Every man to his own corner in the event of a knock down ***grin**
Can we talk about sin without committing one? That is my challange to myself and all of you.
Doc could you repost your teaching? Cvengr coould you put your thoughts back up? Matchett I think you had some thought too
***
Satan, manifesting himself as the Serpent of Genesis 3, told man a single lie presented in two different forms. He said that man would not die for unbelieving disobedience. He re-stated the lie in a more alluring form when he said that man would achieve godhood by a God-defying determination to sin (i.e., to know the issues of good and evil, by evil experience, for himself).
One of the reasons why we know that we should regard this as a single lie presented in two different forms--other than the obvious parallel between the two statements!--is found in Romans 1:25. That verse literally says "for they exchanged the truth of God for THE lie."
So, it was THE lie--or, as I have chosen to designate it, the Lie of Eden.
Now, inasmuch as this lie was stated in two different versions, we need to realize that the second version is just designed to be especially seductive. The first statement of the Lie, claiming that man would not die for unbelieving disobedience, is the one on which I would like to focus.
This statement, when we fully appreciate what it is saying, is the one which unmasks Arminianism as a fraud. (Ah, but the whole thing is subtle! See again Genesis 3:1a!)
More to come tomorrow.
***
By about the year 1700, the American colonies were in a miserable mess of religious apostasy. This was only a century after groups like the Pilgrims had come here in pursuit of primarily Christian goals.
Needless to say, the colonies of the early 1700s were in no shape to forge a destiny which would include defying the British Crown in a major revolution. Nor were the colonies in any shape to come together as "One Nation Under God."
In 1734, however, Jonathan Edwards preached a series of sermons on justification by faith in Northampton, Massachusetts. Over three hundred people were converted to Christ in a six-month period.
This is a pretty spectacular figure when we realize that Edwards did not use today's "altar call" strategies for getting people to profess faith in Christ. Edwards was persuaded that profession of faith means nothing in and of itself, and he did not encourage the unconverted to profess a faith which they did not really have. Edwards believed that a false profession of faith would just make the poor sinner's religious dilemma even worse--by sealing him in a vicious hypocrisy.
In short, Edwards demanded reality.
On July 8, 1741, Edwards preached his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" at Enfield, Connecticut. This sermon was the spiritual catalyst for what became known as the Great Awakening. It was the most significant revival in the history of the Western Hemisphere, and arguably one of the most significant in the history of the world. The Great Awakening lasted for several years.
From New England, the revival spread to the Middle colonies and the South. One of the founders of Methodism, George Whitefield, was a huge factor. Edwards did not travel widely in the way Whitefield did. Whitefield traveled up and down the eastern seaboard by horseback. In one year, as many as 50,000 people were converted to Christ. Prior to the advent of George Washington, George Whitefield was literally the best-known person in the American colonies.
Most history books will not tell you this.
Even Benjamin Franklin, who never became a Christian, personally knew and respected both Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. And when Franklin was our first ambassador to France, he delighted to tell the crowned heads of Europe that we had founded a nation on the Bible itself.
Most history books will not tell you that, either.
***
It is important to appreciate the theological ties between Edwards and Whitefield, since Whitefield aided the spread of the revival which had actually started under Edwards.
Edwards was a Congregationalist. Whitefield was an Anglican. But apart from some difference in theories of church government, their theologies were essentially identical. They were Calvinists.
It is practially impossible to overstate the influence of Calvinism in the founding of our nation. By 1775, our colonies really were largely Christian and largely Calvinistic in particular. (Jefferson was no Christian, of course, but he had a grudgingly high respect for Calvinistic Christians [as seen in his liaison with the Danbury Baptists].)
The take-home point is that our colonial leadership was dominated by Christians, and the leading individuals in that Christian leadership were Calvinists. These included all sorts of Calvinists, ranging from Episcopalians (similar in doctrine to Whitefield) to Presbyterians to Congregationalists to Baptists (a very fast-growing group at the time).
The Calvinism was so conspicuous in the American Revolution that one English wag said that it looked like "Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson."
This is not to say that the theology of Edwards and Whitefield was completely unchallenged. Edwards and Whitefield had both faced considerable opposition from the religious establishment during the Great Awakening. Even Whitefield's Methodist partner in the early effort--John Wesley--broke away from Whitefield and went off into Arminianism in vigorous opposition to Whitefield. And he did this during the Great Awakening. (Wesley formed a splinter group and went out on his own.)
At the time of the American Revolution, Wesley was a Tory. I am not bringing that up in an attempt to slander Wesley. Rather, I am trying to set the record straight as to who our nation's real founders were. They were Whitefieldian Christians, not Wesleyan.
***
In our own day, most American churchgoers are Arminians more or less like Wesley. Most American Methodists are diehard Wesleyans. (Curiously, a lot of British Methodists in our day are Whitefieldians. Go figure.)
The Calvinists on FR think it is terribly important for Americans in general and Christians in particular to understand the theology which made this nation great. We think we need a Jonathan Edwards or a George Whitefield in our day.