“The
Declaration of Independence of 1776 was a direct result of the preaching of the
evangelists of the Great Awakening,” was the determination of the late Harvard
professor, Perry Miller. But what was it about the preaching of Jonathan
Edwards, Gilbert Tennant, George Whitefield and others that would lead this Harvard professor, a recognized expert in Puritanism and early American
history, to make such a statement?
In considering
this question over a number of years, it has become obvious that it was not the
act or style of preaching, for there were very diverse styles; from Jonathan
Edwards, who wrote out his sermons and read them in a monotone voice without
movements or gestures, to George Whitefield who preached extemporaneously with
much fire and movement.
Has Style
Preempted Substance in Modern Preaching?
This also led me
to question whether, in our day, style has not taken precedence over substance in our preaching; and if technique has not preempted content? I recall inviting a young preacher to speak in a
meeting I was conducting. At one point in his message, he became very
flamboyant; standing on a chair, waving his arms and shouting. I thought to
myself, “He has run out of anything to say and is trying compensate for it.”
Sure enough,
later that evening in the hotel, this person said to me, “There was a point in my
message tonight where my mind seemed to go blank.” I asked, “Was that when you
climbed up on the chair?” With a note of surprise in his voice he asked, “How
did you know?” It reminded me of the preacher who was preparing his 3 point
sermon, and realized that Point 3 needed to be buttressed. In the margin next
to that point he wrote, “Weak point; pound pulpit.”
The Message
Matters
In researching
and considering this, it has become clear that it was the message itself that Edwards, Whitefield and others preached
that brought the results. We should not be surprised for this is what Paul
tells us in I Cor. 1:18; that it is not the mere act of preaching that produces
fruit for the kingdom of God, but the message that is preached. Style may stir
the emotions, but it can never change the heart. In fact, Paul says that if we
go too far in trying to make the message cool, hip, and acceptable to
contemporary culture, we run the risk of preaching a Gospel that is emptied of its power.
The Great
Awakening, of course, had its problems and excesses as does any revival, and as
does any Christian movement. Nonetheless, my research leads me to say that the
results of the Great Awakening should be credited to the message that was
preached, backed by much prayer, and to messengers who lived like they believed
what they preached.
Below, I have
delineated 7 emphases that made up the message they preached. This message
transformed colonial America and, according to Perry Miller, led to the
Declaration of Independence of 1776. Perhaps there are lessons we can learn
from their example as we pray for another Great Awakening in our land.
Their
Message
1) God is a
great, majestic and holy Being who created all things and to whom all creatures
owe their love, honor, and respect.
2) Adam and Eve,
our first parents, rebelled against their Creator and went their own way,
dragging their posterity down with them into the abyss of sin and judgment,
into what, in historical theology, is known as “the fall.”
3) The human
race in its current state is a rebellious and fallen race. All people stand
guilty and condemned before an infinitely just and holy God.
4) God in His
sovereign mercy and grace now offers full pardon and forgiveness of sins to all
who will put their faith in Jesus Christ the Savior whom God, in His sovereign
grace, sent to die on the cross for our sins and to rise again for our
salvation.
5) Get rid of
faulty foundations. They emphasized that many professing Christians had built
their faith on faulty foundations, such as church membership, good deeds,
family pedigree, social status, and cultural refinement. They emphasized that
these old foundations must be overturned and faith in Jesus Christ alone must
be laid as the only foundation for righteousness and acceptance with God.
6) There must be
a new birth. They emphasized that when one truly believes in Christ there is a
work of regeneration by the Holy Spirit that occurs in the heart—a new
birth—from which springs new desires and aspirations that are godly, producing
a whole new tenor of life. They believed that one would be forever changed by
this new birth, and the changed behavior they called the fruit of righteousness
and faith.
7) They
emphasized the eternal bliss in heaven for all who truly trust in Christ and
the eternal suffering and damnation of all those who refuse God’s gracious gift
of salvation in Christ.
America’s First National Event
The Great Awakening had
a pervasive impact throughout colonial America. Entire cities were transformed.
In his Autobiography, Benjamin
Franklin describes the wonderful change that came over his hometown of
Philadelphia, saying, “From being thoughtless and indifferent about religion,
it seemed as if all the world was growing religious so that one could not walk
through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different
families of every street” (Hyatt, America’s Revival Heritage, 53).
It was the first time
the colonists of different ethnicities, denominations and languages had
participated together in a single event. Franklin said of Whitefield’s outdoor
meetings, “The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his
sermons were enormous.” Denominational and ethnic walls came down and for the
first time they saw themselves as a single people with one Divine destiny—one
nation under God, as Whitefield prayed.
The preaching of the
evangelists of the Great Awakening tended to democratize Colonial society by
putting everyone on the same level—guilty sinners before God—with only one
remedy for all—unfeigned faith in Jesus Christ. We can see the fruit of this in
the American Constitution where in Section 9 the Founders forbade the American
government from granting honorific titles of nobility to anyone and forbade
anyone holding a government office from accepting a title or office from a foreign
king or state without the consent of Congress. There was to be no aristocracy
in the new nation.
Conclusion
America is probably
facing its greatest crisis since the Civil War. It is a crisis on multiple
levels—moral, spiritual, political and social. While many Christians hold out
hope for a political solution, the First Great Awakening would inform us that
only a new commitment to preach Biblical truth in love and in the power of the
Holy Spirit will bring the change that America must see in the days ahead.
After all, it was not
some newfangled revelation that was preached by Edwards, Whitefield and others. It was an old message made alive through prayer and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It was the same message
preached by those first apostles and followers of Jesus, and found in our New
Testament. It saved our country before, and it can do it again.
Dr. Eddie Hyatt is an author, Bible teacher and ordained minister with a passion to see another Great Awakening for America and the world. This article was derived from his book, America's Revival Heritage, available from Amazon and his website at http://www.eddiehyatt.com/bookstore.html.
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