Unit 5 Video Transcripts

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Video Transcript: The Dream ( Dr. Bruce Ballast)

As we begin looking at the subject of ordinary people, extraordinary things, I'd like you to imagine yourself as a member of this church, in some Midwestern town in the United States, and the pastor has been there for nine years has now left. And so you have been appointed to a search committee to try to find out who the next pastor should be. As part of that search committee, you're going to have to determine two things. One, what kind of person do you look for to be the replacement for your previous pastor? And two where do you find that person? 

Now, the answer to the question in the United States about where you look for a person has to come after what kind of person do you need? And the answer to the question, what kind of person do you need comes very quickly. In the United States, it's estimated that 80% of the churches in the United States are either on a plateau, or are declining in membership, some declining rapidly? And so the answer to the question is, of what kind of person we need is, we need somebody who can grow this church again, people looking nostalgic back to the past, when the place was full, children. They were wandering around the education wing for it seems hours after a service enjoying and running and playing. And now, the sound of children is much more distant, muffled. People have noticed that it used to be the church sanctuary was packed during the one worship service. But now, the first three or four or five or six pews are empty. And so as a search committee, you bet, look back at the history of membership of your church, and you find that the decline has been going on for 10, 15 or 20 years, it's very common in the United States. And so you want to look for somebody who's going to turn that trend around, who's going to get you back into growth. And so as a committee, you come together, and you start talking about what kind of person can do this? And there are many answers to that question. 

One would be, we need somebody like a CEO, a Bill Hybels has made this a very popular thing in the United States. He has led Willow Creek very, very successfully. And he does so as a CEO. He's somebody who could be planted as a CEO in any business, anywhere in the world, and you have the sense of that business would thrive, because he knows how to handle things. He knows how to define vision, he knows how to set objectives and goals. He knows how to move people toward those goals together, he knows how to raise money, he knows how to do those things. And and you say, That's what we need. And those people are not in great abundance here in the United States. In fact, among pastors, only something like 7% define themselves as leaders. There'll be somebody on the committee or certainly somebody in the church who says, we just need to find a faithful preacher. If we faithfully preached the Word of God, we will grow. And unfortunately, that's been proven untrue over the past several decades here in the United States, because we have some tremendous preaching in this country, we have schools that train us as pastors very, very well. And yet the church in the United States is on the decline. There are those who say what we need as an effective evangelist, you know, if we could just get Billy Graham or not Billy Graham, he's getting a little old. Maybe we could get some young Billy Graham. And if we could just get a young Billy Graham well, we could put together tent meetings, Pentecostals do that, apparently with some success. And then we grow again. 

That's a very popular idea. Like I had a professor when I was at Fuller Seminary in California. And I'll share more about that in a few moments, who went as a missionary to Bolivia. And he thought being an effective evangelists meant being like Billy Graham. And so he said, I used to watch Billy Graham films and watch how Billy Graham held his Bible. Watch how Billy Graham gestured, and I would copy those. And then when I got into Bolivia, said, I scheduled the first great, massive campaign of a city sending things out inviting people to the great stadium I had rented. So very few people came and when I gave the invitation, no one came forward. So being an effective evangelist is more than just doing the things that an evangelist doesn't. And where do you find those people? There are some who would say we need a trainer, they look nostalgically back to the 70s and 80s. In the United States, when going door to door was a very popular way of growing the church. In fact, there were names for various campaigns, I was part of one called key 73 that we were hoping to blanket the entire country in 1973 by each church be taking responsibility for a certain section of the town, and then going door to door training people to go door to door and present the great truths of the gospel to those people. And there will be those who will say that's what we need. 

If we could just get someone in their churches, our pastor who would do that we'd be all set we grow again. And then there will always be somebody say, we need somebody young. I remember when I got into my 40s, getting a telephone call from another church and I was privileged to be pastoring, a church that was growing at a pretty healthy rate. And I got a call and somebody was describing their church. And I was just waiting for the punch line. And the punch line would be, we'd like you to consider coming here to be our pastor, we'd like to enter a conversation with you. And at that time, I was about 45 years old. And so I'm listening. And I'm getting in my mind all the reasons why I'm not going to consider leaving my particular congregation at that time. And I had all those reasons laid out nicely in my mind, when he ended that first part of the conversation by saying, so we're looking for a young Bruce ballast to come and lead us. It was a stab to the heart. But it was a realization that that's what churches are looking for. If we can only reach our young people, they'll say, that's the future of the church, and we'll be okay. And the reality is, that's not happening today. Only about 7% of the young people who grew up in a church stay in that particular congregation, hopefully many of them move on to other congregations. 

But other statistics that are coming out now, about the church in the United States is that when children leave a church environment to go away to college, 75% of them leave the church as well. And they aren't coming back the way the baby boomers and the baby busters did. So what kind of person do you need, as your pastor? What do you want to have happen? When you take someone on when you call them to lead you as a church? Well, I want to suggest that what you really want is somebody who can bring the church to revival. revival is defined this way by a man named Jay Edwin Orr one of the worldwide experts in revival in the history of the world and of this country, in particular. He defines a revival as an evangelical awakening is a movement of the Holy Spirit, bringing about a revival of New Testament Christianity and the Church of Christ, and it's related community. A couple of things I want you to notice about that definition. First of all, an evangelical awakening. Now he was speaking a few years ago before evangelicals became well known as a movement, or at least an identified part of the Church of Jesus Christ in the United States. This doesn't mean that group, what it means is a group that's committed to the good news about Jesus Christ, it's a, it's an awakening to the evangel, which the New Testament word for good news. And it's a movement of the Holy Spirit. In other words, it's not something we manipulate. It's not something we can take out of a can. It's not something that we can start with a new program, and all of a sudden, it brings revival. And we in the United States love to do that. You know, we hear about what's happening at Saddleback Community Church, and we hear what's happening at Willow Creek, and we go to the conferences, and we bring the programs home. And we hope for the same kind of results of what they have. 

But being a movement of the Holy Spirit means that it's something of what Jesus Christ talked about when he was talking to Nicodemus. And in John chapter three, he said, You can't tell where the wind blows. You can't cause it to blow a certain way. You just see its effect. And so it's a movement of the Holy Spirit. This is something I learned early on. In my own ministry, the first church I served, I thought I was God's gift to the church, I thought and all church in the United States has problems, but now I'm in. And so it's all going to change. And so I was doing all the things I thought would do that. And in the church, I was serving very small church, Midwestern Michigan, western side of the state. I started to see people come to faith. But oddly enough, they rarely came because of a testimony I gave them or witness I gave to them. Like I think of a man named Jim, his wife began attending our church was returning to church after many years wandering outside of the church. And so Jim came to church with her. And this was a little church, I knew everybody called on all the visitors called on Jim and his wife. And Jim agreed to do a Bible study with me for six weeks. So for six weeks, we looked at the truth of Scripture. And at the end of that six weeks, I decided that it was a waste of time, fact we looked at all the truths that should have led him to salvation. In fact, toward the end of the book, what we were using, there was a prayer to receive Jesus Christ, and he hadn't done that. And he was interested in continuing a conversation. But that's all. And I said, Well, you know, if there's not faith, this is really a waste of my time, probably of yours as well. So we quit meeting together. His wife continued to attend, he would come to church occasionally. And then the Sunday came about six months later, after our worship service in which he was sitting, I was shaking hands at the back, which was part of my custom back then, and Jim comes out, and he shakes my hand and says, I just want you to know I became a Christian this week. And I gotta tell you, I was floored. I thought, This is impossible. And so I made an appointment with her. 

I got to hear this story. And so I made the appointment, sat in his living room said, Jim, what happened? I mean, six months ago, you were nowhere near this what happened? And he said, You know, I don't really know. He said, I was sitting at my aunt's funeral. And one minute, I knew that it was all not true. All of this stuff was a myth created to control people. And the next minute, I knew it was all true, that it must be the Holy Spirit. He got that part, right. A revival that is of the Holy Spirit, in some senses is really beyond control. It's a fascinating thing. So we're looking at a movement of the Holy Spirit that brings about revival of New Testament Christianity. And that means a real sense of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the church taking responsibility for each other, and the community, and a church that's reaching out in the world. And so this is going on in the church, but also in the community as well. That's what we need. And that's what I'm feel incredibly privileged to be sharing with you. Over the next several lessons in this course. You're going to want to know a little bit about who I am. 

My name is Bruce ballast. I've been a pastor since February 4, 1979. That's when I was ordained as a minister in the Christian Reformed Church here in the United States. Now, growing up in the 60s and 70s, I had a strong interest in church growth. In fact, I think I was part of what we could call a revival of sorts back in the late 60s, early 70s. And the high school that I attended, there was this marvelous outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that group came and gave an invitation to deeper commitment. And 250 of us responded and began meeting together for bible study without any adult kind of supervision was an incredible time. And after that, I just created this hunger in me to have that kind of experience for myself. And so I always became interested in church growth. 

I felt a call to ministry during that time before that I was planning to be a musician and was looking forward to directing bands or teaching music or something in the music area. And then all of a sudden, I'm heading toward ministry. And it scared the wits out of me because I didn't have too many good role models for ministry at that time. But I began to study church growth 1979, I'm ordained. I'm a minister. And now I go to a little church and I expected to grow, I expect great things to be happening, I expect the movement of the Holy Spirit. And not much happened. First two and a half years, there were ones of frustration, I got to see a few incidences of conversion. But the small church remained small. Some of the church bosses that ran the church remained the church bosses, plans for roles were stymied by some people who love to see it the size it was. And so we began to see the church grow, but it was very, very slow. And so it was during that time, fact I was, I was down enough that I was considering leaving the ministry and going into counseling or something like that. But I got to know a man named C. Peter Wagner, through his reading, is a professor at Fuller Seminary. He taught in the deman the doctor of ministry degree program, he had Fuller. And so I enrolled there in the early 1980s, and began studying predictable ways that the church growth, the church growth movement that was very popular in the 80s and early 90s, actually began in India with Donald McGavin noting what happened when the Spirit broke out among certain levels of society, India. 

And so I began to study that because I wanted to know, how does the Holy Spirit work, I want this predictable. I am a husband, married to my wife for 37 years, I'm a father of three children, all married, and I'm a grandfather. Grandfather, right now have six children. In three months, it'll be eight children. And I found that I've taken on that role in my life. I am more interested than ever, in this thing called revival. You see, because I want my children and my grandchildren to experience church life that leads them closer to Jesus that has them understanding something about how God works and how personally is to them. And I want them to be part of a church that's reaching out in their community and around the world. And as I look at my grandchildren and the culture they're growing up with, that's my deep, deep, consistent prayer. That once again, God would cause revival and I've told him, I'd love it if it happened in my day. Habakkuk three, verse two is one of my theme prayers. I pray it often Habakkuk is reflecting on what God has revealed when he says, Lord, we have heard of your fame. We stand in awe of your mighty deeds. Oh, Lord. renew them in our day, and our day make them known. And so while I can look back, and we're going to tell the story, during this class about marvelous things that God has done in the past, and I want to see it happen again, seems some indications occasionally, a God is breaking out in a new way. 

But I invite you on a journey. My intention is to simply tell a story, tell a story about revival, and how God has used various people and churches in the United States to bring about revival. Now, in order to do that, we've got to go back to the past. When this country was begun, when the first settlers, the first pilgrims were coming, they came with a dream. Now, they came with a dream, a lot of because of their relationship in the Church of England, the Church of England at that time was the state church. And there was a group of people who had certain concerns about how things were happening within the state church. In fact, they had four specific areas that they said, The church was drifting from the directors of Scripture, first of all, they said they felt it required the Bible, a ministry of equals not of the hierarchy in the Church of England, where there were bishops, and there were Cardinals. And then they said that they wanted to change the rituals and the Liturgy of the church. Get rid of all the vestiges of Catholicism with all the vestments and that sort of thing. And they wanted a simple kind of worship service, they wanted something that related directly to the Bible. Then thirdly, the relationship between the church and the state was a bone of contention. The state controlled the church back then, the state, appointed the bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

And that sometimes was done in such a way that it just showed just great disregard for the church. And it was all political in character. And so there were some people who are reacting against that. And then there was the greatest area of dissatisfaction was that idea of inclusive membership. Anybody in the nation of England was part of the Church of England. My daughter and her husband lived in England for three years. And it's still that way today, people readily identify themselves with the Church of England, but they can't give much testimony today, in that post Christian culture there of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And so people began to become what they called Puritans, or separatists. First, they were Puritans, they wanted to purify the church in England. And first they did that by appealing to the king, and then to the queen. And they weren't given satisfaction there. And so they began to appeal to the rulers in the church, and they weren't given satisfaction there. And so then they became separatists separating themselves from the church, many of them left the country, they went to places like the Netherlands, who were a little more nice to those people who wanted religious freedom. And there they set up churches the way they wanted them to. And then the opening came to come to the what was going to be the United States. 

And so of course, in 1620, the Mayflower came, landed at Plymouth Rock. In Massachusetts, what is now Massachusetts. In fact, if you go there today, there's a rock that says that's the rock, they stepped on highly dubious. And there they began that, that adventure of becoming pilgrims in this country. And in our country. We celebrate Thanksgiving every year as a celebration of what happened with these, these people from the Mayflower as they survived their first winter thanks to an Indian who helped them and, and friendly relations with the Indian tribes nearby. But they came to this United States, what was going to be the United States for a very, very clear reason. And that was spoken well, in 1630, his ship was heading to what was then the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And on board was John Winthrop, the man who would be governor of that colony. And he put it well in a sermon on ship. He said these words that are here now it's written in Old English, I've updated that a little bit, but he said, we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us we shall be made a story and a by word throughout the world. That was the dream. That was the dream, to set up a nation here, or first a colony here that would demonstrate what it was like to live with God as King. And that sense of return to the whole Old Testament idea as God being the king overall. So that was the dream. What happened? Well, you find that dream didn't last for long. There were all sorts of stressors against that dream, becoming reality. One of them was the Antinomian controversy. 

Early on in the life of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the colonies around there became a colony of Massachusetts. Some women gathered to study the Bible, studying the Bible was encouraged. But there was a group that gathered together. And they said, as they study the Bible, they felt like some of their preachers were not right. If the preachers were preaching a keeping of the law of the Old Testament, and so they said, no, we should depend on the Holy Spirit only, and the Holy Spirit to be the guide for life. One of the women who was a leader in this movement was a woman named Anne Hutchinson. And so, after studying with a group, there were more that started to take on these ideas. And the the big question was, what would this group do with those who didn't agree with the state of truth? Would there be freedom of religion in this country or not. And so in Cambridge, Cambridge, that is what would be Massachusetts 1637, there was a series of meetings in which they were to decide whether Anne Hutchinson was right or wrong. And they concluded that Anne made 82 errors in their interpretation of the Bible. Now 29 of those were attributed to Anne others to her followers. But Anne Hutchinson and her followers were then given the choice, they could recant their beliefs, and buckle under, or they can maintain their beliefs, and be driven from the community have to go somewhere else to live. Now tough choices, and Hutchinson decided to stay and she buckled under, and some of her beliefs became underground, a woman named Mary Dyer was a Quaker become connected with the movement. 

And the idea was, if you did not recant, you would then be killed. You could either recant or leave the community, you couldn't just stay, Mary Dyer stay and she was hung for her errors. And if you go to the common in Boston, today, you'll find statues to these two women. Anne Hutchinson did end up leaving the community of Massachusetts Bay went living elsewhere. But today there are statues there for the way they stood up for religious freedom. But it was the that kind of controversy within the church that caused people to kind of go underground if they believed anything other than the official line of the church. And so there was this kind of growing sense of dissatisfaction with the leadership at that point. Another internal stressor for the church was the witchcraft trials. Up in Salem, you know that there were these times where people were accused of being a witch, they were accused of being a part of the Avenue of the enemy, into destroying faith in that whole community. And those witchcraft trials went on for some time in the 1670s, and 80s. And a total of 20 people were hung for witchcraft. 19 were hang does confessed witches, one died while going through pressing, pressing was a means where they tried to convince somebody to confess their sin. And what they do is they put rocks on them. And if they didn't confess their sin, they put heavier and heavier and heavier rocks on them. And one person out of the 20, who died during the witchcraft trial, died then instead of being resuscitated, and then hung, but the witchcraft child made some people sit back and say, this is really, really wrong. 

There's something about this, that is just not right. And so there began this undercurrent, that the dream isn't coming true. Instead, we're becoming more and more like the country we left and the church we've drifted from and tried to get away from. And a third internal stressor was the halfway covenant. It was noted that many people weren't having their children baptized. And then as those children became adults, their children weren't be baptized. And so on a couple of instances, you had two and three generations of people who were no longer baptized. And so the discussions were, what do we do about that? And so there's a meeting of church leaders, and they decided to create what they call the halfway covenant. In other words, you didn't have to follow the guidelines for church membership at the time entirely. Those guidelines were that you were able to give clear testimony of your experience a living experience with Jesus Christ. Well, now you didn't have to do that. You just have to give a testimony to the fact that you were a believer in the Bible, and that you are going to try to live by the Bible's precepts and you're committed to that community. And if you could do that, you made that halfway step. Then you can have your children baptized, and then grandchildren could be baptized. And so this was a great controversy during the time but created a membership in the church that began to be less and less committed. There were those who argued for this great deal, Samuel Stoddard, we're going to talk about him as the father in law of Jonathan Edwards in the next lecture here.

But, he advocated for the halfway covenant because he sought communion as a means of evangelism. He said, If we can just get them in and give them communion, maybe they'll become converted, but it was the halfway covenant that created a great deal of stress for the church, at least, as they were trying to be a city set on a hill. And now they had an internal controversy that was creating riffs and cracks in the fellowship. There was also external pressures, there were natural disasters during this time fires destroyed cities like Boston several times, because of course, there was no fire brigade, and buildings are all built on wood and fires will get started. And they would just decimate the city and, and there was a sense that it must be God's dissatisfaction with us that's causing this. In 1727, there was a great earthquake, and wow, that became fodder for a lot of sermons in the community, talking about God's anger with his people, and that they weren't being faithful enough. And then there was King Philip's War, Indian Wars we can to be very common. Now, many people came to this country in the hope of converting the Indians. And instead of that happening, what often happened was Indians became very suspicious. There were Anglo people who mistreated them who cheated them. In addition to that, Anglo people brought diseases that sometimes decimated tribes. And eventually, the Indians rose up in wars, they felt their property was more and more being taken from them. And so, man who became kind of the center of leadership was King Philip, and there was a great war, and there was a sense of things are not safe. we're lacking security. And as a result, all these things internal and external, church membership began to decline. The Senate was convened in 1679. To try to figure out why are they experiencing God's judgment and wrath. And this is the list of things that they came up with decreasing godliness, extravagant dress, I mean, you got to remember the founding of this area, were founded by Puritans who dressed very, very conservatively. But now, there have been enough improvement in the financial position that there was extravagant dress and neglect of baptism. They named that as one of the reasons. And then profanity began to be more and more the experience as others joined the community. 

Keeping the Sabbath, they noted that fewer and fewer people were keeping the Sabbath, and that that doesn't mean just going to church, but in that culture, and then having the day entirely set aside for rest. There was decline in family worship. There's litigation between church members, they saw lawsuits going on. A Tavern haunting was one of the things they noted taverns, of course, were becoming more and more popular, and we're along just about every major road by this time in 1679. And so that's one of the things that identified that this is one of the reasons we are experiencing the judgment of God. Dishonesty was part of that they saw it in people cheating people, especially in business contracts. He said, there are a love of things of the world. So instead of being a frugal and simple in life, they saw people falling in love with the world. And they said, there was opposition when those people suggested we should do something about sin, and suggested even disciplining of sin. But there was such a memory of the witch trials and those things that was just lack of an interest in that. They said, lack of public spirit. In other words, there was a lack of the desire to actually make a change in any of these things. And they said, a lack of a will to repent, that none of these things were happening, and so, as a result, it said the colony and the dream was experiencing God's judgment. Decline continued, until it reached a point described by Jonathan Edwards person we're going to meet in the next lecture. Person, we're going to get to know pretty well, and a letter to a man named Dr. Benjamin Coleman passed from Brattle Street Church in Boston. He described the life in Hampton, Connecticut, prior to the Great Awakening. 

He described some periods of renewal under his father in law, Solomon Stoddard, but then he said that right now was a decline in religion, he said after the last of these two declines in religion came a far more degenerate time, at least among the young people than ever before. The greater part seems to be at that time very insensible of the things of religion. Just after my grandfather's death that seemed to be a time of extraordinary dullness in religion, licentiousness for some years greatly prevailed among the youth of the town. They were addicted to night walking and frequenting the tavern, and lewd practices without any regard to order in the families they belong to. Family government did too much fail in the town. So men have tried their best to reform the church, and it failed, and one of the interesting things then is to see what God did in response, and that's what we're going to look at next time.

Video Transcript: The Great Awakening (Dr. Bruce Ballast)

Welcome back, I hope you've been thinking a little bit about revival. And whatever country you're in whatever place you're in, you are probably looking at the world around you and knowing, hopefully, readiness or lack of readiness of your area for revival. And I guess what we've seen so far is that maybe when things are really bad, that's a good sign. And if you're in the United States, that's a really good sign. And one of the things that church growth experts are noting these days is that the center of the church has moved. United States for many years was the center of mission. And we're going to be looking at that as one of the results of revival eventually. But now, that center of the church has moved to Latin America and Africa. And so you people who are in those areas are in an area right now, that is growing by leaps and bounds. We've got examples of places like China, where missionaries were thrown out. And when the missionaries were thrown out, that's when revival began. In fact, when the missionaries were thrown out, by the communists, there were only a few 100,000 Christians in the whole country. And then when they come back, God has done a magnificent thing by His Holy Spirit. And millions and millions in fact when Christians were let back in, they couldn't even estimate but the estimates are somewhere between 10 million and 25 million Christians in the country of China. And so truly, you know, last time, we defined revival as a movement of the Holy Spirit, the holy spirit moves when he does when he wants to, at the rate and through the people he wants. 

Now, one of the things we're going to find in this lecture is found in the title, ordinary people extraordinary things. As we look at revivals, one of the things we're going to find is this repeated pattern of spiritual decline in the country, and then renewal, spiritual decline and renewal, and we're going to find that there are certain people that are connected with every revival in the United States. Last time, we saw how bad things had gotten here in the United States, how the controversies and Indian Wars and the internal and external pressures on Christians had made a great deal of mistrust. In fact, things have gotten so bad that in the United States, it was estimated that only about 10% of the country were regular church attenders by the period that led up to the Great Awakening. So today, we're going to look at what is known in history as the Great Awakening. And you can't do that without looking at the people. 

Now, the title of the book is, of course, is ordinary people, extraordinary things. The two people we see today are anything but ordinary. The first one I want to introduce you to is Jonathan Edwards, he is considered by some to be the finest mind ever produced in colonial America. Now imagine what it takes in times of Washington and Adams and Jefferson, and those types of people that this man is readily acknowledged as being the greatest mind, let me tell you a little bit about him. He was an only son, doesn't mean he was the only child. He In fact, he was one of 11 children. But he was the only son. And so that put a great deal of pressure on him. in that culture, it was expected that the son, at least the oldest son would follow in the father's footsteps. And Jonathan Edwards father was a pastor, or preacher. And so the anticipation was built very, very early, that that's what he was going to do. And so at a very young age, he began preparing for that. On the screen, you'll see the word of prodigy of this young man was studying Latin at the age of six years old. If you can imagine that. When he was 10 years old, he published his first essay, it was a discussion about the soul. Well, that was a prevalent theological discussion at that time, you know, is the soul material? Is there something physical about it? Or is it spiritual, nothing physical about it. And at the age of 10, he wrote and published an article talked about the non material character of the soul, and was, had his first spiritual experience at the age of 10. His father had a practice of having an annual spiritual campaign in their church. And during the campaign when Jonathan Edwards was 10 years old, Jonathan went down to what was called the booth in the swamp. 

It was a wooden shed that had become a favorite play place for children, but he went there, to pour out His soul to God, and He says that was when he first experienced an assurance of his salvation. At the age of 13, he entered Yale University. Now picture the mind that's been studying Latin, from the age of six, and at 13 is entering Yale. And he's studying coursework like Greek, Latin, Hebrew, rhetoric, logic, physics, theology, and philosophy. Incredible, it was the last of those philosophy that he fell particularly in love with, and enjoyed sharing thoughts greatly. And 1721 he had a second spiritual renewal. In fact, this one, he identified more in his own work as the source of his salvation and his commitment to the church. 1721 he read these words from First Timothy 1:17. Now onto the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever. And some way the Holy Spirit used those words like eternal, immortal, invisible, to give Jonathan Edwards a new appreciation for the sovereignty of God. And I said, he sensed new he said, a new sense of things, and he wanted to be, quote, swallowed up by God, unquote. And in his diary, he wrote the words that are on your screen resolved, that every man should live to the glory of God results second, that whether others do this or not, I will. So, 1722 he accepts the call to become a pastor, and passed pastored several churches before in the fall of 1726, he was called to a new position. Now in the last lecture, I referred to Samuel Stoddard as his father in law. Samuel Stoddard was his grandfather. In 1726, he was called to a new position. And the position was designed to be the following pastor to his grandfather, his grandfather was getting older, and who better to follow Him, and that they of course, were sons followed their father's here, a grandson could follow a grandfather. And five months after accepting that position, he became married to a woman who was named Sarah Pierpont. 

Samuel Stoddard died on February 11 1729, Jonathan, as expected, was appointed Pastor, and it was in this church, and that town of Northampton, Connecticut, that revival began. Now, prior to the revival, there was a new sense of openness. In fact, I referred in the last lecture to a letter that Edwards wrote. And he said these words as another part of that letter, then in the latter part of December, the Spirit of God began to set in and wonderfully to work amongst us, there were very suddenly five or six persons who were to all appearance savingly converted. But things went very slowly from there. It wasn't until 1734 that we see a revival happening. And that was, Edwards said, credited to two deaths. The first one was a man who died two days after coming down with an unexplained illness. Now you have to realize that death back then was considered incredibly fearful. People were scared, they didn't have medical understanding that we have today, they certainly didn't have the medicine that we have today. And so when people died, the only explanation that could be was, God must be angry with you. And so somebody who died after coming down with an illness, and doing that in such a quick way, would wake people up again to the reality of God, at least in their understanding of the world that time. And then a young woman died a short time later. And this is the way Edwards described it. He said, this was followed by another death of a young married woman who had been considerably exercised in mind about the salvation of her soul before she was ill, but she seemed to have satisfying evidences of God saving mercy to her before her death. She died warning and counseling others their begin evidently to appear more of a religious concern on people's minds. So in Northampton now, there is a revival starting. 

It was what the arrival of George Whitfield, the man who's on the screen right now, that it became a national kind of revival, one that would become known as the Great Awakening. In Northampton things are going wildly well. After six months of revival after those two deaths, Edwards estimated at 300 people had been converted in that town and area, they joined the church in droves. A church records from that time, which are still in the Harvard library in Boston. Church records show that more than 100 people were received in the church, just before the Lord's Supper on one Sunday, short time later, 80 more were accepted 60 join prior to the next celebration of the Lord's Supper. So growth was so great that by 1737, they had to build a new church to accommodate the crowds. And people were coming. They had experienced the presence and the power of God, that's Northampton. But nationally, there were only small signs. There were some things happening in New York a little bit, but nothing was natural, until this man George Whitfield came on the scene. 

In fact, when you go back to Northampton, within the time of that first initial burst of the Holy Spirit's revival, there came a decline. And that decline was turned around with George Whitfield's arrival. Now, George Whitfield was born in December 16, 1714. His father died when he was two years old. And that put him under a great disadvantage in life. But his mother was convinced that he had to go to school and she scrimped and saved and worked very hard, and managed to put him through College, Oxford college, he went to, and graduated from there on time. And then he made a commitment to missions, he wanted to become a pastor. He was ordained. And he had heard about the trip that John Wesley had made to Georgia, and the colonies, American colonies, and so he decided he was going to redo that trip. And win people for Jesus Christ, so 1738, he travels down to Georgia, in the United States. And there, he found some real disappointment. First of all, he said, There weren't many people to convert. People lived at such a distance from each other, that they just couldn't get a good gathering of people together. And so he started an orphanage, and he began to raise money for that orphanage traveling around preaching in parts of the Southern colonies, to just raise money to support the orphanage in Georgia. Went home came back in 1739, he once again made trips around to get money to support his orphanage and went back home back in 1740. He visited Edwards for a series of meetings in October 17 to 20, in 1740. 

In fact, he stayed with Jonathan Edwards during that period of time. And that's when he decided he had to get married, because he saw the love of a family life built around Jesus Christ. And it was during that time, but during these times, then he's preaching and an outstanding preacher. In fact, Benjamin Franklin, that's the report on the right, just reported about what happened in Philadelphia, as George Whitfield came to preach, said the multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons was enormous. And it was a matter of speculation with me to observe the influence of his oratory, and on his hearers and how much they respected him. Not withstanding is kind of an abuse of them, assuring them that they were natural beasts and have devils. It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. For being thoughtless and indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world was growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing Psalms song in different families in every street. Now, that was happening in Philadelphia, but it wasn't only in Philadelphia. In fact, of his seven trips to the United States, it happened everywhere. Ben Franklin at another time, tried to gauge how far Whitfield's voice would carry. Now remember, they didn't have any sound equipment back then. There was no great amplifier that they could hook someone up to. So as people came to listen to George Whitfield, they came from miles and miles and miles around the crowds would be huge. And and he would have to simply project his voice many times preaching outside, because by this time, Whitfield was under some suspicion, because if churches wouldn't let him in, he go preach in the fields the way the Methodist did in the United States. 

Franklin was at one of those speeches, and he decided to walk back and see how far he could hear George Whitfield preaching. And his guess estimate that he wrote about was that one mile you could hear George Whitfield preaching, I don't know if that was supernatural, or just the power of his voice, but that's something Incredible, incredible statement about man who's preaching about Jesus Christ and calling him to repentance. And so, anyway, that's George Whitfield, a little bit. Whitfield died in 1770, while in America on a preaching tour. As the Great Awakening was taking place, magnificent things were happening in the United States. People were coming to faith. The peak was considered to occur on July 8 1741. That's what church historians say, was on that date, Jonathan Edwards preached probably the best known sermon of all of his sermons, you have the title sinners in the hands of an angry God. In fact, it's still studied in high school literature classes in the United States as a classic statement of what communication was like in that day. Now, I have to give you the picture of Jonathan Edwards preaching now. Jonathan Edwards was known as somebody who read his sermons. He did not use any gestures. He clasped each hand on each side of the pulpit. And that's how he spoke he did not use inflection. He read in a dry, dusty kind of presentation. That was a contrast of Whitfield has spoken to extemporaneously use his hands a great deal. But this is Jonathan Edwards. Now I'm going to quote from sinners in the hands of an angry God, just to demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit, I guess. This is a powerful image of what happens to people who are going to be judged by God. July 8, 1741, Jonathan Edwards, there are black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads full of dreadful storm. The sovereign pleasure of God for the present stays the rough wind, otherwise your destruction would come like a whirlwind. The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed up for the present. The bow of God's wrath is bent and justice bends the arrow at your heart and strings the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that keeps the arrow. 

Thus, are all you that never passed under a great change of heart by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls, all that were never born again, and made new creatures. However, you may reformed your life in many things, and may have religious affectations and may keep a form of religion and may be strict in it. The God that hold you over the pit of hell, as much as one holds a spider over the fire is dreadfully provoked. His wrath toward you burns like fire. It is nothing but his hand that keeps you from falling into the fire every moment. Oh sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in. You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder, and you have nothing you have ever done. And nothing you have done to induce God could spare you one moment. Now imagine, imagine hearing that people would fall down in tears, they would cry out and repentance at the end of that sermon was preached more than once. That was the state of the spiritual revival that was happening. It wasn't something that was the result of a careful in manipulated campaign, or a nicely produced slick video. It was simply somebody sharing those kinds of thoughts, and then letting the spirit do his work. Now, that's what happened. It peaked on July 8. And then we see that the tide began to turn. They went through a period where the number of converts began to decrease rather precipitously and 1744 to 1748, on the church rolls of Northampton church, where Jonathan Edwards was pastor, not one convert, was registered as new to the church. It's like something just stopped. With that stopping there came a change in the church politics. Many people there were under Solomon, Stoddard. Solomon Stoddard had embraced the halfway covenant. 

You remember from the first lecture, where he allowed people to take communion who had not given evidence of conversion are a clear testimony of converting. Edwards stop that. And then the time of revival argued for only those who had come to believe and experienced Jesus Christ as your Savior to take communion to be baptized. And as the revival began to wane, the political forces that sided with Stoddard gain power, and Jonathan Edwards was ousted from his pastored on June 22, 1750. Sad ending for him in ministry. Now he did go on he was college involved in college and education and that sort of thing. Other things happened as a result, the effects of the Great Awakening, there was a religious ferment. In other words, people were aware of Christianity, and we're aware of their need for salvation. When I look back in my history, I was born in 1953. And that was another period of revival. And from 1953, till about 1990, you could talk about things of faith, you could talk about people being sinners, and in need of salvation. And you could use those kind of church words, and everybody understood them, whereas now they don't. Well, there was some of that same kind of thing happening there that everybody knew everybody understood. There was controversy over revivalism, it became known as the emotional displays were very much inconsistent with the Puritan background. And so there was controversy, whether that was right, or good. Education was impacted. In fact, Princeton college, began as a result of the disagreement over revivalism. And it began as a progressive college connected with Christianity. In fact, if you look back, most of the colleges in the United States were begun during a period of this kind of religious ferment. A social effects, there were some magnificent social effects back then. Here's an account. 

Edwards give this report of the effect of the renewal of religion on Northampton, the work of God and the number of true saints multiply, soon a glorious alteration in the town so that in the spring and summer following AD 1735, the town's seem to be full of the presence of God, there were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house, our public assemblies were beautiful, the congregation was alive and God serve as very earnestly intent on public worship. In all companies, on whatever occasions persons met together, Christ was to be heard of and seen in the midst of them. Wow, that's one of the effects. But on the other part of the screen, you see the impact on the church. During that time, records are not real well kept during that period. But there were somewhere between 25 to 50,000, people who joined the churches in the American colonies. Now the lower number 25,000 represents 7% of the population. Try to get this in your mind. Now I live in the United States. Here we have about 300 million people. And if 7% of the population was converted, and join churches, imagine what that would be a be a be around 18 million people joining the churches. That's astounding, we wouldn't know where to put them. And so when I say that I'm somebody who prays for revival, that's the kind of thing I'm praying for the kind of thing where something is so supernatural, that 1,000s upon 1,000s are coming. And it's happening in a way that you really can't identify where it comes from hardly. There were more ministers, the Presbyterian Church went in just a couple of years from 45 ministers in the colonies to over 100. There are more churches, the Baptist churches during that period of time, went from 21 churches to 79 churches. And it looked like the church was just going to go on fire from there. And so it's really shocking to note the decline that we've already referred to. And so next time, we're going to see what happened in that decline. And God's response as we look to the Second Great Awakening needed so, so few years later.