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Directions How to Conduct Yourself in Your Christian Course | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  We'll come back to Reformed thinking.
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  It is. It's good to be back at the
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  table. Good to be here.
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  We are opening up the archives of church history again today,
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  but we're doing something a little different.
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  Usually, you know, when we talk about the giants of the faith,
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  we look at their systematic theologies or or we look at
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  their most famous sermons, the ones preached to thousands of
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  people. But today we're looking at
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  something much smaller and honestly, much sharper.
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  It's good to be here and you're right, the scale is different.
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  Today we're looking at a letter, a letter, a single personal
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  letter written in 1741 by Jonathan Edwards.
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  And for those who might not be familiar with the timeline, 1741
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  is. I mean, that's right in the
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  thick of the First Great Awakening in America.
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  Oh, absolutely, the peak of it. Edwards is in Northampton, MA.
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  The cultural atmosphere is just, it's absolutely electric.
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  People are experiencing these. It was a time of high voltage,
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  and Edwards is right in the center of it.
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  But this letter, it's not addressed to the masses.
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  It is addressed to a young lady. We don't know her name for
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  certain, though historians have debated it.
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  We know she was a teenager, likely from a prominent family,
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  and she had recently been converted.
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  During this revival, she was on a spiritual high.
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  That's the context I want to dig into because everyone loves the
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  mountaintop. Of course, when you first
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  realize that God is real or you have that breakthrough in your
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  faith, the adrenaline is amazing.
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  You feel invincible. But the problem with high
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  intensity is that it's just it's not sustainable.
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  No. Eventually, the revival tint
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  comes down. The preacher goes home.
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  It's Tuesday morning, it's raining, and you have to do your
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  chores. Precisely.
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  And that is the terrifying moment for a new convert.
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  The emotion fades and they panic.
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  They think, Did I lose it? Was it real?
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  This letter, which is often titled Directions, How to
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  Conduct Yourself in Your Christian Course, is Edward's
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  answer to that panic. He's writing a manual for the
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  long haul. He's answering the question, How
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  do you stay a Christian when the feeling stopped curing you?
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  I think the average person, if they were writing a letter to a
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  teenager who was worried about their faith, would write
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  something very gentle. You know, don't worry, you're
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  doing great. Just trust Jesus, take a nap.
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  But I read this text and I was, I was shocked by the tone.
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  It's not gentle. No, it is not.
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  It is rigorous. It's it's aggressive.
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  It feels like a commanding officer briefing a soldier
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  before they go to the front lines.
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  That is a fair comparison. We have to remember that Edwards
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  operates strictly within the Reformed tradition, specifically
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  adhering to the Westminster standards.
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  He views the Christian life not as a vacation, but as a war.
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  He frames this not as legalism, but as the logical, necessary
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  response to sovereign grace. If God has saved you, you don't
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  sit down, you March. Well, let's unpack that marching
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  order. The very first point in his
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  letter sets up this massive theological tension.
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  He tells this young woman, who remembers already saved, to keep
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  up the same effort and earnestness as if she were still
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  in a state of nature. Meaning unsaved.
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  Right, as if she were unsaved and still seeking conversion.
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  It is a paradox that just stops you in your tracks, He
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  essentially says, remember how desperate you were before you
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  had peace? Stay that desperate.
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  But that sounds completely counterintuitive to the
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  Protestant mind. The whole point of the gospel is
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  that it is finished. We're justified by faith alone.
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  We have the security of the believer.
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  If I have the security, why should I be frantic?
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  If I'm already in the lifeboat, why should I keep swimming as if
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  I'm drowning? That's the $1,000,000 question.
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  In a worldly sense, if you run a race to win a prize, once you
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  have the prize, you stop running.
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  You sit on the couch. But Edwards flips the engine of
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  motivation entirely. He argues that the person who is
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  still seeking salvation, the natural man, is driven by fear.
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  They're driven by self preservation.
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  They're running away from the fire of Judge.
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  Fear is a great motivator. It is, But Edwards argues that
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  the person who is saved is driven by something stronger.
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  They're driven by gratitude. They're driven by a sight of the
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  beauty of Christ. And his argument is that love
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  should be a more powerful engine than fear.
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  If you ran hard to save your own skin, how much harder should you
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  run for the one who saved it for you?
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  So he says that those who are actually saved are under
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  infinitely greater obligations. Exactly the obligation of love.
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  He uses a word here that I think we really need to focus on.
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  He advises people under conviction to be earnest and
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  violent for the Kingdom of heaven.
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  Violent. That is a strong word for a
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  pastor to use with a teenage girl.
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  It is biblical, though. He's drawing for Matthew 11.12
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  where Jesus says the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the
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  violent take it by force. It implies a total mobilization
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  of the will. It's a siege mentality.
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  Edwards is worried about the cooling off period.
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  He warns her that many people lose their sweet and lively
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  sense of spiritual things within months because they relax.
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  That's the fire insurance mentality we see so often.
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  You know, I have my ticket to heaven.
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  I sign the card. Now I can just coast until I
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  die. And Edwards says that coasting
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  is fatal. If you stop rowing against the
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  current of sin, you don't stay in one place, you drift
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  downstream. He points to the apostle Paul in
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  Philippians 3. Paul says, not that I have
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  already attained or I'm already perfected, but I press on.
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  Now think about that logic. If the apostle Paul, the man who
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  wrote, has the New Testament, who suffered shipwrecks and
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  beatings for the gospel, if he felt the need to press on as if
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  he hadn't arrived yet, how arrogant is it for us to think
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  we can relax? That is a very humbling
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  perspective. It leads right into the second
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  major point, which introduces a concept he calls new conversion.
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  Now we need to be careful with our terms here, because in our
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  theological framework you get converted once, one time you are
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  justified once. Correct.
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  We must distinguish between justification and
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  sanctification. The Westminster Confession is
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  very clear. Justification is a legal act of
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  God's free grace. It happens once, the judge bangs
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  the gavel, declares you righteous and that's it.
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  You don't get re saved every Sunday.
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  So what does Edwards mean when he tells her to pray for new
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  conversion and resurrection from the dead?
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  He's talking about sanctification, the process of
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  becoming holy. He's saying that the experience
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  of growing in holiness looks a lot like that initial moment of
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  conversion, repeated over and over again.
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  He advises her to pray for the same things Unconverted people
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  need. Eyes to be opened, sight
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  received. Self knowledge.
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  Why use such drastic language? Resurrection from the dead?
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  Sounds like you're starting from zero.
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  Because of the reality of remaining sin, this is a core
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  reformed doctrine. Even though we're saved, there
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  is still blindness, hardness, pride, and corruption left in
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  the believer right. Edwards uses a light metaphor
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  here that I find very helpful. The darkroom, yes.
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  Imagine the human soul is a pitch black room full of clutter
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  and dust. Conversion is the moment God
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  cracks a window. A beam of light shoots in for
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  the first time. You see the light and you see
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  some of the dust. That's the first conversion.
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  But Edward says don't be satisfied with one beam.
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  The room is still 90% dark. There are corners full of
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  cobwebs and rats that you haven't even seen yet.
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  To pray for new conversion is to pray God open the window wider.
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  I need more light. I need to see the next layer of
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  my own mess and the next layer of your glory.
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  So the Christian life isn't a static state of just being in
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  the light, it's a dynamic, aggressive process of the light
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  conquering the darkness inch by inch.
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  That's it. It's a daily rescue operation,
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  he says. We need to be enlightened and
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  enlivened constantly. If you think you've seen all
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  there is to see of God, you've actually stopped seeing him.
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  The infinite God cannot be exhausted, so if you're bored or
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  if you feel like you've arrived, you're actually in the dark.
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  This intensity of seeing and hearing brings us to the next
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  section of the letter. Edwards moves from the internal
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  prayer life to the to the external act of listening to a
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  sermon. And I have to say, this point
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  hit home for me personally. This is .3.
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  Yeah, here for yourself. It sounds so simple, but it's
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  actually very hard. We've all done this.
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  You're sitting in church and the pastor starts talking about,
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  say, anger or greed, right? And immediately your brain goes,
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  oh, my husband really needs to hear this.
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  Or I wish my boss was sitting here right now.
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  This would fix him. It's a defensive mechanism.
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  We deflect the truth. We become critics of the Sermons
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  application to others instead of submitting to its application to
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  us. Yeah, we treat the sermon like a
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  tool to fix the people around us.
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  We do, and Edwards cuts that off completely.
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  He says it doesn't matter who the sermon is for.
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  It could be a sermon directed specifically and unconverted
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  people or people in totally different life stages, he says.
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  Your job is to ask in what respect is this applicable to
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  me? He demands a personal
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  translation. He asks what improvement on I to
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  make. It shifts the burden.
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  In the modern church, we often judge a sermon by whether it was
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  entertaining or if the speaker was charismatic, Edward says.
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  The value of the sermon depends entirely on how rigorously the
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  listener applies it to their own conscience.
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  That brings us to the fourth point, which is about memory,
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  and he uses a very specific biblical metaphor here.
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  Egypt. Yes.
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  Remember what a wretched slave you were in the land of Egypt.
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  This is a call to historical memory.
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  For the Israelites, Egypt was the place of bondage.
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  God brought them out. But if you read the Old
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  Testament, the moment they forgot they were slaves, they
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  became arrogant. They started mistreating
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  foreigners. They started acting like they
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  owned the place. So Edwards applies this to the
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  individual believer he tells this young woman too often bring
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  to mind her particular acts of sin before she was converted.
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  And this is where Edwards really clashes with modern
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  psychological advice. I was going to say, telling a
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  teenage girl to sit in her room and replay the worst thing she's
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  ever done? That sounds like a recipe for
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  depression. It does.
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  Modern advice would be forgive yourself, let it go, don't look
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  back. The past is the past.
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  Edward says no. Look back.
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  Look at it closely. But we have to ask why He isn't
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  telling her to look back so she can wallow in shame.
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  He is an A sadist. He is pointing her to the
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  example of the apostle Paul. Paul calls himself the chief of
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  sinners. He catalogs his past.
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  He was a blasphemer, A persecutor, a violent man.
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  Why does Paul keep bringing that?
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  Up to make the grace look bigger.
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  Exactly. You cannot appreciate the cure
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  if you forget the disease. If you convince yourself that
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  you were just a pretty nice person and needed a little
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  spiritual tune up, your view of Christ's sacrifice will be very
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  small. You'll have a small savior.
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  But if you remember that you were a wretched slave in Egypt,
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  dead in trespasses, then Christ becomes glorious.
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  The depth of your gratitude is directly proportional to your
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  understanding of your guilt. He cites Ezekiel 16.63 here.
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  It's a verse that I hadn't spent much time with, but the way he
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  uses it is fascinating. It's a stunning verse.
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  God says He will establish His covenant so that you may
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  remember and be confounded and never open your mouth anymore
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  because of your shame when I am pacified towards you.
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  When I am pacified toward you, that's the key phrase, isn't it?
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  Yes, the moment of God's peace is the moment of your silence.
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  It isn't God Forgives me, so now I can strut around with my head
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  high. It is.
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  God Forgives me, and I am so overwhelmed by the cost of that
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  forgiveness that I cover my mouth.
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  It's a stunned silence. That paradox, shame and peace
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  existing at the same moment seems to be the heartbeat of
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  this letter, and he takes it a step further in .5.
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  This is arguably the most controversial point he makes a
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  tough. 1. He argues that sins committed
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  after conversion are actually worse than the things you
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  committed before. This is a heavy, logical step,
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  but it it holds up under scrutiny.
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  Think about it before conversion.
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  Who are you sinning against? Well, God, yes, but as a
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  lawgiver, you were a rebel. You were acting according to
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  your nature. A Sinner sins.
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  That's what they do. Right, you don't get mad at a
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  dog for barking. But after conversion, you've
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  been adopted, you've tasted the kindness of God, you've seen the
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  cross, you have the Holy Spirit. So now when you sin, you aren't
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  just breaking a law, you're breaking a heart.
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  You're sitting against faithfulness and loving
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  kindness. It's the difference between a
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  criminal breaking a window in a store and a husband betraying
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  his wife. That is the analogy.
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  It's treachery. Edwards argues that because we
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  have seen the light, to turn back to the darkness involves a
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  level of ingratitude that the unconverted person isn't even
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  capable of. The Pagan sins out of ignorance.
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  The Christian sins against the light.
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  That is a crushing thought and honestly, if you sit with that
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  too long that my current sins are more offensive to God than
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  my past ones, it can lead to despair.
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  It forces us to ask why do we do it?
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  What is the root cause? This brings us to the villain of
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  the letter. Every story needs a monster, and
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  in Edwards theology, the monster is inside the house.
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  Section 3 covers the Viper. He identifies this Viper as
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  pride. .8 He calls pride the worst Viper.
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  He says it's the first sin, referring to the fall of Satan,
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  and that it lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole
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  building. That architectural metaphor is
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  powerful. If you dig down to the very
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  bottom of Satan's Kingdom, the cornerstone isn't lust or murder
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  or greed. It's pride.
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  Everything else is just the superstructure.
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  But the reason he uses the snake imagery, the Viper is because of
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  how it moves, he says. It is most hidden, secret and
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  deceitful. He warns that it creeps into
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  religion and even hides under the disguise of humility itself.
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  This is the part that really scared me.
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  How does pride hide in humility? Think about the person who
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  builds their identity on how broken they are.
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  OK, they might say, I am the most wretched Sinner here, or I
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  weep more in worship than anyone else.
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  They're outwardly performing humility, but inwardly they're
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  admiring their own performance. So I can be proud of how bad I
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  feel about my sin. Absolutely.
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  The human heart is an idol factory.
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  We can take the holiest thing, repentance, and twist it into a
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  tool for self promotion. Look at how sensitive my
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  conscience is. Edwards calls this a Viper
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  because you don't see it coming. You think you're being pious,
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  but you're actually just feeding your ego a different kind of
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  food. So how do we kill the Viper?
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  If it hides in my humility, how do I even find it?
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  He gives us a litmus test in .9. He says there are two criteria
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  for true spiritual growth. If you're really growing, two
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  things will happen. First, it will make you least
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  and lowest and most like a child.
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  Least and lowest. And second, it will fix the
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  heart to deny yourself for God. Self denial, that's the key.
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  Yes, false humility draws attention to the self.
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  True humility forgets the self. It makes you feel small but
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  safe. It aligns your will with God.
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  If your spiritual growth makes you feel superior to the people
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  in the pews next to you, if it makes you critical of their lack
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  of emotion, that's not the Holy Spirit.
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  That is the Viper. That is a sobering check.
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  But Edwards doesn't just leave us in the wreckage of our own
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  pride. He pivots now to the solution.
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  And this is crucial because if we stopped here with the worst
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  sins and the Viper, we would just be in despair.
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  Which is exactly what Edwards wants to avoid.
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  He knows the Reformed emphasis on sin can crush a tender
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  conscience. So Section 4 deals with guilt
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  and fear, .6 is the balance beam, he says.
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  Be always greatly abased for your remaining sin, but yet be
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  not discouraged. A base, but not discouraged.
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  That feels like a contradiction. If I'm looking at my sin and
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  it's terrible, why shouldn't I be discouraged?
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  Because of the great contrast. Edwards is a master of scale.
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  He acknowledges that our sins are huge.
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  He uses the imagery of mountains, the highest mountains
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  of our sins. He doesn't minimize them.
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  He doesn't say, oh, don't worry, they're just little Hells.
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  No, they are Everest. OK, so we have ever sized sins.
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  But then he brings in the blood and righteousness of Christ, and
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  he describes that as an ocean, and the ocean of God's race is
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  so deep that it infinitely overtops the mountains.
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  I love that visual. Imagine dropping a mountain into
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  an ocean that is 10,000 miles deep.
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  The mountain disappears. It's just it's gone.
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  That is the point. The size of the sin doesn't
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  matter when compared to the size of the Savior.
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  If you're discouraged is because you're staring at the mountain
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  and ignoring the ocean. This leads to the posture he
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  recommends for the believer .16 He tells us to walk as a little
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  poor helpless child. This connects back to the
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  Westminster theology of In cuted righteousness He uses this
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  phrase, hiding our nakedness under the skirt of the white
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  shining robes of his righteousness.
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  It is a very tender image, a child holding a hand.
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  It's total dependence. A child holding a father's hand
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  doesn't worry about the navigation, they don't worry
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  about the route. They just hold on right And
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  Edwards as a specific detail, keeping your eye on the marks of
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  the wounds. Looking at the crucifixion.
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  Yes, we hold the hand that was pierced.
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  That is the source of our safety.
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  It isn't our grip on him, It is his grip on us purchased by
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  those wounds. To illustrate this posture,
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  Edwards points to a specific biblical character.
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  He tells the young lady to model herself after Mary Magdalene. .7
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  this is the scene in Luke 7 it's one of the most dramatic scenes
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  in the gospels. A sinful woman, likely someone
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  with a scandalous reputation, crashes at dinner party at a
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  Pharisee's house to get to Jesus, and she just.
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  She falls apart. She casts herself at Jesus feet.
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  She's weeping so violently that her tears wash the dust off his
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  feet. She has no towel, so she wipes
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  them with her hair. She kisses his feet.
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  She pours out expensive perfume. Edwards focuses on the
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  combination of emotions there. He says she pours out love from
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  a pure and broken heart. That is the Reformed sweet spot.
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  It is a mixture, intense weeping over sin and intense love for
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  the Savior. It isn't one or the other.
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  If you have weeping without love, that's just despair.
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  That's Judas. You have love without
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  brokenness, without recognizing your sin.
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  That's presumption. That is the Pharisee.
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  True religion is the alabaster jar being broken.
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  Yes, is the simultaneous experience of being wrecked by
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  your own failure and being healed by His love.
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  Now Edwards is a realist. He knows that you can't stay in
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  that Luke 7 moment forever. You can't weep over Jesus's
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  feet. 247 You have to go to work.
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  You have to live life and sometimes you just feel dead.
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  The dull frames, the dry spells. Exactly.
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  Section 5 addresses this. What do you do when the emotion
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  is gone, When you doubt if you're even a Christian?
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  The natural instinct, at least for me, is to start digging
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  through my past files. Did I really mean it when I
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  prayed that prayer five years ago?
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  Was my conversion real? Did I feel enough?
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  We become forensic accountants of our own history and Edward
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  says stop it. Really.
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  Just stop. .10 He warns against consuming too much time
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  reviewing past experiences to prove your salvation.
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  He says it is a trap. You cannot find life by
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  analyzing using a dead memory. So what is the solution?
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  What do you do instead? He says to pursue new
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  experiences of faith. He writes this incredible
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  sentence. One new discovery of the glory
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  of Christ's face will do more in one minute than examining old
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  experience through a whole year. That is a radical shift in
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  strategy. Don't omenate act.
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  Don't analyze the darkness. Look for the light.
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  He uses an analogy that I think clarifies this perfectly.
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  It's the difference between an archaeologist and an astronomer.
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  OK, when you're in doubt, don't be an archaeologist digging up
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  the bones of your past. Be an astronomer.
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  Look up. Look at Christ now.
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  Ask Him to show you his glory today.
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  That fresh contact with reality will shatter the doubt
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  instantly. He uses a beautiful physical
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  analogy for this, the Sunbeam .11.
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  Yes, he asks. How do we cast out fear?
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  He says. Fear is cast out by the reviving
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  and prevailing of love. And then the metaphor darkness
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  in a room vanishes when the pleasant beams of the sun are
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  LED into it. I love the physics of that.
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  You don't get rid of darkness by shoveling it out in buckets.
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  You can't fight darkness with a sword, you just open the
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  curtains. It is the explosive power of a
• 20:04
  new affection, a phrase Thomas Chalmers would later make
• 20:07
  famous. But the seed is right here in
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  Edwards. When the love of God fills the
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  heart, fear has no room to stay. It's crowded out.
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  So the strategy for anxiety isn't just to stop worrying.
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  It's look at Christ until the worry is displaced by love.
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  This letter is so rich with these metaphors.
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  Mountains, Vipers, sunbeams. But Edwards also gets very
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  granular with practical disciplines.
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  He's not just talking about internal states.
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  He's talking about what you do with your calendar and your
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  friends. Right theology has to become
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  sociology at some point. Section 6 addresses Community
• 20:40
  .13 is interesting. He recommends pious meetings of
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  young women. Small groups.
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  Jonathan Edwards essentially invented the youth small group.
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  Well, the Moravians and others were doing it too, but he
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  certainly utilized it as a pastoral tool.
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  You recognize that faith is social.
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  You cannot sustain this level of violent intensity alone.
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  You need peers. You need a squad.
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  And he also talks about how to handle conflict or correction
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  within that squad .12 He tells her to warn others, but look at
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  the tone he requires. Earnest and affectionate and
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  thorough. But the key is humility, he
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  says, To speak as to equals. This goes back to the pride
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  issue. Yes, if you go to a friend to
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  correct them about a sin, and you come from a position of
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  moral superiority, I am the Holy One fixing you, You will fail.
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  You'll trigger their defense mechanisms, Edward says.
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  To intermix your warnings with expressions of your own
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  unworthiness. You're 1 beggar telling another
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  beggar where to find bread, or warning them about a Cliff you
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  almost fell off yourself. Exactly.
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  It neutralizes the higher. It makes the correction an act
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  of love, not an act of dominance.
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  Then we get to .14, which is the nuclear option for spiritual
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  breakthrough, fasting and confession.
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  He advises secret prayer and fasting for times of special
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  difficulties, but I want to focus on his instructions for
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  confession because they are terrifyingly specific.
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  He calls for a very particular rehearsal of sins.
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  Particular is the operating word.
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  Think about how we usually confess in church or even in
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  private. Lord, forgive us our sins.
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  Lord, I was prideful today. It's very general.
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  It's safe. It's a blanket statement.
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  It covers everything but touches nothing.
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  Edward says no. He wants her to go back to
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  childhood and list the specific abominations.
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  I did this specific act. I said this specific word.
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  I had this specific jealous thought about my sister.
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  Why such detail? It sounds masochistic.
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  Because general confession allows for general repentance
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  which leads to general change, which is to say no change at
• 22:41
  all. You can't repent of a blur, you
• 22:43
  have to repent of a fact. Specific confession forces us to
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  confront the reality of our corruption.
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  It prevents that disguised pride we talked about earlier.
• 22:52
  You can't be proud when you're reading a laundry list of your
• 22:55
  own specific betrayals of God. It forces radical honesty.
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  It's like cleaning out a wound. You have to scrub out the
• 23:01
  infection entirely, every little bit of dirt before it can heal.
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  If you leave vague areas, the infection returns.
• 23:07
  Spreading all the abominations of your heart, very particularly
• 23:10
  That is a tough discipline, but I can see the cleansing power of
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  it. It's the only path to a clear
• 23:14
  conscience. Finally, Edward zooms out.
• 23:16
  He starts with the individual heart, the internal violence,
• 23:20
  the pride, the friends, and he ends with the world.
• 23:24
  Section 7 touches on public witness and the global vision.
• 23:28
  .15 is about reputation, he says.
• 23:31
  Do not let the adversaries of the cross have occasion to
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  reproach true religion on your account.
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  This is the burden of the ambassador.
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  Yes, we are ambassadors for Christ.
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  If an ambassador acts like a fool, he isn't just embarrassing
• 23:44
  himself, he's embarrassing his country.
• 23:46
  He's damaging the diplomatic mission.
• 23:48
  Edwards lists the uniform of the ambassador.
• 23:50
  Meekness, humility, love to all, self denial.
• 23:54
  He says to account others better than yourself.
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  Imagine if the church actually lived that way.
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  If every Christian treated their neighbor as better than
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  themselves. The adversaries wouldn't have
• 24:04
  any ammunition. They would be silenced by the
• 24:06
  quality of our love. Exactly.
• 24:08
  And then the very last point .17 he tells her to pray for the
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  ministers and the Church of God. But look at the scope.
• 24:14
  He wants her to pray that God would carry on His work until
• 24:17
  the world shall be full of His glory.
• 24:19
  That's the eschatological hope, the end game.
• 24:22
  It connects the teenager's prayer in her bedroom to the
• 24:25
  cosmic plan of God. Edwards was a post millennialist
• 24:29
  of sorts. He believed that the gospel
• 24:31
  would triumph in history, that the world would eventually be
• 24:34
  Christianized through the power of the Spirit.
• 24:37
  So her personal holiness isn't just about her.
• 24:39
  No, her struggle against sin, her violent pursuit of grace, is
• 24:44
  a tiny contribution to the global wave of glory that is
• 24:47
  slowly filling the earth. It gives dignity to her
• 24:50
  struggle. She's part of the winning team.
• 24:52
  So let's unpack what we've heard today.
• 24:54
  We have walked through this letter from 1741.
• 24:57
  We've seen the paradox of striving walls saved that we run
• 25:01
  because we have the metal, not to get it.
• 25:04
  We've seen the danger of the Viper of pride and how it hides
• 25:07
  in our humility. We've seen the mountain of sin
• 25:09
  drowned in the ocean of grace, and we've seen the method
• 25:13
  looking down at our sin to break our hearts and looking up at
• 25:16
  Christ to heal them. It's a dynamic tension.
• 25:18
  It's not one or the other, it is both.
• 25:20
  It really redefines what reformed thinking is for me.
• 25:23
  I think people often hear reformed and think intellectual,
• 25:26
  cold, rigid, academic. But Edwards shows us that it's
• 25:29
  intensely experiential. It's about sweetness, tears,
• 25:33
  violence and sunbeams. It's a religion of the heart,
• 25:36
  fueled by the mind. Absolutely.
• 25:38
  Doctrine is the wood, but the affection is the fire.
• 25:42
  You need the wood of truth, the Westminster theology, but the
• 25:45
  goal is the fire of love. If you have wood without fire,
• 25:49
  you freeze. If you have fire without wood,
• 25:52
  you burn the house down. Edwards gives us both.
• 25:54
  I want to leave our listeners with a specific thought to chew
• 25:56
  on. We talked about Edwards advice
• 25:58
  on doubt. He said.
• 25:58
  Don't analyze the past. Seek a new view of Christ.
• 26:01
  Yes, the astronomer. So here's the challenge for you
• 26:05
  listening right now. If you're feeling anxious or dry
• 26:08
  or doubtful today, stop digging through your mental files.
• 26:11
  Stop analyzing your history. What if instead, you asked God
• 26:15
  for just one new discovery of Christ's glory right now?
• 26:18
  Open the curtain. Exactly how would that change
• 26:20
  your anxiety? It changes everything.
• 26:22
  Light dispels darkness. Thank you for joining us on this
• 26:25
  deep dive into the mind of Jonathan Edwards.
• 26:28
  It's heavy lifting, but it is good for the soul.
• 26:30
  Keep thinking. And keep looking for the light,
• 26:33
  we will see you next time.