#28 I Will Remember The Works of the Lord, Part 3

I Will Remember The Works of the Lord, Part 3, by Henry Michel

After a while he received another call to a small town called Leutwil in the county of Argovy in Switzerland. This is a nice, quiet village, just a few miles from the village from which my wife came. Having received that call, he went there. It was a very much neglected congregation. He preached the full Gospel, preached remission of sins, preached salvation by the grace of God. After two or three sermons, many were deeply moved and brought under conviction to such an extent, that sometimes he could hardly continue to speak. There was a wonderful awakening, and everyone came and confessed his sins and cried to the Lord to be saved.

But the revival was not confined to that village, it spread to the neighboring ones also. People told their friends, “Come and listen, this is something different.” So they came from all the neighboring towns, from all the other churches on Sunday and the church of Leutwil was filled with people hungry for salvation. You can understand how much jealousy that wrought in the preachers of the neighborhood. They made complaint after complaint to the authorities of the church, “Go and see what the trouble is. He is really turning the whole church upside down, take his license.” So they always sent people who listened and made notes and brought back notes about the sermon, but generally not correct notes for they did not know about shorthand at that time.

After a year of his preaching there, nearly everyone in the congregation had come to repentance and many had found peace in Jesus. On Good Friday, two days before Easter, it was told him that he had to leave quickly and go to his home town. During his evening sermon, on the day commemorating the day when Jesus was crucified, he spoke once more of Jesus, and then said, “I must go; I received the decision that I have to leave the church.” There followed a lamenting, a weeping aloud of all, and they asked him not to go. But what could he do? He left there poor ones who really were afterwards like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he came back to his home town, Brugg, and wondered, “What shall I do?” For a whole year he was quiet there, sitting, as he said, like Joseph in his prison, until the Lord let him out. As his diary reports he felt as though he were being shaken through a screen or sieve, being prepared for his ministry.

He wrote in his diary, “It was never in my mind to create a new congregation. My goal was to help gather the children of God. If I would not put all my trust in God, my Lord, that He has called me to preach the Gospel, I would have to regret to have started something to which He would not grant His blessing and that would not be according to His will.”

But now the official church had rejected him. They did not allow him to speak. Shortly afterward, they took his license away, and it was forbidden him to even preach in homes and to travel across the country.

He cried to God, “What shall I do?” He said, “I am putting everything into the hand of the Lord that He shall decide according to His good will.” Then suddenly, he had the fire in his heart again, and he had to go. “A living spring of water cannot be stopped.” So he went.

The first place to which he went on his missionary journey was to the village of Leutwil where he had preached, where he had been forbidden to go, where the many had heard the call of Jesus. He came at night that nobody would see him, but like a fire the rumor went through the whole village, “Samuel is here.” They all came, about two hundred, before the house, and he had to go out of the house and preach in the open air. It was a joyful meeting, and they all thanked the Lord and said, “Oh, we are so thankful you came back; nobody took care of us in the meantime.” Evening after evening they had a meeting in the open air, and evening after evening, he preached of Jesus. The next week he baptized thirty-eight believers. That was the beginning, the first time he baptized; these were the first who, as a result of his ministry, received Jesus in baptism.

But you can understand that the authorities were not happy. Complaint after complaint came, and six weeks after he had returned to this village, the police came and said that he had to leave within twenty-four hours. He did so. He went from place to place, from village to village; he was chased from one to the other. No rest was given and no place where he could go. Everywhere someone who heard he was there told the police, and he had to go.

One day he was preaching in a small town, and it became known, and the police came during the meeting and took him away. He had to go for many miles and had to appear before a judge. The judge asked him, “Who told you to speak, from whom have you the authority to speak? Where is your license?” He answered, “I have a license.” The police said, “No, your license has been taken away.” Samuel said, “I have one,” and the police said, “From whom?” “From Jesus.” Then he said, “Ask this Mr. Jesus”—he said Mr. Jesus as a joke—“Ask this Mr. Jesus to give you this in writing.” He answered, “I have it in writing right here,” and showed him his Bible. The officer wanted to put him in jail, but he could not do it, and the officer, after mocking and insulting him, released him and allowed him to go on. That is the way he went from town to town.

In one journey that he took, he had to cross a mountain. A terrible thunderstorm came up and he had to go seven or eight hours in a most dreadful storm and rain. He arrived in the city of Bern which is our Capital, shivering from fever and so sick that he went directly to a doctor. The doctor said, “Poor man, you are in a terrible condition, I cannot let you go away,” so he put him to bed in his sleeping room, and he was there for six weeks during which time the doctor took care of him. This doctor incidentally was a good friend of the President of the Swiss confederation, the President of the country like your Mr. Truman. Later on, this doctor was very helpful in time of persecution. So everything that happened was really a miracle.

Once he came to a beautiful green valley, the valley where the famous Swiss cheese is made, Emmental.

About five hundred came together at one time. He preached, and do you know how long? For three hours about John, chapter 16, verse 7! After three hours they ate supper, and after supper he started again. The result was a movement—an extraordinary movement—and the church that was then founded still exists here. But the police came in that evening and gave him twenty-four hours to leave the country. The old man who had invited him into his place was named Gerber. There are many Gerbers here. He took him in his carriage to the border of the country. They took leave and he said, “I am sorry that you have to go.”

On Samuel Fröhlich’s passport, which he had to have, they put red ink in the remark: “This man is a terrible sectarian, a very dangerous man. Every policeman who sees this man should put him in jail, or chase him out of the country.” In one town—it was the town where I started to preach—the preacher said in church on the Sunday following Samuel’s visit, “A terrible, terrible thing happened to our town; the most terrible epidemic, sickness or plague could not be worse than what has happened. This sectarian family called Samuel Fröhlich came to our town. Behave and be careful; he is a terrible man.” Three days later a big fire started on one end of the town, and the whole town except two houses disappeared. Included in the destruction was the church. It was the biggest fire disaster that ever took place in Switzerland, and the church where it had been said that the most terrible catastrophe that could happen would be better that the coming of the sectarian, was gone.

So from one town to the other the Gospel came, and joy came. The papers were full of this; they spoke of this man as the most dangerous man, and he was chased from one place to the other. He could never travel in the day time, but at night, so he would not be seen. But the more they tried to punish him and persecute him, the more they advertised the cause for which he was striving, and everybody was speaking and everybody was wondering, “What is the reason of this persecution?” And, generally, the people who came to see, came and found peace and joy.

Just to give an example of what happened: Remember, it was forbidden to preach in houses. If somebody would preach in the house, the preacher would go to jail, and the proprietor of the house also. So it happened in one place that he had meetings for a few evenings. There was an old man who was put in jail and came before the judge. The judge said, “What is the idea? We have a church; why have church in your house? Don’t you think it is better to go to church? What is the difference in the preaching in the church and in your house?” This old man said, “Oh, certain differences; do you want to know?” “Surely I want to know!” “Oh, the same difference as between day and night, or between life and death.” “Oh, you don’t want to say there is such a difference?” “Surely.” “Now explain why.” “Now you see, I am an old man; see my hair? I went to church all my life and nothing stirred in my soul. I went in and went out and there wasn’t much change. So I think that what I heard there was just chaff. Now we had a few meetings in my house, and I heard the message of this man, and something is stirring, growing, working in my heart; my whole heart is drastically changed for I think this man has been casting out good seed; corn, and not chaff.” That is what he said, and he was sent to jail because he was an offense to the church. So it went from house to house and village to village, and the number of believers was growing.

Are you interested in knowing how many congregations existed after six years of this missionary work? Fourteen congregations with a few hundred believers in six years, in spite of the most terrible persecutions!

It happened then that Samuel Fröhlich wanted to have help. He heard of a society that was formed in England which called The Baptist Continental Missionary Society. This Baptist Continental Society wanted to send out missionaries from England or to appoint missionaries from France and other countries. Samuel Fröhlich wrote to these people. At the same time, another preacher was driven out of the church, a man whose name was Bost, and these two came together and helped each other. It was Bost who had baptized Samuel Fröhlich a few years before. These two worked in Switzerland under the supervision of the Baptist Continental Society in London. I do not think that they sent more than $100 or $200 a year to finance the whole missionary work. In 1833, they asked Fröhlich to come to London, and he spent four months there. He said that sometimes he was very unhappy in that city, and he went back. After a while they wrote to him, “We cannot be of any further help to you because we do not have any more money.” They had no more funds for missionary work in Europe, and the Baptist Continental Society disappeared because of lack of funds. So Samuel Fröhlich was left alone; and being left alone, he started to organize the congregations. He had the wonderful help of zealous brothers who were appointed as elders; they were just as joyful as he, and they spent many nights, especially Sunday nights, in jail. But the Gospel was spread. I know a small village, near where we are building a church now; it is a village of perhaps 800 to 1,000 people. When he came there were five hundred who came to listen to his message, and afterwards the boys of the village were throwing stones at them.

Now in 1840, that is, fifteen years after he started, there were fifty-five congregations; ten years later there were fifty-five more, that makes one hundred ten. So in thirty-five years of missionary work, they had built with the help of God, one hundred ten congregations. Is that not wonderful? Do you not think it is a wonderful result? They were so joyful although they were terribly persecuted.

You may perhaps not know the reason for the persecution. There were these reasons: First, it was forbidden to preach in houses, so the one who preached, the one who gave the house, and the ones who attended these meetings were all guilty. Once a brother was preaching. He had a beard. The police came and tore his beard out, the whole cheek was bleeding, and that is the way he was taken to jail for ten miles. You have no idea what they suffered, just because they had meetings, and meetings were forbidden. There was another reason for persecution. There was not compulsory military service, but one question was capital and that was the question of marriage. No one had the right to marry people except the Lutheran church, the Catholic, and the Jews. So if you were not Catholic, Jewish, or Lutheran, you could not get married; you had to remain single or join one of these churches. They married anyway, and Brother Fröhlich married, too, but the authorities would not recognize their marriage. His wife was punished and fined for each baby she had. They did not have the right to live in the same house, not even in the same village. He had to live separated from his family for seven years. Once he received the news that one of his boys was dying. He wanted by all means to go to sit at the bedside of his dying son, but he expected to be put in jail at any moment. But God had mercy on him, and on that night a terrible fire broke out and the police were kept busy at the fire, and they left this man to sit at the bed of his dying boy. However, he was not permitted to attend the funeral.

Another reason for persecution was that since the church was considered as the State Church, everything the church requested was obligatory. The baptism on new-born children was compulsory. I know of a believing father who was put in jail so that the police were free to bring the new born child to the official church where it was baptized. The father was compelled to pay fees and expenses incidental to this.

Attendance at the training lessons for confirmation and the confirmation itself were compulsory. I know of two girls, who died as faithful sisters, who were put in jail on Saturday night and then brought by the police the next morning to Sunday School. At the confirmation ceremony each pupil received a Bible verse as a dedication. These girls received the quotation: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” Another girl whom I knew well when she was a grandmother had spent time in jail at the age of thirteen because she had visited our Sunday School.

Even funeral services were considered an offense. At one funeral the police had been instructed to arrest Samuel Fröhlich as soon as he would appear. When he did not come because he had been warned, the police beat the brother who held the service.

The time came that Samuel Fröhlich could not live in that wonderful country which people call “Paradise,” and in the year 1844 he was told once more that he had to leave the country. But he did not know where to go. Here comes a wonderful story, the story why I am here.