CATEGORIES


“The Foundation of Our Founders”

Posted by Don Pinson on August 10, 2013 HeritageMinistriesKY.com


By the late 1600s the fervency of the church in America had died down to just embers compared to their Pilgrim forefathers. The Pilgrims’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren had lost the fire their ancestors had known. But God was hearing the prayers of His remnant in America who knew the true purpose God had for them and this nation. And in 1734 the Spirit of God touched down in Northampton, Massachusetts in such a notable way it would change the course of this nation, and set the tone for the birthing of the American Republic.

Jonathan Edwards was Pastor of the Northampton Church, and one of the greatest and Godliest Pastors America ever knew. He recorded what this move of God was like. He wrote,
“And then it was, in the latter part of December, that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to...work amongst us. There were, very suddenly, one after another, five or six persons who were, to all appearance, savingly converted, and some of them wrought upon in a very remarkable manner.
“Particularly I was surprised with...a young woman, who had been one of the greatest company-keepers in the whole town. When she came to me, I had never heard that she was become in any ways serious [about God], but by the conversation I had with her, it appeared to me that what she gave an account of was a glorious work of God's infinite power and...grace, and that God had given her a new heart, truly broken and sanctified....
“God made it, I suppose, the greatest occasion of awakening to others, of anything that ever came to pass in the town. I have had abundant opportunity to know the effect it had, by my private conversation with many. The news of it seemed to be almost like a flash of lighting upon the hearts of young people all over the town, and upon many others....
“Presently upon this, a great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world became universal in all parts of the town and among persons of all degrees and all ages...This work of God...soon made a glorious alteration in the town, so that in the spring and summer following, (1735), the town seemed to be full of the presence of God. It never was so full of love, nor so full of joy...there were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on the account of salvation’s being brought unto them, parents rejoicing over their children as new born, and husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands.
“...God’s day was a delight...Our public assembles were then beautiful; the congregation was alive in God’s service, everyone earnestly intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink the words of the minister as they came from his mouth. The assembly in general were, from time to time, in tears while the word was preached, some weeping with sorrow and distress...others with pity and concern for their neighbors.
“There were many instances of persons that came from abroad...[that] partook of that shower of divine blessing that God rained down here and went home rejoicing. Till at length the same work began to appear and prevail in several other towns in the country.”
(Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of President Edwards (Isaiah Thomas, editor), Vol. III, pp. 14-19. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and The Glory (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company), pp. 241-243.)
This move of God would come in intermittent waves for the next thirty years or longer. It was this atmosphere into which our Founding Fathers were born. This is why they were such Biblical thinkers. Now does it make sense why the secular mind we have today can’t properly operate the system they instituted? The Bible says,
“The natural mind receives not the things of the Spirit of God...”
(1 Corinthians 2:14)
Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you---
and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson, this has been Think About It.