Anabaptist Church Newsletter April 2001

Anabaptist
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April 2001
April 14, 05
Nov 08, 06
Dec 28, 05
Apr 16, 08
Apr 23, 08
Apr 30, 08
May 07, 08
May 14, 08
June 18, 08
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Our Story

Pacifism

Peter Riedemann

Photos

Psalm 23

Salvation

Secret of the Strength

Sermons by Eli Hofer
03/14/01
08/22/01
08/11/02

The Writings of Ulrich Stadler
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4

The Church and the Narrow Path

Things Hutterite

To Vote or not to Vote

Two Ways

Way of the Lord

Which Kingdom?

"Rejoice in the Lord always!" (Phil 4:4) Anabaptist Voice April 2001

Brothers in Christ

             The Anabaptist Church, which began in Switzerland in 1525, was a mighty move of the Spirit of God, not unlike the Pentecostal revival of the early 20th century and the charismatic renewal of the 1970s. Men everywhere, when touched by the Holy Spirit, renounced and repented of their sins and sought to live a holy life, following the Lord Jesus and obeying his commands.
            These born again believers fell under the mighty power of God to such an extent that they tried to live as the early church did, with all things in common (Acts 2:44).
            Conrad Grebel and Felix Mantz, two of the founding fathers of the Anabaptist Church, sought to set up a new church of faithful believers “according to evangelical truth and the Word of God”. In this church, “all things must be in common” as in the apostolic church in Jerusalem.
            These Radicals were bent upon a complete restitution of the Church, and not just a reformation. They believed that one must enter the Church by confessing their sins, washing them away in repentance, receive water baptism as a covenant in the communion of the mutually forgiven and forgiving saints -- saints in the language of Acts, men and women who are set apart from the world in the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the lord of their lives and who live in obedience to his commands and teachings, following the Way of the Lord.
            These new believers, who called themselves Brothers in Christ, held the Lord's Supper with common bread and wine. It is in this celebration of the Lord's Supper that this first congregation of Anabaptists felt itself part' of the communion of the saints, united in one bond of love to God and to the brethren. They took seriously their commitment to the community of goods. Relief from the tremendous conviction of sin and the yearning for a purity of life prompted them to share all things. Mantz, when questioned in prison, explained how the community of goods was the consequences of a joyfully commemorative Communion in the benefits of the work of Christ in undoing the Fall.
            Grebel, Mantz and George Blaurock were preachers of repentance who were able to bring their hearers to a moving consciousness of sin and their need for forgiveness. The court records of the hearings of the Anabaptists from the year 1525 repeatedly testify to the deepness of their conviction of sin and the anguished longing for forgiveness which characterized the early converts.
            These early Anabaptists were truly brothers in Christ and brothers with Christ as they shared his rejection of this world in order to share in the glory of the world to come.

A Hutterite Sermon

Lessons From Israel's Quest For The Promised Land.

(Written for publication in the Pastor's Column of the March 14, 2001 issue of The Journal, a Montana newspaper, by Eli Hofer, minister of the North Harlem, Montana, Hutterian Brethren)

             The Bible is truly an unusual book. Not only can we focus in on a particular event or person and learn a lesson for our lives, but we can also get an overall view of the Christian life, laid out for us from beginning to end. We can learn a valuable lesson in God's dealing with the Israelites and apply it to ourselves.
            The Lord led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, into the Wilderness of Sinai and then on into the promised land. As believers, we too have been led out of Egypt (the world), through the Red Sea (type of baptism) and into the Wilderness.
            The Wilderness experience was to teach the Israelites dependence on Jehovah. He led them by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire daily, providing shade by day from the hot dessert sun and warmth and light during the cold dessert nights. Not only did their clothes and sandals not get old and worn, but God also provided both water and food for them through out their dessert wanderings. Yet most of them never learned the lesson of dependency on the Lord, or moved on to conquer the Promised Land. They choose instead to see everything in a negative way, grumbling and complaining, until they finally died in the dessert, never realizing the great plan God had in mind for them.
            We too can be led and directed by God in our lives. God has given us his Word, the Bible; He has given us his Holy Spirit, plus a great cloud of witnesses that have gone on before us; yet many of us never really learn the lesson. We would rather wander around in the wilderness pining for Egypt, being slaves to our passions, than go on to a greater, deeper and more meaningful relationship with the Lord. The next step for the Israelites was to learn to conquer Canaan, the Promised Land. We too must learn to conquer our Canaan; we must learn to conquer ourselves.
            The Book of Judges opens with the death of Joshua, and continues with the struggle of the children of Israel in their quest to take hold of the land that Jehovah had promised Abraham and his descendants.
            In a casual reading of this book, it would simply be a series of wars and counter wars, one nation having preeminence until another finds ways and methods to gain the upper hand. But for the serious Christian, to whom the whole counsel of God has a message and meaning, this book is a valid textbook of instructions, teaching us how to do spiritual warfare. It makes us aware of the strongholds of Satan around us. It teaches us to make war against the works of the flesh in our lives.
            “And the Children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord strengthened Eglon, king of Moab, against Israel” (Judges 3:12,13). This is usually what happens when we as believers begin to leave room for the sinful desires of our flesh. We too lose our City of Palms, the place where we have our rest, our peace, our tranquility, our shade and sustenance.
            You will notice that in Israel's struggles, Amalek keeps appearing over and over. Amalek is a grandson of Esau, who sold his birthright for a pot of stew. Amalek in Scripture usually typifies The Flesh, or our Carnal Nature. The Amelekites, harassed Israel from the day they came out of Egypt. Satan used Amalek, either alone or in collaboration with other enemies, to oppose and torment Israel in every way possible.
            When we allow remnants of the World and the Flesh to gain control in our spiritual dimension, they grow and fester, until they become chains that bind us. We would do well to take heed what the Lord is teaching us in this Book. The test for Israel was how faithfully they would adhere to God's commandments. See Judges 3:4. This is still the test for God's people today.
            I John 5:3,4 tells us: “for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.”
            If we as believers still act like the World, smell like the World, taste like the World, we are losing the battle. We reveal our infatuation with the World. Allowing peer pressure to influence us in these areas reveal our immaturity. We are forgetting the seriousness of this spiritual battle.
            It is God's plan to transform us into the image of his Son, therefore do not allow the World to force you into it's mold. As Romans 12:1‑2 warns us. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Remember Korah?
By Brian Pribis

            We read in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers of a very interesting event. This man, a Levite, named Korah and about two hundred and fifty others had a complaint about Moses. They decided that the best way to handle their valid grievances was to approach Moses and say something to the affect of, “Hey, we are all holy and believers of God. What makes you think you are so much better then us!” Now understand, these were not just every day people. The bible tells us that they were “...Princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown.” I am sure that they thought they were doing the right thing, and justified in their actions. But God had another opinion. As we read on we see that God caused the ground to split apart and swallow all the would be insurrectionists, burring them alive.
            Now, you think that this would have settled the question of whose side God was on. Yet, as we read on, we find that the Israelites murmured against Moses, claiming that he had killed holy men. Once again God let his vote be cast in favor of Moses. This time over fourteen thousand people died.
            Was this just a case of favoritism? Was God merely showing whom he was standing up for? I think that there is more to the story. We also know that God sometimes does expect us to correct those who are in leadership. I Timothy 5:19 says, “Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.” However, I Samuel 15:23 tells us that “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” It is our hearts that God sees and not just our deeds. Perhaps Korah and his group had valid complaints. Maybe Moses did need to repent of something. In the end, however, it .seems that God was more interested in the hearts of Korah and Moses then he was in what either group was doing or in the validity of the complaints being issued. The writer of Proverbs tells us, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes but the Lord pondereth the hearts.” (Proverbs 21:2).
            There indeed will be times when we must correct those in leadership, when we must speak up for the truth and what is right, and speak against what is wrong. When these times come (and to those who truly seek to follow Jesus Christ in word and deed, those times will come), let us take heed to the example made of Korah and approach these matters with much fear and trembling. Let us be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. Let us get all the beams out of our own eyes, and cleanse our hands and purify our hearts so that we my stand justified both in deed and in our hearts before the living God (Matthew 7:3; James 4:8). Let us love one another as Christ first loved us, even when we are offering correction.

Recommended Reading

The Radical Reformation
by George H. Williams
Published by Weidenfelid and Nicolson, London, England

This history of 16th century Anabaptism was written by a professor of history at Harvard University and presents a fairly detailed history of the events of that time.

The Old Covenant

           Scholar George Huntston Williams properly points out, “The Anabaptists continually distinguished between the covenant of servitude and that of sonship.” He means by this that the Anabaptists saw the Old Covenant as the inferior covenant. Under the Old Covenant God bound His people to physical shadows which, not being reality, could not make good the glories they foreshadowed. Furthermore, the law, rather than justifying Israel, only highlighted their failures. God's people under the law lived, as Paul says in Galatians 4:1, as children and slaves. However, since Christ fulfilled the law and established in its place the reality of the Spirit, God's people no longer hold the position of slaves, but of sons and heirs, Galatians 5:7.
           The Anabaptists thought, in the words of David C. Steinmeetz, “The new deed of God in Christ... made the old deeds through... Moses obsolescent.”
           Anabaptist Leonard Scheimer exemplifies this position when he says, “The first light has been our schoolmaster until the other, that is Christ came, who is the light of the world. When his Spirit enters me I am no longer under the schoolmaster but under grace. There the law of works, sin, death, and members ceases, and the law of the Spirit, faith, life, and the heart commences.”
           Implicit in Scheimer's statement lies the idea that the Christian, far from being without law, falls under the “law of the Spirit.” In addition, his shift in emphasis from outward “members” to inward “heart” indicates that he sees this “law of the Spirit” as the fulfillment of the figurative law.
           However, the believer's current position, being under the New Covenant and thus in the fulfillment of the Mosaic law, does not mean he or she becomes lawless. Instead, the figurative law finds its fulfillment by transformation from external and physical to internal and spiritual.
            Conrad Grebel illustrates this in a letter to Thomas Muntzer. He wrote, “We learned with sorrow that you have set up tablets, for which we can find neither text nor examples in the New Testament. In the Old, [the law) was of course to be written outwardly, but now in the New it is to be written inwardly on the fleshy tablets of the heart, as a comparison of the two Testaments show, as we are taught by Paul...”
            This writing of the law upon the heart of spiritual, inward emphasis that Grebel mentions, other Anabaptists dubbed “the law of love” or the “law of the Spirit.”
            Jacob Hutter described it like this, “All those who live and walk in the spirit do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh... For they no longer serve God in the old manner of the letter but in the new manner of the spirit. Thus, the godly have sin but they do not consent to it nor do they carry out its bidding. It is a source of pain to them and they resist it with all their might. They restrain it and force it down through the power of the spirit.”
            Hutter means that the Spirit's presence in the New Covenant believer’s life allows him or her to serve God in a new way. No longer does the figure of the law bind the believer, its reality has come. In the believer an inward transformation occurs enabling him or her to do real battle with sin. No longer does the believer's concern focus on not committing adultery, now the concern lies in not lusting. Thus, this “law of the Spirit” brings true transformation. It shifts the emphasis off the flesh onto the real problem, the spirit, i.e., off the outward onto the inward. They did not, then, allow or justify adultery. Rather, they saw the real fight against sin as spiritual; and, if conquered inwardly, adultery would not be committed outwardly.
            As Hutter says, 'All those who live and walk in the spirit do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” This “law of the Spirit” ruled the outward actions, but not by specifying what outward actions could or could not take place. Instead, it ruled them by dealing with the heart. It changed the outward actions by virtue of the fact that it changed the inward motivations. So, in place of the many strictly regulated actions prescribed and required by the Mosaic law; there now exists general character traits, against which no law stands. In the New Covenant, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control permeate the lives of God's people.

Ethnic Anabaptists

The following was posted on the Anabaptists Seekers Forum on 04/03/2001

I was saved in July of 1999. 1 began to look for a church that believed in conforming itself to the Bible instead of trying to conform Scripture to suit it's own particular heresy. I found a “conservative” Mennonite church not very far away and faithfully attended each worship service and prayer meeting. I even took a “study course” and joined in February of 2000 at a baptismal ceremony. The church had won my heart because it was true to the Bible on the headship veiling, divorce and remarriage, and non-resistance.
However, I soon became aware that I WOULD ALWAYS BE AN “OUTSIDER” AND A “SEEKER” because I was not born a Mennonite. I tearfully left my church later that year. I find this disgusting attitude in most “conservative” Mennonite churches and I find it simply appalling. Yes, some of your churches do things by the book (on the outside), but where is their heart for others?

Editor's note: This sinful attitude is also not uncommon in Amish and Hutterite churches today. They rely upon their forefathers, ignoring the teaching of Christ in John 8:31-59.

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