All right, let’s have another word of prayer.
Lord, we are so thankful for the all-sufficiency of Your grace. We are thankful for the reminder of that every week as we gather around Your table. And Lord, even as some of the brothers prayed before the meeting, as we look at church history, we see the all-sufficiency of Your grace.
Lord, every day we see it, and we are thankful. As we come to this time now, Lord, it is by Your grace that we can share, and by Your grace we can hear. We want You to be able to accomplish all that is upon Your heart for this morning, Lord, taking more than just history facts and allowing us to really see lessons to be learned in the days we are living in.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Okay. All right, let’s see. You have to turn it on. All right.
This morning, as we start, I want to look at a couple of verses that we are familiar with because they will be very applicable to the times we are looking at: Ephesians 4:1-3, and then verse 13.
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
showing forbearance to one another in love,
being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
And then we go down to verse 13. It kind of continues:
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a mature man,
to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
One of the little phrases that caught me in the first verse was how we are entreated to walk in a manner worthy. Lately, the Lord has been speaking to us about walking. Jim shared on it, and Jim tied it in with Jeffrey and Kenny as they have been sharing. This is the Lord’s exhortation to us in this hour: that in our daily lives, we are to continue walking in that simplicity and purity of our devotion to Him.
As Paul is writing to those dear ones in Ephesus, he concludes in verse 3 with two exhortations. He says, “Be diligent to preserve,” or maintain, “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” When we are born again, we are born into the unity of the Spirit. It is something we have, and we are called to maintain it.
Then it continues in verse 13: “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”
So you can see in verse 13 that there is an attaining. We have not arrived there yet, but there is this process that we are going through. In Proverbs, it speaks of the path of the righteous as being like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day. That really describes our Christian life.
It is like the sun shining brighter and brighter. One day, there will be that full day—the day of the Lord—when we see Him. Or, as it says here, we will attain to that unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
But we are not there yet. Praise God, we are on the way, and His grace is sufficient. Today, we are being called in love to be diligent to preserve the unity of His Spirit in the bond of peace. As we look through some of the examples and lessons of this day, we will see the applicability of these verses to what we are going through.
Today, we are going to be looking through the seventeenth century. We mentioned it last time, but keep in the back of your mind that during all of this time, there is this Thirty Years’ War going on in Europe. The Protestants and the Catholics are having this huge war, and it ends up devastating Europe.
At the end, Europe is—I mean, Germany in particular—is pretty much decimated and bankrupt. It really had a devastating effect upon the whole economy there. We are not going to go over that again today, but that is something going on in these areas we are talking about, tragically.
We also will see a division among the Protestant groups during this time. But we also see the all-sufficiency of God’s grace, where God continues to move on. There are a couple of major movements: the Puritans and the Pietists, as the Lord raises ones up.
Also during this century, we see that silver thread connecting from John Huss all the way to Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians. We will not be touching the Moravians today. This will be a transition to them. Lord willing, we will look at the Moravians next time.
As you look at post-Reformation history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, you had the Catholic Church, and then the Lutherans came, and the Reformed. We spoke about the Anabaptists coming out of the Reformed group last time. You can see how more and more splits are coming out.
Really, if you look at the very beginning of each of these movements, there is a purity and a simplicity in which they begin. Most of these separations occurred because people were kicked out. The Anabaptists were kicked out of the Reformed churches; the Presbyterians and all these different ones were kicked out. Wesley did not voluntarily leave, but that is the eighteenth century.
Most of these groups began in a simplicity and purity of trying to maintain that devotion. But after a generation or two, they became crystallized. They became systematized and crystallized. They lost that simplicity.
One of the things that caught my eye, just as I was looking at this chart, was how interesting it is that the Reformers, as they looked at the Roman Catholic Church, called it Babylon. They said, “That’s Babylon—the confusion.” That was one of their big accusations.
But lo and behold, after a century or two, what had the Protestant system become? It had become confusion. It had become a Babylon. To me, that was a great lesson, because so often we hear and read God’s Word and think it is for other people. “We’re not like that.” But God’s Word is for us.
We still have a choice today. Are we going to be in Babylon, or are we going to be in the testimony of Jesus? It is a heart issue. The Lord is challenging us because, as we will see, many dear ones loved the Lord and were totally sold out for Him. But sadly, after they went on, the ones who followed them did not stay in that place of simplicity, purity, and life with Christ.
It is so vital. I really believe that in the days we are living in, one thing the Lord is doing is bringing us back to the all-sufficiency of Christ—Christ alone. He is calling us back to Him.
Because of this, we see some of the impact of these divisions. It is interesting that whereas the Catholic system separated man from God—you had to have that intermediate priest there; man could not have direct access to God—the Protestant system ended up separating man from man. Everybody had their own little unit, their own individual denomination. Man from man was separated by Protestantism.
I was reading Brother Sparks’ We Beheld His Glory. Now, the reference depends on which version you have. Sometimes it is on this page, sometimes it is on that page. In the version I have, it was on page 80.
Brother Sparks says, in his absolute way:
The history of all divisions is the demonstration of one fact: that somewhere, somehow, the life and power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has been thwarted by the asserting of the self-life, which was condemned and executed representatively at the cross of Calvary.
The key thought is that somehow the life and power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has been thwarted by the asserting of the self-life, which was condemned and executed at the cross of Calvary.
As I was thinking about that, it is hard to disagree with it. So often we like to blame the enemy for divisions. We like to blame the enemy for this and that. But the main enemy is our self-life. The main enemy is the flesh.
In these divisions, we do see the work of the enemy. But the primary reason is often self and the flesh. The self-life and the flesh open the door and give the enemy ground to come in, do further damage, and amplify the division in a way that never would have occurred.
There is always that coming back to staying in a place of freshness for that Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That is what holds us together. That is the unity we have. That is the oneness we have. That is what the battle is over.
When we speak of the testimony of Jesus, it is about His life in the brothers and sisters. But thank the Lord, in the midst of all this that was going on, God continued to move.
Brother Sparks has another book, God’s Reaction to Man’s Defections. That was one of the first books I read by him. When man comes in, God reacts. He keeps moving on.
After the Reformed churches had become formalized, there was a lot of outward orthodoxy but very little inner life. So much of the gathering was based on a man, a teaching, or affiliation with the state. But God, in His faithfulness, continued to move forward. Praise God for that.
There were two major movements, two ways the Lord used. One was the Puritans, and the other was the Pietists, or Pietism.
The Puritans focused more on truth and character, or what we could call objective truth. The Pietists focused more on inner life and experience, which is subjective truth. In reality, both of these go together. You have objective truth and subjective truth. One without the other leads to death.
Sadly, after a couple of generations, the Puritans in particular were focusing more just on objective truth. As Jim was saying, they got into the graphē—the written word on the page. The Pietists were becoming more experience-oriented and getting away from the foundation of truth that we have in Him.
But praise God, at the beginning there was a simplicity and purity. There were ones who really loved the Lord and were called out unto Him.
As we look at the Puritans, generally the Puritan period is referred to as 1560 to 1680. When the Puritans began, their first and primary thought was to purify the Anglican Church. They had no desire to leave it. They had no desire to go out and set up anything on their own.
They saw the weakness of the spiritual life and condition within the Anglican Church in England, and they wanted to strengthen it. But sadly, they met a lot of opposition. Eventually, many of them had to leave the Anglican Church. They had to either agree with a certain document or leave, so they were forced out.
It is beautiful, though, as you look at these different men, to see how there was a great unity of the Spirit. They may have had different emphases, focuses, and some differing beliefs, but there was a oneness in Christ. They were standing with one another in that.
As we mentioned last time, the Anglican Church had separated from Rome, and the king was head of the church. That was purely political.
In 1559, an Act of Uniformity required use of the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. This brought about, in the 1560s and 1570s, a great controversy between the Church of England and those who stood for the independence of each assembly and Puritan values.
There were assemblies meeting on their own outside the Church of England because, for a season, it was allowed. But this uniformity brought about a lot of persecution.
Then, in 1603, under King James I, many fled England, especially to Holland. Some came over to Jamestown, though Jamestown was primarily for economic reasons.
Our river out here is named after James I—the persecutor. I think that offends me, so they should change that name and go back to the original name. What was the original name of the James River? Palatan. There you go. They should go back to Palatan and be politically correct in everything.
But anyway, I do not want to get distracted here. Keep out of the politics of everything.
In 1620, this is when the Pilgrims set sail to America. They came from Holland and England and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Before the civil wars in England, 20,000 Puritans were able to flee England and come to basically the New England area.
Then, from 1642 to 1651, there were three civil wars in England. King Charles I was defeated—and not only defeated, but beheaded. It was a pretty bloody thing.
The one leading much of that, who took over afterward, was Oliver Cromwell, called Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. From a Puritan point of view, he was a great supporter of their beliefs and freedoms.
Cromwell is probably one of the most polarizing figures you will ever mention. There are ones who think he was a saint and ones who think he was a devil. The Irish, in particular, do not like Cromwell. He massacred thousands in Ireland. He did things with the sword.
So the Puritans appreciated the religious freedom they got under him, but many did not necessarily appreciate his ways.
Soon after that, the monarchy was restored, and Charles II became king. As soon as he became king, they passed another Act of Uniformity in the Church of England.
This required every pastor throughout England, regardless of what group he was part of, to sign the Act of Uniformity. Everybody had to sign it.
I do here declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained in, and prescribed in and by, the book entitled The Book of Common Prayer, and administration of the sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the church according to the use of the Church of England, together with the Psalter, Psalms of David, pointed as they are to be sung and said in churches, and the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons.
Everybody had to comply with the way and beliefs of the Church of England. Because of this, over 2,000 dear brothers—basically brothers at that time, as far as they measured the ministers—left with their families.
Many of them were called Nonconformists, and they ended up establishing many different churches. But we see how they had this desire to maintain that testimony of simply gathering around Christ—not gathering around a king or a system, but gathering unto Him.
Tragically, the Great Plague hit London, and 70,000 died. But you saw who was out there taking care of people in London. It was not a lot of the Church of England people and their vicars. It was these dear ones who had left, and many even lost their lives during the plague.
The Church of England saw that even though they had kicked them out, they were still being effective. So they passed what was called the Five Mile Act.
Now, in those days, five miles was a long, long way. Five miles is nothing to us, but then it was a long walk. The act prohibited any of the Nonconformists from coming within five miles of their old parishes. They could not have any influence there.
James II further intensified the persecution. But thankfully, finally, King William and Queen Mary granted the Puritans religious freedom, and they were able to press on.
So we see the Church of England solidifying and going in a further anti-Christian way. But thank the Lord, He raised up different ones.
As I was thinking about looking at these Puritans, one of the greatest ways to get to know people is by their quotes—what they have shared. All of these men went through much suffering, persecution, prison time, and various trials.
John Owen was called the theologian of the Puritans. He was really able to encapsulate what they believed. One of my favorite quotes from him is this:
We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.
The key word in that, to me, is the word live. Not unless we know that, but unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own. It is one thing to say it. We know how to say, “I have no power apart from Christ,” but do we live that? That is what he was after.
He continued in another quote:
To love God is the only way and means to be like Him.
That is really Romans 12:1-2. If you love Him, you are offering yourself to Him to be conformed to His image. That is the basis of being like Him. It is not knowledge. It is not outward performance. It is love and that desire from the heart that is really penetrating. He is a dear brother.
Then there was Richard Baxter. He was greatly used of the Lord, and one of his books still around today is an excellent book in times of trouble: The Saints’ Everlasting Rest.
As Baxter got older, after 1662, he was in and out of prison. It really took a physical toll on his body. But I appreciated what he shared in this first quote:
Lord, whatever You want, wherever You want it, whenever You want it, that is what I want.
That is a heart’s desire to serve the Lord. That is being sold out.
Another favorite quote from history speaks about how to maintain unity:
In necessary things, unity;
in unnecessary things, liberty;
in all things, charity.
The necessary things are the absolute, objective truths—the foundational truths. Liberty in unnecessary things concerns the various interpretations we have. Many have varied interpretations about the Lord’s return and various thoughts on things like that.
I can look around the room and see that sisters have different thoughts on head covering. Praise God, we can still maintain the unity while having different thoughts. That is where we need to be violent with ourselves. There is liberty there.
I appreciate Baxter’s attitude in preaching:
I preached as never sure to preach again, as a dying man to dying men.
Every message was his last message. He was a dying man preaching to dying men. He was sold out for the Lord and suffered greatly through prisons and persecutions.
Another one who was in prison considerably was Samuel Rutherford. Many have compiled the letters of Samuel Rutherford that he wrote. Prison was a beautiful place for him because people would correspond with him, and he would write back these great, encouraging letters.
In many ways, he reminds me of Paul. If you read Rutherford’s letter to someone outside who was going through a tough time, you would not really know that he was in prison, because he was in the Lord’s presence—just like when you read Paul’s letters.
Rutherford said:
The cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that I ever bore. It is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbor.
Praise God. That is what was carrying him home.
This is another quote in which he speaks about being in prison:
Jesus Christ came into my prison cell last night, and every stone flashed like a ruby.
Madame Guyon was in prison, but she was free. These ones in the Lord were so captivated by Him that they were not bound by the circumstances of life.
I love this final quote of Rutherford’s:
They lose nothing who gain Christ.
During this time of persecution, many were losing everything. They were losing their homes, their families—everything. But they lose nothing who gain Christ. Praise God for that.
Another quote that I like is from John Robinson. We mentioned how, in 1620, the Mayflower came over. John Robinson charged the Speedwell, which was sailing from Holland. It was going to sail to England, meet up with the Mayflower, and eventually come to America.
The Speedwell sprang a leak, and the passengers transferred to the Mayflower. But Robinson had been their pastor. This is what he shared as he charged them to go forth to this new land:
I charge you before God that you follow me no further than you have seen me follow Jesus. If God reveals anything to you by another instrument of His, be ready to receive it as you were any truth by my ministry. I am persuaded the Lord has much more truth to break forth from His holy Word.
What a servant of the Lord. He knew he had seen and been faithful in what he had received, but he also knew the Lord desired to reveal more of Christ. He said, “Do not hold on to me. Do not look back at me and follow a man, but follow Christ.”
As Christ reveals more and more to you through another vessel, if you receive it from the Scriptures, embrace that. That is the progressive process of revealing more and more of Christ that we are going through.
I was having fellowship with a brother about this thought, and he pointed out to me a quote from Brother Nee. In Brother Nee’s introduction to The Church and the Work, a three-volume set, he says in the second volume, Rethinking the Work:
The truths referred to in this book have been gradually learned and practiced during the past years. Numerous adjustments have been made as greater light has been received. And if we remain humble, and God still shows us mercy, we believe there will be further adjustments in the future.
Praise God. It was not as though these brothers set up a system and said, “This is the way you operate.” God brings changes and adjustments in life, just as we feel them in our physical bodies. Praise God, we do not look like we did ten years ago. Gray hair is beautiful, and hair is beautiful, too.
But anyway, we see how there is a jealousy in God. The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until the full day. So often, we can get satisfied at nine o’clock and not let it go to the full day. We get satisfied at ten o’clock. But He wants the fullness of Christ to come forth. There is always a pressing on.
It is interesting: during the past eighteen months with COVID, I think we were probably experiencing Christ in a new way. Praise God for that. He wants to make adjustments and changes. Praise God, that is what we want to hear. We do not want to be tied down to old traditions and habits.
I appreciate the last quote here from a Puritan, John Bunyan, because it really shows the heart of many of these dear ones. Bunyan was a pastor of a Baptist church, and we know he spent much of his time in prison. That is where he wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, by which we have all been helped and encouraged.
But I appreciate Bunyan’s attitude. Speaking as a Baptist, he said:
I will not let water baptism be the rule, the door, the bar, the wall of division between the righteous and the righteous. Since you wish to know by what name I would be called, I tell you, I am a Christian.
Praise God for that. That is the testimony of life.
As we look back at these Puritans, there was a focus on recovering objective truth because they had gotten so far away from it. But it was in life and reality. It was not simply head knowledge.
If you go back and read some of the early Puritan writers, there is such a liveliness and fullness of joy in exploring the depths, riches, heights, and everything of Christ. There is a beauty there.
Sadly, as we said, after a few generations they did crystallize a lot. Generally today, if you mention “Puritan,” it comes across as a negative image. You think of all those stodgy old people. But if you go back and look at the first ones, there was life there—the life of Christ. That is what had touched them.
Then we come to the other group, the Pietists. They were focusing more on the reality of experiencing the Lord. They wanted those truths to be manifested in daily life. They were encouraging ones to have truth, but then to experience it in a wonderful way.
There were two schools among the Pietists. There were those of the more mystical school, focused on inner life, and then there were the practical ones.
Within the Roman Catholic Church, there were ones whose books we still carry out here: Molinos, who wrote The Spiritual Guide; Madame Guyon; and Fénelon. Within these ones, there was an intense desire to know the Lord.
When you read Fénelon’s Seeking Heart and some of these other writings, you are struck by this intense desire to know Him. Would that we had that great desire.
The Catholic ones were mainly in Italy and France, and they were called Quietists. They stayed within the Catholic Church. They were persecuted, but they maintained that desire for the Lord.
The other mystical group was the Quakers, and they were in England. The Pietists were more in Germany, and the Moravians were in Moravia.
When we come to the Quakers, they were in England and were started by George Fox. They never intended to be called Quakers. None of these groups ever set out to be called by these names; other people called them that.
Fox was disenchanted by what he saw in Christendom—the low spiritual life in England. He became what was known as a seeker. At that point in time, there were a lot of seekers because they knew there had to be something within Christianity other than what the Church of England was showing.
They had some knowledge of the Bible and some Scriptures, and they saw the contrast. There were a lot of seekers at that time.
As Fox was walking by himself one time, the Lord spoke to him and said, “In Christ alone will your every need be satisfied.” He gave himself fully to the Lord from that time. His grace was sufficient, every need being satisfied there.
Some people wonder where the name Quaker came from. The first time the word was used was when George Fox was before a judge. They were always being challenged, put in prison, and accused of disobeying the so-called religious laws.
George Fox said to the judge, “You should quake before the Lord Almighty.” The judge replied, “I am no Quaker.” That was a derisive term, really. But that was the first occasion of the word Quaker being used.
Fox went on and married a dear sister, Margaret Fell. Their home was a Bethany for many. This was during times of persecution, trouble, and unrest, but it was a place of refuge where ones could go, get their feet washed, and be cared for. It was a precious testimony of the hospitality of a dear couple.
By 1660, there were over 50,000 Quakers in England. The more they tried to persecute them, the more they spread. They began to call themselves Friends. We say “brother”; they were Friends.
Many of them were in prison, but it is interesting—and we have seen this at other times—that when they were put in prison, the prisons became their mission fields. Many prisons were basically cleaned up. So many prisoners were saved, and there was a genuine impact upon them. It was very precious.
We mentioned last time, too, how William Penn, a Quaker, came to America for religious freedom and established Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. We mentioned that with the Amish and Mennonites, how they came over.
The Quakers had a significant influence, and that influence was the reality of the Holy Spirit within each believer. They believed, at the beginning, in the need for a genuine new birth. You need to know the reality of the Holy Spirit within your life.
They believed that true spiritual life is spiritual, and the outward is worthless without true spiritual life. There was a real focus on the reality of life among them. Again, there was so much outward performance and conformity that they stressed fellowship with God as not a matter of outward conformity, but a matter of the heart.
It is interesting, too: they never practiced baptism or the Lord’s Table. But they knew more of the true spiritual meaning of them than most who practiced them.
At that time, the Church of England had turned both baptism and the Lord’s Table into a grand performance and a great ceremony. It was a show put on, and it was so far away from the simplicity and purity of what it meant.
Now, you can take one side or the other on whether they should have done this or not, but as a statement, they did not take baptism or the Lord’s Table. Yet, if you read their writings, they knew the reality of them in such a great way.
That is where we need to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace until we attain to the unity of the faith. Praise God. I do not fully understand how you can understand the fullness of baptism and the Lord’s Table and not take them, but in the day and time they were living in, that is what they felt impressed to do. It did have a precious testimony upon them.
Also in Germany, there was a Pietist movement. It was started really under the influence of Philipp Jakob Spener. For any of you proofreading for me, he does put two p’s at the end of his name: Philipp is with two p’s.
He was influenced by Jean de Labadie, who had also influenced Calvin and had worked with Calvin in Geneva. He had gone there, and it was where he had gotten saved.
Spener saw the low spiritual condition of the Lutheran Church. Again, his desire was to reform the Lutheran Church and bring life back within it. He gathered ones for Bible study to raise up the level of personal piety, and he had actual small Bible-study groups scattered throughout Germany.
It was precious how he was doing this. He had a desire for Christianity to be manifested in life. He wanted it to reflect the early church in the book of Acts.
He had no desire to separate from the Lutheran Church. In fact, Spener never did separate from the Lutheran Church. But many of his students eventually were forced out.
The phrase he used was “a church within a church.” Now, theologically, that does not work. That is an incorrect phrase. But experientially, that was what he was saying.
He was saying, “We will have these little churches within the church.” That was his way of describing it: little pockets of life within these big organizations.
Praise God, it impacted many. The more it impacted them, they found themselves in conflict with the organization, and they were forced out.
One who was impacted by this was August Hermann Francke. He was born again through a Bible study led by Spener. He eventually ended up being appointed a professor at the University of Halle, which was the center for Pietism in Germany at that point in time.
Francke is a name that will stick around, and you will be hearing about him more and more. Many refer to him as the father of Pietism.
He wrote what basically summarized their beliefs in the Pia Desideria. It was really a heartfelt desire for God-pleasing reform.
He desired a more serious attempt to spread the Word of God. This was through group Bible studies and preaching the whole Bible—sharing the whole Bible with people, not just bits and pieces.
He wanted a new emphasis on the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. He saw how every brother and sister had been made a priest. Luther saw it but never implemented it. Others had seen it, but Francke said that we really need to see the value of every brother and sister.
Instead of minimizing some brothers and magnifying others, we need to see that equality and how all can really function together.
Again, he said more attention should be given to the cultivation of individual spiritual life—not just knowledge, not just theological knowledge, but real life.
I appreciate how he said:
Truth is not established in disputes, but through repentance and holy life.
So often, we get into great fights and disputes. That does not settle things.
He also said:
Sermons should not show the preacher’s erudition, but Jesus Christ.
Preaching should edify believers. It should not focus on the preacher’s knowledge, abilities, and all these things. It should be focused on Christ in everything.
To us, these are pretty clear-cut things. But in those days, these were, again, very radical things. We begin to see their influence.
They saw, like some of the Puritans, that you cannot reform an existing system. It gets so big that you cannot reform it. The testimony of Jesus must be manifested in life.
They were among some of the first ones to revive mission work, and they sent out many. They saw the missions the Roman Catholic Church was doing, and they were stimulated by that. They said, “We need to be sharing the gospel.”
In 1705, they sent the first non-Catholic missionaries to India, and one served there for a good number of years. They also restored the burden for the conversion of Jews, because up to that point Jews were hated by Christians everywhere.
This was one of the first movements to bring about a restored burden and freshness for the Jews. They were also distressed about the condition of the poor and how they were neglected.
Really, the way they handled things was true social justice. They were bringing ones to Christ to change their lives. They established schools, orphanages, libraries, and hospitals.
At Francke’s death, 2,200 children were being taught in 175 different schools. One of the children who attended his school was a fellow named Nicholas von Zinzendorf—Count Zinzendorf of the Moravians. He went to school under Francke, and Francke influenced him considerably.
They also saw—and this was revolutionary, too—God as the Provider. They knew Him as the Lord who provides. They never asked for money. This influenced Zinzendorf and George Müller also.
We are thankful as we see these ones bringing people back to Christ. We are already touching on how they influenced Zinzendorf, and this brings us to the silver thread connecting John Huss all the way to Count Zinzendorf.
By way of review, John Huss was involved with that great awakening back in Bohemia. Bohemia is made up of the Czech Republic and Moravia. That was the origin of the United Brethren.
They were severely persecuted for a while. They were granted some religious freedom, and the Bible was translated into Czech. But then, in 1616, persecution started again under Ferdinand II, who was a staunch Catholic.
One of the significant events that occurred in 1620 was called the Battle of White Mountain. It was a great victory by the Roman Catholic army. They defeated the Protestants and others, and 36,000 families fled from Bohemia to other countries.
At this point in time, a dear brother named John Comenius enters into the picture. All of us have favorite people in history, and John Comenius is one of my favorite people.
Depending on the language, some call him Komenský. But I just say Comenius.
He was born in eastern Moravia, orphaned from the age of twelve, and saved at age twenty-two. After the Battle of White Mountain, he stayed in Moravia and lived in hiding with some of the other believers. Not everybody fled. He stayed there, and they were trying to continue on.
Comenius loved to write. He wrote The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart. Basically, we would compare it to The Pilgrim’s Progress.
It tells of somebody who is lost and finds all the confusion and labyrinth within the world, but finally comes to the paradise of the heart. Comenius wrote this before Bunyan, and some have wondered how much influence it had on Bunyan when he wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Finally, they could not take it anymore because the persecution was increasing. In 1628, Comenius led the refugees out of Moravia to Leszno, Poland.
As they were leaving in the middle of winter, he prayed and encouraged everyone. As they said farewell to their native land, Comenius encouraged their faith to believe and pray that God would preserve them as a hidden seed that would afterward grow and bear much fruit.
Praise God, He answered that prayer. Comenius did not know what God would be doing, but he knew the all-sufficiency of the Lord. He knew of His plans and His desires. He said, “Lord, as we are leaving, we are planting a hidden seed. Preserve this seed of Your gospel here.”
From 1629 to 1655, while he was in Poland, in addition to encouraging the saints, Comenius helped reorganize the whole educational system of England and Holland. He traveled back and forth. He was a great educator.
The American Puritan Cotton Mather invited him to become the first president of Harvard. He is called the father of modern-day education.
He encouraged many different things: pictorial textbooks, using native language rather than Latin, gradual increase from simple and familiar things to more comprehensive and complex things, and logical thinking rather than memorization.
The key thing was equal opportunity for women and the poor. He felt women should be educated, and the poor should be educated just as much as everybody else. He believed there needed to be a whole system from kindergarten, to elementary school, to secondary school, college, and university.
He also believed in the benefit of physical exercise. He said young people need exercise. They need to have their whole being stimulated. He was greatly used in reforming the educational system.
Finally, in 1656, he was forced to flee Poland, and he settled in Amsterdam. He ended up dying there. Right outside Amsterdam, in the town of Naarden, there is a museum to him. Much of it is related to education, but there is also a record of all he went through as a testimony.
Within a year of his death, Comenius wrote another book, The One Thing Needful. As you look at one of the paragraphs in it, it shows you his heart and where people were at that time:
Christendom has become a labyrinth, a maze. What can help? Only the one thing needful, or necessary: return to Christ and walk in His life.
There is only one life, but death comes to us in a thousand forms. There is only one truth, but error has a thousand forms. There is only one Christ, but a thousand antichrists.
So thou knowest what is the one thing necessary. Either thou turnest back to Christ, or thou goest to destruction like the antichrist. If you are wise and wilt live, follow the Leader of life.
Through all these things these ones were going through, there was a simplicity to their message: return to Christ. Learn of that all-sufficient grace which leads us through and carries us through anything and all.
Finally, as we come back to the end of Comenius’ story, there was a brother named Christian David. He was from Moravia, and he met Count Zinzendorf.
As they had fellowship, Christian David was one of the first ones to help plan and establish Zinzendorf’s place of refuge called Herrnhut. After they had fellowship, Christian David went back and eventually led ones from Moravia to Herrnhut—the answer of prayer to the hidden seed.
We will talk more about the Moravians next time, but we see that connection of God’s faithfulness, bringing ones all the way through in what He says.
As you look at this today, I am brought back to Ephesians 4: in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, until we all attain to the unity of the faith.
That is the progressive process. Paul said, “I press on.” “I have not attained.” “I press on.” Would we have that spirit of pressing on, because there is so much more of Christ, so much more of His fullness, that God desires to reveal to us.
May we not just settle down. I was touched, too, by how those Reformers called the Roman Catholic Church Babylon, and then became Babylon themselves. May we not think that we have arrived.
May we hear the Word of God, not put it on others, but apply it to ourselves. May we allow the Holy Spirit to keep the freshness of the life of Christ working and alive within each one of us.
Also, as Brother Sparks says, division is caused by turning from the life of Christ to the self-life or the flesh—not allowing Him to be that all-sufficient One, but subtly relying upon ourselves. May the Lord be merciful to us.
The Lord has much more to reveal to us. So let us continue to seek the more He has to reveal to us. Let us be open to the adjustments and changes He wants to make in the days we are living in.
Remember, as Comenius said, there is one thing necessary: return to Christ and walk in His life. May we be those who are doing that.
Lord, we are thankful for Your great grace. We are thankful, Lord, for the sufficiency of Your life. We are thankful, Lord, for the ones who have gone before us. And Lord, we are thankful for Your faithfulness.
Lord, it is amazing how at times things can be so encouraging, and then so soon they turn around, and You say, “What is going on?” Lord, we give ourselves to You in a fresh way, that we could continue to be learning these lessons.
Lord, sometimes You have to say things to us over and over again because we are so dull of heart and dull of hearing. But dig our ears out, Lord. Pierce our ears. Open our ears, that we could hear what the Spirit is saying to the church in the hour that we are living in.
May we be faithful unto You, and may we be a living testimony that, God, Your grace is sufficient. In Your name we pray. Amen.