65 - Munster

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Last week if you are with us, we were looking at some of the main names in the early

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Anabaptist movement we talked a good bit about how that term is not overly descriptive and not only useful to us but why it was used and we got toward the end and we saw the name

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Melchior Hoffman and we started talking a little bit about the level of eschatological focus

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That began to develop after the peasants revolt in those five years after 1525

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There was it was not unusual thing. There have been many many times in history where there was a rush of expectancy about the second coming and and So you have that taking place?

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you have the identification of Strasbourg as a location of where the

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Kingdom is going to be centered and and so on so forth and We mentioned that Melchior Hoffman then made as a convert a man by a name of Jan Mathis He's going to end up having lots of names before he's done

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But I Mentioned to you that he by all descriptions Looked like he walked off the cover of a

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Led Zeppelin album long black flowing robes long pointed beard again a little bit like Certain Figures in the

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Lord of the Rings before changing colors And so Tall a much taller than most people dark and and basically one of those types of people who would you know had a cell phone to God and literally would would be

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Talking with someone and then just say hold on a second. Yes father.

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Yes father. Okay, the answer that question is this God says And so you clearly have a a radical

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Individual here does not believe in anything even remotely like solo scriptura and Given a lot of what he said,

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I I don't think could be identified as functionally Trinitarian Not that he railed against the

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Trinity just doesn't seem to have understood it And what's interesting what we will see with Mathis and then his disciple

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Yan of Leiden the two Jans These are the two the two yans and the two Bernhards Rothman and Nipperdaling Those are four of the most important names and what happens in Munster between 1533 and 1535

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But what's interesting is when you when you look carefully at What happens during this time period especially once the city is besieged the city's going to be besieged for a lengthy period of time?

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for over a year There was a lot of singing and and church services and a lot of singing of Luther's new hymn a mighty fortress they like they love that because Munster was a fortress city and they were surrounded by walls and And so a mighty fortress and this is going to be the new

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Jerusalem. This is Zion and but what was really interesting even though there would be a great deal of scripture reading there was a massive

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De -emphasis of the New Testament there was a tremendous increase in emphasis upon the

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Old Testament And so there is there is no

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Balance or anything even at the beginning and what you're going to see is when you don't have the foundation at the beginning once Pressure is applied

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Any building that you attempt to build without a foundation is going to collapse and What happens to it on the way down can be rather?

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Fascinating and that is definitely what we have what we have here So what happens is?

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We know that in 1532 Melchior Hoffman Declares Christ will return to Strasbourg in 1533 and Right at the end of this time period

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Munster is undergoing Reformation as well and so in February of 1533 now

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Munster is a is pretty much run by guilds. There is a what's called a

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Prince Bishop Bishop Franz von Waldeck He is a

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Technically a Roman Catholic Bishop, but he's married and he's very

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Sympathetic toward Lutheranism So He's you know he's not like it's not like he's

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Sold out to you know being the best servant of the Pope you could ever be But he is allegedly in control the city though The city has primarily it's a very wealthy city, and it is primarily been run by the guilds

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This was a major area of commerce the people lived wonderful lives.

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They had nice homes. It was a safe city The Walls were thick as you as you can imagine if it stands up to a siege for over a year

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Even when the bishop who besieges it eventually Is loaned huge massive cannon one called the devil and the other called the mother of the devil

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To to fire massive shells at these walls they never were able to breach the walls The people inside were able to repair them as fast as they could blow holes in them, so It was a safe place is a beautiful place beautiful churches

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It was just sort of a garden spot a river running right through the city and moat outside the whole nine yards

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It was you know what you would think of just a really nice medieval city And so the the city officially

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By election because you know the guilds run it and so there's a town council and and they really have the power

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I mean they have to You know sort of deal with the with the bishop on one level or another and there's a taxation system and stuff like that but You know it's it's it's primarily run by by the people

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It's not just you know it's not like the bishop has complete and total control over everything and so in In February of 1533

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Munster officially becomes a Lutheran city and Bishop Von Valdeck is is not opposed to this in the sense of trying to crack the whip or anything like that He's sort of like he's sort of testing the winds and and he is sympathetic toward Lutheranism So he's sort of a in the middle type guy who is primarily there politically.

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It's not a big religious thing though. You can't avoid religion at this particular point in time and So in the summer of 1533

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Bernard Rothman is Convinced by Melchior Hoffman to leave

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Lutheranism and to become friendly toward Anabaptist Concepts and Anabaptist Movements so he embraces the belief that infant baptism is invalid the adults must be rebaptized and Rothman is an excellent writer

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He's a very good communicator at this time The language of most of people in northern

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Germany into the Netherlands place like that the languages were close enough low

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German and and You could communicate You might go once in a while what?

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but you could communicate and so His huge advantage and Something that you know we need to take into consideration in Analyzing these things making applications of today is of course the printing press now exists and He's got one

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So he has a press Not everybody did obviously these days thanks to the internet everybody's got a printing press

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Back then that obviously wasn't the case and if you had one Then and enough and most people in this area in Munster were had some money they had some they had some resources

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So he could buy paper, and he could do what he need to do to produce things he begins writing

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Tracks and booklets That are first focused on the Catholic Church Infant baptism the basic stuff you'd expect but over time swing farther and farther into an

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Anabaptist Perspective and He has a friend a wealth a wealthy wool merchant by name of Bernard nipper dolling

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He was probably about 14 before he could finally figure out how to spell his last name, but and So nipper dolling likewise utilizes his resources to help distribute

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Rothman's material Primarily in northern Germany as I said southern

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Germany primarily been lost to the Reformation after the After the peasants revolt

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There is a Detestation of Luther for they they viewed like he had betrayed them when he had told the princes to put down the rebellion and so the material is primarily staying in the north and is finding a tremendously wide audience of people that are willing to read and to and to listen and So Rothman's material begins to Convince many people in Munster to move beyond Lutheranism And instead embrace the

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Anabaptist theology of Melchior Hoffman So Bernard Rothman and his allies take over Political office in Munster because again this was these offices were primarily done via election and Munster was primarily under the control of guilds and but it was very what we would call democratic or representational that type of thing and So Bernard Rothman Bernard nipper dolling

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Bernard nipper dolling becomes the mayor of Munster after deposing the

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Lutheran magistrates who until then had seen him as an ally And so you've now got three you've got the

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Catholics that are still there You've got the Lutherans that are still there and now this growing group of Anabaptists that are there and So what happens that what really sets everything off is one of Hoffman's Disciples Jan Mathis Again that really funky -looking, dude in January of 1534 he identifies

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Munster as the new Jerusalem and a

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Number of his disciples then go to Munster as does he and begin doing public

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Baptisms of adults And on one day 1 ,000 adults were were rebaptized there in the city of Munster now

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Munster had about it's hard to say but around 10 ,000 Normal residents within the city walls

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Approximately that numbers could change a lot during this time period and who it is is gonna change a lot during this time period as you're

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Going to see in fact just over the next 60 days. There's going to be a huge difference Rothman begins inviting people through his writings to come to Munster where they are going to have freedom and and so on and so forth and so the

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Population begins to change rather radically with this sudden influx of Of Anabaptists and of course you had had the prophecy about 1533 in Strasburg, and oh, oh we missed it by a year

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It's Munster. Okay. Let's let's head that direction type of a of a situation people who are willing to believe one prophecy are probably willing to believe a second one even though the first one failed and So you have this large movement large -scale immigration

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Into into Munster, which of course is extremely troubling to the bishop and to others watching this

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Taking taking place, but they're not really a thousand percent certain exactly what to do

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So on February 10th 1534 Bernard Nipperdaling mayor of Munster joined the

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Anabaptist movement to overthrow the town council and the bishop Anabaptist prophets

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Jan Mathis and then Jan was accompanied by one of his own disciples young man at this time age 24 by the name of Jan of Leiden or Jan Bokkelsen there are a couple different names that are used for him

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At this particular point in time and the only way I could probably describe for you

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Jan of Leiden The young man, he doesn't look anything like Jan Mathis As far as we can tell from the historical records probably would have been like a

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Brad Pitt at 24 Okay Musically talented an actor

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Just a master of manipulating people with awesome good looks and He is second fiddle for now there's all sorts of speculation as to whether he organizes becoming first fiddle later on or just took advantage of what was happening or Whatever it might be.

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We'll see here in a moment, but As you as you put these guys in your mind

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Jan Mathis needs to be the six -foot -five Who was the who is the bad guy in in in the

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Lore of the Rings Yeah, Saruman. Yeah, I guess that yeah dark Pointy hat carrying it.

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I mean literally, I mean, that's how he's described I mean There's just there's no other way to if you want something that a lot of people would have seen the connected that that's what he looks

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Like if any of you saw that really funny meme on Facebook last week When my

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Anglican friends hang out with my baptist friends, it was Saruman and Gandalf And they look like they're eight feet tall

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Walking with the Peter was a Peter Jackson the producer who's in shorts looking very frumpy

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It looks like he's five foot two and he's the baptist So so the other two the guys were the Anglicans and it's when my

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Anglican friends hang out with my baptist friends And that's sort of a good description. I think So that's how you guys see

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Jan Jan Mathis But now you've got this Jan of Leiden who's at his side and he's he's just he's very different Than then

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Jan Mathis is and these guys come into come into Munster and begin

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Preaching the necessity of having a pure Congregation the congregation of Christ the community of Christ, so they call themselves and You know the rest of townspeople are sort of like It sort of sounds like they don't want us around And the more and more of them that show up, but but no one knew what to do about it and so there is a

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Brief a couple weeks of Transition taking place where Mathis is getting his feet under him, and then

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I believe it was around February 27th 1534 Mathis would have these

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I Cannot help but to simply point out that the description the physical description provided by people who saw it of When Jan Mathis would hear from God has stunning parallels

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To the descriptions of what would happen when Muhammad received revelations that became part of the Quran There you know there could be almost a fit that takes place or a lot like loss of consciousness or or or a

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Stupor and and mumbling and yes, Lord you know type thing But he

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Begins preaching loudly in the in the square of the city that the the congregation of Christ must be pure and Those who are unbelievers must be delivered over to Satan and they must be killed and he he's he's basically saying we need to Wipe out not just the

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Catholics, but the Lutherans too Well Whether it was Jan of Leiden or just who of his allies or come to him and say you know

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If we do this It's going to unite Every mayor and every prince for 50 miles around And they are going to come and crush us, and we will not be ready for them

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This is this is radical that you've got to rethink this and so So Jan modifies his

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His perspective of it not already They are

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Cramming everything they can cram Into storehouses in Munster because they are already assuming

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That the Prince Bishop will besiege the city Because they have rejected his authority

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And so they are storing up everything that they can store up and They've got a few weeks to do this and I guess it is a rich city

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They're buying everything they can get their hands on It's one of the reasons the siege lasts as long as it did and so on February 27th 1534 a

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Bitter cold day in the morning Mathis and the

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Anabaptists Drive All the Catholics and all the

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Protestants. I'm sorry all the Lutherans Out of the city. They are only allowed to take what is on them now there had been a

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Earlier deportation actually it hadn't been as violent and it wasn't at such a horrible time

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You were allowed to like take a cart what you could carry But you weren't allowed to take food or anything like that Now this deportation this forceful one in February 27th is when there is

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Snow and sleet it is freezing cold And it doesn't matter who you are and you're not allowed to take anything even a jacket

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You're just driven out of the city and everything you own becomes a part of the city's common treasure

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So, you know pregnant women are giving birth in the streets it's it's a

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It's a horrific situation and they are driven out of the city on February 27th.

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And as a result when the storm clears and the fog clears the people of Munster look out and They see the bishops troops in line

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Forming a cordon around the around the city and the siege has Has begun now that siege

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While it's going to last until the next summer Is Shall we say porous?

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The the forest comes close to the city and there are a lot of Underground passages and all sorts of stuff like that and so While the city is besieged and you can't have you know, like wagons of food or something coming in Rothman's gonna continue getting his pamphlets out people are gonna go in and out

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It's it's not a it's it's a porous situation until early the next year when the bishop starts building a literally a solid wall

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All around Munster, which is already three miles round to begin with and so it's big wall

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But he realized I need to this is like a cancer. I need to need to completely seal it off So the siege begins then early

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March late February of 1534 Now What begins to happen is

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Tremendous study over the next literally number of weeks Into the fall is a is a

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Amazing study in human nature Melchior Hoffman was a pacifist there was no

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Violent aspect of his theology and yet over the next number of weeks It is going to become commonplace

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In the city of Munster they estimate there about 9 ,000 in the city when it was besieged so between the

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Anabaptists coming in and then the Catholics and the Others being driven out and those who by the way didn't want to leave

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Just had to be baptized What's interesting is if you were in the last groups that were baptized at one point just to show you the the mental

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Warfare that Mathis and Leiden somehow knew to use

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At one point All those people who had were the last in the last group be baptized

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Mathis Questioned their faithfulness and so had him all gathered and stuck in the side of church for a number of hours and Well remind me to tell you that because because I'm going out of context,

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I'm sorry they What's gonna happen over the next six months is you're gonna have such violence

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Beheadings are going to become a normal thing Bernard Nipperdaling becomes the bearer of the sword

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Once Jan Jan of Leiden is going to become king And there's gonna be executions and and at one point

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Polygamy is going to be introduced forced polygamy amongst Anabaptists who are very prudish people

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And at one point Jan's gonna have 16 wives and one of them's gonna turn against him and so he's gonna take her in the city square and he's going to behead her in front of everybody and then he and the

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Rest of his wives are gonna dance around the headless body. I mean this happens in a matter of months and you're left going

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What? How what but no way this is this is this is stuff of a

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Hollywood movie, but it didn't happen in history yeah, it it happened in history and It happened fast and it leave it just it left all of Europe going

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Wow, and when these stories get out and of course some of the stories become exaggerated over time as well

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This is why Anabaptists were feared forever To this day as I as I mentioned the those three cages are hanging in Munster and there's there's a reason for that so What happens is early on in in March Mathis Jan Mathis who is now the prophet he speaks for God He does not receive revelations that he doesn't even get involved in arguing things like Canon Or scriptural sufficiency or something like that He's a prophet.

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He speaks for God The end of the world is coming and This is

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Zion and this is the place to be and so You and I would have all sorts of theological questions about this but uh what happens is once the siege starts, then there's immediate organization of everyone in the city into a paramilitary style life you have to there's all sorts of secret passages in and out and there's gates and stuff like that and you have to have to be guarded day and night and and In fact, it's gonna become a two -way street over the next number of months

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You Would think the Anabaptists to stay behind the walls and are nice and safe no they become nighttime terrorists and they will sneak out at night and they will head into the encampment of one of the of some of the soldiers of the of the

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Bishop Prince and slit all their throats and burn their burn their gunpowder and destroy their cannons and and I mean they are the the

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Bishop Prince is is amazed at the Tactics They can't break out.

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They can't there's too many but man, they certainly make life interesting in the darkness and Of course, they're all the locals most of the people of bishops bringing in or the local farmers do work or or mercenaries they don't know the area these people know the area like the back of their hands and so They they can disappear into the darkness and you have no idea how they got there where they went or anything else

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And so there's a there's warfare going on the one thing that Munster was short on was sulfur and And you need that sulfur for gunpowder and so they only had so much and so they they really tried to not use

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Weapons they had cannon They had cannon up on the ramparts and really nice reinforced locations and that kept the bishops forces they had to stay far enough out to stay at a range of the cannon that were in Munster and so you've got this dead zone basically

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Around Munster, it's a no -man's land And then outside of that the bishops forces set up.

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That's pretty it's fairly large area that you're trying to do and of course the Prince Bishop has to pay these soldiers and He's getting support from both

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Catholics and Protestants to do so because both Catholics and Protestants see this is not what we want happening in our place and So yes

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Von Waldeck we will loan you this amount of money or we'll give you this amount of money But it's still extremely expensive. And of course the last thing he wants to do is blow up his own city.

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I Mean every shell he lobs into that city is Damaged and he's gonna have to repair so he's in a tough spot.

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He really doesn't know exactly what to do here Well, once you're in a besieged city, oof it changes the way people think and so What happens is early on there is a man a

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Blacksmith now you think of you think of blacksmiths in in movies about this time they

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They do not Well, let's just put it this way. I was gonna say did not look like anyone

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I'm not gonna pick anybody because you think I was picking on you what they look like. It's George Okay, right,

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I mean when you think of a blacksmith in this time period you think of George, okay

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Pick it up and anvil, you know that type of like anvil on the belt put it down All right, you know that type of they're big men, you know and so there is a blacksmith that everybody knew in most he'd been there forever by the name of Herbert rusher

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Herbert rusher and One night Herbert rusher is on guard duty and He was in a lousy spot it was a cold spot

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They didn't really have a whole lot to keep them warm The soldiers are right over there and they've got fire and they got you know

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They're they're doing real nice and so not everybody's happy over on the Herbert rusher side and Herbert rusher thinks the

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Jan Mathis is a jerk He's he's a weirdo and and he's he's

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You know, what what is going on here? How have we allowed this to happen type stuff, but he thinks everybody around him is his friend and so he's safe, but Mathis has already begun to encourage a

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An atmosphere of great fear he's encouraged children to report on their parents

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Eventually laws will be passed. For example, you could never lock the door of your house. Your door always had to be open anybody could come in and check on what you're doing at any time and Both jams were your classic cult -leading

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Conspiracy theorist wackadoodles and are thinking that everyone's always out to get them and so Word is reported to Jan Mathis about what

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Herbert rusher has said and so There's different stories as to where he was arrested and how he was arrested and stuff like that but Herbert rusher is brought before Jan Mathis and the large portion of the town populace in this city square, which is the how things were done back then and He is bound with his with a heavy rope and his hands are behind his back and So Jan Mathis begins to Begins to Preach about how

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God has told him that there are unbelievers amongst what's supposed to be the pure congregation of Christ and That these unbelievers must be cut off from the land of the living

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So people start looking at each other. They all know Herbert rusher. He's probably made things for a bunch of them and So a couple of these guys who are

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Anabaptist leaders They are on board come up to Jan Mathis and they're like we have

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We have rules we have laws We we don't just execute people in the city square for the fun of it that there's it has to be a trial and there has to be and Mathis has them thrown in prison and then the stories differ, but it seems like the most probable is that When it looks like Mathis might waver in himself executing rusher

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Jan of Leiden steps forward grabs a one of these pikes these long spear type things that were used in warfare and comes up behind rusher and Stabs him in the back puts him on the ground right in front of everybody

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Well Rusher poor guy is a strong guy and it doesn't kill him.

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He's just laying there on the ground screaming and moaning Which doesn't look good.

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And so Leiden goes over to one of the guards takes his pistol You know, they were the cat pistols the ball

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It walks up to him and shoots him in the head at point -blank range Those weren't the most effective pistols in those days

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Still doesn't kill him So people yes like George and so People Come out of the crowd.

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They pick him up. They take him to his home And he dies eight days later eight days later

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Well, there you go We have we are adding our own apocryphal stories to the to the to the to the events of Munster, so People are stunned

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This is the context in which Jan Mathis says the Lord has revealed to me That there are some of you who are not true believers those of you who are in that last group that were baptized in the last deportation

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You know before we kicked all the Catholics and Lutherans out you were baptized then Gather them all up and put them in the church

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Well, you just saw a lot of the strongest men in in the whole city stab in the back and shot in the head

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And you're left in there for hours By time Jan Mathis walks in They're all just on their knees

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Weeping and crying for mercy and what Jan Mathis does is he kneels down next to them?

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And he goes into his trance thing and he says oh I thank you father that you've allowed me to be merciful to these your people oh

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And they are so thankful that is manipulation like you can't believe

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I mean That's how you make fanatical disciples

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You get them in fear of their life, then you show them mercy except. You're the one that was threatening in the first place

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I Don't know where these guys learn this stuff, but Wow were they good at it

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So this is very quickly the Attitude and the mindset of what's going on in Munster If you know and of course people start accusing other people and and all the rest of this stuff and So there's a huge amount of fear, but there's also a whole lot of Religiosity going on there would be lengthy readings from primarily the

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Old Testament And there is a singing of Anabaptist hymns and like I said The soldiers outside of Munster could hear wafting over the walls of the singing of a mighty fortress is our

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God It was one of the favorites of the of the Anabaptists in in Munster I Think we have just enough time to tell you to get you to sort of the transitionary point around Easter of 1534 so April so it's only been a little over you know six weeks, maybe

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There is a Wedding taking place and It's a big feast

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This is a rich city their storehouses are still full it only been a few weeks and so there is a

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Wedding feast going on and Jan Mathis is there with the people and all of a sudden

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You know he's been sitting there sort of contemplating and all of a sudden and Head on the on the on the table

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Out like a light And everybody's like what what what what do we do is is there a revelation coming?

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You know so everybody's like and so when he comes to he's like he's going Yes, father as you will yes father as you will he stands up, and he kisses everybody and leaves

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Everybody's like What just happened? so what he does is he has a personal guard

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He chooses Stories differ between 12 and 30 of his personal guide. I think 12 has a better Possibility it sounds good and apocalyptic chooses about 12 men to go with him and on Easter Sunday 1534

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Jan Mathis straps on his sword spear armor and with 12 men

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Rides out the main city gate of Munster He is going to go defeat as the man of God all the armies of the

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Bishop Prince Prince Bishop which at this time is around 8 ,000 men

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Okay, and So everybody in the city rushes to the walls Because you got this dead zone because they're cannon or there's you you can watch and Out they ride and as they watch the bishops forces out on the far hill

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Before long here comes a column of about 500 cavalry

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Their elite forces against 13 people and They hit clash clash clash, it's over fast and They tear

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Jan Mathis to pieces They stick his head on a pike and plan outside the city and Then I'll let you figure out the rest of this for yourself, but they

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Hung certain parts of him on the city gate that night Just to make sure

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That everybody in that city knew what had happened to their great prophet. What an amazing turn of events

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There have been stories, you know Of people defeating dragons and people believe these things that actually happen

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St. George and the dragon and all the rest of stuff and so that's what they were expecting to happen But now what in the world are we gonna do?

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We've rebelled against the Prince Bishop Thinking that Jan Mathis hears from God and he heard from God and God told him to go do this and he his guts are still laying out in the in the field and Everybody went that went with him same thing.

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They're all just torn to shreds. Not a single survivor What do we do now? Well didn't take long

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For the rumor to start going around the city he's gonna rise on the third day

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Hmm Well before the third day the trumpets sound and Everyone is summoned to the city square and High above them

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On a balcony that could be seen by everyone in the darkness Light shines forth and out walks

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Jan of Leiden and he's with Bernard Nipperdaling and He's with the widow of Jan Mathis who herself was supposed to be quite the stunning lady and what

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Jan does Remember, he's an actor. Oh, he knows how to make an entrance What Jan does is he says it was

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Jan Mathis's time to die because He was arrogant and God never told him to take those other men with him.

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He was to go alone he wasn't to cause their deaths and so God struck him down, but God is not finished with us and with our city.

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This is still Zion. This is still a community of Christ and God revealed to me eight days ago.

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This was gonna happen. He calls Bernard Bernard Nipperdaling or Roth Rothman one of the two Bernard's forward and they verify that Jan of Leiden had told had had this dream and he had told him about it

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He had seen Mathis killed and and how he was gonna die the whole nine yards That's how they put down the rumor that Jan Mathis was gonna rise again and in the process

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Established Jan of Leiden as his successor. He's received revelation. He's received visions that are true and God told him to marry

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Jan of Mathis's widow Jan of Leiden is already married. So that's a problem

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But now you have new leadership and it is Jan of Leiden has now taken over This would have been the perfect time for the bishop to move but the bishop was not a military guy and He made no move against the city, even though its leader had just been chopped to pieces

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Rather easily by his own forces. And so now Jan of Leiden is in control

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The siege has only been a matter of weeks. It's gonna last for another year It's gonna last for another year more than a year

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Under Jan of Leiden's leadership and in a matter of weeks a

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Jewelry maker is gonna show up out of nowhere. Nobody knew who he was with a prophecy from God that Jan of Leiden is king of Zion in the in the manner of David and he is going to be made king of the

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Anabaptists in Munster and It's only gonna get weirder from there

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But We are out of time. So Like I said, if you want to read all this ahead of time

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The Taylor King is available from Amazon on Kindle and in softback if you want to be ahead you can read up on it, but if not, then

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Be back not next week because I'll be in Florida next week, but the week after that be back and we will

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Continue the story. Hopefully wrap it up in one more session. All right, let's pray Father would you thank you for your word?

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We thank you for this opportunity that we have to Think back Lord and learn and we just ask that you would help us to learn from situations like this as strange as they may seem

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They keep happening and we need to know why they keep happening Help us to understand be with us now as we go into worship and pray in Christ's name.