Why Old People Should Love Revival

Six reasons from Jonathan Edwards why the elderly should love and long for and celebrate revival, from a brief summer 1741 message to a small private gathering of elderly people. Remember that mid-1741 was the height of the Great Awakening. I'm paraphrasing Edwards.

1. Since they're older, their hearts should be all the better prepared for Christ when he visits his church, having had a lifetime to grow in love for him.

2. Their longer lives means they have more reasons stacked up to see their need for Christ to come in revival.

3. They not only see more reasons in themselves for Christ to fall on the church (#2 above) but also in the church and the world.

4. They are the spiritual dads and moms and grandfathers and grandmothers of other believers and should therefore have a corresponding paternal and maternal concern for the health and life of the church.

5. They've been waiting longer for revival than anyone else.

6. They're going to be dead soon. So they should get used to the presence of Christ here as much as they can. 

--Jonathan Edwards, "Aged Men and Women Joyfully Receiving Christ," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 25: Sermons and Discourses, 1739-1742, 459

Only One Thing Can Makes Me Break My March Blogging Fast

Barbara Parrish talking about my favorite church in the world.

HT: David McLemore

Out of the Blogging Saddle for March

See you April 1.

I sign off with my favorite Edwards quote, first discovered December 17, 2004, in "Miscellany ff."

By virtue of the believer's union with Christ, he doth really possess all things. That we know plainly from Scripture. But it may be asked, how doth he possess all things? What is he the better for it? How is a true Christian so much richer than other men?

To answer this, I'll tell you what I mean by "possessing all things." I mean that God three in one, all that he is, and all that he has, and all that he does, all that he has made or done--the whole universe, bodies and spirits, earth and heaven, angels, men and devils, sun, moon and stars, land and sea, fish and fowls, all the silver and gold, kings and potentates as well as mean men--are as much the Christian's as the money in his pocket, the clothes he wears, the house he dwells in, or the victuals he eats; yea more properly his, more advantageously his, than if he could command all those things mentioned to be just in all respects as he pleased at any time, by virtue of the union with Christ; because Christ, who certainly doth thus possess all things, is entirely his: so that he possesses it all, more than a wife the share of the best and dearest husband, more than the hand possesses what the head doth; it is all his. . . .

Every atom in the universe is managed by Christ so as to be most to the advantage of the Christian, every particle of air or every ray of the sun; so that he in the other world, when he comes to see it, shall sit and enjoy all this vast inheritance with surprising, amazing joy.

1 Corinthians 15

The Lord Will Provide