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THE GREAT AWAKENING (PART II)
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider o some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. You are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes, as the most hateful and venous serpent…If you cry to God to pity you, He will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favor, that instead of that, He will only tread you under foot” (Sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards). This particular sermon was the types that fueled the Great Awakening. The wording might seem harsh and unloving. But an understanding of the dark road that the Age of Enlightenment had taken the world and the Church makes it clear why such sermons were necessary. The Church had fallen into a spiritual stupor. Her power and influence was slowly ebbing away. She needed awakening! Sinners needed to be brought face-to-face with the reality of sin and God’s hatred of it. To this situation God raised up passionate Preachers of the Gospel. Preachers whose sole passion was to live holy and bring that message to the Body of Christ and the world. The greatest of these were Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan and George Whitefield a dissenting Anglican Preacher. Both men were dynamic in their own way. By our standards, Edwards would not have been regarded as a great preacher because he read all of his sermons in a monotone fashion and never looked up (Reformation and Revival, Erwin Lutzer, Moody Audio Series). Yet he was so filled and empowered by the Spirit that his words pierced the hearts of his hearers to the point of weeping. Edwards evangelized in the New England region converting souls, not by his power but the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit working through the preached word. Here lies the secret (for lack of a better word) of true revivals. First, it originates with the Holy Spirit during times of spiritual droughts. He first prepares the hearts of sinners and then sends the Gospel. George Whitefield illustrated this perfectly. Crowds of more than 6000 attended his outdoor services. He preached the Gospel so intensely that hearers “were struck pale as death” and cried “unto God” for salvation when George Whitefield preached (The Baptists, Anne DeVereaux Jordan and J. M. Stifle, Hippocrene Books). It should be pointed out that although sermons by preachers of this era might be regarded as “Hell and Brimstone”, they were far from that. Instead the fervor of their preaching sprang from sincere hearts filled with God’s love for lost sinners. Their urgency in proclaiming the Gospel was motivated and driven by the understanding that God takes “no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). Such attitudes and commitment are only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. Second, true revival always results in massive conversions. These two reasons were the core of the first and second Great Awakening in early America. Conversion was and still is an experience that speaks to the innate sinfulness of man after Adam’s fall, the Omnipotent of God, His justice, mercy and love for the elect. Men such as Edwards and George Whitefield believed that salvation was not just something people believed (though belief is essential to faith), but something that happened to them—it was a new birth! It affected their view and relationship to the world. Although all preachers during this time possessed the same zeal in proclaiming the Gospel, there existed a divide on how God saves man. Edwards and Whitefield were staunch Calvinists, and believed in man’s total inability to save himself. Being dead and under the bondage and power of sin, he is incapable of saving himself apart from the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they did not believe in invitations to discipleship believing those truly regenerated needed no prompting from anyone to confess their faith in Christ. But there were others such as Charles Finney, who recognized that men are born in sin, while emphasizing man’s ability to respond to God’s call if given the opportunity. As a result, Finney was the first to add at the end of sermons an “Invitation to Discipleship.” As an Arminian, he strongly believed that “a revival was something preachers and communicants did. It was a deliberately orchestrated event that deployed a variety of spiritual practices to provoke conversions especially among the unconverted youth”(Evangelicalism, Revivalism, and the Second Great Awakening, Donald Scott, Queens College). One might infer that Finney gave balance to the teachings, writings and preaching of the more stern preachers like Edwards and Whitefield. Whether this is true or not, only time will tell. Whether we’re talking about Finney, Edwards, Whitefield or other great preachers of the Great Awakening, the one thing agreeable by all is their contribution to the spiritual awakening of the Church. They made popular the great outdoor Crusades now made popular by Dr. Billy Graham and others. In their time, they radically changed the people’s mind-frame about established churches such as the Church of England. The stigma of joining dissenting groups such as the Baptists became a thing of the past. The Church was imbued with new energy and new opportunity. This new energy had energized Baptists even more so. However, the influx of Believers from established churches brought with it its own problems; problems that would present a greater challenge—maintaining Baptist unity.
In Christ, Minister John Cobb
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