Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Jonathan Edwards preached his most famous sermon in 1741 at a church in Enfield, about 8 years after becoming the main preaching pastor of his church in Northampton, Connecticut. Many historians believe that this sermon was used by God as one of many that gave rise to the revivals of the 1740s. It has been printed and reprinted, and the themes and content of it reverberate as common in many fervent evangelistic messages.

Below is a summary of that sermon. You can read the full sermon online HERE. And you can purchase a dramatic reading of this sermon in audio form HERE.

Edwards started with Deuteronomy 32:35, “Their foot shall slide in due time.”

From this verse and passage, Edwards deduced the following: (1) “That they were always exposed to destruction, as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall;” (2) “that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction… as he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall; he can’t foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next;” (3) “that they are liable to fall of themselves, without being thrown down by the hand of another;” and (4) “that the reason why they are not fallen already, and don’t fall now, is only that God’s appointed time is not come.”

Edwards’s doctrinal conclusion from these observations is that “There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” Consider, he says, that “there is no want of power in God to cast men into hell at any moment.” Sinners “deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way,” and “they are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell.” So too, “they are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God that is expressed in the torments of hell.”

These realities are coupled with the fact that “the devil stands ready to fall upon them and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him.” Indeed, the souls of the wicked are governed by “those hellish principles… that would presently kindle and flame out into hellfire,” bringing a destruction of their own making, “if it were not for God’s restraints.”

Further, the lack of “visible means of death” is “no security to [the] wicked,” and the exercise of “prudence and care to preserve their own lives” can also do nothing to avoid death. Even “pains and contrivance” employed “to escape hell” apart from repentance and faith in Christ is no security to those who go on rejecting Christ. No matter what spiritual or physical efforts a wicked person exerts, he or she remains exposed to God’s wrath.

Further still, “God has laid himself under no obligation by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment.” “In short,” says Edwards, “they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and the uncovenanted unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.”

In a plea to turn from sin and cling to Jesus Christ for life and peace, Edwards warns, “However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it.” He says, “O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in… and consider here more particularly several things concerning that wrath that you are in such danger of.”

“First, Whose wrath it is: it is the wrath of the infinite God.” “Second,” it is “the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to.” “Third,” consider “the misery you are exposed to is that which God will inflict to that end, that he might show what the wrath of Jehovah is.” And “fourth,” it is “everlasting wrath.”

Edwards concludes by pointing to the grace and mercy of God in Christ. He says, “And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has flung the door of mercy wide open, and stands in the door calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners.” “Therefore,” says Edwards, “let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.” In other words, look to Jesus, who bore the wrath of God in His own body at the cross, and trust in Him alone to save you.

May God be feared for His holiness, may He be loved for His grace and mercy, and may He be glorified in the salvation of sinners through the message of His wonderful work in and through Jesus Christ.

If you want to discuss the meaning of this sermon or the implications of it, then I would be glad to connect with you. You can email me at marc@fbcdiana.org.