Jonathan Edwards's Sermon

In his powerful sermon, Edwards calls for repentance of sins because the punishment of God will be harsh. Jonathan Edwards is a descendant of Puritan ministers. He is the most influential, staunch and renowned of all the Puritan leaders. During the 1930s, the New Englanders had enjoyed an increasing degree of affluence which led to a sense of spiritual and material comfort and caused the establishment of a Half-way Covenant (Edwards, Jonathan, pg 217). In fact, the Christians were the privilege only for the children or the people who were converted and accepted God as their savior. Jonathan follows a three-part structure in his sermon; a scripture text, exposition of the scriptures' implications and the application of the doctrine to the congregation (Edwards, pg 222).

Edwards selects the scripture for this sermon with keenness, for he aimed at disturbing the profoundly comfortable listeners of the message. He used words quoted from Deuteronomy 32: 35, which says "their foot will slide in due time" (Edwards, pg 219). This short message extracted from a long passage enunciates the anger of the Angry God towards the people because of their unfaithfulness and perversity. Apparently, Edwards aims at establishing a close connection between the Israelites, people addressed by the passage, and the individuals who he is addressing. The Edwards's is unique from the other Puritan revival sermon because he uses strong imagery so vivid which leaves many individuals in pews weeping and trembling because they regret their sinners and the punishment that the Angry God.

The imagery is found in the initial section of the sermon. In fact, their vaunted believe and trust in their wisdom and human knowledge, care, prudence and caution are and nothing else but a self-delusion. All these cannot save them. Before the eyes of the Almighty God, people are "heaps of mere light chaff before the whirlwind" as well as "dry stubble before the flames. He says, "…the lake of burning brimstone…hell is the gaping mouth,…the dreadful pit of glowing flames…" also, he attacks the way an unsaved person think; they try to convince themselves that God is not responsible for their lives and daily actions. He preaches this sermon to condemn their bad way of living. This obviously points out their church attendance, religiosity, uprightness, ritual family devotions, as well as their morals, but Edward reminds them that unless they, "massive change of their hearts by power of the holy spirit" to become "new creatures of God", they will be punished by the Angry God.

And this will cause a great disaster for they will be "swallowed up in the eternal destruction" as pay for their evil lives. To analyze will's confrontation and strengthen notion imminent doom, Edwards unbinds a mighty arsenal of figurative weapon targeted to the sensation. His terrible caution ushers to the direct to what awaits; the proclaiming of God's elegance. Edwards then moves substantially to the subject; God's decides to have mercy on you being a day of forgiveness. He says that there will be misery to them who ignore the God and they will witness his fury if they don't convert to righteous people. In conclusion, the sermon delivered by Jonathan Edwards is very important. This sermon isn't a type of Edward's preaching but is more typical of revivalist preaching aimed at converting sinners so that they can avoid the wrath of an angry God.