64 - Anabaptists (Cont.)

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Now we are pressing on in church history. We're getting toward not toward getting toward the end of church history obviously we're getting toward the end of How far we're going

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I may actually add a little section. I keep reading on stuff and so it's oh, you know that But you can only do that so many times but we began last week looking at the

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Anabaptists and Right at the end of the the class actually after the end of the time allotted for the class a question came up in regards to Well how many of you this is going to be a small minority, but how many of you have seen

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The less than five minute video That we posted last year where we shot it in this tiny little room in the

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Vartburg Castle And I am talking about The Anabaptist martyr that had died there at the

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At the castle I assume you've seen it. How many of you seen would do a couple of you see it, okay?

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I would You know it's it's four minutes long four and a half minutes long something like that So it's not exactly an in -depth discussion but it is a rather fascinating place

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To have had the discussion as you're looking down this Into this dungeon

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Which is at least 30 feet maybe as much as 50 feet down Into the blackness they put lights down there so you can see just how far it really is

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But the Reason we shot the video was so that I could address and discuss the the tension

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Well let me just remind everybody or tell you if you're visiting last

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September a group of folks went over to Germany, and we did a

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Reformation tour and we visited a lot of the primary sites in Luther's life and one of the places we

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We went to was you know I I got to preach in the castle church in Wittenberg Which was sort of a bucket list type of thing to be able to do and from the high pulpit and And then we went to the

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Vartburg Castle which of course is where Luther hides after The encounter he has with Charles At the

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Diet of Worms, and he's a wanted man, and he's hidden away by Frederick. We've covered all this and So is where the

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New Testament is translated into German one of the most important things that Luther does

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And very important for the German language to almost any time the Bible gets translated into a language

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It's a rather major Milestone in the development of that language and so you know you you go through the castle and you visit the places and see the various rooms, and you see the room where he did the translation work and and you know it's just you can go to the gift shop and get lots of Martin Luther trinkets and and stuff like that and books and You take lots of pictures and stuff like that well

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I Asked to go up early and we

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I Went along with one other person and visited this particular

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Location and Let me just double -check here if you if you

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I realize I'm not going to I'm not going to give you all a

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URL from up here that sort of silly unless it would have to be really easy, which I don't think that it would be That's my name and That's oops

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I have big fingers. I'm not sure how any of us ever learned how to Yeah, if you just put in my name and Vartberg It's easier remembering

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Fritz Erba Erbe, but if you want to expose I can just write that here, and then you can do it that way to Fritz Erba Put that in its first thing it comes up Fritz Erba the

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Reformation figure you've never heard of and it's a whopping four minutes Five seconds long

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Hey, you know what we've got the we have the power In 1540

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All right, so let me just do it this way. I know you can't see in the back. I'm sorry But you'll be able to hear it anyways

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It's on YouTube What you're looking at is where Fritz it

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I see see what you did see what you did What What you're looking at is not touching it was in prison until the end of his life in 1548 what had happened is he had been arrested initially

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In the early 1530s, and what was he arrested for well? He was arrested for not baptizing his

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Children and he refused to allow that to happen now. I want you to remember the time frame here

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When is the Bible being translated only a hundred meters? away from us right here 1521 and 1520 1521 and so Barely a decade later you have a man being arrested for Believing what he reads in the book that is translated here

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Then he and as he's at the other place of his imprisonment. He's preaching This causes people to begin supporting him and so he is brought up here, and he is put in this hole and Those of you that are here looking down that is a very very long way down there

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I can't imagine how cold it was how lonely it was certainly efforts were made to try to convince him to change his views, but he would not do so and So here you have a man who finally

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Loses his life passes away the cold the deprivation That would have been his and yet you must understand he is imprisoned by Protestant Forces this is sacralism.

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This is the state church the very the very man who Was fleeing from personal political persecution

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Hiding here translating the Bible into German here is a man who reads that Bible believes what he reads and Ends up down there

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How do you put those two things together? those two realities must be recognized historically or we end up with a cartoon view of the

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Reformation and a cartoonish view of The relationship of church and state and the the warts or the vortex

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Oh, but in a different meaning the warts that we see on the Reformation that we see on The work of the

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Reformation it wasn't something. It was just immediately Perfect and wonderful there were all sorts of difficulties along the way.

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I don't know about you but I look down there and If they were lowering me down there and saying this is where you're going to be until you we can't

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How strongly do we believe we believe? Especially on an issue like baptism that so many people have so many different views on today

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It is astounding to me, and it is convicting to me to think about how deeply people

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Believed what they believed Here is a man who believed the Word of God or he would have cried to be released from this place

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We know almost nothing about him They think they found his skeleton buried outside the walls of this castle in 2006 well, let's hope that that they did and Can you imagine the reconciling power of Christ's work that someday we believe

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Fritz Erba Will be in the presence not only of his Savior, but of many of the people who persecuted him

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Talk about the healing of the body That's what we see here, and it is

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It is a place that people walk by to go see the nice sights Hardly ever thinking about what something like this really tells us about the

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Reformation and what took place Okay So yeah, that was quite a

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Experience to be there you can Seeing it doesn't change much because though the camera does shoot down you get some sense pictures

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Video doesn't really give you a Good grasp of just they called the opening the terror hole

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Because as you'd be lowered into it it just just be blackness beneath you you don't you don't know what's what's down there

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It was just the internal part of that entire tower all the way down into the earth And it was just an amazing is there seven years.

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I don't know how anybody can survive seven years down there, but he he did and so After that that evening

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I was I think is that evening back At the hotel we had a get -together where we you know talk about things and stuff like that and and Obviously the question came up it came up on the bus it came up afterwards

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How can? Christians do that kind of thing to anyone let alone fellow

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Christians and There was one Woman in the group that was just like I did

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I cannot I know that's just not possible. I'm like well Realize if that's just saying that there there there have been very very few

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Christians on earth since since Jesus's day and The Anabaptists were not perfect Fritz Erbe would not have had a perfect theology by any stretch of the imagination then again, how could you expect him to given how he was treated and how long you would expect a person to to even live as an

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Anabaptist, but Eventually she did come up to me and say later said you know

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I'm starting to figure it out You've helped me to understand It's it's just not something I'd ever been exposed to before and that that was one of the things that bothered me when

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I When I started off the trip by telling people look I realized that The first meeting we had in Berlin before we did our first visit to a site

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I'm like I realized that Martin Luther John Calvin Org swingly these are not men who would have extended to me the right hand of fellowship at least in the context in which they lived they most of them never had other than Zwingli never had contact with a overly intelligent well -prepared

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Representative of a Baptist perspective And from their perspective we were just all radicals who are trying to destroy the very culture itself

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But I said I realized that we would not be accepted by these folks and it shocked many people

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Even the people that were doing the tour They had had many other tours with leading

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Church historians people who if I mentioned their names you'd be going. Oh, yeah, listen that guy all the time Who never raised these issues?

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It was always just all the positive things reformers. Did they never? I was the first person for this tour group and they've brought they've taken thousands of people to the

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Vartburg Castle I was first person to even say Let's go there. And in fact, they actually changed the whole whole arrangement after people saw the

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Luther part We went up the tower and and did this in Fritz Erba's cell or at least above Fritz Erba's cell and So it is a major Issue that I would say if you have not struggled with putting together

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Your fascination with an appreciation of the major figures who were sacralists with the real realization of the

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Fritz Erba's and the Conrad Grebel's well people died natural, but Felix Mons and and Michael Sattler.

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That's why I suggested months ago Watching Martin Luther heretic raw

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Martin Luther then watch the heretic Radicals and You go

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Because there's Wingly in the cell with Sattler and there's Wingly overseeing the the punishment of Grebel and months and Brotley and Blower Rock.

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I forgot George Blower Rock up there. Sorry about that. Sorry George and Because it gives you that tension

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That you have to you have to try to work through to again see the reality of sacralism

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The state church someone might want to close that door given that there's still a furnace outside So These are issues we have to think through and one of the reasons

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I'm going to spend time down here with these guys Jan Mathis Bernard Rothman their leaders in Munster and What happens in Munster we can learn a great deal from as to excesses as to imbalances as to heresies as to how cults get started and That all takes place in the middle 1530s and after that point in time

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Nobody in the sacral church will touch the Anabaptist the 10 -foot pole because of what happens in Munster All of Europe Here is about Munster and that the

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Anabaptists murder and plunder and engage in polygamy and elect kings and are just obviously insane

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When they're left to themselves and they have to be put down at high cost and invasion forces and and The the

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Protestants and the Catholics have to work together To purge the land of these radicals who are utterly destructive to all

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Culture Society they burned all the books except the Bible destroyed all the artwork

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Munster was decimated. This is what the Anabaptists are all about and Like I said as you're gonna see and I mentioned you already

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They will torture and kill three of the leaders put their bodies in cages and hang them from the highest steeple in Munster and the cages are there today

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Bodies are gone But the cages are there today Still hanging there and there's a reason for it.

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This is a reminder. This is what these people are all about and that's From 1536 till today figure out the time frame

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Half a millennium later and there's still in the collective and now a thoroughly secular society around Munster Still I think we need to keep those up there

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You can actually I'll show you pictures and we do so but you can actually go on Google Earth and Find st.

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Lambert's Church in Munster, Germany zoom in on it go to the street level Run around a little bit look up there.

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They are you can you can see it even even to today So it's not like they were given a fair shake

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Because not all Anabaptists were even close to the Munsterites But They were all connected in the minds of the reformers and the vast majority of people living in Europe at that time

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So just some things to keep in mind From the reformers perspective even before Munster the

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Anabaptists represented anarchy They represented the utter destruction of society complete anarchy and hence death mayhem and destruction and If you love life if you want to do good for your neighbor then

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You've got to get rid of these folks the idea of a pluralistic society like that just Hadn't crossed almost anybody's mind at that point in time, so that's what?

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That's what we're up against So how did we get there well? As we mentioned before in Zurich You have oh, did you already find them?

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Yeah, did you just Google three cages Munster? Oh, you did use Google. I'll use Google Maps. Okay.

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Yeah, they're still they're still hanging there Obviously very well made cages because they are the same cages from 1536

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They were damaged when the Cathedral was hit by a bomb during World War two but they repaired the church repaired the cages and put him back up, so That's a that's a testimony in of itself

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For many people they look back at Zurich and Zwingli and say there's the beginning of the problem because Zwingli You know

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I I mentioned to you when we talked about the rotten geister last week Zwingli Well, maybe

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I didn't mention to you At at one point Zwingli starts to come to conclusion that if you can't read the original languages, then you should not

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Be listened to in matters of dispute this was to give him an advantage over his former students

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Who were now turning against him? Many people would say see

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This is what happens when you limit yourself to the Bible without some form of tradition

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The there is no stopping place All of society begins to break down and in the minds even as Zwingli He saw the need to continue infant baptism to continue the support of the princes and simply to maintain political order

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People Farther toward Muslim lands that were fighting the Turks who were invading

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Europe Recognize they needed tax money they needed soldiers they needed a united Europe to stand against a united Islamic threat and The Anabaptists were a threat to that unity if you watched the radicals you saw how

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In the trial of Sattler as long as they stayed on theological issues Sattler did fine, and he was starting to convince the people

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So what they do they got on to the issue of the Muslims the

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Turks and that's what turned the people against him So Those films do a very good job in Representing what was going on and bringing up the important the important points, but for many people

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As Zwingli opened the box When he began having this little

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Humanist association member humanist back then did not mean what humanist means now Odd fontess to the source and so he would get together with these students, and he taught them

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Greek and they would discuss the New Testament in its original language and These were to be his

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Disciples to the follow -up generation, whatever it might be Except what happened there in the early 1520s

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Is they start asking questions that lead to divisions? According to at least some people there there seems to be really credible credible evidence that at some point early on in that time period

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Zwingli admitted to this group That there truly was not a

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New Testament basis for the baptism of infants And So If the whole idea had been that we get rid of what has not been established by God in fact in the

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Dispute in Zurich eventually between Grebel months Roy Blin Brotley Against Zwingli They took their stand on the text of Matthew 15 13 all that has not been planted by God should be uprooted and So For something to be planted by God It must be

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Planted on the basis of Scripture if it's mere tradition or politics that needs to be uprooted so that was the thinking that was the mindset and It is around this time then that Zwingli for the first time at least from His perspective from the

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Swiss perspective Begins to enunciate for the first time what will eventually become the reformed

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Perspective on paedo -baptism based upon a covenant theology But he did not have that nearly 1520s

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He has to develop it as an argument against his former students

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Who are challenging him on this very issue? Now what the connection between Zwingli's development of this and Calvin's imbibing of that at a later point is

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I'm uncertain There's a member. There's at least a four -year gap between Zwingli's death and Calvin's publishing of the

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Institute's and so Calvin is converted right around That time period and so Exactly what the connection is is difficult to say but the point is that Zwingli opened the door and he also gave the tools to a special especially

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Grebel and Mons To develop At least semi sophisticated.

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It's not like they had years and years and years of development, but the semi sophisticated arguments that were challenging to Zwingli to respond to There is also there are also a number of other issues that that came up and again where you're not certain of Exactly the relationship between the

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Groups that existed before the Reformation Waldensians, Albigensians, whatever and Grebel and Mons and Roiblin and Brutley and so on so forth their lives are so short

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That You know when you're on the run Hiding in the woods. You can't exactly go to the local university and check out library and be reading obscure works of preceding generations, and so it there's a lot of a a lot of confusion as to exactly

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How who was influenced by what and things like that also remember? It's really easy for us.

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We're sitting here talking about okay We're talking about Zurich right now. We're talking about Zwingli. We're talking about the early 1520s. We've sort of forgotten the timeline from Luther What's the big huge time?

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mark in the Luther timeline 1524 1525 Anyone the peasants revolt the peasants war remember?

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This is absolutely central in the development of Luther's theology

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Becoming moving away from any thought he ever had of a free church

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He loses southern Germany Back to Rome primarily the

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Peasants had been looking to him To champion them because he he had been saying positive things about the need for justice and so on and so forth

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They assumed that meant that he'd stand with them, but once they became violent. He stood against them because he saw them as fundamentally leading to Anarchy 100 ,000 people dead in a short period of time just mowed down by superior forces and That revolt likewise influences.

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What is going on in? Zurich not to the same extent, but you have refugees you have a lot of people rethinking things and Everyone recognizes that the

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Anabaptist movement received great impetus as a result of the peasants war and so you sort of see an explosion of People taking leadership positions over the next few years after the peasants war

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Many people gave up on the possibility of reforming government and So the

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Anabaptist anti -government mindset Had a close connection to what had happened in the slaughter of those hundred thousand people and So For example we get down You know

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Michael Sattler Schleitheim confession 1527

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I think so this is very shortly after this is This is right after the events of the peasants war that's still very very fresh on everybody's minds and then in 1530 so you know two and a half years three years after Sattler a man by the name of Melchior Hoffman is

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Converted and He begins preaching a Very very

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Eschatologically oriented Form of Anabaptist theology and you can see why he'd be able to do so When you have bodies piled up to a hundred thousand in Very very recent memory people's memories were better back then than ours are now we sort of forget what happened five years ago

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But they didn't back then because not much changed from year to year We're just we just expect everything to change from year to year to year now

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This had just happened in their experience and so It's real easy in light of plagues and wars and slaughters

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Not difficult to use the book of Revelation to come up with I mean You know we think

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We think some of our modern eschatological Fun stuff is is wild It's nothing compared to some of the stuff you had back then and so it was really easy

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You know how Lindsay was a amateur in comparison to what people? Did back then and so it was easy to convince people we're living in the last days

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Look at all these people that died That's one of these plagues and then look at what this guy looks like he looks like this horned beast

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And I mean it's it's fairly Simple to understand how this worked within a brief period of time you get all these people coming to the fore and They have a strong emphasis upon the end times the end times are now and The the the woman who's riding the beast is

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Rome and Luther and the rest three formers You know look at them.

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They're they're still doing all the things that That that Rome did they're just They're just offspring of the

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Pope Pratting about doing their their little things so it's very very easy To tap into the anti -catholicism but then just throw the

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Reformers in with that and say well look at all the things that you know they they still wear clerical garb and and This that and the other thing and throw them all all together and so Melchior Hoffman comes along and He's able

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Now these guys didn't these early people many of you know you know Grable dies of natural causes

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But mance is the the first one killed there in in in Zurich Roible and as you may recall that's the real sad story remember

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Wilhelm Roible and was a key character in the radicals film he ends up going back to Roman Catholicism and Living of living off the money of the people who killed

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Michael Sattler, I mean it's It's a sad sad footnote to that particular story to realize that but Starting in 1525

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Being an Anabaptist gives you about two years maybe three before you end up at the bottom of a river lake prison run through head chopped off whatever it might be and The places where you can find any level of safety get fewer and fewer and fewer very very quickly

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This leads to the Eschatological fervor and sort of Melchior Hoffman comes along Up to this point there had been some disagreements remember in the radicals

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You know if you accept the power of the state the power of the sword need to have a pure movement There's differences between Wilhelm Roible and and Michael Sattler about that very thing

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But then Wilhelm eventually gives in but then he changes his mind later There was a lot of controversy even amongst them as to How much can we accept of the state's protection can we make friends with?

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You know what if we have what if a prince is converted to our perspective can we go to his land and accept his?

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Protection of us and and so on and so forth but it was primarily because you're a small minority and look what happened the peasants were a

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Primarily a pacifistic movement and Melchior Hoffman is a pacifist. He does not believe in the use of violence or the sword to promote his perspective but He decides that the

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New Jerusalem the the place where Christ is going to return and set up his kingdom Is Strasbourg and So he starts teaching this and he begins gathering disciples in Strasbourg now remember

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Strasbourg's where Martin Bucer is eventually Bucer is going to be convinced to move against the

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Anabaptists just as he Eventually writes a book against the Jews sacred, you know

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It's hard to be a moderate Sacralist You're either a full -blown sacralist or you're not and what's going to happen when you try the middle way is the radicals are to come along and The middle of the road just doesn't become an option anymore and But there was an openness initially and Many of these people lived very godly lives and their opponents recognized and the people recognized it.

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I Mean if you're gonna trust your wife or daughter to somebody they'd be the people that you would do it you'd trust them so Hoffman begins preaching and begins gathering people to Strasbourg because this is going to become the center of God's kingdom

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On earth in a very short period of time in the early 1530s people start setting dates didn't even need herald camping didn't need the

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Jehovah's Witnesses or whoever it was that did the 84 reasons why

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Christ's returning in 1984 remember that one. I remember I remember coming out of church One day over at North Phoenix and somebody had hit the parking lot and that's a big parking lot to hit

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Somebody hit the parking lot and everybody had this little Blue, I think it's blue and white. I think

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I may have saved it a booklet stuck under your windshield wipers 84 reasons why

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Christ's returning in 1984, so You love those really specific books because you can always take pictures of them and go that didn't turn out real well but This is nothing new about this people have been setting dates for nearly 2 ,000 years

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But they started setting dates to the early early 1530s there in Strasbourg and thousands of people start showing up now as a part of his preaching

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He converts two men that will become important starting next week

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Jan Mathis and Bernard Rothman now Remember one of the reasons that The Reformation begins when it does and is successful is due to the printing press

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Well Bernard Rothman has his own printing press He is especially dangerous

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Because he has some money He has a printing press. He knows how to use it and He happens to be an excellent writer

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I'm excellent in the sense of being able to Write pamphlets that move people you know some people can write pamphlets that snooze people

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You know the government filled with people could write pamphlets that will put you to sleep immediately

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But he could write Pamphlets that could get people to do things and From the early 1530s through to when

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Munster Falls 1535 that first four or five year period his writings are some of the most influential writings in Northern Europe and Literally lead to the deaths of thousands deaths of thousands mainly people who believe what he had to say

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That was not his intention obviously, but that is what ends up happening and Rothman is located in Munster And That's where his press is and even once that city is besieged as we'll find out next week

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The siege wasn't all that good at first in the sense of it was so porous

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And they were able to get tens of thousands of his pamphlets out and he was able to you know send stuff out and call for Anabaptists to come to Munster and to help them and many of these people perished in the way because the the local bishop

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Catholics primarily, but the Protestants joined in eventually Realized how dangerous this was and so if you had weapons and you were heading toward Munster There's good possibility

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You'd just be stopped run through the sword and left to die on the left to bleed out on the side of the road And that happened many people men women and children

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Anyway, so Bernard Rothman is Converted under Melchior Hoffman who is a pacifist, but then something's going to change and History tells us that You can have people who start off as pacifists, but once they begin to experience opposition it's very easy to transition into the mindset that this opposition is persecution and therefore make the decision that You're going to stand for God and fight for the truth and How far that goes or how radical that goes well there has been no place where it's gotten any more radical than it would in Munster There are modern examples of this

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Jim Jones and Waco are both really good examples of somebody who started off in a fairly

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You know had a fairly orthodox background, but once they get power over people and once opposition starts coming then the radical swing takes place and A number of people have drawn a lot of parallels between Munster and Waco and There are a lot of parallels that parallels really are

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How it ended up coming out and the leaders, and yeah, there's a lot of a lot of parallels

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But then we've got this guy Jan Mathis now I listened to one presentation on this that basically said that Jan Mathis looked like he walked right off of a

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Led Zeppelin album Album cover just long hair beard black robe

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Six foot four or five something like that big tall dark

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Gandalf Ian except in black robes I Don't even know how to describe it.

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I'm trying to come up with illustrations. It might visually give you some idea this guy

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This Guy could not walk past you on the street Without you going did you see that did you see that that type of thing you know?

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He Yeah, all of that and Jan Mathis Will be the linchpin the conversion from The pacifist

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Melchior Hoffman theology Will be mutated by Jan Mathis into The reality of him taking about a dozen men with him at the direct command of God and Riding out of Munster 1213 men to take on the 10 ,000 -man bishops army with the promise of God that he would be victorious

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It would also lead to his death dismembership dismembering Hanging his head on the on a pole outside the city and the nailing of his private parts to the city gates

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But he all did it because God told him to do it and God talked to Jan a lot.

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I Was Jan Mathis gets challenged by someone just second Yes, Lord.

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Mm -hmm. Yeah, okay, right. All right. So here's what the Lord says I Mean, that's basically what you're gonna end up with not immediately

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But step by step by step until basically you've got this wild looking dude

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Saying being believed by all the Anabaptists who have come to Munster that he is a prophet of God And that he speaks for God directly directly

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How did that happen? Well, that's one of the things We'll be talking about as we press forward and get closer to our conclusion.

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All right, let's close the word of prayer Father once again, we thank you for the opportunity of thinking back.

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We ask that you would give us insight to learn and To be warned and to be made more wise