Early American Revivals

Before mounting into his pulpit Jonathan Edwards had knelt to pray.  Should he preach what the people wanted or should he tell the truth?

Concern pressed in upon him.  Gone was that God fearing generation that have settled the land, but that day in 1734 marked the birth of what in many respects was the most notable revival of religion in America that has ever experienced.

There was a remnant of godly left.  They soon realized that the halfway covenant was a terrible mistake.  Something was desperately needed to keep the flickering flame of vital Christianity from wholly being snuffed out.

As God of often does, he chose a man to unlatched the windows of darkened churches to let the light in.  This man was Jonathan Edwards.  He had a religious bent early in life.  He struggled to know that true plan of salvation.Finally he came upon the passage in Timothy; “now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and Glory for ever and ever. Amen.”  That one sentence gave Edwards a new sense of things.  A sense of God's Glory filled him.

George Whitefield fanned the fire of God. He came from a England.  And spoke with quiet  intensity.  He painted pictures with his words.  He built truth upon truth.  In his most famous sermon entitled, “sinners in the hands of an angry God,” he compared the sinner to a spider suspended over the flames of hell.  He said, you hang by a slender thread, with flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe and burn it asunder.

Whitefield preached in meeting houses, in barns, in fields, from wagons.  Everywhere it was the same.  People were convicted of their sin and driven to the foot of the cross.  There was never an invitation given.  Whitefield merely preached and waited for the Spirit to move.  People wept, some from remorse others with joy.

Prayer, fasting and boldness brought on great revivals in the 1700s.  If that could happen then it can happen again.  Who was willing to pay the price?  Who was willing to move away from status quo?  I leave you with those two questions