Start with prayer, and I have just this little devotional that really struck me
and I was going to open today with.
Let's start with prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, again for these examples of faith
throughout the centuries.
And dear God, once again we cry out, Lord, that you would put your Holy Spirit
anew in the church today and to be able to rise up a generation today that would
glorify your name.
And Father, we want to do that today, so please let these examples, their
mistakes, their successes, teach us lessons.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Quick little devotion.
I think it'll kind of make sense towards the end of this study as I hope to get to
it.
One of the first weeks here, I was going through this devotion, it's by East
Stanley Jones, and he had this particular thing about history and tradition.
And I thought it was a good subtle rebuke to me and I'll bring it to you as well.
And I'll just cut in where he says here, he talks about this professor giving up
Christianity and the professor says, I never consciously gave up a religious
belief.
It was as if I had put my belief into a drawer and when I came back to look for
them, the drawer was empty.
Then he says this, the thing has happened to this generation that happened to three
generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Jacob could say, my eyes are getting a little bad these days, Jacob could say,
my father's God, the God of Abraham, the awe of Isaac.
So Jacob could say, my father's God, the God of Abraham, the awe of Isaac.
That's in Genesis 31, a Moffat translation he used.
God was God to Abraham.
He had ventured forth with him as friend.
He was intimate and firsthand and real.
But in the next generation, God was not, quote, God of Isaac, but only the,
quote, awe of Isaac.
He had faded and become secondhand.
Still, Isaac stood in awe of his father's God.
In the third generation, in Jacob, the result of the gradual fading of God
began to be shown in the decaying morals of Jacob.
Moral rottenness appeared.
He stole his brother's birthright.
He was ready to take the main chance without regard to God.
The same thing has happened with us.
Our forefathers had a firsthand experience of God through revival.
The next generation clung to the church for their father's sake.
But God was only the awe, the afterglow of a fading faith.
The third generation is reaping the results of a fading faith, which producing
decaying morals and a decaying civilization.
Our loss of God is working out in moral decay.
We are going to pieces morally, for we have gone to pieces spiritually.
We have lost God and have thus lost the basis of morals.
Jacob then met God on Jebuch's bank in the midnight rustle and emerged a new man.
Unless we, like Jacob, find a renewal in finding God.
Amen, huh?
So when we look at it, it's a good thing to talk about Jesus.
And it's good to talk about people that talk about Jesus, and that's what history
is.
And it's good to talk about people that talk about people that talk about Jesus.
But all in the center must still completely come to this becoming new and
alive and Christ being alive within us in every generation.
So it's just a rebuke I take to myself.
I like history and I have to remind her that the target is not here, still the
target is here.
You see what I'm saying?
All right, so let's get back to the Hutterites here.
We're going to see some of that, how it works itself out in a movement as
they go through time.
By their own words they say these types of things.
Okay, we picked it up and we ended yesterday with the statement of faith that
we were looking at that comes into page 265 in Volume 1 of the Chronicles.
And then we're going to go right in to now start watching some pretty hard years with
what the Hutterites have gone through.
You're thinking, well, I thought it was hard already.
That's what I thought.
When I get to the part of here that says the golden years, I think that's the
golden years.
I mean, people are still getting chopped up.
So, I mean, you know, it's, I guess it's a matter of semantics here.
But I'm going to take you through this and the whole point is to go on a journey with
these people.
One of the blessing things of the Hutterites was they kept these chronicles.
I wish every group did this.
So you can watch them as they go through.
And one of the most impressive things about these chronicles is they're full of
their mistakes.
Well, this was a bad idea.
We did this.
This was dumb and that type of thing.
And it's good to see that.
And maybe then we can see a reflection of some of the mistakes that we made.
But we have that fiery zeal, that missionary passion, that desire to follow
Christ.
And now we're going through and we're going to see how this works itself out.
So in 1547 to 1553, you see there on page 11, we enter the second wave of
persecution.
In 1545, the king decided that unless we give up living in community, then we would
be expelled from Moravia.
And they mentioned this and they were struggling with it.
Should we do this?
It's getting so bad.
I think we should just stop.
And the king said, you can be in groups of five to seven people.
Well, hardly our families could fit in five to seven people.
It was an obvious thing just to divide up the Anabaptists that were there.
And then when King Charles V came in, and this is a quote from the Chronicles,
I thought it was funny, it was, out, out with us!
And those exclamation points are that way.
And so unfortunately all that we talked about yesterday with the development of
those communities, all the work they had done, start over.
And on the road again they went.
It was a hard time.
But I appreciate the spirit of prayer that I see coming out from these brethren.
It says here on page 297 in the Chronicles, it says we called upon God and
asked Him if His will was for us to remain together, to show us which way to go in
our need and to care for those who trust in Him but are deserted by everyone else.
The Lord in His mercy showed us a way out for we were accepted in Hungary.
So they got a little chance.
Remember we were talking about the Islamic invasion that was happening at this time.
Already they were taking Hungary, Yugoslavia, and all these areas.
And we are going to see many times through today that the brothers found easier time
with the Islam than they did with the Reformers or with the Catholics,
sad to say.
And Hungary was already a place and still for a little gap they let them in.
But the gap didn't last long.
And while they were there, they quickly changed their mind.
As soon as they got things built, they changed their mind and they started
to have to kick them out.
And it was some pretty bad times for them as well.
Just a few thoughts here, how things were bad.
This is page 302 in the first Chronicles.
The first night they camped out in this particular area and they had no place to
stay.
They lived like animals and lived like in the wild.
They were wondering what to do with themselves.
In page 306 it went on to say that many of the believers then had to stay away from
houses and flee into the woods and the mountains in the cold of the winter.
It says they dug holes in the earth to live in like foxes.
Hard such conditions were that they would have endured it all thankfully if only
they would have been left alone.
But even then when they were digging holes to stay in, even then the persecution kept
going.
When they gave them a certain amount of time, the Hungarians there actually built
some gallows, you know what you hang people with, in front of their doors and
said you have until such time to be out or you will be hanging from these gallows.
And they could see from their attitudes they were meaning it.
You went in here, there has even been found some of these areas living in holes.
And here is an area in Moravia where they have done some found these places.
And these Hutterites actually built like caves in places where they could hide from
this terrible time of persecution.
And we are going to start with the handout from yesterday, page 11 everyone.
And it says this would have been okay, okay we had to dig this by hand,
we were living like animals.
But even then in puppets, which is this, where believers were living in holes
underground, some godless men built a fire at the entrance and tried to suffocate
them and smoke them out.
But they were stopped and driven away.
Thieving gangs would chase believers out of thickets and woods and force them to
move on.
Around the Mayburg many lived with the children in holes among the bushes for a
time.
They had also lived in the rocky crevices of caves and cliffs in Moravia and
wherever they could find.
They had a little house still left in Hungary that had 250 children living in
one house as well as sick and the old, lame and the blind.
The brothers in this area supplied them with food, sending them bread and keeping
up with brotherly love.
And they were just hanging on for survival now as they got kicked out of this
particular area.
And it was hard times.
I have here the year 1546 was a difficult time for the Hutterites indeed.
King Ferdinand made a visit to Moravia.
Remember him?
He was the guy that I drew the picture of.
My children really make fun of my artwork.
So he was mad.
He is the guy, he has a lot of... he is not a nice guy.
So Ferdinand made a visit to Moravia and put the brethren in danger and so the
Hutterites fled to the mountains and all these different things began to happen.
And then around 1554 to 1564 was a good period.
You need a little 10 years of rest every now and then.
Poor guys.
After the Hutterites survived persecution and suffering the Golden Period which
lasted again even more so from 1565 then to 1592.
And during this time the community grew rapidly.
And by 1621 there were over 102 communities with a total population of
20,000 to 30,000.
Some little differences.
The king got distracted.
I don't know.
Perhaps, remember there is still this entire Islamic invasion that is
threatening Austria and threatening all these different things.
And at times the kings would be distracted with different things and it was a good
time for them.
And apparently this was one of those.
During that time the members of the colonies were engaged with a variety of
different economic activities.
And this was impressive times.
You see the industry of the Anabaptists starting to pour out in these brethren.
Some of them included wagon making, cutlery, leather working, nursing.
They became doctors.
They actually became some of the most famous doctors in Europe at that time.
Shoemaking, pottery making, watchmaking, and weaving.
There were also barbers, surgeons, and coppersmiths, tinsmiths, locksmiths.
Because their reputation is hard working, they were hired by many of the lords in
Moravia and Slovakia.
And so they would get the brothers to come to their castle and they would help work
this or work that.
One of the things that I find impressive with them, it's the same thing I see with
the Zinzendorf brothers there in Bethlehem and Hernhut, was to have these kind of
trades and then still have all these trades be used for the propagating of the
kingdom of God.
That's a big temptation in and of itself.
You understand, it's one thing when you're starving to death, you have no money,
you're hungry, and you're dying, and oh great, we can all live together in
community.
It's kind of a not so bad thing.
When it raised to the point where they were able to raise to this kind of level,
I think it's even more impressive to something that they were trying to uphold.
It's during this time that the Hutterites established their first kindergartens and
started to educate the children.
In this day, the education of children in Germany and this area, Moravian area,
was pretty pathetic in a lot of places.
And so they started to have schools and a lot of the lords and things would actually
have their children go to the school with the Hutterites and they would begin to
train them and begin to educate them.
They felt it was very important that the children learn to read and learn to be
able to study the faith, kind of like the Hebrews did in earlier times.
And it was very successful for them.
And it is at this time that Caspar Brachmichael began to put together this
chronicle.
And here are some of the handwritten copies that I took some pictures of here.
I don't know if it do me any... oh yeah, at least I know what the 26 says.
And so they gathered up a lot of the different papers, a lot of the different
documents, and began to put this thing together.
And these books are Anabaptist masterpieces.
They're historical masterpieces because they read like in journal fashion.
And that's what makes it fun as a historian to teach a history class on the
Hutterites because you follow them through.
It's just like this happened, that happened, this happened.
And to have a record of a people like that that goes through time is really an
incredible gift that we have today.
And so they had that here.
And here's some of the original documents.
They kept transcribing these and through the ages.
So I've been told... I was reading one little book on the Hutterites and this
person...
I think that this, the first volume, is the copy, the leftover handwritten copy
of this, according to this one book that I read, he said was under the bed in a
wooden box under the bishop's bed in Bonhomme community in South Dakota.
I just think that's so funny.
I would love to be able to see this box or something.
I don't know if by now NC's written that book.
They have it somewhere else.
But it's been handed down, handed down, handed down.
And it is really a treasure we have for all of our history in looking at what
they've done here.
Another thing I'll just say real quick about these.
I mentioned it just a little bit earlier already.
I appreciate the honest history.
It's kind of like even when you're writing the Bible, if you were writing the Bible,
would you have given the David story with Bathsheba?
Would you have told the stories?
Would you have mentioned that Peter denied the faith?
Maybe you'd have left that out and cleaned it up a little bit.
But wouldn't you agree we'd all have been very sad if that would have happened?
Same with these chronicles.
It's hard to believe that they just kept transcribing all these things when some of
them were like ten pages of this was a disastrous mistake.
I can't believe the elder did that.
And it went on and it went on like that.
But they still pass it down.
And if I get to there, I'll read you some quotes where they actually say why they
pass it down so future generations can learn lessons.
So I think it's good for us all to be honest with our history.
I think that's really good for us.
Okay, so then during the golden period, the brethren were very well organized and
prosperous and mission work was carried out more than ever before.
And if I could say a rebuke to us in our time of prosperity, you know, we think
well during persecution times you have nothing else to do, you might as well go
in the mission field.
But here during their time of prosperity, they organized and still went into
missions.
Let me read you some of these.
Okay... 352... 352... I'll read you some of this.
Just a little glance.
My goal here today is just to give you a flavor as you walk through this people and
walk with them on their journey through the centuries here and see things that
they had.
So during this time, page 352 in volume 1, they traveled with joy and fear of God
again and again praising Him who leads into prison and out again.
They put their trust in the Lord and after they reached the Rhine, they carried on
their task of obedience to their mission from the church.
They returned joyfully to the church community with a good conscience.
Just something said in there about the missionaries there.
And 355, another one, so that they lay down again and returned to the prison on
Sunday when the city governor came to the two priests who questioned him about his
mission.
He told them he himself had not chosen to do this task, he didn't choose to be a
missionary, but had been appointed by God and His Spirit in His church.
Just as God sent His Son and as the Son sent His Apostles into all the world,
so He still sends out His servants through His Spirit, first of all to preach the
Word of God, then they are to baptize, not infants and young children,
but those who hear, understand and believe.
Again, that's when they were in prison and being challenged about their missionary
activity.
Another real quick one here, another missionary again being asked questions.
This is the good time, this is what I think is funny, they are still in prison,
they are still getting killed and everything.
357, five times the executioner came ready to execute them, but the council could not
reach a verdict.
Here's one of these particular men here, and they had in mind to execute first Hans
Schmidt and the other Heinrich Adams because these two had opposed them the
most and they hoped that they would shake the others when Hans heard that he was
going to die, but he sang for joy, he sang for joy.
This is one of the missionaries that were sent out, that's why I mention him here.
But it's interesting when they were trying to decide what do we do with them,
do we kill them or not, and here is an attitude that comes out from him,
and it's a beautiful quote.
The date of the execution, Hans Schmidt and Heinrich Adams was sent for on August
13th.
And then they told him what was going to happen to them.
Some felt sympathy for them and had sent them food and drink from time to time,
now came to offer their hand to Hans.
He shook hands and smiled at them.
And even when he had walked through the crowd in the square, there had been a
smile on his lips.
People had swarmed about him to the left and to the right and front and behind as
he was being taken before the court, which made him exclaim.
So everybody started showing up and he said, what a wonderful wedding I am having
with so many people coming to my attending.
And again, they seem to talk about this quite often about seeing their martyrdom
as called their wedding day.
One of the particular ones that caught my attention was a brother who was,
you'll see this one in the martyr's mirror as well.
And the Chronicles, it's on page 343.
And this brother was again arrested and as he was arrested, the judge told him that
an order had come from Innsbruck demanding the names of the leaders who sent brothers
out on missions and of those who gave them food and shelter.
And he answered, we are not sent out to harm anyone.
Our mission is the salvation of men, to call them to repent and change their
lives.
But this last question he added was not about the Articles of Faith.
They did not need to know and he would not tell them.
So he wasn't going to tell them.
They would let the people know the Articles of Faith, but there were some
things, it's kind of like name and serial number that the army people gave.
They would say, if they ask you Articles of Faith, they would talk to them.
But if they ask you other things, like who sends people on missionaries,
where do you go?
He said, that we don't have to answer.
So they finally put this guy in prison, stuck him in a terrible hole, a rotten
hole.
I mean, it's just disgusting.
They go through some details here and they leave him down there to rot so long.
I don't know if you remember this story from the martyr's mirror.
They begin him to rot so long that he goes through this little journal writings here
where they gave him food.
He had to quickly eat his food before the rats would get it.
And then he had to put a rock on the bowl so that they wouldn't drink his water.
And he was there and began to see his feet were rotting and he was noticing that.
And then the brothers actually got a letter to him and saying, can you give us
some sign that you're alive?
How about a straw from your bed?
And so he looked around and he didn't even have a straw from his bed.
So he looked around and what he had done was all his clothes had rotted except to
this collar that was all that was left was a collar.
And he had that collar hanging up on some little nail or something.
His shirt had rotted away until not a thread remained except the collar that was
around his neck, which finally hung on the wall.
And so as he thought about what to send them, he said he got word of them asking
to send him some sign that he was still faithful to God and the church.
He had nothing else.
He just sent him a little piece of straw.
But Hans Karl would gladly have done so, but he did not even have so much as a
bundle of straw in the dungeon.
That is how poor he was.
And then so he sent him this collar and he said, so he let them know that they should
not send him anything.
He must clothe himself with the garment of patience.
And he considered that a garment of patience because they said we will send
you clothes or something.
He said he is persevering in the Lord this way, but he wanted them to know that he
was very serious.
He was very serious indeed.
And so they went on with these different things.
And these were the good times.
Do you remember the story that I was reading you by Harold S.
Bender where the man was saying, I will never again execute another
Anabaptist?
He was a Hutterite.
It is on page 429 in the Chronicles, but there is a little more detail that
comes out here in the Chronicles I wanted to show you.
Why it made it so graphic was as he was going to... as he was going to kill this
man, the blade apparently was not all that sharp, unfortunately.
The executioner had great difficulty beheading him.
He just could not strike accurately.
He had to finish cutting off the brother's head on the ground the best he could.
He was afraid of his own life and was endangered by the mob.
The experience made him say later that he would never execute another brother as
long as he lived.
It later says that this man, he said he went insane and had to be chained up,
the leader there.
And so it was some serious hard times, even during the good times, of what they
had there.
So again, we are just watching them go through.
They did have some mission frustrations.
Not everything came through.
In 430, as they were sending some people out in 430 of the Chronicles, in 1571,
a servant of God's word and several other brothers were sent to Tyrol.
Remember that's where Hutter came from and Blaurock ended up.
It was a good place to send out missionaries.
The church sent them to look for people who longed for God's truth.
People who were repenting for their sins and desiring to seal their surrender to
God with the covenant of grace.
And that was their commission to go out.
Nice commission, huh?
But when they got there, it didn't go that well.
They went back to Pustre Valley, which is where we remember that Jacob
Hutter was from, looking for different people.
Then he met him on the road, okay, heading back for this place.
Okay, they felt that they had traveled so far and met so few people interested in
the truth that they had lost all hope of finding anyone who was ready to be
obedient and surrender to the truth.
So they had decided to leave that area rather than spend their money for nothing.
Again, I just thought that was an interesting little note that shows that
not all these mission activities were great successes.
They got to a point sometimes and said, well, no one is even interested in the
gospel here.
So, you know, that's your brother.
So let's not get disheartened when we get into situations like that.
One of the particular ones that I wanted to read to you was when they got into one
area and they were arrested by the Lutherans.
And there's an interesting little dialogue that goes in between the difference
between the Anabaptists and the Lutherans there as they are talking about it.
And that's what I have here on page 451.
Okay, this is interesting because the point that I want to take from this is
that the Anabaptists then, and I believe a true concept of Anabaptism today is the
concept of a visible church.
Remember they had the parish idea and they said, well, the church is invisible.
They said, that's ridiculous.
Yes, true indeed.
Only God knows who are His children.
But He does desire, remember the whole concept of the Incarnation, Christ is both
spirit and His flesh.
And so He does have a physical people.
So there's an interesting passage here where they get arrested by the Lutherans.
And I'm going to read it to you here.
Okay, so as they begin to talk with them, the two ministers said that the church...
okay, let's see where to get in here because there's some interesting passages.
Okay,
so they were talking first about things like faith and works and they were saying
something here.
Finally, he said, talking about, he says, yet they are powerless when faced
with the Word of God and the pure truth.
No Hebrew, Greek, Latin, in short, no kind of learning will help.
And finally, these priests at Salzburg openly admitted to these different
brothers that the Turks were also devout, maybe more devout than they, but it depend
on what each person believed, which is what was the reality of their life,
not what was true in their life.
And they began to get into this argument on, yes, it matters what you believe,
but it also must be a true change in their life.
At first, so they went on and started getting into more trouble with these guys.
And it says, at first he was cruelly tortured and many attempts to win him over
made by the magistrates, nobles, and commoners, learned doctors,
and Lutheran ministers.
In 1556, his cell was left unlocked for a full six months with just this word,
okay, say you won't leave.
Now, when they were able to escape, they had free conscience and they left,
but the Lutherans said, say you won't leave.
So they said, okay, we won't leave.
And they were there with the gates open for six months and they just stayed there
in prison.
And finally, they, I guess maybe they hoped they would leave, but finally they
said, okay, we will let you leave.
If you just do one thing, just say that we, or I'll give you right from the quote,
talking about as Paul was still firm in the faith, refusing to admit that
magistrates, the sword or war were Christians.
These warmongers said that they did not want him to associate with other people
and that here it is, and that they would keep him in prison until he died or
admitted that they were good Christians.
All you have to do now, just say that we're Christians, just say that we're two
good Christians and we'll let you go.
And they wouldn't do it.
Finally, this brother got sick in prison.
He was about to die.
And, and so they, when they were about to die, they got some people to come up here
and talk to them.
And, and he said to him, since God has struck him down with disease, now is the
time.
They sent two ministers to question him on infant baptism in the Eucharist and to win
him over to their beliefs.
And Paul answered this, listen, I'll join your church into this
circumstance.
It's a beautiful thing that he gets into here about the visible church.
Don't miss this.
He says, if you can show me one little flock of Christ, that is a fruit of your
preaching, I will join them and I will lay down whatever is against God in me and
accept what is better.
Ouch.
Oh, the two ministers said, well, that a Christian church is not something
visible.
You cannot point to it.
And brother Paul said, remember he's sick.
This shows what false prophets you are.
For Christ pointed to his church and to his disciples when he stretched forth his
hand toward them and said, here are my mother and my brothers.
Whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my mother, my brother,
and my sisters.
He also said, you are to be the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden and further love one another as I have loved
you that all may recognize you as true disciples.
And Peter says, lead such good lives among the heathen that they may be one without
words.
And he clearly points to the Christian church when he says to his brothers,
you are a chosen race, the royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own
people.
Paul says the same.
You are the temple of the living God and you are a seal of my apostleship to the
Lord.
You false serpents.
He continued, look how God points to his church.
But as you cannot do it, you are still children of darkness, not members of the
body of Christ.
If you were members, you would also be able to point to a body.
Am I to submit myself to you so that you can make me a Christian when you have not
made a single Christian in your church?
You are like the 400 false prophets of Ahab.
Just as with them, a false spirit speaks out of your lying words to mislead the
whole world.
And he goes on.
He didn't win friends and influence people that way, but they made their point.
You know what I mean?
And I thought that he goes on in that concept there of talking about the idea of
a visible church.
And I think it's a good point.
It's a good point in all the idea of, I believe, early Christianity and
Anabaptist Christianity in that way.
Okay, the golden period was over.
And now we start to get into the Turkish wars.
The Turkish wars are the buildup, not quite the 30 year war, but now we have
the Islamic invasion, the Jihad against Austria.
And they're starting to come up on the side here.
And the golden period of the Hutterites ended with the start of the Turkish war,
which was fought against the Roman Empire.
During the war, armies from both sides would come to the communities in search of
food and shelter.
The Turks, who killed and captured many of the members, frequently raided the
colonies.
And to get money for the Turks, emperors told all the lords to contribute
taxes and monies.
And the Hutterites had a problem with paying war taxes.
So sheep, cattle, wagons, and many other possessions were stolen instead.
For 13 years, the colonies were raided and the Hutterites were killed.
They took refugees and passages.
They hid again in passages and caves again.
When the war ended, the brethren tried to rebuild what they had left.
But the time they did, as soon as they did, it was starting to be the 30-year
war.
I have here, it's mentioned here, this brother talks about this time period.
He says in page 403, As usual, wherever possible, the tribe of priests
keep stirring up the powers that be.
But the Lord our God stood in the way.
The archangel Michael stood watch over his people, otherwise they would long since
have been swallowed up and devoured like bread.
But as a hen gathers her young under her wings, protecting them by pecking at all
that want to attack her own, indeed, as an angel hovers over its young,
this and much more God did for the sake of his people.
Even the unbelievers often had to acknowledge that God refused to let his
people be driven away and annihilated.
They lived in the land God had provided, especially for them.
They were given the wings of a great eagle and flew to the place God had prepared for
them, and they were sustained there as long as it pleased Him.
Thus they gathered in peace and unity and preached the word of God publicly.
Don't miss that, page 403.
They were put in a certain place by God, they gathered in peace and preached the
word of God publicly.
Then they had prayer meetings twice a week.
Sometimes more often they held meetings in which the communal and united prayer was
offered to God, asking Him for all the needs of the brotherhood and giving joyful
thanks for all the good things they enjoyed.
Likewise, intercession was made for emperors and kings, princes, and worldly
authority that God might make them think about the office entrusted to them and
conduct it properly so as to govern peaceably and protect the faithful.
Interesting, preaching publicly even in a time like this and going into these prayer
meetings is what this brother here believes to be some of the success of what
survived this time.
Page 13, now I'll go to that.
I'll do a few more and then I'm going to stop right before the 30-year war and then
we'll take a quick break.
There's a beautiful analogy here of two brothers, a young man and a young woman,
and two brothers that were killed.
This is on page 489 during this time period.
Again, this is the Turkish war.
And I like this brotherhood team.
You know, when they send out missionaries two by two, when you do these things,
the camaraderie that you have in that, I read that in the Circuit Riders with the
Methodists and type of thing.
And here's two young brothers that were zealous for the Lord and they were killed.
Here's one and here's another.
But it's an interesting story how they give it out to them in 489 of volume 1.
These two brothers were caught.
Heinrich and Jacob were beset with 24 ministers who tried to make them waver in
their faith and recant.
But even with their combined efforts, they made no headway against the brothers,
nor could they convict them of any wrongdoing, much less find any just reason
to put them to death.
So they go on doing these different things.
When the dear brothers heard that their hour had come, they rejoiced and was
undismayed, saying it was an even greater joy to them than celebrating a wedding.
Again, this analogy comes through.
Yes, they were of such courage because God made them worthy to die for the truth in
praise of His name, like many servants and saints of God before them who attained the
heavenly crown.
Now here's the way this happened.
When they were led out, they spoke courageously to the great crowd that had
gathered, admonishing them to repent from their sinful life and turn to God.
The two brothers began to sing with overflowing hearts, lifting their voices
in a lovely song of praise to the Lord.
Those present told us that the people were startled and shaken to hear them sing
together so joyfully.
Many of that great gathering wept as they heard the singing.
It touched their hearts that the brothers should have such an inner joy and peace in
the very moment of meeting death.
Eternal joy had already blazed up in them because they were to be with Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, with the patriarchs and all the holy ones, with all the prophets
and apostles, and with the Lord and with the faithful brothers and the sisters
already.
Yes, with Jesus Christ Himself their Redeemer forever and ever.
They sang until they came to the edge of the water where they were to be drowned.
Then Heinrich said, My brother Jacob, my brother Jacob, we have traveled long
and far together, so now together still let us pass through this temporal death
into the life of the world beyond.
The executioner took brother Jacob Mendel first and pushed him under the water.
This one here.
And pushed him under the water.
When he was dead, the executioner pulled him out and laid him in front of Heinrich
saying, My dear Heinrich, and there he is appealing, My dear Heinrich, take a look
at your brother who has lost his life.
Recant or you must die too.
There is no other way.
But Heinrich said, I will never recant and desert the divine truth.
I will remain firm even if it costs my life.
And you know what happened.
So impressive stories of the zeal and the tenacity of these brothers as they went
on.
Again a little missionary on page 503 there is a mention there I was going to
say that they are talking about sending the missionaries to burn.
Remember we talked about burn and they were starting to make those laws against
the Anabaptist missionaries.
We see some of those in that time period around burn.
It was an interesting thing.
I just threw this out.
It doesn't really tie to our story, but I just thought it was really curious.
I wrote here Hebrew letters on the grapes.
I don't know.
I have no idea what this... this is like a diary.
Remember this guy is just writing stuff that he saw.
And this is in 1602.
He woke up one morning and he said, beautiful Hebrew writing was found on the
grapes in many places.
It was so skillfully done that no one could have painted it better and each one
was different from the other.
Strange.
It lists that.
It's the kind of thing that comes out in the chronicles.
Just little things like that.
Also they go through the concept of this time and praying and stopping for the
battles.
And some of the generals and things comment that there's no way this
particular battle could have been stopped if it wasn't for the intercession of these
brothers that were praying.
The brothers and sisters that were praying.
And there's 579 and 588 there's all this coming out.
And during this war then, and still, on page 597,
this brother Conrad Blousey, a servant of the word, was traveling in Switzerland
that year with three of his brothers and keeping with the task of the brotherhood,
they were sent to gather God's people for his church.
They were on their way back to the community, but brother Conrad had not
taken to heart the warnings that they had been given him and they were captured and
probably killed.
Just again, these little examples of the different things.
And then I'm going to give you this one quote and then we're going to take a
break.
So now we're into this Turkish war and we're about to get into perhaps their
hardest time.
And it's interesting as it's mentioned there in the Chronicles.
Actually they mention every time a comment comes, but here's to give you an example
of one of them.
Page 632 in volume 1.
They finish this phase and he said this, he wrote, "...On November 29, 1618,
around 4 o'clock in the morning, an extraordinary comet appeared.
It was a brilliant and had a very long tail, such as is rarely seen.
After that, it appeared each morning a little earlier until it rose exactly at
midnight.
The time when it rose changed gradually from morning to midnight and from midnight
to evening.
This covered a period of four weeks, namely from November 29th until the end of
December.
It was watched with great awe and terror and was last seen close to the North Star
where it faded away.
In the year following, we were to learn what much suffering and sorrow what it had
signified." Take a break and we'll see.
We'll go into the 30-year war.
Okay, welcome back.
What we get to now is this 30-year war period with the Hutterites.
And again, the 30-year war, I don't have time to get into the details of that,
but it was a war between the Catholics and the Protestants.
And who was going to rule these nations and these areas?
Was this going to be a Catholic kingdom or a Protestant kingdom and they went back
and forth.
And again, you still have the Ottoman Empire trying to make its way up at the
same time and kind of watching to see what the Christians are going to do to
themselves.
And then the Hutterites are in the middle of all this and really, in this day and
age, you could probably not be in a worse place.
And that's why I call them, you'll see at the end of this, I call them the Marine
Corps of the Anabaptists because this is the irregima of the Anabaptists when they
went through all these different times.
I have here written on my paper, in 1618 the 30-year war began and by 1622
Cardinal von Dietrichstein expelled the Hutterites from Arabia and they moved
southeast to Slovakia.
The 30-year war was still raging and Hutterite communities were the prime
target for plundering, pillaging, burning, and looting.
And one particular thing happened that was bad news for the Hutterites and that was
the Battle of White Mountain to give you a little bit of world history.
The Battle of White Mountain.
What this was, all the different, you remember Moravia was always a little
bit more independent in these things and so who was going to fight these Catholic
lords?
And so there was a big battle where, I think I gave the numbers here,
30,000 Bohemian and mercenaries from the Protestant side and they were up against
27,000 by Ferdinand II representing the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic side.
And it was a huge battle and the Battle of White Mountain and unfortunately for the
Hutterites, the Protestants lost.
And after that, all hope of any kind of this protection from the lords of their
areas was just come to a ruin.
And that's when in 1622, that was 1620, November 8, 1620 and 1622 is when the
Cardinal Dietrich Stein just said, out with all of you.
Out with all of you.
And it was a very pitiful, pitiful time.
And so again, these were very, very hard times.
Let me just thumb through.
I'm just going to thumb through this just to kind of get you a sample of the journal
entries that they put in here.
It's just pitiful.
Okay, terrible remorseless punishment came to us and that was the chastening of God's
people.
October 30, the community at Frischau was plundered twice.
October 31, Trott was plundered.
I'm just going down here.
August 9, the house at Wiederstatten and its old mill was destroyed.
15, 19, September 18, another one destroyed.
Fire set here.
September 19, they go through.
On September 24, a tragic thing occurred.
Our fugitives from Fribitz were trying to return home and put their nursing mothers,
their old, their sick and their children from both Austerlitz and Littenitz into 12
wagons from which they fled.
But they were massacred, they were destroyed and terrible things happened
there.
Turning the page, a whole mob of peasants then began to run into the community and
took the flour, the meat, the salt, the cheese and began to take everything
that was there.
In some places when the enemy was gone, the peasants were even worse because they
were also being plundered in their towns and so they came into our towns.
People always say when you get into non-resistance debates of, well,
what would you do if the Muslims would take over America or the Hitler would not
have been stopped?
What would you do if you are not going to resist yourself and then people are going
to take your food?
Yeah, been there, done that.
It is the theology of martyrdom and we can see that it's not just a theory.
We've been through that as an Anabaptist people and not just the Hutterites but
other groups have done this as well, but this is graphically preserved for us
because of the Chronicles.
He says, it is impossible to overstate the depth of the need and pain we suffered.
When all human hope is gone, we fervently pray to God.
God oppose the enemy and change their fury into kindness towards the devout.
Let us all the more thank the Lord as long as we live for his deliverance and the
good that he has done to us.
Let our lives be more dedicated and holy so that he has no need to bring still
harsher chastisement to us.
Again, just going flipping through here.
Killed here, wars here, worse and worse to all the nations of the countries revolted.
March 25th, they shot a baby in his mother's arm, injured the brothers and
sisters, plundered a house, struck a child dead in his father's arm, cruelly tortured
several others, murdered 52 brothers as well as sister and the child.
One was burned, got pulled, tortured some brothers terribly, in particular Heinrich
Schutzer was burned with red hot iron.
Wounds were cut in his thigh, then gunpowder was poured into the wound and
caught on fire.
These people, he said, I don't even understand.
He said, they are claiming to be Christians.
Even the Turks, the Muslims wouldn't do this.
It is heartbreaking.
More than human nature could stand.
He goes on, such horrible shootings and slashings followed the captives could
scarcely describe it.
He goes into the things in the Battle of White Mountain.
That was before the Battle of White Mountain.
Then it got worse.
Different people were going over the mountains, freezing to death in the
mountains, overwhelmed by fear and despair in these different areas and taken
prisoner.
Some from the community were taken prisoner and helped up a barricade and
throw up on the barricade.
Shot a lady and a boy three or four years old.
And it is just, I mean, it is page after page of this.
All we could do was to commit everything to God, including this outrage and
violence that we suffered.
Oftentimes our greatest fear and need God provided in a merciful way.
Beyond all human comprehension, He promotes generals, completely unknown
to us, generals of foreign nations and languages to help us in this way or that.
They saw God's hand in different things and were very blessed with it.
Two hundred and thirty people killed over here and hurt over there.
Then a famine came.
There was disaster.
It stopped raining and there was famine.
Destruction.
March 6, somebody was dying here.
Another one there.
March 21, the steward, the servant, he died.
But then in the midst of all this, and I just couldn't believe that.
So here it is now, 1622.
So in the middle of this disaster, everything is falling apart.
They are barely living.
This year too, we followed the example of our forefathers by sending out several
brothers into various places in Germany.
In the middle of all that, there was something inside them that they believed
that part of who they were as Christians had to spread the gospel.
And even in the midst of this thirty year war of absolute pillage and tyranny,
they still did this.
They even comment on it.
They went, this is page 678 in volume 1.
They went to seek those on fire for the truth and to call people to repentance.
It amazed many people in Bohemia where both hostile armies were encamped as well
as in Germany that our defenseless members set out in a time of such terrible danger
when scarcely anyone, whether of high or low estate, could travel in safety.
But the Lord was their protector and they relied on Him alone when their task was
completed through the intercession of His people.
He often then brought them home again safe.
Praising God for that.
So, amazing.
It still goes on.
At one place, on page 678, they were mixing clay with their food to try to help
survive and just literally starving to death.
They're being spelled out.
Again, I have just written pages here.
Page 765, 766, 769, 770.
Again, each one they're talking about sending out missionaries, sending out
missionaries, sending out missionaries.
It's almost as if these brothers knew, if we stop, if we stop the mission
activity, if we stop the forward advance of the gospel, we're going to deteriorate.
We're going to start falling apart.
We're going to start, we're going to start to die.
And when they saw lots of people dying, literally, and then also during this
persecution, they're mentioning here, there are oftentimes a lot of people
recanted.
I mean, it happened a lot.
People left.
People said, that's enough.
Even back when they were saying you had to just be in living in caves and digging
holes.
Many of them said, that's not for me.
Thanks.
And recanted to the faith.
And so for all those people, they had to keep going and keep going.
And this is where that Semper Fi of the Anabaptists really shows itself in their
tenacious attitude to keep things going.
At this point, we're coming to the end of the 30 year war.
And it was in 1648, and it was good, but they were still in a bad place.
Even after the war ended in 1648, Catholics controlled most of Hungary.
So there was renewed religious persecution, torture, whippings,
and book burnings were among the convergent methods used by the Jesuit
priest.
This is also a time, if you know your church history, or your world history,
that the Ottoman Empire now was coming up and expanding, and they had taken actually
Vienna.
They took it and held it for a few months.
And this was like the point of world history that could have went one way or
the other.
During this time, it's interesting in the Chronicles, and the footnotes in the
Chronicles back this up in records, that building up to this taking of Vienna,
there was one time a 15 pound hailstorm was coming up and coming down on the area.
It was documented both in the Chronicles and in different times.
Huge different storms and things like that that was happening.
There was an earthquake, and lots of comets, just like this.
That might have been actually one of these in this time.
The comets were being seen.
When I read that, when I considered what was happening in world history at the
time, and I think back of Daniel and the battles that go on in heaven when we pray
and Daniel fights.
I just can't help but think there was some powerful warfare going on in the heavens
during this time.
In 1665, there's these.
They have a prayer meeting here.
They're talking about these different things.
And finally, they continue to be beat down, continue to be persecuted.
It was interesting.
One thing they also mention, again getting close to the time of the taking of Vienna.
They go out and one time he writes in his Chronicles that many people in the city
saw a great sword in the sky pointed towards the east.
He said, I don't know what this means.
God knows its meaning.
And then a pillar.
And lots of different things were happening in this time period.
It must have been pretty interesting.
And when you think of all the ramifications that would have happened if
the Ottoman Empire would have continued to take the western world.
I just imagine there's a lot more that was happening than just fighting on the
ground.
Yeah, they were.
Particularly where they're going now, they're getting there.
But when they went down to Hungary, the Ottoman had already taken part of
Hungary and Yugoslavia.
And when they were scattering out, they were getting into these places.
And now, where they're going from now, and this next step, is entirely into
Turkish areas.
Yeah,
I know.
Yeah, amen.
And you see this, and they even say that in one of these quotes here that when they
get over, they're about to make this decision now to go over into Transylvania.
And they say, it's better here than it was with the Catholics and the Protestants.
And the Muslims was actually taking better care of them.
So, interestingly enough.
So finally, they get through this, they're beaten down, beaten down,
finally people are leaving, but then they're getting the missionaries,
getting, and finally they get to the very end, and volume one closes with this
appeal to the Dutch Mennonites.
And saying, help, help, we're dying, we're starving to death.
And there's this letter that's written to the Dutch Mennonites, which I appreciate,
because they call them brother and that type of thing.
And a lot of these early guys in their zeal, the Swiss brethren were the same,
certainly the Dutch in their early days were the same, and the Hutterites were the
same, that was kind of the, we're it personality.
And I like to see at the end of this, if there's one thing that God gave them
through all that great persecution was a humility to say, help.
And they wrote to the Dutch, and the Dutch did beautifully help them financially.
And in that letter, at the end of volume one, they mention a lot about the idea of,
the idea of calling them brother and that type of thing.
So I appreciate that.
You know, and I think that just like we need a brotherhood, my personal feeling
that brotherhoods need each other.
And it's good to help one another, encourage one another, hold each other
accountable.
And that's the kind of thing that happened with them.
All right, so now we go on.
And this tenacious group of people is still trying to limp on and keep going and
keep going.
But the hard times keep falling on.
In 1685, I wrote, after constant torturing and robbing, the Hutterites gave up
community of goods.
They still had the lair and other church services, but community of goods was
abandoned.
And so after all that, they said, okay, let's break this up.
Let's meet in our little homes.
We'll still have a common area.
They still read the lair.
They had the teachings.
They had these different things, but they said, we've got to just survive
here.
In 1688, all the Hutterite babies, the Catholics kept coming in here.
Now, before they went to this area, the Transylvania area, building up to
that, sorry, that the Catholics were coming in and sending Jesuits into their
place and persecuting them.
And it was some very hard times, very hard times indeed.
And this is where the Chronicles turns very honest.
Well, I hope it all was, but very, not honest, but very humbly revealing of
what Johannes Waldner began to talk about some of this time period.
I'm going to read to you a few of those things.
So as they were trying to make their way through this time, the Catholics now who
had full control were trying to get at them and do things to them.
And after they were already beat down so much, it did begin to start to wear on
them.
And I have here in 272,
and on page 271 of volume two, large numbers left the brotherhood until
at last the community was remained, was ruined.
And it almost came to an end.
One third of the people died that year and things were getting bad.
1622, he goes up and just makes a little brief walking through some of these hard
times.
He comes to this passage in 272, he says the Hutterian church nearly came
to the same point where it lost everything because it had left its first love.
And as lost the first purity and integrity, the Lord removed its lampstand
from its place.
Interesting.
That was from their own words.
Johannes Waltner said that he believed that this was happening.
He said the brothers and sisters no longer gave such a clear witness of godliness and
dedication as in the early days.
Things were bad here.
They started to be able to not organize.
They weren't raising up other leaders.
They weren't getting their message across.
And it was a hard task for their teachers, but things went from bad to worse.
He mentioned things like sleeping during the meetings, sleeping in church.
Hard rebukes were given.
People were lazy.
People were basically losing their vision.
They were beaten down to the point where they were beginning to lose their vision.
A revealing thing in 284, it says to make the matter clear, dear brothers,
Johannes Waltner is writing this later to future generations.
To make the matter clear, dear brothers, the church is and must be established by
the Holy Spirit.
It is the only place where the true brotherly love of the church can be
practiced fairly and impartially.
And he begins to see just this lack of the indwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
He rebukes him for slander and gossip and the problem that the gossip is causing
them.
He talks about the different clothes they are getting into, the different attitudes
they are following the world.
And he finally gets to this beautiful prayer found on page 303.
And Johannes Waltner says, O Lord God Almighty, grant that we may once more know
a time when you daily add to your church those who are being saved, so that our
hearts may rejoice in it.
How old and how barren has grown Sarah, Abraham's wife, your church, who ought to
have children, to bear children for eternal life, that your praise may be
proclaimed on earth.
You see, he is noticing that after all that wear it down and wear it down and
wear it down, finally they are getting to the point where they are just losing the
vision.
They are going on and Johannes Waltner is the elder here and he is just bemoaning
that we don't have that spirit and we need to somehow return and get that kind of
spirit again.
He then talks about the idea of the Jesuits.
To make matters worse, the Catholics were then sending Jesuits in and forced them
onto the community and make agreements with them.
And here was one of the agreements.
In page 310, the Jesuits refused to release some imprisoned brothers unless
the whole congregation signed an agreement to attend church and have their small
children baptized.
So it was bad already, you are losing the fire, the lamp stand is practically gone,
Johannes Waltner I guess said it was gone.
And then this Jesuit attack says, ok I will let your brothers go if you sign
this.
In the end the people signed it and the people were set free.
That is how easily they gave up true Christian baptism, signing against their
own hearts and consciences because they were not willing to suffer for God and His
truth, the Chronicles write.
And then this one after they finally do that first baptism, someone is watching it
and it says here, the brothers and therefore returned home after the elder
was deeply sorry for what he had done, when the local priest came to the first
time to baptize a baby.
This man is looking through a window and Jacob Pullman saw him through a window and
cried out, oh woe is me, what have I done?
And they realize we have let it all go, it is gone, I am letting our babies get
baptized, this minister is watching this and how did it get to this point?
A disturbance followed from all that, they rushed and attacked the pastor and
all different things, it was just like non-stop letting up, it just went from bad
to bad to bad with all these different things.
They sent more Jesuits in at different times, they made an agreement to come to
them and to let them into their church and it was terrible.
Finally they had a group of them made to Transylvania to Hermenstadt in
Transylvania and began to get there.
There the Jesuits asked to come in there and they allowed the Jesuits to preach.
The preacher said, okay, just let me come in and I will talk to your people and if
you agree to do that, the preacher made the mistake and let the Jesuit come into
their church and preach.
He mentions in the Chronicles that he was faking and crying and saying, you brothers
just don't understand the truth and began to explain to him from the Catholic faith
to them and they were so weakened and so lacking in their understanding that they
bought it.
He said, yeah, alright, and they left and they became Catholics.
And so worse and worse and it was just beaten down and made to a last where it
was finally hardly anything left.
And then he says this, finally
he gets to that point, he says, now it has come to a complete ruin.
He says, now I continue telling how God the Lord did not let the light of the
divine truth die down and be entirely extinguished.
To the praise and glory of his name he left a tiny spark alive and kept it alive
to this very day and can be found in the following history.
So here again, a bad time in their life and they had got to a point where things
were very bad and it looked like things were going nowhere and there was about 50
Hutterites left.
At one time 50,000 or 40,000 or so, 30 at least, we're down to 50.
Beaten down to almost nothing.
Almost nothing.
And then this happened.
In 1755, well in 1752 it says that the Hutterites were here in the Chronicles.
They began to have these revivals that were going on in the eastern side of
Germany.
And people started to get a hold of these writings of Luther and they started
talking about faith and there was a group of people that were gathering together and
they got revived.
And it says here that they got a hold of these Lutheran books and they got a hold
of these things and they said, wow this is exciting.
And on page 369 volume 2, these books and writings were introduced to the
Corinthians, that's the eastern wayside of Germany.
And the mid 18th century, although they were brought in secretly, they produced a
great fervent and revival.
Many peasants stopped attending church and read the Bible and other books in their
homes instead.
They also began holding secret meetings at night for the joy of hearing God's word.
Many others went long distance through the dark and rain, snow and wind.
In these meetings they prayed, read the Bible and other books,
sang and talked together.
This was happening not only in one place but spread nearly to every judicial
district in Corinthian and for instance this area around these different places.
There was a big revival that was happening in this far east Germany.
So they got a hold of these things.
Regarding such books therefore, people started finding these books and
they said they were very dangerous.
So the Catholics got everybody's books and they stamped it.
Unless it had the king stamped on this book then we were going to consider it
illegal.
But then they stopped going to church.
They started meeting in their little cottage services and you know what the
story is.
They finally were arrested.
It was interesting.
One of the things that they said when they were mad about all these revived people
reading these books and the Bibles, this one guy said, he says nothing is kept
in its proper place anymore, this Catholic judge.
He said many people have the effrontery to meddle in matters not fitting for them.
A farmer or head of the family should have a plow, whip or ox goat in his hand.
Not a book.
His wife should have a cooking spoon and household keys.
Not a book.
A farm laborer should have a hoe, woodcutter's axe, flail or manure fort.
Not a book.
A servant girl should be at the spinning wheel feeding the pigs or similar work,
not occupied with a book.
But now no one is content with a rifle station and work.
Everybody wants to be a priest.
And that was their attitude of dealing with these things.
These people then, the empress at that time said she was kind of nice and she
allowed them then to be gone to the far end of her domain there.
Let me catch where I'm at here.
They experienced a miraculous revival in the stringent attempt to Catholicize her
empire.
Empress Maria Theresa, not to be confused with Mother Teresa, Maria Theresa had
deported these Lutherans to the remote borders of her empire.
She allowed the revived Lutherans to practice their religion but only in the
fringes of her domain.
However, these were different.
These were some names that started to come in as part of this revival.
Some people called the Waldners, the Hoffers, the Kleinsassers,
the Glanzers, the Wurzs and perhaps even more.
But the thing is she said I'll let you go there but I want you if you go there to
swear an oath of allegiance to me.
Well, these people were a little different.
They said well we've been reading the Bible and Jesus says you can't swear
oaths.
So we can't do that.
I'll give you free farms, I'll give you free land, I'll let you go there and even
give you free land if you swear an oath.
And they said well how can you make me do something if it's not in God's word.
And they didn't do it.
So because of that they started then to work amongst the brothers.
They had to get menial jobs and they started meeting up with some of the last
remnant of the Hutterites.
And now you can turn over to the second handout here and I'll hurry up.
And as they were there with these other, they started to look at these other
others, they started to be impressed with their life.
And as they were impressed with their life they started to know more.
And as they wanted to know more they started showing them some different works.
And even though they weren't meeting with the Hutterites anymore, as Hutterite
colonies anymore, they still had church services and they gave them Peter
Ritterman's writing, they gave them certain things.
And these brothers started to get excited.
And they started to say, wow, this is pretty interesting.
Tell us more about this.
And they went home and they compared it to the gospel and they read it with the
gospel and they read it with these writings and they got more excited.
And they said well, let's do it.
So they got everybody together, they got them excited, and on volume 2,
page 385, it mentions they met at Andreas Wirt's house and they began to have the
church service there and things were going great.
And they started to have a new revival of these people.
As they went on and started meeting, it was impressive.
There was one already arrested quickly named Michael Hoffer.
He died in prison.
So as soon as they got started again, as soon as they grabbed some of the cubs
from the lions, the persecution happened again.
And they began to come down on them.
And then, so you have this first generation people revived, on fire for the
Lord, and now they're starting this movement back again and they want to do
it.
But what happens with first generation Christians?
What happens a lot of times that we read about in the first generation of the
Hutterites and the first generations here?
They started to have a little fight.
Andreas Wirt's married this couple that the rest of the community, another
community, the church community didn't like.
And so they didn't approve of who this boy was marrying and so they got upset with
it.
He said, I'm going to marry her anyway.
And they started having this big wedding feast and everything and finally they were
getting already to the point of a split already.
And I know you're thinking, oh no, here it comes.
But here's something that I want to show you for something that we can learn,
all right?
And it's June 16, 1765 and they're starting to this and they're already
starting to split up again.
They discipline, one of the communities want discipline on Andreas Wirt's because
he didn't listen to them.
They, of course, with him and all his people start getting mad and they were
going to break up.
So it says on here on page 397, when the four arrived, they talked with
the brothers about the division between them.
But after a great deal of arguing and each side insisting their own opinion was
right, it almost seemed as if nothing would come of the uniting.
They had, in fact, already parted.
Andreas Wirt's and his son-in-law were setting out for Ebersdorf, the two others
for Stein.
And Andreas turned around and said, they're about to split, and Andreas Wirt's
turned around and said this, let us submit completely and think of nothing but making
peace.
We are the only brothers in Transylvania and we can't, and can't the few of us be
united?
So finally somebody in a time of passion decided that they're going to actually
have peace.
The three united with Kurtz and with him and Andreas told the brothers there.
The three returned to Krutz, the community with him, and Andreas told the brothers
there, we have changed our mind, we want to accept their discipline,
their correction, and unite with you.
And so they came back together and was able to go in a united front.
So I think that's a rare moment in church history and I think it deserves,
let's give them a round of applause.
Let's hear it.
Instead of splitting, they got together and came together.
I think that's incredible.
Wish we could learn that spirit.
Alright, they're keeping going and yes, it never stops.
It never stops.
They're going through the different things and now finally they get up to the point
where they're planning on, people are saying, well we're going to take your
children and we're going to put them in orphanages.
They say we've got to get out of here.
And so finally they plan an escape.
A miraculous thing happens that they were able to leave the prison.
Many of them were arrested and put in prison and they were allowed to escape in
broad daylight.
But finally they got to this point where where were they going to go?
Of course it was going and hiding.
People were after them.
It was terrible and so they had to leave at night.
And the place they had to cross, you see that picture I have on your map?
They had to cross these mountains to finally get to the place where they felt
was much safer in Islamic countries here than where they were now.
And let me read you where they're going.
So they're going from Transylvania to Wallachia and here in this area they
cross.
And finally they get to this part here with these mountains and it's an
impressive story.
The very same day the guys returned and we made ready to leave in the evening.
This is their journal entry before they're going to one of those peaks.
It was impossible to take the wagons over the mountains so we loaded what was
absolutely necessary into the four horses.
We unharnessed the four oxen and drove them with us leaving the empty wagons for
the guides to bring them customs as opportunity offered.
When everything was ready and the sun began to sink we started on our way again.
It was October 13th.
The guides led us through pathless thickets and wilderness for they knew
where we would be safe from danger.
There was a familiar with every path and hiding place in the mountains.
The ground began to rise sharply and often the only way was to clamber upon the hands
and feet.
Each of us had to scramble up the best he could so as not to be left behind.
In some places it was hard work to bring the laden horses up the steep slopes.
The climb went out all night.
Every reader can imagine how difficult and exhausting it was with little children on
our back, with young, old and weak all struggling up the high mountainside in the
dark of night.
All did their utmost using their last drop of energy without sparing themselves all
hurried on eager to flee from Babel and the abomination that causes the
desolation.
When we reached the crest we halted a little while.
Then our guides told us that we had already succeeded in crossing over the
border into Wallachia and were out of danger.
We could now release the dogs which we had kept them so they wouldn't bark.
And on the top they held a common prayer and thanked God.
A little later they found that the government had already actually had beds
ready for their children that they were about to take and put into the orphanages
to be made into Catholics.
So they start here, they keep going, they make it into this area.
There's an interesting story I don't have to give you, but again how the problems I
like in the Chronicles where as soon as they get into this Islamic area,
it was an area that the Muslims had taken over, but they wanted to protect the
rights of the Orthodox that were there.
And you couldn't knock over crosses and things like that.
Well, as soon as they got into town, the Chronicler writes, some boys went out
and started hacking down some crosses and stuff.
And he writes in there, and not for religious reasons.
And so some of the people saw it, turned them in, and there was this great
offense.
They had to protect their own Muslim people not to oppress the Greeks and the
Greek Orthodox people that were there, the Russian Orthodox that were there.
And so they came under this charge and so they wanted to cut their hands off of the
boys or give something like $50,000 for each offense.
And they went back and forth.
And I appreciate the Chronicler, I think it might have been Johannes
Waldner, he wrote, I'm telling this so future generations can know not to do
these kinds of things.
It's terrible when he tells those kinds of stories.
It's a blessing.
So they go through this.
Again, they fight their way through these different things.
And now, unfortunately, the Ottoman now wants to take Russia.
And just when they got from one place of war to another place, now the Ottoman
Empire is going into Russia and they find themselves in the Turkish war trying to
take Russia.
And back and forth there's terrible things.
They say it's even worse than the other things that were happening to them.
Some of the things that are so graphic in the Chronicle that I wrote a warning on my
pages so that my children don't just pick it up.
It's just terrible.
Some of the things like they would have these head vices, which would have been a
nice easy torture device.
You would just take a strap and turn a stick like that with a strap around your
head, you know, like you would do a tourniquet and then tell you to recant.
And then he gives the graphic words on what happened to that person when that's
happening.
It's terrible.
One thing, I'll just read you for the girl's sake, 473, during this time back
and forth with the Catholics now and the Turks and this whole area, on page 473
there's an interesting story that girls can appreciate.
Excuse me, 437.
One of the robbers had fetched Maria Nagler, a young sister about 15 years old,
and brought her out to the school and to the yard.
The godless man tormented her, telling her, make the sign of the cross.
Meaning, you know, like this.
Make the sign of the cross.
She refused point blank to do it.
The German went up to her and said, my child, he wants you to cross yourself.
If you refuse, he'll cut off your head.
Do you understand that?
She said, I will not do it.
I would rather die.
His tormentor drew his sword as if to behead her, but when Maria would not let
herself be intimidated and was ready to die rather than submit, something in him
was touched and he left her alone.
After a while, he looked for her again and wanted to take her with him, but she had
hidden herself, however, and didn't fall into her hands.
Yikes!
That would have been bad.
But just again to show you some of the tenacity there.
Again, in the midst of this, they have different times in their history where
they're trying to get back together, trying to not.
Real quick in page 508.
I just want to keep this theme going in page 508.
Since the situation in Germany provided to be, as we had heard, God filled many
brothers with courage and great eagerness to send two of their numbers into
countries that we have mentioned to find out whether there were any zeal and
longing to learn of God and His truth to change their lives and to save their souls
from eternal destruction.
And they went on and began to continue their mission activities.
Through this time, it got harder.
They finally got into places where it became disastrous and things again began
to dwindle and things began to get hard and they eventually found themselves in...
they found themselves getting into Russia.
And in Russia, they meet up with the Russian Mennonites, which is interesting,
which is interesting in it because it's kind of like a full circle.
As we're taking now the Swiss brethren, they were going from Switzerland over to
Moravia, now up to Transylvania and finally we get into Russia.
We're going to pick up next week, we're going to go from Holland into Poland
and all this and through the Dutch and end up in the same community in Russia.
And this is where they end up.
They actually end up with the Russian Mennonites and essentially become Russian
Mennonites for a while and again give up community of goods.
Until it was finally revived.
It was brought that to America right at a time when Russia was beginning to change
their desire for their rules about non-resistance.
First, they had full permission to go up.
They said no restraints and they came up.
But when they were there with the Russian Mennonites in these different colonies and
we're going to talk about next week hopefully, it was...
they became incredibly prosperous and with that incredible prosperity, there's some
pretty graphic mistakes said in the Chronicles about the way of life that they
had experienced.
And finally some brothers got together and said it can't be like this and they
decided to bring it back again and regain what they had.
Those communities was Chortice and Radeva and also another one that they came... and
was that the community that you said your people came?
Chortice.
Okay, that's where these brothers had ended up with.
And again there's some very honest words in the Chronicles about how they were
during this time.
Malochna was another one that they came to.
But finally there was in their wanting... they would get together.
There were several talks sometimes about can we have a community?
The Russians wouldn't let them have community of goods.
They kept trying to argue back and forth and they were finally able to pull this
out and they wanted to try to rebuild.
And again shortly after they did that, they started coming to America.
Last page and we'll finish up here is on page 6 of this next handout.
These were then... rebuild again.
The colonies still didn't practice community of goods but that was about to
change.
Michael Waldner was one of the ministers at the time.
He experienced a dream where the angels instructed him to set up a community after
the pattern of Jesus and the disciples.
They began to some prayer groups after this time.
And after soul searching they realized the answer.
They would reestablish the community of goods.
And in 1859 community of goods began again 40 years after it was abandoned.
It's interesting if you ever read on page 666 in the volume 2, they talk about that
the early one... they had a wrong emphasis on community.
And that the emphasis must be on God itself and to let these things to flow.
And there's some good words there about that.
Michael Waldner was a blacksmith and so his followers who... the people who
accepted community of goods were known as a Schmiedleite.
I guess Schmied is blacksmith in Hutterish.
Is that right Marcus?
The next year Darius Walter also established communal living and they lived
on the other end of the community and they were called the Dariusite.
And the group who hadn't accepted community of goods lived in the middle and
both groups immigrated and in a few years each other in the 1870s.
And then there was another, a teacher and his name and because of a teacher they
also became the Leralites who came later.
There was one more group too when they did immigrate to America.
They were given free lands and free farms and some of them just took up having those
farms and they became what's known as a Prairielite who didn't quite stay together
as a people and kind of dwindled.
So that's... it's incredible people and when we get to America the last week I'm
going to try to talk about our American experience and just this thing but just...
I know I'm running late but just one thing I want to say.
What quick things can we learn from the Hutterites even if you don't like their
whole way of doing things and that's it.
Last page.
The conservative Anabaptist, what can we learn from the Hutterites still to this
day?
The idea of working as a brotherhood.
One I have on there.
The idea of working as a brotherhood.
Not just being independent but coming and working your life together and sharing in
one form or another.
The Hutterites show this obviously through their history in some wonderful ways.
The ability to set a direction and execute a vision.
To do that individuals have to lay down many of their own personal things and be
able to go forward.
You can see in their heyday they did that beautifully.
The concept of sharing material blessings.
In one fashion or another I think this is very important.
It's part of the teachings of Christ.
And again I see this in all true expressions of Anabaptist churches and I
think that's something that we can learn from them as well.
And four, particularly with the beginning, is a zeal to spread the kingdom of God.
The one thing that I wanted, the burden of the whole two days was to see that there
seemed to be something in the Swiss brethren.
There seemed to be something in the spirit that started with Conrad Grebel and Mons
and all that in Zurich and it spread to all these places.
Is there's just this passion within them that won't rest until this expresses
itself in spreading Christ's kingdom to the world.
And there was a balance between not just doing that and not existing, but they had
the discipleship of a church community, a church brotherhood, but also the same
burden to share that and spread that to the world.
And they didn't seem to be at odds as much as we tend to get to in these days.
So, that's the Hutterites.
We're going to try to pick up, there'll be a test Monday and then just
the four have to come and then after that we're going to try to go to Holland and
through Münster and then follow the Dutch brothers all the way to Russia and see
kind of an interesting progress as well of the Russian Mennonites making it.
And then the last week I'm going to hope to bring these people to America and then
we can talk about some of our personal experiences and the things that we can
learn and maybe see things that are a little closer to home and I'll let you
talk about some of your histories and things as well.
So, let's close with a quick word of prayer.
Dear Lord, again we thank you for this example and we pray God that you would
raise up again today a people that would be zealous to follow you in this way.
Oh God, may we not get off balance but look at Jesus and Jesus alone and allow
you to be real and alive and working in your church.
We thank you Father.
It's only by the Holy Spirit we can do this.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.