(The Markstein) - Part 3, Early Anabaptist Hutterite Missions — Dean Taylor

As soon as you're ready, brother, be unique. I'll do it. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for your mercy in our life. We thank you for the grace of God. We thank you for the blood sacrifice for our sins.

We throw ourself unto you, Lord, and say have mercy upon us today. Lord, we want to renew our commitment to you today. We want to renew our hearts. And we ask you to fill us with your Holy Spirit and you empower us like we read of the days of old, Lord.

You do the work inside of us. So, God, please give us a chance again in this generation. Give us a chance. Lord, let us be inspired and convicted that these men died. These men and women died for these things.

Let us not just take them for granted and just live our lives. Be also faithful, Lord. Thank you, Father. Please be with this message in Jesus' name. Amen. When we talk about missions, I remember the first time I gave this message to a Hutterite audience, this Hutterite young man came to me, probably about 12 or 13.

The Hutterite Martyrs and the Mission of the Kingdom

And he said, you know what? I've always known that Hutterites died good, but I never knew we ever did any. And I said, ouch. So, in other words, it's good for us to lift up the faithfulness during persecution of the martyrs.

It's incredible. I mean, it's inspiring. But it's also good for us to look into why they got martyred. What was it that was making the people so angry? But here's the thing that I'm hoping that somehow these topics will start to blend together.

And you'll understand that Christ came into this world and He wants to save us. But He wants to save us for a reason. And that's to spread His kingdom over the whole earth. And with that, He does not want us involved with the answers and the kingdom of this world.

But He wants us involved with them. And here's a verse that really hit me as an evangelical of understanding why He even saves us. And it's actually in Ezekiel. Let me read this to you before we start this.

Ezekiel chapter 36. Prophecy about the new covenant. And when they entered unto the heathen. Ezekiel 36 verse 20. And when they entered into the heathen. Okay, I'm sorry. Let's back it up to verse 19.

This is Jesus. I mean, God's talking about a rebuke. But then why He's going to save them. And I scattered them among the heathen. And they were dispersed through the countries according to their way.

And according to their doings I judged them. And when they entered into the heathen, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name. When they said to them, these are the people of the Lord and are gone forth from His land.

Listen. But I had pity which the house of Israel hath profaned among the heathen everywhere they went. Therefore saying to the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God. And don't miss this. I do not this for your sakes.

I'm not going to do this. It's not about you, O house of Israel. But for My holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the heathen everywhere you went. And I will sanctify My great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you have profaned in the midst of them.

And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord's name, saith the Lord God. When I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries.

And will bring you into your own land. It's the kingdom of God. And I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. From your filthiness and from your idols I will cleanse you. And a new heart will I give you.

And a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away that old stony heart. And put in a heart of flesh. And I will write My animals upon your heart. And cause you, rid of its inner, and cause you to walk in My statues and treasures.

But do you see the whole point of our salvation? It's not about us. It's not about getting to heaven. It's about bringing glory to God. And so as we look through this and we look through this thing, I'm hoping that missions doesn't look like to you, just one more thing you tack on as a hobby horse to some weird doctrine.

It all flows together in our kingdom theology, in our two kingdoms, in our salvation, in our desire to bring glory to God to all nations. Alright, so let's look into this. A little bit about my family.

Community Missions and the Speaker's Hutterite Journey

This was my passion for community. Was reading these stories in history and thinking, again coming from my army background and all that, the camaraderie that I craved to have. And I would read about these community missions thinking, And so here's my book again.

Fortunately, it's been translated in several different languages. It's been translated in Spanish and into Polish. And just recently, Cam translated it into Arabic. And so it's been a blessing to be able to use that in the mission field, particularly when we were over in Greece.

This is my wife. We did a talk once about our testimony and about the two kingdoms.

And she's been an incredible blessing.

Dragging that poor girl from the army to utter iconic. I mean, can you imagine? And everything in between. So she's been wonderful. It's been a blessing and it's been a journey. And so through that, I've had a passion for following radicals' examples of following Jesus in history.

This was a tour we took with Peter Hoover, going through different places in Germany, different little communities. Peter was really, of course, known. Here's an early one from the 1200s at Friends of God.

Here was where the Amman colonies came from in the 1600s. This is where John Hus was, my son. And this, of course, is one of my favorite groups, the Moravians. Zinzendorf was there. Interesting, in the 1800s, the Hutterites went to this place to get encouragement.

And there was actually quite a lot of interaction between the Moravians and the Hutterites in the 1800s.

And this is the place of the very first Hutterite colony.

In Ustavitch Czech Republic today. Are those Hutterite buildings?

No, those aren't. That's the town hall of where it was. This is a Moravian, Zinzendorf Moravian colony, mission colony. And they would meet like this and just passionately spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.

This is the one in Bethlehem. This one I didn't live far from. I have a little documentary to try to get you a copy on. It is on the Internet. It's called the Moravian Mission Machine. It's what I wrote before, the Hutterite Mission Machine.

And just to see their zeal of everything in their life dedicated to serving God. I studied them first and came to understand that the Hutterites actually did it before them, 200 years before them, the same passion.

This is a mission community in Germany, a statue of, of course, Zinzendorf there. That's God's acre. Interesting, in the Moravians, they would put all these graves in there. And on Easter Sunday, they would all stand around the graveyard and sing to the lamb and proclaiming a day when the, when the church on the earth will join the church in the heaven and they will all praise the lamb together.

It's a powerful place to be. That's the one in Hernhut, Germany. That's the, these were the staffs of the ships that they then used for their church meeting hall. And this is, this is that building. Anybody tell me, this place?

Halkenstein. Halkenstein, incredible. And so when you look at the Hutterites when I began to see them, first, particularly considering we don't have as many documents, I mean it's 200 years before the Moravians almost.

And when you start to look at the systematic passion and the persecution that they, they, they witnessed to do it, that's why I finally came to name the early Hutterites as the Marine Corps of the Anabaptists.

It was, it's an inspiring story. So Peter helped me a lot through that. And yeah, it's been a blessing. Salvation Army. Little known fact, William Booth, towards the end of his life, when he was really trying to encapsulate how could we do it all, came up with this book that he wrote.

And this was a pullout of the book.

And he shows that he wanted to have, this says, I'll get a close-up, he had the farm colony and the city colony. So he wanted to have the different places. Let me go back up again. So you save people out of the world.

This was his plan. Get them out of, it says, betting, gambling, you know, prostitution, all this. And make places in England that they could be trained and discipled, given jobs. And then he also made it where they would then have a farm community area where people could study and, you know, get off drugs, get off alcohol, this type of a thing.

And then he had it where he had colonies across the sea and bought parts of Africa and things. And he pulled this off all the way up to 1912. He was doing this hardly ever mentioned in the history of the Salvation Army.

And he had a passion thing. He actually pulled this off. There's still communities there in England that are remnants of this, of what he planned to do. John Wesley has always been very inspiring to me.

And this quote from him really encapsulates my passion for community missions. And he says this, I continue to dream and pray about a revival of holiness in our day that moves forth in mission and creates authentic community in which each person can be unleashed through the empowerment of the Spirit to fulfill God's creational intentions.

It's a blessing.

The Church as God's Missionary Community

So I believe the evangelical world, when you look at missions, I have a whole sermon that talks about the awakening that's happening, even in the conservative evangelicals, saying we miss the church in missions.

One of them says, a famous quote, everywhere we seem to have missions and there's no church, and everywhere else we have churches and there's no mission. It shouldn't be this way. The church, the kingdom, is the way God has used to spread His ways and His salvation to the earth.

And the interesting, a Dallas Theological Seminary scholar, George Peters is his name, talked about where did this mistake happen. It happened way back in Zwingli. And he says how the Anabaptists differed from this from the beginning.

So Anabaptists, let's talk about that. Again, it's not a denomination. I'm not talking to anybody to join the Anabaptists. It's a way of thinking. It's a hermeneutic. It's a biblical interpretation. It literally means one who baptizes or re-baptizes.

It's one who would have to baptize and don't believe. Where did the Anabaptists come from? We know that in 1517, Martin Luther officially initiated into the Protestant Reformation. This is an incredible thing for us, just being able to stop the tyranny of Rome, to get the Bible into a language that we can read.

And the same thing was happening then over the Reformation in Switzerland. Anybody know who this is? You got it, guys. Milton Zwingli. And this is where the young Anabaptists were truly converted by his good preaching.

He was one of the first to do expository preaching, which means just preaching through the Word of God. And these men were converted. And he brought in lots of impact and change in the city of Zurich.

But finally, as the young men began to study, they began to ask and challenge things. The Scriptures then were given into the common language. I did read once that the Froschauer Bible, which was the Swiss Bible, they first got the Psalms and Proverbs, then they got the Gospels, and then later the Epistles were translated.

And I just wonder if that emphasis, even in the way they received the Scripture, helped give them a focus on Jesus Christ. It's just a personal theory. So here we are. This is the land of Switzerland.

And this is Zurich right here. And we'll kind of show this. And right here, this is the modern-day Grossmünster.

And I'll show you what the kind of area.

This is where basically Anabaptism started.

That's Grossmünster.

Interesting, this is that statue there. It's Charlemagne, who is kind of the symbol of state church, which is where this was broke from. In the door you see they have the Reformation door on there. And they give the history of the Anabaptists.

And here you can see that they tell the story of the Reformation and what it went. And here it is, the early Anabaptists hearing from Zwingli, and then finally saying the famous quote, What does the state have to do with the church?

And why does the state... We're not going to wait for the state to translate our Bible and that type of thing.

And the Anabaptist was started.

Oryx Zwingli becomes the symbol of church and state together, with his statue still today. You can see his scripture and cross just giving a symbol. And of course he died in the battlefield, fulfilling the promise that he who lives by the sword will die by the sword.

This is the courthouse where the early Anabaptists were arrested. And Conrad Grebel, if anybody can remember, when he wrote his letter to his friend in St. Gall, I think it was, two elements that I picked out of that letter that I think were essence to early Anabaptism.

Number one, I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation. And out of that I speak. And the other one was what? The teaching of the Lord has been given the purpose of being put into practice.

That's so simple. But it's so true. In other words, I always tease David. So, he's making an Anabaptist study Bible. I said, if I was to make an Anabaptist study Bible, it says like in Matthew, it says to love your enemies.

And I would have a line that says, what it really means, love your enemies, means to love your enemies. When it talks about marriage or head coverings, it means to cover your head. And so these plain things of Scripture, the Scriptures were intended for us to read them as a child, and I think that they're important.

And so is this teaching spreading this kingdom. So dream with me.

Following Jesus' Commands in the Face of Persecution

What did Jesus really do? One of the things that we're calling this, remember, is March study. I want to get to the essence of what started the Hutterites in the first place. And it was this entire dependence upon Jesus Christ, and putting His words into practice in our life and in the world around us.

So eventually, as we know, in 1527, they put to death Felix Mons at this place in the river. Only ten years later, after the Protestant Reformation, with all its glory, started. Ten years later, the Protestants themselves put to death the first Anabaptist, by drowning him in a crystal clear water.

On January 5th, 1527, Felix Mons was sentenced to death. Why? It's interesting to know why. We have it. So the hear ye, hear ye. They would have read from their churches, they wrote in their journals, and we'd get to know.

Interestingly, we have a letter from the far east side of Switzerland, and Felix Mons was caught in prison. He went out and escaped from prison. But as soon as he escaped from prison, he didn't hide. This is what he did.

So they captured him, and they wrote a letter to Zurich saying, Listen, for a long time we've had among us a man who calls himself Felix Mons. The same has created much trouble and discord among our people, because he is baptizing old people, and he's corner preaching.

Baptizing old people means non-infants. And corner preaching. To such an extent that we ordered him to leave the city, after this he returned and did it again. This is regarding the public proclamation in the church forbidding adult baptism on penalty of death, loss of honor, and loss of property.

Why did Felix Mons feel compelled, after such mandates, to keep preaching? Can anybody tell me why? The kingdom, my king. Because Jesus commanded it. If we're going to say we're Jesus' followers, he had to.

That's the key. Therefore we arrested him and held him a few days, but because he's an obstinate and recluse-a-trent person, well that's a five dollar word, we released him from prison, and because he's one of yours, we have sent him to you with a friendly request that you look after him and keep him into your own territory so that we may be rid of him, and our people remain quiet, and that in case he is to return, we are not compelled to take severe measures against him.

But, he kept preaching, and wouldn't change, and so finally they sentenced him to death, and this is the proclamation of why they sentenced Felix Mons to death. Written from the newly born again, so-called, Protestant Reformation, only ten years after its beginning, sentenced him to death for these reasons.

Let's see. Hold up, sit over here. Okay, because he, I know it's too good of a quote, I'm going to read it to you like this. Okay, here we go. Because contrary to Christian order and custom, he has become involved in anabaptism, and accepted it, taught others, and became a leader and beginner of these things, because he has confessed having said that he wanted to gather those who wanted to accept Christ and follow him, and unite himself with them through baptism, and let the rest live according to their faith, so that he and his followers separated themselves from the Christian church, were about to rise up and prepare a sect of their own under the guise of a Christian meeting.

Those are bad things. Because he condemned capital punishment, he was non-resistant. Since such a doctrine is harmful to the unfamed usage of all Christianity, it leads to offense and insurrection and sedition against the government, to the shattering of the common peace and brotherly love and civil cooperation, and to all evil.

Mons shall be delivered to the executor, he shall tie his hands, put him into a boat, take him into the lower hut, there strip his bound hands down over his knees, place a stick between his knees and arms, and thus push him into the water, and let him perish in the water, thereby he shall have atoned to the law and justice, his property shall also be confiscated by the authorities.

And they drew a picture of it.

That's an actual picture that they wrote in some of the journals in Zurich today. So, here's the thing. So, as they were there, so here's Zurich, the next day after this happened, they spread into Zolkona Revival, and then from here, they went up to here, and started sharing the gospel.

Why? It was such persecution. Middle Simons also has a great quote. He says, He said this, speaking of this call from Christ to preach. He said this. So, just getting started. It's 1527, it happened in January.

By February, they went to Schleiheim and made the Schleiheim Confession. By August, they're meeting in Augsburg, and 60 ministers now, it's grown to 60 ministers of the Anabaptists meet there, and start deciding how they're going to do missions all over the world.

The Martyrs' Synod and the Cost of Missionary Witness

Now, here's the thing. Of those 60 ministers that were there, early missionaries, in five years, how many were left? Two were left. That's why this thing is called the Martyrs' Synod. So, if you were a missionary in 1527, there is your chance of survival.

You have a 5 chance of survival. You have a 95 kill rate of the missionaries in 1527. Why are you doing this? So, they've been going over the martyrs' mirrors full of these stories. Our Counter-Rite Chronicles are full of these stories of these people.

If they could just be quiet. It's interesting. There's a few letters here from the martyrs' mirror. Someone asked one of the ladies that were being dragged out to be martyred, and she said, Dear Mother, can't you just think what you please and keep it to yourself, and you won't die?

The lady replied, Dear Sister, I'm commanded to speak, and you're constrained to do so. Hence, I cannot remain silent about it. Now, they were preachers, but even when they were at the mill and at the different place, they would tell people about Christ, and he'd be carried off into persecution.

I love this one. In a court record in Gutenberg, they found a document that tells them, What are we going to do with these Anabaptist women? We can't shut them up. And it says, The government decision that the propaganda activity of Anabaptist women through word and mouth, and through booklets, tracks, was so grievous that those, quote, mothers who could not be banished because of their little children must be chained at home to prevent their leading so many people astray.

Praise God! Wow! Just by passing out little papers, you're there to pick up your stuff, your grain for the day, and there it was. So, here it is. So then they started going. So from here to here, you look at a map and you go, Well, that's not bad.

This is what they're crossing. On foot. And it's like, Wow! When you're driving around there, this is what I just took out of my car. It's amazing to see in these places where they carry things like that.

So here we get to a place, and now this is Goofy Down, Italy. This is the very spot where finally George Blalock, who was one of the original three there in Zurich, the most boisterous of the one, was burned at the stake right there.

Now, Peter Walpot, one of the early bishops, leaders of the Hutterites, and one of the leaders of turning the Hutterites into the mission machine, was a nine-year-old boy standing right there. He's the one that wrote this.

Okay, okay. Watched George Blalock being burned at the stake at nine years old. At that spot, right? At that spot. Watched him. And later he becomes converted. Later he becomes, joins the early Hutterites, becomes a bishop, and becomes the leader of the mission machine it turned him into.

Absolutely incredible. That's how he started his young life, watching that. It was war. So in 1527, started in 1525, where he got now two years of evangelism, where in 1527 Lichtenstein in Moravia opened up his kingdom for the Anabaptists to come in.

In two years, we started from three guys, two years, 12 ,500 people sell their properties and lands and move to Moravia. Kind of impressive. This is a spot in Triol. It's in the Tyrolean areas, where in this very place, there was little booths here where little gospel tracts were handed over to early Anabaptists, early Hutterites, were given in this very spot.

This is where Jacob Hutter came from. This is bad. 1526, now the Muslims are coming up and jihading against Europe. Hungary falls in 1526. 1527, because the Pope didn't pay his debts, they turned and turned up.

Rome is falling. Bandits took over the whole thing. The Pope is hiding. Rome is falling. And now somewhere in the Magnificat, the Muslim decides to call a jihad against Europe. And as soon as we make it over to Vienna, the jihad of the Muslim advance is right there.

And so, he leads this army. He attacks, tries to attack Vienna. But in this, so the kings there in Austria says, okay, we've got Muslims coming against us. This is crazy. Everybody, every man must carry the sword.

Because if the Muslims come, we've got to be ready. Can't you hear that today? We'd better keep our guns, because if the Muslims come, we'd better be ready. It was there. So they came, and out of that 12 ,000, well, now we've been given a little nation.

Liechtenstein actually himself got converted. He got baptized again. But they started to think, we could probably do this with the government. I think it'd work. So one of the leaders of the Anabaptists switched and started defending the sword and wrote a book on the sword.

And out of those 12 ,000, they all believed it. And they started accepting the sword and then turning the little Arabia into an Anabaptist nation. Short-lived. But of those 12 ,200 said, Jesus said, we can't go to war.

Jesus said to love your enemies. Well, you've got 12 ,000 of your brethren saying, can't you? No, I'm sorry. We're going to follow Jesus. So 200 said, they said, we are out of here. They kicked him out.

And they were out completely in the middle of nowhere. This 200 of the whole movement now has come down to this 200. And they got out there in the middle of nowhere. One guy threw his coat on the ground and said, what do you got?

Everyone started throwing their money in. And that was the start of the Hutterites. So we're just going to be faithful. We're just going to live. We're going to work this out. We're going to see what we can do.

And we're going to keep going. Solomon did not end up taking. God defended Vienna. And if you look at the history, it was miraculous. It was miraculous that he didn't do. And so hear what it says in the chronicle.

These men spread out with a cloak in front of the people. And each one laid his possessions on it with a willing heart, without being forced, so that the needy might be supported in accordance with the teachings of the prophets and the apostles.

A small band petitioned the rulers of Hostulitz, Moravia, thank you, to occupy one of the old burned out farms. The Lord enthusiastically accepted them. Starting out poor in wheat, the brethren in Hostulitz molded themselves after the Book of Acts.

And set up a little settlement with full community of goods. So what do you do next? What's the right thing to do?

Jacob Hutter and the Hutterite Mission Machine

It's 1528. What a year. I mean, 1527 was a busy year. The Antipath Revival only started. It's 1528. You're out there now. What do you do? Okay, what do you say? Do they rest? No. All right, that's what I would have done.

Do you hide? No. That's what I would have done. Do you hold a seminar? Now that's what I would have done. Hold a seminar. We can talk about these things. No. So what do the early Hutterites do? Do they go?

What do you mean you go? Amazingly, right from the beginning, the little group started following Jesus' command to reach out. The Hutterite Chronicles records this. As the members of the church began to increase in number, the zeal and divine grace moved them to send brothers out to other countries, especially to Tyrol.

Huh, I wonder who they picked up in Tyrol. Tyrol. Jacob Hooter. There it was. So, eventually an anointed missionary and preacher from Tyrol named Jacob Hooter joined the brethren. His leadership skills were quickly recognized and Jacob Hooter helped to give the new group much needed organization and vision.

Many noticed his influence and soon the brethren were being labeled from others outside of them as Hutterites because of his leadership. Jacob Hooter was a leader for only two years. That's right. Jacob Hooter was only a leader for two years.

But what he accomplished in that time was substantial. Perhaps the most significant thing that Jacob Hooter contributed to the movement was a laser sharp vision with the organizational skills to back it up.

And Jacob ended his life heroically being sent on a mission trip to his hometown in Tyrol, Austria. He could have just minded his own business or tended to church problems. They had a lot of them. Jacob fell into the hands of his persecutors.

In February 1536, Jacob was taken to Innsbruck, severely tortured and interrogated. When they saw that Jacob would not deny the faith, he was taken to the city square and burned at the stake. Incredible.

Apostolic Leadership and the Missionary Calling

Okay. So what do you do when you just get started and your gifted leader just got killed? Following the lead of Jacob Hooter, a new type of leaders emerged in the Hutterites with an even greater zeal to spread the kingdom of God to the ends of the earth.

The high ideas and rare dedication to the words of Jesus attracted gifted men. Let me tell you a saying. You attract who you are. Listen to that. You attract who you are. And so when these people became zealous, other people that were zealous, I want to get out of that.

And they started to attract to people. People like Peter Rittemann. This infused this new movement with talent and exceptional leadership. Kingdom based beyond. The goal calling and desire of Peter Rittemann and his radical brethren was Christ and his kingdom.

His heartbeat with the heart of Christ with the appeal to manifest God's kingdom to the unearthed. This kingdom based missiology caused the early Anabaptists to pour their lives into mission even in the most difficult times of war and persecution.

What's more, when they built these missions they understood that discipling them in all the teachings of Christ was what was expected of them. They believed Jesus actually meant what he said. Teaching them to observe all things,.

What so ever I have commanded you. Now, this is from the Mennonite Encyclopedia.

Organizing Missions Through Distinct Callings

Now, I've lived in the community for five years. Okay, I know we do things by the clock. I was asking some brothers last night, especially you ladies, well you all do, you know when it's time to start making the pickles, right?

You get the cucumbers, you get the pickles going. In your mind right now, you could kind of say, I kind of know when that's going to happen. For us, we hear that speaker going off in the house. Oh ladies, it's time we go do the pickles.

And I'm like, oh okay, I was doing something else. But you intuitively know. The different things that we do, there's kind of a season to it. Well community life, the Hutterites knew to do this right, we're going to organize it.

And just like we know when it's time to do the cucumbers, if we don't set down and say, we're going to do it now, you won't have any cucumbers. Same way with missions. And they said, we've just got to be organized with it.

And this is what they did. This is straight from the Mennonite Encyclopedia. It says, quote, an organized effort. They sent brethren every year to lands near and far according to the commands of Christ and the practice of the Apostle to teach and to preach and together for the Lord God's people.

In order to able to fulfill this task laid upon them by the Lord, the congregation semi-annually, that means twice a year, usually in the spring and the fall, chose from the preachers a number of brethren to perform a widespread missionary service in all directions, to preach the gospel in accordance with the commandments of Christ.

In these early days of terrible persecution, they usually brought these converts back to Moravia with them. Each missionary had a field assigned to him. Thus, brethren went out to all parts of Germany, Moravia, Württemberg, Hesse, Thuringia, Rhineland, Sicily, Prussia, to Switzerland, to Poland, in two cases to Venice, Italy.

A few came to Denmark and to Switzerland. Sending out these missionaries into all different places. Quoting from now Peter Ridderman, the son does what he sees the father doing. When the son wished to create a new humanity, there's the phrase, or to renew humanity in the likeness of the Creator, he also wanted to do everything in the proper order.

Since they cannot preach without first being sent, it is certain that God, in giving them His command to go out, put His word in the messenger's mouth. The Lord Himself testifies to this when He says, I have put My words in your mouth.

I have set you over nations and kingdoms to uproot, to pull down, to destroy, and then to build and plant anew. Therefore, all who have not been sent have no words from God. They have only what they have stolen from the Scripture or from one another.

That is the main reason God's commission is necessary. It's not enough that they were sent, they also had to know the purpose of being sent and what they had to do. Christ commanded them to do His work, saying, teach all nations and preach the gospel to every creature.

From the statement of faith, 186 -187. When I, as soon as I moved into Minnesota, I really wanted to make it out to see the ancient chronicles, the handwritten copy at Bonham. So I went out there, the elder there pulled out this, it's still in the original box, you know, a history buff like me, you really love all that, you know, old wooden box from under his bed, you know, and all this.

And so he pulled it out, and one of the things that I wanted to see, if you look at the martyrs, if you look at the chronicles, there's a table in there of martyrs. I really wanted to see that in the original.

There's a powerful page in the chronicles where it gives the martyrs and how many in each city and that kind of a thing. So I asked for it, and I found it called a martyr's table, and he allowed me to go through it.

And I looked at it, and this is what I saw. So here you see like, in this city there was 23 that were martyred, in this city two, in this city six, in this city three, these are all the different, in this city 30, in this city 10, all these were missionaries being sent out and being killed.

And I wanted to see that. But as I looked at it though, I noticed something different. It's different in both the German or the English. And you know what I noticed different? It's not in our copies? Gaps.

Gaps. Why would you have gaps? And I turned the page, and the whole page is in gaps, all made out, ready to go. It looks like kind of like the baptism and marriage thing you have at the front of your Bible.

I said, wait a minute. Speaking to the elder there, I said, the guys who wrote this martyr table left blanks for the next generation. They were blaming for it. Yeah, to add names, to add different martyrs that are there.

And so this was the mindset of those who wrote the Chronicles. We're going to die. You better leave gaps so that in this martyrs table, future martyrs will be written in. It was incredible. It was incredible.

The Hutterite Mission Machine in Its Golden Era

So now what do you do? You quit? With all those martyrs? Here I am in Dalklaver. Dalklaver. Dalklaver, an old Hutterite community there. Slovakia. What's that? Slovakia. Slovakia. And see these different things of how these were lived out.

And in this area, truly became a mission machine. Okay, so now we're into the golden era. It's about 1540, a little further on. And now what's the chance of survival during these ages for like the next 100 years?

Robert Friedman says, still 80 death rate. 80 death rate of a Hutterite missionary straight from Robert Friedman. And it's going up. All the early Anabaptists took part in missionaries in some way.

This is common. You heard Benno Simon's quote. But when I read about the dedication, the tenacity, the untiring zeal, and particularly the organized, systematic approach, is what caused me to call the Hutterites the Marine Corps of the Anabaptists.

The Marine Corps of the Anabaptists. Okay. If you're not scared to die, it's amazing how far. You can have a bunch of soldiers and they're not afraid to die. When Napoleon was trying to take Italy, he was saying, they're going to be easy.