Anabaptist History (Day 7) the Birth of the Anabaptists — Dean Taylor

Amen, amen. Okay, thank you. Just a little quick recap, you know, we're coming into Zurich and the time period we're looking at, we looked into the lives of Comrade Grebel and Zwingli and we touched on that a little bit and began to get up to some of the differences.

The Zurich Disputations and the Magisterial Reformation

So if you remember, I have a new paper, I kind of repeated it here, some of the things. The first disputation, and that is the actual name instead of debate, they called it the first disputation, the first disputation was January 29th, 1523.

And what was that about again? In a nutshell word, remember they wanted to decide, hey, all these reform changes, the city needs to make some decisions about what we're going to do about that. So they held that conference there.

And if you remember, the thing that came out of that was the city would make the final decision. And then it went on to the second disputation and that was October 26th through 28th, 1523. And it was in there, again, that it was proclaimed by Zwingli, the council will discern how the mass should be properly observed.

And if we recall, we looked into there at seeing some of the early Anabaptists, particularly Simon Stumpf, who stood out in the conference and said, how can you say that? You just proved that this mass was wicked and now you're saying we're going to go on and keep doing it and the city's going to make that decision.

And that was the point, was a breaking point for them. As they went in, he said, well, surely the city would agree with me the next day that when the decrees came from the city, they didn't agree with him.

Zwingli then finally said, okay, I'm going to start trying to draw some lines here because he felt pressure. It did look it for a time that Zurich was going to go back to the Catholics. So he was nervous.

He was getting pressures from every side. And finally, so he proclaimed, if there's not changes by Christmas 1523, then, excuse me, 1525, if there's not changes by Christmas in 1525, then I stand condemned as lying by the word of God.

And that's where we got to yesterday. Well, as you guessed, Christmas came and went and there was no changes. There was no changes in Zurich. Well, actually, there was lots of changes, but this mass in particular and some of the different things certainly didn't happen according to the way Zwingli wanted it and definitely not to the way that the early Anabaptists wanted it.

So I ask the question here at number five in your paper. And if you could look at these papers when you start studying for your test, these numbers and the highlighted things, of course, are the things I'm going to be looking at making a test out of.

But at number five there, what is the primary fundamental dividing point between the Anabaptists and the New Evangelical movement now at this point? What is it, the point? I'm asking you, what's the point?

What's the splitting point if you had to put the theology down deep? Was it an issue of infant baptism? Was it the mass? Or was there a deeper issue that they were arguing the principles of? The deeper issue that Harold S. Bender argues, and I agree with him, is the whole idea of how we get the authority from.

Is it the word of God? Is it Roman Catholic councils? Or is it the city councils? What was called the Magisterium Reformation, which would have been all the state church reformers, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, they brought in this concept of the state church and believed the state church could make those decisions.

And so Bender answers that. Should the civil state continue to dictate the faith and life and worship of the church? Or should the pastors and laity themselves carry through the necessary reforms in church life according to their God-given convictions?

Bender continues, fundamentally the issue was whether the New Evangelical movement was to go on in a state church under civil control as before. What is the church? Is the fundamental issue down there?

What is Christ's holy church? The Anabaptist View of the Church, that book by Littell, it's a great book, I suggest it. He argues this was their main point as well. He was not an Anabaptist writing it, surprisingly.

Both Luther and Zwingli, as well as the other reformers, faced this fundamental issue and decided to continue the medieval state church with a predominant control by the civil state in the life and faith of the church.

Bender gives them, perhaps it was wise and statesman-like decision, but in terms of an absolute principle in plain scripture teaching, it was indefensible. How can you say the state, the city council can make these decisions?

Now we think that's kind of archaic and old-fashioned and all that, but this state church concept basically came into effect all the way up until World War I. Still, the fruits of it, I'm going to talk about it later, the fruits of that with this concept, well the church is invisible, nobody knows who it is.

The Anabaptists were arguing, no, the church is visible, bringing in the concept of incarnation. Christ is alive both in spirit and in flesh, and it is visible. It's not just a, well everybody in the whole area is a Christian, but only God knows and we're not going to do anything about it.

I'm exaggerating, but that's kind of the attitude that seemed to be coming from the new reformers, and it's an attitude we still see today. To the Anabaptists, yes. To the early church, yes. Good question.

Fundamental question. What did the Anabaptists do at this time? Conrad starts to network. So now you're starting to see, okay, things are going bad with Zwingli. So they start to gather, they start to study the Bible, they start to do some things, and at that point things start to happen.

Conrad Grebel's Writing and the Authority of Scripture

He even starts talking about writing a book, and I'm going to give you this little quote because I want to encourage all of you to be writers. I read your paper, I was encouraged with it. One of the projects that I have with our little school we started is that I make the seniors write a book.

I don't care how bad it is. I want you to do it, and I want you to hear the way even Conrad Grebel talks about himself as he writes a letter to Vaden about his changes that he's starting to make. It's in the Son of Zurich, page 90.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, and since we believe Christ's words that we're not supposed to have a sword, then we better sharpen our pen. Amen? Okay. He writes to Vaden during this time period.

Now he's starting to break up with Zwingli, and he says, I'm writing to Andreas Karlstadt, remember he was the one that broke up with Luther, and Thomas Munzer, he was the guy who ended up the revolutionary, in reply to their books, and I expect also to write to Luther.

I'm reading Matthew in Greek with some pupils, some of the brothers are gathering, and finally, he writes, don't smile, I'm writing out my thoughts on two subjects in hopes to publish them unless someone else writes on my topics first.

So Vaden, don't smile, I'm writing a book. Praise God. He's a young man. He's finally seeing these giants around him, but no one's quite saying it. So he's saying, if no one else is going to say it, I'm going to say it.

If somebody else says it, I don't have to write it. And he goes on and talks about this still, this patience, and he's waiting, and he quotes from Job, and he says, I have waited, and he writes this in his letter, and they do not reply.

They stand still and give no answer. I am going to contribute my part and tell what I know, because I am so full of speech that the breath strains my belly, which is swelled as tight as a barrel of new wine without a vent.

I must speak so I can breathe. I have to open my lips and answer them. I will not be impressed with anyone's status, and I will not flatter anyone. If I did, God would take me away. Listen, you pastors, he scribbles on his note.

You know, when you write with passion, it's a good read. And as you can see, he got the Spirit of God in him, and from that, he had to write. He had to preach. And that's the kind of thing that we need to be able to come to, to be able to have something to preach and be able to have something to write.

Those who held to the grable position now, we're meeting with them, and he begins to write Thomas Moonser. Now, we all know the history of Thomas Moonser now. We're like, whoa, this guy was a revolutionary.

But at the time, he had written a couple books about baptism and about some of the sacraments, so he thought, this guy could be someone to network with. Same with Karlstadt. Those were considered the radical reformers.

All these were considered the radical reformers, those who went beyond just the magisterial reform of Luther. And so he wrote to Thomas Moonser, and in that, we began to see some of the theology of the Swiss Brethren being articulated, and articulated well.

And he writes to Moonser, but he also, right from the very start, rebukes him. He rebukes him about some of the changes he wanted to make with the liturgy, just changing the chanting of the liturgy into German and doing these things.

He said, let's stick with the Bible. He keeps arguing back to them. But there's a particular quote that I want you to read, I mean, I want to read to you that he talks about in this letter that he writes to Moonser.

And he explains, he begins to articulate the difference between the mental understanding of the faith that he was hearing from Luther and Zwingli, and we hear today from American evangelicalism, and a true faith in the heart.

He writes this in his letter, which I have copies of. If you look at this after the class, these are actually mimeographs of his writings in this letter to Moonser. He writes, just as our forefathers in the churches of Europe had given up Christ's true word for human ceremonialism, which they trusted for salvation until preachers like Zwingli came along, so now we still find Christians who want a faith easy enough for everybody, including people who want to pay no price for their faith, who show no change of heart, who keep right on baptizing infants and repeating the mass.

We were in the same mentality as long as we limited ourselves to listening to the new preaching. But when we took up the scripture for ourselves, we realized that both the preachers and we needed to pray urgently for deliverance from our human errors.

We kept what keeps the divine word from going out clearly is the false leniency of the preachers. They're letting people off too easy. While we are bemoaning this, also came your book, and we were overjoyed to learn of someone else who understands these things.

We want to urge you and encourage you to hold to nothing but God's word, rejecting every other opinion, even your own. Amen. It was a good letter and it shows some of the attitudes of the early Swiss brethren to Thomas Müntzer.

There's also something important about this letter. In this letter he writes and he rebukes him about non-resistance right from the start. It's interesting because later on you might hear people say that Swiss Anabaptism was just a reaction to Thomas Müntzer.

Or people even say the Munster Rebellion that we're going to read about next week is when they picked up non-resistance. It's ridiculous. From the very start, taking the words of Jesus and saying he means it, this non-resistance began to come out.

We see this even before Müntzer had his terrible defeat, the early Anabaptists were already writing to him and saying these things to him. He wrote this letter, sent it and mailed it, but it was a huge blizzard that year and so it just sat in the office for a long time and never went out with the postman.

Then all of a sudden he got the news of what Thomas Müntzer was doing. He went and got the letter out of the post office, whatever they had there, opened it back up and wrote in it, surely this didn't happen.

He was hearing about this revolt and how the peasants were revolting and he sent him, and you can see the different penmanship at the end of the letter, that he penned it and said, you've got to stop this and keep only to the word of God.

Unfortunately, Thomas Müntzer was killed by the Philip of Hesse and his troops and he never received that letter. The letter was eventually then sent back to Vadian and put in his stash and that's why we still have it today.

It's an interesting little insight into this early spirit of these Jesus followers that are meeting there and differing with Zwingli. It's an important little point there. What does Zwingli do at this time with the Anabaptists?

Starts writing books, starts preaching against them, starts saying different things against them and they start to get more and more concerned. Over a month goes by without any word from Vadian. He begins to fear that his old friend is drawing back and he sends him a rebuke.

So he starts now writing to his old friend, his old teacher, and says about what's going on there. He says, they make a plan, I have this quote in your handout, page 3, they make a plan but not from God.

Hope is put in the help and strength of Pharaoh but it will be confusion and a disgrace. He goes on telling of his frustrations with the council and he just talks about, you won't believe how much this is burning in his heart to do something about it.

He signs the letter, interestingly enough, Conrad, a nobody, a no longer Grebelian. Total surrender of who he is. He's no longer part of this nobility, no longer part of this. His father has forsaken him, his mother has forsaken him.

He's no longer Conrad Grebel, he's Conrad the follower of Jesus and he writes no longer a Grebelian. Maybe that was a little saying that was going on, the Grebelians are here or whatever, but no longer.

He has now gone too far. What happens to Conrad's old friend Vadian during these times of testing? Even going further, he begins to see that Vadian was offered these nice positions in St. Gall. Oh, and he was liking the attention and suddenly he's sensing, remember this is also his brother-in-law, that he's beginning to want the praise of people and so Conrad writes a very rebuking letter to Vadian.

I'm going to read this to you. I'll have the quote on there. He begins to see that the real emphasis of what he's doing was materialism and he writes this to him. He says, Achieving financial advantage brings us, at best, a temporary happiness in this world, and it can often disguise the naked force which supports it.

He's still writing to him. It is impossible to reconcile the love of money with God's truth. And I have this highlighted because I think it's one of the great quotes of this time period. I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation, and out of this belief I speak.

Amen. The Bible is very simple. The words of Jesus are very simple. It causes things like this to go on in your life. But he's saying, let me read that again, I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation, and out of this belief I speak.

Wow. May God give you the mercy to submit to His truth without reservation and obey it, otherwise things probably don't stand out well with us as it might hope. The way is narrow. A rebuke to his friend.

After that, their third baby is born. Yes. In less than four years, three babies are born. Poor little Barbara, in the midst of all this that's going on, as you can imagine, Esther, only a girl in here, that she's in the midst of all this.

She has these three little babies, her husband's this radical, and all this is going on. Her father-in-law is all mad, her mother-in-law, and here is Barbara experiencing this and trying to walk in this way.

January 5, 1525, baby Rachel is born, and five days later there will be a debate in the city over infant baptism. What kind of pressures do you think Zwingli was feeling during this time? I ask the question.

I mean, you know, let's throw him a bone. Seriously, he had some things that he was dealing with as well. Remember, Muslim invasion is coming up now from the south. He just now is hearing all over the place.

It's 1525, and these peasant revolts are happening everywhere. The Reformation is now on tenuous grounds with Luther, and now in his own city he's beginning to hear rumors. These re-baptizers are knocking at his door every week saying, because he says, we'll talk about it next week.

Every week they appear to him. Can we talk about it now, next week? Can we talk about it now? And he just can't get rid of them. So, he had a lot of pressure, and it looked like for a time that maybe the whole city of Zurich was going to go back to Rome.

So, at that time, Grebel does write his friend Vadian again, and he says to him that Rachel is now eight days old and will not be baptized in that, quote, Romanish bath. Conrad wasn't the only one. A few other parents in Zurich also were refusing to have their children baptized, and they knew about it.

You knew when someone had their baby, and the parish priest, or that time the parish pastor, knew if eight days later you didn't show up for your baptism. So, Zwingli was getting these more and more. So, now the baptism disputation of January 17th, 1525.

Infant Baptism and the Nature of the Church

All right, here, the third disputation. The final break came over the question of infant baptism, although this was in reality merely a reflection of the major issue, which was the character of the church, Bender tells us.

So, again, yes, the dividing point was infant baptism, but really the fundamental issue was the nature of the church. So, they had this meeting, and there was a huge group of people. So, I think, if I recall, they had to go to a different place where it was another place to be able to meet.

And it's interesting, a little note in the Chronicles, Bullinger's Chronicles, that this new man started coming into town, and his name was, and all it says in the notes is he was described as, quote, the one in the blue coat, and that he acted unacceptably wild in his manner.

So, who do you think that was? Say it. George Plowrock, amen. And so, that's the way he's described in Bullinger's Chronicles of that time. The decision is made by public debate on January 17th, 1525, and of course, it's to follow the pursuit, a decree from the city will be made on the matter.

And the two decrees came out January 18th, 1525, and another decree January 21st, 1525. And I'm going to read to you those decrees. It's in your book, Cup and the Cross, page 50 and page 51. Powerful.

Think about it. Put yourself there. In reaction to this, the one on the 18th decree said, "...all those who have hitherto left their children unbaptized shall have them baptized within the next eight days.

And anyone who refuses to do this shall, with wife and child and possessions, leave our Lord's city, jurisdiction, and domain, and never return or await what happens to him. Everyone will know how to conduct himself accordingly.".

And that was the first decree. Zwingli, in that little interim, wrote to his friend also, Vadian was also his friend, I think Vadian was playing both sides, obviously, and wrote, after that first decree, another famous quote from the time, "...Grabel persists in his stand.".

So the city, he said, you need to say it again. So he told the city to say it again, and the decree is repeated again, January 21st, 1525. And remember, this would have been like a public, they'd have come out, hear ye, hear ye.

I mean, it would have been a big deal, read in all the churches everywhere, and here was the next decree. Imagine you're sitting in the church and you're hearing this decree. "...Following the preceding resolution on baptism, etc.".

The one that just happened, "...it is further decided that the mandate shall be executed, and henceforth the special schools," you little Bible groups, "...that deal with such matters shall be discontinued," now they start naming names, "...and Conrad Grabel and Montz," Felix Montz, "...shall be told henceforth to desist from their arguing and questioning, and be satisfied with the council's judgment, for no more disputations will be permitted hereafter.".

Ouch. And that was January 21st, 1525. So what do you do now? What do you do? So, they met, and that night they met over, and Felix Montz was, lived right down the street from the Grossmunster. I put a picture on the Grossmunster on the front page.

I'm going to try to bring in some more pictures. I'm having trouble with my laptop. My son did get my laptop survived, I mean, resurrected last night, so hopefully I'm going to start bringing in some pictures.

I did give you, that's the picture of the Grossmunster right there, where all this activity was happening. Right down the street from there, Felix Montz was lived, Felix Montz lived with his mother. Interestingly enough, Felix Montz was the illegitimate son of a parish priest from the Grossmunster.

He had his concubine, and that was Felix Montz's mother, and there, but they still gave him a nice education, and let him go on learning just like Erasmus did, with him, Erasmus being an illegitimate son.

And so he grew up, I mean, it's just right down the street from the Grossmunster there. And so when you're there, though, it looked like his mother, though, was also getting converted and listening to his son, and so they're there now on that night.

It's January 21st, and they're there, and imagine the scene. I mean, put us here in that scene, right here in this room. Now they're naming names. They're saying, your little Bible studies have got to stop, or you're going to get killed, you're going to get kicked out of the city, something bad's going to happen to you.

What are you going to do? Well, fortunately, there was an eyewitness account that's given to us, and it's recorded in the Hutterian Chronicles, and I'm going to give that account to you, and then we're going to take a break.

It's a powerful, powerful event. I mean, you can imagine the anxiety. You can imagine the, just the feeling that they had going through all this. I'll cut in. This is on page 44 in the first volume of the Hutterian Chronicles.

George Blaurock and the First Anabaptist Baptisms

At this point came from Chur, C-H-U-R, a priest named George from the house of Jacob, later known as George Blaurock. Once when they were discussing questions of faith, George shared his own view. Someone asked who had just spoken.

It was a man in the blue coat. So he was given the name because he had wore a blue coat, the same George who came because of his extraordinary zeal. Everyone thought of him a plain, simple priest, but he was moved by God's grace to holy zeal and matters of faith and worked courageously for the truth.

He, too, had first approached Zwingli and discussed questions of faith with him at length, but he got nowhere. Then he was told there were other men more on fire than Zwingli. He inquired eagerly about them and met with them, that is, with Conrad Grebel and Felix Montz to talk about questions of the faith.

They came to unity about these questions. In the fear of God, they agreed that from God's word one must first learn true faith expressed in deeds of love, and on confession of this faith receive true Christian baptism as a covenant of a good conscience with God, as a covenant of a good conscience with God, serving Him from then on with a holy Christian life and remaining steadfast to the end even in times of tribulation.

One day when they were meeting, fear came over them and struck their hearts. So here is now we're at the scene. We're at Felix Montz' house. It's January 21st. It's in the evening. Fear struck their hearts.

They fell on their knees before the Almighty God in heaven and called upon Him who knows all hearts. They prayed that God grant it to them to do His divine will and that He might have mercy on them. Neither flesh and blood nor human wisdom compelled them.

They were all well aware of what they would have to suffer for this. After the prayer, so they're praying there, after the prayer George Blaurock stood up and asked Conrad Grebel in the name of God to baptize him with true Christian baptism on his faith and recognition of the truth.

With this request he knelt down and Conrad baptized him since at that time there was no appointed servants of the word. Then the others turned to George in their turn asking him to baptize them which he did.

And so in great fear of God together they surrendered themselves to the Lord. They confirmed one another for the service of the gospel and began to teach the faith and to keep it. It was the beginning of separation from the world and its evil ways.

And that was the beginning. And so that night in the power of God they met with him and allowed him to speak to them and so they realized we've got to draw a line here. Now, before I break I'm going to say this.

Remember, there's something fundamental that just happened. For over a thousand years the church was a province, an area, a state dictated by kings and areas and all this. Now, although it had always been like I said a pilgrim church, but in their understanding you were forming a church based upon faith.

Brothers gathered together to encourage one another to follow, be followers of Jesus Christ and to put this into practice. Radical thing that was happening and they knew the price was on their head even if they could lose their life.

All right, so let's take a three minute break and let's come right back and we're going to run this missionary outpost right to their death at the end here. So let's take a quick break and be right back.

Early Anabaptist Missionary Expansion

All right, so now what do you do? Do you hang out? Do you hide now? What would you do? I think I'd probably go get a cabin somewhere and let the dust settle, you know. Let's hide this. Let's see what will happen.

No. They were so filled with the Spirit of God and so confident that they were in the will of God. Now, in the words of Jesus we don't just sit and talk about these things and if you're going to put Jesus' words into practice what do you do?

You go and that's what they did. Next day they head to Zolokon. When they get to Zolokon which in the area there is right up the road not from Zurich. In your cup on the cross I want you to get page 56 and look at this real quick.

I'm going to point out a few places in the map here that we're going to talk about. It's small but if you could find there kind of in the heart of Switzerland is Zurich. If you see it there, it would look like there.

Go down a little bit up the river there is Zolokon. I want you to now go straight up and see Schaffenhausen and then right up above that is Schleidheim. You're about to see a revival there. Then I want you to go over to the right.

You see St. Gall and you see that little river there that's all that. Big revival is about to happen there. Then I want you to go all the way down there to Chur. That's where Blaurock and Felix Monskitz end up being taken to.

Those are some of the areas that we're going to talk about right now. Then down there right smack in the middle you see Gruningen and Hinville. Those are areas that also experience revival during what's about to just happen in the next few days here with the Zanabaptists.

Again, it's a nice map. It's nice and clear. I appreciate that map. One of the reasons why I like this book is it's clear maps and appendixes and quotes that it gives. I love it. So they're there in Zolokon.

As they're there, Conrad Grebel and Felix Monskitz are preaching and they read the mandate. This is what Zurich just said. They read it, but then they also read in the Bible. These people wanted to fear God more than they feared Zwingli.

There was a revival that happened there. People started to get excited to follow God. He starts passing out communion. I don't even know if they were baptized yet. He does baptisms and all this. There's an exciting thing that happens in Zolokon.

We're going to study this when we pick up the Hutterites and the early Moravian Anabaptists. Zolokon almost like became an entire Anabaptist group. They were meeting together radically. We're going to see in some of the early documents that seem to come from this area.

They were having daily communion. They were meeting together. They were getting excited. They were following the Lord. People really had a feeling that something big is going to happen. He's only there for three days.

Conrad Grebel says, I'm going to need to go. He hears about some things that are happening and he leaves. George Blaurock is still there in town. George Blaurock particularly had to get out of town. He wasn't even a citizen of Switzerland, but he was there.

He's in there. Conrad Grebel had left. Felix Monskitz and George Blaurock are there and all these new converts. In the morning, some early Sunday morning there of January 29, 1525. Remember, it's just January 21 when the proclamation.

Now January 29, next Sunday morning, they're there and George gets this idea. Hey, I'll go to the church and I'm going to preach the message instead of the pastor from Zurich. They're like, okay. Now, if you remember some of the mindset, if you had a chance to read the 12 Articles of the Peasant Revolt, the feeling in those Swiss communities was the people had the right to say who's going to be their preacher.

So I wonder if this had something to do with his boldness and the way the boldness we're about to see happening. As he goes in there, as the story goes, it's an impressive story and it didn't turn out all that great.

Maybe it did in the long run. But anyway, I'm going to read you the story as they're here. So that Sunday morning, they get there and the poor little pastor from Zurich comes in, assigned a church by the Great Commission in Zurich.

Let me bring it up here. And so as he starts heading to the pulpit, George Blaurock says, what do you intend to do? Imagine this preacher. What do you mean? I'm going to preach the Word of God. And Blaurock disagrees.

You haven't been sent to preach. I have. The pastor brushes off it and just, okay, whatever. And he goes up to and begins to preach. Well, George Blaurock keeps interrupting. And he keeps interrupting as this preacher takes the pulpit.

And all the time he's preaching, George Blaurock, it says, is pounding on the bench with his staff. My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. He's saying this from his seat.

Banging, it says, with his staff on the bench. My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. Finally, the preacher says, I can't do this. And he goes back to the end of the church.

And finally, the people said, no, finish the sermon. This is ridiculous. And the people of Zulican sort of turn on George and say, all right, that's ridiculous. You don't interrupt people like that. And he finishes the sermon.

Arrests, Recantations, and the Mission Field

How did it go over? Well, guess what happened? Next morning, in comes the armies from Zurich and they arrest the new converts in Zulican, including George Blaurock and Felix Montz. Conrad Grebel is already out preaching.

And so, I don't know, and we're going to hear some of these suppurative witnesses, some of these people in their radical zeal. We have to ask the question, was it too far? Should you do that? Or are we just so, I don't know, that that seems ridiculous.

I ask the question here. Okay, so as they go on, I ask the question number 12, what was the personality of these early Anabaptists like? And there's an example. Their arrest was on January 30, 1525. So, in there, they got taken to prison.

And unfortunately, here's the thing that just gets you in the gut. They all recant, except George Blaurock and Felix Montz. And a girl, a prophet, seems like a prophetess kind of girl also was one of the ones in there who didn't recant.

Her name was Hotting, one of the hot, oh, hot wingers there. I forgot her name. And she, and these people were faithful to it and all the rest of them went back. Now, when you start to see this end witness of how these people did and how these people kept giving up, it really makes you appreciate some of these people at first.

Because it's one thing to stand for something and then have a revival and all that, but imagine what it did to the church when everybody started walking back home and said, yeah, we told them we were just duped in this and we apologized and so now we're back home.

Well, it was certainly discouraging to those people in Zolokon, but Conrad Grebel and Felix Montz would not give up. I ask here, how long did it take them to get into the mission field? At that time, they go forth into the mission field with everything they have.

Leaving the work in Zurich to less known coworkers, Conrad Grebel sent out his mission to surrounding cities to win pastors and leaders to the cause. Several weeks in February of 1525 were spent in Schaffhausen.

If you look at the top right of your map, Schaffhausen, where he appeared for a time as though he might win Sebastian Hoffmeister, the city pastor. A revival hits this town and many converts are baptized.

And then a young, zealous preacher by the name of Wolfgang Ullimann. So Conrad leaves. We're now January 29th. George takes the church in Zolokon. January 30th is the first arrest and February 6th, we see George there preaching up in Schaffhausen.

And then on January 30th, Schaffhausen. And while he's there, this interesting guy by the name of Wolfgang Ullimann came to him and begged him for baptism. But not only begged him for baptism, this is the first immersion baptism.

And he said, baptize me in the Rhine River. And apparently, so the record said, he had nothing on but a smile. So he was there and he wanted a radical baptism. And remember, it's February in Switzerland.

It would have been cold. And that's what they did. And so he baptized him there. Forced to leave the city because of things that started to happen. He returned to Zurich for a secret visit. Then followed a call to St. Gall about Easter time where one of his associates, Wolfgang Ullimann, that same Wolfgang Ullimann, whom he had baptized in the Rhine near Schaffhausen in February, was having remarkable success there.

He also hoped to find his tolerant friend, Vadian, there to be with him. So now the revivals are going. Things are happening. And they're able to do something about it here in this area. So it's pretty radical.