Anabaptist Idolatry

I greet everybody in Jesus' name. It's been a blessing to be here and it's been humbling to hear these things that we heard this morning. I had to think of John the Baptist, when some of his disciples came to him and said, "That man Jesus who you baptized, people are going to Him now and He's drawing all men to Him". And what was John the Baptist response? He said, "He must increase: I must decrease." A very humble attitude that he had, and that's what we need, else we're going to fall, just like example after example in the bible, throughout all ages, including now. Let's pray, maybe those who could, can stand for prayer, Heavenly Father, come before you and we ask you to be with us here. We thank you for speaking to us this morning already. We pray Lord that you would continue to speak through us now, to us. Give us ears to hear and a heart to receive. We pray that your kingdom would come and your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Help us now as we look into your word, that you could just shed light on the way and on your words and help us to receive them. Be with us throughout the rest of the day here. Help us in everything we do and say could be done to your glorification. In Jesus' name, Amen. In Numbers 21, starting in verse 4, it says, Then they departed from mount Hor by the way of the red sea and they went around the land of Edom and the people became discouraged on the way so the people spoke God and against Moses, 'Why did you bring us up out of the land of Egypt to kill us in the desert for there is no bread, nor water and our soul is weary of this worthless bread' so the Lord sent venomous serpents among the people and they bit the people and many of the children of Israel died. Then the people came unto Moses and were saying, 'We sinned for we spoke against the Lord and against you, therefore pray to the Lord and let Him take away the serpents from us' So Moses prayed for the people, then the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a serpent for yourself and put it on a signal pole and it shall be if a serpent should bite someone, when the one bitten looks at it, he shall live.' So Moses made a copper serpent and put it on a signal pole and it happened when a serpent bit anyone, he looked at the copper serpent and he lived. It's a pretty amazing thing that happened there, and most certainly a work of God. There's no scientific explanation for this, no medical clinic has ever been able to duplicate like it. Without a doubt, a work of God. People were being bit by snakes and all they did was look at this copper or brass serpent that Moses put on a pole, and they were healed. Pretty marvelous. But something strange happened about 750 years later. We'll go to 2 Kings 18. Apparently the children of Israel had kept this copper serpent and they took it with them wherever they went into the land of Canaan, probably kept it in the temple or somewhere. And this is what we read in 2 Kings 18 Now in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah the king of Israel, Hezekiah the son Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was 25 years old when he became king, he ruled for 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to everything his father did. He removed the high places and broke into pieces the sacred pillars. He cut down the sacred wooden images and broke in pieces the bronze serpent Moses had made because up to those days the sons of Israel had burnt incense to it. They called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel and after them there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those that were before him. For he held fast to the Lord, he did not depart from following Him but kept all the commandments of the Lord that the Lord gave Moses. So this thing that was so marvelous in the past that was a work of God became an idol. It became the thing that they worshiped instead of God. I had said it was a strange thing that happened, but maybe it's not so strange, because it seems to be fairly common, that people today still will look at something that happened in the past, something glorious and marvelous, something that was without a doubt the work of God, and idolize it. Whether it be some movement, or some ministry, or some minister, it becomes the object of worship instead of worshiping God. To some extent it happened in the church of Corinth. The people were starting to say, 'I'm of Paul' and "I'm of Apollos" and Paul reproved them for it. He said, 'Is this right?' And people can say, "Well, it's no big deal. These names that people have given us and called us after certain names, people's names and so forth. The people have given us those names: it's no big deal, it's just what we're recognized by." But it is a big deal -If we accept that name, I believe it is a big deal and I believe it was a big deal to Paul. God is a jealous God . He wants our complete allegiance. How often did Jesus say we cannot be His disciples if we're not solely sold out to Him? If we've not forsaken everything. If we don't have a single eye. If we try to go through this life with one eye on Christ and one eye on anything else, we're not worthy of being His disciple. There's a quote here from Cyprian around A.D 250 He says, There is one God and Christ is one, and there is one church and one chair founded upon the rock by the word of the Lord, another altar cannot be constituted nor a new priesthood be made except there be one altar, one priesthood. Whosoever gathers elsewhere, scatters. Whatsoever is appointed by human madness so that the divine disposition is violated, is adulterous, is impious, is sacrilegious; depart far from the contagion of men of this kind and flee from their words. Avoid them as a cancer and a plague, as the Lord warns you, they are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch. For quite some time I've been wanting to preach a message about this, and sometimes, especially after talking with the people who I come from, I get inspired to preach about this and I have not until now. There's many things that I'd like to say about this. And these may not be new things to you but I think it's good to be reminded of them and there may be many other people who listen to this sometime. But I think there is this disease among today's descendants of the Anabaptists, who look back into history at a marvelous movement. There's no mistaking it, anybody who has any concept of the kingdom of God and looks at the history of the church, and the little remnant groups who radically stepped out to follow Christ can't miss the Anabaptist movement in the 1500's. And rightly so, and their descendants live today. Their fleshly descendants, anyway. And I am a part of them. Was part of them. I'll just give a little bit of my testimony for those of you here who don't know me, or don't know that part of my life. I grew up in Ohio in an Amish family, in a huge Amish community and I was taught about this glorious heritage that we have and I really admired it. I remember as a young child loving to look at the pictures in the Martyr's Mirror. I think when I was about 20 years old, around the first of the year my dad gave all of us children a challenge for theyear, kind of according to our age, that he would reward us for if we accomplished it that year. And he gave me the choice of reading the whole bible or the Martyr's Mirror in that coming year, and since I had just gotten done reading all the old testament, I decided to read the whole Martyr's Mirror. I'm sure there's a lot that I read that I've forgotten, but I started becoming suspicious that the Anabaptists knew something we didn't, and that they had something we didn't. But time went on and I had already joined the Amish church, but I would ask myselfquestions sometimes and my answer troubled me. I'd ask myself 'if I had not grown up this way,would I be doing this? And I knew the answer was 'no'. And it troubled me on account that theremust be something other than truth that we're doing, because if it were all truth, then I would bethere, regardless of my upbringing, because I pursued truth. I wanted truth, and surely I wouldhave gotten there if this is only truth. But I would quiet these voices, I guess. When I was 26 I was ordained a deacon in the church, and I took it seriously, and I helped uphold and build thiskind of church with zeal. Some years later, I, along with some other brothers were really put on the spot, we ended up moving out of Holmes County, in a nutshell, because we saw that it was not right to fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, and we started a small community that was going to be moral, was going to be doing what was right, be rid of all these works of darkness. But it seemed like God put us to a challenge pretty quickly and moved a family right into our midst that none of us had ever know, who DID follow the teachings of Jesus, who DID walk in his ways, howbeit, they weren't Amish. And I look back and I think God was testing us, like, "Ok, you're not going to fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but ARE you going to fellowship with my people?" I remember the day....this was really a hurdle, this was really a challenge (maybe not as much for others), but as much as I had admired and gloried in this heritage that we had, this was a big thing for me to lay down. But I remember the day that I was mowing the pasture with a team of horses with a sickle bar mower, and I was thinking these things. I got real honest with myself,I facedthe facts, and I admitted to myself and to God that I knew that my love was divided. It was divided between God and this heritage that I had. I hadn't completely sold out for Christ. And I knew some things that were going to happen if I did, but there were a lot of things I didn't know. And people would ask these questions: 'What's going to happen with your children?' "I don't know." "Who are they going to marry?" "I don't know." "Think about all the stability and the financial aid and all the things that are at your fingertips, or are available to you." "I don't know what's going to happen" But Jesus never offered us much security on this earth. All He wants is servants who trust Him. Who are completely yielded to Him. Another question is, 'How are you going to build a church?' Jesus has said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." I think today, and I say this with all honesty, the things that I'm saying are not isolated to the Amish, neither to the Mennonites, Hutterites, or just the Anabaptist descendants. You can almost find this problem throughout all the denominations that have a history of some glorious beginning. But I'm just speaking about this because this is the one I'm familiar with the most. I believe there's many ark builders today. People trying to build arks. I think Noah is a type of Christ, and the ark is a type of the church, and as Noah built the ark, Christ will build His church, what we need to do is enter in. How many arks were there to chose from in the days of Noah? There wasn't much choice, you were either inside or outside the one ark. Suppose these people would have started building themselves boats, and they could've tried to decide, which one fits for me? Which one fits for my family? Which one will my children come along with? It wasn't an option. There was one ark, a crude looking shell, nothing beautiful about its appearance but done according to the will of God. You either get in, or be drowned. When we baptize people, we don't baptize them into a local church or community, but into Christ, into His kingdom, the true church of the first born. I think scripture is plain about this. In Romans 6:3-4 It says, know ye not that as many of you that were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death, like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. And 1 Corinthians 12:13 says by one spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. Galatians 3: 27 he said, for as many as you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. We then, are members of His one body. Why then would we seek some secondary membership? What do we think we're looking for or trying to have? Jesus has one body, He's coming back for one bride. He's not a polygamous. He's not going to take a whole bunch of churches with Him to the Father, but one church. And when we enter into the kingdom with Christ, He is building His church and setting His members in order. In Romans 12:5 he says, So we being many are one body in Christ and everyone members one of another. I'm going to read four verses here that all have the word 'members' in them, but I want you to see that in these verses he's talking about members of His one body. 1 Cor. 12:12 says, the body is one and have many members and all the members of that one body, being many, so also is Christ. 1 Cor. 12:25 says, that there should be no schism in the body but that the members should have the same care one for another. 1 Cor. 12: 27 says, now we are the body of Christ and members in particular. When we enter into the kingdom of God we go from being aliens and foreigners and strangers, to being fellow-citizens and brothers and fellow- heirs. But if we seek for more than that, what are we seeking? Beware lest we forsake Christ in our search for more security. Something that could make us feel more secure. Something that would give us alittle more assurance 'that my children can get this too.' God has no grandchildren. The church hasno cousins. Either we are God's children and therefore we are brothers, or we're not His children at all. I understand there will be portions of this church in certain geographical areas. There's the church at Corinth. The Church that was at the city of Corinth was the church of Corinth. There's the church at Ephesus. There's a church at Smyrna. There's a church at Philippi - I understand that. I understand that these local brothers would work things out together, they would work together. They'll have elders. They'll make judgments, they'll do these things, but unless we start with these foundational truths of God having one body and that there's one fold and one Shepherd, we are just about certain to fall into the sin of sectarianism. Some more questions that I would get asked, is "how will you keep your unity without rules and standards?" Ephesians 4:3 says, Endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in bonds of peace. Phil. 2:2 says, Fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. There's numerous other verses that talk about being of one mind, one heart. But to look at those verses and come up with the idea that this is teaching us to have some uniform pattern in the way we dress, in the way we drive and the way we comb our hair and all the colors we do and so forth, is not only fleshly minded, but it's not following these scriptures at all. Does the local church have the liberty to do so? Maybe. I wouldn't be sure, but maybe. But I will say this: once it separates brothers from brothers, it is hostile to the kingdom of God. Uniformity does not create unity but division. Recently I was talking with a brother from Tennessee and he was asking about our vision here, what we do, and he asked me "how do you view church standards". And I said "in the true sense of the word,we have a standard, but as far as what is typically known amongst these Anabaptist churches aschurch standards, we try to stay away from the type of standards that are supposed to bringuniformity," and he said, "you mean, division." I think he saw it. We must ask ourselves whocreates the division. I'm going to be honest with you, it was a little hard getting this message ready, because I don't enjoy ripping things down, and I'm not trying to do that either, but I thinkthere's things that need to be said sometimes. I think there's things that I need to be reminded of and that we need to be reminded of. I was talking with this man from some Mennonite groupwho was with some Mennonite group that did not allow people to have beards and I justchallenged him about that, and I said, "So, what are you going to do if somebody comes and wantsto have a beard or feels convicted that he should have a beard?" I mean, obviously that can happen.And he said, "Well, he'd just be creating division, "and I said," Wait a minute, who's creating thedivision? Who's creating the division when this man would just want a beard, to be part of you, but you're the ones saying, 'no, you can't because you're creating division'." That's a question we had to face ourselves, like who is creating a division? How can we more be the cause of divisions when we divide or separate from people who are in the kingdom of God, but they can't be a part of us because of these extra things. Sometimes these kind of things that get called church standards, brother hood agreements, ordnung, whatever it's called. People will say "it's not a big deal - it's just something we agree on and it's not a salvation issue, it's not a big deal", but it becomes a big deal. Just challenge i. And that's what we found out, as soon as it's challenged it becomes a very big deal, and I would just like for us to, and I would like for all these people to think about something. It should alarm us if, when these things are removed, the whole thing crumbles. That should alarm us. What are we building on? What's the foundation? The church is something that is alive, because Christ's spirit is there and there's life there and it needs no props. That's what I think a lot of these things are. They're there as props to prop up a dead skeleton, that once, sometime in the past, had life, but now the props make it appear to stand. If we remove these props and it results in a crumble we must ask ourselves, What is it that unites us? What is this unity of the Spirit that we say we have? Because we have these things and we all come together and agree on these things. Because some day it will be shaken and all the things that can be shaken will be shaken and only Christ's kingdom will remain. Hebrews says that. Hebrews 12, I believe. If anything else unites us, anything other than the teaching of Christ, great will be the fall of it. And I think some of this just comes down to being real honest with ourselves. You know, in the setting that I grew up with we spoke the German language; we preached in German, we sung in German. In other words, should people around us whom we should be witnessing to, come to our meetings there was really nothing to understand. There is no logical or scriptural reasoning to insist on something like that, and yet it was insisted on, and the things that were told to me was that the facts show that nobody loses the language and keeps the faith (some people would say that), or, maybe some people would say nobody loses the language and keeps the culture. Facts are stubborn. This is just what facts show. But that was really troubling to me. It was troubling to me because 'what changes?' Which one of Jesus' teaching changes when we speak in another language? When we go down the sermon on the mount, how do you come up with a different meaning when you speak it in German versus English, or versus Spanish, or anything else? It means the same thing. And I had to conclude if I face this honestly, that there were other things that could not stand on their own that had not the life or the strength to stand on their own without being protected by this, other traditional or cultural things. There's that story in 2 Samuel 6 about how David was transporting the ark from one place to the next. It is my understanding that according to the law, the ark was not supposed to be transported in any way except carried. But they got some oxen and a cart, and they put this ark on a cart and they were transporting it. And it says when they came up on a threshing floor somewhere, this thing started to wobble, and Uzzah puts out his hand to stabilize it and God smote him on the spot. I don't think God wants man-made things to try to stabilize what He has- it'll stand on its own. And in my opinion, one of the biggest problems with these kind of rules, is that it keeps people from actually excelling. These kind of rules and standards are meant to keep the world-lover from going too far, but you know, God created us with a will, and it is that will that He wants. And if He doesn't have that, He has nothing. It doesn't matter how well we can conform to- if it's not our will that He has, He doesn't have what He wants. And besides that, does the Christian automatically pursue the world? Does he pursue vanity? Does he ever, ever drift? Or does he ever pursue holiness, and righteousness. And perfection. And higher ground? And if a person, in search of holiness and greater simplicity is hindered from doing that because he needs to form to a certain agreed-upon standard, there's a stumbling block that's been laid in his way. Let's read a little bit in Philippians 3. I'll start in verse 12. Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of for that which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize, the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude, and if anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you. However let us keep living by the same standard to which we have attained. Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according the pattern you have in us, for many walk, whom I have often told you and now tell you, weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. for our citizenship is in heaven for which we also eagerly wait for our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble estate into conformity of the body of His glory be the exertion of His power that He has even to subject all things to himself. We do have a standard. In fact, the King James Version, verse 16, says, Let us therefore walk by the same rule. This in fact was a verse, a part of a verse that was sometimes used to try to convince me that we need this uniformity, this sameness in practice. Paul just got done laying this out. He says I forget what is behind me and I press forward to that which is before me, in the light that I have I am pressing forward, and what gets revealed to me, I'll still keep this process, that as many that are perfect will walk in this way, and then he says, this is the standard, this is the same rule in which we all need to walk by, else we're enemies of the cross he says. Idolatry makes us do foolish things. Very foolish things. Just like the children of Israel did a foolish thing by burning incense to this brazen serpent. So idolizing some glorious movement in the past makes us do foolish things. If we think being descendants of the Anabaptist makes us special, we'd be better off without it. Peter Hoover wrote in the Secret of the Strength: "The time has come to stop staggering around wall-eyed with one eye on Christ and one on the church structures we have built, trying to promote one while preserving the other at all costs. God will not accept such stubborn double-mindedness." I want to read one more quote from Hypoliatus. One of the early church writers. He said, for as the serpent cannot mark its tracks upon a rock, so the devil cannot find sin in the body of Christ. For the Lord says, Behold the prince of this world comes and finds nothing in me, for as a ship sailing on the sea leaves no trace of her way behind her, so neither does the church which is situated in the world as in the sea, leave her hope upon the earth, because she has her life reserved in heaven and as she holds her way here only for a short time, it is not possible to trace out her course. God is a Spirit. God moves. The church is a movement that moves from age to age, from place to place, from people to people. Wherever God finds people sold out and committed to Him. I want to say one more thing, that earlier quote that I read from Cyprian, he says, whatsoever is appointed by human madness so that the divine disposition is violated, is adulterous, is impious, is sacrilegious, depart far from the contagion of men of this kind, flee from their words and avoid them as a cancer and a plague. As the Lord warns you and says, they are blind leaders of the blind, but if the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch. As much as I appreciate that quote, I'd like to add something to it. If we only flee from these things, we will very well likely end up in straights as bad as we are, if there's nothing to flee to. And I'm sure he meant this and knew this too. And Lord willing, sometime in the future, I would like to preach a message that maybe links on to this, on what it means to flee from these things and into the kingdom and what the difference is between His kingdom and just another church to be a part of. The Lord add His blessings.