Latest / Reformed Thinking / David Brainerd’s Final Journey Toward His Rest | Jonathan Edwards

Transcript

David Brainerd’s Final Journey Toward His Rest | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome to Reform Thinking. Today we are opening the diary
0:03
of David Brainerd and we're looking at a a really critical
0:07
and intense phase of his very short missionary life.
0:11
We're zoning in on the period between about June 1745 and
0:15
September 1746. Right.
0:17
And what's so compelling about our source here is that it's not
0:19
some polished biography written years later.
0:22
No. These are his own words.
0:23
They're raw, sometimes pretty agonizing journal entries that
0:27
Jonathan Edwards later put together.
0:29
And these pages, they really document what it looks like to
0:32
be all in for the expansion of Christ's Kingdom while your own
0:35
body is just, I mean, completely falling apart.
0:38
So our mission in this deep dive is, I think, straightforward but
0:42
also pretty challenging. We need to try and understand
0:44
this, this almost counterintuitive link between
0:48
his chronic physical collapse and the incredible spiritual
0:51
fruit he saw. How could a man who is
0:53
constantly battling what we now know is tuberculosis consumption
0:57
and was, you know, basically on the brink of death, how did he
1:00
achieve his greatest missionary successes right then?
1:03
That's the question. We're looking for that tension
1:06
point between just utter human weakness and divine
1:09
faithfulness. We want to see how his frailty
1:12
wasn't an obstacle, but maybe the very condition God used.
1:16
And that paradox you're talking about, it's not some historical
1:19
oddity. It is absolutely central to a
1:22
Reformed understanding of how God works in salvation and in
1:25
ministry. Right, the idea of God using the
1:27
weak things of the world. Exactly.
1:29
Brainerd's life becomes this living proof that conversion,
1:33
spiritual growth, all of it, it's God's work.
1:37
I mean, think about it. If Brainerd had been this, you
1:39
know, robust, strong pioneer, we'd be tempted to credit his
1:43
success to his own zeal or his great constitution.
1:46
Sure, you say. Wow, what a guy.
1:48
But because he was so physically broken, every single success
1:51
points away from him and directly toward God's sovereign
1:55
power at work. So we're going to see how his
1:57
body's failures didn't just hinder him, they actually drove
2:00
him deeper into depending on Christ.
2:02
They amplified his reliance on Grace.
2:04
It was the only thing he had left.
2:06
OK, so before we even get to the amazing things that happened in
2:09
his ministry, we have to quantify the cost.
2:12
We have to start with the physical war he was fighting day
2:15
in and day out. Yeah, you.
2:16
Can't understand the victory without understanding the
2:18
battle. And this wasn't just, you know,
2:20
feeling a bit rundown from hard work.
2:23
This was a persistent, debilitating medical crisis
2:27
consumption. It was his constant companion.
2:29
And the diary documents it with just chilling detail.
2:33
He knew he was dying. We're looking at a life that was
2:36
lived under constant and very specific medical pressure.
2:38
So let's just catalog some of this.
2:40
The diary is repetitive about it, and for good reason.
2:44
He frequently writes things like being extremely worn out and
2:47
scarce Abel to walk or sit up, and this fatigue, it was so
2:51
deep. There's one entry from a Sunday,
2:53
June 29th, 1746, where he says he was so spent at noon that I
2:58
could scarce walk and all my joints trembled.
3:00
Just imagine that. And he says so that I could not
3:02
sit, nor so much as hold my hand still.
3:05
He wasn't just tired, his body was shutting down.
3:07
And you have to understand what that description means
3:09
medically. When your joints are trembling
3:11
and you can't hold your hand still, that's not just fatigue.
3:15
That is your nervous system reacting to extreme depletion
3:18
and advanced disease and. That's the body that he then had
3:22
to get on a horse and ride for miles into the woods.
3:25
Or stand up and preach for hours.
3:27
It's just incredible. And beyond that general
3:29
weakness, there was the the very specific respiratory crisis.
3:34
The entries about his journeys to the Susquehanna are
3:37
especially alarming. Yeah, they're hard to read.
3:39
He talks. About coughing much bloody
3:41
matter and just spitting blood. That's a sign of advanced
3:44
tuberculosis. His lungs were literally
3:47
disintegrating. During that really critical
3:49
journey in August of 1746, he logs that he coughed much bloody
3:54
matter this morning and was under great disorder of body.
3:57
That's the sign of a life that's, you know, rapidly coming
4:00
to an end and the. Physical cost of that, I mean
4:02
the blood loss, the constant infection.
4:05
It's impossible to overstate. Every time he preached loudly,
4:08
every mile he rode on that horse, it would have been
4:10
tearing at his damaged lungs. So every act of ministry was, in
4:14
a very real sense, physically accelerating his own death.
4:17
It was he was spending his life to do the work.
4:20
And it wasn't just his lungs, he also complaints about things
4:23
that affected his ability to think.
4:25
He mentions pains in my head and neck and being oppressed with a
4:29
nervous headache. Right.
4:30
These constant pains that would have made it so hard to focus,
4:34
to study, to pray. Which makes you wonder, given
4:37
this relentless physical assault, how did he manage to
4:40
write such detailed journal entries?
4:42
How did he study for his sermons?
4:44
It suggests the kind of focus, a spiritual clarity, that somehow
4:48
managed to cut through that fog of chronic pain.
4:51
And then you layer on top of all that the actual conditions he
4:54
was living in, his missionary trips weren't comfortable.
4:56
They were models of deprivation. They absolutely were.
4:59
He was constantly worsening his own illness just by being out
5:02
there. He writes about lodging in the
5:04
open woods, a lot of the time without even a fire to keep warm
5:08
or cook food. There's one story in the diary
5:10
that just crystallizes it for me.
5:12
On that Susquehanna journey, he didn't have an axe and he was
5:16
terrified that sleeping in the open, damp air would actually
5:19
kill him. Because of the cold dew and the
5:21
dampness, yeah. So he describes having to climb
5:24
a pine tree and using only his small knife to cut off branches
5:29
to make a crude shelter from the dew.
5:31
I mean, just pause and picture that scene.
5:34
A man in the advanced stages of tuberculosis, in pain, coughing
5:38
up blood, has to use his last ounces of energy to climb a
5:41
tree. With a knife.
5:43
With just a knife to avoid dying of exposure overnight.
5:46
This isn't just hardship, it's a complete lack of the basic
5:49
things you need to survive, let alone get better.
5:52
And food. What was he eating?
5:53
Well, that's the other part of it.
5:55
He was severely malnourished, he says.
5:57
He was very destitute of the comforts and even necessaries of
5:59
life, at least what was necessary for one in so weak a
6:02
state. And even when he had food, his
6:05
illness made it hard to eat. Right.
6:07
He mentions having little appetite to any food I had with
6:09
me. So this combination of
6:11
exhaustion, exposure and malnutrition, that's the
6:15
Crucible. That's what makes the spiritual
6:17
fruit we're going to talk about so, so stunning.
6:19
Now let's make the connection between his physical state and
6:23
his mental state, because the diary does this all the time.
6:26
He links his feelings of deep dejection and melancholy
6:30
directly to his physical problem.
6:32
Yes, he calls them vapory disorders.
6:34
And this is a really key insight into how people in the 18th
6:38
century thought about health. It's not a modern psychological
6:41
take. No, not at all.
6:42
It's based on a more ancient, humoral understanding of the
6:45
body, where your physical state directly impacts your mind and
6:49
your spirit. When he says vapory disorders,
6:52
he's saying the source of his spiritual heaviness is
6:55
physiological. It's coming from his sick body.
6:58
So he's not just saying I'm sad because I'm sick, it's more like
7:01
the physical sickness in my body is producing these vapors, these
7:04
moods that are pressing down on my spirit and making it hard to
7:07
feel spiritual joy. Precisely.
7:10
He writes about how his spirit sunk in a considerable degree
7:13
with his bodily strength under this burden, and this connection
7:17
actually helped him in a way. It allowed him to sometimes
7:19
distinguish between what he thought was a spiritual failing
7:22
on his part and just the effects of his illness.
7:24
It helped him frame his sadness. Right.
7:27
But the weight of that dual struggle, the physical and the
7:30
mental, it led him to this desperate desire for release.
7:33
Of course, he admits to longing for a decision from earth and
7:37
all its toils and sorrows. And you have to understand that
7:40
wasn't just a pious wish to be with Jesus, though he certainly
7:43
had that. It was also a very human, very
7:47
raw desire for the pain to just stop.
7:50
He felt like his own body was an obstacle.
7:52
Yes, he lamented that it felt like a clog, fetter, and a body
7:56
of death that was getting in the the way of his service to God.
7:59
The sickness itself felt like a spiritual impediment built right
8:02
into his own flesh. So given that constant physical
8:05
pressure cooker, it's no surprise that his internal
8:07
spiritual life was just as turbulent.
8:09
Even with this immense price he was paying, Brainerd was never
8:13
satisfied. The diary is full of this
8:15
persistent, intense feeling of spiritual inadequacy.
8:19
He calls it barrenness, even at the very moments the Spirit was
8:22
clearly moving powerfully through his ministry.
8:25
It creates this really startling psychological picture.
8:29
He had these incredibly high spiritual ideals for himself,
8:32
drawn from his deep reformed piety, but his physical body was
8:36
constantly preventing him from meeting them.
8:39
And that gap, that dissonance, it produced this incredibly
8:42
harsh self criticism. The language he uses against
8:45
himself is just brutal. He's always calling himself a
8:48
poor, worthless creature, unprofitable, feeling like a
8:52
burden to God's earth. And it's not just, you know,
8:55
general theological humility. It's a very specific lament that
8:58
he doesn't have the hours or the strength to serve God the way he
9:02
wants to. And.
9:02
This brings up a really interesting conflict of
9:04
perception, doesn't it? Because on the outside he had
9:07
this reputation for being incredibly zealous.
9:09
He was connected to Edwards, the Great Awakening.
9:11
People saw him as a spiritual giant.
9:13
Right. But inside he felt shame and
9:15
sense of barrenness, and he lament that he didn't have the
9:18
heavenly temper he longed for. He actually wrote that he felt
9:21
confusion when people thought of him as fervent in spirit,
9:25
because internally he felt heartless and irresolute.
9:29
So how do you square that? You could almost see it as a
9:32
kind of spiritual pride, couldn't you, This worry about
9:35
his own reputation for holiness? Wanting to be seen as more
9:38
humble than he was. But Brainard actually confronts
9:41
that. He wrote that he wished people
9:43
could see his unfaithfulness so they would not think of me above
9:47
what they ought to think. You wanted to tear down his own
9:49
reputation. It seems like he genuinely
9:51
wanted to get out of the way to make sure everyone knew that any
9:55
good work they saw was all God's doing and not a reflection of
9:58
his own consistent piety. He didn't want to be glorified
10:01
for a success that, to him, felt spiritually hollow at times.
10:05
It's just amazing that a man seeing so much fruit could feel
10:08
that way. But then there's the other side
10:10
of the coin. The diary also records these
10:12
moments of incredible spiritual experience, these breakthroughs
10:16
that often happened right after or even during those periods of
10:20
deep dejection. Yes, that cycle of despair and
10:22
restoration really find his spiritual life.
10:25
God met him in the low points. He writes about finding
10:28
sweetness and comfort and prayer and achieving freedom and
10:32
sweetness while meditating on Scripture.
10:35
Are there any specific themes in scripture that he focuses on
10:38
during those times? Oh yes, themes of assurance of
10:41
divine preservation. For instance, he meditated on
10:44
Revelation 3.12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar
10:49
in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.
10:52
He called that a delightful theme.
10:54
For a man whose life was so unstable, so transient, who was
10:57
literally wasting away that image of being made a permanent,
11:00
unmoving part of God's house, that was just immensely
11:03
comforting. And these weren't just quiet,
11:05
comforting moments. The way he describes them, they
11:08
sound almost transcendent. They do, he wrote about
11:10
experiencing inward peace, composure and God like serenity,
11:14
which he said differed from heaven only in degree and not in
11:18
kind. So a genuine foretaste of glory.
11:20
I think so. He was accessing a spiritual
11:23
reality that was in total contrast to the physical decay
11:25
he was living through every day. But the real theological peak
11:29
here, the culmination of this whole internal struggle, it
11:32
isn't just about feeling good, it's about his growing sense of
11:36
resignation. And this is where his reformed
11:38
worldview really takes over. His physical weakness forced
11:43
him, absolutely forced him to surrender his own will.
11:47
And we need to be careful with that word resignation we.
11:49
Do It's not passive fatalism. It isn't just shrugging your
11:53
shoulders and saying, Oh well, what will be will be.
11:56
It's an active, conscious theological choice to rely on
11:59
God's sovereignty because you believe He is both perfectly
12:03
good and perfectly wise. And Brainerd had to make that
12:06
choice every single day because his life was actively being
12:09
taken from Him. And you see him put that choice
12:11
into words so clearly in that famous entry from August 1746.
12:15
It's a spiritual high point. He writes, Thy will be done was
12:18
a petition sweet to my soul, and if God had bid me choose for
12:22
myself in any affair, I should have chosen rather to have
12:24
referred the choice to him, for I saw he was infinitely wise,
12:27
and could not do anything amiss. That is just total submission.
12:31
It's the point where he stops begging God to change his
12:34
circumstances and comes to the deep conviction that God's
12:38
current will for him, which included the sickness, was
12:41
actually better than any outcome he could ask for.
12:45
His comfort wasn't in the hope of getting healed, but in the
12:47
wisdom of the one who was allowing the sickness.
12:50
Exactly. And from that resignation flows
12:53
what historians call his disinterested zeal, meaning he
12:57
got to a point where his desire for God's glory completely
13:01
overshadowed showed any personal concern for his own role or his
13:04
own success as a missionary. The very thing that caused his
13:08
spiritual anxiety, feeling like an unprofitable creature, was
13:12
resolved. It was resolved when he fully
13:14
embraced the fact that converting souls was God's work
13:16
from start to finish. He even confessed to having no
13:19
care or hardly any desire to be the instrument of conversion.
13:23
As long as it got done. As long as the work was
13:25
accomplished to the honor of God and the enlargement of the dear
13:28
Redeemer's Kingdom. Let's just pause on that phrase
13:30
for a second. No care to be the instrument
13:35
that runs so contrary to so much of how we think about ministry
13:38
today, which is often focused on leadership, branding, personal
13:42
output. It flips the whole script.
13:44
For Brainerd, success wasn't about his performance metrics,
13:48
it was about God's glory. He would have been happy to be
13:51
taken off the field entirely if it meant the Kingdom advanced.
13:55
His identity as the successful missionary just dissolved into
13:58
this much bigger desire for God's name to be magnified.
14:01
He truly saw himself as just the voice speaking to the Dry Bones.
14:05
And he was completely dependent on God's Spirit to bring the
14:08
life. That surrender, which was forced
14:10
on him by his physical collapse, is the theological engine that
14:13
drives all the success we're about to talk about.
14:15
And it's that period of deep physical suffering and this
14:18
radical theological surrender that lines up perfectly with his
14:21
greatest successes. The irony is just impossible to
14:24
miss. The timing is everything.
14:27
God didn't wait for Brainer to get healthy to bring in the
14:29
harvest. The awakening he saw among the
14:33
Native Americans at Cross Week Sung, which started around June
14:36
1745, happened while he was already describing his body as
14:40
failing. So let's talk about that
14:42
awakening. The way he describes the effect
14:44
of his preaching is just incredible, he wrote.
14:47
The power of God evidently attended the Word, so that
14:51
sundry persons were brought under great concern for their
14:53
souls, and made to shed many tears, and to wish for Christ to
14:57
save them. And notice the immediacy of
14:59
that. It wasn't a slow educational
15:00
process. It was a sudden, powerful
15:03
outpouring of the Spirit that created this immediate distress
15:06
over sin and this urgent desire for a Savior.
15:09
He said seeing it was heart reviving and soul refreshing, he
15:12
wrote. I could not but wonder at their
15:14
seriousness and the strictness of their attention.
15:17
After years of feeling like his labor was barren, to see that
15:20
kind of a spiritual response must have been an incredible
15:22
confirmation that someone else was at work.
15:25
This visible fruit, it must have been the necessary
15:27
counterbalance to all his internal feelings of being a
15:30
worthless creature. I think so.
15:32
Even if he felt inadequate, the tears and the rapt attention of
15:36
the Indians prove that God had chosen to use that weak vessel
15:39
anyway. And the most stunning proof of
15:42
this divine power is in the stories he tells about getting
15:46
this miraculous strength right when he needed it most in the
15:49
pulpit. Yeah, these accounts are just
15:51
wild. He would be physically, as he
15:54
put it, just gone, and then would receive this sudden,
15:58
specific infusion of energy just to deliver the sermon.
16:01
It's one thing to say you felt a general sense of strength, but
16:05
he documents these moments where the strength arrives at the very
16:08
point of failure. The time at Kingston is the
16:10
perfect example. He says he almost fainted in
16:12
pulpit. He's about to collapse.
16:14
And then he says God strengthened me when I was just
16:17
gone and enabled him to speak with freedom, fervency and power
16:21
he sought as a direct fulfillment of Scripture.
16:23
You know, being out of weakness made strong.
16:26
So the theological point he's drawing is that God let him get
16:29
to the end of his own resources that just gone moment on
16:32
purpose. On purpose, so that everyone,
16:35
including Brainerd himself, would know that the power in the
16:38
message wasn't coming from his willpower or his great oratory.
16:42
It was purely the Spirit holding him up.
16:45
And sometimes this renewal seems to have been more than just a
16:47
temporary boost. It seems like it resulted in a
16:50
net gain of physical health. That entry from Sunday June
16:54
29th, 1746 is the one the same day.
16:58
He was so weak, his joints were trembling and he couldn't hold
17:02
his hand still right. We talked about that earlier as
17:04
a low point. But later that afternoon for the
17:06
sermon, he says God amazingly renewed and lengthened out my
17:10
strength. And he reports that he went home
17:12
that evening with more health than he had when he left that
17:15
morning. That's beyond just an adrenaline
17:17
rush for a man with advanced tuberculosis to preach with
17:20
passion and then feel better afterward.
17:22
It suggests A genuine, if temporary, physical intervention
17:26
for the sake of the Ministry. This constant cycle of weakness
17:30
and strength gave him this concrete, daily proof that the
17:33
work was supernatural. The more limited he became, the
17:36
more clearly God's power showed up.
17:38
And this success wasn't just in the pulpit, it flowed out into
17:42
the community life of these new believers.
17:45
We get this beautiful, intimate look at the fellowship that grew
17:48
among the new Indian converts. Especially around the Lord's
17:51
Supper. Yes, and this was so vital for
17:54
him. Remember, he spent so much of
17:55
his time in total isolation to share the communion table with
17:58
these new brothers and sisters in Christ.
18:01
It gave him a little glimpse of that heavenly state he was
18:03
always longing for. He writes about giving the
18:06
Lord's Supper to 31 Indian converts on July 13, 1746.
18:11
And he documents the emotional weight of that moment.
18:14
He says there was scarcely a dry eye among them when I took off
18:17
the linen and showed them the symbols of Christ's broken body.
18:20
That focus on Christ's substitutionary sacrifice, that
18:24
shared experience of sorrow and new life, it was a source of
18:27
real joy for Him. It was tangible proof that the
18:30
gospel was taking deep root, and it was his earthly reward,
18:33
seeing the reality of God's grace working through him even
18:37
as his own body was breaking. So his physical trials and these
18:40
ministry triumphs, they all come together and lead to this one
18:44
defining moment, a radical renunciation of any kind of
18:48
earthly comfort. Right.
18:49
And this isn't just him passively accepting his hard
18:52
life. This was a conscious, definitive
18:55
choice he made, and he documented it in May of 1746.
18:59
He gives up the idea of having a quiet settlement among his
19:03
converts at Cranberry. Which you have to understand,
19:05
that would have been the sensible thing to do for a man
19:08
with his illness. Stable home, a bed, regular food
19:12
that would have extended his life and certainly eased his
19:15
suffering. He wrestled with it.
19:17
But he came to see that desire as a temptation, a pull toward
19:20
worldly ease. He concluded that God had fitted
19:24
me for a life of solitariness and hardship and made him
19:27
willing to give it all up. He essentially filed for divorce
19:30
from the world. He chose the pain and difficulty
19:32
of the wilderness over the ease of a settled life because he
19:35
judged worldly comforts as nothing next to the cause of
19:38
Christ. His illness had forced this
19:40
perspective on him. When you're facing death, the
19:43
appeal of temporal comforts just fades.
19:45
It really does, and his dedication culminates in this
19:48
moment of complete self surrender and he uses some of
19:51
the most dramatic language in the whole diary.
19:53
The ultimate offering. Yes, he records his prayer.
19:57
He says, here I am Lord, send me, send me to the ends of the
20:01
earth, send me even to death itself, if it be but in my
20:04
service, and to promote thy Kingdom.
20:07
That is just it's pure self sacrifice.
20:10
He's not asking for an easier path, he's asking for the
20:12
hardest one possible if it brings glory to God.
20:16
And he knew what he was giving up the chance for a home, for
20:18
stable friendships, maybe even for marriage.
20:21
But when he held those things up next to the value of God's
20:24
Kingdom, he said they appeared nothing.
20:27
And this choice, it just fueled this incredible intensity in
20:30
him. He wasn't looking for rest.
20:31
He was longing to be used up. He writes about wanting to burn
20:34
out in one continued flame for God.
20:36
Yeah, that image of a flame. I wish to be a flame of fire in
20:39
the service of my God. The imagery tells you
20:42
everything. He knew his time was short, so
20:44
every last minute had to be completely consumed by his
20:47
devotion. That's what made him willing to
20:50
be a Pilgrim hermit in the wilderness.
20:52
To my dying moment, if it would advance the Redeemer's Kingdom.
20:55
And you see this priority in his prayers.
20:57
He's constantly praying for the same thing.
20:59
Always, Lord, use me as thou wilt, do as thou wilt with me.
21:03
But oh promote thine own cause. The enlargement of Christ's
21:06
Kingdom was his constant plea, His own suffering, His sickness,
21:10
His death. He saw it all as a small price
21:13
to pay. Even when he was forced to rest,
21:15
he couldn't stop thinking about the time he was losing.
21:18
No, he'd go to sleep reluctantly, wishing he could
21:21
improve time for God to some excellent purpose.
21:24
It's this deep sense of stewardship.
21:26
Even the last days of a dying man had to be consecrated and
21:29
maximized for God's purposes. For him, rest was a necessary
21:33
evil, not a goal. So as his body enters his final
21:36
decline in the summer of 1746, the external pressures on him
21:40
also ramp up. His last trip to the Susquehanna
21:43
is this perfect storm of physical collapse and painful,
21:46
even dangerous accusations. The opposition he faced was
21:49
really serious and targeted. This wasn't just people
21:52
disagreeing with his theology, this was geopolitical paranoia.
21:56
He was deeply distressed by the slander that he was a Roman
22:01
Catholic sent by the Papist to draw the Indians into an
22:04
insurrection against the English.
22:06
And you have to understand in that colonial context, with the
22:09
constant friction between the English and the French, that
22:12
accusation was potentially a death sentence.
22:15
It was an accusation of treason. And it cast a shadow on the
22:18
spiritual work that was happening.
22:20
Right. But what's so telling is his
22:22
internal response. It wasn't righteous anger.
22:24
It was immediate humility. He didn't just deny it, he
22:27
searched his own conscience. He immediately wondered if he
22:30
had dropped anything inadvertently that could have
22:33
even led to such a suspicion. He thought back to times he had
22:37
defended the Indians rights against white settlers who are
22:40
exploiting them. And he worried he had done it
22:42
with too much warmth of spirit. I mean that level of self
22:45
examination is incredible. He was willing to own any
22:49
possible failing in his own delivery, even while he was sure
22:52
of the rightness of his cause, and this painful slander just
22:56
drove him back to God, trusting him to be his defense.
22:59
And all of this is happening right before or he sets out on
23:02
that final brutal trek to Shamu King on the Susquehanna.
23:06
And the diary entries from this trip?
23:08
They just detail the absolute end of his physical strength.
23:11
They're agonizing to read. He's coughing blood, he has no
23:14
appetite, and he's so weak, he writes, that it felt as if I
23:17
must fall off from my horse and lie in the open woods.
23:20
He talks about extraordinary weakness, night sweats, the
23:24
constant spitting of blood. And yet even then, basically on
23:27
his deathbed, he's still struggling with his own
23:30
perceived spiritual failings. It's unbelievable he's
23:33
performing this heroic act of endurance, and he's lamenting
23:36
that he feels scarcely ever more ashamed and confounded in myself
23:39
because of his heartless frame. He felt like he wasn't living up
23:42
to the zealous reputation others had of him.
23:44
And while the wilderness was physically brutal, he found the
23:48
so-called civilized parts of the journey to be morally even
23:52
worse. Oh yeah, He was deeply afflicted
23:54
by the company he had to keep among the white settlers on his
23:57
way down the river. The ungodly crew drinking,
24:00
swearing. Right, He says flatly that he
24:03
found more peace in the open woods than he did among these
24:06
profane white people who were quite destitute of God.
24:10
That contrast is a sharp critique of the state of
24:13
colonial piety. The savage wilderness was more
24:17
spiritually restful than the settlements.
24:19
And this final section of his diary, it gives us his last
24:22
crucial theological insight. It's about discerning true faith
24:26
from just empty religious habits.
24:28
This is really the So what of his entire mission.
24:31
He tells this little story about how some nonbelievers were just
24:34
amazed that his Christian Indian converts would ask a blessing
24:37
and give thanks before their meals.
24:39
They saw that as a very high evidence of grace.
24:41
And Brainerd uses it as a teaching moment.
24:43
A crucial 1. He insisted that neither saying
24:46
a blessing nor yet secret prayer was sure evidence of grace,
24:50
because he knew that those outward forms could be performed
24:52
for entirely selfish reasons. To look good, to feel better
24:56
about yourself, to fit in. He insisted that genuine faith
25:00
had to be an inward spiritual reality driven by a true love
25:04
for God, not just by outward conformity.
25:07
So his final lesson is that success isn't measured by
25:09
conversions or emotional displays or religious habits.
25:13
It's about a genuine spiritual renewal of the heart, which is
25:16
something only God can grant. That distinction between the
25:19
outward form and the inward reality is really the ultimate
25:23
lesson of his life. David Brayner's diary, it really
25:25
shows a man living at the absolute edge of his physical
25:28
and emotional strength. And yet every time something
25:31
good happened, a conversion, the reverence at the Lord's Supper,
25:34
strength to preach, he immediately credited it to
25:38
divine assistance. Yeah, his constant debilitating
25:41
weakness, it wasn't some unfortunate roadblock to his
25:44
ministry. It seems like it was the very
25:45
thing that forced him into this relentless daily practice of
25:48
depending on God's sovereign grace.
25:51
And his own assessment of himself as a poor, worthless
25:54
creature, when you place that alongside the undeniable success
25:58
of his work, it just affirms that core Reformed principle.
26:02
Sully, Dale, Gloria. God gets all the glory.
26:06
Brainerd's life shows us that our weakness isn't a barrier to
26:09
God's work. It's often the very stage that
26:11
Providence sets to display his own glory most clearly.
26:15
He didn't just believe his theology, he lived it.
26:18
And for anyone listening today, this whole story, it has to
26:21
raise a really searching question, one that pushes back
26:24
against our modern ideas of strength and success.
26:27
And the question is this, how does the necessity of your own
26:30
personal weakness, whether that's a physical illness and
26:33
emotional struggle or just the feeling that your efforts are
26:35
completely barren, how does that condition you to rely solely on
26:39
God's sovereignty and grace? To make sure that your life is
26:42
advancing Christ's Kingdom and not just building a monument to
26:45
your own ambition or your own skill.