(The Recovery of the Apostolic) 4. Liberty of Conscience — Dale Heisey

Abiding in Christ as a Present-Tense Choice

We are increasingly conscious that the faith of your heart at the present hour depends upon the choice and choices that you have made since last we were together. I want to inform you this afternoon that abiding in the vine, as John chapter 15 teaches it, is an ever-up-to-date and present-tense decision that I must continually make to abide in the vine, to abide in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We did not at one time in our experience choose to unite with God, and thereby have that light that comes from the living vine flow out through our branches to produce fruit on the end. That was not a past-tense experience that can remain there.

But if we are abiding in the vine today, it's because we have, as of up to this present moment, continually decided to do so. And so I'm asking you to examine your heart this afternoon. Are you in Christ Jesus by having chosen Him as Lord of your life?

And are you living in that spirit at the present moment? And I realize that you may have had, sometime in the past, an experience with God. He may have touched your life. He may have redeemed you, your soul from destruction, and set your feet upon a firm place and foundation.

But if we are saints today, if we are saved at this moment, it is because we have chosen, since last we were together, to make decisions continually in light of the fear of God. And with that vision before us, we have decided for Christ throughout the moments of time since we have seen each other last.

And so let every man examine himself. And so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. And so may you and I discern the Lord's body, and may it ever be a voluntary body, one that is voluntarily chosen to be in Christ Jesus.

This is our defense this afternoon. We are here to defend the doctrine of a voluntary church, those who continually choose the way of the Lord Jesus Christ and ever yield themselves in power to Him. There are some papers here that I'm going to ask the brethren, if they will, to pass out to those of you who may not have yet received one since you have entered the building this afternoon.

Would you young men take care of that, please? We are reaching, may I say it cautiously, brethren, a critical moment in these studies. And so for that reason, I want to share a heart's concern with you before we go further into the new study of the afternoon.

Examining Our Hearts Rather Than Judging Other Churches

Upon what, at this present moment, is your fate hinging? Upon what are you facing this afternoon in your salvation? I got a call from a brother quite a few miles from here who had learned about these meetings and would like to have received a degree of input from it and asked me some questions about how it was going.

And I told him that I have this one concern, and so I'm sharing it with you this afternoon. I told him that if we were to rearrange a program, the recovery of the apostolic vision, and reestablish six other subjects in place of these six that we have, rather than coming to it from a historical point of view, I would have chosen to choose six subjects that would have applied to the hearts of you and I sitting here.

And I will tell you why. I have this concern this afternoon that those of us gathered at these meetings week after week, and we appreciate your presence. I trust the rich blessing of God upon all of you here today, those who have been faithful in attendance up to this hour and those of you who may be here for the first time.

I have this concern that as we study the history and the anti-baptism and the apostolicity, we have a danger of looking at church groups around us and saying, here's where they're wrong, here they made a mistake, here they're not up to it, here they're doing less than their best, here's where they're away from the doctrine.

But, brothers, this meeting has amounted to nothing unless it is our hearts that we have examined, unless we see whether we are living the apostolic faith once delivered unto the saints. And so, if we would have a series of subjects examined at the heart of men, surely then, possibly we could accomplish our aim just a bit more closely.

And so, for that reason, I wanted to share with you one challenge this afternoon concerning the humility of your own heart. I raise this question because of the danger we face to go away from meetings like this.

And we were well-blessed, and we know of those who were not here to enjoy it or here to receive it or appreciate it. In fact, there are some that would even be countering it and against it, and I have heard of some like that, advising people not to come, don't get involved in that kind of thing.

And so, there's a tendency in this proud heart of mine, and possibly in your own, to say, forget them, write them off. If they didn't have what we have, you know, in some way or another, speak in a despicable manner concerning those who are not here.

And I want to say this, that we have nothing, dear brothers and sisters, this afternoon, we have nothing but the Lord Jesus Christ, and were He, for a moment, to withdraw His blessing from us, what would we have to offer?

I'm urging us to examine our hearts to make sure that we have no fingers to point, that we have no self to elevate, that we have appeared, we have appeared at the cross of Lord Jesus Christ, there to die with Him.

And there can be no pride, there can be no self-assertion, one-on-one hanging on a cross. Oh, if we get lifted up, let it be because the cross has lifted us up to God, and for no other reason. Brethren, I'm concerned about this matter, this afternoon.

Trembling Before the Word of God

Would you open your Bible, chapter 66. I am a New Testament believer, and I very seldom use the Old Testament in teaching Christian doctrine. I do not believe in a flat Bible. We'll be discussing that on Friday night of this coming week.

We believe in the supreme authority of the New Testament. But I do want to draw attention, if I may, to this Old Testament passage, which contains such beautiful truth. Before I read Isaiah 66, the first few verses, I will borrow, if I may, a few phrases from a confession of faith written by a number of brethren about a year ago.

Brokenness is characterized by a continual trembling before the Word, seeking its counsel, heeding its warnings, obeying its commands, and confessing its rebukes to the heart. Apart from this experience, there is no spiritual life.

Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that ye will build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? For all these things hath mine hand made, and all these things have been, saith the Lord.

But to this man who I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. The New Testament says it this way. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before God.

And that man who trembles before the Word of God is not a proud man. He has not lifted himself up against his church, or against the societies around us, or against the conferences, or call them what you will.

But he has examined his heart, and he finds himself continually needy. That's what you find. If you find anything else in your heart today besides a greater need for God, then there is something wrong with you, and you have not yet returned to an apostolic position.

And so let us check that real closely. I do not want to hear, coming as a result of these meetings, as a result of this session this afternoon, I do not want to hear one group pitted against another, or one position against another.

Only the Word of God tells forth for us all to behold and practice and obey. This afternoon, if the censorious and somewhat critical nature that history tells us was part of the character of dear brother Conrad Grebel, who is sometimes noted to be the founder of the Swiss Brotherhood, the founder of Anabaptism possibly, I wonder if because of his harshness, and because of his critical attitude, I wonder if that had anything to do with the reason why his life was cut as short as it was.

I wonder if that's the reason why God had someone like a pilgrim Marpeck take over some of the work there in south Germany, in northern Switzerland, in the place of brother Conrad. I wonder if that's why it took a Michael Sattler, with the heart of compassion that he had, who wrote possibly the church order, the congregation order you have inside your program, and the Schleiheim Confession of Faith.

I wonder further, and I tremble as I ask this question, if the nature that that man had in those areas of his own experience where possibly he failed to put on the Lord Jesus Christ as he ought to have, if that has anything to do with the fact that his wife, Barbara, never joined him in apostolic faith.

There are these sobering possibilities, and God forbid that this effort to seek renewal in our hearts and in our churches would be marred by such a spirit coming from us. And so we hold this challenge before you this morning.

The Church Defined by Doctrine, Obedience, Love, and Suffering

Now look at this sheet that was passed to you, if we may. I put myself out on a limb to state something that I believe. We have heard a considerable number of challenges with the fact that this meeting is not sponsored by an organized church or by an established church.

I'd like you to go to the Bible and show me the definition for organized church or for established church. Where did that term come from? What do you mean by that? It's not part of an organized church.

It's not part of an established church. I want you to think about that for a while. Examine that concept in light of the scriptures and see what you come up with. I think what it really meant for those terms, for those expressions, is this.

Church group or church conference or some similar denotation. I think that is what it meant. Well, in this sheet that you have in the middle of the page, we have here a simple outline that was prepared by Mennah Simons in which he gave what he considered to be the true signs by which the Church of Christ may be known.

I would like to just, in a public way this afternoon, read these six points. The Church of Christ is known by unadulterated, pure doctrine. He has references there from both Old Testament and New, and these references are his and not my own.

He said the Church of Christ is recognized by scriptural use of the sacramental signs. That, to my mind, was one of the errors of Mennah Simons, is his over-frequent use of the word sacrament referring to Lord's Supper and Baptism.

I don't believe he really understood the connotation that we understand the word sacrament to have in our time. A sacrament, to clear up your understanding of this, as it is used today in theology, means a means by which the grace of God comes to the heart of a man.

And so, if partaking of a wafer or having a water sign of baptism applies to you, if your understanding is that grace from God and the living life of God enters your heart, enters your experience through these sacramental signs, then as far as I'm concerned, you are part of a monolithic Corpus Christianum state church concept.

I understand what Brother Mennah meant by this. I believe he meant that the Church will properly use the ordinances that he has given to us. Number three, by obedience to the word. Number four, by unfated brotherly love.

Number five, by bold confession of God and Christ. You heard our brother's testimony in that regard a few moments ago. Number six, the Church of God is known by oppression and tribulation for the sake of the Lord's word.

One of the things that is characteristic of the Church is that it's continually persecuted. It is never a persecutor. And I take the right this afternoon from the authority of this book and the words of Jesus Christ to take any body, any church body or any church organization that has been guilty of persecuting the saints of God and we do not consider that person or that group or that institution to be part of the body of our Christ.

Jesus Christ is never a persecutor. I would say if there is anything that this lesson this afternoon as we get into it should make us conscious of and warn us about it is this that we would never be guilty of persecuting the saints of God and of rejecting them and of ostracizing them or in any way at all to hinder them in their faith and walk with God.

For to do so, as Jesus said, requires a millstone to be placed around my neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. If I offend one that believes in him. And so may we be carefully conscious of in no way being a persecutor here this afternoon or wherever we go.

And so this is the Church of Jesus Christ and where saints are met together as we said tying last week and this week's lessons together. Where saints are gathered together in this kind of apostolic position with love in their hearts for each other and a total desire to know and obey the truth.

I am satisfied that the Spirit of the Lord will take up residence there. And there is the Church in a visible form, in a visible body. Now one more problem at the bottom of that sheet. Last week on the board there appeared this because you see it here with one exception.

Individual Responsibility Within the Church

The label at the bottom, three concepts of the Church and how it might be graphically portrayed. There was on the board last week the word God at the top, the word believers at the bottom interconnected with each other by those brotherhood circles.

Meaning and showing rather the interdependence one brother upon another. And there was one arrow going from those believers up to God. And we felt to correct a misconception that that may have given to you.

It almost would give you the impression that one is only connected with God as what he is part of this brotherhood here. And that apart from that he has no individual responsibility to God. But that the brotherhood will somehow provide for him, take care of him and support him, meet all his needs.

And so as I am part of the brotherhood I find my relationship with God in that manner. That really is somewhat of a dangerous position. And I will show you later on this afternoon how that is a form of Lutheranism.

By God's grace we'll explain that to you. But I still contend that the quotation we found here, a man cannot come to God except together with his brother, is valid if we understand these two points, would you note them.

Number one, that wherever we have the New Testament souls being added to the church, coming to the visible body of the Lord here on earth, we always have that being done, always being received at the hands of previously established brethren in Christ.

Whether it's Cornelius, who I am sure was received of God before Peter ever got there, or whether it is Enoch on the way down to his home in Africa, you find that the saints of God are present to receive into the fellowship those who God has called, those in whose spirit God is working.

And so I want you to understand this quotation in that connection and then also in this one. That Jesus has said in the 13th chapter of John in verses 34 and 5, that the evidence of my being one with God is this, my love, relationship with my brethren.

By this, I know that you, my disciples, would be of love one for another. And so we must ever see ourselves relating properly to our brothers and sisters here on this earth before we have the assurance that God has received us.

And so let us understand this in that manner. We make a mistake, excuse me, if we give you the impression that the individual does not have a responsibility before God. And may I say at this point, as far as I'm concerned, it's a beautiful and simple thought that right here is the simple and harmonious answer to the crying need that we hear across our churches and in church periodicals, the warning that's continually given against individualism.

I'll tell you the simple answer. The simple answer to individualism is individual responsibility before God. That you can build up a spiritual house made out of lively stones. And there is the individual stone that's important, prepared by God, fitly framed, and prepared without the sound of iron and chisel and hammer, and brought together into a living body, with each stone filling a lively place.

Living stones mean that every stone next to me receives a connection because of the light that's moving through me and out to everything that touches me at all times. In Romans chapter 12, in 1 Corinthians 12, right in your hearing last week, we are told there explicitly that we are all members one of another.

And every member must set that responsibility to make the individual contribution that God has created in him a specific personality in order to make. And then, as our brother just read a half an hour ago to your hearing, what did he say?

If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? What is the next word? Follow thou me. What's it mean? Peter, you have an individual responsibility to myself, to my lordship, to my claims upon your heart, regardless of James and John and Nathanael and all the rest of the apostles.

You have a personal responsibility here. Follow thou me. So may every brother live up to the light that they have. May every brother be faithful in the calling wherewith we were called. And may everyone make the contribution that God has placed you into the church body to make.

And may we then all recognize the individual contribution of everyone else. For that is also an equal part to the vision. Is this making sense to you this afternoon, brothers? Now, lesson four, liberty of conscience.

Liberty of Conscience Against Individualism and Coercion

It says in this description, the Bible answers to the twin threats of individualism on one hand and a monolithic coercion on the other. Would it be appropriate to do a little defining here? Coercion is the kind of forcing upon oneself where that the powers are so overbearing that there is not enough strength to give any resistance.

And so you are coerced into a pattern, into a position. Monolithic is a term that comes from the prefix here, mono, meaning one. Monolithic, all elements of the society being of one nature, of one structure, of one component.

No choice, no alternative, no diversity. And so it's a statement here where we're talking about all parts of a certain sacral group or society all being forced or coerced into one mold, as you might call it.

You know what individualism is, where a person senses no responsibility one to another. Everyone does that which is right in his own eyes. The judge's way times two of explaining what individualism is.

These are twin threats. They have always been in the church and we want to view them with caution this afternoon. We cannot construct a church through coercion. There have been various methods used to coerce people into a church.

In the time of the Reformation, of course infant baptism was the mean. You're part of the church because we baptized you and you were born at eight days of age when you were a struggling little squalling baby and could do nothing about it.

You had a sign of a cross drawn to your forehead through the spit of a priest and you've been brought into the church. That's coercion, a form of it. Of course the infant gives no resistance. He's passive, he's brought in.

Another is through the use of the magistrate, the sword. There's the biggest difference between the sons of the crescent and the sons of the cross. Muhammadism, the Muslim folk go from place to place and with the sword they conquer.

Of course you know what happened up at the Battle of Tours where finally they were defeated. They would have desired to conquer all of Europe with their sword policy. I can hardly refrain at this point from telling a little story that well describes the methods of the sons of the crescent as opposed to the methods of the sons of the cross.

That is one example of a religious group who feel that by force of the authorities, by force of the government you can make everybody part of your religious order. Of course Catholicism has done the same thing.

Coercion Through Religious and Social Pressure

Oh, it happened I guess during World War II, at the end of World War II. Let's see, in Turkey where there was a refugee camp there. The Allied forces had just liberated, that's the term that they used.

It's interesting that that term comes up here in a subject on liberty of conscience. Liberated these various towns in Turkey. I wish I had more of the history of it than what I have this afternoon. I wasn't planning to give this.

We're going to have to depend on our memories a little bit. There was a hospital ward there set up under a tent where some of these people who were in this refugee camp in great need of medical attention were coming to be checked by doctors and so on.

The line was long, the needs were great, and the medical staff was little. So of course it took a lot of time. One lady noticed that here was a young girl about 12 or 14 years of age who was squirming and wiggling.

And she wouldn't sit straight. And obviously in great pain. So this woman who was not in nearly that sad a shape took some compassion on her and would like to have help her in some way. So she went to her and said, could I help you here?

Why don't you just rest against me, lean your back against me. Oh no, the girl sighed. I couldn't do that. She was squirming. And the nurses were walking past, taking care of the ones that they were working with at that hour.

And this girl was being ignored. This woman just could not have it. This girl was in such misery. She asked someone to examine this girl. The girl said, I'll show you what's wrong. And she took her loose-fitting garment that was draped about her shoulders and dropped it down her back.

And there she revealed the ugly wounds and burns that were put upon her back by the Muslims. She said, this is the way it was. Every day they would say to me, the cross or crescent. And she said, every day I would say, I'll take the cross.

And they would add one more burn to my back every day. And finally they had etched on her back the sign of a Christian cross burned onto her skin on her back. She said that she had told them that she will carry her cross for Jesus.

And so they forced her to do it by taking that burning iron and scorching it into her skin until they had a cross burned on her back. That's a form of coercion. But it's not the way to build the church of Jesus Christ.

That poor girl suffered there at the hands of the sons of the crescent. There's another message. It's used more in our time. It's peer pressure to coerce people into the church of Jesus Christ. I'd like to use here a reference from John 1.

We could quote this, but you could follow along in your Bibles. Let the written word impress your heart. This pressure, pressure from parents, pressure from young people to join church, as it's said, a horrible term.

It's one that we defy, this matter of joining church as it is called. But as many, verse 12, as received him, them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his name, that believe on his name, which are born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

The word was made flesh and dwelt among us and so on. And so we cannot coerce people into the church of Jesus Christ. Peer pressure of any kind will not do it. God wants no compulsory service. On the contrary, he loves a free, willing heart that serves him with a joyful soul and does what is right joyfully.

A man about to smother said those words right before his death. God accepts no compulsory service. Faith is a gift of God. Do we get this, my brothers and sisters? Faith cannot be forced on anyone, not at work.

It is a gift of God. Faith is a gift of God, Romans 2. It cannot be forced on anyone. Romans 9. Verse 16 gives a beautiful portrayal of the individual faith requirement. And by no other means can a person come to God.

What did I say? Chapter 9, verse 16. So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. And so it is up to our God to give us this gift of faith that we cannot coerce it upon anyone.

Compassion, Faith, and the Voluntary Heart

This Hans Buehler gave one of the most beautiful defenses of freedom of faith and individual faith. As I'm going to read to you from pages 292 and 293 in the outline of Anabaptism. That you would have fatherly compassion on me as a father has compassion on his children.

Please do not burden my conscience, since faith is a free gift of God. It does not have its source in him who chooses or in him who runs the race, but in the mercy of God. Not all are able to believe as the scripture says.

For it does not come by the will of the flesh, but must be born of God. They are the children of God who are driven by the Holy Spirit. Have compassion on my four little children and let me go home for a little while.

As you wish that men should do to you, do also to them. A beautiful portrayal there. The simplicity of how it is that faith comes to the individual heart. It cannot be forced upon it. From Menno Simon, may I quote.

You should not acknowledge your dear noble, illustrious Lord, you judges and officers of the law, that as often as you take, condemn and put to the sword such people, that you thrust your tyrannical sword into the blessed flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sir Menno has a very beautiful picture of how the body of Christ is the living saint here on this earth. And explains the lesson we were trying to teach you last week, that the body of Christ spoken of in the Lord's Supper is the church of Jesus Christ.

That he breaks the bones of his holy body, for they are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, Ephesians 5 .30. They are his chosen beloved brethren and sisters, who are together with him, born from above of one father, John 1 .13.

They are the dearly blood children who are born of the seed of the Holy Word. They are his spotless, holy and pure bride, whom he in his great love has wed. Then just one more from Zerk Phillips, if I may.

Those who persecute others on account of their faith can never be counted as the church of the Lord. From this it is evident that no church may exercise dominion over the conscience of men with a carnal sword, or seek by violence to force unbelievers to believe, nor to kill the false prophets with sword and fire.

With the word of God she must judge and expel those in the church who are found wicked. What is done over and above this is not Christian, nor evangelical, nor apostolic. Those beautiful words from Zerk Phillips, who says any method is used about expelling the heretic, about expelling the false brother, the false man from the church, is not apostolic in what we are doing there.

Doctrinal Boundaries and the Content of Faith

Now I want you to be sure this afternoon that you realize that the Anabaptists did not teach individualism. They did not teach doctrinal indifference in matters of faith. They were concerned about what a man believed.

There is an immovable connection of faith, which is the opposite of doctrinal indifference. Their faith was so convicted and so convincing that they were willing to die for it. And that's just the opposite of not caring.

If faith did not matter in anything, and anybody's view would suffice, there's no need to go to the cross or go to the stake or anything else for one's faith. Get this interesting thought. There is a positive content of faith.

And so our faith must find scriptural, spiritual limits and confines. There must be a content in it. I think it was a Hutterian brother. I could be wrong about that. He wrote these words one time, and they're not in my notes, so I'll try to recall them.

He said that whosoever would baptize somebody who does not have the content of living faith in them is the same as a person who would take upon himself to sign and seal an empty letter. Nobody would do that.

You would want to make sure what the contents are before you signed and sealed it and delivered it. We do not tolerate any and all religious thinking and practice within the brotherhood. I can show you, for a man of baptism, those who needed to be put away from the faith or from the fellowship because of their wrong doctrines, because of their wrong errors.

A man of Simon himself expelled two that I know of, Adam Pastor and David Juras, and possibly some others. You might be aware of the fact that the Sassinians are referred to in the first meeting, who actually gave birth later on to the Universalists, the Unitarian position, anti-Tritarian.

They did not believe in the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. They came to the Swiss brethren and asked for a union of thought because they noticed that both of them were opposed to Catholicity, to the Catholic Church.

But because there was an error of doctrine there, the brethren would not unite, and so they went to the North Mennonites. By this time, the Mennonites had been established in Holland and also found a closed door there.

They would not accept them. In the Schleidheim Confession of Faith, which we have called to your attention, it makes it very clear in there that there are false brethren with whom we must separate ourselves.

The Scriptures teach this, and we ought to be aware of it. In fact, the very reason for the Schleidheim meeting on the border in February of 1527 was for the purpose of uniting the Church against such false positions as were showing themselves, making themselves felt at the Church at that time.

In answer to these Sassinians who came and asked for oneness with the brethren, it is interesting to note that in their reply, and they wrote to them back with a letter, and I have a copy of that letter if you would like to read it, they answered, dear men, rather than responding, dear brethren, when they wrote their answer.

Which tells me that at that time there was a distinction held between those who were considered the children of God and those who were not. Now, we have a number of things to discuss here, and I must get a couple of views clear into your minds.

Church and State in Anabaptist Liberty of Conscience

One is this. They were talking, first of all, of liberty of conscience from the Anabaptist point of view, of a situation where the Church is allowed to function, where spiritual life and vitality is allowed to function undisturbed by a carnal state.

They recognized the powers of state. And you know, I noticed that I read to you from an assignment where he called the leaders of state noble and illustrious men, or leaders. And they were held in high honor by the Anabaptist writers.

But they did not feel that a person could force one's faith upon them with a sword, nor could a state responsible for the maintenance of civil orders, nor could they judge a church in matters of faith, for only a spiritual man can do that.

And so, it was a matter of asking for religious toleration for their thinking and for their view within a carnal state. Today, however, and may I just add this to it, they tried to teach their people, tried to teach the leaders in that time from the parable of the tares, how Jesus taught that the field is the world, and in here you have tares growing, but you also have the pure and the true wheat.

And we don't go in there and try to riddle this thing around as it is growing, but at the end of time, this sorting process will take place. And felt that that should help the state realize that they did not meddle into the affairs of the Church and try to root that out, or try to decide which ones are heretics, which ones are not, from a secular point of view.

Liberty of Conscience Within the Church

Now, same concept from somewhat a different side this afternoon in the remaining moments of our time together. That is, that the Bible also teaches that there is liberty of conscience, not only as the Church is separated from the world, a called-out body of believers, but there is also liberty of conscience that must be maintained within the body of the saints.

Back in the Old Testament, if you recall, in Jeremiah 35, would you turn to it, there was a group of people back then already known as the Rechabites, who had some rather strange, and you might call them individualistic, positions that they were holding.

But they were violating the laws of God, they were no threat to the community in which they lived, but they had, because of instruction from their father, taken it upon themselves to practice a position of life different from the community around them.

This, of course, was viewed as a threat by the rest of Israel. They didn't drink any wine or use any fruits from the vine, nor did they build houses or move into cities. They maintained the rural, pilgrim life that the children of Israel had practiced while they were in their 40-year wilderness wandering.

And so God comes here to the prophets, Jeremiah, and tells them to take these people into the house of God and set wine before them and tell them to drink. Drink ye wine, verse 5 of chapter 35. But they said, We will drink no wine, for Jenedab, a son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons forever.