-
To focus upon Jonathan Edwards and specifically the resolutions
-
that he wrote as a young man, 18 and 19 years of age.
-
Let me begin by just putting Edwards in his right place,
-
even in the mountain range of church history.
-
It was Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said:
-
I am tempted to compare the Puritans to the Alps,
-
Luther and Calvin to the Himalayas,
-
and Jonathan Edwards to Mount Everest.
-
He seems to me to be the man most like the Apostle Paul.
-
That's quiet a statement, from the Doctor himself, Lloyd-Jones.
-
That it was Jonathan Edwards, who in essence,
-
stood on the shoulders of Calvin, and Luther, and the Reformers,
-
and climbed up a little higher and stood on the shoulders of the Puritans
-
like John Owen, and Thomas Watson, and other great divines.
-
And he went all the way to to the top of the mountain range, as it were,
-
and had the clearest view of God, and Systematic Theology,
-
and the inner workings of the truth of Scripture.
-
That is why I think it is very worth our while,
-
to look, in this last session, at Edwards.
-
And what I want to set before you, is:
-
There is a reason why, I believe, God so greatly used Edwards.
-
Granted,
-
he was the greatest American pastor to ever walk on the soil of this continent.
-
He is arguably the greatest preacher over the last three centuries in America.
-
He is called the greatest theologian America has ever produced
-
and the greatest philosopher that America has ever produced.
-
He has been argued to be the most profound author.
-
R. C. Sproul has said, his book the Freedom of the Will is the greatest book
-
ever to be written on American soil.
-
He certainly preached the greatest sermon ever to be preached in this land:
-
Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God.
-
It is an amazing thing that all of those lines would intersect in one person.
-
Greatest author,
-
greatest philosopher,
-
greatest pastor,
-
greatest theologian,
-
greatest preacher,
-
greatest book,
-
greatest sermon.
-
All of this did not merely happen.
-
Nothing just merely happens.
-
The sovereignty of God is in and through all things.
-
But Jonathan Edwards, when he was 18 years old,
-
he charted a course that he would follow the rest of his life.
-
Jonathan Edwards was converted by the grace of God at age 17.
-
And within one year he was the interim pastor
-
in what is today Downtown New York City.
-
On Wall Street.
-
Pastoring a church where there had been a split, a divide,
-
a Scottish Presbyterian Church.
-
He was 18 years old.
-
He had grown up in a home of a Puritan pastor
-
and as soon as he was saved his heart was inclined to the ministry and the things of God,
-
for that is what he had seen all his life.
-
And at age 18 he began to pastor in Downtown New York.
-
He still had his Master's thesis yet to write.
-
He had completed his course work at Yale both in the Bachelor and Master's level.
-
And as he began this interim pastor at age 18,
-
there was a deep conviction and concern in his soul
-
that he be faithful to God.
-
That he not squander this opportunity.
-
That he be one who would pursue holiness
-
with every inch and every ounze of his being.
-
So Jonathan Edwards sat down and wrote what has come to be known as his Resolutions.
-
Over the course of the next year and a half he wrote 70 resolutions.
-
They were like purpose statements.
-
They almost all began with the word Resolved.
-
And then would follow a declaration,
-
that was rooted and grounded in the Word of God.
-
These resolutions began with a preamble.
-
And a preamble is a short two-sentence paragraph,
-
that sits on top of the resolutions
-
and they are very important because in it, in this preamble,
-
he states how dependent he is upon the grace of God
-
to be enabled to fulfill these resolutions.
-
So this is not Jonathan Edwards pulling himself up by his own boot straps
-
where he is self-willed to carry out his own sanctification.
-
He is totally dependent upon the grace of God, the ministry of the Holy Spirit
-
to work and to will for his good pleasure in his own life.
-
The preamble reads:
-
Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing...
-
Now you hear John 15, verse 5, in that.
-
Jesus said: Apart from me you can do nothing.
-
Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God's help,
-
I do humbly entreat him, (God) by his grace,
-
to enable me to keep these resolutions,
-
so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake.
-
Having said that, he began to write his resolutions.
-
The first four are directed and pointed at the glory of God.
-
There is no rhyme or reason as to the order of these resolutions.
-
They are almost as reading the Proverbs, starting Proverbs 10 and following.
-
There are somewhat jumbled together, except at the beginning,
-
in which Edwards lays this foundation
-
that the entirety of his life must be directed toward the pursuit of the glory of God.
-
It is the overflow of his study of the Westminster catechism,
-
the Westminster confession,
-
the teaching of the reformers,
-
the teaching of the Puritans.
-
It was all steeped in the glory of God.
-
He had read Calvin's Institutes
-
that begins with the knowledge of God and the knowledge of men.
-
He was steeped in the Westminster catechism: What is the chief end of men?
-
To glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
-
So as he takes pen in hand at age 18...
-
The first four resolutions, let me read parts of them, focus upon the glory of God.
-
Number 1: Resolved,
-
That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory.
-
Edwards said, the interpretive key in his life
-
in the pursuit of the will of God is:
-
What will bring greatest glory to God?
-
Who should I marry?
-
What should I do with my life?
-
Where should I live?
-
What endeavor should I undertake?
-
The fundamental core principle, Edwards recognized for his life, is:
-
What will most glorify God?
-
Not: What will most advance me? What will most promote myself?
-
But: What decisions, what turns in the road, what forks in the road lie before me...
-
The answer will always be: What will most glorify God?
-
Resolution 2: Resolved, To be continually endeavoring to find out
-
some new contrivance and invention to promote the aforementioned things.
-
By that he is saying:
-
As I am on the path to pursue the glory of God,
-
what can be augmented to my life, that will springboard me
-
even further in the promotion, in the pursuit of the glory of God?
-
What new Bible studies could I undertake?
-
What new ministries could I launch?
-
What new endeavors could I undertake,
-
that would be further extensions of glorifying God.
-
Three: Resolved, If ever I shall fall and grow weary or grow dull,
-
so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions,
-
to repent of all I can remember.
-
So, if at any point he would grow fatigued or weary,
-
become spiritually lukewarm in the pursuit of the glory of God,
-
he would immediately repent of this,
-
and turn away from this,
-
that he might be fervent in the pursuing the glory of God.
-
Four: Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more,
-
but what tends to the glory of God.
-
So, he is a man, who is preoccupied with the glory of God.
-
J. I. Packer writes regarding these first four resolutions
-
that Edwards was (quote):
-
God centered,
-
God focused,
-
God intoxicated,
-
and God entranced.
-
There is no over-statement here.
-
Every day from morning till night
-
he sought to live in conscious communion with God.
-
(close quote)
-
Now...
-
Later in these resolutions...
-
Resolution number 63: This is an extraordinary resolution.
-
I am just setting the table for what I really ultimately want to say in this session.
-
He wants to glorify God,
-
just like, I'm sure, you want to glorify God.
-
You wouldn't be here today, I would not think,
-
were you not one who would desire to glorify God with your life.
-
First Corinthians 10:
-
Whatsoever you do, whether you eat or you drink, do all to the glory of God.
-
Resolution 63 is a shock-and-awe resolution.
-
It is mind boggling.
-
This is what it says:
-
On the supposition,
-
that there never was to be but one individual in the world,
-
at any one time,
-
who was properly
-
a complete Christian, in all respects,
-
having Christianity always shining in its true lustre,
-
and appearing excellent and lovely:
-
Resolved,
-
To act just as I would do, if I strove
-
with all my might
-
to become that one, who would live in my time.
-
You know what Edwards is saying?
-
I want you to think about this.
-
There can only be on the Earth at any one time
-
the strongest Christian alive.
-
Edwards said: The goal for my life
-
is to be that man.
-
Someone may say: Well, that's kind of an... arrogant resolution.
-
Okay, go be the worst Christian in your generation!
-
You think that would glorify God?
-
You talk about having everything upside...
-
Everyone of us ought to say:
-
God, I want to be that one in my generation at that time
-
that Christianity is most fully shining through with its full lustre,
-
shining forth from my life.
-
That will glorify God.
-
Edwards said that at age 18 and 19.
-
When I was age 18 and 19 I would just think about playing football.
-
Edwards is thinking about:
-
I want to be the greatest Christian in my generation.
-
Now, what he did and the rest of the resolutions
-
charts the course for how he will glorify God
-
and be that one most complete Christian
-
in his lifetime.
-
In my book on the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards
-
I divide up all of the resolutions
-
into different subject matters that he deals with.
-
And there is a plethora of topics that he covers
-
in the fullness of his own Christian life.
-
And time does not permit me to do the overview of all 70 resolutions.
-
What I want to do at this time right now is just isolate one slice of the pie.
-
Just isolate one piece of the armor.
-
Just focus upon one area of his resolutions
-
that addressed a critically important area in his Christian life.
-
Now, this subject matter may somewhat surprise you.
-
As Edwards wanted to live for the glory of God
-
and be the greatest Christian in his generation,
-
he wanted to do so in the nitty-gritty of life,
-
down in the day-to-day Christian living.
-
And so he said: I want to live with an eternal perspective.
-
And in order to live with an eternal perspective
-
there are three subjects that need to be present before my life,
-
on a daily basis, all the time:
-
the shortness of life,
-
the certainty of death,
-
and the link of eternity.
-
The shortness of life,
-
the suddenness of death,
-
and the link of eternity.
-
Edwards would say elsewhere:
-
God,
-
stamp eternity
-
upon my eyeballs.
-
That was his way, metaphorically, to say:
-
I want to live with an eternal perspective.
-
I want to live in such a way as not to be confined
-
with the mundane trivial things of this temporal life and world
-
as if this is all that there is.
-
If I am to rise above the temporal and live for the eternal,
-
if I am to rise above that which I can see and live for that which I cannot see,
-
if right now is to count forever
-
then I must have this eternal perspective.
-
That is what everyone of us here today needs.
-
We need to live for eternity.
-
What I do right now, how will it have its impact upon eternity?
-
And so Edwards wrote several resolutions
-
that dealt with time,
-
and dealt with death,
-
and dealt with eternity.
-
Resolution number five.
-
Edwards understood that time is a very precious commodity.
-
And this is what was driving Edwards on this.
-
He understood,
-
if he wasted his time
-
and squandered his time
-
he could not most glorify God.
-
Resolution number five reads thus:
-
Resolved,
-
And don't you like that word, resolved?
-
How many people do you know that are actually resolved?
-
How many people do you know that are actually
-
intentionally, purposefully living their Christian lives
-
and who are not like the wave of the sea, being tossed back and forth?
-
How many people do you know that are not taking the path of least resistance
-
but are taking the path of greatest resistance
-
to the extent that they are being pointed into the center of living for eternity.
-
Jonathan Edwards was determined.
-
He was resolved.
-
He would not become subject to the tyranny of the urgent,
-
of the latest emergency to be thrown at his feet.
-
Now he had set the priorities for his life
-
and his priorities would dictate the decisions that he would make.
-
Resolved,
-
Never to loose one moment of time,
-
but to improve it the most profitable way
-
I possibly can.
-
As Edwards said this, he understood,
-
that I can only glorify God in this life
-
in the prescribed amount of time
-
that God has given to me
-
to be alive on this earth.
-
Therefore, this time is precious,
-
and it is invaluable,
-
and it is like liquid gold,
-
and I cannot waste,
-
and I cannot squander
-
one moment of time
-
because it is in the proper
-
and most efficient use of my time
-
that I will glorify God.
-
If I use my time most wisely
-
I can most glorify God
-
with what is put in front of me.
-
So he said: I have no time to loose.
-
He would argue that riches can be lost and then later regained.
-
But not time.
-
Once time is forfeited and lost, it can never be replaced.
-
Now, Jonathan Edwards had such a high view of the sovereignty of God,
-
he understood a very basic truth, which is:
-
that the number of days,
-
and the number of hours,
-
and the number of seconds
-
that we have to live upon this earth
-
have already been sovereignly preordained by God.
-
From before the foundation of the world God determined
-
the moment of my birth.
-
And he has determined the moment of my death.
-
And everything in between is what God has sovereignly ordained for me to live,
-
and it is the perfect number of days, and it is the most wise number of days,
-
that could be chosen for me.
-
Job 14, verse 5
-
Since his days are determined,
-
the number of his months is with You, God;
-
and his limits
-
You have set so he cannot pass.
-
You cannot pass
-
the predetermined number of months and days and seconds that you have to live.
-
Psalm 90, verse 12 says:
-
So teach us the number of our days that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
-
God has numbered our days. We would be very wise to number our days.
-
Psalm 139, verse 16
-
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance
-
and in Your book there were all written the days that were ordained for me
-
when as yet there was not one of them.
-
God has ordained the time that you have to live on this earth.
-
You do not have a second to waste,
-
to live with any other intention and goal
-
but to glorify God
-
to the max.
-
Now, to take this further...
-
Edwards rightly understood
-
that not only had God preordained and prescribed a certain number of days,
-
but that within that time allotment
-
there were designated opportunities
-
to do that which God has appointed me to do,
-
and that I must capture the moment when those doors swing open.
-
Those doors will then later be closed,
-
and I must go through those doors of opportunity within time.
-
Ephesians 5, verse 16, makes this very clear.
-
And one of Edwards' most powerful sermons was on this text.
-
If time permits I would love to share some of that with you at the end.
-
But Ephesians 5:16 says that we are to be making the most
-
of your time.
-
The most of our time.
-
This word for time is not χρόνος,
-
which refers to clock time, chronology, or chronometer, as a watch.
-
That's not the word that Paul is using here:
-
Making the most of the time that you have.
-
It is Καιρός,
-
which means a season or opportunity,
-
a fixed period within time
-
in which you are given divine opportunities to do something for God.
-
We often call them divine appointments.
-
A prearranged, divinely arranged season of time.
-
Windows of time that are opened by God for us to do something to glorify Him,
-
and those open doors will soon shut.
-
Isaiah 55:6
-
Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.
-
Psalm 69:13
-
O Lord, my prayer to You is in an acceptable time.
-
Psalm 32:6
-
Let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found.
-
There are times when God may be found, there are times when God may not be found.
-
There are times when God is near, there are times when God is far away.
-
Luke 14, verse 13 (Luke 4:13)
-
There is a time for Satan to advance against Christ to tempt him in the wilderness,
-
and there are times for Satan to withdraw,
-
and then come back again at a more opportune time.
-
There are opportune times in your life to do certain things today, this moment,
-
that you will not have at other times in your Christian life.
-
Dads,
-
you have opportunities with your sons and daughters today,
-
that you will not have next year.
-
They cannot be replicated again.
-
We must seize the moment.
-
Edwards understood this.
-
And so therefore he was a driven man, even as a young man,
-
that he must buy up the time,
-
he must seize the moment,
-
he must live every day
-
knowing that I do not have time to waste or to squander.
-
There was a pace about his life,
-
there was a press about his life,
-
that he must do the works of God while it is day,
-
for, when night comes, no man can work.
-
Do you feel that press of eternity upon you life?
-
Do you wake up, sensing that this is a day that the Lord has made?
-
I shall rejoice and be glad in it?
-
That God has preordained good works for me to work in?
-
That I'm living in a sense of destiny every moment of every day?
-
Would you say to God: God, stamp eternity upon my eyeballs!?
-
That would greatly effect
-
the use of your time this afternoon.
-
It would greatly effect the use of your time tonight.
-
It would greatly effect
-
how much television you watch,
-
how much do you sleep,
-
when do you go to sleep,
-
when do you wake up,
-
how much do you read the Bible,
-
how much do you pray,
-
how much do you witness.
-
Are you intentional?
-
Are you resolved?
-
You only have so little time.
-
Edwards said in this resolution
-
that he wanted to improve it the most profitable way.
-
He understood he had to be very strategic,
-
that he had to be very thoughtful,
-
that he had to be very scrutinizing
-
in how he improved the use of his time.
-
In Ephesians 5, verse 15 and following the Scripture reads:
-
Therefore be careful how you walk,
-
not as unwise men but as wise,
-
making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
-
That verb, making the most,
-
ἐξαγοράζω
-
means: to redeem...
-
In the old King James it says: redeeming the time.
-
It means: to buy it up.
-
The imagery here is: going into the market place.
-
And something is offered for sale now,
-
that will not be for sale later.
-
And if you are going to purchase it, you must purchase it now.
-
Almost as if there is a sale and it is offered now at this price,
-
and if you are to have it at this price, you must have it now
-
and purchase it now. There must be an exchange.
-
You cannot come back to the same place in the same market place next week
-
and expect to to be able to purchase this commodity.
-
If you are to have it, you must have it now.
-
You cannot procrastinate, you cannot put off the time.
-
The business transaction with the one who is selling, it must be secured now.
-
Redeem the time, for the days are evil.
-
And Edwards understood that these doors of opportunity would swing open in live,
-
and when they swing open, he must move in, and he must buy up that time.
-
When I went to college...
-
I went to Texas Tech University.
-
I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee.
-
I went out on a football scholarship.
-
And when I went out to college, it seemed like... I went to the moon.
-
A long ways away.
-
... from rivers, and lakes, and green grass, and trees.
-
To the barren country of West Texas.
-
It was a huge family event.
-
My family had a Volkswagen bus.
-
We were not hippies at that time, but we were in that Volkswagen bus.
-
My father, my mother, myself, my brother, my sister.
-
And we all drove. Took us a couple of days to get to Lubbock.
-
I'm the oldest child.
-
This was a huge step.
-
And I remember... moving into the dorm.
-
And my father and my mother carefully helping me gather everything up,
-
putting it into the closet,
-
fixing up my bed,
-
puffing up the pillow,
-
putting a little alarm clock out,
-
everything you would do.
-
And then, my father, at the very end, he gave me his speech.
-
And I remember, he reached into his pocket
-
and he pulled out a dollar bill.
-
And he said: Steven,
-
your allowance for the semester.
-
I was waiting for the answer for this.
-
My mom was standing right behind him.
-
I remember "your allowence", and he gave me the amount.
-
It was an extraordinarily small amount.
-
And I was doing the math in my head while he was talking,
-
breaking this down by month, by week, by day, by meal...
-
... this money.
-
And he pulled out this dollar bill
-
and he began to pull it in opposite corners.
-
No one could work a dollar bill like my father.
-
The most frugal man who has ever walked planet earth.
-
To this day I still have never had a large Coke.
-
It's always the small Coke and get the refill.
-
I used to take his ballpoint pen and I would click it.
-
And he would take it back from me and say: That's one less time it will work, son.
-
(I suppose you're right.)
-
So, he said to me,
-
what this amount was.
-
He said, this is all... that there will be.
-
Now, it's gonna have to last during the entire semester.
-
And he said: Every time, you put your hand into your pocket
-
and you pull out a dollar bill,
-
I want you to remember me,
-
standing here with this dollar bill.
-
And I want you to spend every dollar bill wisely.
-
Because when you run out,
-
there will be no more.
-
I knew my dad was serious as a heart attack.
-
And I knew that my mother would give me more.
-
And she was smiling behind my dad as he is giving this speech.
-
She is winking at me.
-
But I have never forgotten that little speech.
-
And that's the way I must be with the time allotment in my life.
-
I don't have a day to waste.
-
You don't have a day to waste.
-
I don't have a morning to waste.
-
I don't have an afternoon to waste.
-
I remember one man coming by my office while I'm early in my pastorate
-
and he came by, and he wanted to visit, and he came...
-
He came into my office, sat down.
-
I said: How can I help you? And he said:
-
Nothing really. I just wanted to kill some time.
-
I think there are a lot of people who go through life that way.
-
They're just time killers.
-
And it would be nice if they would just kill their own time.
-
But they want to kill other people's time.
-
And you are taking away from other people
-
their maximum opportunity to glorify God,
-
to be productive in the pursuit of what God has laid out in his will.
-
This is not to say, there is not a place for recreation.
-
There is the Sabbath principle talked throughout Scripture.
-
We must rest. There is the need for the re-creation of recreation.
-
We cannot live full tilt every moment of every second of every life.
-
It's like highlighting in yellow every word on a page.
-
Then nothing really necessarily stands out.
-
There is an ebb and a flow of life.
-
But I want to tell you this:
-
You only have so much time on this planet
-
to breathe God's air
-
and to drink God's water
-
and to do God's will
-
and for God's sake, you better get on what He's called you to do!
-
If He's called you to the ministry then get after it!
-
If this is the time to step forward and to go in a certain direction
-
then pursue the will of God in your life!
-
There is only so much time to do it.
-
Now I want to give you another resolution.
-
(I only know what time it is. When do I finish?)
-
(O.k., alright.)
-
(I'll make anything work.)
-
(Whitefield's last sermon was two hours, as I told you, up at Exeter, New Hampshire.)
-
Resolution number seven.
-
Resolved,
-
Never to do anything
-
that I should be afraid to do
-
if it were the last hour of my life.
-
Edwards purposed to live his life, as Baxter said, we should preach:
-
as a dying man to dying men, as never to preach again.
-
Edwards purposed that he would focus upon the end of his life
-
and then work back,
-
and that he never wanted to be found doing anything that he would not do
-
if it were the last hour of his life.
-
And as he studied the gospels, he understood
-
that Christ was consciously aware of that last hour of his life.
-
John 2:4 My hour has not yet come.
-
Referring to that last hour
-
and it was the finished line
-
it was the conclusion of the will of God, that the Father had charted for Him,
-
and He was pressing towards that finished line
-
and He always kept His eye upon that last hour of His life.
-
John 7:6 My hour is not yet here.
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John 7:30 His hour had not yet come.
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John 12:27 Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this world.
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John 17:1 Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you.
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John 19:30 It is finished.
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There was no rambling in his life.
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There was no weaving all over the highway.
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There was no dabbling over here and let me try something else over here.
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There was a very mature press about his life as he was pointed to the finished line,
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and he would not look to the right, he would not look to the left,
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he would not look at the others who were running around him in the race of life.
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His gaze was upon the finished line, the last hour of his life.
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He prepared all of his life for the last hour of his life.
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That he would die well.
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That he would die without regret.
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That he would die without saying, as so many that he had heard:
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Oh, if I had only done this.
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Oh if I had only made these choices and pursued these endeavors.
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No, when I come to the end of my life, I want to say: It is finished.
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And to die like his master.
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In the very epicenter of the will of God for his life.
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Resolved, Never to do anything that I should be afraid to do
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if it were the last hour of my life.
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Can you envision the last hour of your life?
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Whether it's this afternoon,
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whether it is in a month,
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whether it's in a year,
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or a decade,
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or whenever it is.
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Who knows, what the circumstances will be?
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Who knows, where that will be, when that will be, with whom it will be?
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But unless the Lord returns before then, that day is fixed on God's calendar for your life.
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You need to stay focused and riveted upon the last hour of your life.
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So that you will die
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without regret.
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That you make choices and decisions in your life today
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that will effect the path that you take
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when you arrive
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on that last day.
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Resolution number ten.
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This is a resolution that will grow you up.
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This is a resolution that will make an 18 year old young boy
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appear to be 68,
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appear to be 78.
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This will give you wisdom beyond your years.
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Resolved,
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When I feel pain
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to think of the pains of martyrdom
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and hell.
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If you're going to live with an eternal perspective
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and when you face disappointment,
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when you face trials,
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when you face problems,
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when you face difficulty,
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and adversity,
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and tribulation,
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you need to keep that in proper perspective.
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We have a tendency
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to become preoccupied
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on our troubles.
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And they grow,
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and they grow,
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and they grow,
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and they escalate,
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and they dwarf us,
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and they intimidate us,
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and they paralyze us.
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And they cause us to be self centered,
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and they defeat us,
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and they cause self pity
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to arise out of our hearts.
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And Edwards said: So that I can keep everything in rightful perspective,
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I want to be constantly thinking
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about martyrs
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and souls in hell.
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To think about those in Foxe's Book of Martyrs
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who where strapped to the stake
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and gave a witness for their faith and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Who were literally burned at the stake for their gospel testimony.
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And in comparison
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we virtually
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have never had a bad day
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here upon the earth.
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Seven years ago
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I was forced out of a pastorate of a church that I pastored.
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It was a very painful experience.
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It's a publicly humiliating experience:
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family,
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friends,
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enemies,
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foes,
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newspaper,
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television.
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It's a very painful thing to go through:
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to step into a pulpit
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to preach your last sermon,
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to give your resignation,
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and then to just walk out of the building.
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You know, what kept everything in perspective... for me?
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Is reading about the Marian Martyrs in the English reformation.
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Reading about those men who preached what I preach,
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but yet they were strapped to a stake and were burned to a crisp.
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I walked away.
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I walked out.
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I got in a suburban.
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My son drove the getaway car.
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I was able to stop and get out of the car and shake the dust off my feet.
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I was driven home.
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I had a meal.
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Next day I played golf with my boys.
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I've never had a bad day.
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In my preaching Bible
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I have a picture of John Rogers.
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He was burned at the stake in 1555.
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He was the first Marian martyr.
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He was the first to be torched by Bloody Mary
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for his evangelical beliefs.
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In the back of my Bible I have the wood carving of John Rogers,
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being strapped to the stake in London, and being burned to death
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in front of his church building,
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in front of his congregation,
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in order to try to attempt to intimidate them all.
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They would burn the shepherd.
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Their intend was for the sheep to scatter.
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When I read this resolution of Edwards, I thought, there is much wisdom in this.
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For all of us to think constantly of martyrdom and hell.
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Not that we have some morbid spirit or martyr's complex,
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that's not it.
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But the things that upset us, and the things that stress us out,
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quite frankly,
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do not even begin to compare with what the martyrs experienced.
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And then, he says, "and of hell".
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Now let me remind all of us,
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if everyone of us in this room received what we deserved,
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we would all be in hell right now.
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We would have been in hell from the moment we were conceived.
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And the day that you sin you shall surely die.
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The fact, that we are not in hell right now suffering the torment of the damned,
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is far better treatment than anyone of us deserve.
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That is a theological truth.
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And that helps put everything in right perspective for my Christian life.
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I have pressures in my life right now, that are squeezing me
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and cause my mind at times to be anchored into those things.
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And it's not spiritually healthy for me to become concentrated upon those things.
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I need to set my mind on things above and not on things of the earth,
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but I also need to set my mind on things below,
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souls being tormented in hell right now.
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And realize that that mercy that has been shown to me
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is so astonishing and amazing
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that by comparison of souls in hell right now
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I have... I have no problems. I have nothing, for which I can complain.
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There is no reason for me to have a pity party.
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There is no reason for me to whine.
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There is no reason for me to be the focus of every conversation that I am in,
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to draw the people into my problems.
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I'm not in hell.
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Jonathan Edwards, as an 18 year old young man,
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he purposed,
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that I will think about hell and I will think about martyrdom,
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so that everything in my life will be kept in proper perspective.
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When I went to London a few years ago,
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I landed at the airport, got on the train, took the subway...
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I wanted to go first to Bunhill Fields.
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I wanted to see where the Puritans are buried.
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At that time it was outside the city limits.
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They would not allow John Owen to be buried inside the city limits.
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They would not let John Bunyan be buried inside the city limits.
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Isaac Watts, you are on the outside, looking in.
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I wanted to go to Bunhill Fields and just stand with those men
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who have been rejected, and many, who have died ignominious deaths.
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And from there I went to Saint Bartholomew's Hospital.
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Interestingly enough, that is exactly were Martyn Lloyd-Jones practiced medicine
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before he was called on the Gospel ministry. And on the back side of the hospital
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is a little brass plaque, that no one would ever see,
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unless you are intentionally going there and looking for it,
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and on this brass plaque it says:
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Here is were John Rogers was burned at the stake for his evangelical faith
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in the word of God and the Gospel of Christ.
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Just to have it edged into my mind again,
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that these men payed a valiant price,
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a great price
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for their Christian faith.
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And as I live my spiritual life,
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resolved, when I feel pain, when I feel disappointment,
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when I feel discouragement,
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to think of the pains of martyrdom
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and of hell.
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Let me give you one more, and then we are finished.
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Resolution number fifty.
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Resolved,
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I will act so as I think I should judge
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would have been best,
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and most prudent,
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when I come into the future world.
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Edwards wanted his present life to be shaped
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by whatever would be most important upon entering heaven.
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Whatever is important there
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must dominate the landscape of my life now.
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Whatever is of priority in heaven there, when I enter into heaven,
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that must be moved up the list
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and must be at the top of what is most important in my life today.
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Whatever matters to God and Christ in eternity, in heaven,
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around throne of God, for ever, and ever, and ever,
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what is ever of highest value in that day,
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must be as gold and silver in my life today.
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That is what Edwards is saying.
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He cites 2 Corinthians 4:18 While we look not at the things that are seen
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but at the things which are not seen,
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for the things which are see are temporal,
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but the things which are not seen are eternal.
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Edwards chose to live his life in such a way,
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that he was not preoccupied with the visible, but with the invisible,
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not with the temporal, but with the eternal,
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not with the earthly, but with the heavenly.
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He wanted his life to count to the maximum for God.
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So, fast forward, if you would, to the end of his life.
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So, how did Edwards die?
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What did it look like on the last day of his life?
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Well, it is by no coincidence
-
that after age 18 and 19 Jonathan Edwards did become
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the greatest preacher,
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the greatest pastor,
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the greatest theologian,
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the greatest author,
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to preach the greatest sermon.
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It wasn't because he had time to kill and he was just shuffling free life,
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looking for something to do.
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He had purpose, he had intention,
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and he was resolved.
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He became the third president of Princeton, following his own son in law.
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And Edwards, you know the story, the end of his life,
-
as soon as he was inaugurated and became president of Princeton,
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he was resolved to write the history of the work of redemption.
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It would be his Magnum Opus.
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It would be in the league of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.
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It would be up there with Luther's The Bondage of the Will.
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One month into his presidency on February, 13th, 1759,
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Edwards was inaugurated for Smallpox.
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He was the president, set the example for the student body.
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Everyone needs to be inaugurated for Smallpox.
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I the president will be inaugurated to show you that it will not harm you.
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He took the Smallpox vaccination.
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And tragically it had a very opposite effect on him.
-
His throat began to swell to the point that he could not breathe.
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His wife, Sarah, was back in Upstate New York,
-
there, were he administered to the Indians on a fifth-grade level.
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He has now come to Princeton, New Jersey, to assume this presidency.
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He is there by himself with only his daughter Lucy at his bedside.
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I recently was in Princeton and went to this very house,
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and went to the very room in which Edwards died.
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Dear Lucy,
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it seems to me to be the will of God
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that I must shortly leave you.
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Therefore give my kindest love to my dear wife,
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and tell her, that the uncommon union,
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which has so long subsisted between us,
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has been of such a nature as I trust is spiritual and therefore will continue forever:
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and I hope she will be supported under so great a trial,
-
and submit cheerfully to the will of God.
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And as to my children you are now to be left fatherless
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which I hope will be an inducement to you all
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to seek a father who will never fail you.
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Jonathan Edwards had prepared his entire adult life for this moment.
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As he came to the end of his life he was not a man cursing and shrieking,
-
and pulling back from the horrors of his appointed time.
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He was a man who would had given himself for the last years
-
since age 18 to the pursuit of this day.
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He died as he had lived:
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glorifying God.
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He died suddenly on March, 22nd, 1759, at age 55.
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Only two short months after becoming president
-
of the college of New Jersey which would become Princeton.
-
Upon learning of Jonathan's death, Sarah, still in Stockbridge,
-
packing their belongings, wrote this note to their daughter Esther:
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What shall I say:
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A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud.
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O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands on our mouths!
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The Lord has done it.
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He has made me adore his goodness that we had him so long.
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But my God lives; and he has my heart.
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O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left to us!
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We are all given to God; and there I am and love to be.
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Your affectionate mother, Sarah Edwards
-
Upon her arrival in Princeton with their family belongings
-
she then immediately died herself.
-
And then Lucy died.
-
All in a matter of months.
-
And when you go to Princeton now, to the cemetery,
-
there is Jonathan Edwards, and lying next to him, Sarah Edwards.
-
They both had lived
-
charting a course for the day of their death.
-
That they would maximize the time that had been given to them
-
to live every moment of every day in the pursuit of the glory of God.
-
How are you investing your life?
-
I wonder how much time you have left upon this earth.
-
How uncertain it is...
-
Only God knows.
-
How wise of a steward are you?
-
With the opportunities that are around you today?
-
May everyone of us number our days and present to God a heart of wisdom.
-
Let us pray.
-
Our father,
-
You have sovereignly ordained
-
that we would be birthed into the 20th century,
-
and that we would be alive in the 21st century.
-
You have appointed who our parents would be.
-
What our personality would be.
-
What our gender would be.
-
What our complexion,
-
what our physical body would be,
-
what our gifts,
-
what our abilities.
-
You've appointed the day of our conversion.
-
You have appointed those people who would be around us
-
whose influences would be brought to bear upon our lives.
-
Even those that have been of evil influence, You have meant for good.
-
And over it all You have caused all things to work together for our good.
-
And you have already prescripted the end of our lives.
-
Except Christ's return before then, everyone of us in this room will die.
-
And we must prepare for that day... now.
-
May you lead us to put one foot in front of the other
-
on the narrow path
-
as we would continue our course in this world.
-
I pray there would be a sense of urgency about our lives,
-
a sense of picking up the pace,
-
and pressing on to the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
-
Let us run the race that is set before us.
-
Let us not beat the air.
-
Let us buffet our bodies,
-
lest we be disqualified.
-
Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
-
Let us not become entangled with sin.
-
Let us be fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith.
-
Father, would you bless these men.
-
And as the dusk clears from this conference,
-
I pray that there would be a certainty and a centrality about these truths
-
that would be secured and anchored into their hearts.
-
May we live as mighty men of old.
-
May we be as those who turned the world upside down.
-
Father, I pray that You would bless these men,
-
that they might be a blessing to countless others.
-
And that the eternal destinies of others would be altered
-
for the pursuit of your will by these men here today.
-
I commend them to your grace
-
and to your word which is able to sanctify them and make them strong.
-
I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our savior.
-
Amen.