 years ago. And I do not regret one moment of the faith and the encouragement and the blessings, the examples and I have seen the fulfillment of the promise that if you leave lands and houses and families that you will receive a hundredfold. You have been that for me. Brothers, we need, and sisters, we need to have more of this love. Coming from the outside and coming into it and understanding it and being awkward and making all my own mistakes, I've learned I need a lot more love. And the older I get, the more I realize this very thing, we need more love. This was coming from Michael Soutler, a young man. Even to know the commonalities that bind us here together is a very strong thing. And to understand that we have differ on some different applications and different things, but our focus is to see the teachings of Jesus Christ and to see Jesus Christ glorified in our generation. Let's do this with love. Michael Soutler followed the commands of Christ and evangelism and mission work. And he saw them as the commands of Christ. We have to stop putting missions and evangelism in a different category. And to be quite serious, you've done actually a very good job. When I have studied about what's happened in Central America, brother, and I see the examples in Africa, I've seen some beautiful examples, and I am very blessed per capita. I have heard it said by people who've done a study that the Anabaptists, I'm not trying to boast or anything, but I'm gonna encourage, where I can encourage, that per capita we actually do better than an average evangelical church in how many people go to full-time missions. We must keep this up. We need more of this. When I've come back from Greece just a week ago, I was over there and I gave sermons on the church, and I'm encouraging these people from Afghanistan and people from Iran, and I'm talking about the church and how we're supposed to be committed and dedicated and how you gotta keep, this is gonna be the hardest thing. And with that, there needs to be our follow-up. There's so many opportunities, and that goes right into my thing on the church. He was a man of the church. Let me just tell you this, if there's anything that's been the hardest thing in my life and the most beautiful thing, it is the church. It's been really, really hard, and I told those Persians just two weeks ago when I was at the Bible study, this will be your hardest thing. Satan will tempt you in this. He will offend you. And just like when John the Baptist came to Jesus and he said, blessed is he who's not offended in me. Satan works in these offenses. Satan works in these things, but if we can get ahold of this love and we get ahold of this love of the church, we're realizing it's worth the trouble. And young people, if you're here and you're young and I know many of us, particularly in a radical group like this, there's been a lot of passion and I love that and all that, but at the end of the day, I want to encourage you. The church is worth it. Jesus Christ wants us to come together to worship him as a church, to be communities of faith. Don't give up on the church. Strengthen it, encourage it. And then finally, Michael Sattler was faithful to the end. All right, I'm going to close with the introduction to the martyr's mirror and I'll be done. We've heard about one of the biggest heroes in the Anabaptist movement is written in the martyr's mirror. A lot of what I just read was coming from the martyr's mirror and Thieleman-Venbrot opens the introduction to the martyr's mirror with these words. These are sad times in which we live. Nay, truly there is more danger now than in the times of our fathers who suffered death for the testimony of the Lord. Few will believe this because the great majority looked to that which is external and corporal. And in this respect, it is now better and quieter and more comfortable. Few only looked to that which is eternal and internal and pertains to the soul and on which everything depends. But what does a man profit if he will gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? When Thieleman-Venbrot was writing the martyr's mirror, Holland was experiencing a tremendous prosperity. And he was seeing his church go to hell quickly over the prosperity that was happening. It was what inspired him to write it. He goes on, "'It grieves us to the heart that we must live "'to see these times and therefore speak in this wise. "'Oh Lord, strengthen our faith. "'Help thy weak trusting lambs "'that they may not be led into error "'nor move from the foundations of the most holy faith.'" On the other hand, though, his, that Satan's instigation, the world now reveals itself very beautiful and glorious more than in any preceding time in a three-fold pleasing from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. Almost all men run after her to worship her as Queen Supreme, but all are deceived thereby. Yay, many who have drunk of the poison wine of her lust from the golden cup of her iniquities and deception die, a spiritual death. And then the last statement. As the first design is aimed at the faith, so this is directed against the true Christian life, here lies great danger. Who shall escape these snares? He that would at no time be taken unawares by it, must indeed be cautious and watchful, but our very flesh seems prone to it. Here must be fasting, watching, praying, and calling upon God for help. Otherwise, there is no escape. And then Michael Sattler's final words I'll give to us. Let, not his final words, but a final word for Michael Sattler. Let no one shift your goal, which has been set in the letter by the Holy Scripture, which is sealed by the blood of Christ and of many witnesses of Jesus. Amen, let's be faithful. And remember this passage as we heard these people, beautiful people give us the teachings from Hebrews. And remember, God having provided some better thing for us, and I don't think he's just talking about a prosperous life, is he? That they, all these martyrs, Michael Sattler included, that they, without us, without you, should not be made perfect. Their life is not complete, is not perfect. Their testimony, their witness is not complete and not perfect if for you, except for you. Just like that blank pages in the Hatterian Chronicles in Bonham, South Dakota, or some blank pages with our name written in it, one way or another, we need to live faithful to the end. Let's all, if we could, let's bow our heads. Maybe we should stand and I'll hand it over to the moderator and we're gonna close with a word of prayer and ask God to be with us. Dear Heavenly Father, oh God, feel pretty small talking about your Hebrews 11 heroes. Feel pretty small talking about this Michael Sattler, your servant. God, I know that you are the same God that you were then. It is impossible for you to change and you still, your eye, look too enfrode around this entire earth to who you can completely trust. So God, we wanna raise our hand to you today and ask you, Lord, please have mercy on us this generation. Have mercy on us, Lord, and our children. Have mercy on us, oh God, that we hear this and please do it again, Lord, in our heart. Give us the grace. We don't wanna try to muster this up with a bunch of dead books. We want by your grace the same source that you gave to the Book of Acts. We want your Holy Spirit in power. So Lord, I pray, have mercy on us. Look past our sins. Forgive us of our pride and my sins and my pride in those things. God and I pray, Lord, inspire your church. And Lord, oh God, glorify your son. Lord, this world, the enemy has come in like a flood. So we trust your promise that you will raise up a standard against that flood of unrighteousness. We thank you, Lord, and we ask you, your grace to be onto us now. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.