The Death And Martyrdom Of Leonhard Keyeser

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

ANOTHER MOMENT IN CHURCH HISTORY - LEONHARD KEYESER, 1527 =======================================================

Like many others, Leonhard Keyeser is remembered only as a footnote in Church history. Few will recognize his name. During the Reformation of the 1500s when the number of believers increased almost daily, there was a terrible persecution led by the religious establishment of the day, resulting in the death and martyrdom of thousands. One of these was Leonhard Keyeser, a brother in Christ. This is his story.

In Bavaria, a pious priest of the mass, Father Leonhard Keyeser, earnestly studied the writings of Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, and Martin Luther, a leader of the German Protestant "reformation". Although he came to appreciate their new found emphasis on salvation by faith alone, Leonhard's heart was hungry for more. This hunger led him to enquire of the fruit and doctrine of the restorationist Anabaptist movement, which was calling for a total "restoration" of New Testament Christianity, going much further than either Zwingli or Luther and their "reformation" movement(s) of the day. The Anabaptists were being persecuted by both the religious establishment and the newly formed Protestant movement(s). Many sincere believers - men, women, and children - were even tortured, drowned, burned at the stake, or put to death in other ways as "heretics", one of the darknest moments in the history of christendom. Father Leonhard Keyeser renounced the priesthood to which he had been ordained, and joined himself to the heavily persecuted, cross-bearing Anabaptists, following the Lord in true believers' baptism. ("Anabaptist" means "those who re-baptize". They endorsed believers' baptism only, not recognizing Protestant or Catholic infant "baptisms" as valid.) Keyeser experienced a mighty empowerment from Heaven, and his ministry was greatly anointed, as he preached the everlasting Gospel along with many others in the face of unbelievable adversity. Many came to a personal relationship with Jesus and followed their Lord in believers' baptism also. The martyrs were many

Although in constant danger, it was in the second year of his ministry that Br. Keyeser was apprehended at Scharding, in Bavaria (Germany). It was illegal to be an Anabaptist. Following a quickly organized tribunal, he was condemned by the Bishop of Passau to be burned alive as a heretic on St. Lawrence Feast Day in August (1527). Bound to a cart, Leonhard Keyeser was taken to the place of execution, the priests going alongside. Approaching the place of fire, Br. Leonhard, although still bound, managed to lean over and plucked a flower. Speaking prophetically by the spirit of prophecy to his judge, who rode on horseback next to the cart, Leonhard declared: "Lord Judge, here I pick a flower, if you can burn this flower and me, you have justly condemned me, but on the other hand, if you cannot burn me and this flower, consider what you have done and repent."

Visibly angered, the judge and his three executioners tossed an extraordinary quantity of wood into the fire, intending to burn him to ashes immediately. Although his spirit was released and returned unto the Lord who gave it, when the wood was entirely burned up, Leonhard's body was removed from the fire uninjured. The frustrated executioners tried a second time, but his body was still not consumed. Only his hair and his nails were somewhat burnt brown, but when the ashes were wiped away, the latter was found smooth and clear, and the flower in his hand NOT withered or burnt in the least.

How satan did rage that day. In utter frustration, the executioners actually cut his body into pieces and threw them into a new fire. Again, the wood was burned up, but the pieces lay unconsumed by the fire. Finally, they took the pieces and tossed them into the river.

The historian records, "The judge was so terrified by this occurrence that he resigned his office and moved to another place. His chief servant, who was with the judge, was so moved by what he saw and heard that he came to the church in Moravia, became our brother in Christ and died in the Lord." To God be the Glory.

- ANOTHER MOMENT IN CHURCH HISTORY, compiled by Br. TERRY MILLER for the Sharon Broadcast, from authentic chronicles, historical records, and testimonies.

The Death And Martyrdom Of Leonhard Keyeser

How can we know anything about anything

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