Jonathan Edwards got a Bad Rap!
This week my 2nd grader has been working on a project about a "Famous American". We decided to pick Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan Preacher, for the influence he has had on our country but more importantly on our own family. For years Jonathan Edwards preached on the "spiritual affections". He preached that being in a relationship with God would move our heart in worship as we find enjoyment in God. God is the greatest pleasure and delight in life and our pursuit is to know Him more fully. (You can see what a major influence he has been on John Piper.) Anyway, much of his preaching and stressing the importance of God not just on Sunday, but in the everyday, is what led him to be one of the forefront preachers of the American "Great Awakening". He preached alongside George Whitfield from London and his papers and messages were distributed throught New England and Europe.
Anyway, most people think of Jonathan Edwards as the "Hell, Fire & Brimston" preacher who presented "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." But in doing the research with my son I learned this week of the audience to which he preached this message. Do you know it?
Throughout "The Great Awakening" Jonathan Edwards preched God's love and mercy and many were brought to Christ. The Great Awakening saw 30-40,000 people being saved in America. People all over were being wrapped up in revival and were turning their hearts to God. But there was one congregation in Enfield, Massachusetts, that just had been unresponsive during the entire reformation. So the pastor called Jonathan Edwards in to be a guest preacher to speak into the hardened hearts of these "so-called" believers in this small congregation. These were people who confessed faith in Christ, but their hearts were hard and their lives were unchanged.
Read this now with these new eyes and you will be absolutely blown away! (I was wrecked.):
http://www.jonathanedwards.com/sermons/Warnings/sinners.htm
Jonathan Edwards was not even able to finish preaching this message because people in the congregation were wailing and crying out asking, "How can I be saved?"
People think "hell, fire & brimstone" are seeker unsenstive...but sometimes it seems we all would do some good to remind our church people what lies ahead "were it not for the restraining hand of God."
"So-called Christians" are without excuse...dwelling in the house of God and yet unresponsive to the call of God and no visible heart change in their life. How many congregations are filled with these kinds of people? I think our church needs this kind of rebuke, which, by the grace of God, will lead to this kind of revival.
My favorite quote:
"The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead to sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God."
Church...it is time to get honest. It's time to get real. It's time to act. And it's time to CHANGE!
Anyway, most people think of Jonathan Edwards as the "Hell, Fire & Brimston" preacher who presented "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." But in doing the research with my son I learned this week of the audience to which he preached this message. Do you know it?
Throughout "The Great Awakening" Jonathan Edwards preched God's love and mercy and many were brought to Christ. The Great Awakening saw 30-40,000 people being saved in America. People all over were being wrapped up in revival and were turning their hearts to God. But there was one congregation in Enfield, Massachusetts, that just had been unresponsive during the entire reformation. So the pastor called Jonathan Edwards in to be a guest preacher to speak into the hardened hearts of these "so-called" believers in this small congregation. These were people who confessed faith in Christ, but their hearts were hard and their lives were unchanged.
Read this now with these new eyes and you will be absolutely blown away! (I was wrecked.):
http://www.jonathanedwards.com/sermons/Warnings/sinners.htm
Jonathan Edwards was not even able to finish preaching this message because people in the congregation were wailing and crying out asking, "How can I be saved?"
People think "hell, fire & brimstone" are seeker unsenstive...but sometimes it seems we all would do some good to remind our church people what lies ahead "were it not for the restraining hand of God."
"So-called Christians" are without excuse...dwelling in the house of God and yet unresponsive to the call of God and no visible heart change in their life. How many congregations are filled with these kinds of people? I think our church needs this kind of rebuke, which, by the grace of God, will lead to this kind of revival.
My favorite quote:
"The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead to sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God."
Church...it is time to get honest. It's time to get real. It's time to act. And it's time to CHANGE!
posted by Kyrie Eleison at 12:15 PM
1 Comments:
Um... Wow.
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