Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening
George Whitefield preached at Jonathan Edwards’ church in Northampton. Many were reminded of the revival they had experienced just a few years earlier. Edwards (1703-1758) was so deeply touched, he wept through the entire service, as did much of his congregation. Shortly thereafter, Edwards preached what would become his most famous sermon: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
Here is an excerpt of that famous message: The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear you in his sight; you are ten thousand times as abominable in his eyes as the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince, and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not got to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God provoking his pure eye by your sinful, wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
Reverend Stephen Williams was in attendance at the Enfield sermon, with his diary entry for that day containing the following account of the congregation’s reactions during and after the sermon: [B]efore the sermon was done there was a great moaning and crying out through the whole house — “What shall I do to be saved?” “Oh, I am going to hell!” “Oh what shall I do for a Christ?” and so forth — so that the minister was obliged to desist. [The] shrieks and cries were piercing and amazing.
Interestingly enough, “fire and brimstone was not at all indicative of Edwards’ preaching. Most of his sermon’s were focused on God’s beauty and love. Personally, Edwards was a sensitive individual with a soft, tender voice, who meticulously read his sermons. Unlike Whitefield, Edwards was not a powerful preacher, but he was a powerful prayer who often spent days and weeks in prayer, sometimes devoting up to eighteen hours in prayer before delivering a single sermon. The result was a revival that transformed not only a community but an entire nation.”
