Unit 6 Video Transcripts

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Video Transcript: The Revolution and Beyond (Dr. Bruce Ballast)

Welcome back to this third instalment of ordinary people extraordinary things a view of how God brings about revival. We've been looking at the Great Awakening. And it's rather astounding isn't that when you look at the effects that we saw in the last lecture, the incredible things that happened, a number of people joining the church the amazing things that happen. I've one of the people I want to introduce you today is John Greenleaf Whittier, he was a Quaker poet, and he wrote a poem that was intended to glorify or at least make known the Ministry of George Whitfield, and it goes like this. So the flood of emotion deep and strong trouble the land as it swept along the left a result of holier lives tender mothers and worthy or wise, a husband and father whose children fled and sad wife wept as his drunken tread frightened piece from his roof trees shade and a rock of offenses Hearthstone made in a strength that was not his own began to rise from the brutes to the plain of man. Old friends embrace long held apart by evil Council in pride of heart. And penitents saw through misty tears, on the bow of hope on its cloud of fears, the promise of heavens eternal years, the peace of God for worlds annoyed beauty for ashes, and oil of joy. All celebrating what happened in what we've called the Great Awakening, was a time of religious ferment a time of growth in the church of impact socially. And yet, in the 1740s, and 1750s, the spiritual tide began to turn, and it turned down, not up. And so now we're going to look today at why in the world that happened, apathy toward religion return. And the reasons for that change are very complex. But there are two of them in particular, that we need to look at. And those two have to do with what we're going to see is the pattern over and over. After that whole generation have been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel, quote from the book of Judges, which defines a great deal of the history of the United States and spirituality, a new generation comes up, they don't adhere to the same principles of revival and evangelism the way the previous one does, and why, why was there a decline this time, well there are many things that contributed to it, but the two big ones are the enlightenment, and economy. Now, in order to understand the enlightenment, there's some people you have to get to know a little bit. Copernicus in 1543, wrote the revolution of the heavenly spheres. 

He was somebody who observed as probably the first true astronomer, he observed the movement of the Sun of other stars and planets. And he came to the conclusion that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Now, back then they had a very simple view of how the universe was constructed, there was Earth, above the earth was what was known as the heavenlies. And below the earth was what was called hell. And so we lived on this plane, and the earth was the center of the universe kind of function outside of that plain up in the heavenlies. But now, Copernicus was saying, in is the revolution of the heavenly spheres that the earth is not the center of the universe. Rather, the sun is just one among many stars, and that the earth is a planet around those stars. Now, Copernicus knew as he wrote the revolution of the heavenly spheres, that his views were not going to be well received, particularly by the church. At this time in history, the Roman Catholic Church in the 1500s had a huge control over life in Europe. And so he did not put his name on this. He published it anonymously and only claimed on his deathbed to be the author, although many people suspected he was prior to that time. And so you have Copernicus, saying, wait a minute, the view that the church is espousing is not accurate, the Earth is not the center of the universe. Now his teaching was picked up by Galileo. He posited in 1613, a piece that he published called letters on sunspots. He posited, again, built on Copernicus, that the earth is not the center of the universe. And in fact, the Earth is just one small planet. Now, he was able to do that because up until Galileo, the strongest telescope had a power of six. In other words, it brought things six times closer than just natural eyesight. Galileo worked in worked on developing a telescope that eventually was 30 power could bring things 30 times closer. Now if you have a pair of binoculars, they're probably at least 30 power, but in his day, it was revolutionary. 

And he began to teach as a result of that now the earth is not the center. And for that reason he expected not just persecution. But he expected, maybe even to be excommunicated. In 1616, three years after the publishing of letters on sunspots, the pope forbade him to teach what he had written about. He agreed to stop teaching. But then in 1632, he began at once again at the encouragement of other scientists, and he was tried for heresy. And he was sentenced to spend time in house arrest. And they spent most of the rest of his life that way. And so have to be aware of Galileo is part of what we call the enlightenment. Third Person who was part of that was Isaac Newton who wrote the Principia Mathematica in 1686, and was published in 1687. Now, every school child, I think, in the United States, knows the story of the discovering of gravity, that Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree and an apple fell on his head. And therefore he began to ponder why the apple would fall down. And he posited that it was gravity. And that's how we became people who believed in gravity. Well, it's story isn't that quite true, by the way, he did notice things falling, and he gave credit to some observations like that as the source of his study. But the landmark part of this study is the laws of motion, because he looked at the planets, again, building a Copernicus building on Galileo, he posited that things were done in the universe in a very orderly way, a predictable way. Now, we can't quite imagine how different that was for that time. You see, up until that time, the turning of the earth and the movement of day to night, and of the different seasons as the earth wound around the sun, of course, they didn't believe that at that point, they thought the sun was revolving around the Earth, all of that they believed, prior to this as God's action. It was God who did it. It's God who brings the new day. It's God who causes the seasons to occur. It's God who brings the storms. And now, there's this idea that everything is built to be incredibly organized, incredibly rational. And these things today are the foundation of education. But back then they were just absolutely incredibly revolutionary. 

So much so that the church felt threatened. Now, the results of the enlightenment are simply these, God was no longer seen as the cause of everything that was going on, and the church because it continued to embrace that belief. And focus on that as the reason for everything happening was beginning to be seen as old fashioned. And then the next guy who becomes very important is John Locke. John Locke was one who applied these ideas of everything happening in an orderly way, in a systematic way, began to apply them to social problems, and said, if we can only figure out the principles, then we would be able to solve all the social problems that are being faced in the world today. So the Christian church was threatened. In fact, there were even some question whether Christianity would survive Voltaire was a French philosopher who lived during the period of the Second Great Awakening, second to ninth 1815. He predicted that Christianity would die away in the next 30 years, Francis Scoott Latourette an eminent Christian historian said of this time, prior to the Second Great Awakening, it looked as though Christianity were a waning influence about to be ushered out of the affairs of men. So the Alstrom historian, summarizes the effect of John Locke on his day, he more nearly personifies the reigning spirit of the 18th century than any other thinker is thought is guided by three great optimistic principles, that the chief end of man is felicity or happiness in this world, and probably in the next, that man's rational powers, if rightly disciplined and employed, provide a means for solving the problems of life and the taming this felicity. And that the essential truths of such a view are so self evident, and man himself so responsive to such evidence that progress in human felicity is inevitable. And in other words, just to interpret, the next step on life has to be happiness. And if we would just apply our rational capability to that we've become more happy. It's normal, it's natural. It's an orderly world that we live in.

And so these are the kinds of thoughts that Part of the ferment and what was known as the Enlightenment, it's a powerful name for a period of time, because enlightenment implies the people were living in darkness before this. But now these new ideas have brought light on the world. And so that's what was going on. And that's what the enlightenment represented, that the church was seen as part of the darkness, not as part of the light. Now, how did the enlightenment come to America? Through these two men, primarily, on the right, you'll see Thomas Jefferson, on the left, John Adams, two of the early presidents in this country, certainly formative as authors of a constitution and a declaration of independence. Now, we have this belief in America, at least many of us in the evangelical world, that the United States was founded on Christian principles. And we keep saying we've got to go back to those Christian principles. But the reality is, both of these men spent considerable time in Europe, were well acquainted with Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, John Locke, and were impacted by their beliefs. In fact, Thomas Jefferson, at one point decided to create what is known as the Jefferson Bible that still exists. It's in a museum in Washington, he decided that if you're just looking at the world, from a rational point of view, you have to take out everything supernatural. So if you take out everything supernatural, you've got to get rid of all kinds of things in the New Testament, you have to get rid of miracles, first of all, because they don't happen, you have to get rid of some of the teachings of Jesus that imply that he was a supernatural person, because such a thing doesn't exist, because everything is done in a very orderly fashion, there isn't a God who intervenes in the world in any significant way. And so he made his Bible by taking a pen knife and cutting out all the areas that are that referred to anything supernatural. And as a result of a very, very short Bible, for sure, a very short New Testament, a John adams, one of the principal authors of the Constitution of the United States. 

As a result, these two men were known as deists. In other words, they believed there was a God, they believed that he was the first cause and that he was somebody who created the world, but then he just kind of set it in motion following the laws that the normal laws of what we see happening in the universe today, and what is demonstrated scientifically. Now, that had an impact on the church, what would be the church's reaction of the church being threatened, caused it to react in one of three ways. One, they could accommodate or ignore or compromise, there were some who decided to just ignore the whole thing, and they decided to go their own way. And they didn't work a great deal at trying to understand science. In fact, they began to advocate an idea that science is kind of the enemy of Christianity, or there were those who compromised. You'll find that in some of the churches of that time, very much in the Presbyterian and Anglican traditions that they tried to find value in the science that had been discovered. But they wanted to hold to the old truths as well. And then there were those religionists that decided that accommodation is the key. And on the East Coast of the United States, the Universalist Church became a very common thing. Here are the summaries of what the Universalist Church believed. There was an emphasis on mankind's freedom to choose for the good and his natural inclination toward goodness. So there was this belief that man is just getting better and better. The Christian faith was proclaimed as simple in the complex theologies of the reformation, and even the medieval church were ridiculed.

John Locke, boiled genuine enlightened Christianity down to two rules, believe in Jesus, and lead a life of virtue. Living a moral life was considered the ultimate goal of Christianity. And therefore, things like sacraments were considered to be a superstition, or the idea of progress was effected, our progress was prominent. In other words, mankind would gradually improve until the kingdom of God was ushered in naturally, as a result of very normal forces the way God had created it originally. And then God was seen as a power or first principle he's often referred to as a deity. And the enlightened man was having a hard time trying to find a connection with God as a personal God. Now, you can go on the eastern part of the United States and other places that sprung up but you'll find the Unitarian Universalist Church and that's what came out of this period of history. And it's a fascinating thing. I was privileged to live in the Boston area for six months in 1991, as I worked on the background for was going to become the book that is the foundation for this class. And as part of that experience, I decided to take my children to a Unitarian Universalist Church one Sunday morning. And in fact, it was on April one. So we were going to church on April Fool's Day. And so we ended the church. And there was a string quartet playing glorious classical music. And the service began. And it was a real mixture of people. But there was no sense of really what's going to happen here. We all gathered in, they had a kind of Museum, the opening part is you enter the entryway, and then that museum was a Bible under a glass case. And that's kind of where the Bible they thought should stay. And we went through the service. And the message that day was, don't be an April Fool, and talk about you know, how to be somebody who was good and wise and who made a positive contribution to life. And I remember afterwards, we came out of the service, we've taken the bus there in the Boston area. And so I've got three kids at that time. They were sixth grade, fifth grade in second grade. And so on the way to a restaurant to eat lunch, after our Sunday worship experience, I asked these children. So what do you think? What do you think? And very perceptive at that time, they were becoming spiritually more alive themselves. But my son said, I don't understand why somebody gets up on Sunday morning to go to that. Just don't understand it. I guess that's was my reaction as well. If you don't believe that there is a God who intervenes in our life today. 

Why would you get up to worship? Why would you pray? What would life look like? These three very common responses became the characteristics of the church prior to the Great Awakening. Second thing that happened was the economy. The economy in that time after the Revolutionary War was devastated. And poverty was very, very common. alcoholism was widespread depression, unemployment, you know, all the stuff we saw in our recent Great Recession here in the United States. In fact, J. Edwin Orr a historian known for revivals described this period of time this way of a population of 5 million, the United States suffer 300,000 drunkards, and buried about 15,000 of them annually. Christian chroniclers complained that the first time in history of the country there was a surfeit or a widespread experience of lawlessness, a profusion of Gamblers of gangs of robbers and slave stealers, drunkenness was common and profanity prevalent, they said, immorality had increased as standards of honesty and morality declined. The effects was particularly seen in a variety ways there was decline in membership. So much, though that is estimated that only about 10% of the church retained an active church membership during this period. Before the Second Great Awakening, immoral life was considered norm, college students. Lyman Beecher was a preacher of that time said college wasn't a most ungodly state. The college church was almost extinct. Most of the students were skeptical and rowdies were plenty wine and liqueurs were kept in many rooms in temperance, profanity, gambling and licentiousness were common. As I said, there are those who thought that Christianity was about to end. But the question we have to ask each time is this one? How would God respond? 

The church has taken this dip began with talking about judges about a generation growing up that wouldn't know God, and they forgot Him. How would God respond? In the history of the United States, we're going to see that once again, as we see the height, spiritual height of the Great Awakening, and now we see the trough going down within just a couple of generations. We're going to see how God responds with a Second Great Awakening that in some cases, outpaced the first awakening by leaps and bounds. And so that's the subject of the next lecture.

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

Welcome back to a consideration of ordinary people extraordinary things, consideration of the revival periods in the history of the church in the United States. Last time, we saw that, even after this incredible spiritual high of The Great Awakening, there was a period of decline spiritual decline, it happened rapidly. And it's only about 30 40 years later, and things are in bad shape. In fact, one historian was looking at the church of that time said only five to 10% of the population in the colonies. And those areas to which the country had extended only about five to 10%. Were church members. Now, if you think about that, for a moment, it tells you how bad things really were. Right now we talk about Europe as being post Christian. And that's because you can go to almost any country in Europe, and the church attendance rate is about four to five to 6%. And the church has become marginalized and it doesn't have a central role anymore in the lives of people who engage in government or, or in major industry. And that's where we were, before the Second Great Awakening five to 10%. Things were so bad that nobody knew what to do. In fact, that was a great challenge to say, How do you respond, people were predicting the end of the church in the United States? 

That's how bad it was. That's an important point. because later on we're going to get to talking about today. And people are saying some of the same things about today. So five to 10%. What are they going to do? Well, one person put it this way, the problem was too big for human ingenuity or human energy. Neither denominational organization or interdenominational of cooperation could cope with the emergency demonic forces with a carnal collaboration that forced the churches into a corner. How did they retaliate and turn the defeat into victory. The only weapon left was prayer and pray they did. Intercessors simply supplicated the God of the universe to intervene on their behalf, and the revival of religion and an extension of the kingdom of Christ on Earth. The prayer began in some very, very simple, unobtrusive ways, ones that are hardly noted by history. One of the first was First Baptist Church in Boston. That's a picture of it a few years ago, still there, in 1791, they acknowledge the fact that religion had become kind of a byword in their area, even after the Great Awakening, and people were looking back to that wonderful time of spiritual fervor. And so a group decided to get together and pray. They met first and the vestree are just a few of them. Gradually, a few more came, when enough came that they didn't fit there, they moved into the sanctuary. And they just spent that year praying. And their prayer was pretty specific. 

They were praying for the revival of spiritual fervor in their church, and in their area. At the end of the year, even though winter, supposedly was a pretty rough winter that year, and people of course, didn't have cars to traveling. In spite of that, at the end of that year, they counted 138 new members in their church. Now, others heard of that, and began doing the same thing around Boston with similar results. People apparently were eager to hear the news about Jesus Christ. But first, the people were driven to pray in the churches. Now that began to go national, a little while later, in the concert of prayer movement. Now, if you think of a concert, you think of a variety of instruments that come together, and they have various parts to play, and they each play their part. But the whole comes together to create something beautiful. Some people got together in Boston. And so this is so good, we can't keep it to ourselves. They wanted to spread it throughout the country. And so they decided to have a concert of prayer movement, meeting on the first Tuesday of the month, every first Tuesday of the month. And people would join together then and pray again for a renewal of religious fervor. The first one took place on January 17, 1795. And there was an amazing and amazing kind of cooperation. You find Presbyterians joining the Baptist joining with congregationalists joining even in some rare occasions with with Roman Catholics, but the idea was religious fervor. 

We want to see something come back to this country that we feel like we've lost. And the reports began to come in from places like Connecticut, which had become a very, very much a wasteland spiritually. And it was in some cases kind of on the edge of the frontier, Massachusetts, the Boston area renewals happening. Vermont, New Hampshire. One church there went from 18 people praying out of some desperation. Because they saw their church almost dead. And in one year they gained 100 new members through evangelism. The Dutch Reformed Rutgers church in New York, grew from 80 to over 700 people in that year of 1795. And so we had something happening now there's this kind of bubbling up of spiritual vitality, that is beginning. And in some ways, it looks kind of like the great awakening of just the previous generation. But in many ways, it's different at this point. It's different in several ways. One, there are no big prominent names. 

In the Great Awakening, we immediately think of people like Jonathan Edwards, we immediately think of George Whitfield with his kind of itinerant ministry going from place to place and, and a lot of the, the movement of that revival nationally happened because of George Whitfield travels and his preaching, but now you've got no prominent names. The second thing where it's different is this seems to be focused on the local church, not on the big gatherings such as Whitfield will do in the open fields of that day. And so local church pastor is gathering people to pray and is leading the way. And the other thing that made this different was the Great Awakening had controversial signs associated with conversion. In other words, when Jonathan Edwards read his sermon that we looked at, centers in the hands of an angry God, people exhibited, rather, we would say, unusual science today, those of you who are from a Pentecostal background, let's say, maybe that's normal, but back then it wasn't normal in the church, people would break down weeping, they would fall onto the ground, they would roll back and forth in the aisles of the church and, and those kind of signs began to be seen as norm for some people, and as just too much for others. And now, in this movement, those signs are not there. 

People are just coming to deeper understandings of their faith, and they want to live it out that way. So it's happening starting with prayer. Some of the fascinating early events took place in these places, yellow college, cane Ridge revival, and William and Mary college. And these stick out in history as highly unusual but but symptomatic of what God was beginning to do now in response to the decline in spirituality in the country. So let's look at each of those. Yale College in the name we associate with this part of the revival is Timothy Dwight happens to be a grandson of Jonathan Edwards. Now he has been involved in higher education. In fact, as early as 1771, he was a tutor at Yale College, he left there to become a chaplain in the Revolutionary War, and had some other teaching positions. But in 1795, he was named the president of Yale College. When he got there, he found that the college was made up almost entirely in the student body of atheists, and agnostics, they had bought into everything that we saw, led to a decline in religion. And so he began to meet with groups of students to talk about what they believe and why they believe in or what they don't believe and why they don't believe it. And then he began to preach in Chapel services chapels that he made mandatory. And he would address their concerns. He would challenge their unbelief in a variety of ways. Now that went on for several years until 1802. There was suddenly a revival in Yale College 75 out of 230 students came to faith came forward and confess they were sinners, that they needed Jesus Christ as the savior of their life, and they were committing their lives to Him as Lord. Now, picture that 75 out of 230. That's almost 1/3 of the student body. Wow, if we could have 1/3 of a university today, all of a sudden experience conversion, imagine what would happen, especially as you have these young adults who are just setting out on their life responsibilities, and what that's going to mean for the country. 

So that's the Yale College, Timothy Dwight Remember him? The King revival is a really fascinating situation. The man we associate with that is a Presbyterian pastor named Barton Stone, Cane Ridge, Kentucky. At this time, this is out on the frontier. And you have to realize that out on the frontier, it was kind of desolate. Lexington, Kentucky was the largest city in this in what was going to become the state of Kentucky at that time, and Lexington only had 2000 people in it. And so most people lived out of reach of any church. And there were very few churches there. The Methodists had begun the circuit writing practice of going from place to place, but most people live a lot of their lives, months, maybe years, between hearing anything of the gospel, a Bible study, etc. And yet, occasionally, out on the frontier, there would be what was called a camp meeting, where there would be a great meeting from people gathering from various distances, and they would come and they would hear a preaching, and they would respond. Well, the King Ridge revival was one of those times. The picture there is a woodcut of people standing a man standing up on a log preaching. And we find that this revival had incredible impact on the community. In fact, a one man wrote about it. He said, on my way, I was informed by settlers on the road that the character of Kentucky travelers was entirely changed. And that they were as remarkable for sobriety as they had formerly been for dissolutness and immorality. And indeed, I found Kentucky to appearances, the most moral place I had ever seen.

All that is attributed to the king Ridge revival. The date was August 6 1801. Martin Stone wanted to hold a meeting, he sent out information, you know, it always amazes me how information got out back then that, you know, they made these bills, they call them these kind of posters that they would send out various places. But people would get the news by word of mouth. And that still works today. A few years ago, I spent some time in Haiti, and there was a medical clinic and we were talking about how would people know there was a medical clinic out in this rather remote area, and the person who knew Haiti Well said, Oh, the word gets out? Well, that's that hundreds of people came, just because word of mouth. Well, that's the way it was passed that way. And to Stone's, surprise and shock. About 10 to 25,000 people showed up. Now imagine that the largest city in that area is Lexington, at 2000 people, and 10 to 25,000 show up. That also tells us how badly they counted because that's a pretty wide range of what they found was there were more people than they can handle. Now, thankfully, some Methodist pastors Baptist pastors had gotten the news. And they came. And so for several days, they had this practice of a pastor standing up on a log in the section people gathering around him preaching, giving the gospel invitation, and people coming to faith. And it's considered one of those fantastic times at a time that just changed that entire area of the country. So the Cane Ridge revival was one of those early events. And the Second Great Awakening. One of the most fascinating ones was what was called the haystack meeting. It's 1806, now, William and Mary College. Again, the student body was known for its atheism, not only its atheism, but its hostility to Christianity. At William and Mary College, there were five students who were Christians. And they wanted to meet together and encourage each other. 

But they didn't quite dare to do it on campus because they were afraid of the ridicule and the mockery, that would take place. And so they were meeting one day out in the field, and it started to rain. And as it started to rain, they all kind of burrowed into a huge haystack on the field. And while they were in there, they decided that they had to pray for a revival of a faith on their campus. And it happened. Incredibly it happened. The monument that you see in the picture, there is one that still sits on the campus of William and Mary College today. And it is the place where that haystack stood. Now that those those five men began to pray, and fire caught, a campus was revolutionized, and, and there was a huge change. As we look at the effects of it, lay leadership was part of it. Nobody came in as the pastor of this group, or as the educated man who was going to be the leader. This was led by students. And there was a huge commitment to missions. So many of the students from William and Mary made commitments to missions that this is really seen as the beginning of the missionary movement, one of the men who was one of those five in that haystack, because admire Jensen, who ended up in Burma, and became kind of a father of missions there. Samuel Mills was another one. He did not go to the mission field himself for very long, but he's one of the founders of the American Board for the committee on such and such and they had these long, long names, but was for foreign missions, as they raised money to send missionaries in various places. So now we're up to 1806. And that's kind of where the the revival was, it was bubbling up in all sorts of different places and in different ways, surprising ways. 

But there came a name that was associated with the Second Great Awakening. And that's the person I want to introduce to you now. His name was Charles Finney, Charles Finney grew up largely without a whole lot of religious training, he lived out on the frontier most of his life. At the age of two, they moved to an upper area of New York later moved to a what the area that is now Onida, New York, but back then there was not much out there. And as a result, when he talks about his early life, he says that his parents weren't believers. He knew nothing about religion, about Christianity. He was able to go to school and became a teacher and was that until the age of 25. And then he decided he wanted to do something else he was going to go to college, he tried to get entrance into a college, but somebody convinced them that it would be better if he took on a kind of a mentorship program that would save all that time that was assumed being wasted in college. 

And so he apprenticed himself, to a lawyer in Adams, New York. Now, back then, that was a very common practice. You didn't just go to school and get a degree. But you apprenticed yourself to somebody who knew and who would teach you for a period of time, how to be a lawyer. So that's what he did. Now, he's an Adams New York for the first time. He's really encountering the church in his adult life, and began to attend the church occasionally out of some curiosity about what was there, but his his attitude toward it was not real positive. In fact, he talks about himself at this point. He said, when I went to Adams to study law, I was almost as ignorant of religion as a heathen. I've been brought up mostly in the woods, I had little regard to the Sabbath and had no definite knowledge of religious truth. But now he's in the church, a church area and starting to attend church, what what would he find? Well, at one point, he attended a prayer meeting. And somebody in the prayer meeting asked if they would like him, like that person to pray for Charles Finney, you know, which would you like me to pray for you to Charles Finney. And here's his description of that event. I want occasion when I was in one of the prayer meetings, I was asked if I did not desire that they should pray for me. I told them no, because I did not see that God answered their prayers. 

I said, I suppose I need to be prayed for for I'm conscious that I am a sinner. But I do not see that I will do any good for you to pray for me. For you are continually asking but you do not receive. You've been praying for revival of religion ever since I've been an Adams and yet you haven't not. You've been praying for the Holy Spirit to descend upon yourselves, and yet complaining of your own leanness. I recollect having used this expression at that time, you have prayed enough, since I have attended these meetings to pray the devil out of Adams, if there is any virtue in your prayers, but here you are praying on and complaining still. Now, if you were living in Adams at that time, and you knew Charles Finney, and he had said that you had say, Whoa, there is no way this man is going to be converted. And yet we find that God did what looked like was impossible. Became a lawyer. As he studied law, he found that much of the basis for law and what we have in the United States and had in the United States as our basis for the law came from the Bible. And so he began to read about the Mosaic Law, about how rules were kept about the nation of Israel and how it was different from countries around and just began to experience God through the word came to a point of great crisis in October 1821. And that day, he was deeply troubled, he was heading on into the office, where he worked. And he decided that he couldn't go there, he had to decide whether this was true or not. And so he went to a local goods, and he knelt down between two fallen trees, and he, he decided he was going to have an out with God there. And by the end of his time there, he would have to know whether this was true or not. And he got up from that time, several hours, and was headed back to the law offices and nothing really changed except that I experienced some assurance of my salvation. 

But then he got back to the office and he had another time of prayer. He said there was no fire and no light in the room. Nevertheless, it appeared to me as if it were perfectly light as I went in and shut the door after me it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It did not occur to me then nor did it for some time afterward that it was wholly a mental state. On the contrary, it seemed to me that I saw him as I would see any other man. He said nothing, but looked at me in such a manner as to break me right down at his feet. I wept aloud like a child and made such confessions as I could, with my choked utterance. It seemed to me that I bathe his feet with my tears. Finney rose from that experience a change man, he experienced the call to preach after that, you began to be asked to speak in various places. And then, in 1824, the female missionaries society commissioned him to be kind of an evangelist, he, he left the law practice, and he began going around holding revivals, various places, and inviting people much as we've seen happen with George Whitfield to come to hear a message to respond.

The highlight of his career as a revivalist, came in about 1830 - 1831. After nine years of evangelist he came to Rochester, New York, and there was a time of revival such as he had not seen up to that time. In fact, he wrote about that. He said, the greatness of my work in Rochester at that time attracted so much of the attention of ministers and Christians throughout the state of New York, throughout New England, and in many parts of the United States, that the very fame of it was an efficient instrument at the hands of the Spirit of God in promoting the greatest revival of religion through the land that this country had been ever witnessed. Enormous, it wasn't too modest either about what was going on as a result of him of his work. That was Charles Finney effectiveness. in reaching out, he began to organize for the first time we're going to talk about that organized for the first time, the process by which a revival happened, began to settle down stop being the itinerant evangelist in 1834, when the Broadway tabernacle was built for him, that's a picture of how it looked a drawing of how it looked in 1834. And 1835, he was appointed professor at Oberlin College, and in 1851, he was appointed the president of Oberlin College, and that's how he finished his life. But when we think of Charles Finney, we have connect him with the Second Great Awakening because he was one of the leaders who took this bubbling up of the Holy Spirit and began to give it focus, so much so that throughout the United States on the frontier, things were happening. God was bringing a change about conversions, church growth, and changes in the communities that were represented by the people then, and so remember Charles Finney, and then we're going to see in our next time, that once again, it didn't last very long.

Video Transcript: The Results of the Second Great Awakening (Dr. Bruce Ballast)

Last time, we saw the excitement of the Second Great Awakening, powerful, powerful movement of the Holy Spirit throughout the eastern part of the country, not only, but also on the frontier, and people coming to faith and new churches beginning. In this section, I want to look at the impact on the church. As we look at results of the Second Great Awakening. Now, the impact was seen in several different ways. One was seen through various waves of revival. In fact, if you look at 1800, that was kind of a peak of the revival. But then there was a waiting again, 1807 to 1808 was another time of renewal of emphasis in the revival in, and then the war of 1812 showed up and, and the interest in revival kind of ebb once again, and then 1832 Finney in the east. And things just kind of took off after that, in fact, one area in New York, in the literature is called the burned over district. In other words, they had so many ways the revival there that one after another, you know, evangelists would come in, and a year later, another evangelist would come in, and we just had revival at revival revival. Until, you know, the literature says, they call it the burned over district, because there have been so many fires of revival there that nobody else dared go in there, because there was nothing else to get. So it's that kind of situation with the Second Great Awakening, it's waves and waves and waves and waves. Now, in these waves of revival, the church experienced huge impact. 

Now, of course, one of those impacts was growth, incredible growth during that time. In fact, as you look at the statistics, you find the Methodist Church talking about 10,000 new members in Kentucky, you find other denominations reporting new churches being planted, old churches being revitalized and renewed and, and growing once again. And so the church experience growth once again. And that usually is one of the results of our revival. You see growth in the membership of churches, you see new churches being planted, and they them growing. And when the Holy Spirit breaks out, you got to remember that because later we're going to talk about the recent past in the United States and find that there have been some movements. But those movements did not result in the growth of the church. Anyway, ways of revival. Now. One of the other impacts on the church was schisms, or divisions. It seemed that there were always two different views on revival and revivalism. Became known as revivalism, because it now was a standard procedure, kind of in many churches to be pushing for revival. And so rather than talking about this revival, they talked about the practice of revivalism. Well, there were those who opposed that who felt it was wrong. 

Some of those in the Presbyterian Church became known as the new lights, versus the old lights, the new lights were the people who were supporting the emphasis on conversion, the old lines for people who were saying they wanted to go back to a more relaxed time. You remember, we talked a long time ago about the new covenant eye, they're the halfway covenant where people didn't really have to confess their faith in order to participate in the church and to have their children baptized. And so that was a halfway covenant. You didn't have to give evidence other than our testimony of your faith. And there were those who wanted to go back to that. And so there was this division that began and and we see schism starting to happen in denominations, something that is also very characteristic of the church in the United States, the Presbyterian Church, it was new lights, versus old lights, and the Congregational Church, it was a conservatives versus the liberals, the conservatives for those who wanted to press on with a revival, spirit and emphasize conversion. The liberals felt like this was just too much and the liberals of the Congregational Church became the Unitarian Universalist Church, but believe that Jesus was not God in the flesh, who believe that everybody's going to be saved eventually. And I've shared with you before about going to a Unitarian Universalist Church, this became a movement in that direction as well. And so we've now got the visions happening over the issue of revivals. 

So we had growth, renewed excitement, a series of schisms, and one of the results of the Second Great Awakening was what was returned as new measures. Now, in the first great awakening, there was an understanding Jonathan Edwards was the first one to write it down. What happens in somebody coming to faith says first of all, there would be a an awakening to guilt. In other words, someone would start to be uncomfortable about their relationship with God. And so a lot of the preaching was aimed toward getting that person in that state awakening to their guilt. And so that's why he read sermons like sinners in the hands of an angry God, picturing you as being held by the by a spider thread. And if anything would break it, you're gonna burn in hell, and you better get right today. And that's what Edwards observed. And that's what he tried to create, again, through the power of the Holy Spirit, certainly, but in his preaching, following the awakening to guilt, there would be an attempt to find peace, Edwards talked about it as being a time of being under trouble. And that could go on for a variety of times. And then the person would come to the point of yielding his life to Jesus Christ. 

So those work, that was kind of the old measure of things. Now, under Charles Finney, new measures were being developed and kind of codify. Finney said that, you know, revival should be the norm for the church, it shouldn't be something that happens just as an outbreak of the Holy Spirit. But we can predict how the Holy Spirit works. And if you only do these things, you'll you'll find revival. And so the new measures were things like preaching style. Back then, in the traditional church, prior to revival, a preaching was saw as kind of a presentation of, of a well thought out document, and it was often read. And Finney now changed all of that he preached very freestyle, short sentences, made them very relevant to the day using examples from the day, etc. And so the preaching style changed. prayer was vital. And so if there was going to be a crusade, as they came to be known in an area that would make sure that area was blanketed with prayer prior to it, and it wasn't just the quantity of prayer. 

But one of the new measures was the quality of prayer, something that Finney was reacting to his experience. And Adams, you know, where he criticized we saw last time, the prayers of people who saw no answer. So So Finney began to teach his people who taught and trained others in very specific prayer of what they want, of who they wanted to converted, uh, how they wanted to see that conversion of when at which meeting, and that became very, very specific in prayer. And so that became a kind of a new measure, because it kind of put, drawing a line for God is the way it was criticized, you know, you're making God you're trying to manipulate God, you're trying to take his place. But, you know, Finney said, Now, this is how revival happens. The role of women was vastly changed as a result of the Second Great Awakening. Now in the crusades, they had roles of leadership, you know, prior to this time, as it still is, in many denominations. The role of women was to be quiet, you know, to learn at home, and all those exhorting from scripture was interpreted as relevant for today. But in the revival period, women especially experienced this newness of relationship with God. And they were invited into leadership in crusade preparation. And so they were part of the bands of holy bands. Have you seen the next point, they were part of the leadership of prayer meetings, they were part of the leadership of calling they they. They did more than they had ever done before in the church. 

House To House canvass by holy bands of prior to a period of revival meetings in a town, groups of people would go door to door, inviting people to the revival meetings, encouraging them to come visiting all of the businesses, Vinny himself would go into a town and would ask all the businesses to close during the revival meetings because you wanted everybody to be able to come. And there would be invitations to salvation as well. But the holy bands were there just to pray through the town and invite people to the meetings. The inquiry meeting was another new measure. And that is they tried to separate people from the meeting to separate into another meeting those who had deep questions. And so at first, the inquiry meeting would take place as after a revival meeting that those who had questions or wanted to ask more could meet afterward. And then it was for a while in the morning of an evening meeting that you'd be invited. If you wanted to know more. If you were especially worried about your relationship with God, you could come to this inquiry meeting and make inquiry having your questions answered. And eventually it became melded into the meeting itself. Another new measure was the protracted meeting. And that was, now there was a feeling that if you could exhaust people, they would be more open to the Spirit. And so meetings were held for hours, it wasn't just, you know, you come at seven, and you're done by eight or 815, or 830. They were held for hours, sometimes prayer meetings would go on through the night, in toward the end of this revival period, meetings were held morning, afternoon and evening. And, wow, what a exhausting kind of time in a town. 

But they found that more people responded when you did that. In that protracted meeting, then they would expect people to feel that awakening to guilt. And one of the most controversial of the new measures was kind of a combination of the inquiry meeting and the protracted meeting. And that is what they call the anxious bench. And I didn't put that on the PowerPoint, but you should be aware of that. The anxious bench was a place people could go during the meeting, they were invited to come there, if they were worried if they were feeling an awakening to guilt. And they would sit then up front in this anxious bench, anxious about their salvation until finally they would break there will be a breakthrough. And they would fall on their knees and receive Jesus Christ. And so that became highly controversial from those who are critical of the revival periods because they said this is manipulating God, and it's manipulating people. And so new measures was a very important result. Now, when you look at those new measures, you're going to see them lived out. Later on, we're going to talk about Dwight L. Moody. And he was the inheritor of these new measures. And if you're you've lived long enough to know anything about the Ministry of Billy Graham 1950s 60s 70s, you'll see this, this, this is what I was right in the preaching style of the prayer stuff. We'll talk about that later. But I just want to point out that that all came out of the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s. And so there was growth, renewed excitement and series of schisms, new measures. And this was also the time when sects and cults began to grow in this country in the middle 1800s. 

You look at these names here, and you say, the Mormons. This is when that movement got started. And you know, the story of Joseph Smith, supposedly finding these these plates as he was struggling with asking God, what church shall I join and, and the angel Moroni led him to this hill where he dug up these gold plates that allowed him to translate this new book that was called the Book of Mormon, and became the beginning of the Mormons. Jehovah's Witnesses, another new sect, and they were people who once again found new insights into the Bible. It was a new translation of the Bible. And, and you can study the Jehovah's Witnesses, and find just some of the fallacies and in their beginning but again, it was part of this religious fervor didn't just impact the church but created these offshoots, these, these cut offs Seventh Day Adventist church began during this time with the Miller rights, and the predictions of the end of the world and Jesus return. Some of them were really quite interesting in the native community, there was a sect that started of cult that started that said that they should share everything that we should get back to New Testament communism. And eventually they even develop the sharing of sexuality as as something you should hold in common. And so men and women weren't married anymore, but they were free to choose with whom they would like to relate sexually, and children were the children of the entire community. 

And that community, if you've ever had a need of silverware, that's where it comes from, comes out of that community, and didn't last that long. But it's just one of those ways, again, that this spiritual fervor didn't just impact the growth of the church but was fruitful soil for the birth of a whole lot of other things as well. And so we have growth, and renewed excitement of the church, we've got a series of schisms that happen in the churches, we got the new measures, sects and cults are being formed. And then we have reform as well. During this time, there are all sorts of movements to reform society, the temperance society was begun then, in fact, this is what led up to the making alcohol illegal in this country began out of the Second Great Awakening. It was the anti slavery movement that began here, that led to the Civil War, on moral reform, there was all kinds of movements to reform various aspects of society that were seen to be less than what we wanted them to be. One of them for instance, was simply a group of women have formed a movement a an organization that was to try to stop people from breaking the seventh commandment. A Sunday school was started at this time as a reform movement. It didn't start the way we think it started. We'd like to see Sunday school like we have it today where you come to church and the children go to Sunday school, and they've learned some nice things. But Sunday school was actually begun. For people who children who worked all during the week, and they couldn't go to school. And so Sunday school is began as a way to train them to teach them the things they would need to hopefully better their situation. And so that was part of a reform movement. It was only later that it became we're gonna teach them about the Bible. Now they did that. But basically, it was reading writing and arithmetic. When it started, Bible Societies were started. that exists today at faith practice, faith, prayer track League, producing tracks for evangelism. All of these things were part of the results of the fruit of this renewal. And when you look at this period of time, you also see foreign missions. just blossomed during this time. 

Here's some of the American Board of Commissioners for foreign missions, began to raise money and began an organization and sent out many, many missionaries. And this period of time was so rich, you'll see the name count Alexis de Tocqueville here. He was a noble men from Europe, who came to visit this country in 1831. He traveled all over the country. And this was his resulting statement that is widely quoted yet today. In the United States, the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently, hypocrisy must be common. But there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America. And there can be no greater proof of its utility. And its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. Here's somebody coming from outside saying, This is what I've seen here. And now, if he had come 15 years earlier, or 10 years later, it may have been a different observation. But here in the Second Great Awakening, just trying to give you the flavour, that the entire country was being changed. Now next time, we're going to see what happened to once again cause that pattern of decline and the need for another revival.