Reviving the Righteous Root of Anabaptism — Denny Kenaston

Prayer for God's Mercy and a Vision for Souls

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold.

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These messages are offered to all without charge by the free will offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Have mercy on us, O Lord. Have mercy upon us this morning, God.

And make Thy face to shine upon us, O Lord, this church. Make Thy face to shine upon us, O Lord, that Thy saving health might be known among all the nations of the earth. God, I don't even know what that means, but we ask You for that this morning, God.

We ask You to give us the heathen. You said, ask and I'll give you the heathen. Give us the heathen, Lord. Give us the souls that are around us, Father. We make the furthest service to You, Lord, in each and every heart to You.

We trust You, Lord, in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. The burden of my heart this morning has been on my heart for a long, long time. I'm not sure if I can say how long. And it may surprise you when I give you the title of this message, but I just plead with you to stay with me.

It is fitting with all that God has been doing in our hearts and our lives through this week. Very interesting to me always is to go to the prayer meeting in the morning. I'm amazed how many times the message is prayed in the prayer meeting.

This morning, blessed be God, there were so many prayer warriors in the prayer meeting that we had two prayer meetings this morning. It overflowed into the next room and that one was full. And it was interesting to me to hear the burden of prayer in both places speaking about the same thing this morning.

That God would inflame our hearts with a vision. A vision of what He has for us. A vision of the future. A vision of souls gone astray. That God would do that. And that prayer was prayed so many times in so many ways in both of those prayer meetings.

Reviving the Righteous Root of Anabaptism

This morning I would like to speak on this subject. Reviving the righteous root of Anabaptism. Comes from a prayer meeting. Those words come from a prayer meeting. Reviving the righteous root of Anabaptism.

We're going to be preaching about righteous roots this morning. We're going to walk around Zion again this morning. We've walked around Zion before. We walked around Zion with the Moravians and the way that they lived.

And we were challenged by the way they lived. We walked around Zion with the Chinese house churches and the way that they lived. And we were challenged by their lives. God wants us to walk around Zion so that we can be challenged by Zion that lived before us.

We want to walk about Zion this morning. Looking at another righteous root that grew out of that root that grew out of the dry ground. Hallelujah. Which root is Christ? In the beginning of this week of meetings we considered the great value of seeking God in the good times.

And that was our motivation. That's why we set aside these eight days to seek God. It was because we felt it was right to seek God in the good times. Not to wait until we're falling apart to then get serious and desperate with God.

And so in a sense this whole week of set apartness has been preventative maintenance. But I want to be a bit visionary here this morning in this last meeting. It is still time to seek the Lord until He come and rain righteousness upon us.

Righteousness like the righteous root of Anabaptism may I say it that way. It's time to seek the Lord until He come and rain that kind of righteousness upon us. Thus a visionary message that we don't just, you know, ok the meetings are over and we'll settle down and go back to the status quo.

No, God forbid. As I said already the title comes from a message. The title of the message comes from a prayer meeting. I don't remember when it was. But I remember being in a prayer meeting. And these words rose up in the middle of the prayer meeting.

That God would revive the righteous root of Anabaptism. That God would restore that people to their pristine beauty, their strength, their power, their ability, their light, their shining light that they were.

That God would revive that righteous root. It came by the inspiration and burden of the Holy Ghost. And since I first heard it, I've heard it dozens and dozens and dozens of times. Lord, revive the righteous root of Anabaptism.

Oh, I could just as easily pray that God would revive the righteous root of Methodism this morning. By the way, have you read what the early Methodists were like? But as we behold the peoples of the Anabaptist heritage, and their sincere desire to do right, and their tenacity to hold on to their history, as we study their history, and we see what a powerful people they were, our hearts cannot but rise up and cry to God and say, God, do it again!

Do it again, Lord! Oh, that God would raise up tens of thousands of Anabaptists that are crying from the depths of their heart, and crying out in their poverty, Lord, revive the righteous root of Anabaptism.

Restore us as it was in the beginning. I want to quickly say that the Anabaptists can claim no beginning. I feel like we easily get off on these things, and start focusing on the movement instead of the God who created the movement.

And I'm telling you, that never comes out right. The Anabaptists had no beginning, for their righteous root stems back to the book of Acts in the early church, in the days of Christ, and the root of Jesse.

That's where their roots go back to. Christ. Only Christ. Be honored, loved, and exalted among the people of God. Only Christ is the righteous root, springing up out of the very dry ground. Hallelujah.

That's who He is. When I think of reviving the righteous root of Anabaptism, my mind goes back to a psalm, some verses in a psalm that we read some months ago, but I want to read them again this morning, and just consider them in the light of this subject and this people, this part of Zion that God may challenge us with this morning.

The Vine in Psalm 80 and the Ruin of God's People

Reading in Psalm 80. If you'll turn there with me. Psalm 80 and verse 7. This is speaking about Israel. But I believe these verses relate to many of the movements of God in history, and surely they relate to the movement of God among the Anabaptists.

In Psalm 80 and verse 7, the cry of the psalmist says, Turn us again, O God, O God of hosts, and cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Good prayer for us to pray this morning. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt.

Thou hast cast out the heath and implanted it. Thou preparest room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with a shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like goodly cedars.

She sent out her boughs under the sea, and her branches under the rivers. Oh, what a picture of early Anabaptism. Reaching its boughs out across all of Europe. She sent out her boughs under the sea, and her branches under the river.

Why hast Thou broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Awesome words when you think of the power of a people who connected vitally with Christ back in the 1500s.

The boar out of the wood doth waste her. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven, and behold and visit this vine, and the vineyard which Thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that Thou made strong for Thyself.

It is burned with fire. It is cut down. They perish at the rebuke of Thy countenance. These words stir my heart this morning as we look back on a movement of God. As we look around us and see where we are in light of where they were.

These come as a deep challenge to us this morning. I wonder how far we have truly fallen. Yet, may not even know it. We may not even know it. I'd like you to turn now to Ezekiel chapter 37 if we can just read there for a moment.

Dry Bones and God's Power to Restore

These verses also touch my heart as I consider this subject. And I want you to consider before we read here in Ezekiel 37, a few verses here in this chapter, I want you to consider it's Ezekiel's day.

It's 450 years since David and Solomon walked on the earth. It's 450 years since Israel was the glorious testimony that God wanted her to be. It's 450 years later. And brothers and sisters, it's over 450 years since God moved in the hearts of a few men who connected with Christ and said, we'll die before we compromise.

Our Deliverer, our Savior, and our Lord will die before we compromise. It's over 450 years. That's nothing for God. God can raise something out of the rubble that's been laying in the rubble for hundreds of years.

God can do it. It's nothing for God. The hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord. And set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones and caused me to pass by them round about.

And behold, there were very many in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry. I like that. Make it real hard, Lord. Very dead, very many, and very dry bones. And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?

And I answered, O Lord God, Thou knowest. That was a good answer, Ezekiel. That was a good answer. Again, He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live, and I will lay sinew upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

And that's, by the way, that's the reason why God does anything anytime. That ye shall know that I am the Lord, and I will be glorified. So, I prophesied. It seemed a bit odd, you know. If somebody was looking on, I wonder if he thought some of those same things that we struggle with, you know.

Lord, what will everybody think if anybody sees me preaching to these dry bones in the middle of a valley? But, he knew the voice of God, and he knew that if God told him to prophesy to these bones, God had a good reason for it.

So, I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a shaking, and the bones came together. Bone to his bone. Glory! He even knew which bone to fit into which bone.

And when I beheld, lo, the sinew and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above,.

But there was no breath in them.

Then said unto me, then said he, God, unto me, prophesy unto the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. That's far enough to read for this morning's illustration. I know it's talking about Israel, and you even wonder what it all means in the end.

You know, it's prophetic. You look out, and you can get something for your own heart, and you know that Ezekiel got something for the people in his day, but yet you look ahead and you think, God, what does all that mean?

But we can still apply it to our own situation. Amen? Days and years are nothing to God, and He can raise up a glorious plant out of a very dry root in a very dry ground. Hallelujah. You know, as I was meditating upon this analogy, which came as inspiration in a prayer meeting, it's always a joy to do that, you know, when you get an inspiration from the Lord, and then you go to the Bible to search, and you find these golden nuggets hidden in there, and realize, yes, it was the voice of God, because you see the voice of God's Spirit and the voice of God's Word.

They are the same thing. They mesh together so beautifully. But as I was meditating upon this, I realized the Bible uses two analogies that relate to this righteous root. Number one, the grapevine. We read it there in Psalm 80.

And the other analogy is the analogy of the olive plants. Both of these two analogies have some interesting things in common. Consider them in light of the subject this morning. Number one, they both have deep root systems.

A grapevine and an olive plant, they have deep root systems. Very deep. Number two, they both live for many generations. I like that. In fact, as I studied it, there was a little picture in the book that I was studying.

I think it was the ISBN, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. ISB, that's what they call it, yeah. As I studied it, there was a picture of a grapevine in there. Ten feet long and ten inches thick.

I wonder how long it took to grow that big. They both live for many generations. Number three, they both have tremendous usefulness. If you've got a vineyard, if you've got a olive yard, you have a very valuable thing.

And number four, they both can die in outward appearance and revive again when proper care is given to them. In fact, you can set a forest fire and that fire can go down through that olive yard or go down through that vineyard and burn all the branches and burn all the vine right off.

If you go in there after that fire is over and everything is burned up and you start nurturing that root, that root will begin to grow again and push up branches and a vine and leaves and bare fruit and the same thing with an olive tree.

They say there are olive trees that are still alive, that were alive in the days of Christ when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. That's a many generational root. Then I found these precious verses, these little nuggets over here in Job.

Turn with me there to Job. Job chapter 14. Yes. Beautiful. If it be cut down, that it will sprout again and that the tender branch thereof will not cease, though the root thereof wax old in the earth and the stalk thereof die in the ground, yet through the scent of water, hallelujah, it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant again.

Isn't that beautiful? Oh my! Yes! It can be dead. You can look at it and say, it's dead. It's there. There's no leaves on it. There's no fruit on it. It's just an oak there anymore. But oh, listen at the scent of water coming down into those roots.

All of a sudden, that thing starts growing again. What a beautiful picture of God's people and the history of His pilgrim church down through the centuries. You see, the righteous root is not the righteous root of anabaptism.

It's that righteous root which is Christ. In a sense, the whole history of the pilgrim church down through the centuries is a history of people that are returning to that righteous root which is Christ and His anointed body, which was the early church.

Down through history, you see it again and again and again. One movement after another movement, then another movement, then another one in another part of the earth, returning, looking back to the righteous root, which root is Jesus Christ Himself.

Looking back to the beautiful plant that grew from that righteous root. And that plant was an early church which is recorded in the book of Acts. Down through church history, they look back again and again and again.

Every movement of God, they're always aiming back there. Praise God that we have the opportunity to do the same in our days. Think about the Waldensians in the 13 and the 1400s. They were an example of that.

The Anabaptists in the 1500s, another example of it. The beautiful Moravians in the 1700s in their 100 year long prayer meeting and all the things that they did. And the Methodists in the 1700s and the 1800s.

I just recently got a little book that was sent to me about the early Methodism. And you'd be shocked what radicals they were. The Brethren Movement in England in the 1800s was another example. The Holiness Movement in the 1900s.

And we could go on and on. There are many others that are not mentioned, but all of them are seeking the spirit of primitive Christianity. That's what it was. In the days of Anabaptism, those first few men there who gave their lives in short order of time, it was those men who rose up and said, let's return.

Let's return to the root. Let's go all the way back. Let's do it the way Jesus did it. Let's go back to Christ. We don't want any new religion. It wasn't enough to know about justification by faith. They set their sights on everything that Jesus bought and paid for.

A return to the spirit of primitive Christianity. And brothers and sisters, now it's our turn. It's 2004. It's not 1300. It's not 1400. It's not 1500. It's 2004. And you and me are alive and well on planet Earth.

How far will we return is the question. You know, we're pretty hard on the Protestants sometimes, you know. Pretty critical of them. They didn't go far enough. They didn't go as far as the Anabaptists did.

They decided to compromise. They weren't willing to pay the price. They didn't go as far as the Anabaptists did. We're pretty hard on them, aren't we? How far will we return? Let's not throw any stones at them.

How far will we return? What are we willing to pay? What will we go through to return to the spirit of primitive Christianity? That's a good question, isn't it? Let's look at this righteous route a bit here this morning.

The Anabaptist Movement and Its Radical Commitment

The Anabaptist movement was in its prime for 30 years. If you study the history, it's kind of sad from 1555 on. But for 30 years, I don't know if there's ever been a people like them besides the early church.

For 30 years, from 1525 to 1555, and during that time, God planted a vine whose branches reached all over Europe. Tens of thousands of converts were baptized upon their confession of the true faith which is in Jesus Christ.

Tens of thousands of them. That makes what's happening around here look pretty small, doesn't it? We get a convert every now and then. Tens of thousands of them were baptized upon their confession of faith.

Thousands of them were martyred for their uncompromising stand for Christ and the truth. Total commitment was clear. Be baptized! Be baptized and go to prison! Be baptized and lose all you have! Be baptized in the name of Christ and lose all your living.

Be baptized in the name of Christ. Lose your home and live in the forest and in caves the rest of your days. Be baptized this morning. Be baptized and go baptize others and risk your life doing it. Very interesting to me.

You know, it was a people movement, by the way. The early Anabaptist movement, it was a people movement. Somehow, it was the fullness of time. Europe was ripe. Europe was ready. Those people had been sitting there in their darkness long enough.

All of a sudden, they got a Bible. The printing press was invented. And they got Bibles in their hands. And they were so sick and tired of being sick and tired. And they were so sick and tired of being empty and having nothing on the inside.

All of a sudden, here comes somebody preaching the gospel of the kingdom of the grace of God. And the people just started responding in mass. I mean, some of these men baptized 2 ,000 or 3 ,000 converts in a year.

Many of them! But this thing was happening so fast. Oh, how does it say it? I want to quote it because it's good. The records state that churches sprung up spontaneously like mushrooms everywhere. Do you ever see mushrooms?

I mean, try to get this one, and this one pops up. And get this one out of the way, and another one pops up. And that's exactly the way it was. It was the fullness of time. It was beautiful. That holy olive plant prospered exceedingly from her holy anointing oil flowed out to inflame lights that shined all over Europe for 30 years.

Europe never saw anything like these people. They never heard anybody speak like these people. They never saw such simplicity like these people. And they never saw courage like these people. Nothing would stop them.

Young men were commissioned to go and preach the gospel everywhere. I mean, you get born again. Changed by the power of God. Baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And you're five months in a little congregation, and then the preacher calls you forward and commissions you along with one other young man and says, Go!

I mean, we've got to wait 20 years to say go, or 10, 6 months. Go! Do you know why? Because the fields were white already under harvest, and we can't wait for 10 years to grow up. And they went. And many of those young men, unmarried.

I don't think they should have been married for the situation that they were in. Many of them only lasted 6 months. They died. They were martyred in 6 months, 8 months. And one died, another one picked up the mandrel and kept right on going.

And churches popped up spontaneous like mushrooms all over the place. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Do it again, Lord! Some lived only 6 months. Others rotted for years and finally died in a prison somewhere.

Worshipping God with joy, they did. Oh, this root. It was a righteous root. Oh, it was a powerful root. This root of anabaptism. Every man and woman was an evangelist and a prophet. They spoke forth the mind and will of God and the power of the Spirit of God and people were touched and challenged and stirred and converted everywhere.

And I mean, think about it. In the hardest circumstances that you could imagine, people were getting born again everywhere. They couldn't keep up with them. Think about it. Maybe you're one of those seekers, you know, and you're hiding in the shadows at a baptism.

An early anabaptism baptism. And you're hiding in the shadows and you're watching and you see the baptism and that's beautiful and all that's great and you heard the sermon and you saw the people getting baptized and right in the middle of the baptism, the authorities bust into the middle of the place and grab the one who was just baptized and beat him over the head until their head swells up and drag him off into a wagon and throw him in prison.

Now that's quite an invitation to Christianity when you think about it. You would think they would have a hard time finding a convert after that. But the Spirit of God was so mighty upon those people, the Spirit of God was moving in such a mighty way that it didn't matter if he saw that.

In fact, that just made him real clearly know it's all or nothing. Oh, we could use some of that again, brethren. All or nothing. The commitment was clear, praise the Lord. They went everywhere proclaiming the kingdom of God is at hand.

The persecutors called them Anabaptists. Rebaptizers. Because they baptized again upon true confession of faith in Christ. That's where they got their name. Rebaptizers. What's wrong with your other baptism? The authorities said.

And of course, they were offended that these fiery Anabaptists were not satisfied with the other baptism. But said, we believe in believer's baptism. And infant baptism was the issue in that day. Other issues in our day.

Anabaptist Theology, Evangelism, and the Holy Spirit

This righteous route. Consider their theology. Their theology was very simple. In the first 30 years of Anabaptism, they hardly had time to sit down and figure out what is theology. It was simple. You live for Christ.

You suffer for Christ. You die for Christ. No matter what. That's the kind of theology they had. Oh, how different the Protestant reformers had in those days. They could sit in the comfort of their homes on a nice padded chair with a light shining over their Bible and sit around and discuss and hash theologies and what do you think it means and what do you say it means.

And back and forth they went. But the Anabaptists were running like dogs in the forest. No time to sit down and figure out their theology. But yet they had such a beautiful, simple theology. Their theology was survival.

Their theology was lambs in the midst of wolves. Be wise as serpents and harmless as dogs. Very simple theology. Obey the Word and the Christ of the Word at any cost. That was their theology. They took an uncompromising stand for truth.

The issues of the day was infant baptism, church and state. But I want to suggest to you this morning, no, there were deeper issues than that. Those just happened to be the issues of that day. You see, God didn't just raise up somebody to take a stand against infant baptism.

God raised up a people who are willing to stand for Christ and whatever the issues were in their day. And brothers and sisters, the issues are different in our day. Just because the issue is not infant baptism anymore, that doesn't mean there are no issues.

The issues have changed. It's 2004. Will we be that kind of a people who will be uncompromising in the midst of a compromising world? That's a question. Their commitment was to Christ. And that caused them to face the issues of their day.

No matter what. They believed in aggressive evangelism. They were not the quiet in the land. Amen? They were not the quiet in the land. They were not baking pies in 1525 to 1555. They were aggressive evangelists.

This brought great persecution upon them. Many were told, and the devil's methods have never changed, but many of them were told by the smiling face of a persecutor. Oh, my friend, I'm sorry that you're here in this prison.

I don't want you to stay here. You can go home. If you'll just be the quiet in the land, we'll let you go home with your family. Just go home and bake pies and plant corn and you can do your thing as long as you want.

Well, his methods sure haven't changed, have they? But they were aggressive evangelists. They knew why. The purpose that God had them upon the earth. They knew what it was. We are here to preach the gospel of the kingdom.

We are here to win a lost soul to Christ. We are here to live for the Lord Jesus in an uncompromising way. That's why we're here. And so, all the other appeals to a better life, a nicer home, a little bit better place to sleep, a soft pillow underneath your head were all looked at with disdain.

All they knew was that Jesus said, go and make disciples, radical followers of Jesus Christ, everywhere you can. And they did, didn't they? This righteous route of anabaptism. They were anointed with the power of God.

The Spirit of God attended their labors, inspired their hearts, inflamed their message, comforted them in prison, filled them with zeal as they sang in the fires of their martyrdom. The Spirit of God was upon them.

But it's very interesting to me again, they had no theology about the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God, they had written how He comes and who He is and whether He's come and what it would be like when He comes.

They didn't need to have conversations like that. He was there. They were anointed with the Holy Ghost. The combination of evangelism, their commitment to Christ, and the persecution that came because of their evangelism kept the Holy Ghost fresh and lively in every one of their hearts.

Poverty, Fearlessness, and Suffering Love

This is the Anabaptists. Consider their views on materialism and poverty this morning. They had a high view of poverty. I mean, it was honorable if you chose to be poor. Not so anymore, is it? But it was honorable if you chose to be poor.

And they had a guarded view of materialism. They looked at it like this. To be rich was to be worldly. To those early Anabaptists, 1525 to 1555, to be rich was to be worldly. They cared for each other out of the necessity that demanded it in their day.

Yes, some of them lived in community, but most of them, listen, they were in such straits. I mean, it would be a joke to try to figure out how to live in a community like we would think of a colony today.

Yeah, they lived in community. You live in this cave, and I'll live in this cave. And we'll break our bread together in humility in the night when nobody else is around. And worship God together. Yeah, they lived in community.

Number six, they were fearless. They were fearless. You know, like it says there in Revelation 12, they loved not their lives unto the death. That means they didn't care about dying. When you don't care about dying, nobody can stop, nothing can stop you.

If you don't care about dying. And they were fearless because they were not afraid to die. No fear of death. And because of that, no fear of man. There was no fear of man in the midst of them. They faced their persecutors.

They faced the Sanhedrins. They faced the councils. They faced the inquisitions. And they faced them with boldness. Kind of like these Chinese Christians are, you know. They didn't just humbly hang their head.

They looked right boldly into the face of their persecutors and said, Thus saith the Lord, my friend, God is going to judge you for what you do to me when you cut off my head. And they smiled at him. Can you imagine what that would do to a persecutor?

Instead of him being in charge and you coming in there, you know, all beat down like this, if you just look him right in the eye and say, let me tell you something, friend. Just like Jesus did to Pilate.

Oh, Pilate squirmed when Jesus did that to him. You don't have any power, Pilate. None at all. If you have any power, it's been given to you by God. I can lay down my life and I can take it again. That kind of courage is what the Anabaptists had.

They were not afraid to die. We're afraid to die. We need to be honest. We don't want to die. We're afraid to die. I thought about it the last few days. I wonder what would happen if somebody walked in the back door of this place and pointed a gun up here.

I wonder what would happen to us. I wonder what we would do. I don't know. I know what I want to do, but I don't know what I'd do. I'm trusting God for that. One magistrate said it this way, the more I kill them, the more they multiply.

I don't know what to do. I've got more dead bodies than I know what to do with. Lastly, and there are many, many, many more points, but I just wanted to lift up a few of them to help us to realize where we are in relation to where they were.

Lastly, they believed in suffering love. They would not fight back. They loved the souls of their persecutors so much. They suffered the spoiling of their goods. They suffered the loss of their property.

They suffered starvation and poverty. They suffered the loss of their families. And they suffered the loss of their lives because they loved their persecutors and wanted to see their souls saved. Lastly, they would not fight back.

And the brokenness and the humility and the extremities fueled the fire of God in their hearts even more. See, they found the key to ministry. Death worketh in us that life might work in others. They knew it.

They tasted it. This account of these righteous Anabaptists reminds me of the Chinese house churches. That's the way they are. That's the kind of commitment they have. That's the kind of suffering they're going through.

That's the kind of courage they have. To this day, right now, they're there going through all these things that we've been looking at and listening to this morning. They're there today going through those very things.

And it's 2004. Are we going to be prepared? That's a good question. Beloved brothers and sisters, this righteous root is worth reviving. It's worth patterning our lives after. It must be revived. And I believe it will be revived.

But it may take persecution to do it. I don't know. I'm not a prophet. But we must know that God will revive it in the last days. I believe that. But must we wait for persecution? Must we stand and watch our babies' heads smashed with a sledgehammer?