We would not expect to learn about divine healing from Jonathan and Sarah Edwards for they neither taught divine healing nor prayed for the sick to be healed. However, when the Great Awakening came to Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1735, it had an amazing impact on the entire populace of the city. Not only was there a spiritual impact, but as Jonathan Edwards said, “It was the most remarkable time of health I ever knew.”
There were keys to this healing revival that seem to be lacking in the modern church, and this is what I want to examine in this article. If we could recover those keys and marry them to our knowledge of faith and the authority we have in Christ, we might well see the greatest healing revival since the book of Acts
The Spiritual Transformation
There
was an incredible spiritual transformation of Northampton. Everywhere one went
in the town, people were talking about God. Edwards, who was pastor of the
Congregational Church in Northampton, said, “The town seemed to be full of the
presence of God” (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that
Transformed America, 57).
People
came to Christ in droves. The one bar in the town was soon left empty. The town
was transformed and Edwards said, “A loose, careless person could scarcely be
found, and if there was anyone that seemed to remain senseless or unconcerned
it would be spoken of as a strange thing”
(Hyatt, 1726: The Year that Transformed America,
57).
Without
any emphasis on church growth methods or other human attempts to increase
attendance, the church in Northampton filled with those already born again and
with others seeking salvation. Edwards wrote:
Our public assemblies
were then beautiful: the congregation was alive in God’s service, everyone
intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the
minister as they came from his mouth; the assembly were in general from time to
time in tears while the word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and
distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls
of their neighbors (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that
Transformed America, 57-58).
The Physical and Mental Transformation
This
Awakening also impacted people’s health both mentally and physically. We must
remember that this was before penicillin and modern vaccines. The only weapons
they had against contagious diseases were quarantines, which they called
“bills.”
Edwards
says there were normally several quarantines (bills) put on houses every week.
But during the Awakening something wonderful happened. He wrote:
We seemed to be
wonderfully smiled upon and blessed in all respects. Satan seemed to be
unusually restrained; persons who before had been involved in melancholy
[depression], seemed to be as it were waked up out of it; and those who had
been engaged with extraordinary temptations, seemed wonderfully freed. And not
only so, but it was the most remarkable time of health that I ever knew since I
have been in the town. We ordinarily have several bills [quarantines] put up,
every sabbath, for the sick persons; but now we had not so much as one for many
sabbaths together.
This
is even more amazing when we realize that Edwards did not believe in divine
healing. As a staunch Calvinist he believed sickness to be sent by God. He
never preached a sermon on healing and never prayed for anyone to be healed. He
never made any prophetic-healing proclamations.
The Power of a Pure Heart
How
then are we to explain this marvelous manifestation of healing and health? I
believe it had to do with the purity of the motives of Edwards and his wife,
Sarah, in seeking God. They may not have understood some of the doctrines we
know today, but they far surpassed us in their pursuit of holiness and purity
of heart before God.
Their
prayers for an Awakening were born out of an intense desire to see God’s name
honored in New England and to see people turn to Christ and be saved. They were
not concerned for personal fame, larger offerings, or a bigger building. Their
motives were pure and Godward.
Edwards
was not an entertaining preacher. In fact, he wrote out his sermons and read
them in a monotone voice without ever moving from behind the pulpit. He was,
however, a person of prayer and was known to spend as much as 11 hours per day
in study and prayer.
In
response to their fervent prayers for a “revival of religion,” God invaded the
community with His manifest presence. In His presence, there was health and
healing even apart from healing sermons and healing prayers.
What We Can Learn From Them
This
should encourage us who preach and teach divine healing. If this could happen
with people who did not preach and practice divine healing, how much more
should it happen with us. Here is what we can learn from them.
1. Seek
God with a pure heart. Matthew 5:8 says, Blessed are the pure in heart for
they shall see God. It is obvious that Edwards and his wife, Sarah, strove to
have pure hearts before God. They knew the power of David’s prayer in Psalm
139:23, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my concerns.”
Their prayers for an Awakening were not self-serving, but honorable and pure.
2. Be jealous for the honor and glory of
God. They were grieved and distressed to see the name of Christ dishonored
by the spiritual apathy and indifference of the people of their city. Sarah
tells of being overwhelmed by God’s presence as she listened to a visiting
minister lament that God's children should be so cold and lifeless in their
faith. She said,
“I felt such a sense of
the deep ingratitude manifested by the children of God, in such coldness and
deadness, that my strength was immediately taken away, and I sunk down on the
spot. Those who were near raised me, and placed me in a chair; and, from the
fullness of my heart, I expressed to them, in a very earnest manner, the deep
sense I had of the wonderful grace of Christ towards me, of the assurance I had
of his having saved me from hell, of my happiness running parallel with
eternity, of the duty of giving up all to God, and of the peace and joy
inspired by an entire dependence on his mercy and grace.”
3. Stay focused on Jesus. Edwards
considered this to be the number 1 sign that a revival is a true work of the
Holy Spirit. He wrote,
“If the spirit that is at
work among a people is plainly observed so as to convince them of Christ, that
He is the Son of God … to beget in them higher and more honorable thoughts of
Him, and to incline their affections to Him, it is a sure sign that is the true
and right Spirit.”
If we can couple their pursuit of holiness with our
understanding of faith and spiritual authority, who knows what sort of displays
of God’s healing power we might see in the days ahead.
Dr. Eddie Hyatt is an
author and ordained minister with a passion to see America return to her
founding principles in the Great Awakening. This
article is derived from his book, 1726: The Year that Defined America, and is available
from Amazon and his website at www.eddiehyatt.com.
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