Forty-Six Sermons in Volume II of the Works by Jonathan Edwards (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Sermon II: Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Now we read what is probably the most famous of Edwards' sermons.
The text is Deuteronomy 32:35: 'Their foot shall slide in due time'.
Edwards' primary observation from the text is: 'There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God'.
Edwards then gives us ten points about his observation:
(i) There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment;
(ii) They deserve to be cast into hell;
(iii) They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell;
(iv) They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell;
(v) The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him;
(vi) There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning, that would presently kindle and flame out into hell-fire, if it were not for God’s restraints;
(vii) It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand;
(viii) 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;
(ix) All wicked men’s pains and contrivance 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;
(x) God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment.
Then by way of application Edwards asks us to consider four points about God's wrath:
(i) whose wrath it is;
(ii) the fierceness of the wrath;
(iii) the misery you are exposed to is that which God will inflict to that end, that he might show what that wrath of Jehovah is;
(iv) it is everlasting wrath.
What grabbed me
Gripping stuff!
So many good quotes, but I think the paragraph with his opening observation was one of the best: 'The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this.—“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”—By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God’s mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment.'
The only thing preventing me from being deservedly in hell right now is God. Oh, what a merciful God he is!
Next week's reading
Read the Sermon entitled 'A divine and supernatural light'.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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