JONATHAN EDWARDS

For years he has been given a bad rap. The image most people have is of a preacher ranting and raving about the fires of hell. You see, Jonathan Edwards was much more than a man who preached Sinners in the hands of an angry God.

welcome to Haven Today, I’m Charles Morris sharing the Great Story that’s all about Jesus. In these extreme times, there are people we should know and Jonathan Edwards is one of them. This is a series called Christians You Should Know. Jonathan Edwards is one of them.

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With lyrics like they could have been written in the Great Awakening, Caedmon’s Call opens this HAVEN Today with Only Hope.

SONG – Only Hope – Caedmon’s Call



Jonathan Edwards was nothing like the hell-fire preacher he’s made out to be. As evangelical believers in North America, we owe him a great debt. In fact we can trace ourselves straight back to the Great Awakening of his day.

Personally, I first became interested in this Christian when I noticed his grave in an old cemetery in Princeton, New Jersey. Yes, I do like to go to cemeteries and read the epitaphs of well-known Christians. He died shortly after becoming the president of Princeton, having offered himself as a test for the newly invented vaccination treatment for smallpox. He wanted to help save the lives of others.

Jonathan Edwards was a New Englander in the 1700s. Most people remember him by one sermon – “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God.” It was one of 1200 he wrote and it’s true – he painted a terrifying picture of a sinner dangling by a slender thread over the fires of hell and of the anger of God against sin. Nobody who heard that sermon could ever claim they hadn’t been warned about the judgment to come and the situation they were in apart from Christ. The text he used was Deut. 32:35 “It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.”

But Edwards didn’t rant and rave. He wasn’t even a strong speaker. He read his sermons in a quiet, monotone voice as he leaned on the pulpit. There was no eye contact; no dramatic finger pointing. But there WAS the power of the Holy Spirit.

A great revival was sweeping through the dead churches of the colonies. The Puritan spirit of devotion to God had pretty much died off. The colonists weren’t looking for religious freedom any more – they were looking for material prosperity. The churches were mainly made up of people who knew their doctrine but whose hearts hadn’t been changed. Dead orthodoxy was the norm.

People came to church mostly for social and business contacts. That was the kind of church where Edwards preached his famous sermon – “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” As he preached to that dead church a remarkable change came over the people.

A passionate sorrow for sin swept over the crowd and a holy fear of God’s judgment. One minister sitting on the platform reached over and grabbed Edwards by the leg and cried out, “Mr. Edwards, Mr. Edwards, is God not also a God of mercy?”

He IS a God of mercy and he was at work, bringing about this deep conviction of sin. We have to hear the bad news before the good news sounds like good news. Edwards began to speak to the fear-gripped crowd about the good news – the door God has opened for sinners. These are his words from that famous sermon:

“Now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.”

It wasn’t just that church in Enfield, Connecticut where the Spirit was working in such a dramatic way. A revival was sweeping through England, Europe and all over the colonies of America. It crossed denominational barriers and created a new unity amongst God’s people. Historians have called it the Great Awakening. Evangelicals can trace our history right back to that time.

Jonathan Edwards was a key figure in that great work of God. He was a prolific writer as well as a preacher. He wrote about what makes a true revival. He wrote about the difference between a formal faith and a true faith. His writings are full of a passion for others to know God personally – in a real and experiential way – through a Spiritual rebirth.

Secular historians consider him one of the greatest intellects North America has ever produced. But he was much more than a brain. As Chuck Colson says, “his writings are a classic statement of eternal truth, penetrating and prophetic. The Western church --- much of it drifting, and infected with cheap grace –needs desperately to hear his challenge.”

We need to know Jonathan Edwards.

He was born in East Windsor, Connecticut in 1703, the only boy growing up with 10 sisters. He came from New England puritan stock. Both his father and his grandfather were pastors. He was also home-schooled. He learned Latin at an early age and later Greek and Hebrew and he had two passionate interests – science and religion. His first major piece of writing was a very sophisticated natural science discourse on flying spiders – he was eleven when he wrote it.

He was also deeply interested in spiritual things even as a young boy. When I was about, my friends and I used to play church – I always got to be the preacher. We held our meetings down in the basement and one time we decided we’d better baptize my dog JoJo. I think Jonathan was a little more serious – he prayed five times a day and he and some of his friend built a booth in the swamp where they got together to pray and talk about spiritual things.

Jonathan entered Yale at the age of thirteen and while he was there he had a life-changing experience when he read

1Tim. 1:17 “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

This is his account of what happened, “As I read the words, there came into my soul a sense of the glory of the divine Being, a new sense, quite different from anything I ever experienced before. . . . From about that time I began to have a new kind of idea of Christ, and the work of redemption and the glorious way of salvation.”



Two changes came over Jonathan after that day.

First, he was deeply impressed by the glory of God. God became magnificent, weighty, he filled the horizons of his heart – especially the glory of the work of Christ. And that experience convinced him that knowing God’s glory -- seeing him as he is in all his magnificence in Christ -- is our purpose in life. It’s our true purpose AND it’s also our greatest joy.

John Piper was profoundly influenced by the writings of Jonathan Edwards. He says, “This was the great coming together for me – the breakthrough. What was life all about? Why am I here? To be happy or to glorify God? Unspoken for years there was in me the feeling that these two were at odds -- either you glorify God or you pursue happiness. But now here was the greatest mind of early America, Jonathan Edwards, saying that God’s purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God’s glory AND that I have a passion for MY JOY in that Glory, and that these two are one passion.

A passion to know God’s glory, and to revel in it – to enjoy it – to find pleasure in it. That was the first change that came over Edwards when he read 1 Timothy 1: 17 in college. Lord, may it also come over us.

The second change was this:

He realized that we need a Spirit-given experience of God.

He came away from that experience with a deep conviction that doctrinal correctness, knowing the right answers, having the right opinions – it wasn’t enough. He had experienced the work of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit had taken his head-knowledge deep into his heart and transformed him. He knew now how God intended his people to be impacted by the truth.

It wasn’t just meant to be a doctrine that was believed – it was meant to be seen and handled and tasted. It wasn’t shallow emotion he was after. It was truth-based experience. It was God’s Spirit taking spiritual realities into our heart and making them real. So we’re overwhelmed, so we’re changed. He wanted it for himself. And when he became a pastor he wasn’t content with anything less for his people.

And we shouldn’t be content with anything less for ourselves. Whenever a coldness and apathy creeps in, we should be on our knees asking God for a work of his Spirit, an opening of our eyes.

Jonathan Edwards first served as an assistant pastor to his grandfather – that same year he married Sarah, and they eventually had eleven children. Jonathan was a loving father – he always spent an hour each evening with his children before bedtime. He was also dedicated to studying God’s Word – thirteen hours a day. His one recreation was riding his horse. He loved to ride in the quiet of the woods and think. Whenever a thought came that he wanted to remember he’d write it down on a one of slips of paper he carried with him and then he’d pin it to his lapel. He would come from home from those rides looking like he’d been in a snowstorm, covered with scraps of paper.

When his grandfather died, Jonathan became the pastor of his church – it was the most important congregation in New England outside of Boston. Very prestigious and very dead. As George Whitefield wrote, I am greatly persuaded that the generality of preachers talk of an unknown and an unfelt Christ. The reason why congregations are so dead is because dead men preach to them.”

Jonathan’s grandfather had allowed compromises into his church – you could join under what was called the half-way covenant. If you’d baptized as an infant but didn’t want to make a personal profession of faith you could be a half-way member. Most of the members of his church were not converted.

Once his grandfather died and Jonathan took over as pastor – big changes were in store. In 1734 he preached a series of sermons on justification by faith – it’s not what we do, it’s what Christ has done that makes us righteous in the sight of God. The Spirit began to move – great numbers of people were brought to true faith in Christ.

The Spirit was on the move all over the colonies but so was the Enemy. Strange events started happening – people began shaking and fainting. The ministers who didn’t like what was happening used this to criticize the revival.

That’s when Jonathan Edwards wrote one his greatest and most influential works. It was called “The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God.” It’s a brilliant, biblical description of what marks a true revival – a genuine work of the Spirit.

I think we need to hear this today. Some of our churches don’t seek the Spirit’s work at all – they don’t yearn for the Spirit to be poured out. But sometimes the churches that DO pray for the Spirit are looking for strange and bizarre things to happen.

Edwards lists five marks of a true work of God’s Spirit:

· Christ is preached.

· The Kingdom of evil is attacked.

· The Scriptures are honored.

· True doctrine is taught.

· A great love for God and for man is the result.

Edwards believed deeply in the extraordinary work of God’s Spirit – he knew every believer, every church needs this – to keep us alive, to make us alive when our hearts have gone dead. He saw in his time one of the greatest outpouring of the Spirit in history – one that forever marked our country.

But he wasn’t impressed by emotion and commotion. He knew it’s having Christ at the center and love as the fruit that marks a real work of God.

Jonathan wrote another great work before he died – it was called “A Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections.” Don’t be put off by the 17th century sounding title. It is a masterpiece. His main idea is that new “affections” fill us when we become a believer – and the crowning affection is a deep love for Jesus.

1Pet. 1:8 “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy”

That love for Christ is the great motive of our life. There’s a great void in today’s world – it’s a motive void. It’s apathy. It’s caring about nothing.

But the Spirit of God changes that in the hearts of believers. He gives us a great motivating affection – love for Jesus first of all and then, in him, a new love for people.

It spurs us into action. We care for something; we have a motive for our lives.

Lord, may we be filled with this true affection – may we be overwhelmed with a great motivating love for Jesus. May it take over our hearts and our churches. Give us love for Jesus, Lord. Give us a true revival.

SONG – Rock of Ages – Haven.

Not the traditional tune.

End of the month. You have a lot of choices on where to give and I’m aware that a lot of people are asking for your help in these extreme times. So I want to encourage you that as the Lord provides in this great recession, pray and ponder more carefully how you give and how much you give. Certainly, your church needs to be at the top of that list. Here at HAVEN Today we are listener supported. So if the Lord leads you to help us tell the great story that’s all about Jesus, could we hear from you here at the end of May. A special thanks for Samuel in Anderson, South Carolina for your sending help. And he listens to WRAF in Taccoa Falls, Georgia which is thanking the Lord for replacing their antennae so people from Atlanta to Greenville can hear the Good News every day.