Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God

Jonathan Edwards preached this message on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut after having already preached it to his own Massachusetts.  History records that the Enfield church was not responding to the moving of the Holy Spirit and that the Pastor invited Edwards to preach with the hope that his congregation would be stirred to take hold of God.

The sermon’s theme, "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God,”  was central to the Great Awakening and permeated the sermon in its entirety.   We are told that Edwards was interrupted several times with people crying out such questions as, “What must I do to be saved,” and “Mr Edwards, is there no hope for me?”

Beyond the central theme, Edwards put forth ten propositions to prove his theme.  I think today’s culture needs be reminded of these important issues:

    1.    There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment.
    2.    They deserve to be cast into hell.
    3.    They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell.
    4.    They are not the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God that is expressed in the       torments of hell.
    5.    The devil stands ready to fall upon them and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him.
    6.    There are, in the souls of wicked men, whose hellish principles reigning that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire if it were not for God’s restraints.
    7.    It is no security to wicked men for one moment that there are no visible means of death at hand.
    8.    Natural men’s prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment.
    9.    All wicked men’s pains and contrivances which they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment.
    10.    God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise, to keep any natural man out of hell one moment.

I believe that Edward’s sermon ought be declared across the depth and breath of America during these dreadful days we are entering.  God has given us a period of mercy during which time He is calling out to sinners to come to Him, however, He is under no obligation to extend that call one moment.  Should you sense the realization within yourself that you are in need of His mercy and grace, turn to Him with He still calls, lest the time be past and you enter eternity without Him, and as the eternal subject of Satan, whose abode is the lake of fire.