I Will Remember The Works of the Lord, Part 1, by Henry Michel

Introduction

A few days before the opening of the Apostolic Christian Camp at Lake Bloomington, Illinois, on August 24, 1947, the wish was expressed at a meeting of the organization committee that one evening at Camp should be devoted to the history of the church. I accepted this assignment joyfully. I gave my message out of memory in an extemporaneous talk that was recorded on a recording machine. These notes, based on that talk, do not have the pretension of being a complete history or a piece of carefully worded literature. I have, however, made some changes, especially regarding sayings of Samuel Fröhlich which have particular historical value, and have corrected my memorized quoting of these to conform to the wording in his diary.

It may be of interest to state here that a more complete history has been compiled in Switzerland and is being edited and published by elder brother Hermann Ruegger of Zurich. At present, however, it is available only in the German language.

The real purpose of the message given at Camp was with the help of the Lord to kindle in the younger generation the spark of zeal, joy and faith that existed in those heroic times. If, under the Lord’s gracious blessing these notes can help to awaken the true flame of the “first love,” the earnest urge and the zeal to bring souls to Christ, and if they can help to preserve the generation of our youth of today from the danger of living a leisurely and selfish life—dangers that are brought through wealth, comfort and modern conveniences—then the purpose of the assignment will have been fulfilled.

Henry Michel

A Historical Sketch of the Apostolic Christian Church

This is not a history of a church; it is not a history of a sectarian group; it is a history of the power of Christ revealed in the last days. This power has not changed through the centuries, but is still the same as it was at the time of the Apostles.

When the suggestion was made that one evening at the Camp should be devoted to view the history of our brothers 120 years ago, I was so moved in my heart and so joyful that I could not sleep the whole night. I had waited a long time for this opportunity to interest our people in what our grandparents were doing. It is not merely a history that I am bringing; rather it is a most fervent appeal into which I put my whole heart and my whole soul that we may be reminded of the faithfulness and the zeal that they had 100 years ago, and which through the years we have lost. It is an appeal to each one of you.

What I am bringing to you is not hearsay or gossip. I went and dug the historic points out of old letters and out of diaries of old brothers and also interested old people, and I know whereof I speak. I devoted many of my evenings to this endeavor, and what I am bringing you is the result of fifteen or twenty years of research. The more I heard, the more I became zealous. When is was digging the details out of a diary, sometimes the writing was so small I had to use a magnifying glass. Sometimes I worked till 3 o'clock in the morning on this, and I went to bed then only because my wife insisted that I should take care of my health. However, I could not sleep. My heart was filled with thankfulness for what had been done; but often I felt ashamed that we are now such quiet citizens, sitting in easy chairs and just watching time pass on.

I was so moved when I saw this zeal, the life that was in all these old people, that I was moved to say, “Now don't speak about new things, new suggestions. Just take the old ones that have been forgotten and then we will be very zealous, we will ‘be full of pep’, if I dare so say. We will be full of joy, we will be filled with the Spirit of God.”

I believe, my dear ones—I am sure of this—that from the time of the Apostles until now, there was always a small number, a little flock of people who remained on the truth that Jesus brought, the truth which the Apostles afterwards used and whereby was created the church of God, the church of Christ. There was a long sequence of people, and history brings details about these people. They suffered, but they never lost their faith.

The Apostles, you know, continued after Jesus was risen to Heaven. They were looking at the sky, they were disturbed, they had lost their Savior. “What can we do without the Savior?” Then the angel came and said that Jesus will come again and then they had a reason for their lives: “We are preparing our souls; we are witnesses of His death and of His resurrection until He comes.”

One after the other, these Apostles disappeared. Peter was crucified; Andrew, the Apostle, was crucified; Paul, the Apostle, was beheaded; poor, poor Thomas had a terrible death. They heated a big table of iron until it was white hot, and then put poor Thomas on this and roasted him. Others died different deaths. Luke was hanged on a tree, and so on, one after the other. Timothy was of the younger generation, and he, like the others, had to seal with his blood the faith that he had found in his youth. One after the other they disappeared as a testimony of the Glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Then comes the long history of the Martyrs. One after the other died for his faith. I was moved when I was young, by the history of a boy who was thirteen years old and who was bound, one foot and one hand on one side and the other hand and other foot on the other side. Then his prosecutors put two horses, one on one side and the other on the other side, and you can easily imagine what happened to the poor boy. But he accepted his fate, he died joyfully. There are other thousands we could speak about, for hours, for the whole night, about all these wonderful witnesses that sealed the faith they had found in Jesus Christ with their blood. And the more who were killed in this wonderful way, the more joyful they were in dying, the more the Gospel was going from house to house. The fire of which Jesus had spoken was burning, and the Gospel was going from country to country.

Already in the early church came great tribulations, there came the persecution in Jerusalem, and they had to go in all directions. One of the Apostles even went as far as India; one went to Arabia, and you know that Paul went first to Greece and then to Italy, and later on to Spain. Everywhere the joyful message was given of Jesus, the Savior of the world. Then after a time, men tried to extinguish the fire, but it was never completely put out. Others tried to make the way more easy; they set up all kinds of institutions so that people would not have to repent, would not have to be converted, would not have to go through a hard school before they would be accepted as children of God. They made all kinds of laws, all kinds of man-made churches and after a while, the larger part of those that were called Christians just had the name of Christ, but not the power that was revealed in Him. But a few still remained, keeping this faith from generation to generation, and this long sequence of witnesses is what historians have called the Pilgrim Church. We have a few records in history about them, telling how they were persecuted. We know that the emperor Nero used Christians as torches in his garden at night so that he could see when there was a feast. They also used believers for torches other times. We know that in one year, in the year of A. D. 302, in one month in Rome alone, they killed 17,000 believers. They tried to destroy these faithful witnesses; the larger number of them were killed, but a small flock was always here from generation to generation.

In the year A. D. 400, in the southern part of France and in other countries, there were those who were believers and had the baptism of faith as we have. Baptism of faith is not an invention of our church, but always was since the Apostles, when these teachings were spread throughout all of Europe. I have read the history of some who went by foot from Spain to Germany. Those who know a little about geography can realize what a distance it was from Spain to Germany, crossing all of France. These pilgrims could spend every night during the long journey in the homes of baptized Christians; of ones who were in faith. I don’t know how many miles they made in a day, but it required shelter in many homes until they reached their destination. Everywhere they found believers who were peacefully and joyfully going the way of truth.

Then came a big awakening. You know the history of the Reformation. I don’t want to speak about this all evening, but perhaps the thing that you do not know is that the beginning of the Reformation that eventually created the Lutheran churches and other churches was really a beginning, an awakening, a revival of people believing in the baptism of faith. Even Luther believed in the baptism of faith. The one who brought the Reformation to Switzerland was a man who was visiting a small Swiss congregation where they preached the gospel exactly as we do and where they were baptized after a conversion. After a while he received a vision of a big, big church and, wanting to have a big church, he had to make a great big door. Having a big, big door, the way had to be made easy. Babies had merely to be brought on the eighth day after they were born. They were sprinkled and a document was given stating that they were a member of the church, and that was all. That was not the beginning; the beginning was the baptism of faith, based on conversion and new birth.

Afterwards the “Täufer”, as they were called, these poor people living in our wonderful country of Switzerland, were persecuted to death. The prisons were so filled that people could not stand, they could not sit, they were heaped one above the other for days, for months, for years, until they died. A terrible persecution raged from about 1517 to 1525. In this persecution thousands were killed. A person even received $100 when he denounced one of these people. One hundred dollars was a fortune at that time! In a certain forest in Switzerland in a very silent place, about three hundred used to come together. Informers denounced them, and so there was three hundred times $100 paid. All went to jail, and all died.

Many thousands were killed in other places. At the shore of one of our beautiful blue rivers, called the Limat, in Zurich, Switzerland, there is still a small chapel. From this chapel they used to put the believers in a cage and then let them down into the water in this cage for a few minutes and then lift them back out. When they did so all the spectators were yelling, and then they put them in the water again and continued so, up and down, until they were dead.

Many had been beheaded, and then something happened. One was the last who was beheaded. Before he was beheaded, he said, “I am dying for Jesus my Savior; I am dying because I believe in Him, because I have been cleansed by His blood. I am His child; and because I am a child of Jesus, I have to die. You can behead me—the Lord will probably allow you to do this—but as a proof that what I say is right, as a proof that I am a child of God, it will happen that after I am beheaded, my head will jump by itself into the basket that you have prepared for my body.” But they laughed at him and beheaded him. In a moment, however, they were badly frightened, for after the head fell to the ground, it made a big leap and fell into the midst of the basket! Then the government of Bern, where this happened, decided, No more, no more! There is a monument in Bern of a man without a head holding his head in his hands. That was the last one of these believers who was beheaded in that town and not only in that town, but in the country. This was in 1571.

During the time of the Reformation these persecutions had continued until it was not bearable anymore. Even the Dutch government, the government of Holland, made a petition to the government of Switzerland to let these people get out of the country and come to Holland. “They are welcome in our land,” they said, and the Swiss government allowed them to go. They were but on such a miserable boat and such miserable food was given to them on they way that from fifty-six who remained of about 1000, thirty-four died on the way and the rest died when they arrived.

These fifty-six who left Switzerland at that time wanted to go to America, knowing that was a peaceful country, but they never reached it. They all died in Holland before they could get on the next boat to come to your beautiful country. But there were always small groups, a small flock of whom the Word says, “Fear not, little flock, because it is the good pleasure of the Father to give you the kingdom of God!”