Full Transcript for Jonathan Edwards: Ruth's Resolution

03:43.845 [SPEAKER_01]: But I will say, appreciate you listening, Katie. 03:44.285 --> 03:48.788 [SPEAKER_01]: But I tell my students this all the time, please stop asking AI, your random Bible questions. 03:48.868 --> 03:52.329 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you guys, they're not made by people who don't do that. 03:52.429 --> 03:54.991 [SPEAKER_01]: You gotta ask somebody a real people, because I don't trust these AI's. 03:55.571 --> 03:58.052 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't I don't think they're looking out for us Christians. 03:58.153 --> 03:58.473 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. 03:58.513 --> 04:02.055 [SPEAKER_01]: Like Joel do you think should you be asking Chad Gbt your Bible questions. 04:02.235 --> 04:04.836 [SPEAKER_01]: I tell my students not to but they are high schoolers. 04:04.856 --> 04:05.817 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't trust them as much. 04:05.837 --> 04:06.297 [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think? 04:07.378 --> 04:11.760 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I I find it like a as one of a tool, right? 04:12.241 --> 04:12.641 [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, boy. 04:12.721 --> 04:13.021 [SPEAKER_01]: Certainly. 04:13.061 --> 04:16.043 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not classic softened up on the AI. 04:16.083 --> 04:16.663 [SPEAKER_01]: No, okay. 04:16.743 --> 04:18.644 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to say I'm just going to say a sermon. 04:18.664 --> 04:19.365 [SPEAKER_01]: So I can be that 04:20.232 --> 04:36.716 [SPEAKER_02]: No, yeah, I'll read two or three commentaries and then I'll ask AI to see if it how you know what what his thoughts are and I will say it's almost always not great It doesn't it doesn't really hold up to the people that are doing the digging in the real commentary does well. 04:36.736 --> 04:38.437 [SPEAKER_01]: I ain't I'm sure it'll change 04:39.756 --> 04:42.517 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think many people use AI. 04:42.557 --> 04:43.978 [SPEAKER_01]: So we do, it is a tool. 04:44.138 --> 04:44.698 [SPEAKER_01]: I do agree. 04:44.898 --> 04:53.161 [SPEAKER_01]: I personally, I think it's because I've actually been able to, I've been able to catch people using chat, GBT to make sermons and stuff like that. 04:53.201 --> 05:01.284 [SPEAKER_01]: And if somebody spends time preaching, and spends a lot of time Bible teaching for me, I don't even want to begin trying to go down that road. 05:01.584 --> 05:02.364 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's not. 05:02.804 --> 05:04.085 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think the Lord's gonna bless it. 05:04.125 --> 05:05.186 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not even gonna go near it. 05:05.226 --> 05:09.590 [SPEAKER_01]: So for me that's just my opinion It's just like keep that stick as far from my house. 05:09.630 --> 05:12.753 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not even a thought for me And maybe that's why I'm so strict on it. 05:13.073 --> 05:22.161 [SPEAKER_01]: Plus I have to teach high schoolers and they're not I love them some of them listen some of them have told me that my voice is great to fall asleep to at night, which is hurtful, but it's true probably 05:24.002 --> 05:30.767 [SPEAKER_01]: So I understand you're listening, guys, but I don't, don't listen, don't go to chat, go to real-life humans. 05:30.787 --> 05:33.189 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, don't trust everything with chat, GBT, put your time. 05:33.209 --> 05:36.471 [SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, I mean, that's why there's lots of great commentaries. 05:36.531 --> 05:37.452 [SPEAKER_01]: So many commentaries. 05:37.952 --> 05:38.793 [SPEAKER_01]: So many great comments. 05:38.813 --> 05:39.693 [SPEAKER_01]: And so many of those so good. 05:39.713 --> 05:47.419 [SPEAKER_01]: And there's such good Bible teaching and preaching on, you know, you have great YouTube channels, great podcasts, people have been doing great work. 05:47.459 --> 05:48.319 [SPEAKER_01]: You don't need 05:49.120 --> 05:51.142 [SPEAKER_01]: You don't need chatGbT to short cut everything. 05:51.182 --> 05:53.424 [SPEAKER_01]: Put a little bit of extra effort into it. 05:53.725 --> 05:55.446 [SPEAKER_01]: All right, now he's something really old. 05:55.547 --> 05:57.408 [SPEAKER_01]: But I just want to know. 05:57.448 --> 05:59.010 [SPEAKER_02]: You just threw Katie Johnson on the bus. 05:59.150 --> 06:00.812 [SPEAKER_01]: No, Katie, we think you're great. 06:00.912 --> 06:03.354 [SPEAKER_01]: I know Katie, she's followed us for years. 06:03.394 --> 06:04.275 [SPEAKER_01]: So Katie, you're awesome. 06:04.315 --> 06:05.617 [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want to attack you at all. 06:05.637 --> 06:06.337 [SPEAKER_01]: So you know what? 06:07.419 --> 06:10.522 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't scrap this from the lights, cut it all, cut it all, forget it was over there. 06:11.183 --> 06:11.824 [SPEAKER_01]: All right. 06:12.305 --> 06:19.714 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so we don't have any other news except to say, if you have not signed up for our Patreon to get the deep dive on bleeding cancers, get on that. 06:19.814 --> 06:21.656 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you're missing out. 06:21.916 --> 06:22.998 [SPEAKER_01]: Hours of recording. 06:24.219 --> 06:25.941 [SPEAKER_01]: Many, many months of research. 06:26.662 --> 06:28.042 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely insane story. 06:28.683 --> 06:43.447 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you did not know the story and I'm pretty sure you don't know the story like this at all If you ever heard about it was probably in like US history class you were a long time ago It was like one paragraph before the Civil War it barely and it until you live in Kansas So you might have not do a lot more on it. 06:43.607 --> 06:45.488 [SPEAKER_01]: You probably got state by three class. 06:45.508 --> 06:45.608 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah 06:46.348 --> 06:49.549 [SPEAKER_01]: As I said, but I do think you probably would learn some things in there as well. 06:50.690 --> 07:02.614 [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of wild stuff, a canine of a senator before the senate floor, an entire gigantic revolt because a slave saw the son turn green, which actually did happen. 07:02.634 --> 07:05.595 [SPEAKER_01]: I just wild stuff in that story. 07:05.675 --> 07:06.536

[SPEAKER_01]: All of it tied. 07:07.116 --> 07:10.179 [SPEAKER_01]: to missionaries moving to Kansas to try to end slavery. 07:10.259 --> 07:11.460 [SPEAKER_01]: So go check it out. 07:11.780 --> 07:14.402 [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to know that story, you got a sign up for Patreon, and then you'll have that. 07:14.742 --> 07:25.692 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if access to all of our other deep diets from Ethiopia, the first group say to say a little much trials to Joan of Art, to Nightston Blar, to how we've done so many deep diets on the London Fire 66, the typing rebellion. 07:25.712 --> 07:33.238 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's so many out there, I'm losing track of how many we've done, but you get all of them, and you get this newest episode on Kansas. 07:33.458 --> 07:34.539 [SPEAKER_01]: So go check it out. 07:36.047 --> 07:37.148 [SPEAKER_01]: Should we talk about Jonathan Edwards? 07:37.829 --> 07:40.191 [SPEAKER_02]: I think we should get to that old Johnny Edwards. 07:40.211 --> 07:43.994 [SPEAKER_02]: Johnny Edwards, Johnny E. We've talked about him on this show. 07:44.014 --> 07:54.503 [SPEAKER_02]: Multiple times, let me give you the bringy up to speed, the little refresh, a little recap as last scene on our last episode, you know, kind of what they call that and the TV show world, yeah. 07:55.003 --> 07:58.905 [SPEAKER_02]: Edward's born in pre-revolutionary colonial America. 07:59.405 --> 08:05.948 [SPEAKER_02]: He was educated in Yale and then went to work with this grandfather Solomon's daughter at his church. 08:05.968 --> 08:07.308 [SPEAKER_02]: We've talked about stuttered before. 08:07.468 --> 08:07.889 [SPEAKER_01]: He was good. 08:08.009 --> 08:10.670 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, if you haven't listened to Solomon's daughter, it's another one. 08:10.690 --> 08:11.530 [SPEAKER_01]: Get downloading. 08:11.550 --> 08:12.151 [SPEAKER_01]: You've got worked. 08:12.171 --> 08:13.871 [SPEAKER_01]: You had to hold some or where were you? 08:13.911 --> 08:15.172 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was a fascinating one. 08:15.932 --> 08:24.916 [SPEAKER_02]: Edward spent two years studying 10 hours a day at his grandfather's shirts at Souther's Church before, Stoddard finally handed him the pulpit. 08:24.976 --> 08:42.264 [SPEAKER_02]: So he had hard work to do to prove himself in this era, fiery preaching was the style of the day and we see that in Edward, we see that in Cotton Mather, who with someone else we've had on this show his connections to the Sanland Witch Trials that we're also kind of going on around this time. 08:43.784 --> 08:53.490 [SPEAKER_02]: Edward's proved to be especially gifted at preaching and captivating audiences and revivals began to sweep through New England during this period. 08:54.351 --> 09:01.135 [SPEAKER_02]: Edward's found himself right smack dab in the middle of this new movement that was sweeping across America. 09:02.096 --> 09:04.018 [SPEAKER_01]: And all of this, of course, came crashing down. 09:04.138 --> 09:12.585 [SPEAKER_01]: If you remember when Edwards is on Uncle committed suicide, and then shortly, they're afterwards another congregant and Edwards is on Uncle, by the way, was going to Edwards's church. 09:12.945 --> 09:14.366 [SPEAKER_01]: And another congregant did as well. 09:14.567 --> 09:18.810 [SPEAKER_01]: Edwards lost his passion and preached some tame sermons for a while, kind of afraid. 09:18.830 --> 09:19.851 [SPEAKER_01]: What do you know? 09:19.911 --> 09:21.793 [SPEAKER_01]: Am I causing these people to commit suicide? 09:22.133 --> 09:35.408 [SPEAKER_01]: This went on until the very famous evangelist George Whitfield came, pre-shared Edward's church, it was said that according to the people there, Edward's wept in the front view, his spirit was revitalized and from that point on, he went back to preaching the fiery sermons he did before. 09:36.309 --> 09:43.597 [SPEAKER_01]: A pretty cool intersection of two of the most important people preachers from that era, meeting at the same place, and the impact one had on the other. 09:44.377 --> 09:50.939 [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't went on to preach his very famous sermon centers in the hands of an angry god to a particularly anti-revival crowd Many people got saved. 09:50.959 --> 10:07.625 [SPEAKER_01]: It was said he couldn't even finish the sermon Then the great awakening swept absolutely most of the Atlantic But it particularly John the Edwards was considered the leader of the of the American side of that Atlantic movement George with Phil John Wesley Charles Wesley and Daniel Rowland and a bunch of people we've covered on the show over on the other side 10:08.385 --> 10:25.621 [SPEAKER_01]: As the great awakening was kind of sweeping both sides, during this tiny published as a missionary journal by David Brainer and we covered in the past how that journal truly changed the world and if you haven't listened to all of our episodes on John that I were telling you listen right now, call it enjoy. 10:25.981 --> 10:29.605 [SPEAKER_01]: But it's been a saga, every episode I feel like I'm learning a new chapter 10:30.225 --> 10:31.185 [SPEAKER_01]: of this guy's book. 10:31.205 --> 10:35.147 [SPEAKER_01]: And each time I'm like, wow, I'm my respect for him continues to go up. 10:35.507 --> 10:36.868 [SPEAKER_01]: And this episode is no different. 10:36.888 --> 10:37.808 [SPEAKER_01]: I looked at this episode. 10:37.828 --> 10:40.489 [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, wow, he's got some really cool stuff. 10:40.809 --> 10:43.811 [SPEAKER_01]: We talked about a big fight he had with his old church in the communion. 10:44.771 --> 10:46.872 [SPEAKER_01]: Some kids were not looking at anatomy books. 10:46.892 --> 10:49.553 [SPEAKER_01]: They were giggling and making very crude crass jokes. 10:50.033 --> 10:51.914 [SPEAKER_01]: Edward said, like, hey, you need to say, you're sorry. 10:51.934 --> 10:52.634 [SPEAKER_01]: That's not appropriate. 10:52.654 --> 10:54.155 [SPEAKER_01]: Kind of caught them in the library

doing that. 10:54.615 --> 10:56.436 [SPEAKER_01]: They said, no, we won't say we're sorry. 10:56.776 --> 11:01.120 [SPEAKER_01]: He went to their parents who happened to be elders of the church and said, look, the kids are acting up. 11:01.540 --> 11:02.701 [SPEAKER_01]: They need to apologize. 11:02.721 --> 11:03.742 [SPEAKER_01]: This is inappropriate. 11:04.062 --> 11:05.263 [SPEAKER_01]: And the elders said, no, they don't. 11:05.283 --> 11:06.404 [SPEAKER_01]: They're just kids being kids. 11:06.484 --> 11:09.046 [SPEAKER_01]: And Edward said, I don't think they're acting Christian. 11:09.086 --> 11:10.207 [SPEAKER_01]: The elders said, we don't care. 11:10.247 --> 11:11.708 [SPEAKER_01]: He said, I'm not going to give them communion. 11:12.008 --> 11:12.869 [SPEAKER_01]: And they said, you better. 11:13.029 --> 11:17.913 [SPEAKER_01]: And that led to this giant fight that got Edward's and eventually kicked out of his own church. 11:18.888 --> 11:44.659 [SPEAKER_01]: mean a famous preacher in a well-known theologian he pretty much could have gone anywhere a church in Virginia instantly was like come to us a big church back in Scotland also invited him back so hey can you come preach at ours i don't know how news got traveled that fast there um he had many opportunities different places at one of them but instead he chose stockbridge massachusetts quote a church on the front here in massachusetts with about one 11:46.660 --> 12:02.986 [SPEAKER_01]: and i try to imagine this today like try to imagine a big famous celebrity pastor leaving his big huge church after maybe a scandal or maybe not all these big churches are open to him and he goes and finds a church in the middle of nowhere Alaska no offense to our Alaska listeners 12:03.326 --> 12:18.079 [SPEAKER_01]: but like way out there and he's got like a dozen families like it's or in an international church super far and actually an international church might be an even better more apt description because you'd have like 12 families that speak the language and then maybe opportunities to trans like with a bunch of people that don't that's really what he's doing. 12:18.739 --> 12:20.240 [SPEAKER_01]: And today, I've never heard of it. 12:20.300 --> 12:22.560 [SPEAKER_01]: I can't think of anybody who's truly done anything like that. 12:23.041 --> 12:26.342 [SPEAKER_01]: Edwards was very unique in doing this, but he really cared. 12:26.762 --> 12:33.525 [SPEAKER_01]: Many people are referred to this time period as a hermit like exile moment where he's kind of all by himself reading and writing books. 12:34.565 --> 12:37.366 [SPEAKER_01]: The Edwards was kind of retreating into his life. 12:37.426 --> 12:38.086 [SPEAKER_01]: People described it. 12:38.146 --> 12:42.268 [SPEAKER_01]: One whole historian said, Sockbridge was a quote, Dott in the wilderness. 12:43.148 --> 12:57.399 [SPEAKER_01]: and Edwards could preach old sermons to a handful of Indians at a smaller handful of white families, close the door on his forefoot by eight foot study and decide his thoughts on the freedom of the will and theological topics basically so he could write his books in peace. 12:58.419 --> 12:59.260 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, that's not true. 12:59.280 --> 13:11.064 [SPEAKER_01]: The stock bridge was made up of some, the families weren't many, but they were really important families like some colonial leaders, generals and people, the, so the people there were important, but also something really special about stock bridge. 13:11.084 --> 13:12.465 [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't a place to hide out. 13:12.925 --> 13:17.147 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a very special type of missionary town, which I didn't know these existed. 13:17.547 --> 13:19.368 [SPEAKER_01]: Joel, tell us what kind of missionary town this was. 13:20.725 --> 13:30.053 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, so the Puritans had long struggled to convert Native Americans, since a lot of them would eventually drift back into their old beliefs. 13:30.133 --> 13:41.442 [SPEAKER_02]: And so they're proposed solution with they tried doing for a while was building these dedicated towns where Native American converts could come in live. 13:41.482 --> 13:44.165 [SPEAKER_02]: And it was kind of this joint authority type of 13:45.506 --> 14:04.219 [SPEAKER_02]: establishment, where Indians and Puritans would kind of run a Bible-believing town that people could come and live in, and it would create a new environment in which they were able to be a little bit more stable in their faith and dedication and new life in in Jesus. 14:04.259 --> 14:05.140 [SPEAKER_02]: And so these towns, 14:06.240 --> 14:10.362 [SPEAKER_02]: came with their own legal and moral codes, and people would move to it. 14:10.382 --> 14:15.325 [SPEAKER_02]: Like what Native Americans voluntarily wanted to go and live in these areas. 14:15.365 --> 14:20.447 [SPEAKER_02]: And they were free to leave if they wanted to, but again, they were populated. 14:20.827 --> 14:27.350 [SPEAKER_02]: As soon as a mission town was chartered, the missionary would begin to build legal structures. 14:27.490 --> 14:28.251 [SPEAKER_02]: These buildings. 14:29.111 --> 14:33.594 [SPEAKER_02]: meant to move Indians from paganism towards Christian discipleship. 14:33.915 --> 14:36.216 [SPEAKER_02]: And so there would be things that were against the rules, right? 14:36.256 --> 14:42.361 [SPEAKER_02]: And so this would include things like gambling or sexual morality, certain hairstyles. 14:42.381 --> 14:44.342 [SPEAKER_02]: They weren't allowed to have body-greasing. 14:44.562 --> 14:45.683 [SPEAKER_02]: What is body-greasing? 14:45.863 --> 14:47.785 [SPEAKER_02]: Troy, do you know what body-greasing is? 14:48.265 --> 14:49.466 [SPEAKER_01]: I wish I could say I did. 14:50.887 --> 14:59.554 [SPEAKER_01]: I know that in one of our episodes, very, very long time ago, a gentleman in Alan Gardner ran into body grease and were like the Native Americans. 14:59.774 --> 15:07.520 [SPEAKER_01]:

Way down at the tip of tear to if I go over the very bottom of South America, they would live in loincloth, but they would cover themselves in oil to keep warm. 15:07.620 --> 15:12.644 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that's the body grease in the Massachusetts, but that's what I thought it might have been. 15:12.804 --> 15:17.548 [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't Google it because I didn't, if I could be honest with you, I didn't want to find out if I don't have the 15:19.389 --> 15:42.478 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like so I'm we're going to go with that's the only experience I have with it and if you listen or yeah, listen or write and revive thoughts at gmail.com and tell us what body Greasing whatever it is, it's not allowed in these period in a native prank and establishment They said nothing so that but the thing was like that could mean it was a bad thing but also could just mean it was something that like they did They weren't like in man. 15:42.698 --> 15:46.580 [SPEAKER_01]: Men having long hair isn't automatically evil, but it wasn't here to millage So 15:47.360 --> 16:13.166 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there were certain, I mean, another one of these is polygamy, we would agree, polygamy not allowed, but next to that you see things like the way that they'd mourn for their dead, because the Native Americans wouldn't mourn by these loud wailings, moanings that they would do, and that wasn't allowed either, so some of these do seem more cultural than moral, is what it seems like to me. 16:14.146 --> 16:27.154 [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think that even the Puritans would have disagreed with that person, and they would probably have biblical justification ready for anything you challenged, but I also think they probably knew that they were stepping more into the culturally. 16:27.174 --> 16:27.975 [SPEAKER_01]: That was kind of the idea. 16:28.155 --> 16:35.800 [SPEAKER_01]: Come into our culture, become like us, and maybe we can together save you from your hedonism, and you know, that was their idea. 16:36.380 --> 16:48.608 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so they work on construction these towns, they start with houses and once resources became available, then they would build a proper meeting house for worship, like, you know, church building. 16:48.628 --> 16:58.614 [SPEAKER_02]: And converts that show genuine signs of spiritual change might be baptized quickly, but in mission to communion would often take longer. 16:58.634 --> 17:04.118 [SPEAKER_02]: It was something where they wanted to see and monitor the stability of the converts. 17:04.758 --> 17:18.864 [SPEAKER_02]: Schools were also built for the children there, and while some did become places of real abuse, the stated goal was to offer a new way of civilized life, and ideally the means to support themselves. 17:18.984 --> 17:27.327 [SPEAKER_02]: So farming and carpentry blacksmithing, shoemaking all of these things were taught to young men that were being raised up in the school system there. 17:27.827 --> 17:35.053

[SPEAKER_02]: And for the women spinning and weaving and sewing, housekeeping, that was the role things that the girls studied there as well. 17:35.133 --> 17:37.195 [SPEAKER_02]: So, interesting experiment. 17:37.215 --> 17:48.344 [SPEAKER_02]: It would probably not fly in today's society, but in the wild west, what pre-wild rest, in pre-clonial America, this was what they came up with as the solution. 17:49.104 --> 18:07.932 [SPEAKER_01]: these places had a name they were called praying towns and they had some they did actually if you're listening to them well there's no way it worked actually they did they had success uh the people the Indians who had moved there especially they grew up it became culturally spiritually like Puritans themselves they they did adopt the mannerisms of the Puritans and 18:08.412 --> 18:16.417 [SPEAKER_01]: you know you can argue back and forth people historians rewrite it was just purely political they never actually joined in for spiritual, but I think that's not fair you weren't there. 18:17.117 --> 18:25.542 [SPEAKER_01]: Pyrotans were really strict and they really took spiritual stuff seriously and I don't think they would have been okay with zero real evidence of spiritual life and spiritual fruit. 18:25.582 --> 18:32.767 [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean they're saying and writing down it was successful that's probably because there was some signs of it actually being successful. 18:33.587 --> 18:39.913 [SPEAKER_01]: But there were certainly tribes who may have done it for the political reasons, but there seemed to be some who actually chose to live that life as well. 18:40.874 --> 18:42.536 [SPEAKER_01]: And there were reasons for it. 18:42.556 --> 18:53.746 [SPEAKER_01]: Some of the reasons they gave were even historians were like, look, the Indians were more interested in keeping the family unit, the nation, their tribe alive, and they didn't adopt the in the customs of a different land. 18:53.786 --> 18:57.029 [SPEAKER_01]: If it meant they got to stay together, it wasn't actually the worst thing for some of them. 18:58.210 --> 19:07.335 [SPEAKER_01]: Even though their conversion in tailed that whole-scale cultural change that getting to preserve that ethnic identity would have been considered a trade worth making for some of them, at least. 19:07.736 --> 19:11.518 [SPEAKER_01]: Regardless, some of them became Christian, and this kind of was going okay. 19:12.278 --> 19:12.718 [SPEAKER_01]: Until 19:14.459 --> 19:20.204 [SPEAKER_01]: King Philos for and King and by the way, too, if you're if you're the same here, and that was where you can't just change someone's culture overnight like that. 19:20.224 --> 19:24.126 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're, if you're, I will point out the Puritans were doing this to themselves as well, like pay. 19:24.427 --> 19:27.929 [SPEAKER_01]: We're forced to, it wasn't by the same standard they held the tribes to. 19:27.949 --> 19:28.910 [SPEAKER_01]: They were holding themselves to. 19:28.930 --> 19:31.452 [SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't move to America and just start doing what you wanted. 19:31.472 --> 19:33.953 [SPEAKER_01]: They, at that time, period, everyone had to live under their rule. 19:33.973 --> 19:36.976 [SPEAKER_01]: So, they weren't hypocrites, even if you maybe don't like that. 19:38.662 --> 19:45.225 [SPEAKER_01]: But when King Phillips is war broke out, which is one of the tribes, kind of broke a treaty, goes to war against the Puritans. 19:46.426 --> 19:53.568 [SPEAKER_01]: Solomon Sodder, who kind of made all these people there in this time, led to a bunch of wars, and the Peritans kind of got shut down. 19:54.029 --> 20:01.252 [SPEAKER_01]: Solomon Sodder, the grandfather of John that we covered him on an episode where he basically went through a time period where he hated Native Americans, he saw people get killed by them. 20:01.612 --> 20:06.514 [SPEAKER_01]: He actually almost got killed by them himself, but they had like a superstitious reason not to kill a preacher, so they didn't. 20:07.294 --> 20:08.935 [SPEAKER_01]: And then he saw his own stepdaughter. 20:08.955 --> 20:11.636 [SPEAKER_01]: I believe it was a stepdaughter. 20:11.656 --> 20:13.317 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she got kidnapped, basically. 20:13.337 --> 20:16.218 [SPEAKER_01]: And nobody ever saw her getting very likely killed by Native Americans. 20:16.238 --> 20:18.739 [SPEAKER_01]: So he had a really strong reason not to like them. 20:19.139 --> 20:28.583 [SPEAKER_01]: And then something softened, we don't know what it was, but then he preached a sermon in 1723, basically saying, America is gonna be judged because we haven't been sharing the gospel with these Native Americans. 20:28.643 --> 20:29.464 [SPEAKER_01]: It's hard change. 20:29.824 --> 20:34.406 [SPEAKER_01]: And I believe that that carried over to Jonathan Edwards, which led to his love for them to be saved too. 20:34.726 --> 20:44.508 [SPEAKER_01]: which led to him publishing a diary of David Breiner and a bunch of other stuff, and Edward specifically kind of taking up the mantle of his grandfather who preached the church there. 20:44.548 --> 20:55.151 [SPEAKER_01]: He takes over that church, and because his grandfather had started becoming really soft on wanting to see that the Native American tribes come to Christ, John the Edwards didn't want to see the Indians come to Christ as well. 20:55.731 --> 21:02.753 [SPEAKER_01]: and they began to try to rebuild one of these prayer towns and the missionaries that end up going to this prayer town to get it started. 21:02.873 --> 21:05.594 [SPEAKER_01]: They go to like through one of Edward's disciples. 21:05.894 --> 21:16.678 [SPEAKER_01]: They kind of get all of their blessing and this is in the middle of like the great awakening and people are coming to Christ and people are going we need to become Christians and these tribes over here are all dying and going to hell what can we do to stop that. 21:17.058 --> 21:27.022 [SPEAKER_01]:

And I even learned apparently in the charter of Massachusetts, if you Google charter of Massachusetts, like as a colony, it was a part of their charter to evangelize the gospel to the Indian. 21:27.062 --> 21:30.783 [SPEAKER_01]: So like the whole state of Massachusetts was technically set up to do this. 21:31.203 --> 21:38.926 [SPEAKER_01]: So building this city called stock bridge was kind of like a step in that right direction of getting everybody back on track to bringing the gospel to these people. 21:49.023 --> 21:52.348 [SPEAKER_02]: At first, life was peaceful for the Edward's family. 21:52.388 --> 22:04.245 [SPEAKER_02]: He remained an intellectual at heart, and so he often buried himself in his studies, but he still delivered around 230 sermons to Native American people and the communities there. 22:04.705 --> 22:12.328 [SPEAKER_02]: Simpler and styled in his usual preaching, but in his own words, he said, here, at Presence we live in peace. 22:12.848 --> 22:19.211 [SPEAKER_02]: He recalls preaching on Cornelius and Peter, and he closed with the line to those gathered there. 22:19.231 --> 22:29.735 [SPEAKER_02]: He says, now I have come to preach the true religion to you and to your children, as Peter did to Cornelius and his family, that you and all of your children may be saved. 22:30.515 --> 22:37.619 [SPEAKER_02]: Edwards was fairly old at this point, and the native American language proved to be difficult for him to match her. 22:37.639 --> 22:45.863 [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't something that he ever really became super fluent in, but he did take on roles as a kind of missionary trainer. 22:46.043 --> 22:51.266 [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, he's saying, you know, I am probably past my prime to be the most effective here. 22:51.946 --> 22:54.167 [SPEAKER_02]: Let me train up new missionaries that can... 22:55.328 --> 23:00.332 [SPEAKER_02]: They've more longevity, some more umph, some more passion ahead of them. 23:00.352 --> 23:02.054 [SPEAKER_02]: They can kind of pick up the torch here. 23:02.474 --> 23:13.984 [SPEAKER_02]: And this broader movement would become deeply tied to the mission's movement at the late 18th century, and many of the people involved in that later work, first connected with him during these seven years. 23:14.024 --> 23:17.147 [SPEAKER_02]: When he trained, missionaries directly, so they... 23:17.747 --> 23:25.311 [SPEAKER_02]: The missionaries would call that time, they all have that common route of training with Jonathan Edwards when he was later in life. 23:26.391 --> 23:33.195 [SPEAKER_02]: Eventually, though, the same family that turned against him at his previous church, began working against him here at his new home. 23:33.955 --> 23:48.442 [SPEAKER_02]: And this time the conflict centered around land that the Indians had purchased, which Edwards worked to protect from the approaching colonialists, the Williams family, who were missionaries that were already established in that area. 23:50.023 --> 23:55.625 [SPEAKER_02]: resented any oversight, particularly from someone carrying the name as prominent as Edwards. 23:56.185 --> 24:03.188 [SPEAKER_01]: Unlike in the previous battle at the community and over the church before, the town actually sides with Edwards. 24:03.228 --> 24:04.749 [SPEAKER_01]: He gets their support. 24:05.429 --> 24:07.550 [SPEAKER_01]: The church is with Edwards, so like hey, 24:07.790 --> 24:11.753 [SPEAKER_01]: having some oversight and accountability with these missionaries are supposed to are as good. 24:12.714 --> 24:13.955 [SPEAKER_01]: The Indians are preaching to. 24:13.975 --> 24:14.415 [SPEAKER_01]: They like them. 24:14.455 --> 24:15.216 [SPEAKER_01]: They want them to stay. 24:15.656 --> 24:20.860 [SPEAKER_01]: And so even though he has a bit of a battle to get things to work out here, we could go on a long story about that. 24:20.900 --> 24:25.624 [SPEAKER_01]: But overall, it worked out for him in the prayer town was happy with him for the most part. 24:25.984 --> 24:30.329 [SPEAKER_01]: He got to preach with the translator, he got to work at a school there and help set up Christian classes. 24:30.689 --> 24:35.013 [SPEAKER_01]: He wrote some of his most famous theological books, original sin, and the freedom of the will there. 24:35.554 --> 24:42.141 [SPEAKER_01]: And eventually, and things were going well, this is not our hermitage, like he's not he's very much in ministry, it's just a very different type of ministry. 24:42.741 --> 24:50.667 [SPEAKER_01]: However, the French and Indian War begins to heat up, which I learned recently from that movie Young Washington, was kind of caused by George Washington, so that's interesting. 24:51.347 --> 24:52.588 [SPEAKER_01]: I guess it was kind of caused by the French. 24:52.628 --> 24:57.151 [SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't seen the movie, anyway, spoiler, but George Washington accidentally starts French and Indian War. 24:57.472 --> 24:59.253 [SPEAKER_01]: That's an oversimplification, but hey, 24:59.993 --> 25:02.254 [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it starts to heat up and it causes trouble for John. 25:02.274 --> 25:06.877 [SPEAKER_01]: Then Edward said Indians are not feeling safe in the prayer town Triads are on the move. 25:06.917 --> 25:17.402 [SPEAKER_01]: Things are happening and Once again another prayer town is like attempted here, but these wars with Indians make it really hard And so he kind of has to kind of move his family out. 25:17.442 --> 25:25.086 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just not all can safe from there And at the same time the College of New Jersey, which I believe eventually becomes Princeton or is it Yale or also I should have written that 25:25.126 --> 25:31.073 [SPEAKER_01]: down, apologize, one of the big three, and they invite him to come work at his school. 25:31.153 --> 25:33.255 [SPEAKER_01]: He accepts the opportunity, but not long afterwards. 25:33.275 --> 25:36.099 [SPEAKER_01]: He gets a smallpox inoculation and he dies, so it doesn't work out.

25:37.000 --> 25:39.723 [SPEAKER_01]: The idea was not that the inoculation would kill him, it just did. 25:40.464 --> 25:42.826 [SPEAKER_01]: He was actually trying to prove it was safe, so if that wasn't correct. 25:43.787 --> 26:06.806 [SPEAKER_01]: uh... the missionary work he did was not just him and exiled it was not just him doing a few uh... but he did write a theological treaties areas trying to write like the whole of what god was doing like a giant like a magnum opus of christian and he wrote redemption will be accomplished by means by the preaching of the gospel god spirit will be poured out first to raise up instruments and then those instruments will be improved and succeed 26:07.727 --> 26:14.171 [SPEAKER_01]: And doubtfulness, one nation will be enlightened, and will then convert another, and it will go on in a wonderful manner and spread more and more. 26:14.492 --> 26:18.955 [SPEAKER_01]: The gospel will be preached to every tongue, every kindred, every nation, every people. 26:19.355 --> 26:23.698 [SPEAKER_01]: It will soon be gloriously successful to bring in the multitudes from every nation. 26:24.218 --> 26:41.744 [SPEAKER_01]: And so Edward saw what he was doing was just him doing his part to see other nations come to Christ and that long succession before Jesus returned and he didn't believe that there was a whole process of Jesus' return and he believed first you'd see all the nations get the opportunity to have the gospel share to them. 26:41.804 --> 26:50.307 [SPEAKER_01]: So you can see here for him the missionary work wasn't him in exile and anything the missionary work was an opportunity for him to do something he'd always wanted to do. 27:06.750 --> 27:20.057 [SPEAKER_00]: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 27:21.333 --> 27:26.899 [SPEAKER_00]: The historical events recorded in the book of Ruth seemed to have been included in Scripture for two main reasons. 27:27.439 --> 27:29.762 [SPEAKER_00]: First, because Christ descended from Ruth. 27:30.322 --> 27:36.989 [SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit considered it important to record the marriage of Boa as on Ruth, because from their family line came the Savior of the world. 27:37.699 --> 27:47.586 [SPEAKER_00]: Throughout Scripture, we often see that the Holy Spirit pays careful attention even to small events and seemingly minor details when they are connected even indirectly to Jesus Christ. 27:48.346 --> 27:56.192 [SPEAKER_00]: Second, because this history serves as a picture of the calling of the Gentile church, and indeed of the conversion of every true believer. 27:57.142 --> 27:58.843 [SPEAKER_00]: Ruth was not originally an Israelite. 27:59.324 --> 28:03.247 [SPEAKER_00]: She was a Moabite, a foreigner who was outside the covenant people of Israel. 28:03.787 --> 28:11.113 [SPEAKER_00]: Yet she left her own nation and abandoned the idols of the Gentiles in order to worship the God of Israel and unite herself with his people. 28:11.834 --> 28:16.918 [SPEAKER_00]: In this way, Ruth appears to foreshadow both the Gentile church and every genuine convert. 28:17.578 --> 28:20.520 [SPEAKER_00]: Ruth became an ancestor of Christ according to his human lineage. 28:21.020 --> 28:26.063 [SPEAKER_00]: In a similar way, scripture describes the church as Christ's mother in Revelation 12. 28:26.743 --> 28:35.448 [SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, every true Christian is called his mother, in the sense that Jesus said, whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. 28:36.128 --> 28:37.689 [SPEAKER_00]: Matthew chapter 12 verse 50. 28:38.449 --> 28:42.672 [SPEAKER_00]: Christ is spiritually formed in every one of Constelect through the new birth. 28:43.432 --> 28:50.354 [SPEAKER_00]: Just as Ruth left her family, her homeland, the country of her birth, and everything she possessed there for the sake of the God of Israel. 28:50.954 --> 28:54.055 [SPEAKER_00]: So every true Christian leaves everything behind for Christ. 28:54.835 --> 29:03.178 [SPEAKER_00]: As Psalm 45 verse 10 says, Hero, daughter, and consider and incline your ear for get your own people also and your father's house. 29:04.158 --> 29:09.840 [SPEAKER_00]: At this point Naomi was returning from the land of Moab to Israel with her two daughters in law, orpa, and Ruth. 29:10.532 --> 29:14.033 [SPEAKER_00]: these two women represent two different kinds of people who profess faith. 29:15.013 --> 29:23.795 [SPEAKER_00]: Orpa represents those who make an impressive profession of religion and seem to begin well, but endure only for a time before turning back. 29:24.735 --> 29:29.056 [SPEAKER_00]: Ruth, on the other hand, represents those whose faith is genuine and sincere. 29:29.756 --> 29:34.357 [SPEAKER_00]: Because their faith is real, they remain steadfast and persevere in the path they have begun. 29:35.307 --> 29:44.152 [SPEAKER_00]: In the verses immediately preceding this passage, Naomi explains to both her daughters and law the hardships they would face if they left their homeland to accompany her to Israel. 29:45.033 --> 29:47.694 [SPEAKER_00]: From this verse, we may know to a few observations. 29:48.455 --> 29:52.657 [SPEAKER_00]: One, notice the remarkable character and conduct of Ruth on this occasion. 29:53.218 --> 29:58.721 [SPEAKER_00]: See the unwavering determination with which she remained devoted to Naomi and chose to go with her. 29:59.480 --> 30:08.004 [SPEAKER_00]: When Naomi first set out to leave the land of Moab and return to Israel, both Orpa and Ruth a company tour, Naomi urged them both to return to their

own people. 30:08.604 --> 30:11.605 [SPEAKER_00]: At first they both wept and could hardly bear the thought of leaving her. 30:12.266 --> 30:14.867 [SPEAKER_00]: They seemed fully determined to continue with her. 30:15.527 --> 30:19.289 [SPEAKER_00]: As verse 10 says, surely we will return with you to your people. 30:20.029 --> 30:21.510 [SPEAKER_00]: But Naomi urged them again. 30:21.950 --> 30:23.050 [SPEAKER_00]: Turn back my daughters. 30:23.290 --> 30:24.031 [SPEAKER_00]: Go your way. 30:24.891 --> 30:26.512 [SPEAKER_00]: Once more they were deeply moved. 30:27.187 --> 30:30.649 [SPEAKER_00]: This time, Orpa turned back and returned to her own people. 30:31.489 --> 30:35.672 [SPEAKER_00]: Ruth's commitment, however, was tested even more severely, yet it did not fail. 30:36.392 --> 30:39.154 [SPEAKER_00]: As Resortine says, but Ruth clung to her. 30:39.994 --> 30:42.796 [SPEAKER_00]: Then Naomi appealed to her once again in verse 15. 30:43.256 --> 30:48.779 [SPEAKER_00]: Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods, return after your sister-in-law. 30:49.620 --> 30:55.323 [SPEAKER_00]: It is at this point that Ruth expresses the unshakable resolve, found in our text and the verse that follows. 30:56.557 --> 31:01.383 [SPEAKER_00]: too, we should especially notice what made Ruth's determination truly virtuous. 31:02.285 --> 31:07.511 [SPEAKER_00]: She remained with Naomi because she desired to belong to the God of Israel and to his people. 31:08.072 --> 31:11.176 [SPEAKER_00]: Your people should be my people and your God, my God. 31:11.997 --> 31:14.258 [SPEAKER_00]: her decision was made for God's sake. 31:14.778 --> 31:18.399 [SPEAKER_00]: That is why her actions are later praised as an example of true virtue. 31:19.039 --> 31:33.624 [SPEAKER_00]: In Ruth chapter 2 verses 11 through 12, bow as says, it has been fully reported to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband and how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and came to a people whom you did not know before. 31:34.224 --> 31:37.085 [SPEAKER_00]: The Lord repay your work and may a full reward be 31:42.508 --> 31:48.615 [SPEAKER_00]: Ruth left her father, her mother, and the land of her birth so that she might find refuge under God's wings. 31:49.155 --> 31:53.340 [SPEAKER_00]: And indeed, God gave her the full reward that Bowess desired for her. 31:54.061 --> 32:02.289 [SPEAKER_00]: Besides the immediate spiritual blessings she received, and the eternal reward waiting her in the life to come, God bless her with prosperity in the household of Bowess. 32:03.126 --> 32:11.295 [SPEAKER_00]: from her descendants God raised up David and Solomon and established to the throne of Israel among the very people she had chosen over her own nation. 32:11.956 --> 32:19.144 [SPEAKER_00]: More wonderful still, from her family line came Jesus Christ, through whom all the families of the earth are blessed. 32:20.225

--> 32:24.050 [SPEAKER_00]: Having explained these words, I now present the subject of this sermon. 32:24.850 --> 32:34.024 [SPEAKER_00]: When those with whom we have long associated begin turning to God and joining themselves to his people, we should resolve firmly that we will not leave them. 32:34.685 --> 32:38.911 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, their people should become our people and their God, our God. 32:39.842 --> 32:53.068 [SPEAKER_00]: It sometimes happens that people who have lived together as neighbors, spent much time together as friends, or been united by close family ties, have also shared a life of spiritual darkness, bondage, and service to Satan. 32:53.948 --> 33:02.872 [SPEAKER_00]: Then, some of them are awakened by God's grace, their minds are changed, they begin to see the great evil of sin, and their hearts are turned toward God. 33:03.393 --> 33:07.054 [SPEAKER_00]: Through the work of the Holy Spirit, they become willing to leave the company of those 33:09.055 --> 33:12.556 [SPEAKER_00]: and join the blessed company of those who belong to Jesus Christ. 33:13.016 --> 33:18.317 [SPEAKER_00]: They are ready to leave the tense of wickedness and dwell among God's people in the land of righteousness. 33:19.137 --> 33:23.998 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes this becomes a final separation between them and those with whom they once shared life. 33:24.698 --> 33:30.919 [SPEAKER_00]: Outwardly, they may still live near one another and continue to interact, but spiritually, they are now far apart. 33:31.839 --> 33:35.460 [SPEAKER_00]: One has become a child of God, while the other remains his enemy. 33:36.244 --> 33:40.048 [SPEAKER_00]: One has entered a state of true happiness, while the other remains in misery. 33:40.909 --> 33:45.194 [SPEAKER_00]: One is a citizen of the Heavenly Zion, the other remains under condemnation. 33:45.935 --> 33:48.337 [SPEAKER_00]: They are no longer united as they once were. 33:49.178 --> 33:53.703 [SPEAKER_00]: Once they shared the same desires, serving sin and doing Satan's work together. 33:54.364 --> 33:56.686 [SPEAKER_00]: Now their hearts are opposed to one another. 33:57.503 --> 34:04.627 [SPEAKER_00]: Once they pursued worldly pleasures and sinful vanities together, now their desires and priorities are entirely different. 34:05.207 --> 34:06.688 [SPEAKER_00]: They belong to different kingdoms. 34:07.428 --> 34:12.771 [SPEAKER_00]: One remains in the kingdom of darkness, while the other has been transferred into the kingdom of God's beloved son. 34:13.512 --> 34:16.953 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes this separation continues for the rest of their lives. 34:17.754 --> 34:25.698 [SPEAKER_00]: One dwells spiritually in the land of Israel, among the people of God, while the other, like Orpa, lives and dies in the land of Moab. 34:26.614 --> 34:28.435 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a deeply sorrowful reality. 34:29.035 --> 34:36.120 [SPEAKER_00]: It is an awful thing for people who once walked together in sin to be separated because some have turned to God while others have not. 34:36.780 --> 34:46.606 [SPEAKER_00]: When those we once knew begin following Christ and joining themselves to His people, our firm and unshakable resolution should be that this will not become a final parting. 34:47.266 --> 34:53.490 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, we should follow them, saying, your people will be my people and your God, my God. 34:54.373 --> 34:55.974 [SPEAKER_00]: There are several reasons for this. 34:56.735 --> 34:59.577 [SPEAKER_00]: One, because their God is a glorious God. 35:00.057 --> 35:01.058 [SPEAKER_00]: There is no one like him. 35:01.418 --> 35:04.000 [SPEAKER_00]: He is infinite in glory and excellence. 35:04.400 --> 35:10.085 [SPEAKER_00]: He is the most high God, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. 35:10.805 --> 35:14.427 [SPEAKER_00]: His name is excellent throughout the earth, and His glorious above the heavens. 35:15.027 --> 35:18.208 [SPEAKER_00]: Among all the so-called gods, there is none like him. 35:18.869 --> 35:21.330 [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing in heaven or on earth can compare with him. 35:21.910 --> 35:26.412 [SPEAKER_00]: He is the fountain of every good thing, and His goodness can never be exhausted. 35:26.812 --> 35:31.815 [SPEAKER_00]: He is the all-sufficient God, fully able to protect and defend His people. 35:32.295 --> 35:34.896 [SPEAKER_00]: He is mighty in strength and victorious in battle. 35:35.396 --> 35:38.178 [SPEAKER_00]: He is a strong rock and a high tower of refuge. 35:38.878 --> 35:44.429 [SPEAKER_00]: As Scripture says, there is none like the God of Jesheron who rides across the heavens to help you. 35:45.131 --> 35:50.241 [SPEAKER_00]: The eternal God is the refuge of His people and underneath them are His everlasting arms. 35:51.100 --> 35:54.341 [SPEAKER_00]: everything is in his hands, and he accomplishes whatever he pleases. 35:54.862 --> 35:56.662 [SPEAKER_00]: He gives life and he takes it away. 35:57.123 --> 35:59.304 [SPEAKER_00]: He brings down to the grave and raises up again. 35:59.684 --> 36:01.345 [SPEAKER_00]: He makes poor and he makes rich. 36:01.725 --> 36:03.906 [SPEAKER_00]: The very foundations of the earth belong to him. 36:04.646 --> 36:06.167 [SPEAKER_00]: He is infinitely holy. 36:06.507 --> 36:08.588 [SPEAKER_00]: There is none holy like the Lord. 36:09.288 --> 36:11.630 [SPEAKER_00]: He is also infinitely good and merciful. 36:12.150 --> 36:20.676 [SPEAKER_00]: Many of the false gods, people worship our cruel powers that seek the destruction of souls, but the God of His people delights in showing mercy. 36:21.096 --> 36:23.898 [SPEAKER_00]: His grace is infinite and endures forever. 36:24.518 --> 36:29.102 [SPEAKER_00]: God is love itself and infinite fountain and boundless ocean of love. 36:29.862 --> 36:33.303 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the God of those who have forsaken their sins and been converted. 36:33.803 --> 36:35.563 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the glory of Israel's God. 36:35.984 -->

36:38.444 [SPEAKER_00]: Those who have chosen Him have chosen wisely. 36:38.884 --> 36:45.606 [SPEAKER_00]: They have made the happiest exchange imaginable by giving up sin and the world in order to gain such a God. 36:46.246 --> 36:52.808 [SPEAKER_00]: They also have a glorious Savior, the only begotten Son of God, the radiance of His Father's glory. 36:53.288 --> 36:56.389 [SPEAKER_00]: The one in whom the Father has delighted from all eternity. 36:56.949 --> 37:06.995 [SPEAKER_00]: He is a savior of infinite love who shed his own blood and offered up his own life for their sins, and He is fully able to save all who come to Him completely and forever. 37:08.156 --> 37:17.822 [SPEAKER_00]: Second, because God's people are excellent and blessed people, God has renewed them, stamped His own image upon them, and made them partakers of His holiness. 37:18.633 --> 37:23.476 [SPEAKER_00]: as Proverbs 26 says, the righteous is more excellent than his neighbor. 37:24.136 --> 37:27.478 [SPEAKER_00]: They are the excellent of the earth, Psalm 16 verse 3. 37:28.059 --> 37:34.623 [SPEAKER_00]: They are precious in the sight of the angels, and their souls are adorned with those graces that are of great value even in God's sight. 37:35.323 --> 37:39.409 [SPEAKER_00]: the people of God are the happiest and most excellent community in the world. 37:39.910 --> 37:42.234 [SPEAKER_00]: The God they have chosen is now their father. 37:42.674 --> 37:46.260 [SPEAKER_00]: He has forgiven all their sins and brought them into peace with himself. 37:46.781 --> 37:49.705 [SPEAKER_00]: He has welcomed them into all the privileges of his children. 37:50.493 --> 37:54.315 [SPEAKER_00]: as they have given themselves to God, so God has given himself to them. 37:54.915 --> 37:57.196 [SPEAKER_00]: He has become their salvation and their inheritance. 37:57.716 --> 38:03.038 [SPEAKER_00]: His power, His mercy, and all His glorious attributes are devoted to their good. 38:03.578 --> 38:09.981 [SPEAKER_00]: They are secure forever, beyond any possibility of being lost, Satan has no power to destroy them. 38:10.565 --> 38:16.506 [SPEAKER_00]: God carries them on Eagle's wings, far above Satan's reach and beyond the reach of every enemy of their souls. 38:17.147 --> 38:19.787 [SPEAKER_00]: God is with them in this life through his gracious presence. 38:20.207 --> 38:23.568 [SPEAKER_00]: He is for them, so who can ultimately be against them? 38:24.248 --> 38:28.109 [SPEAKER_00]: As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people. 38:28.609 --> 38:31.190 [SPEAKER_00]: He is their shield and they're exceedingly great reward. 38:31.730 --> 38:42.319 [SPEAKER_00]: Their fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, and God has confirmed by both His promise and His oath that in the world to come they will do all forever in His glorious presence. 38:43.080 --> 38:50.347 [SPEAKER_00]: Surely this alone should persuade us to join ourselves to those who have forsaken their sins and idols in order to become part of God's people. 38:51.055 --> 39:02.824 [SPEAKER_00]: as Zachariah, chapter 21, 23, says, In those days, 10 men from every language in nation shall take hold of the robe of one who is a Jew, saying, let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you. 39:03.524 --> 39:08.408 [SPEAKER_00]: In the same way, we should eerily join ourselves to those among our neighbors and friends who have turned to God. 39:08.848 --> 39:12.431 [SPEAKER_00]: Saying in effect, we will go with you because God is with you. 39:13.503 --> 39:16.708 [SPEAKER_00]: Third, because true happiness is found nowhere else. 39:17.389 --> 39:19.332 [SPEAKER_00]: There are many things people call their gods. 39:19.832 --> 39:21.054 [SPEAKER_00]: Some worship pleasure. 39:21.695 --> 39:23.217 [SPEAKER_00]: Others make wealth their God. 39:23.778 --> 39:27.524 [SPEAKER_00]: Some trust in their own abilities, or in the advantages they possess over others. 39:28.275 --> 39:30.337 [SPEAKER_00]: different people place their hope in different things. 39:30.957 --> 39:35.521 [SPEAKER_00]: But no one can find true happiness in any God except the God of Israel. 39:36.241 --> 39:38.143 [SPEAKER_00]: He alone is the fountain of all joy. 39:38.723 --> 39:42.986 [SPEAKER_00]: False gods cannot help in times of trouble, nor can they satisfy the empty soul. 39:43.647 --> 39:54.736 [SPEAKER_00]: No matter how defotedly people worship them, how earnestly they pray to them, or how diligently they serve them, they remain poor, miserable, unsatisfied, and ultimately ruined. 39:55.556 --> 39:58.837 [SPEAKER_00]: Only the people whose God is the Lord are truly blessed. 39:59.778 --> 40:02.218 [SPEAKER_00]: The world is divided into only two communities. 40:02.879 --> 40:08.621 [SPEAKER_00]: One is the people of God, the little flock of Jesus Christ, described in Revelation 14 verse 4. 40:09.261 --> 40:12.322 [SPEAKER_00]: These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. 40:13.062 --> 40:14.983 [SPEAKER_00]: The other belongs to the kingdom of darkness. 40:15.523 --> 40:20.845 [SPEAKER_00]: They are without Christ, strangers to God's covenant, without hope, and without God in the world. 40:21.625 --> 40:25.048 [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone in this second company remains miserable and undone. 40:25.648 --> 40:28.991 [SPEAKER_00]: They are enemies of God, living under his wrath and condemnation. 40:29.391 --> 40:38.998 [SPEAKER_00]: They are slaves of the devil, serving him without realizing it, deceived and trapped by him as he leads them down the broad road that ends in eternal destruction. 40:39.919 --> 40:44.382 [SPEAKER_00]: Fourth, because the example of those who turned to God should move us to follow them, 40:45.188 --> 40:52.156 [SPEAKER_00]: When people we have known begin turning to God and joining His people, their example should be received as God's call for us to do the same. 40:52.817 --> 40:56.601 [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever God changes one

person's heart, he is also calling others. 40:57.102 --> 41:01.467 [SPEAKER_00]: He speaks especially to those who have been close friends, companions or family members. 41:02.187 --> 41:09.270 [SPEAKER_00]: If we were willing to follow their example in sin, should we refuse to follow them now that they have made the wisest decision of their lives? 41:10.070 --> 41:20.515 [SPEAKER_00]: If we once shared with them worldliness, vanity and sinful living, how tragic it would be if we parted company now because we refuse to join them in holiness and to true happiness. 41:21.418 --> 41:25.662 [SPEAKER_00]: People are easily influenced by seeing others prosper in worldly things. 41:26.282 --> 41:32.908 [SPEAKER_00]: When friends or neighbors become wealthy or gain earthly success, it often stirs ambition and desire to achieve the same. 41:33.668 --> 41:39.413 [SPEAKER_00]: How much more should we be stirred to follow them when they have obtained something infinitely greater? 41:40.114 --> 41:46.359 [SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual and eternal happiness, which far surpasses all the wealth and glory this world can offer. 41:47.693 --> 41:53.135 [SPEAKER_00]: Fifth, our resolve to follow those who turn to God must be firm because the path is difficult. 41:53.795 --> 42:05.019 [SPEAKER_00]: If we are to join God's people and clean their God as our own, we must deny ourselves, put to death our sinful desires, resist every evil appetite in inclination, and completely forsake sin. 42:05.839 --> 42:07.400 [SPEAKER_00]: This is no easy task. 42:08.020 --> 42:10.321 [SPEAKER_00]: Our sinful desires are many and powerful. 42:10.861 --> 42:16.323 [SPEAKER_00]: Seeing this naturally precious to us, Scripture compares giving it up to plucking out a right 42:17.618 --> 42:22.803 [SPEAKER_00]: a person may abandon certain sins for a time, or resist temptation to some degree without great difficulty. 42:23.343 --> 42:26.786 [SPEAKER_00]: But it is heart-wending work to part with every sin once and for all. 42:27.347 --> 42:33.132 [SPEAKER_00]: To issue a final divorce to those simple desires we love most, and send them away forever. 42:33.947 --> 42:38.312 [SPEAKER_00]: Yet this is exactly what we must do if we would truly follow those who are turning to God. 42:39.132 --> 42:40.594 [SPEAKER_00]: Nor must we only forsake sin. 42:41.095 --> 42:43.577 [SPEAKER_00]: In one sense, we must also forsake the world itself. 42:44.238 --> 42:50.464 [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said in Luke 14 verse 33, whoever does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. 42:51.250 --> 42:57.735 [SPEAKER_00]: This does not necessarily mean giving away every possession immediately, but it does mean surrendering everything in the heart. 42:58.276 --> 43:07.103 [SPEAKER_00]: We must be fully willing, whenever God requires it, to leave behind every earthly possession for His sake and for the glorious privileges of belonging to His people. 43:07.683 --> 43:12.287 [SPEAKER_00]: We must be prepared to do this even without the promise of any earthly compensation. 43:12.928 --> 43:18.893 [SPEAKER_00]: We must be willing, like Abraham, to leave everything familiar and follow God into an unknown land. 43:19.633 --> 43:23.617 [SPEAKER_00]: as scripture says, Abraham went out not knowing where he was going. 43:24.537 --> 43:36.988 [SPEAKER_00]: So it was a difficult thing for Ruth to leave her native country, her father and mother, her relatives and friends, and all the comforts she had enjoyed in the land of Moab, in order to live in the land of Israel where she had never been before. 43:37.853 --> 43:43.317 [SPEAKER_00]: Naomi warned about these difficulties more than once, they proved too great for her sister-in-law Orpa. 43:43.937 --> 43:47.820 [SPEAKER_00]: When she considered them, she turned back after already setting out on the journey. 43:48.380 --> 43:55.585 [SPEAKER_00]: Her resolve was not strong enough to overcome them, but Ruth's determination was so firm that she overcame every obstacle. 43:56.205 --> 44:02.188 [SPEAKER_00]: She remained steadfast, deciding that whatever the difficulty might be, she would not leave her mother-in-law. 44:02.849 --> 44:12.254 [SPEAKER_00]: In the same way, those who would join themselves to people who are truly turning from sin to God need a very firm resolution if they are to overcome the difficulties that stand in the way. 44:12.955 --> 44:21.700 [SPEAKER_00]: Our joining ourselves to them, making their God our God and their people our people, depends upon our own resolution and choice in two respects. 44:22.446 --> 44:28.529 [SPEAKER_00]: A firm resolution to diligently use the appointed means is the way by which those means become effective. 44:29.322 --> 44:35.308 [SPEAKER_00]: God has appointed certain means by which we may become part of the true Israel, and come to have their God as our God. 44:35.968 --> 44:42.814 [SPEAKER_00]: The way to obtain this blessing is through a thorough and earnest use of those means, not by using them carelessly or half-heartedly. 44:43.475 --> 44:51.222 [SPEAKER_00]: To be thorough requires strength of purpose, a firm and unwavering determination to make full use of every means God has appointed. 44:51.823 --> 44:54.766 [SPEAKER_00]: To do what we do with all our strength and to persevere in it. 44:55.446 --> 45:09.793 [SPEAKER_00]: As Christ says in Matthew 11, verse 12, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force, choosing their God and their people with full determination, and with the whole heart is the necessary condition for being united with them. 45:10.353 --> 45:19.177 [SPEAKER_00]: God gives every person a choice in this matter, just as Orpa and Ruth were given the choice of whether to go with Naomi into the land of Israel or remain behind in Moab. 45:19.939 --> 45:31.285 [SPEAKER_00]: A natural person may desire to escape hell, but no one truly chooses God, Christ, the spiritual blessings Christ has purchased, or the happiness of

God's people until He has been converted. 45:32.085 --> 45:34.827 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, He is naturally opposed to these things. 45:35.207 --> 45:40.230 [SPEAKER_00]: He has no taste for them and is entirely ignorant of their immeasurable worth and value. 45:40.952 --> 45:46.073 [SPEAKER_00]: Many unconverted people appear to choose these things, but they do not choose them sincerely. 45:46.813 --> 45:50.974 [SPEAKER_00]: Orpa seemed at first to choose to leave Moab and go to the land of Israel. 45:51.634 --> 45:55.955 [SPEAKER_00]: But when Naomi plainly set before her the cost of that decision, she turned back. 45:56.755 --> 46:03.697 [SPEAKER_00]: In doing so, she revealed that she had never fully resolved to go, and that her whole heart was not in the choice as Ruth was. 46:04.777 --> 46:05.837 [SPEAKER_00]: What is our application? 46:06.657 --> 46:10.040 [SPEAKER_00]: The application I now wish to make of what has been said is this. 46:10.720 --> 46:18.366 [SPEAKER_00]: I urge sinners to make this same resolution concerning those among us who have recently turned to God and joined themselves to the flock of Christ. 46:18.907 --> 46:31.537 [SPEAKER_00]: Through the abundant mercy and grace God has shown to us in this place, it may truly be said of many of you who are still without Christ that you have recently been left behind by people who were once in the same condition as you. 46:32.391 --> 46:39.412 [SPEAKER_00]: There are those with whom you once lived, talked and spent your lives, who have now forsaken a life of sin and the service of Satan. 46:39.893 --> 46:45.334 [SPEAKER_00]: They have turned to God, fled to Christ, and joined that blessed company who belonged to him. 46:46.134 --> 46:51.895 [SPEAKER_00]: Once they were with you in sin and misery, but they are no longer with you in that condition or manner of life. 46:52.435 --> 47:00.117 [SPEAKER_00]: They have been changed, they have fled from the wrath to come, they have chosen a life of holiness now and the enjoyment of God forever. 47:00.933 --> 47:08.599 [SPEAKER_00]: They were once your companions in bondage and shared with you in Satan's service, but they are your companions in these things no longer. 47:09.220 --> 47:16.106 [SPEAKER_00]: Many of you have watched people living under your own roof turn away from a life of sin in order to join the people of Jesus Christ. 47:16.826 --> 47:18.948 [SPEAKER_00]: Some of you husbands have seen your wives do this. 47:19.408 --> 47:20.869 [SPEAKER_00]: Some wives have seen your husbands. 47:21.390 --> 47:24.613 [SPEAKER_00]: Some children have seen their parents and some parents have seen their children. 47:25.385 --> 47:34.093 [SPEAKER_00]: Many of you have watched brothers, sisters, close neighbors, dear friends, and especially those of you who are young have seen your companions do the same. 47:34.835 --> 47:43.500 [SPEAKER_00]: Many of you have watched those who are once closely connected to you, leave behind that miserable life

and wretched condition in which you still remain. 47:44.220 --> 47:58.868 [SPEAKER_00]: In his sovereign pleasure and wonderful grace, God has recently caused many in this place to leave their former home in the land of Moab, forsake the gods of Moab, and enter the land of Israel, where they have come to trust beneath the wings of the Lord, the God of Israel. 47:59.728 --> 48:08.374 [SPEAKER_00]: Though you and they were closely related, lived together, or spent much of your lives together, they have been taken while you have until now been left behind. 48:08.975 --> 48:11.156 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, do not let this become a final separation. 48:11.697 --> 48:15.519 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, earnestly follow them, be firm in your resolve. 48:16.378 --> 48:17.479 [SPEAKER_00]: do not do as Orpedid. 48:17.899 --> 48:23.804 [SPEAKER_00]: At first, she appeared willing to follow Naomi, but when the difficulty of the journey became clear, she turned back. 48:24.464 --> 48:29.188 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, say with Ruth, I will not leave you, where you go, I will go. 48:29.608 --> 48:32.770 [SPEAKER_00]: Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. 48:33.491 --> 48:35.973 [SPEAKER_00]: Say what Ruth said, and do what Ruth did. 48:36.945 --> 48:45.892 [SPEAKER_00]: consider the greatness of their God and Savior, the happiness of His people, the blessed condition they now enjoy, and the miserable condition in which you still remain. 48:46.633 --> 48:55.560 [SPEAKER_00]: You have grown old in sin, serving Satan for many years, have recently seen some who travel beside you on the same sinful path turned to God. 48:56.284 --> 49:08.371 [SPEAKER_00]: They shared the same opportunities, heard the same warnings, lived through the same remarkable seasons when God's spirit was poured out in this place, hardened their hearts alongside you, and grew old in sin with you. 49:09.011 --> 49:13.173 [SPEAKER_00]: Yet now, you have seen in them evidence that God has changed their hearts. 49:13.874 --> 49:16.055 [SPEAKER_00]: Do not let this become a final separation. 49:16.715 --> 49:20.520 [SPEAKER_00]: You have spent so many years together in sin and under condemnation. 49:21.201 --> 49:25.306 [SPEAKER_00]: Let it now be your firm resolve if it all possible to remain with them. 49:25.826 --> 49:33.195 [SPEAKER_00]: Not in sin, but now that they have entered a holy and blessed state, follow them into that holy and delightful land. 49:34.276 --> 49:44.402 [SPEAKER_00]: And you, who save you have been seeking salvation for many years, though no doubt with far less earnestness than you should have, you have also seen others like yourselves. 49:44.922 --> 49:50.045 [SPEAKER_00]: They too were long time sinners and long time seekers, yet they have now obtained mercy. 49:50.766 --> 49:53.808 [SPEAKER_00]: God has recently awakened them from their spiritual dullness. 49:54.248 --> 49:57.430 [SPEAKER_00]: He has stirred them to seek him more earnestly and wholeheartedly. 49:58.170

--> 50:03.793 [SPEAKER_00]: After so many years, they have last heard his voice and fled for refuge to the rock of ages. 50:04.613 --> 50:08.996 [SPEAKER_00]: Let their example awaken you, resolve that you will not be left behind. 50:09.956 --> 50:18.881 [SPEAKER_00]: You who are young consider how many of your own age have recently as we have reason to hope chosen God as their God and Christ as their Savior. 50:19.561 --> 50:23.943 [SPEAKER_00]: You follow them in sin, perhaps you joined them in foolish and sinful company. 50:24.584 --> 50:26.485 [SPEAKER_00]: Will you not now follow them to Christ? 50:27.185 --> 50:28.286 [SPEAKER_00]: and you who are children. 50:28.646 --> 50:38.215 [SPEAKER_00]: Some of your own age have recently repented of their sins, come to love the Lord Jesus Christ, trust it in Him, and as we have good reason to hope, become children of God. 50:38.976 --> 50:41.798 [SPEAKER_00]: Let this stir you to seek the Lord with all your heart. 50:42.519 --> 50:49.546 [SPEAKER_00]: Cry out to Him, but He would work the same change in your heart, so that their people may become your people, and their God, your God. 50:50.480 --> 50:57.487 [SPEAKER_00]: you have been especially great sinners, who have made yourselves notoriously guilty through the sinful lives you have lived. 50:58.088 --> 51:04.675 [SPEAKER_00]: There are others like you who have recently, as we have reason to hope, had their hearts broken over their sin. 51:05.295 --> 51:13.524 [SPEAKER_00]: They have forsaken it, trusted in the blood of Christ for its forgiveness, chosen a life of holiness, and committed themselves to the ways of wisdom. 51:14.164 --> 51:21.987 [SPEAKER_00]: let this encourage you and move you to resolve firmly that you too will join them and earnestly follow their example. 51:23.047 --> 51:24.327 [SPEAKER_00]: Consider these things carefully. 51:25.208 --> 51:28.129 [SPEAKER_00]: One, your soul is just as precious as theirs. 51:28.829 --> 51:31.530 [SPEAKER_00]: Your soul is immortal just as theirs is. 51:32.130 --> 51:37.312 [SPEAKER_00]: It needs true happiness just as much and it can no more endure eternal misery than theirs can. 51:38.200 --> 51:42.982 [SPEAKER_00]: You were born in the same miserable condition they were, with the wrath of God resting upon you. 51:43.582 --> 51:48.884 [SPEAKER_00]: You must stand before the same judge, who will judge you no less strictly than he judges them. 51:49.605 --> 51:53.246 [SPEAKER_00]: Your own righteousness will no more save you than there's could save them. 51:54.006 --> 51:57.968 [SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, you stand in just as great a need of a Savior as they do. 51:58.905 --> 52:02.408 [SPEAKER_00]: Your own self-confidence cannot save you, any more than it could save them. 52:03.108 --> 52:10.274 [SPEAKER_00]: Neither this world nor its pleasures can make you truly happy, apart from God and Christ, any more than they could satisfy them. 52:10.895 --> 52:16.219 [SPEAKER_00]: When the bridegroom

comes, the foolish virgins are just as much in need of oil as the wise virgins. 52:16.600 --> 52:17.981 [SPEAKER_00]: See Matthew chapter 25. 52:19.122 --> 52:24.086 [SPEAKER_00]: Two, unless you follow them in turning to God, their conversion will become the beginning of 52:27.205 --> 52:31.127 [SPEAKER_00]: You will belong to different kingdoms and have completely different interests. 52:31.848 --> 52:35.270 [SPEAKER_00]: They will be the children of God, while you remain the children of Satan. 52:35.870 --> 52:38.432 [SPEAKER_00]: And this separation will continue into the next world. 52:39.072 --> 52:42.875 [SPEAKER_00]: When death comes, a great division will be fixed between you. 52:43.635 --> 52:54.262 [SPEAKER_00]: As Luke chapter 16 verse 26 says, between us and you, a great golf husband fixed, so that those who would pass from here to you cannot, nor can those pass to us from there. 52:54.981 --> 52:57.283 [SPEAKER_00]: You will also be separated on the day of judgment. 52:57.823 --> 53:08.292 [SPEAKER_00]: When Christ first appears in the clouds of heaven, they will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and will be with Him forever, while you remain for the judgment and destruction of the ungodly. 53:08.912 --> 53:14.277 [SPEAKER_00]: Before Christ's great judgment seat, they will stand at His right hand, while you stand at His left. 53:14.997 --> 53:29.764 [SPEAKER_00]: as Matthew chapter 25 verses 32 through 33 says, before him will be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and he shall set the sheep at his right hand but the goats on the left. 53:30.759 --> 53:33.301 [SPEAKER_00]: your circumstances then will be utterly different. 53:33.921 --> 53:41.167 [SPEAKER_00]: While you stand with the devils, bearing their likeness and sharing their terror and despair, God's people will appear in glory. 53:41.727 --> 53:48.993 [SPEAKER_00]: They will sit on thrones with Christ, sharing in his reign, and as scripture teaches, participating in the judgment of the world. 53:49.393 --> 53:51.114 [SPEAKER_00]: See first Corinthians chapter 6 verse 2. 53:52.155 --> 54:02.006 [SPEAKER_00]: what shame and confusion will overwhelm you on that day when so many who once lived beside you, your equals, neighbors, relatives, friends and companions. 54:02.626 --> 54:09.614 [SPEAKER_00]: But they are all honoured, openly acknowledged, and welcomed by the glorious judge of all the earth and the Redeemer of his people. 54:10.412 --> 54:24.422 [SPEAKER_00]: You will see them seated with him in glory, while you will realize that you neglected your salvation, failed to make use of the opportunities God gave you, and rejected the very Lord Jesus Christ who now stands before you as your judge. 54:25.423 --> 54:33.149 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of receiving His welcome, you will become the object of His wrath and be cast down into everlasting disgrace and contempt. 54:33.939 --> 54:41.284 [SPEAKER_00]: his Daniel chapter 12 verse 2 declares, some will awake to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 54:42.104 --> 54:47.128 [SPEAKER_00]: How great will the separation be when that final sentence is pronounced and carried out forever? 54:47.888 --> 55:00.697 [SPEAKER_00]: When you are sent away from the presence of the judge with indignation and apporance, as cursed and loathsome creatures, while they are welcomed with joy into his glory as his beloved friends and the blessed of his father. 55:01.479 --> 55:14.163 [SPEAKER_00]: When you, together with that vast multitude of wicked people and fallen angels, descend with bitter cries into dreadful shrieks into the abyss of fire and brimstone swallowed up forever in that great furnace. 55:14.743 --> 55:28.768 [SPEAKER_00]: While they ascend with Christ, together with that beautiful and blessed company of saints and angels, singing songs of joy, glory and praise, as they enter eternal happiness in the glorious presence of God and the sweet embrace of His love. 55:29.742 --> 55:36.125 [SPEAKER_00]: when you and they spend eternity in such complete separation and in circumstances so infinitely different. 55:36.725 --> 55:49.232 [SPEAKER_00]: How dreadful it will be to remember that you were once closely acquainted, perhaps even related by blood, living together, enjoying one another's company and walking side by side in this world. 55:50.095 --> 56:03.938 [SPEAKER_00]: after spending so many years together, increasing your guilt, and storing up wrath for yourselves, will their wise decision to change their course, and choose everlasting happiness become the beginning of an eternal separation between you. 56:04.798 --> 56:07.198 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, how terrible that separation will be. 56:08.519 --> 56:08.779 [SPEAKER_00]: Three. 56:09.219 --> 56:13.980 [SPEAKER_00]: Consider the great encouragement God gives you to seek the same blessing others have received. 56:14.784 --> 56:18.608 [SPEAKER_00]: God's Word gives abundant encouragement to sinners to seek salvation. 56:19.308 --> 56:23.192 [SPEAKER_00]: It reveals that Christ has made full provision even for the greatest sinners. 56:23.993 --> 56:29.298 [SPEAKER_00]: God has appointed many means by which sinners are to seek Him, and He has promised to bless those means. 56:29.999 --> 56:37.966 [SPEAKER_00]: Therefore there is strong encouragement for everyone, at every time who will earnestly and thoroughly use the means God has appointed. 56:39.030 --> 56:46.473 [SPEAKER_00]: But in addition to this, God is giving extraordinary encouragement through his providence by pouring out his spirit so remarkably among us. 56:47.033 --> 56:49.554 [SPEAKER_00]: He is bringing every kind of person to himself. 56:50.175 --> 57:00.119 [SPEAKER_00]: Young and old, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, respectable and openly sinful, long time self-righteous seekers and openly immoral people. 57:00.939 --> 57:02.761 [SPEAKER_00]: no

class of person has been excluded. 57:03.441 --> 57:15.833 [SPEAKER_00]: At this very time, among us, there is perhaps the clearest call, the greatest encouragement, and the widest door ever opened in New England for sinners to escape a state of sin and condemnation. 57:16.613 --> 57:22.279 [SPEAKER_00]: Who possesses any mortal soul and yet is so foolish as to neglect such an opportunity? 57:23.099 --> 57:26.523 [SPEAKER_00]: Who will fail to exert every effort while such a door stands open? 57:27.299 --> 57:33.825 [SPEAKER_00]: How unreasonable it is to remain careless, how out of place it is to give into discouragement at such a time as this. 57:34.766 --> 57:36.987 [SPEAKER_00]: Will you neglect your soul now? 57:37.708 --> 57:45.915 [SPEAKER_00]: Will anyone among us be so unreasonable as to linger behind or turn back into discouragement when God himself has opened such a door? 57:46.676 --> 57:52.461 [SPEAKER_00]: Let every person awaken, let each one take courage, press forward, and flee for his life. 57:53.682 --> 57:59.245 [SPEAKER_00]: For, consider how earnestly those who have obtained salvation desire that you should follow them. 58:00.026 --> 58:05.709 [SPEAKER_00]: They long for you to share in the great blessings God has given them, and in the eternal happiness he has promised to them. 58:06.310 --> 58:08.011 [SPEAKER_00]: They sincerely desire it. 58:08.611 --> 58:16.456 [SPEAKER_00]: If you do not go with them, if you are no longer numbered among their company, it will not be because they were unwilling, but because you were. 58:17.096 --> 58:22.260 [SPEAKER_00]: The words Moses spoke to Hobab, are the words every true Christian would gladly speak to you. 58:23.080 --> 58:26.682 [SPEAKER_00]: We are setting out for the place in which the Lord said, I will give it to you. 58:27.162 --> 58:32.244 [SPEAKER_00]: Come with us, and we will do you good, for the Lord has promised good concerning Israel. 58:32.944 --> 58:34.445 [SPEAKER_00]: Numbers chapter 10 verse 29. 58:35.285 --> 58:50.852 [SPEAKER_00]: Just as Moses, journeying through the wilderness under the guidance of the pillar of cloud and fire, invited Hobabb and his relative and former companion from Midian to travel with him to the Promised Land and share in God's promises, so your Christian friends now invite you. 58:51.472 --> 58:59.154 [SPEAKER_00]: They call you to leave the land of darkness and sin, where they once lived beside you, and travel with them to the heavenly Cayman. 58:59.854 --> 59:02.134 [SPEAKER_00]: The Church of Christ herself invites you. 59:02.934 --> 59:05.295 [SPEAKER_00]: The bride calls you to the marriage supper of the Lamb. 59:05.875 --> 59:15.037 [SPEAKER_00]: She has authority to invite guests to her own wedding, and you should receive her invitation as the invitation of Christ Himself for his spirit speaks through her. 59:21.618 --> 59:29.186 [SPEAKER_00]: This invitation points back to Revelation chapter 19, where we read if the marriage supper of the Lamb and of the blessedness of those who were invited to it. 59:29.926 --> 59:32.549 [SPEAKER_00]: So you are invited from every side. 59:33.210 --> 59:34.571 [SPEAKER_00]: God the Father invites you. 59:34.971 --> 59:40.216 [SPEAKER_00]: He is the king who has prepared the marriage feast for his son and sends his servants to call the guests. 59:40.817 --> 59:42.258 [SPEAKER_00]: the sun himself invites you. 59:42.838 --> 59:51.003 [SPEAKER_00]: Let the one who hears say come, what the one who is thirsty, come, and whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. 59:51.544 --> 59:53.605 [SPEAKER_00]: Revelation, chapter 21, 17. 59:54.345 --> 59:55.686 [SPEAKER_00]: God's ministers invite you. 59:56.126 --> 59:57.527 [SPEAKER_00]: The whole church invites you. 59:58.208 --> 01:00:03.771 [SPEAKER_00]: And there will be joy in the presence of the angels of God, the very hour you accept that invitation. 01:00:05.060 --> 01:00:05.320 [SPEAKER_00]: 5. 01:00:05.921 --> 01:00:12.986 [SPEAKER_00]: Consider how tragic it will be to remain among those left behind after this extraordinary season of Mercy has passed. 01:00:13.747 --> 01:00:16.128 [SPEAKER_00]: We have reason to believe that some will still remain. 01:00:16.889 --> 01:00:24.415 [SPEAKER_00]: In his e-cales' vision, the healing waters flow abundantly and brought life wherever they reached, yet there were still marshes that were never healed. 01:00:25.047 --> 01:00:35.394 [SPEAKER_00]: As a Zekeal chapter 47 verses 9-11 says, while everything touched by the river lived, the swamps and marshes will not be healed, they will be left for salt. 01:00:36.075 --> 01:00:42.339 [SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, even in the days of the apostles, when the gospel spread with remarkable power, not everyone believed. 01:00:43.258 --> 01:00:55.195 [SPEAKER_00]: Acts chapter 13 verse 48 tells us that as many as were appointed to eternal life believed, yet Acts chapter 28 verse 24 also says, some were convinced, but others did not believe. 01:00:56.096 --> 01:00:59.061 [SPEAKER_00]: So we should not expect that everyone among us will be saved. 01:00:59.901 --> 01:01:08.092 [SPEAKER_00]: We may hope that only a few will remain unchanged, but what a sorrowful company they will be, how dark and dreadful their condition will appear. 01:01:08.893 --> 01:01:14.440 [SPEAKER_00]: If you should be among them, how deeply your friends and family would grieve over your dangerous condition. 01:01:15.162 --> 01:01:18.085 [SPEAKER_00]: If you do not wish to be left among that number, then hurry up. 01:01:18.505 --> 01:01:19.746 [SPEAKER_00]: Do not delay any longer. 01:01:20.106 --> 01:01:21.047 [SPEAKER_00]: Do not look back. 01:01:21.648 --> 01:01:26.092 [SPEAKER_00]: Will people from every walk of life enter the kingdom of God while you remain behind? 01:01:26.732 --> 01:01:31.396 [SPEAKER_00]: Will others take hold of heaven while your only inheritance is this passing world? 01:01:32.192 --> 01:01:39.354

[SPEAKER_00]: Resolve today that if it is possible, you will join those who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them. 01:01:40.014 --> 01:01:44.775 [SPEAKER_00]: Count the cost of a wholehearted, earnest, and lifelong pursuit of salvation. 01:01:45.415 --> 01:01:50.116 [SPEAKER_00]: For sake everything, just as Ruth left her homeland and all its comforts. 01:01:50.776 --> 01:01:55.077 [SPEAKER_00]: Do not be like Orpa, who set out, but became discouraged and turned back. 01:01:55.837 --> 01:02:00.318 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, persevere like Ruth through every discouragement and every opposition. 01:02:01.038 --> 01:02:06.269 [SPEAKER_00]: And whenever you see those who have chosen the better portion, let your own resolution remain steadfast. 01:02:06.790 --> 01:02:08.433 [SPEAKER_00]: Where you go, I will go. 01:02:08.955 --> 01:02:12.301 [SPEAKER_00]: Your people will be my people, and your God, my God. 01:02:23.222 --> 01:02:31.365 [SPEAKER_01]: In this sermon, Edwards makes many good points, but at one point he says how blessed God's people are and how he says they're like the most excellent people. 01:02:31.685 --> 01:02:35.146 [SPEAKER_01]: The people of God, the quote is, the people of God are the most happy, it's an excellent community in the world. 01:02:35.947 --> 01:02:42.669 [SPEAKER_01]: Although I agree with him, I really do, and I hear people sometimes cynically say, you know, I don't love that God is great, but I don't like the church way. 01:02:43.049 --> 01:02:59.267 [SPEAKER_01]: Look, God loves his church and I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but if I was Edwards and I'd been thrown out of churches and I'd been fighting with people and I'd been seeing all of this in-fighting stuff, you know, he had a lot of reason not to love the church to be frustrated by the people in the church yet. 01:02:59.667 --> 01:03:04.893 [SPEAKER_01]: Here he is saying they are the happiest and most blessed of the people and he loved community with the church he loved community. 01:03:05.333 --> 01:03:06.274 [SPEAKER_01]: with his Christians. 01:03:06.355 --> 01:03:10.480 [SPEAKER_01]: And he could, and if he in his sermons, not just this one, but many of them is very clear. 01:03:10.500 --> 01:03:18.710 [SPEAKER_01]: He's looking forward to heaven to be with Jesus, but he's also looking forward to heaven to be with all of the community of God forever together in just bliss. 01:03:18.850 --> 01:03:20.752 [SPEAKER_01]: And I, I really appreciate that. 01:03:21.353 --> 01:03:27.215 [SPEAKER_01]: Despite all the battles, despite all the friction, despite all the vision Edwards never became cynical, never became against the church. 01:03:27.235 --> 01:03:30.736 [SPEAKER_01]: He still saw it for what it was, despite all of its imperfections. 01:03:30.796 --> 01:03:31.736 [SPEAKER_01]: It's God's people moving. 01:03:32.377 --> 01:03:34.857 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's something we can all remember. 01:03:34.917 --> 01:03:45.281 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're feeling frustrated, if you've ever had any moments where things didn't go long perfectly with the church, you probably were never going through what Edwards went through, where you got sent to a missionary town far away. 01:03:45.301 --> 01:03:48.402 [SPEAKER_01]: And they chased you there and tried to cause problems for you there. 01:03:48.722 --> 01:03:49.082 [SPEAKER_01]: And yet, 01:03:50.263 --> 01:03:58.111 [SPEAKER_01]: He still loved the church and I think we need to remember to love God's people too And there were lots of other great things in the sermon, but that was the part that really stood out to me that I thought was pretty cool 01:04:09.937 --> 01:04:13.180 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to Revived Fast. 01:04:13.200 --> 01:04:15.643 [SPEAKER_02]: Today's sermon was narrated by David K. Martin. 01:04:16.043 --> 01:04:19.386 [SPEAKER_02]: David K. Martin has read several sermons here on Revived Fast. 01:04:19.406 --> 01:04:20.307 [SPEAKER_02]: That's where thankful for him. 01:04:20.447 --> 01:04:21.709 [SPEAKER_02]: He's an audio book narrator. 01:04:21.909 --> 01:04:28.095 [SPEAKER_02]: So if any of you want our shopping for a need, an audio book narrator, give him a look up. 01:04:28.215 --> 01:04:30.357 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure he'd love to do some work for you. 01:04:30.837 --> 01:04:37.941 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we ask you to share this episode, tell people about Revive Thoughts, check out stuff, and go sign up for that Patreon deep dive. 01:04:38.001 --> 01:04:42.483 [SPEAKER_01]: You're hungry for more Revive Thoughts, you've got the big Jonathan Edwards catalog download. 01:04:42.503 --> 01:04:46.986 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you're going to listen to it, but you also you need to listen to some information on Kansas. 01:04:47.006 --> 01:04:47.966 [SPEAKER_01]: You forgot the beginning. 01:04:47.986 --> 01:04:48.587 [SPEAKER_01]: We talked about it. 01:04:48.667 --> 01:04:49.727 [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of interesting sounding. 01:04:50.127 --> 01:04:51.128 [SPEAKER_01]: Go back, check it out. 01:04:51.888 --> 01:04:53.849 [SPEAKER_01]: Get our Patreon if you don't like it. 01:04:53.989 --> 01:04:54.450 [SPEAKER_01]: Your money. 01:04:55.030 --> 01:04:58.795 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how to refund it, so I won't promise you your money back, but you don't have to keep paying for it. 01:04:58.855 --> 01:05:04.141 [SPEAKER_01]: You can sign out, but I think you'll like it, I think you're going to love it, and you're going to look forward to future deep dives that we will do as well. 01:05:04.802 --> 01:05:06.804 [SPEAKER_01]: This is Troy and Joel, and this is for my thoughts.