I was reading “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards as I sat in the GM/Cadillac/Pontiac dealership, waiting for my oil to be changed. As I read, I thought how strangely removed I was from the material upon which I was contemplating. I was in a cushy chair, in a glass-walled waiting room, that had coffee waiting for anyone who was decaffeinated. An old episode of Scooby-Doo aired on the WB in the background as I read about feet sliding into eternal damnation. Soon, two men soon entered the waiting room, each with a noisy mini-bag of potato chips procured from the vending machine, each with his own cell phone, and each with his own excessively loud conversation.



The men came to the apex of their individual conversations, right as I came to point No. 6: “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.” I actually laughed out loud. I thought myself and the situation absolutely absurd. Most people in the United States today are just so out of touch with the principles upon which this country was founded, that it’s nearly impossible to fully comprehend the culture that established us here only a mere 300 years ago.


The fear of God was a way of life, it wasn’t just an abstract notion that my religiously zealous friends tried to understand. It dawned on me that words such as these from Jonathan Edwards,


If God should only withdraw His hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.


were extremely true for Puritans. They lived with these thoughts constantly on their minds.



I had the urge to start reading it out loud, just to see the reaction of the men. I wanted to see how uncomfortable it would make complete strangers. And right when I was getting my courage to try this experiment, my name was called over the intercom, informing me that my car was ready.



( 0comments )