Jonathan EdwardsMrs Mumford reads in Church history of the great Awakening and revivals of the past, and she makes the claim that Jonathan Edwards was "The initiator of the Great Awakening in America during the mid-18th century." That is a questionable statement on two levels. Firstly, it is always God Himself who is the initiator of true revival. It comes sometimes in response to prayer, but at other times it may apparently be quite spontaneous. Secondly, the revival had already begun in 1734, outside of the town of Northampton where Jonathan Edwards was ministering, where there was a heightened spiritual concern after the very sudden and awful death of a young man. She quotes him: '"The apostolic times seemed to have returned upon us. Such a display has there been of the power and the grace of the Spirit.'" She adds, "Jonathan Edwards speaks of 'extraordinary affections, of fear, sorrow, desire, love, joy, of tears, of trembling, of groans, loud cries, and agonies of the body, and a failing of bodily strength.' He also says, 'We are all ready to own that no man can see God and live. If we then see even a small part of the love and the glory of Christ, a very foretaste of heaven, is it any wonder that our bodily strength is diminished.' And as the Canadians would say. And up comes the floor—for such is the power, the presence and personality of Jesus. He overwhelms us." She then quotes, she states, from the Psalms, that "Gladness and joy shall overwhelm us." Interesting quotation! The nearest I can come to it is Isaiah 35:10: "And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." It doesn't look as if it is the same, but the NIV expresses it as, "Gladness and joy will overtake them". The nearest that the meaning of the Hebrew verb gets to anything like "overwhelm" is take hold of. I can't find any other reference. The verb 'overwhelm' is used in the Psalms, but its usage is illuminating. "There they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous." Psalm 14:5 "The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me." Psalm 18: 4 "My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear." Psalm 38:4 "There they were, overwhelmed with dread, here there was nothing to dread. God scattered the bones of those who attacked you; you put them to shame, for God despised them." Psalm 53:5 "Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me." Psalm 55:5 "When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions." Psalm 65:3 "Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. Selah" Psalm 88:7 These verses fit in remarkably well with the historic accounts of true revival! There are a number of things to note here. To make any misquotation of Scripture is misleading, to say the least. It is unforgivable in one who claims to be a leader of a church. It is deceiving to project it to be the Word of God, and to use it to support and justify experience. Another thing to draw attention to is this appeal back to Jonathan Edwards. This is a phenomenon of the leaders of this movement. The simplest thing to comment about it is that they are misapplying what Jonathan Edwards was saying. He was not talking about the same thing as these leaders of today are talking about. Jonathan Edwards was talking about true revival, which came upon them spontaneously. It was indeed an overwhelming experience, but not exactly a 'wonderful' experience of the type being claimed to today. There was, in Jonathan Edwards' day, an overwhelming consciousness of the presence of a holy God, which led to deep feelings and expressions of personal unworthiness, and sinfulness. The felt presence of God led many to expressions of deep contrition and repentance, an urgent pleading with God to give them an assurance of His forgiveness. It was an experience of overpowering humiliation and a sense of the fear of the Lord. It is true that a wonderful joy was experienced when a wonderful assurance of forgiveness and acceptance came—but such phenomena as are being claimed to prove the presence of God today were not such evidences then. In fact the truth is, that when strange things did take place, Jonathan Edwards was strongly cautioning against encouraging them.. He supported the view that when the Spirit of God touched a soul there was a great emotional impact—but that there was great danger in looking at the physical signs of trembling and trances. He was concerned that people do not make claims for what was not true, for example, that strange happenings do not prove the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. He stated equivocally, "We are to take the Scripture as our guide in such cases... There are undoubtedly sufficient marks given to guide the church of God in this great affair of judging spirits, without which it would lie open to woeful delusion and would be remediless exposed to be imposed upon and devoured by its enemies." (The Distinguishing Marks Of A Work Of The Holy Spirit) Today, there is not an awakening of the heart to the work of the Holy Spirit through powerful preaching centring on the sinfulness of man and the glory and holiness of God in the meetings where these modern experiences are taking place. The Scriptures become secondary, and the preaching of the Gospel takes an even further step back from priority—or is even being considered non-essential. That was not Jonathan Edwards' experience and testimony. Falling down because of bodily weakness under a great awareness of a holy, sin-hating God is one thing. Collapsing and being "slain" by the mere touching of another human being is quite another. Let's not be misled by references back to a man who lived during amazing visitations of God on his people. What Jonathan Edwards described is not what is taking place at present.
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