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Choices and Family Trees

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Ruth 3:7 And when Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then [Ruth] came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. 

That night Ruth made a choice. Steal enough grain to feed her and Naomi for maybe a week or heed her mother-in-laws counsel and rest at the feet of the one who owned a pile of grain and the fields it came from. She chose wisely and from that one small, seemingly insignificant choice her and Naomi were fed for the rest of their lives. What’s even more amazing? Her small choice led to her eventual marriage to Boaz, and from their union a baby was born named Obed. Obed became the father of Jesse, and Jesse became the father to a shepherd boy turned giant-killer and king. And from this king came the Messiah. From an insignificant, pagan widow’s lineage the King of kings descended. One small choice impacted, and is still impacting the world.

Now the question you have to answer: Who and what is being “birthed” from the little choices you have been making?

An American educator, A.E. Winship decided to trace the descendants of Jonathan Edwards almost 150 years after his death.  His findings are remarkable, especially when compared to another man from the same time period known as Max Jukes. Jonathan Edwards’ legacy includes: 1 U.S. Vice-President, 1 Dean of a law school, 1 dean of a medical school, 3 U.S. Senators, 3 governors, 3 mayors, 13 college presidents, 30 judges, 60 doctors, 65 professors, 75 Military officers, 80 public office holders, 100 lawyers, 100 clergymen, and 285 college graduates. Max Jukes’ legacy came to people’s attention when the family trees of 42 different men in the New York prison system were traced back to him. He lived in New York at about the same period as Edwards. The Jukes family originally was studied by sociologist Richard L. Dugdale in 1877. Jukes’ descendants included: 7 murderers, 60 thieves, 190 prostitutes, 150 other convicts, 310 paupers, and 440 who were physically wrecked by addiction to alcohol. Of the 1,200 descendants that were studied, 300 died prematurely. (Larry Ballard, YWAM, Multi-Generational Legacies – The Story of Jonathan Edwards)

Who, what and where are you “resting” your choices on? Something that may feel good for the moment or something that will greet you in eternity?

Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening

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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.”

The Great Awakening

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Pentecost to the Present – Book Two Reformations and Awakenings, Jeff Oliver: “Finally, in 1733, a revival broke out at Jonathan Edwards’ church in Northampton. During one six-month period in 1734, nearly 300 new converts had joined his church. In 1735, he wrote, ‘The town seemed to be full of the Presence of God…There was scarcely a single person in the town, old or young, left unconcerned about the great things of the eternal world.’ The revival featured many miraculous and ecstatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit, which some critics used to try to denounce the revival. This included outbreaks of laughter during the services; some experienced visions or ‘impressions’ and others fell into trances or ‘faintings,’ as Edwards called them. he said, ‘There were some instances of persons lying in a sort of trance, remaining perhaps for twenty-four hours motionless, and with their senses locked up; but in the mean time under strong imaginations, as though they went to heaven and had there visions of glorious and delightful objects.’

Great Stirrings in America

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Pentecost to the Present – Book Two Reformations and Awakenings, Jeff Oliver: By the 1670’s, New England Puritan leaders began calling out for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit to revive their languishing churches. Samuel Torrey, pastor at Weymouth, Massachusetts, began raising doubts as to whether the churches’ reform efforts were even possible without an effusion of the Holy Spirit and proactive prayer for revival. In 1705, Samuel Danforth, Jr. wrote: ‘We are much encouraged by an unusual and amazing Impression, made by God’s Spirit on all Sorts among us, especially on the young Men and Women.’ Danforth said he had no time for his regular pastoral duties because of constant visits from young people seeking salvation and believed it to be a sign of greater things to come. He said, ‘I think sometimes that the Time of the pouring out of the Spirit upon all Flesh, may be at the Door.’ In 1713, Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, Massachusetts, grandfather of Jonathan Edwards, wrote, ‘The Spirit of the Lord must be poured out upon the People, else Religion will not revive.’ He believed seasons of revival characterized by special outpourings of the Spirit were necessary to quicken believers’ faith, convert sinners, and make disinterested people interested in the things of God. In 1721, Samuel Whiting’s church in Windham (now Maine) saw eighty new people join the church in six months. Observing this, another minister wrote, ‘Pray that the Spirit may be poured out from on High on every part of the land.’ Then in 1727, an earthquake rocked New England. Suddenly churches everywhere were being filled with anxious people seeking salvation as church leaders began wondering if this was not the nature of all revivals to happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Revival did ensue but not for long.