Beeson podcast, Episode 444
Douglas A. Sweeney
May 14, 2019

Announcer:          Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham Alabama. Now your host Timothy George.

Timothy George:     Welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. Today we have the privilege of hearing a lecture from Dr. Douglas A. Sweeney. He is the new dean of Beeson Divinity School. He comes to us in that role from his work for many years now at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He holds degrees from Wheaton College, Trinity and also Vanderbilt University a wonderful scholar, a church historian of renown and a world recognized authority on Jonathan Edwards. The lecture we're going to hear today by Doug Sweeney was actually given in a church. The title is Jonathan Edwards and The Great Awakening. He gave this lecture at fellowship in the past church in Belmont California. You're going to enjoy hearing our new divinity school dean Dr. Douglas A Sweeney as he speaks to us on a topic dear to his heart, Jonathan Edwards and the great awakening. Let's listen.

Douglas Sweeney:    Good morning everybody.

Audience:           Good morning.

Douglas Sweeney:    I have been praying for you all for a very long time, and it's a treat for me and for my wife Wilma, who's with me today to get to see you, get to see these people for whom I have been praying, get to be in this congregation and worship with this congregation for whom I've been praying. I've been praying for you ever since pastor Rodgers was thinking about coming here. I've been praying for you in a special way in recent weeks as I've been planning to come here and be with you. Mark has been telling me about the transition that you've gone through, a time when he was brought on as associate pastor under your former pastor and moving in now to this new season where he's the senior pastor and he's asking the congregation to pray and maybe even fast and ask the Lord what he has for you moving forward. Mark asked me to teach about Jonathan Edwards in the great awakening and I'm going to just a second.

Douglas Sweeney:    I want to let you know one of my goals. I was going to say it was one of my sneaky goals but I'm going to tell you what it is so it's really not that sneaky. I'm going to be just very straightforward here. Is that this story of Edward's life and leadership during the great awakening would inspire you all in this season of your church life as you're praying and asking God what he has for you next. I want you to believe because it is true. It's a matter of fact. We serve the same Lord as Jonathan Edwards and that God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He works in the same ways in our lives, in our churches, in our communities as he worked in Edwards Day. Edwards's leadership in the great awakening is extraordinary. The story I'm about to tell you is not standard fare in the history of the church. It was a very special time. It was a time of what the puritans used to call a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Douglas Sweeney:    Or sometimes they referred to these times as seasons of grace just really special times. When unusually large numbers of people are stirred up to live their faith more authentically and more fervently to be witnesses to the gospel more consistently and where lots of other people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ for the first time. I've been praying for fellowship church that God would work in your community through you in these very same ways and days ahead. I hope, I pray, I've been praying that you'll bear that in mind even as I function here as a church history teacher and tell us a little bit about what happened in the 1700 through Edward's life and ministry during this period of time we call the great awakening. I have three main regular teaching goals for us this morning. One is just that you come to appreciate a little bit more than maybe you have so far. Jonathan Edwards life and ministry and the great awakening.

Douglas Sweeney:    Jonathan Edwards is the most influential pastor theologian in American history. He's the founding theological father of our modern interdenominational evangelical movement. He studied broadly both in Christian contexts and in secular contexts because he was just so very influential. He's worth knowing a little bit about. This is part of our heritage we're going to be talking about today and I want to shore up your sense of heritage and identity as Christians as evangelicals as Baptists etcetera. More deeply than that as I've said I'm hoping to undergird and inspire your faith in the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our churches by telling you the story I'm telling you today Edwards in my opinion is the most helpful person in the history of Christianity when it comes to helping people distinguish biblically between genuine work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and things that seem like maybe something special is going on but maybe it's not really God at work in those situations.

Douglas Sweeney:    He's really a helpful person when it comes to what he called the discernment of the distinguishing marks of a work of the spirit of God. I'll tell you about that as well. Then along the way I'm hoping that I can give you a better feel for your evangelical heritage, what it means to be a descendant of this great awakening, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the 1700s that brought all kinds of Christians together. A lot of the Baptist churches in America were born during the great awakening of the 18th century but this was a season where Baptists and Presbyterians and Congregationalists and other kinds of Christians living in colonial America felt this sense of solidarity because God was pouring out his Holy Spirit in similar ways among them all and bringing them together with a lot of excitement about this special season of grace and praying that the Lord would use them as individual congregations, individual Christians and then collectively as this emergent evangelical movement to be more faithful witnesses to the gospel.

Douglas Sweeney:    All right, so those are my goals for today. If you have a Bible nearby would you open it to 1 Timothy? I want to read to you the passage that Jonathan Edwards was meditating on when he was converted. I'm going to read it to you again in a minute, but I think if we open our bibles now and just read it first, it'll stick with us better, and it'll help us to remember something that's really special about Edward's life and ministry. The 20th Century Modern Academic Secular Study of Jonathan Edwards was launched by a powerful way ironically, by an atheistic Jewish professor at Harvard who drank himself to death in the early 1960s named Perry Miller. Perry Miller never came to faith, but he was fascinated by Jonathan Edwards. He used to say, "I can't believe in Edwards God, but I'm amazed by Edwards's relationship with his God." Sometimes Miller would say, "I don't really like this, but I'm saying it just to make this memorable and help you remember this later on."

Douglas Sweeney:    Edwards used to say of Edwards he was a God intoxicated man. For an atheist like Miller it was interesting. It seemed to him like Edwards was just intoxicated by his vision of God, his God centered vision of reality. Sometimes I like to say in a more Christian theological way, something similar. Edwards was a theocentric man to a really extraordinary degree. Theocentric just means God centered. His understanding of reality was centered on the person and work of God in the world. He had the kind of faith in God that most of the rest of us long for but haven't quite grown into. He's the kind of person who can inspire us to pray for, to yearn for an understanding of and relationship with all mighty God that we know we're supposed to have. Some of us are moving toward, but very few people have quite in the same way as Jonathan Edwards had. The verse that he was meditating on when he was converted was 1 Timothy 1:17. I think you're in 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy 1 is where I'm going to read.

Douglas Sweeney:    I'm going to read from the King James not because I'm a King James only guy but because Jonathan Edwards used the King James and I want to transport you back into his world a little bit this morning. I'm going to start reading, not at verse 17 but at verse 12, so we get verse 17 in context. We're in the early to mid 60s AD. Paul is writing to his companion and disciple Timothy, the young man who the Apostle Paul raised up in the ministry. Timothy is in Ephesus when Paul is writing this. Paul already knows Timothy quite well. Paul is writing 1 Timothy and 2 second Timothy to help Timothy come to a deeper more fervent commitment to the Gospel and give them practical advice about doing ministry as well. At the beginning here of 1 Timothy, Paul is reminding Timothy of his conversion and that's where we are now. Starting with verse 12. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me for that economy faithful, putting me into the ministry who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor, an injurious. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.

Douglas Sweeney:    The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the chief. How be it for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering. For a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting? Here's the verse. Edwards was meditating on, this theocentric God centered man was meditating on when God reached into his soul and saved it. Now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible the only wise God, the honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Will you pray with me? Lord we thank you that this is who you are and this is how you are in relation to us.

Douglas Sweeney:    We pray that in the next few minutes through learning about Edwards in the great awakening you'd use your holy word by your Holy Spirit to increase in us faith, awe, reverence, wonder about who you are, what a privilege it is to know you and to serve you and to be saved by your grace through faith. Lord please be glorified in our lives by increasing in us a yearning to know you as Edwards did. We pray in Jesus' name? Amen. All right. Jonathan Edwards was born on October the fifth 1703. Don't worry. I'm a history teacher, but I'm not going to load this up with a lot of dates. Just a few so we can get it in our heads what his context was. He was the son, and he was the grandson of super well known pastors. His father was a pastor in a suburb of what is Hartford Connecticut now East Windsor Connecticut. His grandfather, his maternal grandfather was the most influential pastor in all of western New England in Edwards Day.

Douglas Sweeney:    These guys were descendants of the Puritans. If you've heard of the Puritans before you've got a feel for the flavor of their ministries and their theologies. Edwards had the great blessing then but also the huge responsibility of living up to the legacy into which he had been born. Back in those days in 1703 moms didn't say to their kids, "Honey you can grow up to be whatever you want to be." Like a lot of moms say to their kids today. Back in Edwards Day as we say the apples fell pretty close to the tree. Most kids, most boys grew up to do what their fathers did. Edwards had 10 sisters, Edwards' father and mother had 11 children altogether. Timothy and Esther where the names of his parents. They had 11 children altogether but one boy and 10 girls. I'm trying to help you to imagine this reality.

Douglas Sweeney:    Everybody in the region knows about Edward's family, and they're all expecting this young man to grow up and become a pastor just like his dad and his granddad were pastors. I want you to feel what a sense of responsibility, what a burden maybe this might even have been in Edwards' life. Back then Harvard and Yale colleges were Christian colleges and they existed mostly for the training of pastors. Yale College had just been founded in fact in 1701 so that the western new Englanders had a college of their own, and it was founded as a little bit more conservative college than Harvard was becoming back in Boston. Edwards was expected to go to Harvard. Excuse me, he was expected to go to Yale. The way you prepared yourself to go to Yale in Edwards Day was studying classical languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Those were the required languages because the Bible is written in Hebrew and Greek mainly.

Douglas Sweeney:    Most of the old theology books were written in Latin and they wanted to make sure the boys could read this stuff they needed to read when they got to college. Edwards grew up in a house that had a dad who'd had gone through these places already at Harvard. Edwards is prepared for the entrance exams at Yale by his father in his house. Back then pastors were really the most significant theologians in the region. Sometimes today we think if you want a famous theologian he's probably at a university or a seminary somewhere. I teach at a seminary. I think that's a really bad idea. I think its best when our leading theologians are pastors like pastor Rogers. This is how it was back in the days of the Puritans, back when Edwards was coming up. I tell you that here just to reinforce this point Edward's dad Timothy played this role not just for his own boy but for a lot of boys in the region who wanted to get themselves ready to go to Yale college so they could become pastors.

Douglas Sweeney:    He had the parlor of their parsonage in East Windsor turned into a school room. He put benches in the parlor so that he could train the next generation of pastors as they were boys getting them ready to get into Yale College. He's the son and grandson of pastors. He's raised up in this way getting ready to be sent off to Yale. When he's eight years old, there's a special season of grace that takes place at his dad's church. He feels a sense of responsibility as the pastor's son to play ... This is going to sound funny but it's really true. To play a leadership role as an eight, nine year old kid among the other kids in town during this special awakening that took place in East Windsor. He built a fort out in the woods where he and the other boys would go out and pray together and he'd lead them in religious services. When he's 12 years old he goes to Yale, when he's 16 years old he graduates first in his class from Yale College.

Douglas Sweeney:    By the tiny 16 years old though this burden, a sense of responsibility to become a pastor was getting exacerbated in him. Because Edwards thought the number one qualification of a good pastor was not that he went to Yale College, was not that he read Hebrew and Greek and Latin. What do you think it was? Was that he knew the Lord personally, was that he had been truly converted and full of the Holy Spirit of God and thereby enabled as a pastor to help other people come to know the Lord. How can you help other people come to know the Lord if all you know about the Lord is what you've read in books not what's actually happened in your own life. Edwards didn't feel even after he graduated from Yale in 1720 when he's still 16 about to turn 17, he wasn't sure he'd been truly converted. He's really struggling with this. The Puritans were all about true conversion, good solid biblical preaching and teaching in the churches and Edwards didn't feel adequate yet.

Douglas Sweeney:    He was about the smartest kid in the region. That wasn't the problem. Head knowledge wasn't the problem. What the Puritans called heart knowledge or existential or experiential or experimental knowledge of God was the problem that Edwards was experiencing. Plus he's still pretty young. They had boy pastors back then but 16 was even for a region that had boy pastors. It was pretty young. We didn't have any seminaries back then. What young boys did, who felt like they were supposed to be pastors and needed more time for study, prayer, preparation was they did independent work towards master's degrees at the colleges. Edwards does this. He stays around in new haven Connecticut so that he can study towards a master's degree. The thing that was important about that period of time was not the formal requirements for doing the master's degree.

Douglas Sweeney:    It was the fact that in the early 1720s now is where we are chronologically. This is the first period in Jonathan Edwards life when he feels like he's just got a lot of space in his schedule and room to breathe. His childhood had been pretty regimented and Yale College for the boys who went there for undergraduate study was pretty regimented. The neat thing about the early 1720s for Edwards was that he got to spend a lot of time praying and meditating and begging the Lord to do a special work of grace in his life. One of the things we have to remember to get the force of what I'm trying to communicate in this part of Edward's story is the fact that in Edwards New England, you had to believe or at least you had to act like you believed in the truth claims of the Christian faith. It was illegal to deny publicly the truth claims of the Christian faith.

Douglas Sweeney:    You also had to go to church by law and you had to pay tax money in support of the ministries of the church. On the one hand that's cool right? We think well that could be a good thing if everybody has to go to church and be under the Ministry of the word regularly. What a huge positive blessing that would be for people. It was I don't want to say that it was and I think that is pretty cool. Imagine what a guy like Jonathan Edwards is struggling with in a context like that. The burden of his life after the conversion that I'm about to tell you about was to help people who had to say they believed, that had to sit in the church helped them understand the difference between being a mere cultural Christian or today we would say a merely nominal Christian on the one hand and living a life of Christian discipleship and walking in step with the Holy Spirit of God on the other hand.

Douglas Sweeney:    Edwards was not too arrogant about this but he was pretty sure that not everybody in his dad's church had been savingly converted and really was walking with the Lord. In fact Edwards was pretty sure when he was a teenager that he hadn't been and he's the pastor's kid hadn't been savingly converted and wasn't walking with the Lord. This is Edward struggle in this period of his life. The early 1720s his late teens. In the midst of all this just to move along quickly here for the first time in his life, he has an experience of God that's overwhelming supernatural, by the power of the Holy Spirit and comes to believe he's now savingly converted. Can I read his account to you? I know it's not great to read a lot in a setting like this and it's two paragraphs long. So you'll have to stick with me but it's so powerful and if you can stick with me I think it's really worth it. This is such a wonderful account of what God did in his life.

Douglas Sweeney:    This happened in about May or June of 1721. Interestingly Edwards never pinpointed the date. If you listen to the words by which he's telling us about his conversion it's interesting that he never pinpointed a date. He was a pastor who thought everybody needed to be savingly converted. He was a pastor who taught that conversion is a supernatural blessing of the Holy Spirit of God. He didn't think people had to be able to date their conversions. They had to be able to look back and remember basically when this happened but he wasn't trying to pressure people into specifying exactly what happened on May 14th at 3:00 PM. All right so listen to the way he describes this. I should have bifocals but I don't so sorry. I got to take my glasses off here. This is in the middle of an account of his spiritual life. He wrote to his son-in-law later on.

Douglas Sweeney:    The first that I remember that ever I found anything of that inward sweet delight in God and divine things that I've lived much in since was on reading the words of 1 Timothy 1:17. Now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. As I read the words there came into my soul and was diffused through my soul a sense of the glory of the divine being. A new sense quite different from anything I ever experienced before. Never any words of scripture seem to me as these words did. I thought with myself how excellent at being that was. How happy I should be if I might enjoy that God and be wrapped up to God in heaven and be as it were swallowed up in him. This is the God intoxicated Jonathan Edwards.

Douglas Sweeney:    I kept saying and as it were singing over these words of scripture to myself and went to prayer to pray to God that I might enjoy him and prayed in a matter of quite different from what I used to do with a new affection. It never came into my thought at the time that there was anything spiritual or of a saving nature in this. He gets it. Looking back that there was but at the time he just knew something amazing was happening and he wasn't processing it in a systematic way mentally. From about that time I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ and the work of redemption and the glorious way of salvation by him. I had an inward sweet sense of these things but at times came into my heart and my soul led away and pleasant views and contemplations of them. My mind was greatly engaged to spend my time in reading and meditating on Christ and the beauty and excellency of this person and the lovely way of salvation by free grace in him.

Douglas Sweeney:    Just a few more sentences. I found from time to time an inward sweetness that used to carry me away and my contemplations in what I know not how to express otherwise than by a calm sweet abstraction of soul from all the concerns of this world and a vision or fixed ideas, imaginations of being alone in the mountains or some solitary wilderness far from all mankind sweetly conversing with Christ and wrapped and swallowed up in God. The sense I had a divine things would often all of a sudden kindle up a sweet burning in my heart and ardor of my soul that I know not how to express. For Edwards there's a wide eternal difference between knowing things about God and knowing God. There's a wide eternal difference between what he and the Puritans before him called head knowledge of God and a heart knowledge of God. Now don't miss interpret that please.

Douglas Sweeney:    Edwards was a super intellectual guy. He's not against head knowledge. He's all for head knowledge. In fact he thinks 99% of the time the main way God works in our lives by his spirit supernaturally like this is through the Ministry of the word through, the Bible, through reading it especially through hearing it preached he thought something very special happens by the power of the Holy Spirit when the Bible is faithfully preached in a congregation like this. The emphasis he was trying to make in his officially Christian culture was that God wants to use that head knowledge to change our hearts, to fill our souls with the indwelling person of his Holy Spirit. That is what produces authentic real vital Christian faith and practice. That is what I've been praying for, for fellowship in the past.

Douglas Sweeney:    That you will experience that. I'm sure many of you already have. Those of you who have experienced that or experiencing that more and more in this season of prayer and planning will be re energized to share the love of God and the knowledge of God with those in your community those around you. All right. Let me tell you one more thing and then get to the great awakening. The one more thing I plan to tell you just to reinforce the point I'm making here id that Edwards preached a weird sermon that's become very famous and that illustrates the point I just made. It was based on the verse in James 2:19 that says, "You believe in God and do well." Remember this verse? "Even the devils believe and tremble." That's a startling verse. I think. If you live in 21st century America, that's a startling verse to read, and to try to bend your mind around. Edwards wrote a sermon that he preached to his congregation in 1746, I think it was, and then also preached elsewhere because it became so influential and then published it.

Douglas Sweeney:    Based on that verse, titled, true grace distinguished from the experience of devils. In the sermon, he said, "Look, Satan knows who God is." That Satan may know who God is better than you, because he used to dwell with God before he fell. The problem with Satan is not in his head. The problem with the devils is not a problem that's cognitive or mental or what they know or don't know. The problem is in their souls, in their hearts. The problem is that they hate what they know to be true about God. That really just reinforces what I said five minutes ago. I found over the years that that sticks with people. It's such an odd thing to hear a pastor say in a church. It's nonetheless something that I think Edwards wanted everybody, especially in his nominally Christian culture. I think there's analogies in our own experiences to this. People who they profess belief in the truth claims of the Christian faith, but it just doesn't seem like they've been transformed by the power of the Gospel. It just doesn't seem like they're walking with the spirit of God.

Douglas Sweeney:    They're growing in discipleship or even that they're longing to grow in discipleship and get to know the Lord. In context like that, whether in the 1700s or today, Edwards wants us to remember that while head knowledge is crucial, even the devils have head knowledge. We need to have real experimental, existential acquaintance with the Lord. All right, so he's converted 1721. Then he feels like it's legit for him to become a pastor. He does become a pastor in New York City first of all. After he's done in New York City, he for a period of time becomes a tutor at Yale College. He was a really smart guy. Again, he was not against head knowledge. He goes to Yale college to help students gain head knowledge, but he hates it. Yale was between presidents at the time and all the administrative burden of the school was placed on Edwards in addition to the teaching. He's still pretty young, early 20s. This period of time, the colleges were full of people back then who were working their way up into pastoral ministry. Edwards longing was to be a pastor not to be an academic. As soon as he could get out at Yale, he left.

Douglas Sweeney:    His father helped him get a church in the Hartford suburbs for a while. Then eventually, and here's the important part of the Edwards story, his grandfather's church in North Hampton, Massachusetts, western Massachusetts finally agrees to pay for an assistant pastor for his granddad who was in his 80s by then. He'd been asking his people for a while, can we find some money somewhere so I can get a young guy who can help me with some of the work? In 1726 they finally did. In the fall of 1726, Jonathan Edwards, and imagine the pressure you'd feel doing this. Its one thing if your pastor Mark, and you're coming for a transition here in Belmont and the former pastor is beloved by everybody and you're hoping and praying this will work well and the people will love me as much as they love my predecessor that kind of thing. If your predecessor is your own granddad, and he was the one who was the most influential pastor in all of western New England in this period of time.

Douglas Sweeney:    Some of the young guys who were disrespectful and didn't like him, referred to him as the Pope of western New England. He was so powerful as a clergyman. This is the one under whom Edwards comes up in who's church, he's finally ordained as a pastor. This man passes away in 1729 when Edwards is still just 25 years old. At the age of 25, Edwards becomes the sole pastor of the most famous church in the region. His grandfather is no longer there, so he does everything. He is it. Pastor Rodger's has it easy compared to the pastors back then. Because back then, they preach between one and two hours at a shot, so you have it easy too. They preach between one and two hours at a shot three times a week. These guys were serious. This was needy, biblical, theological preaching that took a lot of preparation. This is Edward's life. This is the routine he's getting used to. He's hardworking and he's really smart.

Douglas Sweeney:    That's not really what burdens him. What burdens him is a lot like what burdened him before he'd experienced conversion himself. He'd heard all these stories about how during the 60 years of his grandfathers ministry, there had been several seasons of grace. Several periods of time when it seemed like some special, extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit had taken place. From the 1726 through the early 1730s, when Edwards himself is the sole pastor, he becomes to worry because it's not happening while he's the pastor. He's not against good, steady pastoral ministry. The kind of thing that happens most of the time in most churches for all of church history, but he's somebody who wanted so desperately for God to do a special work of grace in his congregation. He felt like a little bit of a failure as a young pastor after his grandfather passed away. Because it didn't seem like it was happening.

Douglas Sweeney:    In fact, in the early 1730s, the very young people he prayed over every week in his study were out partying after the services at the meeting house rather than taking their faith seriously. This is what leads us up to the story of the great awakening. Edwards is worried about this. Edwards is praying a lot about this. Edwards is preaching about this. Edwards is longing for a revival in north Hampton, Massachusetts. In 1734 and 1735, one took place. I'll try to make this quick so I can tell you about the latter part of Edward's life before 10 o'clock as well. Early on, 1734 something special seems to be happening in the next town over. People in north Hampton get a little excited about this. Because sometimes revivals spread as people shared their excitement about them and began praying together about them across communities. This happens in 1734. Then in the providence of God, I don't want to say this the wrong way, please don't take this the wrong way. In April of 1734, two of the young people die in North Hampton.

Douglas Sweeney:    There's a young man who's name doesn't survive. Edward said he was in the bloom of his youth. From the time when he contracted his lung problem to the time when he died was two days. There was also a young woman who was married who died more slowly than that in the spring of 1734. When she got sick, she was worried because she wasn't sure she was converted. By the time she died, she was sure she was converted, and she became an evangelist in the town. Everybody wanted to come and see her. They're worried that she's going to pass away. They wanted to spend time with her, and she would make sure they were right with the Lord and give them a Gospel and encourage them spiritually and pray for them. Well, as you can imagine, all the young people in town get a lot more serious, all of a sudden, because there had been these deaths of their friends. Edwards decides as pastor to take advantage of the concern that they had.

Douglas Sweeney:    He got the young people together and he encouraged them to form small groups. That's a word that has long been associated with our evangelical movement. Small groups ever since the late 1600s have been used by evangelical kinds of Christians to promote seriousness in faith, Bible learning, prayer, spiritual accountability, spiritual fellowship. Edward says to the kids, and this is now the 18th century way of saying it. He says, "Why don't you guys get together and after the midweek service, instead of going out partying after the midweek service, why don't you get together for a time of social religion?" That's the old fashioned way of saying it, social religion. What that meant was meeting in small groups and praying together and having spiritual conversation together, spiritually edifying conversation together. Sometimes Edwards would come and give them a Bible lesson, but even if the pastor couldn't be there, they could meet and encourage each other spiritually.

Douglas Sweeney:    They did it. Then in the fall of 1734, one of the seniors in town passed away. A lot of his friends were awakened with respect to the importance of taking matters of the spirit more seriously than sometimes you do in everyday life. Edwards took advantage of that as well and he got the adults together and said, why don't we form small groups by community here in North Hampton and you all can meet either with me or without me and you can pray together. You can sing hymns together, and you can encourage each other spiritually. Then in November and December of 1734, Edwards preached a sermon series. He began at Romans 4:5 and used other Bible text as well to preach on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Which is a way of preaching a sermon series that's full of Bible, but where what you're doing mainly is giving people the Gospel over and over again. Helping them come to see what their hearts are really like, encouraging them to repent of the sinfulness of their lives in their lives and giving them the Gospel and encouraging conversion.

Douglas Sweeney:    To make a long and really cool story short, God used all of these things to bring a special season of grace to north Hampton, Massachusetts by the end of 1734. An amazing stuff happened, you can read about it. One really fun Edwards book to read is his faithful narrative of a surprising work of God in North Hampton. Where he just tells the story of what happened during this special season of grace. Edwards wrote other books that I wouldn't recommend because they're really heady and are really difficult reads. His sermons and this faithful narrative are easy reads and they're really inspiring things to read. Do you like listening to, hearing about, reading about what God does in other people's lives? If you're somebody who loves God, and loves the Gospel and is committed to kingdom work it's just such an encouragement.

Douglas Sweeney:    God has always used this Gospel intelligence, Gospel journalism, Gospel storytelling to spread the gospel around the world. Edwards faithful narrative itself became very influential because he's giving examples of what's happening in individual people's lives in the church. Then he talks about what the worship services are like, before the season of grace and during a season of grace. He's talking about what's changing in town. The love of God seems to be saturating people's lives and just filling their relationships with each other. There's people who before were just bickering and they never quite got along. All of a sudden, as a result of this pouring out of the Holy Spirit, pouring out of divine love in North Hampton, things are changing in town as well. It's also interesting. I don't want to belabor this. This is the bad part. The revival ended poorly in the summer of 1735. Hundreds of people are spiritually awakened. Scores of them are converted. It's not just in North Hampton.

Douglas Sweeney:    North Hampton sits on the Connecticut River that runs all the way down western New England. This revival spread up and down the river valley as well, where thousands of people are spiritually awakened in a special season of grace. Well, it ends sometimes these seasons of grace. You have to lead them well, if you're the pastor. Edwards came to feel like, I'm not sure I led it super well because at the end, a couple of the people in his community who had mental health struggles got suicidal. Because the intensity of the revivals, it worked them up into a state that exacerbated their mental health struggle. Edwards did feel after the revival ended, I could have led that better and he admits that to his credit in his story, the book faithful narrative. Because it ended in the summer of 1735, the late 1730s are this period of time in his life and in his congregation's life where they tasted this outpouring of the Holy Spirit and they wanted more of it.

Douglas Sweeney:    They're praying for it. There are longing for it. They're talking about it, they're praying for it with other Christians and they come to feel like they're part of a work of the spirit that's transcending even New England, and is bringing all kinds of European western denominations, special seasons of revival as well. Let me give you just a little bit of information. Stick with me here because this could be overload. This could be too much. Just to fill out what I'm saying here and make it seem real to you. Do you know the names John Charles Wesley? Do you know the named George Whitfield? People like this were experiencing conversion and becoming excited about this kind of Gospel ministry at the same period of time. The Wesley brothers and Whitfield were English. Their conversions had been influenced by descendants of the German pietists in continental Europe.

Douglas Sweeney:    There is this western awakening, spiritual awakening that's on the rise under the influence of missionaries from continental Europe in the 1720s and 30s, that's influencing the English powerfully in the 1730s. The Wesley Brothers in Whitfield disagree on doctrinal matters and sometimes those disagreements got heated, but they shared really important fellowship on the main things of the Gospel. They were meeting together in a small group in Oxford. They all went to Oxford University, praying for a special outpouring of the spirit, Whitfield experience as a conversion while he's in Oxford in 1735, the Wesley brother's experience conversion in London 1738. You know what book is one of their favorite books by 1738, a faithful narrative of the surprising work of God in north Hampton. It got them so excited about what the Lord was doing. Not just in their own experience in their town, but what God seem to be doing all over the western world, in various parts of Europe and Europe's colonies in North America in this period of time.

Douglas Sweeney:    The Wesley brothers grew up very high church Anglican. They read the faithful narrative. George Whitfield reads the faithful narrative. George Whitfield by this period of time is the most famous preacher in the world and he's very young. George Whitfield was born in 1714. In the late 1730s, he's still in his 20s. It was said that he was the guy who just ... He could pronounce certain words and the thing they used to say is it's simply by pronouncing the word Mesopotamia he could make people swoon. He's just a very gifted preacher, that kind of guy. He's converted 1735. He's friends with the Wesley's. He's reading what happened in Edwards north Hampton and up and down the Connecticut River valley because he's reading the faithful narrative and he's excited. He wants to go and preach in the American colonies. This is early in 1739. In this period of time, early 1739 Whitfield is preaching in western England outside of Bristol, England if you can picture where that is.

Douglas Sweeney:    If you can, it doesn't matter that much, to a bunch of coal miners. This is a coal mining district. The coal miners felt like working guys. They were usually dirty, their faces were covered with coal dust, and they didn't feel as comfortable in these high Anglican churches. What did Whitfield do. He says, all right, let's just have service outside. I'll find a little hill and I'll stand on a hill and you guys all gather around. He was preaching the Gospel outside to several thousand coal miners near Bristol in this period of time. God was working powerfully through his preaching. I'm looking at a clock, I'm not going to give you all the details, but the stories about these guys just being in tears. The tears running these little lines through their blackened faces with coal dust, just powerful. Whitfield thinking to himself, I got to get to the colonies, because I want to get to know this Jonathan Edwards guy, and I'm going to do some preaching there, may maybe out of doors as well.

Douglas Sweeney:    He writes to his friend, John Wesley. He says, John, you got to get over here and take over for me here in Bristol because I can't leave these guys without the Gospel and I've got to go back to the colonies. You read we still have John Wesley's diary. It's very interesting to read because he's freaked out by this. Because remember, he starts out as a very high church Anglican and you don't preach outside. You don't preach on a hill to 3,000 guys who've just come out of the coal mine. God's working in his life and he's excited about this Trans Atlantic awakening that's taking place. In his journal he says, it was March 1739. He says, I finally submitted to be more vial, funny. I'm sure at the end of his life he'd look back on that language and say, I was a snooty young guy, wasn't I talking like that? Just to make the point here, he felt like he had to get off his high horse and just get out there in the field with real people and give them the gospel.

Douglas Sweeney:    He does. Whitfield does. Whitfield becomes friends with Jonathan Edwards. Whitfield lands in America 1739. He writes Jonathan Edwards a letter. I've read your book. I hear about what the Lord's doing in your community. Can I come and see it? Can I come and preach in your church? Another thing that happened a lot during the great awakening was that evangelical pastors would help each other. Not just pray for each other, but take turns preaching in each other's churches, reinforcing each other's Bible teaching, reinforcing each other's gospel message, so then the congregation, you don't just have to take Mark's word for it. It's like there's lots of people who are here to tell you what God's doing, what God is like, how God works, and how God is at work in the world right now. Ask them to get caught up in this movement of the Holy Spirit. 1740 Whitfield comes and visits north Hampton. He preaches a lot.

Douglas Sweeney:    He's there a Friday, a Saturday and a Sunday, and he preaches two times each day. The accounts that survive of what happen, the whole congregation is crying while he's preaching. Whitfield says in his journal, Edwards didn't say this himself, he might have been embarrassed. Whitfield says, Pastor Edwards was crying during the whole service. If you're a pastor and you love the Lord and you love your people, you are just pray. You are on your knees begging the Lord. Please, show these people your love. Give them your Holy Spirit. Lord, please will you do something special in this congregation. Edward sees it happening. He's not even in the pulp, but he's looking up at George Whitfield. He's looking at people in his church and he's seeing it happen all around him. He's so pleased. He's so excited. Edwards later wrote a letter to Whitfield thanking him for the visit. He says, since you've come, lots of the young people especially in my congregation have been spiritually awakened.

Douglas Sweeney:    He says, revival has even visited my own house. Jonathan and his wife, Sarah Edwards themselves had 11 kids. Eight girls and three boys, and all the older ones were girls. His oldest girls then were 12, 10 and 8. I'm just guessing here based on what these guys said to each other. Edward says, I think salvation may even be coming to members of my own family. I think his older kids, his older daughters, were coming under conviction of the Holy Spirit, getting excited about living a vital personal Christian faith. All of a sudden, people in north Hampton and all over New England are just excited like crazy about what the Lord is doing. There's tons of evidence. You don't have to take my word for this. The historians call the 18th century, the great age of letter writing. We've got thousands of letters written back and forth between these Christians during this period of time talking about what's going on. They're studying Christian magazines, newspapers that are full of Gospel intelligence.

Douglas Sweeney:    Full of stories about how God works and what God's doing in these various places of the world that most people, 1740, if you're in north Hampton, you don't have ... It's not like being in Belmont today where you can see the TV news or go on the web and you can feel like you're a global citizen. These people were disconnected from each other. Took a long time for a letter to cross the Atlantic or even move a few hundred miles down the colonies. They start getting these magazines. They start reading these letters, and it makes them excited about what the Lord is doing. My time is almost over. Let me wrap this up and bring it to a conclusion for us. That in a nutshell was the great awakening in New England. It flourished in the late 1730s, the early 1740s. It was connected to special outpourings of the Holy Spirit of God in Europe, dating back to the 1720s, but really picking up in the 1730s. Then after the 1740s, North America was full of further seasons of grace in other places.

Douglas Sweeney:    As revival spread up north into Canada, south into the middle colonies and the southern colonies all the way down to Virginia and the Carolinas. Lots of people, tens of thousands of people during the great awakening are brought to faith in Christ. Tens of thousands of other people who had faith in Christ are excited again more than ever before because they're feeling it in their hearts. They have this sense of the beauty and glory of God and the Gospel. Their faith is enlivened. This is our legacy. This is where our evangelical churches come from. It's not that there weren't good churches before the 1700s, there were. There were wonderful churches before the 1700s. Because of this special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, lots of people become partners in the gospel who wouldn't even have known how to become partners in the gospel before this happened. They feel a sense of connection, most importantly to God and what God is doing during the awakening, but to each other as well. They forged relationships.

Douglas Sweeney:    They start what they called concerts of prayer. Edwards wrote a book. Pastor Rogers has written an article about this. He wrote a whole book promoting participation in a concert of prayer that had been initiated by Scottish Presbyterians whom he'd never met. Said, we got to become part of this because this is the God we serve. This is what He's doing, and we want to be part of what God's doing. My application for us in the 21st century, when we see God is still at work in the world in these ways, but we usually associate that work with places like China, parts of Africa, and too often we contend ourselves with being fans of it from a distance, bystanders. My challenge to us is let's be more than fans and bystanders. Let's pray that the Lord will give us a special season of grace as well, and we'll pour His Holy Spirit out on us, on fellowship church in Belmont, and use the head knowledge we're getting so regularly to keep transforming our hearts and fill us with His Holy Spirit, and enliven our faith. Enliven our worship.

Douglas Sweeney:    Enliven our prayers, and enliven our witness to the Gospel as ambassadors for Christ in our region. I had been praying that for you, praying it for me as well. Will you close with me as I pray about that again specifically right here. Lord, we thank you. We will forever give you thanks and praise. For who you are, for your gospel condescension to us, for saving us from our sins, for giving us your Holy Spirit and thereby uniting us to the risen Lord Jesus and uniting us with fellow believers in Christ. Lord, would you please deepen our gratitude, our appreciation, our wonder over this marvelous blessing. Lord would you pleased thereby enliven our faith, energize our witness and fill us as individuals, as families, as congregations with your love. Make us so full of the love of God and neighbor that we more instinctively live our lives according to your will. Get in step with what you are doing by your spirit in the world. We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, Amen.

Audience:           You've been listening to the Beeson podcast with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website, beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational, evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson podcast.