Menno-Protestants - David Bercot

You know, I started off my journey reading the early Christians, and then when I got to the Anabaptists and we're reading things like the Dordrecht Confession and Michael Sattler and Menno Simons, it's like, wow, you guys are saying the same thing. You can't preach the Anabaptist theology to Anabaptists. I mean, they're going to get mad at you, you know, and it's like, it's terrible that we, like I say, we've lost our vision, our theology. We know a little bit about our history, but not very much. That's for sure.

And we're just, we're using culture to hang on, which is fine. I mean, I'm glad we have the culture. It's been very important, but it's not enough.

Well, again, welcome to all of the visitors. This is really exciting to have so many people with us today from outside our congregation. I would have probably chosen a different topic if I realized we would have so many people here from outside the Mennonite world. But I think the principles apply to any of us who are seeking the Kingdom of God and wanting to follow it.

And that is, yeah, losing what you have. Now, you're going to be seeing this probably a good bit, these initials, in the months to come. They stand for vision, history, theology, and culture. And these four things are what make up a people group, a church group. And when you lose any of them, you eventually lose the entire thing.

And like I say, you're going to be hearing more from me. You're going to be hearing from Kevin on this, and I think other brothers were going to be talking about this because it's so important to hold on to these things. The vision that a church has, and of course, some don't have a vision, knowing their history. And I'm speaking now today as an Anabaptist. We focus in this church a lot on the early Christians, but we are part of the Anabaptist world and want to stay there. And it's important we know our Anabaptist history and also the history of the early Christians to know the theology of what Anabaptists originally believed and, again, what was taught in the beginning when the church was young and then culture.

Now, the inspiration for those four things, it came from a conversation I had with John D. Martin. This was at another wedding. We were at the same table, and he was sharing some of this with me. And so I want to give credit where it's due. And he had gotten this, he said, from somebody else who had influenced him. So I don't know who first came up with this. It's probably been around a long time. Now, this morning, we're only going to be talking about this third link on theology of losing our theology. And this is what has happened in the Anabaptist world. Now, again, I feel like I'm kind of airing our dirty laundry to strangers today because, like I say, most of you are not officially Mennonites or that, but I think you'll see the application of the principle.

Now, the original Anabaptists were a separate movement from the evangelical Protestants. They were separate from Luther. They were separate from Zwingli. They were separate from Calvin. And they were persecuted by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. I mean, put to death by these people, not just, you know, harassed or something.

All three of those groups put the Anabaptists to death. So they were a very different movement. It was a third way. The Anabaptists were not part of the Protestants, and they were not part of the Catholics. They were something different from both of them.

Today, I'm not sure if that can still be said, but this is what was in the beginning. This is why it's important to understand our history. Now, today, I said we'll be talking about theology, and we're specifically going to be talking about the theology of salvation. And I know I've shared some of this in the past. Some of you are maybe even tired of hearing it. Some of you are hearing it for the first time.

Now, the oldest Anabaptist confession of faith is the Schleitheim Confession. Schleitheim was a place. I've been there. It's still there in, I think it's in Germany. It's either Germany or Switzerland. It's right there along the border. And they drew up seven articles. And interestingly, and this is kind of where the Anabaptists differed from the Protestants, not one single one of the seven articles was particularly theological, and none of them were about salvation.

For Luther, it was all about getting saved. For the Anabaptists, it was a lot. It went way beyond that. This is just an excerpt from their article on baptism. They said, "Baptism shall be given to all those who have learned repentance and amendment of life and who believe truly that their sins are taken away by Christ." So the Anabaptists have always understood that we're saved through the blood of Christ. They've never taught we can earn our salvation by good works. Yet they've always taught. It says, "And to all those who walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ." So they've always taught from the beginning. You don't just get saved. It's not a one-time event, but you walk in the resurrection of Christ.

It's a whole way of life. And wish to be buried with him in death so that they may be resurrected with him. So this was their vision of people like the ones we've been seeing in Luke. I mean, just think of our Sunday schools through the last couple of months. The apostles, I mean, they were businessmen. They had fishing boats.

They left everything. Immediately followed Christ. We were talking about Matthew today and last week. And he would have been pretty well off as a tax collector. I mean, man, they rung the last denarius out of everybody. And I mean, he just walked away from it all. I mean, just total transformation of life. And that was their vision.

It isn't going to be easy believism like the Zwingli and Luther were preaching of, you know, you just believe and you're saved. It was like, God wants a total transformation of our life. And they wanted to see evidence of this before they would even baptize somebody. And what they just said there in the Schleitheim Confession is based on Romans 6:4, where Paul said, "Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." So in the very beginning of Christianity, that was the concept that in baptism, you die to the old man, the old self, our sins, all of that, the world.

You're buried in baptism, and then you arise again to a new life, a life of serving Christ, a life of the resurrection of Christ. So the Anabaptists took what Paul said. They didn't just focus on Romans 3. They took the whole book of Romans, and they saw it was much more than just faith in Christ. That's the beginning, but it's not the whole thing.

Okay, so we're going to be looking at Anabaptist statements of faith in particular today. All right, and the one that, and there's a lot of them. I mean, there never was one statement that, like, everybody viewed as being inspired or anything like that. But the one that became dominant was called the Dordrecht Confession. It wasn't written until 1632. So the Anabaptists had been around 100 years. They knew what they believed by then. The movement had gelled together. So we're going to look at just what it has to say about salvation.

And this is going to get a little bit, what, heavy.

I didn't write the Dordrecht Confession. So it's, you know, if you find it, it gets a bit intense. Yeah, that's the way they wrote it. Okay. There is no article in it. There's 18 articles. 18 articles. And not a single one of them is entitled Salvation. I mean, that just says so much about the Anabaptists. It wasn't a save-me religion. It was a religion of transformation. That salvation was always part of their message, but they didn't focus on just getting saved. They focused on this transformation of life. So I'd like to get some feedback. I want you to look at these carefully. And I'd like to get some feedback from some of the brothers here.

And there's no right or wrong answer, but just anything that strikes you in this. Okay. So the advent or the coming of Christ. The Son of God died and tasted death and shed his precious blood for all men. He thereby bruised the serpent's head, destroyed the works of the devil, annulled the handwriting, and obtained forgiveness of sins for all mankind. He thus became the cause of eternal salvation for all those who from Adam unto the end of the world, each in his time, believe in and obey him.

Okay, anything stand out at all in that article?

The word all.

Can you speak a little louder? I'm sorry. The word all. They weren't teaching what Calvin and Luther were with everyone's predestined to salvation or damnation. Yes. That word all was not accidental because Calvin was teaching Christ only died for the elect, and nobody else can even get in. It's all done for them. So that was important. Okay, anything else?

Again, I'm not looking for anything in particular. I'm just curious. Anything? Well, then they took distinction on the other slide. Believe in and obey him. They pointed that out. Yeah, but that was important. So they always, they never stopped with just believing, which is where Luther stopped. It was believe and obey him. And like I say, it's dwelt in there. Zach.

So we don't really hear a nod to handwriting. I don't know if that's referring to Daniel or what that's referring to, but that's just a unique way of referring to what Jesus has done. Okay, so it's a reference.

Someone maybe help me here. It's either in Ephesians. Sorry? Colossians. Colossians, yeah. Where Paul says the handwriting was nailed to the cross. So most of us would interpret the handwriting as the Mosaic Law. Others have interpreted it as our own sins are nailed there. But yes, so yeah, very good.

The interesting thing when he's talking here about the atonement, I noticed, you know, it doesn't say anything about the penal substitution view. That's not presented at all. I thought that was interesting. I mean, this fits in a little bit more with what's called Christus Victor. Now, we don't make a big thing in this church on understanding the atonement, just believing that our sins are atoned through Christ. But I think most of us have embraced the early Christian view that's often called Christus Victor, that Jesus defeated Satan through the cross and freed us from his power, destroyed the works of the devil, plus canceled the law and ransomness. So there's a lot of things he did.

But it is interesting how today, because of the Protestant influence, why I'm talking about Mennonite Protestants, is there's been such a Protestant influence in the Mennonite or Anabaptist world. And so just like on the atonement, I mean, we haven't tried to push that down anybody's throat. But I mean, I can't hardly go anywhere. I mean, just we had the hymn singing. What are they not hymn singing? The hymnary conference, just what was that? Six weeks ago. And, you know, I went there just to see some friends, listen to, you know, some of the singing and all of that. And Deborah and I were meeting outside of the water fountain or something. So I'm walking over there and then someone, "Oh, hey, David," you know, and they called me over.

It was a group of men there. Well, before I could get free, you know, one of them was bringing up the atonement, you know, and, you know, "Are you saying this and this about the atonement? Don't you believe blah, blah, blah," you know. And I've learned by now to be ready to defend it because it's, yeah, someone is going to, it's going to cost me. And it's like, you know, I'm not, I'm not the one who's criticizing others about it. It's always coming from the other direction. But this isn't part of Anabaptist doctrine. It's fine if you want to hold to the penal substitution, but that's not what they presented at all. Okay.

Now the next article. And again, I'd like to hear from some of you brothers on this. The law of Christ, i.e., the Holy Gospel or the New Testament. It says he, talking about Jesus, accordingly has therein, therein meaning in the Gospel, declared all men without distinction who through faith as obedient children, heed, follow, and practice what the same contains, the same being the Gospels, to be his children and lawful heirs, thus excluding no one from the precious inheritance of eternal life except the unbelieving and disobedient.

So very, very similar. Any thoughts on that?

The one thing that stands out is that they said the Holy Gospel refers to the whole New Testament where the Protestant theology is more or less referring to Romans and how, you know, say faith alone type thing. Yeah, yeah. The Gospel isn't limited to just the message of Romans. It's the whole, the whole New Testament. Exactly.

The title, the law of Christ, it's so unfamiliar to most people today. The law was also just supposed to be in the Old Testament. Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. The law of, I mean, that's the first thing when I was, I've read this many times, but it's been a while, but the law of Christ, you don't hear that a Mennonite Protestant is not going to like that word at all, that term. They run away from that word because Luther made it such a bad word. Because Paul talks about the Mosaic Law as being done. He didn't talk about all law, but Luther made it all law, all commandments. There aren't any commandments anymore. There's, you might say, suggestions or recommendations.

God would like us to do this. He'd like us to do that. But it's not a law. I mean, it's not going to affect our salvation. That was Luther's. So I think this was a direct, like, response. The law of Christ. And guess what? If you've read the early Christian writings, you know what it is? They talk about the law of Christ, the Sermon on the Mount. This was, yeah, the new legislation given to us. All right, very good. We'll move on. Now, this is the one that gets, that's pretty long. That is the closest if there was going to be one on salvation. But again, it's not what they entitled it, of repentance and reformation of life.

We believe and confess that since the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth and therefore prone to all unrighteousness, sin, and wickedness, the first lesson of the precious New Testament of the Son of God is repentance and reformation of life. And that therefore those who have ears to hear and hearts to understand must bring forth genuine fruits of repentance, reform their lives, believe the Gospel, shun evil and do good, desist from unrighteousness, forsake sin, put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man in which God is created in righteousness and true holiness. For neither baptism, the Lord's Supper, church, nor any other outward ceremony can, without faith, regeneration, change, and renewing of life avail anything to please God or to obtain from him any consolation or promise of salvation.

So that's a bit long and may have lost you in some of that. Anything, any of you brothers, anything that stood out in that part?

These three that we're reading, this is what it has to say about salvation. That's it. I mean, it's in these three things. That's the sum total of what they have to say about salvation.

Yes. He doesn't say that on the last slide that baptism and communion and all the other things are just symbols, but with faith, they do change your life. Yeah, so this was a statement because of infant baptism. The Catholics, the Lutherans, Zwingli followers, and Calvins, all of them practice infant baptism. Like you can take somebody without faith, just take a baby and baptize him, and that's somehow going to do him some good. And so that's why that's in there. Yet no, baptism can't just act by itself. There has to be faith and some understanding that goes with it.

Okay, so again, you see this emphasis on a total renewal of life. It comes through the power of Christ, but we have to cooperate. It didn't just automatically happen or else you would see all of these really transformed people. It is a process, and I think all of us, you know, we struggle. We know it doesn't just come like that. Okay, so that's the Dordrecht Confession, which became the official statement of faith of the Mennonites. When they came to America, they adopted this as being, yeah, this is what we believe.

Okay, now we're going to jump ahead 250 years later. So Dordrecht was 1640 or something like that. Okay, so now we're in the mid-1800s.

The Anabaptists had become spiritually stagnant to a large degree. To be sure, they still held to the Dordrecht Confession, and they did remain uncompromising on non-resistance, the two kingdoms that they held to that very strongly. But living a simple, plain life became their central theme. See, they lost their vision. Their vision had originally been about transforming lives through Christ, preaching that message, making disciples, seeing them transform. Now it was, we're going to be the quiet and humble in the land. We're going to dress very plain, and people can see that, you know, we are simple, humble people. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but boy, that's not, they lost their vision.

Now, in contrast, the evangelical Protestants had become an energetic force. They were evangelizing the whole world. And so there was a remark, there was this contrast. In the beginning, it was the Anabaptists who were out preaching, and the others weren't doing that much evangelism. And now the whole thing had changed.

The problem is they tried to correct it in the wrong way. So most of the Anabaptists, this is in the mid-1800s, decided to adopt the vision and theology of the Protestants. Some of the Anabaptist leaders studied at Moody Bible Institute. Now, I'm not knocking Moody Bible Institute, but it is Protestant. It is not Anabaptist.

They adopted the main theological tenet of the Protestants. That is, we are saved by faith alone. That became the new mantra of the Mennonites. It's like, wait a minute, we just saw the Dordrecht Confession, and nothing in there said we are saved by faith alone. And now this is what they're preaching.

But at the same time, they maintained most of the Mennonite plain cultural practices. So you can see pictures of these people in the 1800s. They still look like Mennonites. I mean, they might have black hats or, you know, whatever.

But they had totally changed their theology. Short, they became Mennonite Protestants, you know, half Mennonite, half Protestant. Their theology was Protestant. Their looks were Mennonite. But when we lose our vision, our history, and our theology, culture is not enough to keep the Anabaptist movement alive. In fact, without our original vision, history, and theology, I'm not sure we should call ourselves Anabaptists. I mean, if we don't believe what they believed back then, if the Dordrecht Confession we're almost ashamed of and like, well, that's work salvation or something like that, well, then don't call yourself an Anabaptist. You basically said, yeah, they were wrong. Luther was right.

They kept as much of the plain culture as they could, and they continued to dress very plain, you know, wear head coverings, you know, all of the outward things, which are important. We'll talk in the future, me or others, about the importance of the culture. I mean, culture is very important, but you can't just have culture alone. Okay, in 1908, there had been two previous magazines, and they combined into the Gospel Herald, and it became the official journal for the Mennonite Church. Now, the old orders would not have embraced it, would not have read it, but almost all of the other Mennonites, this was their official journal. So it is available online. So actually, not even, I didn't do it for this sermon.

It was the other way around. I got, I downloaded the year 1908. That was the first year it was out. And I've just been reading it and just kind of curious. And yeah, reading it, I realized, wow, good teachings on holiness. I mean, I mean, they're still really standing for a holy life, but boy, had they become Protestant. I mean, it's very shocking. This is what the magazine looked like.

Nothing fancy, kind of a, you know, looks like a newsletter, but it was a number of pages long.

All right, so here's, and this is very typical. This is, I'm reading from the Gospel Herald. Christ died and shed his blood for us that we through his death might have life. What must we do to obtain this everlasting life? If an earthly father were to say to any of his children, do this or that thing and you shall be heir to all my estate, how gladly would they do it? But before Christ expired on the cross, he cried out, it is finished. What could he mean by that? He meant that man's salvation was purchased and the full price paid for it, and that we, as far as merit is concerned, have nothing to do but to believe on him and accept it.

Is that Anabaptist? I mean, it's like, well, that's what the Protestants are preaching. I mean, it's the exact same thing. And expressions like this, they were very common. I mean, like I said, I've been going through the year 1908 and reading it. I mean, it's, it's, you know, I love history and I find it very interesting, but yeah, very disappointing. I mean, I expected I would see this, but yeah, it was just so bold right in your face. Now, like I say, thankfully, the Mennonite Protestants continue to teach repentance and holiness, but it was all jumbled up with the theology of Luther. You know, if it's all done, all you have to do is believe and accept it.

Well, you can preach holiness all you want, but what are most people going to do? It's like, well, yeah, it'd be nice to be holy, but man, I have to give up this. I have to, you know, it's all been paid for. It's all been done. So, you know, I don't need that. In fact, that maybe is kind of a work salvation and maybe it's not even pleasing to God. You know, I better just, you know, stick with faith alone. And, you know, that's what was happening. Two weeks ago, we saw that documentary, okay?

The people in it are the descendants of the ones who were the Gospel Herald. This was their magazine. I guess it was still in print then, in fact. And, you know, we saw what change took place, but the change happened in theology before it happened outwardly.

Now, that article I just quoted from on salvation, the other thing that was very surprising to me, I don't know if you can even read that there. I highlighted it in yellow, but it may be hard to read. So it was written by Anna Lehman. So I noticed this right away in the Gospel Herald that they were using sisters writing articles as well as the brothers. Now, brothers wrote things like that. It wasn't, you know, I'm not knocking the theology because a sister wrote it. I mean, it was a well-written article and she was just preaching what everyone else was preaching. But yeah, you notice they're doctrinal. This wasn't on a page like, you know, a sister's column or something like that.

I mean, this was the main thing. And it's all the time. I mean, you know, I've gone through a bunch of issues and this was very common. And, you know, it probably seemed harmless enough. You know, Paul says he does not allow a woman to teach a man.

And so I guess they were thinking, well, that's in the church, but you can put out a magazine where you're teaching the entire Mennonite world and it's okay for sisters to teach everybody, but just not in the local church. To me, that makes no sense. And this is where it's ended up. I thought, well, I'm going to just follow this through. So I jumped ahead today. Those same people are called Mennonite USA.

And so I was going through there. What do they still believe? What do they hold on to? And I came across this, women in leadership. You probably can't read that. Women in leadership works to dismantle patriarchal systems in Mennonite Church USA by empowering women to live out the call of God on their lives, increase their capacities, and contribute their wisdom in congregations, area conferences, agencies, and institutions.

So where it ends up, so God's order that he sets forth in the New Testament suddenly becomes the patriarchal system that needs to be dismantled. And they're saying to live out the call of God. Well, I thought the scriptures weren't the call of God. I thought that's where God speaks to us and tells us. But going through, I was just curious, you know, where are this Mennonite USA? So they had a page of all of the causes they're involved with. Every single one of them is a left-wing cause that some of them, yes, I mean, I'd say this is in harmony with scripture. It's not wrong because it's leftist. But most of them had nothing to do with scripture.

And it was what was absent that I noticed was nothing about saving the lives of unborn babies. That didn't come up on the list, but climate justice was one of them and a bunch of other things. That was their term, climate justice, but nothing about unborn babies speaking out for them. So yeah, that's some of the fruit of it. I mean, here's another quote.

I mean, I was just stunned to hear this. I mean, they have little quotes here and there to fill up, you know, space. Thank God some lights never go out. Death cannot quench them. They shine forever. Luther's great lantern, the just shall live by faith, still gleams from Wartburg Castle. In case you're wondering, Wartburg Castle is where Luther hid away and translated the Bible into German. And so that's what Wartburg Castle stands for. But this is, I mean, I don't have anything there from Menno Simons or Michael Sattler, but Luther? I mean, it's like, wow. I mean, like I say, they had become Protestants. They still look like Mennonites, but I mean, they were Protestants.

And it kept going. So in 1921, at Garden City, Missouri, they came out with a statement of faith called the Christian Fundamentals. And Chester Weaver had mentioned about how fundamentalism had gotten wrapped up with the Mennonites. Now, we would hold to, I'd say, an awful lot of the things that fundamentalists would hold to. I mean, we believe in the inherency of scripture. We believe in the virgin birth. We believe in the divinity of Christ. We believe that in God's special creation that we didn't get here by evolution. So I mean, a lot of the things, yeah, we're in harmony with, but a lot of them are not Anabaptist. But this is the interesting thing about this.

Before I'm going to show you what it says about salvation, this is what it says in the preface. This statement does not supersede the 18 articles of the Dort Confession, which is the same as the Dort Confession, which the church still confesses and teaches.

Really? Well, let's look at what they have to say. Rather, it's a restatement of that confession in the light of present religious contentions and teachings. Okay, so we're going to look at this restatement. We've read, we've seen the Dort Confession. Now you tell me, is this a restatement of it?

Article 6 of salvation. We believe that man is saved alone by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, that he is justified from all things on the ground of his shed blood, that through the new birth he becomes a child of God, a partaker of eternal life, and blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ.

Now, is that restating the Dortract? I mean, yeah, I mean, you could take the Dortract and I think someone could do maybe a little better job restating it. Is that a restatement of what we just read in the Dortract Confession?

I mean, it's not even, it's not even close to it. Now, what it says is true about initial salvation. I mean, we would believe that, you know, we're saved by grace. When we are initially saved, we don't have to bring any good works. We don't have to earn it. It's by grace and faith that we are saved through the blood of Christ. We all believe that. Where we differ from the Protestants is that we realize it doesn't end there. That's not the end of it. That's just the beginning step. But there's got to be this transformation of life that happens. There has to be bearing kingdom fruit. It's not just all over there at that time.

So to me, it's very dishonest to say this is just a restatement of the Dortract Confession because it's like, that's a lie. That's not a restatement of it. Now, yeah, here's, that's just what the Dortract Confession, like I say, totally, totally different. It doesn't even sound the same as the other. Now, to be fair to the Garden City statement goes on to say this. If it wouldn't for this, I would say, wow, it is really, really terrible.

This doesn't completely restore, but it does say this in Article 8 of assurance. We believe that it is a privilege of all believers to know that they have passed from death unto life. And the whole issue of assurance of salvation is a Protestant issue. I mean, the early Christians never talked about it in order to be Anabaptist. I mean, you got baptized, you were saved. I mean, no one ever said, did I really get saved? You're saved. I mean, you know, if you believed, repented, and got baptized, you're saved. That's, you know, it's not a subjective thing. Anyway, but for the Protestants, because it was subjective, you come forward and invite Jesus in your heart, and then they're always, well, did I really have faith?

Did it really? And they go forward, you know, most a number of times, that God is able to keep them from falling, but that the obedience of faith is essential to the maintenance of one's salvation and growth in grace. So they kind of sneak it in there. They still, they don't want to say anything about works or, you know, too much about obedience. So they say obedience of faith is essential to the maintenance. So, okay, I'll give them credit, but it's not a restatement. I mean, you're afraid of offending the Protestants. You still want to put in there that we have to be obedient. So it just, you know, kind of glided in there under assurance.

A Protestant would look at this and say, okay, you're saying the obedience of faith. Okay, you know, they were more worried about offending the Protestants than they were offending the Anabaptists or forefathers or anyone else. All right, let's move ahead to the 1960s. Now, in the documentary that was made in the 1960s, sorry for your visitors, we saw a documentary two weeks ago on the Mennonites. You could just see the change that had happened by the 60s.

And these are the same group of people from the Gospel Herald. All of that, they were, like I say, back in 1908, man, it was all about holiness and all that. By the 1960s, yeah, what were they all? We were at Goshen College, I think, in the documentary. And it's all about having a career in this world and interacting with this world and all of that. I mean, they certainly had lost the original vision totally.

So in 1963, the Mennonite came out, the Mennonite Confession of Faith. Now, this isn't old history. I'd say most of the conferences, the conservative conferences, this is their statement of faith. It was made in '63 by, like I say, the Mennonite world that had become so Protestant.

Like I say, all of these in their preambles, they always want to claim they're holding on to the original Anabaptist. As early as 1527, this is the preamble I'm reading from. The Swiss Anabaptists, now known as Mennonites, adopted the Schleidheim Confession of Faith. In the following century, the European Mennonites wrote many confessions of faith, one of the best being that of Dortrect, 1632. The Dortrect Confession was adopted at a conference of Pennsylvania Mennonite ministers in 1725, and it has continued since that time as the official statement of doctrine of the largest body of American Mennonites. Okay, so they're claiming we're still holding to the Dortrect Confession. We regard this present confession, the one they did in '63, as a restatement of the 18 articles adopted at Dortrect in the Netherlands in 1632 and of the other statements adopted by our church.

So it's back to the Dortrect saying, this is just a restatement of it. Hey, don't be concerned. You know, we're not abandoning our past. We're just restating that. All right, this is what it has to say. I'll let you read that. It's Article 6.

We believe that men are saved not by character, law, good works, or ceremonies, but by the grace of God. Remember back in the Dortrect, they said we're not saved by ceremonies like baptism, Lord's Supper, or going to church. That's been enlarged now to satisfy the Protestants. Okay, it's not character, law, God's commandments, good works.

And again, in our initial salvation, that is true. I mean, the Philippian jailer, he had no character, godly character, no good works, no nothing. So the initial salvation, that is true, but that's not all of salvation. That's just the first step. The merits of the death and resurrection of Christ are adequate for the salvation of all men. That may sound like a simple statement or an innocent statement, but this is the argument that Protestants try to make against the need for transformation, the need for obedience. They say, well, are you saying that Christ's death wasn't adequate? Are you saying his blood isn't adequate to save us?

It's what trial lawyers do, that sort of thing of take something and twist it. No, there's no issue of adequacy. The issue is what does Christ require? Now, if he wants to require nothing, fine. We recognize his death is adequate, but that's not the issue. No one is arguing about the adequacy. They're arguing about, is that all that Christ requires of us? Okay, they go on. Are offered to all and are intended for all. Salvation is appropriated by faith in Christ. From all eternity, God knew who would be the believers in Christ, and these persons foreknown as believers are elect according to the foreknowledge of God. Those who repent and believe in Christ as Savior and Lord receive the gift of righteousness, are born again, and are adopted into the family of God.

Okay, then they put in this little bit of Anabaptist language. Saving faith involves the giving of the self to Christ, a full surrender of the will, a confident trust in him, a joyful obedience, or they do get obedience in there to his word as a faithful disciple and an attitude of love to all men. It is the privilege of every believer to have the assurance of salvation. The God who saves is also able to keep each believer unto a happy end in Christ. As long as the believer lives, he stands in need of the forgiveness, cleansing, and grace of Christ. Okay, so again, not to offend the Protestants, salvation by faith alone. They say, well, saving faith, if you have saving faith, it will result in joyful obedience.

So it's still faith, but obedience is in there.

Yeah, but is that really the issue? Okay, so let me ask you this quick, because this is what we see all around us, okay? So you talk to the average evangelical Christian and you try to teach them Christ's teaching on divorce, okay, and remarriage. And what's the response for most evangelicals?

It's drop dead. I mean, you know, it's like, if I'm not happy with my spouse, I'm going to divorce him or her. I mean, that's it. I know I'm not going to live by that. Now, is the problem with the evangelicals and all of their churches, like I say, they have as many as the same percentage of divorce and remarriage as the world has.

So in those churches, is it a problem that none of them have saving faith? They've never been saved? Is that the problem? Or is the problem that they don't have the willingness to obey?

What do you think? Any response?

Everyone's afraid I've got a trick question or something. I mean, I would say the problem is not that they don't have saving faith. They got saved, most of them. The problem is they've been taught they don't have to obey. So Christ's commandments, in fact, I mean, the common thing you hear now is the Sermon on the Mount wasn't given for us to obey. Christ gave it so we could see that we can't obey. That, you know, Christ gave us, you know, this new law that he knew we couldn't possibly live by. So his whole point is, see, you can't be saved by law. You know, it's all by faith. And so, yeah, if you hear that Sunday after Sunday, are you going to make a hard sacrifice, live with a spouse who, you know, is a real trial to live with?

No. It's like, yeah, I'm out of here. Are you going to go to prison instead of being drafted into the army? Are you going to make these hard changes? No, because none of those things matter in salvation. You know, you got saved, you're once saved, always saved.

Okay, so I'm going to end on this note, and this is probably the thing that has been a bird in my saddle for many, many years. So at Scroll Publishing, we get, I don't know, people send us, like we sell to a lot of the major Mennonite book companies. And when they send a payment, it's normally we get some kind of a tract in with it, okay?

And most of the tracts are written and published by Mennonites. This is interesting. And we also get them from other people, not as a rebuke to us, just that, you know, they just, hey, send out, you know, put a tract with every check that goes out, something like that.

And Deborah and I and Andre, I mean, we're just stunned when we read these things. So this one, an Anabaptist, I think it was one of the publishers, it was included in their payment. What must I do to be saved? I have it up there. Acknowledge for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

God, be merciful to me a sinner. Repent. Repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. I mean, all of this is true. I mean, it's not false. Confess. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be damned.

And that's not how you spell damned, but anyway, that's their goof, not mine. Clean heart. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Listen, perhaps Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart just now. I mean, that's it. So that's all you need to be saved, you know? All of those are correct steps. Acknowledge your, recognize your sinner, repent, confess your sins, believe in Christ. And what they left out, they quote from Acts, no, they quote from a different one in Acts. They didn't quote Acts 2:38 where he said, repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.

They, yeah, they chose another verse they could use than that. Now, on the back, I mean, nothing about baptism, nothing about, you know, a transformed life, dying to the old man, dying to your former sin, nothing. Just acknowledge you're a sinner. Okay, so on the back, there's the thing, you know, I acknowledge I'm a sinner. And then it says, do yourself a favor and be blessed.

And so you're reading that, it says the Bible, you know, read the Bible, pray, the church, be baptized, worship, have fellowship, and serve with other Christians in a church where Christ is preached and the Bible is the final authority. I mean, they're afraid to even promote an Anabaptist church. I mean, it's just a church where Christ is believed and the Bible is believed. And then baptized is do yourself a favor and be blessed. Not a requisite for salvation, not tied to it in any way, just, hey, you want to be blessed? Hey, you know, find a church, hey, get baptized in that. And just find any church, you know, as long as they believe in the Bible.

I mean, we just, I mean, like I say, if this was one tract, I mean, most of them, you know, just we've thrown out. About six months ago, I thought, I'm going to start keeping these things. And so I've started a file on them. But they just, I mean, they keep pouring in. It's like most of them are published by Mennonites. It's like, what in the world has happened? I mean, the contrast between this tract and what we read back there in the Dortrect Confession, I mean, it is night and day difference. So that's why I use the term Mennoprotestants. I mean, yeah, you're half Mennonite, you do, you know, practice certain things, you do still hold on to non-resistance, but you've lost the original vision, you've lost the theology, you don't care that much about the history, and yeah, you're hanging on by a thread.

Those four things, vision, history, theology, culture. Like I say, you're going to be hearing more from me and I think from Kevin and other brothers on this. When a people lose these four things, they lose their identity as a separate people group. For the past 150 years, the Anabaptists have been losing all four of these things. If we don't make a much-needed U-turn, where will we end up?