How Outpouring Comes – Another Look at Jonathan Edwards

How Outpouring Comes: Jonathan Edwards’ Principles of Revival

Jonathan Edwards was a revivalist in Colonial North America in the early 1700s. He is credited as one of the primary architects of the Great Awakening. The Great Awakening is important because it gave birth to the Evangelical Movement that has so influenced the world for the Gospel for the last 300 years. Men like Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley profoundly affected their generation. They were the impetus through their lives and ministries for the Evangelical movement that gave birth to the Pentecostal Outpouring right down to our day. We owe them much, and they are our examples. They didn’t think they were special or unique. They believed what they experienced was reproducible.

[Pro 22:28 KJV] 28 Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.

Solomon commanded in Proverbs that we remember the example of those who have gone on. God is no respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of faith. If we do with our faith what they did with their faith, we will achieve the same results.

Can We Learn from Past Outpourings of God’s Spirit?

Looking at society at large and even at church culture, we see declension and coldness toward spiritual things. In colonial America, devout pastors and leaders felt that the churches they led were apostate beyond recovery unless God Himself intervened. The chief means of expressing their concerns was worked out in prayer:

[Psa 85:6-7 KJV] 6 Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? 7 Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.

Jonathan Edwards taught extensively on the practics of revival. There were things that he learned by experience that brought the outpouring of God in his day. We can prophesy that a Great Awakening is coming, but if we want what they had (and we desperately need it today), we must do what they did. Edwards advocated the following as precursors to outpouring:

Prayer:

According to Edward’s view of the Scripture, prayer is a duty attributed to every believer and also a prerequisite for the activity of the Holy Spirit in revival. Edwards believed that the believer’s responsibility to pray and the activity of the Sovereignty of God to answer prayer (in bringing an outpouring of revival) worked concurrently together. In other words, there would be no evidence of the Sovereignty of God at work except in answer to prayer.

Quote:

There is no way that Christians in a private capacity can do so much to promote the work of God and advance the kingdom of Christ, as by prayer. By this even women, children and servants may have a public influence (Edwards Works 10:518).

Where there is no prayer, according to Edwards, there is a free and unhindered activity of the evil one. Where there is no prayer, the only manifestation of God at work in the earth will be judgment. In concert with prayer, the expression of God at work in the earth will be mercy.
The Scripture tells us:

[Zec 10:1 KJV] 1 Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; [so] the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field.

Material Support:

Colonial New England in Edward’s day was not without means. Edwards fervently believed that as important as prayer was, it was equally important that the people support God’s work, lending themselves to revival with their material means (giving).

Quote:

Great things might be done for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ by those that have the ability, through redirecting their resources expended for other purposes to the support and propagation of revival; by supporting some that are eminently qualified with gifts and grace and in distributing materials that are remarkably fitted to promote vital religion.

The scripture tells us:

[Mat 10:8-10 KJV] 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. 9 Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, 10 Nor scrip for [your] journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat [Luke 10:7 – hire].

[Luk 6:38 KJV] 38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

 

Preaching:

To Edward’s, God is always speaking, but we aren’t always listening. World events and local events were portrayed in Edward’s messages as God speaking to His people. He coined the term “God’s Providence – Preaches.” Edward’s preaching was described as intense, extreme, and repetitious. His purpose was to ingrain in the mind a deeper and deeper certainty of dreadful justice outside of Christ and abundant grace within the framework of the born-again experience.

You would think that the necessity of preaching goes without saying, but in seminary training, today, leaders are discouraged from preaching. I have personally witnessed ministers right in the local area where we live who have openly rejected preaching as a means of furthering the kingdom. They instead intend to use inductive methods by which leadership is dispensed with, preaching is never brought in and (in one person’s view) to do otherwise is to completely be out of God’s will and not “with it.”

The scripture tells us:

[1Co 1:21 KJV] 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

[Rom 10:13-15 KJV] 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. 14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

Writing:

Edwards promoted and encouraged revival and outpouring through his writings. Without spreading the message through the printed page (an innovation at the time), visitations of God were short-lived and heavily localized. In the day that we live in every man, woman and child is a writer by virtue of engagement with the internet and social media. Your digital footprint is a stewardship before God that you will answer for in terms of the content, testimony, and message that comes forth in your name every day of the world. Your online presence is your pulpit, and it is your privilege and responsibility to proclaim the gospel message.

Quote:

Edwards encouraged ministers and laypersons in communities throughout the colonies to stage and report revivals through the written word. In the Northampton revival in 1734, Edwards wrote extensively on the state of local degeneracy, the breakdown of family life, and social contentiousness. He recounted testimony after testimony of the spiritual experiences of notable converts. He unflinchingly described in sympathetic terms the tears, trembling, groans, cries, and physical manifestations that accompanied the visitation of God we call the Great Awakening.

The scripture tells us:

[Eze 9:2-4 KJV] 2 And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them [was] clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in and stood beside the brasen altar. 3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which [had] the writer’s inkhorn by his side; 4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

The above verse describes six men sent by God into the earth. The first five represent the five-fold ministry of Eph. 4:11-12. The sixth man is a man with a writer’s inkhorn whose work is to mark the servants of God in their forehead. This speaks of a ministry office as an addendum to the five-fold ministry, sent out by

God to spread the gospel through writing in the end time that Daniel referred to as a time when “knowledge shall be increased” (through the internet, etc.).

Conclusion:

[Heb 13:7 KJV] 7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of [their] conversation.

[Heb 6:12 KJV] 12 That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Until the end of Edward’s life, he wrote, preached, prayed, and lived in the urgent declaration of the need to outpour God in revival. He served in a dual capacity as a sober-minded pastor and a fiery-tongued evangelist. He felt obligated to take the message of God to all who struggled in this life. It is true that he saw revival as uniquely the work of God and not man, yet at the same time, he worked tirelessly, expending all his energy to promote the outpouring of what we now call the Great Awakening. His messages were saturated with the word of God. His aim through preaching was to apprehend the affections of his hearers and then move them toward God in the renewal of heart and commitment beyond their previous devotion or lack thereof. From Edwards and men like him, we may take our own measure of how much a part of what God is doing we are in concert with by our personal, heartfelt dedication and by what metric our lax hearts are in opposition to that which we claim to advocate.