Revival History: Miracles, Signs and Wonders

Revival History: Miracles, Signs and Wonders Instructor: Dr. Gene Bailey Week Six

Backstory : Puritans • Puritan values and the New Birth were embraced by businesspeople who had been suffering under the nobility • 12 ships and almost 1000 Puritans emigrated (as entire families not single men) 1620s and they laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual and social order of New England. • Some Puritans stayed back in England hoping as King Charles I was overthrown and killed, that Oliver Cromwell (a Puritan) might keep their reforms and freedom. For a decade it was. After Cromwell’s death (natural causes), King Charles II took power. King Charles was said to have dug up Cromwell’s corpse, hanged it with chains then cut off his head. The Puritans were grateful to have America to start their new lives.

Backstory : Puritans • After Cromwell’s death (1658), the jaded Puritans immigrated to the colonies and the life changing power of the New Birth came under attack in the colonies. • The ‘Half-Way Covenant’ of 1662 opened the way for unconverted people to become members of a church. • Soon unconverted ministers were allowed into pulpits across the land. Secret apostasies and flagrant sins corrupted and weakened the churches.

Back story To The Great Awakening • Jonathan Dickinson of New Jersey described the state of the church there: • ‘Religion was in a very low state, professors generally dead and lifeless, and the body of our people careless, carnal and secure.’ In Pennsylvania Rev. Samuel Blair stated, ‘Religion lay as it were dying, and ready to expire its last breath of life in this part of the visible church.’ The same conditions obtained everywhere throughout all the Colonies, from New England to the far South.

Great Awakening • The single distinguishing question in the First Great Awakening (no matter your church denomination) was a question: • Have you experienced the “New Birth”?

First Great Awakening For this Awakening these were areas targeted: • Prayer • New Birth • Unifying the churches across denominations Key Ministers: • Jonathan Edwards • George Whitefield

Jonathan Edwards October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758 Memorable Note: He was a pastor whose prayer vision spawned Revival Backstory: • At age 17, after a period of distress, he said holiness was revealed to him as a ravishing, divine beauty. His heart panted "to lie low before God, as in the dust; that I might be nothing, and that God might be all, that I might become as a little child." • He struggled in this time where few were born again to understand this. By age 18 Edwards resolved this and began preaching.

Jonathan Edwards • Edwards wrote his observations in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737). His most effective sermons were published as Justification by Faith (1738). These works helped fuel the Great Awakening (1739–1741). • George Whitefield read Edwards's book and visited Edwards when he came to America. • Edwards invited Whitefield to preach at his church and reported, "The congregation was extraordinarily melted ... almost the whole assembly being in tears for a great part of the time." The "whole assembly" included Edwards himself.

Jonathan Edwards • Edwards testified: “Just after my grandfather’s death, it seemed to be a time of extraordinary dullness in religion. • Edwards sought to restore a godly vision of youth. He saw youth as a time specifically designed by God for great joy, full of hopes and promises. He realized no one was born again. • After nearly five years of stagnation, Edwards experienced a youth revival in the town of Northampton that gained him international fame.

First Great Awakening • JONATHAN EDWARDS ORGANIZED A MOVEMENT OF PRAYER THAT ENDED UP CHANGING THE MORAL CLIMATE OF AMERICA

Jonathan Edwards • Jonathan Edwards noted that the young people were addicted to ‘night walking, tavern drinking, lewd practices and frolics among the sexes for the greater part of the night’. • Edwards contributed perhaps the most famous sermon in American history, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.“ • THE NIGHT BEFORE - A PRAYER GROUP HAD SPENT THE NIGHT IN PRAYER FOR REVIVAL! • HE PRAYED 16 HOURS THE NIGHT BEFORE • When he did that sermon sinners in the hands of an angry God he read it unemotionally.

Jonathan Edwards • George Marsden: “By fall the awakening had spread and was transforming the youth culture of Northampton.” One byproduct of this transformation was that, instead of spending Thursday nights “frolicking” about town, the young people now began meeting weekly in small groups at various homes. • One of his most notable conversions was a girl who as a night walker was doing every form of licentious behaviors. She found the new birth experience freed her and her joy inspired others to seek Christ, also. • These youth small group meetings were so effective that eventually the adults followed the youths’ example and started their own small group ministry.

Jonathan Edwards • His longest pastorate was Northhampton. They also fired him being offended by his requests for an increase in salary (he and Sarah had eleven children); his response to “bundling” among the youth and his sermons on the “bad books. • His passionate legacy that was sometimes mixed showed him working to get saved even blacks and Native Americans --while also being a slaveowner. • However, he left no small legacy: Edwards is considered to be one of America's greatest theologians.

First Great Awakening • https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=3REg6ZWLjZA

Jonathan Edwards love story • Marriage was often tough for traveling ministers. • John Wesley’s wife traveled to him then would scream at him as he preached. • With George Whitefield’s nonstop schedule where he never went home, at all, his wife never saw him. Yet, Jonathan Edwards love based marriage was notable. • Edwards: She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind; especially after those seasons in which this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She seems to have Someone invisible always conversing with her.

George Whitefield Dec 27, 1714-Sept 30, 1770 • 18000 sermons, 12000 talks over 30-year period • He crossed the Atlantic Ocean going between England and the American Colonies 13 times –he spent 3 years just on boats • He spent 9 years tirelessly working in the Americas. He would preach during the day and ride his horse during the night to the next location. • He was a celebrity and household name. Over 80% of the colonists knew him personally.

George Whitefield • George Whitefield was the first to take to the fields as church doors closed to him. • Whitefield usually awoke at 4 A.M. before beginning to preach at 5 or 6 A.M. In one week he often preached a dozen times or more and spent 40 or 50 hours in the pulpit • in England’s decadent era of vices people began joyously experiencing the New Birth and quitting buying at taverns. • Tavern owners hired mobs who sometimes attacked Whitefield and followers, maiming people and stripping women naked.

George Whitefield • Whitefield received three letters with death threats, and once he was stoned until nearly dead. • He was not deterred by the violence rather he recruited John Wesley and others to add more courageous ones who would step up to also do field preaching. • George detested lukewarm Christianity. He considered it worse than no faith at all. • At a time when there were no microphones, this powerful preacher projected his voice Benjamin Franklin noted so George could be heard by 30,000 people and up to a mile away.

George Whitefield • He delighted in shaking the masses with his colorful style. running around the stage and using dramatic facial and hand gestures. • Whitefield was a gifted orator who mesmerized audiences, using his voice in the manner of a skilled actor. He was a master storyteller, a skill he used often in his preaching. • Once, when he described a storm at sea, his powerful word descriptions were so vivid that a sailor in the audience actually cried out, "To the lifeboats! To the lifeboats!"

George Whitefield • Benjamin Franklin offered to print Whitefield's sermons so people could buy them, and he also housed the preacher above his shop on Market Street. • When the Philadelphia clergy refused to allow Whitefield to speak in their churches, Franklin purchased a building so that all preachers could have a place to address the people. • He also supported Whitefield's orphanage in the Georgia colony. Although the two men became devoted friends who respected each other deeply, Ben Franklin always resisted Whitefield's efforts to convert him.

WHEN GEORGE PREACHED - THE GLORY OF GOD FELL - PEOPLE BECAME WEAK - FELL OUT UNDER THE POWER - AND WERE CONVERTED RIGHT THERE - WHITEFIELD NEVER GAVE AN ALTAR CALL - BECAUSE THE CONVERSIONS WERE GOING ON AT THE TIME OF HIS PREACHING • IT WAS GEORGE WHITEFIELD THAT TOOK ALL THE LITTLE FIRES THAT WERE BURNING IN THE COLONIES AND CHANNELED IT INTO ONE BIG FIRE THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF AMERICA AND CAUSED THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF 1776 TO HAPPEN

George Whitefield • When he saw the Revolutionary War would be inevitable, he carefully advised the colonies in armament and preparation. When Lexington and Concord saw the first Americans die, he rode his horse across all the colonies to go comfort the families of the dead • The man who was born in a bar, with a theatrical stage presence followed his calling faithfully. He never wanted to live a long life but he loved America and wanted to be buried here. During the Revolutionary War, soldiers took fragments of his grave clothes with them into battle.

George Whitefield • https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=is9ztOI-h7c

George Whitefield • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z_aFD-EgbU

Lady Huntington • One of George Whitefield's offenses to the mainstream unsaved pastors was reaching the unchurched lower social masses and women. • One of Whitefield's greatest supporters in England was a new convert, Selena Hastings, the Countess of Huntington.

Lady Huntington --continued • The Duchess of Buckingham took offense and wrote to Lady Huntingdon: • "I thank your Ladyship for the information concerning these preachers. Their doctrines are most repulsive and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect toward their superiors in that they are perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common lechers that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting and I cannot but wonder that your Ladyship should relish any sentiment so much at variance with high rank and good breeding."

Lady Huntington --continued • Lady Huntington established over 60 chapels to encourage this new style in England and urged her friends and those in her social circles to hear Whitefield preach. • Her noble friends tried to deter Lady Huntington however she even led her husband to the Lord shortly before he died. • He left her a wealthy widow at age 39. When would-be New Birth pastors were thrown out of mainline schools, she launched a new, non-denominational seminary after the idea of Methodism. Without her help, Methodism would like not have happened.

George Whitefield • George Whitefield in all his journeys made 11 trips to Scotland • In Glasgow which had 17,000 people, 30,000 attended meetings. He was said to bring Scotland an Awakening not just America. Benjamin Franklin would walk the streets hearing hymns sung in most of the homes while in Scotland it was hard to find anyone whose life was not transformed by Revival. • On some of those trips over to England George and Benjamin Franklin along with nobility Lady Huntington recruited joined forces to talk with nobility at Commons to try to fight the colonies stamp act and other outrages.

David Brainerd (1718-1747) • Missionary to the American Indians in New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. Born in Connecticut in 1718, he died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-nine in 1747. • Jonathan Edwards whose daughter had been engaged to marry Brainerd preached the funeral sermon and published the diary which David had kept. They didn’t know as much how to stay protected from disease and she contracted tuberculosis while caring for David, and died.

David Brainerd • From his diaries: On 12 July 1739, he recorded having an experience of 'unspeakable glory' that prompted in him a 'hearty desire to exalt [God], to set him on the throne and to "seek first his Kingdom"'. • He went to Yale --which was birthed as a college to ordain ministers. • Yet during the Great Awakening Revival swept Yale students. However, Yale leaders quickly became hostile and would fine those who embraced Whitefield and other ministers Revival teachings.

David Brainerd • Brainerd’s tutor, Chauncey Whittelsey, also did this and was expelled for his passionate protest over it. • With a recently passed law in Connecticut that you had to graduate from Harvard or Yale to be ordained, Brainerd’s dream seemed over. • However, in 1742, Brainerd was licensed to preach by a group of evangelicals known as 'New Lights’. Jonathan Dickenson was the first to get him funded to work among Native Americans.

David Brainerd • His first missionary task was working at Kaunameek, a Housatonic Indian settlement near present-day Nassau, New York, • He started a school for Native American children and began a translation of the Psalms. • He was reassigned to the Delaware Indians where he experienced his life-threatening snake event. Within a year, the Indian church at Crossweeksung had 130 members, who would establish a Christian community.

David Brainerd • https://youtu.be/bY028uNZ5WA

William CareyAugust 17, 1761 – June 9, 1834 • William Carey (August 17, 1761 – June 9, 1834) was a British Christian missionary, Particular Baptist minister, translator, social reformer and cultural anthropologist who founded the Serampore College and the Serampore University, the first degree-awarding university in India. He was one who was impacted by David Brainerd’s writings

William Carey Father of Modern Missions • Carey is known as the “Father of Modern Missions.“ • Even though the Asiatic Society commended Carey for his translations that caused the “opening the stores of Indian literature to the knowledge of Europe and for his extensive acquaintance with the science, the natural history and botany of this country and his useful contributions, in every branch. • His essay, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, led to the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society and was read everywhere by anyone wanting to do missions.

William Carey Father of Modern Missions Chalkboard discussion with Dr. Gene, Greg Stephens, Doug Bonner and Linda Schulz Lane https://youtu.be/xitck9Ftrag

Revival History: Miracles, Signs and Wonders