The Great Awakening

Teaching a class on the subject of the Great Awakening should promote the facts that the Great Awakening was headed by the most unlikely people, was put into restraint by the leaders, and was remembered for the faithfulness of its leaders. All three facts are important regarding the Great Awakening because they indicate that God was at work to awaken the people in religious revival even if the instruments of revival appeared unlikely to ever cause revival.

The Great Awakening happened as a result of the work of the most unlikely people to influence religious revival. Consider the following account that attributes Whitefield to have preaching abilities endowed by God and paralleled to those given to the meek.

"One of his brethren proposed to him to go forth and preach beyond the bounds of his own parish; but he made no reply at the time; not knowing the will of the Lord concerning it. He, however, made it a subject of prayer; and after some time, on opening his Bible, though he had no thought of turning to that passage, his eye fell on the account of the attack which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made on the Philistines. As he read, he saw every line, every word, in a new light. The Lord caused it to make a strong impression on his mind. As Jonathan and his armor-bearer went to the camp of the Philistines, so the Lord called him and the man just mentioned to go to Easthampton, where they should convert as many as Jonathan and his armor-bearer slew; but as Jonathan had a sign, - that he should not attack the garrison unless the Philistines called him, "come up hither," - so he must wait till he was invited to Easthampton." (Tracy, 234)

The point is that Whitefield was not a likely person to engage in powerful mass conversion practices, but the Word of God empowered him through God working in his life.

The Great Awakening occurred despite the greatest attempts to stop congregates from expressing emotion during services. The fact is that the work that occurred in the people to transform them is attributed to be the utter power of God at work without resistibility. Consider the following,

"Many, who can understand how sinners should be overcome by a sense of danger, will be staggered at these accounts of intense, overpowering emotion in Christians, in view of purely spiritual objects,- of God, and the glorious truths that relate to him. But the fact that they did thus feel, and were thus overcome by their feelings, is undeniable. And the testimony is abundant, that such beholdings of the glory of the Lord did exert a transforming influence upon them, making them more humble, more kind, more patient, more ready for every good work, more entirely amiable in the eyes of all who love true goodness." (Tracy, 145)

The point is that the efforts of the revivalists are not necessary directly responsible for the results that occurred in the people.

Jonathan Edwards devoted himself to study in an extreme fashion faithfully regardless of its lack or results.

Gonzalez writes about this reverence for study when he writes that,

"..The goal of the movement was not worship services marked by continual shows of emotion, but rather a single experience that would lead each believer to greater devotion and more conscientious study of Scripture. This may be seen in Jonathan Edwards's sermons. They are not emotive harangues, but careful expositions of profound theological matters. " (Gonzalez, 229)

The point is that Edwards invested himself in profound theological matters instead of emotional appeal and the simple matters that entertain people, and as a result Edwards may not have had very good results at first but God gave good results in the end.

If I was teaching a class on the Great Awakening, then I would encourage students to understand the point that God was at work in the Great Awakening and that it cannot be attributed to the power of man. The fact that God had a transforming effect on the people, that Edwards was faithful in his depth of study, and that Whitefield was humble to seek God's will in a meek way are all very important facts for showing the nature of the Great Awakening. Overall, the nature of the Great Awakening showed that God was ultimately responsible and in charge of it.

Bibliography:

Gonzalez, Justo. The Story of Christianity: The Reformation to the Present Day, vol. 2. San Francisco, California: Harper, 1985.

Tracy, Joseph. The Great Awakening: a History of Revival of Religion in the Time of Edwards and Whitefield. Boston: Charles Tappan, 1845.